Shades of Grey (51 page)

“Another time.”

“There are spoons there,” said Courtland, staring at the pile we had just discovered, “and we’ve got at least four more hours before we have to turn back. I’m the higher color, so I say we go on.”

“You forget yourself,” I replied. “There are no spots out here.
I’m
team leader.”

“All right,” he agreed, swiftly changing tack. “Did you see the ring she was wearing?”

I looked to check her dry and wizened hands, but it was only a ploy, and I heard the door swing shut behind me. Before I could even move, the bolt was thrown.

“Well, now,” said Courtland from the other side of the door, “that’s for meddling in Yellow business—a present from the Gamboges.”

I swallowed hard and tried to sound normal in spite of my anger and indignation. “Open the door, Courtland. This isn’t funny.”

“On the contrary,” he replied with a laugh, “I think it’s quite rich. I’ll admit that I thought the whole expedition lark was a load of rubbish this morning, but it’s grown on me. I quite like the idea of becoming ‘the man who brought color back to East Carmine.’ But it’s the spoons Tommo and I are really interested in. We’re going on to High Saffron.”

“What if you don’t come back?”

There was a pause.

“We wouldn’t let you out even if we did. You’ve been nothing but trouble since the moment you arrived, and I can’t see matters improving, especially since your outrageous accusations regarding Travis Canary. No, Eddie my friend, I’m afraid you’re staying here for good. We waited and waited but you never returned. Tragic, really, but we did all we could. Violet will be able to squeeze out a tear, and we might even put your name on the departures board.”

“Tommo?” I said. “Are you in on this?”

There was a pause, and when he spoke, I could hear the tension in his voice. “You must admit, you could have toed the line a little better, Eddie. It wouldn’t have taken much. Double-ordering the Lincoln, for a start.”

I swore to myself. It didn’t look good. But just then I saw a shape flick past the vertical slit that was my window. My heart fair missed a beat, and I ran to the door, misjudged the distance, and bumped my head painfully against one of the hinge pins.

“Guys!” I shouted while I rubbed my head. “Someone just moved past my window!”

There was a demeritable curse, a scrabble and the sound of something falling over as they made for the exit. I ran to the window and peered out as a few seconds later Courtland heaved into view, closely followed by Tommo. They looked frightened. If I’d made it all up, I’d have been a genius. Sadly, I hadn’t.

Tommo cried, “There!” and ran off, closely followed by Courtland. I heard some shouts and a yell, a sharp cry and then silence. I tried to look out of the window, but the flak tower’s walls were a yard thick, and all I could see was the rear of the bulldozer, thirty yards away. I rummaged in the dust and debris for a piece of metal to use as a tool to at least attempt an escape, but as I did, I heard the bolt on the door drawn back. I picked up the lightglobe and shone it at the door, and when no one appeared, I gently pushed it open. I stepped into the main room and heard a childish giggle. I turned slowly around. Standing on the steps that led to the upper floors was a young girl aged no more than ten, wearing a much-repaired dress. She had bare feet, expertly plaited hair and a grimy face. I blinked, but she was not a Pooka, and after giving me a cheery wave, she disappeared up the stairs.

Before I could even
begin
to digest what I had just seen, I heard another cry from outside, so I ran out the door and sprinted to the back of the tower. There I found Tommo and Courtland grappling with
Jane,
who, while putting up a good show for herself, would eventually succumb to numbers and greater strength.

Without stopping to think, I kicked Tommo and felt a rib break beneath my toe. He fell away with a cry, and I thumped Courtland as hard as I could, which wasn’t that hard, and I hurt my hand. But it gave Jane an opportunity to free herself, and as quick as lightning she had expertly turned Courtland onto his back and held a sharpened potato peeler at his throat.

“Okay, okay,” he said, his manner suddenly changing. “Let’s just think about what you’re doing here.” He looked up at me. “Eddie,” he said, “we’re going to be prefects together. Tell her to lay off.”

I was still shaking. I had never been in a fight in my entire life. “Tell her to lay off? You were going to leave me here to starve!”

He gave out a laugh. “You are
so
gullible, Russett. We were just going to let you stew a bit. A
prank
. Isn’t that right, Tommo?”

Tommo was on the ground, doubled up in pain. He shook his head, then nodded, then shrugged, then groaned.

“You can have this one on me,” growled Jane. “Tell me to spare him and I’ll spare him. Bleed him and I’ll do that, too.”

I answered without hesitation. “Spare him.”

She pushed him away and then stood next to me, trembling with anger.

“Perhaps this is how all toshing parties end up,” I said sadly. “Maybe there are no Pookas or Mildew or flying monkeys or anything. Just fear and a few too many arguments over spoons.”

I took a deep breath.

“Tommo,” I said, “you’re heading back to Bleak Point, where you’ll wait for us until—when’s sundown?”

“Eight-thirty.”

“Right. You’ll wait until seven-thirty precisely, when you’ll take Violet and the Ford back into East Carmine. Can you do that?”

Still unable to speak, he simply nodded.

“Go now.”

He very gingerly got to his feet and, holding his side, limped off. “What about us?” asked Jane.

“We’re going to High Saffron.”

She stared at me for a moment, head to one side. “You may regret it.” “I can’t regret this trip any more than I do already.”

“I’m coming, too,” said Courtland, getting to his feet.

And with this, she seemed to change her mind.

“Okay, then. But we’d better get a move on. It’s about a three-hour walk to where the Perpetulite reestablishes itself, and High Saffron is an hour beyond that.”

Courtland and I stared at her.

“You’ve been there before?” I asked.

“Once or twice.”

“Will there be spoons?” asked Courtland.

“Oh, yes,” she replied with a smile, “there shall
definitely
be spoons.”

W
e followed the track of the old road, which zigzagged steeply down the escarpment. Jane and I both insisted that Courtland walk at least twenty paces in front of us, something he said he didn’t mind since he wouldn’t be able to see our “loathsome faces.” He was carrying Tommo’s satchel as well as his own, so clearly had high hopes of bringing home some spoils. I had checked the time before we left; we had used up almost half an hour of our contingency.

“So,” said Jane, “how did you enjoy meeting your first Riffraff?”

“I owe her my life, and perhaps yours.”

“Possibly. Was it the mother or the daughter who let you out?”

“Daughter, I think.”

“That would be Martha. They don’t call themselves Riffraff, you know.”

“What, then?”

“The Digenous.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s just what they call themselves.”

“And what do they call us?”

“Many names, and none of them polite.”

At the bottom of the escarpment the road seemed to vanish entirely, until I realized that a watercourse had also considered this the best way to reach the valley floor, and had washed out the roadbed. So we followed the stream, past the rubble of houses, a telephone booth still with flecks of red paint and yet another land crawler, which was now half buried in the streambed, having had the road washed out from beneath it. I’d not seen one before this morning, and now they seemed to be everywhere.

“So what made you change your mind and follow us?” I asked as we negotiated our way around a boulder the size of a garden shed.

“You may have noticed I have a temper,” she said, “but when I calmed down, I realized that this world, blighted and imperfect as it is, would be better with you in it.”

“That’s quite a compliment.”

“Savor it,” she said. “I don’t give them out often.”

We reached a gentle rise in the land. The river moved off to its original course on the right, leaving us on the flat, grassy track of the old road and taking us into a beech forest of great maturity. Large slabs of fractured concrete had been lifted by the slow power of root systems, but of any visible scrap color, there was none. Five centuries of accreted leaf mold, soil and vegetation had effectively put it beyond easy reach, and any bizarre notion that color might be lying around on the surface was nothing more than wishful thinking. Opening High Saffron to mining operations was going to be a massive task. DeMauve would have had no choice but to found a satellite village closer to High Saffron and then have Chromatics spend a week at a time sorting the tosh before transporting it back to the railhead at East Carmine. The extraction of hue would be a long time coming and barely worth the effort. But that, I thought, was why High Saffron remained the treasure trove that it was. Untouched and virgin, it would be as rich as any tosh pit, yet discovered.

“Courtland’s getting quite far ahead.”

“Let him,” said Jane and stopped walking. I did the same, and she turned to look at me. “Are you ready to run with scissors?”

“Could I
walk
with them first?”

“No. You’re either in or out. Now: Are you ready to run with scissors?”

“I think so.”

“There’s no ‘think’ to it. Your life is going to change radically in the next few hours, and I want to make sure that you’re not going to do anything stupid. You need to know that there is no one you can trust, no one you can talk to, no one you can rely on, except
me
. We do things my way, or we don’t do them at all. And if you try to take matters into your own hands or betray me, I’ll be there to make sure that all avenues back to me are permanently silenced. Do you understand how important this is?”

“Yes, but as you’ve threatened my life several times before, I may be getting blasé about the whole thing.”

“Okay, we need to add some trust. I’m going to show you something I’ve never shown anyone before. Watch carefully.”

And she leaned closer. I knew she had lovely eyes, but until now I’d never realized quite
how
lovely. Light in tone, but with a curious corona around the edges. As I watched, the fine pinpoints of her pupils moved, stretched and grew in size. I tried to step away in alarm, but she held me tightly until her empty pupils were almost to her whites, and she had the grotesque, hollow-headed look of the Previous. I shivered. But I didn’t look away, and her eyes slowly returned to normal, until with a few rapid blinks, they were back to pinpoints once more.

“That was . . . really creepy.”

“Long ago, everyone could do it. And listen, I’m sorry about putting the wheelbarrow in your path—I had to know whether you were one of . . .
them
. After all, you were showing a lot of interest.”

“That was because I liked you.”

“No one’s ever liked me before,” she said, “so you’ll excuse me for becoming suspicious.”

“Jabez liked you.”

“Jabez liked my
nose
.”

“I like your nose.”

“Yes, but you don’t
only
like my nose. There’s a big difference.”

“Whoa!” I said, as what she had told me finally hit home.
“You can see at night?”

She gave me a smile.

“Quite well, too. On a full moon there’s almost enough light to play tennis. I think I’m the only one they don’t know about.”

“They?”

“The ones who killed Ochre. The ones who arrive after dusk and are gone before dawn.”

“Riffraff?”

“Nightseers. Above and beyond the Rules. The last line of defense against attacks upon the Munsell Doctrine.”

“How can you be sure they don’t know about you?”

“Because I’m
alive
. Are you running with scissors or not?”

“I’m in,” I said taking a deep breath. “But
wait
. How does—”

“Soon, Red, soon.”

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. It seemed like a totally natural thing for her to do, and I wasn’t shocked or surprised. But the guilt wouldn’t go away.

“Violet is very strong-willed,” I said quite spontaneously.

“As long as you didn’t enjoy it.”

“She was very aggressive,” I remarked reflectively. “It’s not supposed to be like that, is it?”

She shrugged. “I’ve heard it’s supposed to be quite fun.”

“Actually,” I added, looking down, “it was a harvest for a Purple offspring. Dad showed her the egg shade last night—she’s with my child.”

Jane raised an eyebrow. “And all this with the collusion of the head prefect?”

“With a one hundred percent fatality rate, I wasn’t expected to make it back. I think the plan was for her to lament my loss and then marry Doug as planned. He’d never know it wasn’t his son.”

She shook her head sadly. “That’s Purples for you. Now, listen,” she added, rummaging in her bag while I stood there blinking stupidly to myself. “We need to take some precautions, you and I. Try to think of nothing.”

She had a compact much like the one Travis had used to keep his lime. She flicked it open, and the color—a rampant Gordini, I think—seemed to come flooding out and fill my vision. My entire left side went immediately numb, then began to burn with the sensation of a million pins and needles.

“Good afternoon!” said a cheery voice. I blinked, for there in front of me was a young man in a tidy grey suit with the splashy paint tin logo of National Color embroidered on the left breast. “Thank you for accessing Gordini Protocol NC7-Z. Please be patient while reconfiguration is in progress.”