The junk looked somehow ominous in the flickering light of the single torch - twisted corpses of an unknown catastrophe from a long forgotten past. It had been easier to ignore their significance while he was still focused on figuring out that laser gun, but Burke forced himself to ignore the piles of decayed artifacts once more; he was here for the gun, not for haunted house thrills.
He had told the truth when Zana had asked him about the weapon - it wasn't functional yet. But it was more functional than before, and he couldn't risk Gres figuring out how the parts fit together and then reverse engineering a whole arsenal of them. Burke fleetingly imagined the HLF coming down from the hills, beams of colored light darting through the morning mist, making short work of a village... or a town.
He didn't want to have that scenario on his conscience.
A sharp pain stabbed through the thin sole of his moccasin, and Burke yelped, more from annoyance than agony. "Could've cleaned this room before they sent me down to build their armory," he muttered and bent down to pick up the culprit.
It was a chess piece, and the sight of the little horse head let his irritation melt away. How many centuries had it been buried under all this junk? Burke wondered whose hand had played this Knight's last game. Had they won?
"They should've," he murmured. "You're a white Knight, after all. Like Katlin."
If anyone deserved to win this war, it was her. Maybe he should give it to her as a good luck charm, although she wouldn't understand the significance. But maybe she'd think of him when she'd see it, or touch it in her pocket...
Why should she want to remember him? He was just some random guy who had been sent to get Lora back into the prefect's hands, and then persuaded her to mutiny against her rebel leader. He had made her life more difficult. She'd have no reason to even accept that piece of junk.
Burke weighed it in his hand, half determined to throw it back into the darkness, where it belonged: a lone, useless token, a witness of mankind's failure. A thing of the past that didn't belong into this world anymore.
Like him.
He wondered why she had kissed him; he hoped that it hadn't been just her nerves. Standing in the middle of his world's corroded remains, Burke admitted to himself that he'd like to kiss her again; but more than that, he wanted to tell her about his world. What it had been like, before it went to hell.
He pocketed the Knight. If she didn't take it, he'd at least know...
... this was stupid. They wouldn't see each other again anyway, provided they both survived this night.
But he didn't take the Knight out of his pocket again. He'd decide about it later, after he had taken care of the gun.
An icy prickle wandered down his back when he bent down to his makeshift workbench to retrieve the gun: it wasn't there. He dug hastily through the surrounding junk.
"No need to worry - I got it."
Burke froze, his heart rate jumping up to a frenzy beat. Slowly, he rose and turned around.
Kuma stood in the door, the gun trained on Burke's chest. He hadn't flipped the switch yet - the weapon was silent. Burke tried to calculate his odds.
There was a distinct possibility that the gun wouldn't do anything when Kuma tried to fire it; or it could overload from a feedback loop and blow his hand off, or at least damage it, giving Burke an opportunity to escape.
Or he could get really lucky and the thing would fire one good shot. Beam. Whatever. Burke wasn't keen on finding out. He slowly lifted his hands. "Careful, buddy - that's not a banana."
Kuma didn't change his pose, still leaning casually against the door frame. "I told Gres you'd need closer supervision. Such a shame he didn't believe me." He gestured with the weapon to the piles of machinery behind Burke. "You could've made yourself really useful. Instead you're just another piece of junk."
"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be watching ape porn in some corridor?" Burke felt sweat running down his armpits. Keep him talking, and perhaps Katlin would realize something was amiss, when she came to the storage room, and he wasn't there...
"A little red bird told me." Kuma's smile widened as he watched Burke's face. "She and I - we're really close, know what I mean?"
"Yeah right," Burke said in a strained voice, "I could feel the love when she told you to fuck off." He didn't believe the ape. No way she'd do that...
Would she?
"Now I'd have loved to try out this thing on you," Kuma sighed, "but Gres wants it first. He's the leader, so he has first dibs." He stepped back into the corridor and waved for Burke to come over to him.
"Time to meet your friends. I'm sure they'll be happy to see you again."
"Thank you for agreeing to see me." Galen took a moment to let his gaze wander over Aken's desk, noting the neat stack of scrolls in one corner. Except for a heavy stone ashtray, the rest of the surface was empty - here was a man who preferred to have all decisions made and all problems solved at sunset. It fit with his response to Gres' challenge.
Galen realized that he intended to wrest a concession from Aken that ran counter to the prefect's temperament: delay Alan's execution, reconsider the wisdom of his strategy. He suppressed a sigh; most probably, the length of the delay would equal the length of this conversation.
"I'm merely satisfying my curiosity," Aken said, ostensibly engrossed in the process of packing his pipe. He gestured at the seat across his desk without looking up. Galen obediently sat down and waited for the prefect to acknowledge him.
By now, both Galen and Aken knew that Gres wouldn't let Lora go; but contrary to Aken, Galen was still sure that Peet would find a way to bring her home... her and Zana. It would have been difficult to keep to Aken's tight deadline even under the best circumstances, but now, with Peet being forced to use either stealth or force to get the women out, it would be impossible.
Galen suspected that this fact wasn't entirely unwelcome to Aken, and once again, he wondered about the prefect's relationship with his niece. This degree of callousness for the sake of political advancement wasn't unheard of back in the City, but he hadn't expected to find it here.
Aken had finished stuffing his pipe and was now laboriously lighting it. When he had succeeded in puffing a cloud of blue smoke, he finally squinted at Galen. "So?"
Galen smiled faintly. "I was wondering when you'd set a date for my trial, Prefect, and, and about your choice of legal counsel for me. It may have escaped your attention, with all the excitement going on on the main square, but I haven't met my lawyer yet."
Aken said nothing for a moment, regarding him steadily through the drifting smoke. "Your human will provide the next 'excitement on the main square' before it's your turn, so there's no need to hurry me - you'll get your counsel in due time." He leaned across the desk to reach for a bell to call the guard, but stilled when Galen held up a hand.
"Actually, that's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about," Galen said, still in his most gentle, most polite voice. "Since I studied the law before I decided to take over my father's business," he was still posing as Yuma, not-quite-successful businessman, "I'm capable to represent myself at court, and in that capacity, I'd like to see the evidence for my alleged crimes."
Aken raised his brow. "Evidence? My officers caught you in the company of the rebels, in one of their dens. Any court will see this as sufficient evidence of your complicity, more than sufficient - how else would you know of their hiding holes?"
"I told you, they had taken us prisoner just moments before," Galen repeated tiredly. "By the same logic, we are in your employ simply by virtue of enjoying the amenities of your jail right now. I assure you, you'll need more than just our proximity to your rebels to convince a proper court. Which means you better come up with some actual, solid evidence of our involvement, and that includes," he held up a hand when Aken opened his mouth, "evidence against my human."
The prefect frowned. "Evidence against the human? I told you we don't bring them to trial - they're put down like the dangerous animals they are. When a rabid fox starts raiding your henhouse, you kill it. When a horse gets ill-tempered and tries to trample its rider, you kill it. And when a human starts attacking our citizens, you kill it. There's nothing to review here."
"Your examples are quite interesting," Galen said, fighting to keep his revulsion from showing on his face. "A fox is a wild animal without an owner. It's the right of the owner of the henhouse to protect their property against it; but a horse has an owner - if it becomes a menace to its rider, it's the owner's right to dispose of it; and when the horse tramples another ape, it's still the owner who is held responsible, not the horse, since he horse can't commit a crime.
"That is the same argument that's being made against humans: they have no soul, and so have neither an independent will, nor the ethical capacity to realize the wrongness of their actions. They cannot exist independently, but only as property of an ape, which means that you can't just kill my human without my consent; that's theft."
Aken grinned. "An almost-lawyer, huh? Well, if your horse tramples another ape, you're obliged to pay for the damage, that's right. But the prefect can still decide that your horse is a danger to the community and has to be put down."
"Yes," Galen conceded amicably, "the owner has to pay compensation to the injured party - which is why you can't just claim that your damage has been caused by that horse without providing evidence."
Aken stared at him. Galen calmly returned his gaze. They were back at the question of evidence. Aken didn't have it; Galen knew that he didn't; and Aken knew that he knew. On the other hand, the prefect had all the power. Still, from what Galen had been able to learn, the Chimpanzee was still trying to uphold the law. It was an interesting situation.
He just wished he wasn't the involved party.
Aken sniffed. "You know that this isn't the majority opinion among the scholars. I won't claim to be one of them, or even a lawyer, but I know that when a human attacks an ape, we kill it to make an example of it to its herd... to discourage rebelliousness. They may lack souls, but they're smart enough to draw conclusions from the fate of that individual. And I'm willing to compensate you for your loss - if you don't hang for being a member of a terrorist organization, that is."
Galen decided to ignore that threat. "So you admit that this has nothing to do with the law, or impartiality, or justice, and everything with political convenience?" He gestured towards the flag of the district that was proudly displayed on the wall behind Aken. "What happened to 'Uphold the Law'?"
"The Law is for apes," Aken said tersely. "Humans aren't subjects of law - they're objects. And no matter what you, or Dolan, or the other human-lovers think about it, I'm perfectly within my right to bash your creature's head in."
"Are you?" Galen made his voice as frosty as he felt. "Are you sure you aren't defrauding me of my property in order to serve your political agenda? You have a problem with your humans' discipline on your hands, that much is plain to see for everyone."
Aken opened his mouth, but Galen ploughed on. "I wonder what the Central Council would decide if I took this matter to them. If they would identify a dangerous precedent of prefects effectively dispossessing citizens of their property for purely personal reasons. I'm sure this will go over well with business owners in the southern districts especially-"
Aken growled.
The men stared at each other over the desk, a vast, empty plain. Galen kept his palms resting motionlessly on his thighs and his face carefully neutral. If Aken called his bluff, took him up on his challenge, and referred his and Alan's case back to the City, they'd be both dead the moment they crossed the gates.
"There's no need to appeal to the High Council." Aken rose, and Galen rose with him, knowing he was dismissed. "This case is unique enough that none of our esteemed businessmen has to worry about their chattle." He rang for Mika and gave Galen a wry smile. "It's a shame that I'll have to kill you, Yuma - I'd have loved to play tiska against you. I'm sure it would've been an interesting game."
Galen bowed. "It seems to me that you're already playing an exciting game against Gres, but from here it looks as if he has all your tiles, and blocked all your paths, Prefect. There's still time to reconsider your strategy."
But his plea just earned him a stony glare. With a tiny sigh, Galen turned to follow his guard back to his cell. He was already halfway out of the door when the prefect called on him.
"Don't worry about the evidence, Yuma." Aken relit his pipe. "I'll find all the evidence I need. I always do."