M. VRIEST I; 491-C
beyond the shining and rustless walls and the fields of paradise, the clever and serpentine have made themselves anchors. but their slithers are weighted and impressed and made small by the powers and plans of others
There was a fresh stack of papers on her desk related to things she didn’t particularly care about. They were all things that required her signature, filled out by her dearest functionaries, all dressed smartly in the gray uniform of the Ministry of Preservation. They were a lot like crows, bringing her their latest shiny finds; documents on subject matters that bored her, records of menial things. They cawed and screeched at her in quiet, respectful tones, and spoke often about how pressing such matters were. She fed them in breadcrumbs of attention, nodding slowly, speaking in a tone that sounded wise and learned, thanking them for their contributions.
She had issued many of those that day, nods and well-intentioned words, receiving papers and treating them no less than gifts, only to ignore them until the end of the day. The time in between was spent enjoying the finer things her office had to offer, all done in a ritual fashion. The beauty of it all was in the details. No one thing should or could be completed before the other, it must all happen in an orchestral sequence, and every second of her time spent should follow a particular order.
It began with the press of a button. The metal blinds over her large circular window must be opened, and she must spend time standing in front of it. She must watch the ironclad towers wake at the start of her day—which began too early for many—and mix her coffee to the tune of the sleek trains and their screaming pistons. And she must especially make sure that she looks presentable in her reflection, which often required that she ignored things she found far more beautiful than herself, such as the birds in the distance and the sunshine that fell over Central and the surrounding Green. After this she would return to her desk, and open the compartment that contained her personal selection of archival toners. She would take hold of one cylinder at a time, press down, and listen to speculative histories of the world before the Cradle. Most of it was nonsensical, fantasy of the dangerous sort, restricted one way or another through layers of Ministry bureaucracy. It was only after listening to the theories of vast oceans and forests and lost empires did she begin to sort through that stack of papers that called out to her. And at the end of each day, even though it was not required of her, she read through the work of her functionaries. She inspected each detail and looked for places where something seemed amiss. There might be truths to be found, hidden from her, and hidden from her predecessors, in the inconsistencies—if there were any to be found at all. And when her day ended, she would start again, hoping that by some miracle nothing would disrupt her daily order.
A knock. “Minister Vriest?”
Click.
She pressed the top of the archival toner in her hand, forcing the recording to a sudden halt. It was dated 491-C, the current year and month, and it detailed recent findings on the origin of the spear. It had only just started to get interesting. “A moment,” she said, returning the toner to its designated space in her desk. “Come in, Grelt.”
A meek, uniformed man wearing the ashen gray of the Ministry of Preservation entered with a cylinder of his own tucked under his arm. “A message from the Exterior Retrieval Corps, Minister. It was dropped off at our office this morning.”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Hand it here.”
Grelt crossed to her desk and handed her the device.
Click
MARSHAL HEVTRA, EASTERN FRONTIER STATION, 491-B:
THIS IS A DESIGNATED MESSAGE FOR MINISTER VRIEST ON THE SUBJECT—
Click
“Grelt.” Her voice was rigid. “Why am I just now receiving this message?”
“I suppose the courier encountered difficulty returning, Minister,” he said.
“Difficulty returning,” she muttered. “Yes. That makes perfect sense. A courier who can’t deliver a timely message.”
“Minister, I didn’t mean to—”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and waved a dismissive hand. “My gripe is not with you, Grelt, but the quality of our couriers and the shortcomings of the Ministry of Communication.”
“I’ve heard that during the First Quadrant of the Year, it’s more dangerous in the Outlands. Perhaps that is why—”
“Of this, Grelt,” she looked at the toner, exhaling. “I am aware. But it is dangerous in the Outlands anyway.”
Click
—OF AN OBJECT OBTAINED DURING A REQUISITION OPERATION CONDUCTED BY THE 42nd SQUADRON OF THE EXTERIOR RETRIEVAL CORPS. UPON RETURN TO THE FRONTIER STATION, THEIR REQUISITIONS WERE EXAMINED BY PRESERVATION FUNCTIONARY WULFEN WHO DETERMINED THAT THE OBJECT IN QUESTION IS OF 1st CASTE QUALITY.
The toner fell from her hands and onto the top of her desk. Grelt reached for it and handed it back to her. She inhaled, exhaled, and placed the toner upright in front of her, and reached for a memory-free one from her desk compartment. It bore the seal of the Ministry of Preservation, and it waited for her voice.
“Grelt, I need you to listen to me very carefully,” she said, glancing up.
“Yes, Minister,” he said.
“I’ll need you to leave the room. When I am finished, I will step outside, I will hand you this toner with my seal. You will go to Fort Cauldrith and request an escort party, and you will not under any circumstances request transport through the Ministry of Communication. Tell me you understand.”
“I understand, Minister,” Grelt said.
“Good. The Exterior Retrieval Corps will provide you with safe passage to the Eastern Frontier Station, and you will deliver my message to Marshal Hevtra. You will remain there until the Marshal has drafted a response, which you will hand to me directly upon your return to the Cradle.”
The Minister stared up at him, waiting for an affirmation of some kind, but found only a shell. The blue of his eyes had dimmed to gray. Stillness and silence cloaked him, embraced him, and anchored him. Grelt could not refuse her; this they both knew. And so he was left to fester with his thoughts, to rummage through the detonation of what-ifs and could-be’s, all different combinations. Precursors of possible death, shaped and reshaped a thousand times over. The Minister knew this is what muted him and it caused her chest to twist and coil, and guiding these twists and coils was the urge to say more. To say other words that would correct the former ones, sequences of affirmations and assurances, yes, a simple phrase or sentence to gift-wrap what she was asking of him.
The Minister sat up from her chair, reached for the memory-free toner, and looked at the bottom of it—at the sigil of her office and the power it held. She tightened her knuckles around it, watched how the wrinkles formed, and listened to the sound of his fading footsteps. The door closed.
Click.