Nariscene suggested, without waiting for the man to speak.
“I suspect they are not,” Ferbin said icily. “Kindly be so good as to tell Mr Hyrlis that a prince of the Sarl, the surviving son of his old good friend, the late King Nerieth Hausk of the Eighth, Sursamen, wishes to see him, having travelled amongst the stars all the way from that great world at the express favour, with emphasis, of our friends the Morthanveld with the specific mission of meeting with him, as affirmed by Director General Shoum herself. See to it, if you would.”
The Nariscene appeared to translate at least some of this. The man spoke, followed by the Nariscene. “State full name of the person you wish to see.”
Full name. Ferbin had had time to think of this on many occasions since he’d formed this plan back on the Eighth. Xide Hyrlis’ Full Name had been a chant amongst some of the children at court, almost a mantra for them. He hadn’t forgotten. “Stafl-Lepoortsa Xide Ozoal Hyrlis dam Pappens,” he said.
The stunted man grunted, then studied a screen set into his desk. Its dull green glow lit his face. He said something and the Nariscene said, “Your request will be transmitted through the appropriate channels. You will return to your quarters to wait.”
“I shall report your lack of proper respect and urgency to Mr Hyrlis when I see him,” Ferbin told the Nariscene firmly as he got, painfully, to his feet. He felt absurd in his ill-fitting uniform but tried to summon what dignity he could. “Tell me your name.”
“No. There is no Mr Hyrlis. You will return to your quarters to wait.”
“No Mr Hyrlis? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Could be an issue of rank, sir,” Holse said, also rising and grimacing.
“You will return to your quarters to wait.”
“Very well; I shall inform General Hyrlis.”
“You will return to your quarters to wait.”
“Or Field Marshal Hyrlis, or whatever rank he may have attained.”
“You will return to your quarters to wait.”
They were awoken in the middle of the night, both of them from dreams of weight and crushing and burial. They’d been fed through a hatch in the door not long before the light in their room had dimmed; the soup had been almost inedible.
“You will come with us,” the Nariscene said. Two of the squat, pale, uniformed men stood behind it holding rifles. Ferbin and Holse dressed in their preposterous uniforms. “Bring possessions,” the Nariscene told them. Holse picked up both bags.
A small wheeled vehicle took them a short way up another spiral ramp. More doors and dimly lit tunnels brought them to a greater space, still dark, where people and machines moved and a train sat humming, poised between two dark holes at either end of the chamber.
Before they could board, the floor beneath their feet shook and a shudder ran throughout the huge chamber, causing people to look up at the dark ceiling. Lights swayed and dust drifted down. Ferbin wondered what sort of cataclysmic explosion would be felt so far beneath this much rock.
“Embark here,” the Nariscene told them, pointing at a shuttered entrance into one of the train’s cylindrical carriages. They heaved themselves up a ramp into a cramped, windowless compartment; the Nariscene floated inside with them and the door rolled back down. There was just enough room for them to sit on the floor between tall boxes and crates. A single round ball in the ceiling, guarded by a little metal cage, gave out a weak, steady yellow light. The Nariscene hovered over one of the crates.
“Where are we going?” Ferbin asked. “Are we going to see Xide Hyrlis?”
“We do not know,” the Nariscene said.
They sat breathing the stale, lifeless air for a while. Then there was a lurch and some muffled clanking as the train moved off.
“How long will this take?” Ferbin asked the Nariscene.
“We do not know,” it repeated.
The train rattled and buzzed around them and they both soon fell asleep again, to be woken from the depths once more, confused and disoriented, and hustled out – knees and backs aching – down a ramp and into another squat vehicle which took them and the accompanying Nariscene along yet more tunnels and down another spiral to a large chamber where a hundred or more tanks of liquid, each twice their height, glowed blue and green in the general darkness.
Each tank held the bodies of a half-dozen or so of the short, stubby-looking men, all quite naked. They looked asleep, a mask over each