Tunnels 05 - Spiral

him like a ghost, his rifle at his shoulder. This was no great surprise in itself; it was general knowledge that Limiters had been drafted to stop pilfering from the penny bun fields deeper in the cavern.
    And the Limiter’s presence explained how the men had been killed with such extreme precision, but the Second Officer was still more than a little bemused by one of the deaths. It was generally known that Heraldo Walsh had been in the pay of the Styx, snooping on Colonists for them and occasionally stirring things up when it suited them. Not exactly a model citizen, Walsh had led a charmed life until this moment, getting away with far more than most Colonists because of the latitude the Styx granted him.
    “Took your time getting here,” the Limiter snarled in a low voice. The Second Officer was about to explain that he’d traveled all the way down from the Quarter, when the Limiter kicked Heraldo Walsh’s head.
    The Second Officer didn’t have much cause to deal with Limiters, and quite frankly, they terrified the living daylights out of him. He steeled himself to say something, because he would need to know all the facts for his report on the incident.
    “Although they assaulted a policeman, I don’t see any weapons on these men. Was it necessary to shoot them?”
    The Limiter snapped his head toward the Second Officer, bringing the full force of his eyes on him. They were like two points of fire set deep in the man’s grizzled and scarred face. The Second Officer was a seasoned policeman, and he’d seen some truly horrible things in his time, but now he shivered. It was as though he were peering through twin windows into hell itself.
    “It’s up to you to take care of your own,” the Limiter growled. “You weren’t here.”
    The Second Officer swallowed a “Yes,” then looked away from the soldier. He knew he should remain silent, but he continued nervously, “There’ll need to be an inquiry. We’ll move the corpses to the m —”
    “No inquiry,” the Limiter said in a voice like distant thunder, gripping his long rifle as if he were considering using it again, but this time on the Second Officer. “And you leave the corpses where they are. As an example to the rest.” In the blink of an eye he’d gone, slipping back into the shadows.
    “No inquiry,” the Second Officer muttered. So now the Styx were summarily dishing out the death penalty without any form of judicial process. He and the Third Officer exchanged glances but said nothing to each other, because it wasn’t their place to question the Styx.
    “Appalling,” the Second Officer sighed, as he stepped slowly between the bodies in their attitudes of death. Children would wake the next morning to see them covered in slugs — that’s if any stray Hunters hadn’t chewed pieces off them during the night.
    The Second Officer sent the Third Officer home to recover, then spent several hours doing the rounds between the huts. Everyone was keeping well out of sight after the incident, but from behind closed doors he caught sounds of women crying, and also the rumble of angry, dissenting voices. In a couple of the huts where the doors had been left open, eyes flashed resentfully at him as the red bowls of pipes glowed.
    The Second Officer was finally relieved by one of his colleagues and, his feet aching from all the patrolling, returned home. Letting himself quietly in lest he wake anyone at that late hour, he heard sounds coming from the kitchen.
    “Hello, Mother!” he said as he entered the steamy room, surprised to see her up.
    The old lady started, spinning around from the stove. “Oh, ’ello, son,” she said. “You must be all done in. Go and put yer feet up by the fire. Me and Eliza ’ad our dinnah, but I’ve kept yours nice ’n’ piping. You can ’ave it on your knees.”
    In the sitting room, the Second Officer lowered himself gratefully into his armchair. He glanced wearily across at Will’s spade, left in a prominent position on top of the sideboard. After they’d discovered it in the room, his mother and sister had intentionally left it on show as a reminder, almost a warning to him, following the episode with Mrs. Burrows. But it had quite the opposite effect — he was comforted to see it there. It reminded him of Celia.
    “ ’Ere you are, love,” his mother said, plonking the tray, with a massive bowl on it, in the Second Officer’s lap. He was ravenous, and eagerly snatched up the spoon and began to