~ Ian ~

It had rained all through the night and well into the morning. The rain had stopped now, and the blazy sun had come to replace it, but the wet smell still lingered. The ground was damp and muddy underfoot, and Ian’s boots squelched as he walked. In several places, Master Holden’s workers had laid duckboards as a rough demarcation of what would in time become paved roads. Ian took advantage of this as a way of keeping himself from getting stuck in the mulch.

He’d have been lying to say he didn’t miss the journey. There’d been a sort of camaraderie, while the Eia made its slow way to Essegena. Being trapped together on the ship had been a common ground. Most evenings, Ian had drunk in the bar there. Some bright spark had repurposed a storage closet near to the hydroponics dome, and made a killing selling alcohol of all kinds. Watered down, of course.

The cards tended to come out, once people had a few drinks down them. Selicke was usually suggested. Every man and his mother thought they had the talent to conquer the selicke deck. But it was a complicated game at the best of times, impossible to understand when drunk, and the bar’s proprietors had banned it after one brawny soldier had lost a thumb in an argument. Thereafter, they usually played simpler pairing games. It was usually the same crowd, soldiers and crofters and labourers, and when the brawny soldier returned with his thumb sewn back on the bar had cheered as one.

A few nights before they’d made planetfall, the bar had had a new patron. All eyes had turned hungrily to the beautiful young woman in the flowing white dress when she arrived. Most had traced the slit in the side of the dress upwards, past toned calves, towards the heavenly entrance hidden at the summit of her legs. Molly Bradshaw had long hair, so soft it begged to be touched, and she had teeth that sparkled in her mouth. She didn’t look a bit like her father’s daughter.

She came in with a swagger, like she knew all the eyes were on her. And why wouldn’t they be? In all the time Ian had been drinking, there’d not been another woman here other than Áine, the bartender, who still carried the weight of her last pregnancy.

Molly had ordered the most expensive tipple available, and laughed when Áine asked for payment. “My father’s the General,” she said, with mock offense. “He can always have you shot, if you want payment that bad.”

Course, Molly had forced her way into the card game too. The bony farmhand who vacated his seat at the table for her was practically salivating as she sat down. “Deal me in, boys. Selicke, is it?”

“Not in this house,” said Oparne, a farm labourer with coiled black hair and a gravelly voice. “Game’s banned.”

Molly had insisted. “No such thing. Tonight we play selicke.”

Áine, obviously hearing, had scurried over. “Selicke isn’t allowed here—it causes too many fights.”

Molly had fixed her with a scowl. “I shall start a fight with you, if you keep bothering me. You pour drinks. I play cards.”

“I must insist—”

“Must you?” Molly had cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “Remember who my father is. Remember what he could have done to you, if you keep pissing me off. And then ask yourself again if you must insist.”

Áine swallowed, and backed away. “You wouldn’t do such a thing.”

Molly had smirked. “Try me,” she’d said, barely more than a whisper. Then, turning back to the table: “I’d like to start the cards now. Who is dealing?”

And then Ian had stood. “Nobody. There will be no selicke tonight, not here. Goodwife Áine has told you.”

Molly had met him with laughter. “Who the fuck are you? Sit down, old man, or you’ll make a fool of yourself. Remember, my father is the General. General Bradshaw.”

“And I am the Corrack. The only man with the power to overrule me on this ship is Governor Ballard himself, and I have told you that there will be no selicke tonight.”

“Pairs, then.” Molly had sniffed. “But with a wager, for some interest. Ten copperheads?”

That had been a great night. Molly had whined when the cards fell against her, cheered when they went her way, and not noticed as her dress caught beneath her in her seat. Ian could afford to lose the money, and he’d been treated to a wonderful view of Molly’s shapely leg and the hint of an arse above it.

And then the final turn had come. The game was on a knife-edge, those copperheads a whisper away... and Molly had revealed her last hand. Two kings, one green and one red. Not bad. Ian had given her a deliberate look of disappointment, eyes downcast, and she’d risen to celebrate. And just as her reaching fingers touched the copperheads, he’d dropped the bomb. He had two kings, too. They were both black. In pairs, a face-pair of any value trumps any pair of a lower value. But two faces of the same colour always trump differently-coloured faces.

Two kings of the same colour were a guaranteed win.

Molly hadn’t been happy. “This is a stitch-up,” she shouted. “You fixed the cards. I’ll tell my father. He’ll have you stripped of your position—cheat.”

Ian had only smiled, as he scooped the twenty copperheads into his leather pouch. “Sit down, or you’ll make a fool of yourself.”

Molly Bradshaw hadn’t been back.

And now the bar had closed, its owners moving to premises on the planet’s surface, and the clientele had gone about their own lives. Those days were gone. Essegena was the future.

When it wasn’t muddy and wet, it was a lovely place to be.

Sergeant Pratley had conned Ian into making use of his security retinue. It wasn’t even like the man had done anything clever, and to be honest Ian was furious with himself for falling for the play. The Sergeant had been stood outside Ian’s quarters, taking his shift, when Ian emerged. When Ian had walked away from the room, so Sergeant Pratley had followed him. And a few minutes later, when Ian reminded Sergeant Pratley that he neither wanted nor had asked for an escort, the man simply denied that he was escorting Ian. “It just so happens that we’re going the same way,” he said.

And what a coincidence. Sergeant Pratley had just happened to go down the same winding detours and cut-throughs that Ian was taking. At no point during the various double-backs and meanderings did their entirely independent paths ever diverge. By the time he’d got to the fresh air of the outdoors, he’d just accepted that the Sergeant was going to accompany him now.

It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, he reflected. Sure, having a permanent shadow was a bit irritating, but it wasn’t like Pratley was a talker. He spoke pretty much only when spoken to, and even then he seemed to limit himself to gruff one-word answers. The biggest perk was one Ian hadn’t even considered. They were wandering down a rough street of residential accommodations—at this point a series of buildings in various degrees of completion ranging from ‘only the foundations’ to ‘some timber frames have been put on top of the foundations’—when Ian spotted the girl from the plaza walking towards him.

She must have spotted him too, because her face went instantly red as a rose. She gave him a bashful smile, and in fact started to head towards him—not much, just slightly redirecting her path so she’d brush past him. At that moment, Sergeant Pratley—who had been following close behind Ian—leaned forward to confess that he hadn’t actually come the same way as Ian by chance, but was indeed serving as his personal guard. The girl’s eyes shot wide, and she scampered off.

Having the Sergeant was a bit like having a superpower. If Ian ever saw someone approaching who he didn’t like, all he had to do was start talking to Pratley and he wouldn’t have to deal with the conversation. Perhaps he’d been too quick to pooh the whole private security thing.

Still, there was an emptiness about it. Most of the people he passed looked at him like he was another species entirely. It didn’t matter that there was no reverence in their eyes. He was second only to Chris in the order of priority, the man who would act in the role of Governor for an unspecified interim period if something were to befall Chris, but that didn’t make him better than the people building the houses, or trying to get agriculture going. Each person who stared at him was equally as human as he was, all people living under the same sun, and every single one of them was a master of some skill he hadn’t a hope in.

What really cut was the fact that people were looking at him like he was different. He knew what was going on in their minds. It had been the same thought he’d had, a young adolescent drinking in every time a hero of the Unity came to the island of Ivyne. Once, he’d seen the High Commissioner. Coningsby, his name was, a man with lemon-yellow hair that curled around big red ears. He’d come to Ivyne for some diplomatic purpose, and they’d all gone to see him come.

Chris had missed the High Commissioner, and Dani Carrigan had too. They’d both disappeared for twenty minutes, though they insisted it was a coincidence that they both rejoined the group sweaty and red-faced at the same time. The rest of the group were all there to watch as Coningsby made the walk from his private vessel to the towering outpost he’d come to visit. He had a lot of security with him, a private army almost. Ian had watched him with awe. Imagine being one of those people, he’d thought, the ones who have their own personal soldiers. What he wouldn’t give to be like them.

Coningsby, back then, had been the pinnacle of humanity to Ian’s mind. He was of the golden class, from the elite ranks whose doors are closed to those born outwith. Ian had actually met Coningbsy again, just before boarding the Eia. The man was old now, frail, his hair bleached white and his legs a mess of varicose veins. He walked with a stick, and no private security guards followed him around—only an attendant in an immaculately-pressed tunic. The scowl the attendant had worn permanently was the scowl of a man who was employed to wipe a former High Commissioner’s arse. As it turned out, Coningsby was an ordinary human.

Ian had learned that, eventually. How many others had, from the four-thousand-strong crowd who had seen Coningsby that day? A handful, maybe. Not many. In the same vein, how many of the people gaping at him like he was of a superior breed of human being would come to know him personally? Some would, for sure. Maybe even a lot of them, given time. But some wouldn’t. Some would live out their days convinced that Ian Fitzhenry wasn’t the same sort of man they were. That was the worst feeling. He was immortal in their heads, and perfect. How could he live up to that, when he was so mortal, so imperfect?

By the time they reached the plaza, he’d had enough of the ‘soldier-escort’ experiment. “You can leave me now,” he said to Sergeant Pratley, as they crossed onto the grassland. Sergeant Pratley nodded curtly at Ian, then turned on his heel and walked towards the Tavern, hands clasped together behind his back. A man of taste. Ian watched the Sergeant leave for a while, conscious of the burden of self that he’d cleared.

At some point, he stopped watching Sergeant Pratley leave and started to look at the town which was beginning to take shape. Here, a lot of the buildings were more than just a foundation. Some even had the frames of their roofs put on. It was going to be the outer edge. Ian had briefly glimpsed at the plans from a copy in Chris’ office. Residential buildings that could house twenty each, with a fountain at the end of the street. The fountain would come much later. The rest of it would probably be done soon enough.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Ian spun around to see who had spoken. The Hookbill was sat beneath the shade of one of the stubby trees that dotted the valley, today in a doublet of powder-blue. He had a deck of playing cards in his hand, which he was casually shuffling. He wore his hair long, nearly down to his shoulders, but he kept his face so closely shaven it looked like puberty had never reached him. His skin was pale as sour milk, almost waxy. And somehow he always smelled like lavender.

“I do apologise, Master Prendergast. I didn’t see you there.”

The Hookbill merely shook his head, a wry smile on his face. “That was the game.”

Ian sat next to him. He had to admit, the cool air beneath the tree was a welcome change from the heat of the sun. “This is a good spot,” he said. The Hookbill continued to shuffle the cards. “What’s amazing?” Ian added.

The Hookbill pointed at a man carrying a felled log in his hands, brow drenched in sweat. “That.” Then he pointed at the half-built frame of a house, where a burly carpenter was hammering floorboards into place. “And that.” Then, at a woman bellowing instructions at a couple of scrawny lads, barely adults, who scurried off out of sight. “This place is alive. How long has it been now? Two months?”

Ian nodded. “Give or take a day.”

“Two weeks more and the bulk of the work will be done. A quarter of a year, to build a city. Isn’t that fascinating?”

He grunted a response. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t sure it was all that impressive. On the face of it, three months was a very good turnaround time. But that was with three hundred people working towards the same goal, building to simple specifications designed for the express purpose of throwing up a town as fast as possible, with the carrot on a stick that if no town got built they’d have no home to live in. And it was all temporary, too. Once they had quarries going, and foundries, the houses would be torn down and remade—some of them, at least—in a more durable design. That would take a lot more than a few months to do. “Everyone has a job to do,” he said.

“Quite,” the Hookbill agreed. “And you know, I’d say that’s one of the grand failings of the Unity plan.”

Ian shot him a dirty look. “That everyone has a job?”

“For the time being they do. Look at them all—busy, busy, busy. They have got a city to build, after all. But what happens when they’re done? Half of the people here are builders, nothing more. What happens to them when there’s nothing to build?”

“There’ll always be something to build.”

“Perhaps that’s true.” The Hookbill let his cards drop to the ground. The stack collapsed into a messy pile. “They say that nine in ten people never leave their homeworld. A lot of these people have only known one planet their whole lives. This is a great adventure. And when the thrill of the adventure wears off, they’ll marry, they’ll raise children, they’ll do everything they would have done if there was no such thing as the Unity.”

A gentle gust blew the cards a bit. Ian reached to catch some of those that had strayed the furthest. They were intricate designs, detailed pictures in pink and green and yellow ink. One in particular caught his eye. The King, the most valuable card in the deck. But this particular King was uncharacteristically gruesome—his eyes bloodshot and tendrils of blood dripping from his severed neck. Ian couldn’t bring himself to look for too long. The King seemed to stare back at him, as if he were pleading to be saved. Ian threw the cards in the Hookbill’s general direction.

“Tell me about the cards,” he said. The Hookbill looked at him, putting the cards into a neat stack again and resuming his shuffle without ever so much as glancing at the deck.

“It would surprise you how much you can learn, if you know what to look out for. You see Master Holden there?” The Hookbill pointed at the master builder, standing amidst the construction, talking to a woman with cropped grey hair. This gave him his place on the Foundational Council and his lordly reevedom. There was nothing untoward about him being present while a town was built around him. And he had nothing to do with cards. “What do you reckon he’s talking about?”

Ian shrugged. “The building, I’d guess.”

“He could be talking about the building, yes. It is his job to oversee the building. But what about the lady with him? She’s wearing a sundress and open-toed shoes. Does she look like she belongs on a building site?” Ian supposed not.

“How does this relate to your cards?”

“I think Master Holden might be conspiring.”

Ian looked at the Hookbill with wide eyes. “Conspiring against who?”

“I wouldn’t like to say,” the Hookbill said. “But what could be more suspicious than a man holding a private conversation in the one place he knows nobody will listen in to his conversations?”

It made sense. If the woman had worn more suitable clothing, it would have looked like any old boring conversation. Even with her being dressed more for leisure than labour, Ian would have thought nothing was amiss without the Hookbill to prompt him.

All of a sudden, the Hookbill laughed. “The truth is, Master Holden isn’t conspiring. Nothing of the sort. That’s his lady wife. I doubt they’re saying anything which would be of interest to you or me. But it had you thinking nonetheless. You’ll begin to notice suspicious people everywhere. The two guards you saw having a hushed conversation when you passed them on your way to get a drink. The pretty girl who looks at the floor every time you catch her eye. The woman who always seems to turn up wherever you are. What are they talking about? What do they know? What do they tell their friends when you’ve gone?”

“I couldn’t begin to imagine—”

“Do you know who you won’t notice? The man in the corner, playing cards by himself. He’s minding his own business, he’s out of the way. He doesn’t have any friends. Even if he heard something he isn’t supposed to, who would he tell? This valley is full of secrets, Master Fitzhenry. Keep yours close. Trust nobody unless they give you a reason to trust them.”

The Hookbill stood sluggishly, squeezing the cards into the pocket of his trousers. “Why are you telling me this?” Ian asked. “Aren’t you worried I might not be trustworthy?”

“I already know your secrets. The past you buried. You couldn’t hurt me if you wanted to.”

“You don’t know a thing.” Ian hoped he sounded confident. Thoughts of Dani floated unbidden to the surface of his mind, and he blinked as though it might drive her away. She was stronger when his eyes were closed.

“Maybe you’d like to think so. But knowledge is my business, Fitzhenry. I trade in secrets—and I am excellent at what I do.”

George Prendergast fingered his cards. “Everybody has secrets, Fitzhenry. Isn’t it awfully arrogant to think yours are somehow better hidden than anybody else’s? If you bury your darkest hours in a shallow grave, don’t be surprised when they poke through the dirt.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I won’t share her name here,” said the Hookbill, his voice a whisper. “You run, Fitzhenry. You run from the things you did.”

Ian shook his head. “Nothing wrong with running.”

“Indeed. Rivers run, and from their running course springs the very heart of civilisation. All that makes us more than mere beast, we owe it to the rivers. But nobody can run forever. Even the river must eventually break its back on the shore of a vast sea.”

Ian grimaced. “I can run far enough.”

“The man is brave,” said the Hookbill. “But he is wrong. Essegena is the sea. This is it, Fitzhenry, the farthest edge of the universe. There’s nowhere else to go. Where will you run to, when your ghosts catch up to you?”

“There are no ghosts here.” Dani was no more real than Harvis Shatterlance or Tembenel the Weaver or the Knights of the Darkhand, great heroes from the stories. She’d been crafted in the image of a real woman, but a woman long dead. She lived now in Ian’s mind, and nothing more.

Yet the Hookbill seemed to look directly at the spectre on Ian’s shoulder. “Aren’t there?”

“No. There aren’t.”

Before Ian could respond, the Hookbill was gone. Ian watched him for a while as he weaved between workers. Then he lost sight of him somewhere, and that was that.