Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (11 page)

It had figured prominently in the recovered journals of the monk
Samuel Tonsure, Manzikert's fellow traveler underground. Had appeared in unbroken forms at various times since, at crucial moments
in history.

"Give me an example," Finch said.

"The Silence," Rathven said. "That symbol, according to the
accounts I have, appeared everywhere, all across the city."

Finch gave her a sharp look. "I never heard that." But an intense
feeling overtook him, telling him that he had known. Just forgotten.

Rathven shrugged. "I'm just telling you what's in the histories.
Half the books down here mention the Silence, so it's not hard to
track down."

The Silence. Seven hundred years ago, twenty-five thousand people
had vanished from the city. The only survivors had been aboard the
ruler's vast fleet of fishing ships, fifty miles downriver at the time.
Many a horror story had been written about the Silence. It had shaped
Ambergrisian life ever since. Especially attitudes toward the gray caps.
Everyone had believed the gray caps had done it. When they'd Risen,
some people said it was because of Manzikert's genocide against them,
and because of something they hadn't finished during the Silence.
Revenge, after waiting patiently for centuries. Of course, who could
confirm that? The gray caps said less now that they were aboveground
than when they'd been below.

"A broken symbol means a broken pact, some believe," Rathven said.

"I found it on the back of a scrap of paper used to scribble a note.
Torn from a book. It probably isn't connected to the case." Wanted to
move on for reasons he couldn't identify.

"Probably." In a tone that said, Why waste my time asking me to research
it then?

Took the photo out of his pocket. "I want you to have this while you
research the list."

Rathven took it. Winced.

"What?"

"He's dead, Finch."

"Of course he's dead. It's the murder case. I need to know who he is.
It's very strange. I can't get my head around it. I need your help."

And there's no one in the station I trust to thoroughly check out that list.

"Are you sure you want to tell me more?" Rathven said.

People came to Rathven who the gray caps would count as enemies.
Seeking information from her library. Information from her. Finch
turned a blind eye. But someday somebody was going to test Rath's
neutrality, her ability to put it all in a locked box.

A sound distracted him. A sudden retreat of water somewhere in the
darkness behind him. He'd seen fish "walk" up out of that darkness.
Watched them gasping as they tried to be something other than fish.
Once, Finch had heard a splashing like oars, from deep in the tunnel.
Had asked Rath, half-serious, "Is there something you want to tell
me?" She'd ignored him.

Finch put down his tea. Leaned back in the chair. Do I trust Rathven
more or less than Sintra?

"A dead man and a dead gray cap. In the same apartment. The gray cap is
just a torso with arms and a head. No blood. True, it's a gray cap. But maybe
they weren't even murdered. Maybe murdered, but not in the apartment.
I didn't get much out of the memory bulbs." Not much I can share.

It felt good to talk. Drew the tension out of him. Got rid of a strange
echo in his head.

Rathven nodded, looking serious. "Didn't get much? So you got
something." She waited, expectant.

"I haven't given you enough?" he asked with mock shock. "No.
That's not all. They seem to have fallen from a great height. Maybe
from the walls of a desert fortress. I have to file a report today."

Do I sound crazy?

"What other clues?" Rathven asked.

Suddenly irritable: "Jumbled memories. Including a conversation
with the dead man. Must have imagined that."

"What?"

"Just what I said! Are you deaf?" The man laughed again. Blindingly,
unbelievably bright, a light like the sun shot through the window. The night
sky torn apart by it.

Realized he'd shouted at her. "Sorry."

Rath gave him a look he could not interpret. "You're not the same
today," she said.

"Do you think I can do what I do and not be changed?" Spitting out
the words. "Take memory bulbs? Work in the station?"

"I don't care," Rathven said. "If you change too much, I won't let
you back in here." An intensity behind her gaze. Seeing someone or
something other than Finch. Couldn't even imagine ...

"Sorry," Finch said. The words took an effort. Gritted his teeth.
Said it again. Fuck!

Rathven looked down. Took a sip of tea. Said, "So the dead man
was talking to you?"

Fair enough. Move on. Realized that he needed to take more care
with her. She's not one of the detectives at the station.

"It must have been," he said. "Imaginary, I mean."

"What else?"

"Nothing else. Just the piece of paper that symbol was on the back
of. Some words. Never Lost. And then bellum omnium contra omnes.
Ever heard those words before?"

"No," she said. Still, Finch sensed interest.

"You don't know what it means?"

"How would I know what it means if I've never heard it before?"

Couldn't bring himself to say "sorry" again, so he said nothing.
"Maybe you're asking the wrong question. Bellum omnium contra
omnes." Rathven said it like an echo from another world. As if it had
no meaning at all.

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, does it matter what it means? Why did he have words
on a scrap of paper when he died? Pretend for a second that it's any
word. Any word you know: city, cow, apartment, saucepan, book,
paragraph."

"A code? A password?" Felt foolish for not seeing it before. "Might
not mean anything at all."

She pointed at him. "And that's what makes it valuable."

"But why? Why have part of it in gibberish?"

She shrugged, gave him an impish look. "I'm not the detective."

I'm not a detective either.

"We should be detectives together." Relaxing into their time-worn
call and response.

"They're here and then they're there, and sometimes they don't know
the difference, and if you let them, they'll keep making that the whole
point of everything they're doing to the city. They'll break you down
by not telling you what you already know, should already know,
because that's the way they operate. Knowledge is the lack they seek
in us, and when they find it, they turn the key, open a window, and it's
all back to where we started."

Finch endured the rant from the madman outside the hotel, then
made his way back to the station.

The suspect from yesterday wasn't in the cage. Instead, an old woman
with light blue eyes staring from a face crisscrossed with wrinkles.
As if from behind a fence of her own making. She could've been a
thousand miles away for all the help Finch could give her. Ignored her
as a casualty. Ignored Albin quietly feeding her questions like he was at
a zoo. Continued on to his desk.

More of the same from the detectives around him. Indifference,
absence, fear, boredom. Blakely and Gustat as always inseparable, whether
in agreement or argument. Skinner out on a call, about to tell a man his
missing wife was probably dead. Dapple drawing something on a piece of
paper. Lost in another world.

Wyte had turned away from him for once and was hunched over
as if Finch were trying to cheat from him on a test. He looked bulky,
blotchy.

Finch leaned over. "Don't let your pencil burn up."

Wyte grimaced, said, "I'm busy, Finchy. Really. I am." And kept
writing. It looked incomprehensible to Finch.

"Last will and testament?" Wished he hadn't said it.

"Shut up, Finchy," Wyte said. Still scribbling.

"I'm not pathologically reporting on evidence I haven't gathered
yet," Finch said, "and they haven't come to cart me away."

"You're just lucky," Wyte mumbled.

A light green stain began to spread across the back of Wyte's
blue shirt.

Finch cleared space on his desk. Brought the typewriter over. One
of the best models Hoegbotton had ever made. A hulking twentypound monster that reminded Finch of just what Ambergris could accomplish back in the day. Hundreds of thousands had been shipped
out to cities up and down the River Moth. "Combat-ready" went the
slogan, and it wasn't a joke.

Looked at his notes. Didn't want to tell Heretic about everything
he'd found. Not until he knew more about what the words meant.
Discounted the symbol entirely. Even though it had burned its way into
his head. "Focus on what you can control. The rest is just distraction."
Something his father used to say.

What could he report that was solid? A few moments gazing into
space. Then he started to type. Stopped when he got to a part that
bothered him.

Both memories contained images of a desert
fortress. Both memories contained images of
falling.

From a great height? Maybe.

Finch took a sip of his coffee. He'd washed the cup beforehand to
make sure no fungus, visible or invisible, had taken root. Sometimes
the gray caps did strange things with the mugs during the night.

Both memories contained images from the HFZ.

I think. How would I know, never having been there?

From analyzing

"My memory of. . . "

both memories it seems certain that the gray cap

Fanaarcessitti? Fanarcesittee? Always typos in these reports.

that the fannarcessitti was in pursuit of the man.
But I don't know why.

Then Sintra was kissing him and he was kissing her. Tongue curled against
tongue. The salt of her in his mouth. His hand between her muscular thighs.

A hunger. A need. Something that didn't exist outside the sanctuary of his
apartment.

Recognized the strength of that need, the danger of it, on the way
to the station.

He exhaled sharply. That way lies madness.

More to the point, he shouldn't even have been on this case. Not many
people made the distinction between what detectives did and what Partials
or gray caps did. Never do police work anywhere near your own area. Never
let the people where you lived know your job. And yet, 239 Manzikert
Avenue was only a mile from the hotel. Why had Heretic put him in
charge? Didn't trust Wyte anymore? Or was there some other reason?
Leaned forward in his chair. Had to make some progress. Just dive into it.

The man's memories had more coherence than the
fannarcessitti's memories. I could not tell if this
was because the fanarcesitti's mind had been more
confused and disjointed at the time of death or
because, as a human, I could more easily read the
man's memories.

Nothing during the experience brought me any
closer to knowing the identity of the man.

I wish the memory bulbs had been more useful.

But he had seen one person he recognized. He leaned back and
thought about Ethan Bliss. What he knew. What he didn't know.

First, the impersonal. Bliss had fought for Frankwrithe & Lewden
during the War of the Houses. Behind the scenes. No one seemed to
know for sure what he did for F&L. Secret ops? Bliss had joined the
political wing. Risen quickly to become F&L's number one man in
Ambergris. Had been instrumental in forging the alliance between
the F&L and the Lady in Blue. Then, right before the gray caps
took over, he dropped out of sight. Probably returned to his native
Morrow, only to reappear a couple of years ago. Because of how
Morrow had suffered from the gray caps having cut off the flow of
water? Ships suddenly resting on a dry riverbed. Trade disrupted.
Drinking water scarce.

This new Bliss had reverted to spying. Had connections to the Spit.
But hadn't made common cause with the rebels, according to Finch's
informants.

Although, when you paid informants in food and clothing, how valuable
could your information be? More valuable? Less?

All of this made Bliss of special interest to any detective who hated
foreigners messing around in Ambergris business. Finch could've used
Bliss as a snitch, perhaps, but hadn't. He was wary of who Bliss might
be working for now. If he worked for anyone other than himself.

Second, the personal. Bliss had been at his father's house a couple of
times when Finch was maybe twelve, thirteen. He could recall looking
through the kitchen window to see Bliss and his father in the garden.
The smaller man compact, unmoving. His father unruly, animated,
throwing his arms about, pointing at Bliss and demanding something.
And yet, seeing the two figures there like that, Bliss had seemed in his
silence and self-possession to be the one in charge.

Thought, too, that Bliss might've been in one of the photographs
he'd burned before becoming Finch. But Bliss was one of many visitors.
During the few peaceful years, there had been lots of parties at their
house, with people from both sides.

Finch had seen Bliss give speeches, too. One, in front of the Voss
Bender Memorial Opera House, to a crowd of almost ten thousand.
He'd looked striking in an evening coat and tails. A chestful of
honorary medals that made you notice the glitter more than the man.
Urging cooperation and common cause in that silky voice when, just a
year or two before, behind the scenes, he'd caused House Hoegbotton
so much grief. Bombings. House-to-house battles to clear insurgents.
Fighting in narrow streets where tanks were no help, but where F&L
fungal bullets worked just fine.