Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,128

something.

Yet Gregor had been waiting in front of the Dandolo Chartered Vienzi site foundry for three hours now. And, since he had much better things to do that day, and since theoretically Tomas Ziani’s thugs could try to kill him even there, this was really pushing it.

He looked back at the front gates of the Vienzi site foundry. He’d been told this was where he could find his mother, and this did not surprise him: the Vienzi was one of the newest Dandolo foundries, built to perform some of the company’s most complicated production. He’d known that few were allowed inside, but he’d assumed that he, being Ofelia’s son, would be granted entrance. And yet, he’d been simply told to wait.

I wonder what percentage of my life, he thought, has been spent waiting for my mother’s attentions. Five percent? Ten percent? More?

Finally there was a creak from the massive foundry gates, and the giant oak door began to swing open.

Ofelia Dandolo did not wait for the gate to fall completely open. She slipped through the crack, small and white and frail against the huge door, and calmly walked toward him.

“Good morning, Gregor,” she said. “What a pleasure it is to see you so soon again. How is your investigation going? Have you found the perpetrator?”

“I have encountered, how shall I put this…more questions,” said Gregor. “Some of which I’ve been turning over for some time. But I thought it was time to discuss a certain matter with you, personally.”

“A matter,” said Ofelia. “What threateningly bland language. What would you like to talk to me about?”

He took a breath. “I wanted to ask you…about the Silicio Plantation, Mother.”

Ofelia Dandolo slowly raised an eyebrow.

“Do you know…know anything about that, Mother?” asked Gregor. “About what it is? What they did there?”

“What I’ve heard, Gregor,” she said, “are mostly rumors that you’ve been involved, somehow, in some of the violence in the wake of the Foundryside blackout. Armed gangs fighting in the streets. Carriages crashing into walls. And somewhere, among it all, my son. Is this true, Gregor?”

“Please stop trying to change the subject.”

“Rumors of you and some street urchin,” said Ofelia, “being shot at by a team of assassins. That must be fantasy, mustn’t it?”

“Answer me.”

“Why are you asking me this, anyway? Who poured this poison in your ear, Gregor?”

“I will make my question clear beyond doubt,” said Gregor forcefully. “Is Dandolo Chartered—my grandfather’s company, my father’s company, and your company, Mother—is it involved in the gruesome practice of attempting to scrive the human body and soul?”

She looked at him levelly. “No. It is not.”

Gregor nodded. “A second question,” he said. “Was it ever involved in such a practice?”

There was a soft hiss as Ofelia exhaled through her nose. “Yes,” she said softly.

He stared at her. “It was. It was?”

“Yes,” she said reluctantly. “Once.”

Gregor tried to think, yet he found he could not. Orso had said as much, and the comment had slowly worked its way into Gregor’s mind like a needle—yet he’d been unable to believe it. “How could…How could you…”

“I did not know,” she said, shaken, “until after your father died. Until after your accident, Gregor. When I took over the company.”

“You’re saying father was the one involved in it? It was his program?”

“It was a different time, Gregor,” said Ofelia. “The Enlightenment Wars were just beginning. We didn’t understand what we were truly doing, neither as rulers of the Durazzo, nor as scrivers. And all of our competitors were doing the same. If we hadn’t pursued this as well, we might have been ruined.”

“Such excuses,” said Gregor, “all end the same way, Mother. With graves, and heartache.”

“I put a stop to it when I took charge!” she said fiercely. “I killed the project. It was wrong. And we didn’t need it anymore anyway!”

“Why not?”

She paused, as if she hadn’t meant to say that. “Be-because scriving had changed so much by then. Our lexicon technology had given us an impregnable position. The scriving of the body was no longer worth researching. It was impossible anyway.”

Gregor did not say, of course, that he was now acquainted with a living specimen that suggested otherwise. “I…I just so wish that we had one good thing,” he said, “one good thing in Tevanne that was not born from ugliness.”

“Oh, spare me your righteousness,” she snapped. “Your father did what was deemed necessary. He did his duty. And ever since Dantua, you, Gregor, have been fleeing your duties as a rat might a