“I asked to be let in on the secret,” Vartas said resentfully. “To get to go, too. But she said it wasn’t allowed. Said I had to be chosen. What made you chosen, I didn’t know. I mean, when I looked at the rest of her little gang, I couldn’t see what made them so special.”
Miljin and I glanced at one another, our interest piqued.
“Gang?” I asked. “What gang is this?”
“Dunno if it was a gang, precisely,” Vartas muttered. “Just…just pals, perhaps. Friends. But they all seemed to bear some blessing from above.”
“Names,” spat Miljin. “Give us their names, damn you.”
“D-damn it all,” he stammered. “I’m a spatiast, not an engraver! I don’t keep this shit behind my eyes!” He grumbled for a moment. “Gink was friendly with three of them. Might have been more, but she and those three hung together tight.” One finger probed where his pipe had burned him on his side as he thought. “Vanduo. That was one, I think.”
I nodded. Princeps Alaus Vanduo—that was one of the dead.
“And the next…I think the name was Lapa? Lapir?”
“Lapfir?” I suggested.
“I think that was it. Maybe, yes. That was it.”
Princeps Atha Lapfir, then. Another of the dead ten.
“And the last…” Vartas frowned for a moment. “The last was…Jolgalgan. Right. That was her.”
I looked at him blankly. Then I looked at Miljin, who stared blankly back at me. This name was totally new.
“Ah…who?” I asked.
“Jolgalgan,” said Vartas again. He nodded. “That was her. Captain Kiz Jolgalgan. I remember because she was an Apoth, and no one else was.”
My eyes fluttered as I riffled among the many names I’d heard in the past day. Yet Captain Kiz Jolgalgan, I knew, was most certainly not one of the ten dead Engineers.
“You’re…you’re sure about this?” I asked. “You’re sure this person was grouped in with Loveh and the rest of the Engineers?”
“I am,” he said. He’d recovered his pride and stuck his nose in the air. “I told you I remembered, and why. Try listening.”
My thoughts danced as I turned this bit of information over. I caught Miljin’s eye, and saw a keen, burning look in his face, and knew he was thinking the same thing as me.
We have a survivor. An eleventh member of the group. Someone who went to one of these mysterious meetings—and maybe walked away.
“Describe her, then,” said Miljin. “What’d this gal look like?”
“Tall woman,” said Vartas. “Broad. Very stern, very serious. Face like she’s always sucking on a lemon seed.”
“What race was she?” Miljin asked. “Tala? Rathras? Kurmini?”
“You know…I couldn’t quite tell,” admitted Vartas. “She had a Kurmini name, but she didn’t look Kurmini. She was far too tall, and her hair was pale yellow, and tightly curled. I’ve never seen a Kurmini with hair like that.”
“What assignment did she serve under in the Apoths?” asked Miljin.
“Don’t know. I never talked to her in person. I wasn’t invited to the party,” he said bitterly.
We quizzed him further on this Jolgalgan, but he could give us little. Eventually I gave up and tried a new angle. “Did Signum Loveh bring anything back from these meetings?” I asked.
“No,” said Vartas.
“Did she bring anything to these meetings?” I asked. “Documents? Money?”
“No, but…” He frowned, thinking. “But sometimes she…she took something from her quarters on these visits. A little coin thing, it looked like. I caught her putting it in her pocket once. I asked what it was, and she said she couldn’t tell me. So I…”
“So you reckoned it was part of these meetings,” I said.
He nodded. “But that’s all I knew. I just knew the meetings, the money, the coin—and not to ask questions. When you came and brought her up, I…I worried it was some corruption. I thought she had the right to lie in peace with a clear name, and thought Commander Blas could maybe help give her cover…”
I looked him over and didn’t see any lie there. Evidently the man didn’t know.
“Commander Blas is dead,” I said.
“He…he what?” said Vartas, shocked.
“Blas is dead,” I said. “Along with all these other Engineers who went to these little secret meetings. Probably because of these secret meetings. So if there’s anything else you know, you need to tell us now.”