Shades of Grey Read online

  I walked on for another ten paces, but slower this time, as I was beginning to feel disoriented, and the excited chatter of fresh observers reached my ears, doubtless drawn from their houses by the news of a double Nightloss. It was only when the string went tight, stopping me from going farther, that I realized that the second Nightloss alarm had been for me.

  “Eddie!”

  It was my father, far behind me. I shouted back that all was well, but my voice, which I had intended to be deep and full of confidence, came out sounding weedy and fearful. He told me to turn around and they’d reel me in. I did actually turn, and far away, wrapped in a dark tunnel, was a small village entirely adrift in the night. It didn’t stay in one place, either, but seemed to move around as my unpracticed eyes darted back and forth, trying to make sense of the unusual surroundings. For a moment I thought I would do as he asked, but I’d be an even bigger fool if I didn’t actually accomplish anything, so I once again told my father that I was fine and asked for more string.

  I moved on, despite his admonishments, and all of a sudden something hard struck me on the shin. I fell forward, collapsing onto a painfully angular object, and felt a sharp blow to my face, followed by a salty taste of blood in my mouth.

  If there was a time for panic, then this was assuredly it. The swirling darkness suddenly seemed to gain shape and bear down upon me. I felt a cold hand grasp my heart and a sweat prickle my back. I bit my hand to stop myself from screaming, then sat down on the roadway, stared into the inky darkness and took deep breaths. All around me the night seemed to fall ever tighter and closer, in an embrace that made me feel as though I were being smothered; as if the darkness would close over me like a millpond, and I would gratefully pass into unconsciousness and death.

  But it didn’t happen that way. I fought back the panic, discovered that the object I had fallen on was nothing more nor less than a wheelbarrow and allowed myself to be ignominiously reeled back into the village by none other than the head prefect himself. The feeling of a safe return was short-lived, as the flagrant irresponsibility of my actions were made abundantly clear to me. DeMauve explained in strident terms that I had just recklessly gambled the twenty years of investment that the Collective had placed on my person.

  “If you want to attempt such foolhardy stunts,” he said, “you should conduct them in your retirement when your Civil Obligation is at an end.”

  In short, I was subjected to an ear bashing of momentous proportions. But it was without demerit as I had done nothing against the Rules.

  By way of consolation, my excursion had convinced the prefects that an effort should be made to look for Travis, “fallen Yellow or not,” and Mr. Fandango was dispatched to fetch some Daylighters. Mrs. Gamboge, doubly furious not only that I had disobeyed her but that my actions had required her to do the right thing, insisted that she and Courtland look for Travis. When it was pointed out that this placed not only the Yellow prefect but also her successor in unnecessary danger, Mrs. Gamboge laughed it off and indicated that they would go as far as the boundary and no farther.

  The Daylighters were soon produced, and after Gamboge senior and junior had donned walking boots, they pulled the firing cord of the first magnesium flare. The lamp fizzed for a moment before bursting into a flaming white light that pulsed and crackled as it burned, and it gave off an acrid white smoke that made us cough.

  They wasted no time, and both hurried off into the night. We watched them beneath their umbrella of flickering light until they were lost from view in a dip.

  “Three months’ flare allocation gone in a single evening,” grumbled Fandango, and the small crowd slowly dispersed.

  Dad just shook his head sadly and told me I’d better go to my room and “consider my position,” which in Dad-speak meant that he was sorely hacked off, but that it would all be forgotten by the morning.

  I went upstairs to my room and sat cross-legged on my bed. My muscles were still twitching from the night panic, but I didn’t feel half as bad as I thought I would. I could hear the Apocryphal man moving about upstairs, and the lighter footfalls of a second person, who moved slower. Despite Travis, I still had important matters to attend to, so after pushing the night’s events to the back of my mind, I took out my notebook, adjusted the angle-poise mirror to maximize the light that streamed across the landing and in my open door, thought for a moment and composed my telegram to Constance.

  TO CONSTANCE OXBLOOD SW3 6ZH ++ JADE UNDER LIME GSW ++ FRM E RUSSETT RG6 7GD ++ EAST CARMINE RSW ++ MSGE BEGINS ++ JOURNEY WITHOUT SERIOUS INCIDENT ++ ARRIVED SAFE AND WELL ++ SAW RABBIT IN VERMILLION V INTERESTING ++ EAST CARMINE DELIGHTFUL ++ TWICE AS BIG AS JADE RIVER FRONTAGE AND LINOLEUM FACTORY ++ CAKE V EXPENSIVE AND LITTLE SYNTHETIC COLOR ++ SEND BEST WISHES TO YR CHARMING MOTHER ++ MY QUEUING SYSTEMS WORKING WELL ++ YR EDWARD XXX POEM FOLLOWS ++ O THAT I MIGHT RUN THE STORMY BOUNDARY MARKERS WITH YOU ++ TAKE YOU IN MY HEART AND SQUEEZE YOU ALTHOUGH NOT TOO TIGHT ++ AN ANGRY SWAN OR MARAUDING RIFFRAFF WOULD NOT STOP ME ++ MY COLOR IS YOURS COMMA THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE ++ MSGE ENDS

  I decided for strategic reasons not to tell Constance of my early Ishihara. In fact, I thought I might surprise her with it on my return, and force her into a decision under Roger Maroon’s upswept nose. I was rereading the missive for the fourth time and wondering whether actually receiving the poem would make up for its lamentable lack of quality when I heard the Gamboges’ return. I moved to the spare room and looked out into the town square, where a small group were welcoming the Gamboges back with hot cups of cocoa and blankets. They were quite alone; Travis was now officially Nightloss.

  Only twenty minutes later, the first bell sounded, and exactly ten minutes after that the light abruptly went out, and the world was plunged into an inky blackness without depth, shape or form. Across the gulf of hollow emptiness I could hear the sounds of settling that a village makes when bedding down. The odd cry as someone was caught out and stubbed a toe on a bed leg, the bark of a dog and the wail of a child who’d not yet come to terms with nightfear.

  Within a few seconds of lights-out, the first sound of the evening’s Radtalk began. It was quiet, as from a distant originator somewhere at the other end of the village, and I strained to hear the metallic Morse code strikes on the radiator. It wasn’t anything particularly inappropriate, just sounded like banal gossip among juniors—who fancied who, that sort of thing. They used call signs, as the centralized heating system was an open circuit, so I didn’t know who was being talked about, and wouldn’t have known them if I had. After a few minutes of this another stream started off, but this one used a wooden striker for separation. This Morse code was faster and harder to keep up with, but it turned out to be chapter eight of a serialized book titled Renfrew of the Mounties—likely as not, on the Leapback list. Tommo had hinted that Mrs. Lapis Lazuli might attempt something at story time, so I had to assume that this was she. And indeed, my Morse would have to be up to scratch, for the code was tapped out at a phenomenal rate.

  I listened for a bit, until a third stream started up, this one below the other two, slower and more considered. It was also tapped out with a lead bar, again for easier separation of the streams. This one was directed to me, and after I had found a piece of metal and wrapped it in a pair of underpants to tap out an acknowledgment, I was asked by someone named “Fifi23” about news from the outside. I signed myself in as “Nik” and tapped out the broadest possible news that I had from the Green sectors. As soon as I strayed onto anything remotely sensitive, the duty radiator monitor would jam my stream with a series of fast random strikes that drowned out all the channels. The jam soon stopped, however, and I resumed, this time watching what I said more carefully. I tapped away for half an hour until my wrist grew tired, and after receiving thanks from “Fifi23” and quite a few others, I listened to Mrs. Lapis Lazuli’s serialization, which was enjoyable, despite making little sense—many of the words and idioms were obsolete, and it took me a while to figure out that a “Mountie” was some s
ort of Red Rule enforcer, but on horseback.

  As I listened to the story I stared out of the window. I could just make out the faint disc of a full moon rising through the trees of a distant hilltop. I shivered and pulled the covers over my head.

  Breakfast

  6.1.02.03.012: The annual thousand-hour lamp-burn allocation may be discharged however the Council sees fit. Multiple lamp heads are allowed, but the total allocation time remains unchanged. Unused time may be carried over.

  I was awake before dawn. Unable to sleep, I leaned on an elbow and stared into the darkness. I couldn’t even tell if my eyes were open or shut. The darkness swirled about me like charcoal maggots in a coal cellar. I touched the hands on the bedside clock to confirm that it was near dawn, then heard the faint buzz of the first heliostat on auto-align toward the rising sun. Another started up, and then a third, and soon the air was filled with the cheery buzz of the clockwork chorus. This was joined by the birds whistling and chirruping the new day, and before long, as I stared into the inky blackness, the faintest glimmer of red punctured the curtain of darkness. It soon became a distinctive thin crescent, then a semicircle and very slowly sightfulness returned to my room. First the door frame bathed in the dim glow of deep red, then the room itself, slowly reassembling itself as the rays of the new day slowly crept about my small chamber, banishing the blackness.

  I arose, washed my face and dressed in my Outdoor Adventure #9s, which consisted of long shorts, a safari shirt and stout footwear. I then trod carefully downstairs to make some tea. I hadn’t even gotten as far as the kitchen before the sun vanished behind heavy clouds and the room dropped to barely a single foot-candle above threshold. After bumping into the furniture several times in an effort to set breakfast, I gave up and fumbled my way to the settee in the corner of the kitchen.

  I awoke to find that the day had brightened. Dad was dressed, and doing some work at the kitchen table.

  “Good morning,” he said with a smile. “Who’s Rude Girl? You were mumbling in your sleep.”

  “Did I mention any names?”

  “No.”v

  “Then I’m not sure.”

  I had been dreaming. Jane and I were swimming together in a millpond-still lake at dawn. Water vapor had been rising off the surface, obscuring the shore and isolating us from the world. I had been telling jokes, and she had been laughing, even at the bad ones. We had been about to kiss when Constance had arrived, standing up in the prow of a rowboat, dressed in flowing red robes. She opened her mouth to say something when I woke up.

  “You also mentioned something about a rabbit,” Dad added.

  “It had gills and was nibbling our toes,” I said with a frown.

  He laughed and asked me how I was. I touched the cut on my mouth where I had fallen on the wheelbarrow the night before. It was still sore, but a lot better, and I told him so.

  “They didn’t find Travis,” he remarked.

  “No,” I replied. “They rarely do.”

  “You showed some grit,” he added, “and that’s a good thing—but don’t do it too near the prefects. You’ll only draw attention to yourself.”

  I asked him what he meant by this but he simply shrugged, and I headed off to the town hall, as I still had time to grab some cooked breakfast.

  I stopped at the post office on the way, and since shop hours were extended to make full use of seasonal daylight, it had been open for half an hour by the time I got there. It was tidy yet immeasurably ancient, but despite this, the original red paintwork was still tolerably bright.

  “Are you sure you’re happy with this?” asked the telegram clerk as she stared at my poetical efforts. “It seems a bit, well, rubbish to me.”

  She was a late-middle-aged woman who reminded me of my twice-widowed aunt Beryl. Very kind, but annoyingly straight talking.

  “Constance isn’t looking for a husband who’s intellectually challenging,” I explained, trying to pretend that I had deliberately downplayed my skills.

  “Just as well,” she replied, then, once she had counted up the words, added, “You could add three more Xs and it wouldn’t cost you any more.”

  I thought for a moment and then declined, as I didn’t want Constance to think me too forward. Mrs. Blood then asked me to confirm line breaks before charging me an outrageous thirty-two cents. I suggested that this might be somewhat exorbitant, and she informed me that she’d waive the fee if I brought back a set of sugar tongs from Rusty Hill. I said I’d do my best, and she smiled sweetly and told me she’d tap my message down the line right away.

  The town hall was as town halls generally are: spacious, and smelling of boiled cabbage and floor polish. I walked carefully around the prefect carpet that was set near the entrance, nodded respectfully to where the Book of the Gone was sited, then blinked in the relative gloom. Far away at the opposite end was the stage, framed rather delightfully by ornate plaster moldings. To one side were the kitchens, and to the other were large oak double doors, which would be the Council Chamber. This was strictly out-of-bounds, except for twenty minutes in a resident’s life: This was where they held the Ishihara.

  I helped myself to some porridge and a bread roll with a regulation scoop of marmalade, then sat down opposite Tommo at one of the red-hued tables. The room was relatively empty as the early shift Greys would already have eaten, and most Chromatics rarely bothered to get out of bed unless it was their turn to do Boundary Patrol or something. I noticed Jane finishing her breakfast, but she didn’t look in my direction. Tommo was there, he told me, to keep me from falling into good company.

  “Travis wasn’t found,” I said.

  “He will be. Listen, are you going to pull a night stunt like that again? It makes the rest of us look bad when someone does something pointlessly worthy.”

  “What if it had been you?” I returned, and Tommo simply shrugged.

  “Tell me,” I said, “is there anyone living in our house except us? On the top floor, I mean.”

  Tommo looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

  “You mean aside from the one we can’t talk about?”

  I nodded.

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “I thought I heard noises.”

  But Tommo was no longer paying attention. He had pulled out a comb with lamentably few teeth and was hurriedly making himself look presentable.

  “Spot check?” I asked.

  “More important than that. Do me a favor, would you? Try to make yourself as unattractive as possible. It won’t be hard, I know—but do your best, hey?”

  “What?”

  “That,” he said, indicating a girl who had just walked in, “is the Lucy Ochre I was telling you about. Each time I see her she’s more gorgeous. But you know what I like most?”

  “Her sense of humor in agreeing to see you?”

  “No. Despite her father’s wholesale theft of village property, no charges were ever brought. She must be sitting on a fortune. And when you’re married, it’s share and share alike.”

  “You’re just a huge romantic at heart, aren’t you?”

  “If there’s cash involved, I’m anything you want me to be.”

  I shook my head sadly, and switched my attention to Lucy, the daughter of the previous swatchman. She had long, wavy hair, was petite and pale and was looking around in a mildly confused manner. Dad and I had seen her the day before holding a pendulum down by the bridge. As soon as she looked in our direction Tommo waved, and she walked over in an unsteady manner.

  “Hello, Timmo,” she said, sitting down.

  “It’s Tommo, actually,” he corrected. “I thought you might like to sit with us, my dove.”

  She stared at me for a moment.

  “I could kill for a cup of tea.”

  Tommo took the hint and dashed off.

  “He wants to marry me,” she said, leaning on the tabletop for support and looking not at me, but just above my left eyebrow, “and Mother’s given me a free choice in the matte
r. Do you think I should?”

  “He thinks you have money.”

  She gave out a snort.

  “We don’t have a bean.”

  “Then probably not. I’m Eddie Russett, by the way.”

  “The swatchman’s son?”

  “That’s me.”

  “You’re quite handsome—I like your nose especially.”

  “It was a birthday present.”

  “What else of interest did they give you?”

  I decided to change the subject as she was being a little too forward.

  “Tommo said you were searching for harmonic pathways.”

  “The earth is awash with silent musical energy,” she replied in a dramatic tone, “in the rocks and ground, heath and fields. E-flat, if you’re interested, but high up the scale, so impossible to hear. It’s like an energy-bearing harmonic zephyr that channels along certain pathways, moving my pendulum as a breeze stirs wind chimes—an energy that binds all things together as one—a Harmony of the Spheres.”

  I said nothing, which was probably quite revealing.

  “I know,” she said with a sigh, running a hand through her hair. “That’s what everyone thinks. Would you like to give me a spoon?”

  I started, taken aback at her forthright suggestion.

  “Well, no, yes, I mean, that is to say—I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “Dessert, soup, bouillon or tea—I don’t care which. From Rusty Hill. You are going there, I think?”

  “Oh, a spoon. I thought you meant—”

  “That I wanted to buy some youknow? Come on, Eddie, you’re not that handsome. But while we’re on the subject, are you any good at kissing? I need someone to practice with, and you look like you could do with the cash. If we cut Tommo out of the equation, we can save a small fortune.”