Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,57

And he thought he could understand how Orso Ignacio felt right now. Perhaps he would be able to work the man from that angle.

He found himself promptly disabused of these notions when he entered the lexicon chamber and instantly heard the words, “Who the shit are you?”

Gregor blinked in the dim light while his eyes adjusted. The lexicon chamber was wide, dark, and mostly empty. There was a thick glass wall at the back with an open door set in its center, and a tall, thin man stood in the doorway, staring at Gregor. He wore a thick apron, thick gloves, and a pair of thick, dark goggles. He held in his hands a threatening-looking tool, some kind of bendy, looped metal wand with a lot of sharp teeth.

“P-pardon?” said Gregor.

The man tossed the wand away, lifted his goggles, and a pair of pale, deep-set, harsh eyes stared at him. “I said, who. The shit. Are you?” asked Orso Ignacio, this time much louder.

Orso had the look of an artist or sculptor who’d just stepped away from his studio, wearing a stained, beige shirt and off-white hose under his apron, and his beaked shoes—customary for the highest echelons—were ratty and had holes in the toes. His white hair rose up in a wild, unkempt shock, and his once-handsome face was dark and lined and skeletally thin, as if the man had sat for too long in a fish curer’s shed.

Gregor cleared his throat. “I apologize. Good morning, Hypatus. I’m terribly sorry to interrupt you during this most diffic—”

Orso rolled his eyes and looked across the room. “Who is he?”

Gregor peered through the shadows, and saw that there was someone else at the back of the room, someone he’d missed: a tall, rather pretty girl with a still, closed face. She was sitting on the floor before a tray of scriving blocks—an abacus-like device that scrivers used to test scriving strings—and she was popping the blocks in and out with a frightening speed, like a professional scivoli player moving their pieces across the board, creating a steady clackclackclack sound.

The girl paused and glanced at Gregor, her face immaculately inscrutable. “I believe,” she said, in a quiet, even voice, “that that is Captain Gregor Dandolo.”

Gregor frowned at her, surprised. He’d never met this girl in his life. The girl calmly resumed slotting the blocks in and out of the tray.

“Oh,” said Orso. “Ofelia’s boy?” He peered at Gregor. “My God, you’ve gained weight.”

The girl—Gregor suspected she was Orso’s assistant of some kind—cringed ever so slightly.

But Gregor was not insulted. The last time Orso had glimpsed him he’d probably just returned from the wars. “Yes,” said Gregor. “That tends to happen when a person goes from a place that has no food at all to a place that has some.”

“Fascinating,” said Orso. “So. What the hell are you doing down here, Captain?”

“Yes, I—”

“You’re still slumming it down at the waterfront, right?” His eyes suddenly burned with a strange fury. “If there is still a waterfront to slum in, that is.”

“Yes, and in fact I—”

“Well, as you may notice, Captain…” He held his hands out and gestured to the large, dark, empty room. “Our current environs are bereft of waters, as well as fronts of all kinds. Not much for you to do here, it seems. Got plenty of doors, though. Loads of ’em.” Orso turned to examine something behind him. “I advise you scrumming make use of one. Any one, I frankly don’t care.”

Gregor strode forward into the chamber, and said in a slightly louder voice, “I am here to ask you, Hypatus…” Then he stopped, wincing as a headache pulsed through his skull, and rubbed his forehead.

Orso looked at him. “Yes?” he said.

Gregor took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Take your time.”

He swallowed and tried to collect himself—but the headache persisted. “Does that…does that go away?”

“No.” Orso was smiling unpleasantly. “Never been near a lexicon before?”

“I have, but this one seems very…”

“Big?”

“Yes. Big. The machine is off, isn’t it? I mean—that’s the problem, correct?”

Orso scoffed and turned to stare at the device behind him. “Right now, it is not ‘off,’ as you put it—the more accurate term is reduced. It’s difficult to turn a lexicon just off—it’s not a damned windmill, it’s a collection of assertions about physics and reality. Turning it off would be like, oh, converting a striper into all the carbon and calcium and nitrogen and whatever else makes it up—conceptually feasible? Sure, why not. Practically possible?