Obs’rt looked again at the form.
“It's not listed.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Koldin considered constructing an answer elaborate enough to survive scrutiny.
What came out was: “Forgot.”
Obs’rt was silent. The silence lasted long enough to become its own judgment.
Then the baxxid laid the report on the desk.
“You should attempt to remember firearms in future reports.”
“Yeah.”
“Particularly firearms possessed by criminals.”
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
Obs’rt signed the form.
“Dismissed.”
Koldin turned.
“Koldin.”
He looked back.
The baxxid's artificial fingers rested upon the report.
“Was the weapon secured?”
Koldin's ears shifted by a fraction.
“Yeah.”
Obs’rt studied him.
“Good.”
Nothing more was said. Koldin left before language became less charitable.
The breakroom was warmer than the corridor and smelled of coffee, tobacco, boiled food, and the electrical heat of the televox set occupying one corner. Defort sat at a table with his own report in front of him, writing in bursts whenever the program became uninteresting.
The televox showed an old historical epic in color.
Koldin recognized the production if not the title. Everyone in the Heart had seen portions of it eventually. It had been made two decades ago. It was about something that had happened centuries ago, involving banners, cavalry, dynastic betrayal, and a battle whose actual political causes had probably been too tedious to survive adaptation.
On the screen an actor in ceremonial armor stood atop a wall with a baxxid standing at his side, addressing thousands of soldiers who had plainly been assembled from hundreds and multiplied by photographic trickery.
The broadcast had traveled an enormous distance to reach Lenkerk.
Somewhere in the Heart a transmitter sent the faces of actors outward over land and sea, through relay towers, across borders, until they arrived in this room where Defort was using the performance mainly as something to glance at between sentences.
Koldin sat across from him. Defort looked up.
“Turn yours in?”
“Yeah.”
“Obs’rt say anything?”
“Remember guns.”
Defort stopped writing, then smiled.
“You left it out?”
“Yeah.”
“Beautiful.”
“It wasn't deliberate.”
“Of course not.”
Koldin looked toward the televox. A cavalry charge had begun.
Men on animals crossed a field beneath artificial smoke while an orchestra informed the viewer that history was occurring.
Koldin watched without following.
His thoughts returned instead to the market. The man's shoulders pitching forward, the sensation traveling from his foot through his leg. The dog shrinking behind the blind yinglet, the cheap revolver opening in his hands. The homeless human saying that he had been in the service.
Koldin turned the event over in his head once more and found nothing new inside it.
Defort wrote another line.
“You thinking about your boyfriend from the market?”
Koldin looked at him.
“No.”
“The tax collector.”
“I know who you meant.”
“Think you hit him too hard?”
“No.”
“Not hard enough?”
“No.”
“Then stop thinking about him.”
Koldin continued watching the movie. Somebody was dying nobly.
“I wasn't.”
“Sure.”
The movie changed scenes.
Koldin sat for several more minutes mostly for the noise. He had reached the point in the day where remaining awake required more effort than he considered useful, but going to sleep hungry would only purchase an hour of poor rest followed by hunger.
His stomach settled the matter.
He stood.
“I’ll be at zhe Zeerover.”
Defort did not look away from his report.
“Catch you later, ying-man.”
Koldin left.
Outside the wire, Lenkerk had become another town.
Not cleaner. Not quieter. Simply darker.
Lamps hung over shopfronts. Televox light flickered through windows. Smoke collected beneath roofs and then escaped into the street. The worst of the day's heat had withdrawn, leaving behind humidity so thick that every breath seemed previously used.
The Mabuk Zeerover was crowded. Voices filled the room. Mine workers sat shoulder to shoulder at two tables. A pair of women in freight-yard clothes argued cheerfully over cards near the window. Three men occupied the counter with their backs rounded over drinks. The blue bird was gone.