what made you blind …” Carla realised, appalled.
“The Master searches care institutions across the world for children of exceptional intelligence. I am from a local orphanage, but others are from the farthest corners of the earth. If we are suitable for NRP, we become Tyros and begin our training. If NRP fails, but we are still of use, we are put to work with the Carriers – local unwanted children,” the Primo said. “If we are not of use, we die.”
Finn felt Carla give a shiver.
“Your Master is a monster,” she said.
“We are here. Nowhere else,” said the Primo, dead simple.
At Carla’s ear Finn said, “These NRP machines must use computers of some kind, they must be connected to something?”
“Primo, these machines, are they computers? Do they have electricity?”
“They are connected by wire to the Caverns, but no Carrier can go there.”
Finn’s ears pricked up.
“What caverns?” asked Carla.
“Beneath us. Great halls within the mountain.”
“What is in them?”
“We cannot know. But flying machines go there at night sometimes.”
“Flying machines?” said Carla.
“We have to get out and tell someone about this,” insisted Finn. “We have to get off this rock!”
“In the morning, I have to leave, I have to get help,” Carla told the Primo.
“You will never make it. First you have to escape the Siguri, then the peasants – who all depend on the Protectorate – then the elements themselves.”
“Santiago gets out,” said Carla. “How else did he find me?”
“They know Santiago will never leave. He was the unwanted runt of some peasant girl. As a babe he was left to die in the snow, but an old crone heard his cries, rescued him from wolves and nursed him back to health. Later, when she was dying, she brought him here. He knows nothing else.”
“I got dragged across half the world by a mad Tyro – I’ll make it,” said Carla.
The Primo, not used to being challenged, tilted his perfect chin and turned his blind eyes on her. She felt as if they were staring through her.
“For every runaway the Siguri catch, they let the Tyros kill another five Carriers for sport. To set an example.”
Finn sank back against Carla’s scalp, challenge fading in the face of such cruelty. A lump rose in Carla’s throat.
“Baptiste was the worst,” the Primo added, more conciliatory. “We are grateful he is dead. He would have killed me, but the tutors stopped him.”
“Why?”
“They need me. For the Carriers to be effective slaves, they must be led,” he said simply.
Carla looked around at the ragged Carrier kids. They were all shapes and sizes, all colours, all abilities and disabilities. They certainly needed someone.
“This place is like an evil fairy tale,” Finn said in Carla’s hair.
“We’ve got to help them,” Carla insisted. “Primo, if I can get one message to the authorities, important people – and soldiers – will come, will stop this.”
The Primo silently considered the matter and Carla stared at his face and wondered what it must be like to be without sight in such a place, a darkness within darkness, and yet be so strong.
“Nothing can be done before the spring melt.”
“Before spring?!”
“Follow Olga. Tomorrow we will make you a Carrier. Live as she lives, do as she does. As long as you work hard, you will be safe.”
FEBRUARY 20 03:17 (GMT+2). Hull of the Shieldmaiden, Mediterranean Sea
Kaparis did not by nature sleep.
He seethed.
Usually Heywood would knock him out with a powerful sedative, but Kaparis had refused, wishing instead to pickle himself in fury and self-pity. He considered that he had got everything he had in life through application, imagination and sheer hard work. But never once had he had any luck – despite having inherited his vast wealth, good looks, charm and a brain the size of a small planet.
It wasn’t fair. Other people got lucky all the time, while he had to slog his guts out. Or at least other people’s guts, which was frankly messy.
Nothing was fair …
Then Heywood interrupted his musings and said, “Sir? The Abbot is on the line.”
“At this hour?”
Moments later, coloured bars of data danced on his life-support monitor, like nymphs in spring, and Kaparis ordered: “Bring me the head of Baptiste!”
On the screen above him, the Abbot presented the gory remains of the Tyro’s head on a cushion, like some precious jewelled thing.
“We retrieved it from a bear den on the Kalamatov Ridge!”
“HAAAHH!” Kaparis laughed, baring his teeth like a hyped primate.
“And where is she? Are you keeping her back as a surprise? Oh, I can barely stand it!”
“Who, Master?”
“THE SALAZAR GIRL!” Kaparis roared.
The Abbot was clueless.
“Three of them disappeared in China,” he explained to the Abbot, as if to a fool. “Baptiste, Carla Salazar, and, very likely, Infinity Drake. If Baptiste walked all that way, do you think for one moment he would have left them behind?”
“We carried out an extensive search, Master …”
“RUBBISH!”
Fools. Morons. Scum. Could they not FOR ONCE match the scale of his intellect? He gurgled with rage, unable to speak a moment, as the Abbot whimpered …
“We
