Dust & Rain

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“THEY WEREN’T even listening!” Viki protested, spreading his hands in a gesture of frustration. His eyes, wide and brown, met Sady’s, while he swerved to avoid a uniformed guard coming the other way in the corridor. They were walking back to the office from the morning’s doga session where Sady had cringed through Viki’s presentation on climate patterns.

“I told you that showing calculations and tables would bore them,” Sady said.

“There was only one sheet of calculations and one table. You said to show the maps, so I showed mostly maps. I did what you said, honestly.”

Viki was right: he had eliminated most of the calculations and dry data tables; he had made the maps bold and pretty. It was just that . . . the senators had been more interested in discussions about train lines to the north. Sady felt a deep shame about that. What a way to introduce a young man to the world of politics. We only listen when there is something in it for us.

“I know you did. I’m sorry, Viki. I’m not sure what I would have done differently.” Would they have listened had he given the talk himself? The data was serious enough.

They went around the corner and up the stairs. Their footsteps echoed in the open staircase. Marble columns and rich wall hangings. Carved wooden doors and leadlight windows. Splendour was everywhere.

They passed a group of senators who gave him glances that bordered on pity. Poor Sady, who listens to him? Poor Sady, who cares about meteorology? Some people said it was fast becoming an irrelevant discipline, that everyone already knew what there was to know, that one only needed enter a date and weather data in one of those new calculators that were being developed by the Scriptorium, and be presented with best dates for planting crops.

At the top of the stairs, Sady turned left and charged down the corridor. Viki had to run to keep up.

Someone behind him called, “Senator Sadorius, can I have a word?”

Sady stopped and turned around to see Proctor Destran mir Parkeshian behind him. Oh, mercy, that was just what he needed.

Viki said in a low voice, “Do you want me to continue to the office?”

“Stay here,” Sady said. Destran would most likely want to talk about Viki’s presentation.

Viki stayed, clasping his hands behind his back and tensing his shoulders. His face resembled that of a hunted rabbit.

Destran caught up and gave a customary bow. “Senator.”

Sady returned the greeting. “Proctor.”

From close up, Destran resembled a scarecrow. Lanky and taller than most people, he always walked hunched over, as if life was a great burden. His heavy, hooded eyelids increased that impression. His hands were like veined spiders, his neck with as many wrinkles as the neck of a very, very old turtle. Exposure to sunlight in his childhood had made his skin blotchy and age had brought the breaking out of many small, polyp-like warts over his face and neck.

The man’s narrowed eyes met Sady’s. “I heard you authorised the distribution of pills and suits.”

“I did, for the border regions only.”

“I understand you didn’t ask doga permission?”

“No, I didn’t. Within limits, I don’t need approval.” Destran would know that.

“Don’t you think you overreacted?” Destran’s gaze was intense.

Sady stared back. “No, I don’t. Some border stations were recording sonorics levels of fourteen motes per cube.”

“The warning limit is twenty.”

“Yes.”

There was a moment of silence. Destran continued staring and Sady continued meeting his gaze. A cold draft made the curtains behind Destran stir, and matched the icy atmosphere between them.

“I cannot see a reason for this,” Destran said. “There is no evidence that we are under any kind of sonoric threat beyond what we can cope with.”

“The rise is rapid and completely out-of-season.”

“And the twenty motes per cube is a failsafe, arbitrary, nothing-could-possibly-happen-at-this-level kind of limit.”

“My greatest worry is not the level, but the timing of it. We’ve never been able to test the precise effects, because, as you can understand, we are reluctant to send our people into the south. So yes, the upper limit is somewhat arbitrary, but the safety of Chevakians should be the first priority for the doga.”

“Within reasonable assumptions.”

“And you, Proctor, are suggesting that nothing of what you’ve heard today is reasonable? That the measurements my student reported are all fake? Are you suggesting that the measurements taken by our own met stations lie?”

Destran spread his hands. “No, I do not.”

“Then what?”

“I think your reaction is completely out of proportion and unwarranted.”

“This has the potential to become an emergency.”

“So you seem to think, but tell me: who is going to pay for this extravagance?”

Ah, now they got to the real problem. Sady hated poor budgeting masquerading as policy, and Destran seemed to excel at this activity.

“Safety is more important than budgets.”

“Up to a point.” Destran continued, “But, to please you, I’ve asked for independent advice about this issue, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Independent advice?” It came out as a sarcastic remark. There was no one in the country who knew more about weather patterns than him. That’s why he was Chief Meteorologist.

Then Sady noticed another man who had stayed back with Destran’s aides, but now came forward.

Tall, grey-haired, straight-backed, the Most Learned Alius cut an impressive figure. As head of the Scriptorium, he oversaw academia and the tutoring of students of the arts and sciences. Sady hadn’t seen the man for some time, and his dark clothing and age made him sterner than Sady remembered him. And what was with the beard?

Alius bowed and Sady returned the greeting, wondering if beards were the latest fashion in the Scriptorium. Then again, he had not known academics to take much notice of fashion. “Well met, Most Learned. You know your student, of course.”

Sady nodded at Viki, who stood a bit back staring at his formal tutor.

“Oh yes, I know him.” Alius smiled, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “That was an entertaining talk, young man.”

“Uhm . . . uhm . . . thank you, Most Learned.” Viki’s stammer was back in full force.

“I am being sarcastic.”

“Uhmmm . . . excuse me, Most Learned. I do not understa—”

Alius shook his head. “My dear student, I turn my back on you for five seconds, and you’ve already become the politicians’ mouthpiece.”

“Uhm . . .” Viki opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a fish gasping in the air.

“How much time have you spent analysing these data?”

“Uhm . . .”

“Did you just throw them into a graph and present the results without any background research?”

“I did background research.” Viki’s voice spilled over into a squeak. “I’m aware of all the protocols in the Meteorological Manual—”

“That’s just a silly book of rules. What do you know about sonorics? I mean—really know about it?”

“I know that sonorics are rays akin to a magnetic field, and that the source is somewhere in the south. Exposure to the rays distorts the soft tissue of the human body by collapsing the cell membranes. Sonorics increases the humidity in the air which is how we can detect it . . . Uhm . . .” Viki swallowed and shrank back further under Alius’ continued death stare.

Sady couldn’t stand this verbal caning anymore. It was one thing for two senators to swear at each other, another entirely for a senior academic to tear into an inexperienced student, and one who hadn’t even made a clear transgression at that.

“I think your student did everything right,” Sady said.

“You think so?” Alius’ eyes were intense. “What do you know about sonorics? Have you studied the precise properties of it?”

“Not sonorics.” Sady had to concede the point. It had been Alius who had conducted those studies, who had helped construct the barrier that protected Chevakia. “Is there anything new to report about sonorics that we should know?”

“At this stage, there is no need to cause panic in the public. There is no proof that there will be any damage to the barriers below at least fifty motes per cube and no proof that levels such as measured in the border regions will cause harm whatsoever.” Destran nodded. “There appears no reason for your unilateral action. I must assume that it was taken for political purposes.”

“You would disagree that this rapid rise is highly unusual? That we need to caution people in the border regions?”

“No, I don’t disagree,” Destran said. “We have issued travel warnings for the south.”

Sady didn’t make a habit of swearing, but for f**k’s sake, travel warnings? What good would that do? He stomped into the office after Viki, and shut the door with a thud.

“Mercy, Viki, the day Destran defeated Milleus was a sad one. I bet my annual stipend that Milleus wouldn’t be so hesitant to take action. What’s up with him, Viki? No money, money, always the same excuse. Well, he has all our taxes, what does he do with the money? Pay off his northern supporters who keep him in position?”

They were all rhetorical questions, of course. Viki scuttled to his temporary desk in the corner, took his maps and looked busy. He was way too young to remember the great Milleus han Chevonian, Sady’s brother, who had been voted out ten years ago.

Milleus wouldn’t have allowed Viki to have been drowned out by catcalls. Milleus wouldn’t have let issues of budget stand in the way of Chevakia’s safety. Admitted, that hadn’t always gone in his favour, but Chevakia had been a safe place. It had been Milleus who’d had the foresight to let Alius build the barrier that had protected the country for the last fifteen years.

Sady heaved a sigh and dropped in his big seat behind his desk. The feel of the smooth leather gave him no comfort today.

He swivelled the chair to face Viki. “Anyway, what was going on there between you and Alius?”

Viki gave him his usual startled look. “Nothing.”

“Well, that looked like an odd kind of nothing to me. I don’t recall ever being so petrified of my tutor. Why was he abusing you? Politician’s mouthpiece. We’re all mouthpieces of politics. Chevakia is politics.”

Viki had no answer to that. He kept looking ahead of him. Avoiding Sady’s eyes?

Sady sighed again. “Listen Viki, it’s fine to tell me, because I can help: is there anyone at the Scriptorium who threatens you or makes you feel unsafe in any other way? Do you ever feel that you are not allowed to speak your opinion because it doesn’t conform to certain opinions held by the senior academics?”

“No,” Viki said, much too quickly. “No, not at all. Why are you asking?”

“Because I don’t believe you. As long as I can remember, I’ve never heard anyone from the Scriptorium utter political comments. What is going on over there? What has gotten into Alius? What’s with the beard?”

Viki looked at him, and blinked. “He’s allowed to have a beard, isn’t he?”

“Well, yes, but it seems strange to me. Not just the beard, but his entire behaviour. He wasn’t like this when I studied—”

“Like what?”

“Like . . .” Sady shrugged, looked for words to describe his feeling, and couldn’t find any that satisfied him. Aggressive, defensive, evasive, anything an academic was usually not. “Like . . . Alius used to always be more open about everything, willing to discuss. It’s like he’s made up his mind about this and he doesn’t like being challenged.”

“Well, he did build the barriers. Maybe he feels the need to defend his work to people who suggest it’s not up to the job.”

That was actually a really good point. And one that worried him. The academics were supposed to be impartial and non-political. And now, for some reason, Alius had decided to support Destran, and consider people who opposed him an enemy.