文章简介

《The Strange Demise Of Titus Endor》

作者：[英]Dan Abnett（科幻战争）【完结】

Synopsis (英文书籍文案)

The city was a hollow, failing place that was trying to turn its fortunes around, so it was apt that Titus Endor should wash up there. He’d long since lost the lustre that had made him one of the ordo’s rising stars. Like a counterfeit coin, his value had been exposed as short weight. None of it had been his fault, just circumstances.

THE CITY WAS a hollow, failing place that was trying to turn its fortunes around, so it was apt that Titus

Endor should wash up there. He’d long since lost the lustre that had made him one of the ordo’s rising

stars. Like a counterfeit coin, his value had been exposed as short weight. None of it had been his fault,

just circumstances.

Titus Endor took another drink, and reflected that life could be worse.

IT HAD SEEMED to have been winter for two or three years. Snow fell all the time, but the city streets

were so warm and busy, nothing lay for long. Slush filled the gutters, and the edges of the kerbs were

crusted with polished deposits of old grey ice. Tiny snowflakes freighted the air, caught in the streetlights.

They drifted like random thoughts, or disconnected clues.

THE CITY’S NAME was Marisberg. Or perhaps it was Chericoberg, or Zsammstadd? They were all alike,

the brute towns clinging to the oily edge of Karoscura’s western continent. The drifting clues had dragged

him from one conurbation to the next, from one drab residentiary to another, and they all blurred into one:

the same streets, the same sallow faces in the street lights, the same bars and dining halls, the same smell

of wet rockcrete, the same snow. He walked alone, after hours, ate alone in eating rooms where the

other tables were stacked with chairs, made calls and asked questions, and reviewed the notes he’d

scribbled in his copy books.

There were a lot of copy books. He disliked dataslates, and never threw his papers away. They

formed the bulk of his luggage. He always made sure he had a spare crown or two to tip the next poor

concierge confronted with the task of lugging his possessions from the street to a newly rented room.

Gonrad Maliko had been a professor of ethnic diversity at Sarum, specialising in taboos and stratified

eating. Endor had a potted biography of him written out in one of the copy books. In another, a

green-covered book marked 435, were the case notes of Maliko’s crime, a shameless affront on Eustis

Majoris involving eleven sub-adult males.

Endor had almost snared Maliko in the arctic city of Cazzad, but the timing had been out, and the

tip-off too vague. None of it had been his fault, just circumstances.

Titus Endor had inherited the fondness for symphonic music from his first master, the late Hapshant.

Hapshant had been a real character. Installed at a bar, in the late evening, a glass in his hand, Endor

would riff tirelessly about Hapshant. ‘Believe you me, a real character,’ he would say to his conversation

partner, usually the barman, or any solitary drinker with a spare seat beside him. ‘Mad as a fiddle, in the

end,’ Endor always added, tapping his brow, ‘worms in the head, you see.’

Endor remembered the days, a long time ago, when he would patiently wind up the old voxcordian

Hapshant took with him wherever he went, to play some old wax disc of crackling symphonic music to

help his master think. Endor had been Hapshant’s pupil, Hapshant’s brightest pupil. As an interrogator,

he had served Hapshant right up to the end of the great man’s life. There had been two of them, actually,

two interrogators, Titus and his friend Gregor. Tight, they’d been, best friends in service and out. Titus,

though, had always been the one with a luminous future, because Gregor was too serious and charmless.

They had both become inquisitors, and stayed friends. Until, that is, an unfortunate business some years

before, a misunderstanding that Gregor had not seen fit to overlook. None of it had been Endor’s fault

just circumstances.

HIS FONDNESS FOR the classical repertoire had come from Hapshant. Attending the performances at

Marisberg’s Theatricala was therefore not a drudge for Titus Endor. He would arrive at the great, gilded

palace, its high windows lit by a thousand yellow globes, brush the snow off his shoulders and take a

drink in the bar before the start of the performance. The grandees would come and go, in their frock

coats and silk scarves, their gowns and tires, and he’d watch them professionally. Sometimes his copy

book would come out of his coat pocket, and he’d scribble a note or two.

The auditorium was painted crimson, with scarlet upholstery and gold woodwork. When the house

lights came down, it was like being seated in the ventricle of a heart, a red cavity pumping with sound. He

sat in the stalls, never in the same seat. His folded programme and his rented opera glasses lay in his lap.

Maliko’s contact had the use of a private box, to the left of the stage. Endor watched it, night after

night, seeing through his glasses the faint brass gleam of the inhabitant’s own opera glasses in the dark

balcony as they caught the stage light.

He identified the box: number 435. No matter how early he rose from his seat and went to the street

door, he never managed to catch the occupants of 435 leaving the Theatricala. This rankled with him,

though it was never his fault, just circumstances.

Liebstrum, his interrogator, had been missing for several days. Endor had sent Liebstrum to the

palace of records in Zsammstadd to collate material on Maliko and his associates. The man was

overdue, probably padding out his task so that he could waste time in the stews of Zsammstadd, on

expenses. Endor had thought Liebstrum a promising candidate when he’d first met him, but lately he’d

begun to fancy that Liebstrum was an idler, with no appetite for the hard work the ordo demanded. He

wondered if he’d ever find himself signing the paperwork approving Liebstrum’s advancement to full

rosette. He doubted it.

The orchestra began the overture, a great swirl of busy strings and strident horns. Zoramer’s Oration

, one of Hapshant’s favourite works. Endor settled back, and glanced from time to time at the private

box, noting the occasional flash and glimmer of raised opera glasses, the only hint of habitation.

His head ached. The volume of the music didn’t help. His head had ached a lot recently, and Endor

put that down to the damnable climate he had been forced to endure in the prosecution of the Maliko

case.

The stage was bathed in a limed light from directional lamps. As the red curtains spurred back, the

dancers came out, performing in front of a hololithic drop of mountains and coppiced woods, in which

dwelt a ruined temple or two, halcyon and timeless.

The woodwind section woke up with vigour, and the gauzy dancers swirled, soft and white as snow

flakes. One took his attention immediately. Slender, she soared, faultless in her footwork, her arms

expressive and immaculate. Her hair was drawn back tightly in a bun, and her face was as implacable as

a death mask, powdered white like ivory, with cheek bones that aspired to the perfection of

mathematical symmetry.

Endor moved his glasses away from her powerful, springing thighs, and watched the private box.

Light on brass. Other eyes were watching her too.

AFTER THE PERFORMANCE, he took himself to a bar on Zeik Street, a bright, sparkling hall of mirrors and

crystal chandeliers. It was bustling with patrons from the Theatricala.

‘Your pleasure, master?’ asked the uniformed barman.

‘Grain joiliq, with shaved ice, and a sliver of citrus,’ Endor requested. It had been his favourite tipple

since the early days, since that place off Zansiple Street where he and Gregor had gone to wash away the

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day’s efforts. The Thirsty Eagle. Yes, that was it, The Thirsty Eagle. Ah, how the memories eroded.

His drink arrived, served on a paper mat. The joiliq was substandard, and too warm. The ice had

melted prematurely, and left the citrus wind adrift in a disappointing floe.

He drank it anyway and ordered another. His headache had eased.

The room was full of loud voices and busy discussion. He thought about calling Liebstrum, but didn’t

want to endure the impotence of another recorded message.

He ordered a third drink, and sat back on his stool to survey the room. Almost everyone was male,

dressed in dapper evening wear. There was something rambunctious and fraternal about the gathering,

like a coterie of men drawn together in some exclusive club. They roared at one another’s jokes, and

slapped one another’s backs. The few women present were wives or courtesans, and acted like

magnets, pulling crowds of attentive males in around them.

Karoscura needs women , he had noted in his copy book. He had underlined it, and given the note

two exclamation points. Like many colony worlds building their economies on mineral wealth, Karoscura

had advertised for specialist workers, promising to pay travel costs and set up expenses, in order to

attract a professional labour force. Men had flooded in from all parts of the sector, drawn by the

attractive salary dividends. The womenfolk of Karoscura had been eclipsed. It was reckoned that males

now outnumbered females ten to one in the cities of the oily coast.

Endor missed female company. He’d never had any trouble in that department. In the past, his

charisma, his looks and his professional status had all combined to win him the attention of any woman

that took his eye. Karoscura was like a siege. There weren’t enough supplies to go around.

HE WENT BACK to his lodgings. Liebstrum was not there, and hadn’t called. It seemed to Endor that his

piles of copy books had been disturbed, and rearranged. He started to sort through them. Had someone

been in his room?

He woke late, bathed and shaved. He saw his reflection in the mirror. We all grow older, he told

himself. His face seemed drawn and lined, and there was a sickly pallor to it. Too much winter light, Titus

Endor told himself.

His hair had been grey for a while now. He tied it back, out of convenience. There were distinguished

scars on his face, the footnotes of a lifetime of battles. The biggest scar was on his leg, out of sight. Endor

still wore the jagged saurapt tooth on a black cord around his neck. Gregor had dug it out of him, just

after Endor had driven the beast off. Brontotaph, that had been the place, Brontotaph. How long ago

now?

They’d been good friends, the best, close like brothers, until the unfortunate business some years

before, a misunderstanding that Gregor had not seen fit to overlook. None of it had been Endor’s fault,

just circumstances.

It was sad. Endor missed his old friend. He wondered what had become of Gregor. Nothing much,

he doubted, Gregor had never promised to anything.

Looking in the mirror, Endor toyed with the tooth. According to the lore on Brontotaph, he was

damned. Even after death, a saurapt continued to stalk its prey, so the legend went, especially a prey

item that had escaped or evaded its jaws. The spirit of the saurapt was out there, tracking him. One day

it would find him at last, and strike, and balance the books.

Titus Endor laughed out loud. He saw himself laughing back at him. Plenty of ghosts stalked him, and

a bestial reptilian predator was the least of them.

An inquisitor had to be rational about such things.

He wondered where Liebstrum was.

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The tooth hung around his neck like a penance.

TITUS ENDOR PAID a man to let him into the Theatricala during the day. He prowled the upper galleries,

looking for the door to box 435. There was no box 435. The gallery halls were dressed in red velvet

carpet and scarlet wallpaper, like aortal tubes. The air smelled of stale lho-sticks. There was a 434 and a

436. His lingering fingers traced the soft red wall, hunting for a secret or concealed door.

Liebstrum had not returned. Annoyed, his mood made worse by a nagging headache, Endor sent a

damning report via courier to the ordos. In his lodgings, a glass of joiliq in his hand, he leafed back

through his copy books, trying to build some kind of pattern.

435. Gonrad Maliko. The reflected flash of opera glasses in the shadows. The girl. The girl, the

slender dancer.

HE THOUGHT ABOUT Gregor from time to time. Endor had always been the bright one, handsome,

cunning, bound for glory. Gregor had been a dutiful type, a hard worker, stolid and solid.

‘I wonder where you are now, my old friend?’ Endor asked the empty room. ‘I was always

Hapshant’s favourite, and look at the career I’ve built. What have you ever done?’

The unfortunate business still nagged at him. Endor had been put in a tough position, a damn tough

position. Several of his prior cases had been placed in review. Details had been distorted and accusations

trumped up, all of it so petty-minded and political. He’d had no choice, in the end. When the Ordo

Malleus had suggested his transfer, he’d taken it. They’d told him Gregor had been up to no good, and

that if Endor helped to set his old friend back on the straight and narrow, the case reviews would be

dropped. Endor hadn’t been spying. He had just been keeping an eye on his old friend. None of it had

been his fault, just circumstances.

HE WENT TO the next show at the Theatricala, and then to a club, and then became mixed up in a group

of Navy noncoms on shore leave. He’d followed them to the next bar, an off-street den, a dance parlour.

There were women there, in an abundance at odds with the global statistics, women a man could dance

with.

The dance was called the zendov, and it was as erotic as it was formal. The dance had evolved,

Endor was told, because of the imbalance of men and women, a street dance of the lower classes

originally popular in bordellos. Zendov allowed a man the opportunity of spending five or ten minutes

with a woman, intimately. Zendov clubs were the most popular dives on Karoscura.

He took another few drinks, and then he saw her, the girl, the slender dancer. She was standing at

the mirror-plated bar, smoking a lho-stick and contemplating her dance card. He hadn’t recognised her

at first, because she was wearing a leopardskin cloche and cape, and a gold dress, and had changed her

makeup from the fierce white of the ballet. But her posture took his eye, the balance of her legs, the

confidence in the set of her head, and he realised who he was looking at.