Mysterium

Bisonette nodded, watching him closely. “Progress has been faster than we expected. We’ve already dispatched engineers to erect a test gantry. The prototype should be available within a matter of weeks.”

“I thought—you said the spring.”

“That’s changed. Do you object, Lieutenant Demarch?”

How could he? “No. Although I wonder if it gives us time to extract everything we can from the, ah, enquiry.”

“Oh, I think we’ve extracted a considerable amount. We’ll be mining the archival material for decades, you know, from what I understand. I think that’s enough. We can’t really let the situation stand as it is, Lieutenant. None of us knows what happened in that place and I doubt that any of us ever will—it’s beyond comprehension, which is to say it’s in the nature of a miracle. If we wait to understand it, we’ll be waiting until the end of time. In the meantime there’s a real risk of contagion, both figuratively and literally. You might look at their medical arcana some time. These people may be carrying diseases, and that poses an immediate risk. They’re certainly carrying ideological diseases.” He shook his head. “The site has to be burned, and if I had my choice I would sow the ground with salt—though if this weapon operates as promised, that won’t be necessary.”

Demarch tried to rein in his thoughts. Be practical, he instructed himself. “It might take time to make arrangements. People will be suspicious if we start shipping out soldiers en masse.”

“I’m sure they would. But most of the soldiers won’t be shipped out.”

“I don’t understand.”

Bisonette shrugged as if to dismiss an annoying triviality. “The town was manned by second-rate troops. They’ve seen more than we want them talking about. They’re disease vectors, at least in the figurative sense. But don’t worry. We’ll extract the people we trust.”

∞

After he left Bisonette he made an unscheduled stop at the small peripheral building marked ENQUETES, where he had once held a desk job. He kept his collar up and walked briskly to the office of Guy Marris, an old friend.

Friendship was important in the Centrality. Friendship governed what gossip you heard, the pivot on which a career might turn. Guy had been a wine friend, in Bureau jargon: someone you trusted enough to get drunk with.

Guy’s office was a small room—a closet, compared to Bisonette’s conference chamber. Guy, a bespectacled man with more gray hair than Demarch remembered, looked up from a stack of requisition forms. “Symeon!”

Demarch nodded and they talked for a time, the usual what-are-you-doing-back-in-town and what-about-the-family. But this wasn’t entirely a social visit, and Demarch began to drop hints to that effect, until Guy said, “You want a document—is that it?”

“I need a set of identification papers. Really just the basics. Enough for someone to show at checkpoints or to an employer.”

Guy studied his face for a long moment and then said, “Come with me.”

They walked to the courtyard, a standard maneuver if you wanted privacy. Demarch wondered why, after all these years, the hierarchs had never found a way to eavesdrop on this windy common. Or maybe they had. Or maybe they knew about it and still permitted a sliver of secrecy: no machine runs efficiently without a little grease.

Guy Marris shivered at the frigid air. He took a Victoire cigarette from the package in his breast pocket and lit it with a match. “I think this is unofficial work you’re talking about.”

“Yes,” Demarch admitted.

“Well … tell me the essentials. I don’t promise anything.”

“A woman. Mid-thirties. Make her thirty-five. Dark hair. Height, five foot eight. Weight, say ten stone.”

“She sounds intriguing.”

“You still write documents, I hope.” There were times when Bureau operatives needed manufactured identification, and Enquetes was the department they came to—at least, that was how it was done when Demarch worked here.

“Oh, we do documents,” Guy said, “that hasn’t changed, but an unauthorized requisition…” He shook his head. “1 suppose 1 could attribute it to someone else. But everything is signed for, Symeon. My name ends up on the paperwork one way or another. Mind you, if it reaches the file room, it’s as good as lost.” He smiled. “Have you seen Records? We call it the Library of Babel. But in the meantime, if anyone asks questions …”

Demarch nodded. He already felt guilty about asking. About jeopardizing a friend.

“Forgive me,” Guy said, “but you never struck me as the type. A liaison is a liaison, but you never let it get between you and the Bureau. Is this a special woman?”

“I don’t mean to bring her home to Dorothea. Only to save her life.”

Which was true. His feeling about Evelyn Woodward was that she didn’t deserve to die. It didn’t go deeper than that, because he wouldn’t allow it to.