Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

“What can I do for you, sir?” he asked in broken Adran.

“Ah, hallo!” Michel said. “Is this the Palo Herald ?”

The old man pointed above Michel’s head. Michel took a step back and made a show of reading the sign outside. He switched over to Palo, hoping he wasn’t too damn rusty to make a good impression. “Afternoon, friend. Looks like I came to the right place.” He stepped over to one of the nearby crates and unobtrusively glanced inside. “My name’s Fallon Marks and I’m an editor. A newspaper editor by trade, actually, and I’m looking for work. Just came down from Little Starland and was passing through, heard there was a newspaper in town.”

“It’s a Palo paper,” the old man said, not unkindly. “Don’t think it’s your kind of thing.”

“Well, it actually is my kind of thing. I’ve been editing a Palo newspaper up in Little Starland – the Daily Basin , you may have heard of it? – and to be honest, my friend, we ran out of funding and were forced to sell off all our equipment, wouldn’t you believe it now? I’d hoped with Landfall being a big city there might be a Palo newspaper, or the chance to start one. Just as my luck ran out I was told about you. Is this where you print the newspaper?”

“Nope,” the old man said. “Don’t think we’re hiring, either. Not a big operation. Just a few of the boys, working to spread the word of our land.”

“Understood, understood. Right you are, my friend. Times are lean and hard, don’t I know it, and to be fully honest I would work for a roof over my head and a bit of porridge in the mornings, if you catch my meaning. At least until I was able to secure some funding for a newspaper in Landfall.”

The old man tilted his head to one side, seemingly bemused. “Ain’t never heard of your…”

“The Daily Basin .”

“… Daily Basin . Didn’t know there was a Palo newspaper up in Little Starland.”

“Not anymore, I’m afraid,” Michel said with a sigh. “But you know, Landfall, I think maybe I can find some work down there. I guess I could look at the Kressian newspapers, but the Palo, well, the Palo are my passion, I’ve got to admit, don’t you know. My granddaddy on my mother’s side was a Palo and I’m proud of that.”

“Ah,” the old man said, his bemusement turning into a real smile. “Part brother, then?”

“Part brother indeed. Look, do you think you could see it in your heart to consider employment, good sir? I’d work for a roof for a few weeks, try to prove myself.”

“Not my printshop,” the old man said.

“Well, you think I could talk to the owner?”

“He’s not around now. Rarely comes out.”

“Well, could I get an address?”

“No.” The old man gave a sympathetic smile. “No one talks to the owner. I could pass him your card, if you like.”

“My card, yes! That would be perfect.” Michel searched his pockets, letting a frown grow until he came up empty-handed. “It doesn’t look like I have any on me right now. I sent my luggage on ahead to Landfall, don’t you know, and to think I didn’t keep a card on me. I could leave my cousin’s address.” Before the old man could respond, Michel snatched up a pencil and bit of paper and scribbled down the address of a Blackhat safe house, taking the opportunity to look closer at the crates of newspapers. They appeared to be just that – newspapers – most of them old and yellow, with a few recent issues on the very top. The latest was a couple of weeks old and had the words LADY FLINT BURNS FORT SAMNAN in bold letters. “Here you are, good sir, and thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.”

The old man took the paper without comment, rolling it like a cigarette and tucking it behind his ear. “Don’t hold your breath,” he said. “The big boss doesn’t like Kressians very much.”

“I understand,” Michel said, wondering not for the first time if he’d followed a cold trail. No printing equipment on the premises, just some old newspapers, with no sign of any pamphlets. An absentee owner could indicate Tampo, but the fact that he “didn’t like Kressians” suggested the owner was Palo. Michel couldn’t think of a subtle way to ask if that was the case. “Pardon me, but just out of curiosity, where do you do your writing and printing? I could always drop in there and offer to lend a hand.”

“No one’s around today,” the old man said. “Waste of time. Thanks for coming in.”

It was an obvious dismissal, and Michel took the hint and tipped his cap to the old man. “Thanks again, good sir, have a blessed day.”

He headed back out into the industrial park and took a look around, watching the Palo at work farther down the boardwalk. Most of the doors in the area were open to let air circulate and bring cargo in and out for transportation down to the keelboat landing. The only building with a closed bay door was the one immediately next to the Palo Herald . Michel checked the bay door gently to find it locked, then headed around to the back of the building to find a single door, the window blacked out, also locked.

Michel thought about jimmying the lock, but picking his way into a Palo warehouse in broad daylight seemed like a very bad idea. Instead, he went back to the street and waited until no one was looking before ducking beneath the industrial park.

Something he’d long ago learned about these towns built on stilts on the floodplain is that almost every single house had a trapdoor under it. Sometimes they were left unlocked so that no one could get trapped underneath during a flash flood. More often they were used to circulate cool air during the summer. A warehouse, he reasoned, would have several such entrances. He bent over double and picked his way through the refuse that had piled up underneath the building until he reasoned he was directly under the Palo Herald . Then he headed another fifteen feet and found a trapdoor, right where he’d expected it.

He pushed up gently. Locked.

Applying a little more pressure, he was able to get the trapdoor far enough up to see that it was blocked by a simple wooden latch. Michel drew his belt knife and slid the latch, then lifted the trapdoor to get a view inside the warehouse. It was dark and quiet, the only light coming from windows far up on the back side of the building. He listened for a few moments and then swung the door up and open, lifting himself inside.

He found himself less than three feet from a printing press. It looked like many of the others he’d seen, a loomlike contraption with two belts and a drum in the center, with a treadle on the other side to spin the belts. A machine like this could be operated relatively quietly, without attracting the type of attention that a steam press would.

Still, he wasn’t convinced he had the right place. Keeping low, ready to make a run for the trapdoor, he crept the length of the warehouse. There was a narrow stairway up to a windowed office above him, not much larger than the storefront next door, and he found a second printing press. This one had a slightly different design, with what looked like some sort of a fold-and-thread mechanism – the exact sort of thing needed to print and bind a pamphlet. He turned his attention away from the printer and checked the nearest crates, going so far as to pry the lids off several using his knife and making far more noise than he was comfortable with.

It was on his fourth crate, just as he was beginning to think he had the wrong place, that he pried the lid to reveal a whole stack of Sins of Empire .

“Damn it all, Michel, you might make yourself an investigator yet.”

“Careful,” he whispered back at himself. “We’re not out of this. You’ve got to set up a sting to catch Tampo. If he doesn’t come down here much we might not be able to catch him quickly.”