Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

Twenty-five

I wasn’t sure quite what I’d been expecting Fulcher’s Skyside estate to look like, but it turned out to be a compact version of the mansion at the tip of the spire. There were even gardens surrounding it – an unbeliev­able luxury on an orbital – which, as we drove towards the cluster of low-lying structures at the centre of the armourcrys dome enclosing the estate, became suddenly bathed in sunlight as the orbital moved out of the shadow of the planet below.

‘He should be safe enough here,’ Defroy said, raising his voice a little over the growling of the engine. ‘No one’s getting through the gates without authorisation.’

‘They seemed secure,’ I agreed, without committing myself to anything more complacent. He’d thought exactly the same thing about the mansion on Ironfound, after all. But here, at least, the gates were airlock chambers large enough to admit several vehicles at once rather than simple barriers, penning anyone entering or leaving the domed area in a confined space where they could be minutely examined before being allowed to proceed. ‘How many more gates like that are there?’

‘Two,’ Defroy said. ‘This used to be a docking bay for bulk ore transporters before the new processing plants opened on Skysides Twelve and Twenty-Six. When the ore traffic moved out in M-thirty-nine, they just built the dome across the space and landscaped it. The old airlocks weren’t strictly necessary at that point, but the governor at the time wasn’t exactly popular, so they were left where they were to control access more tightly.’

‘And why was that?’ I asked.

Defroy looked puzzled. ‘She didn’t want to be assassinated or strung up by insurrectionists?’ he hazarded.

I shook my head. ‘I mean why wasn’t she popular?’

‘Because she was the governor,’ Defroy said. ‘It was a difficult time. Lot of tension between the Skysiders and the Dirtgrubbers.’ He smiled, in a faintly embarrassed fashion. ‘Which is what they called the surface dwellers. They thought the administration down there was out of touch with their concerns. So it was decided that the governor should divide her time between the hives and the orbitals to help foster a spirit of unity.’

‘I see.’ I nodded. With tensions running high, securing the dome against attack as discreetly as possible would have been a high priority. ‘A tradition maintained to this day, I take it.’

‘Pretty much,’ Defroy agreed. ‘Some governors spent more time in the hive, and some would have stayed up here permanently if they could, but most of them have divided their time more or less equally.’

‘And His Excellency?’ I asked, faking polite interest.

‘Definitely one of the latter. Born up here, thinks of himself as a Skysider first and foremost.’ Which I supposed went some way towards explaining his rash decision to run the blockade. ‘But he doesn’t let that get in the way of objective decision-making. Or spending as much time on Ironfound as he needs to get the job done.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I said, although to be honest I was no more interested in the governor’s vicissitudes than in anything else the civilians got up to while the Guard kept the galaxy at bay. I glanced at our surroundings. ‘Seems comfortable enough.’ The truck was negotiating a wide gravel drive by now, which wove its way around lush lawns and artfully clipped shrubbery, revealing sporadic glimpses of the most impressive frontages of the main house. The overall effect was evidently meant to evoke the ambience of a country estate on an agri world somewhere, in stark contrast to the rest of its surroundings, although – like the gardens of Fulcher’s mansion in the spire – the needs of defence had clearly played a part in the placement of things. I found myself wondering just how many of the decorative excrescences concealed emplaced weapons and, once I started examining things more closely, began to detect clear signs of artifice. Many of the shrubs were too symmetrical to have been the unaided work of nature, and the larger trees appeared to have been cast in the same kind of resin as the pseudowood panelling I’d noticed in his spiretop mansion.

‘What’s that?’ As we rounded the final corner, heading for the main entrance rather than the service one – presumably because now we were safely within the governor’s demesne he saw no further need for subterfuge – a large block of neatly clipped foliage roughly the size of a scrumball pitch had come into view. It seemed like an enclosure of some kind, twice the height of a man, pierced at intervals with arches, presumably giving access to whatever lay inside.

‘That’s the maze,’ Defroy said. ‘It’s quite famous. According to legend, it’s so complex people occasionally get lost for days, and a few of them are never seen again.’ He grinned. ‘Although all you have to do is keep taking the second left followed by the first right, and it takes you straight to the middle. And reverse it to come straight back out.’