Mi’aata went about their business, whatever that might be.
“The Quintessence told me Clarissa was on this level,” I muttered. “I suppose she’s in one of those buildings.”
“I should say so,” Colonel Spearjab replied.
“Damnation!” I cursed, realising that I would never find her unassisted. I had no choice but to complete my mission and report back to the trinity. “Let’s move on, Colonel.”
The tunnel was horizontal now, running around the edge of Zone Four. We progressed through it until we came to a fairly large empty and dimly lit cavern, which, to my sheer delight, had a clear stream bubbling out of its floor, forming a deep pool to one side. Without hesitation, I threw myself down and gulped at the cold, revitalising water. Then, after my companion had also drunk his fill, I immersed myself fully and rubbed the sweat, dirt, and blood from my skin. Spearjab slid in after me and we faced each other, relishing the soothing chill.
“Oh dear! They have discovered our absence, Mr. Fleischer. I can feel it. Humph! Your mind is impervious to them—they’ll not detect you unless you are seen—but Mi’aata minds are all connected. What! What! Eventually they’ll trace my whereabouts.”
“How soon?”
“I think we’ll be safe for a little while longer, and we’re very close to our quarry now. Ha! It is a strong, extremely well-shielded mind. Yes, indeed! Extremely well shielded, I say!”
“But you can detect it?”
“Quite so! Quite so! Because I’m Divergent, you see, and it’s extended its influence over all of my kind. Harrumph! The confounded brute is keeping us befuddled and half-bonkers until it needs us. But—ha ha!—I can trace the influence back to its source, what!”
“You’re remarkably coherent, under the circumstances.”
“I have you to thank for that, old thing. You’ve jogged me out of my bewilderment, so to speak—kicked life into the slumbering Yatsill in me! Incidentally, whoever our mysterious plotter is, I feel that I am acquainted with them.”
“From where?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. Not the foggiest, I say! Harrumph! Harrumph! Shall we push on?”
I nodded, and in short order we were once again squeezing ourselves through a narrow passageway.
The tunnel eventually split into two. Spearjab led me into the left-hand branch, which began to slope downward. Not long after we’d entered it, I became aware that voices were echoing faintly from somewhere ahead.
“We’re there! Don’t make a sound! Lips sealed, what!” the colonel warned.
Inch by inch, we crept forward.
There were two voices. As we approached them, their conversation became more distinct, and both participants sounded familiar to me.
“—are far more advanced than the Koluwaians I have sent to you and outnumber your kind by thousands to one.”
“Do not concern yourself. The manufacturing plants are working at full capacity. It was fortunate that my attempt to kill the woman failed, for what I subsequently found in her mind has proven most useful. Her machines are almost finished, and the moment I demonstrate them, your world will buckle, of that you can be sure.”
“The Quintessence has not detected this activity?”
“The trinity knows the plants have been commandeered, of course, but what little access I allowed the Quintessence to the woman kept it so distracted that it has no conception of how far our plans have advanced.”
Colonel Spearjab flattened himself against one side of the tunnel and indicated that I should pass him. I pulled myself forward.
“What of my return to Koluwai?” the second voice asked. “It will be the last, yes? I have been through the rupture too many times already. I’m being disfigured by the scar tissue.”
“Your frequent crossings have caused your body to permanently resonate with the path—that is why you can now traverse it even when it is quiescent—but what healed you before is now damaging you. Do not be anxious. Do exactly as you are instructed and it will, indeed, be your final crossing. The detrimental effects won’t kill you.”
“Very well. I shall endure it one more time.”
“Underconveyance Ninety-eight will be departing very soon with the first group of Discontinued. The crew has been coerced. They will take you as close to the shore as you need. You understand how the crystal functions?”
“Yes. It is attuned to the far end of the rupture.”
“That is correct. Be careful with it, for I have found no other like it. How confident are you in travelling to the destination we’ve selected as our first target?”
“I can do it, though it will cost me much.”
“You will have riches beyond imagining—and power, too—if you succeed.”