Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [31]
Gabriel opened his eyes, and saw the three men looking at him with a blend of puzzlement, disbelief, and distaste. Some personal shades of disapproval, however, had been added to their looks. Wynne seemed particularly disgusted, while Playfair’s eyes reflected a very light streak of irony. As to the nameless man in the cape, he seemed somewhat furious, and maybe slightly vexed.
Gabriel was careful to wake up slowly and pretended not to remember anything. He was himself a bit ashamed by what he had come up with.
“What happened?” he asked after a moment, while Playfair pretended with not much conviction to feel his pulse and check his pupils.
“It happened that you had a fainting spell in the waiting room and were brought here,” he explained.
“We have probably detained you too long, so we will let you go now, Mr. d’Allier, hoping that it has not caused you too much discomfort,” Wynne added with a chilly courtesy. “Do you want us to call you a taxsleigh?”
“Oh no. I’m fine,” said Gabriel. “I will walk a little. The air will do me good.”
He rose to his feet, uncertain as a young foal.
“You seem to need exactly that. I suppose you know the way back,” said Playfair.
“I certainly do,” said Gabriel.
But he did not head toward the exit.
CHAPTER IX
The Arctic Eden
Unnipped by daintiest frosts, in every field Flowers crowded thick; and trees, not tall nor rude With slender stems upholding feathery shade, Nodded their heads and hung their pliant limbs In natural bowers, sweet with delicious gloom.
Anon., The Arctic Queen
The first thing Brentford saw when he walked out of Yukiguni was the chaos around the Toadstool: dozens of reluctant bohemians being pushed into ambulance aerosleds by neat but inexorable Gentlemen of the Night cutting sturdy black silhouettes against the headlights and casting shadows long enough to reach him. Protests were muffled, reduced by the distance and the cold to disapproving cartoon balloons of vapour. Brentford restrained his impulse to intervene, deeming it wiser to stay clear of the mayhem and go home. Still, he worried about the increasing number of troubles caused by the Council itself.
Up to now it had been a tenet of New Venice that there should be no uniformed police force and that the plainclothes force must be almost invisible. For reasons he strove to understand, this sound utopian principle had recently started to tilt a little, then a little more, to the point where there was now a distinct trend toward the harassment of certain categories of citizens, such as the bohemians, who were usually too busy or too lazy to create trouble outside their own bodies and brains. Not to mention that the already subtle borderline separating a plainclothes policeman from a provocateur had on more than one occasion become rather blurred.
It seemed as if this unfortunate turn of events was what had summoned forth the black airship that Brentford now saw as he crossed Bears Bridge, floating overhead in a miniature elliptical eclipse that gave the moon a certain disquieting wink. Perhaps it was some foreign threat, or some panopticon watch keeping the Gentlemen of the Night incredibly well informed of what happened below; either way, it was anything but reassuring. When you added to the equation the Inuit Independentists and the recent tupilaat invasion, you had an overall atmosphere akin to what the Alaskan Inuit called, if Brentford remembered correctly, the Qarrtsiluni—the moment spent waiting in the dark for something to explode.
Brentford, leaving the bridge and its sculpted bears, reached the Arctic Administration Building and headed toward the Botanical Building, further on the right. Its lights were turned down, and the glass-and-metal structure loomed large and mysterious. One could sense the life inside, the silent but stubborn relentless growth that had a strength of its own that Brentford had come to appreciate. He was walking to the back door, his own keys in hand, when