Titan Song Dan Stout (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

mixture of notes, transcriptions, nonsense rhymes, and flower doodles. I had hours of work ahead of me. I dragged a hand over my face, and allowed myself a fleeting moment of regret for not stopping for caffeine. Rumple strolled over, sliding against my leg and letting out his normal after-dinner purr of thanks. I ruffled the fur along his back, then I got to work on the tapes.

Heidelbrecht eventually mentioned that the geo-vents could be an escape route, especially closer to the Mount, where the main vent trunks are larger. I thought back to his sudden disappearance when I’d confronted him previously. Was that how he’d escaped me? The man was a worm who always managed to wiggle free of the hook at the last minute.

I kept flipping through the notes as I listened along. Vandie had seemed equally bored with the bulk of the recordings, as all sorts of abstract scribbles filled the margins. Flowers and lightning bolts and long series of Ls and Us, Ds and Rs forming a decorative border. On one page she’d even broken into a bad poem. Laughing Larry Doesn’t Rightly Realize Doing Little . . . it went on. But for all the nonsense, the transcriptions were carefully picked over, often with notes in multiple colors of ink, indicating she’d returned to it over and over.

On the third reel, I found the information I needed.

“It is my esteemed opinion,” Heidelbrecht spouted off, “that the heating system of Titanshade could effectively be turned on or off, or readjusted as one saw fit, by controlling three key locales. It would be possible to form a corporate business entity that could serve as the central heating energy conduit for the entire city. Millions would pay monthly fees for access to the heat source, and if they were late,” a muffled finger snap was audible, “they’d experience the true nature of this horrendous climate. Should you be interested in such a project, I would be delighted to write up a proposal at my usual rate . . .” I clamped a hand over my mouth as he went into another sales pitch. The thought of abusing the geo-vents that way was sickening, both taboo socially and morally repugnant.

Something warm and furry pushed across my calf. Rumple, either sensing my discomfort or hoping for a snack. I felt along the floor, and turned up a green and white sparkly cat toy to distract him.

I put myself in Vandie’s place, tried to imagine what she’d thought when she realized that her dream of revolutionizing the warmth distribution system already had an answer, discovered by the same madman who’d aided her uncle. But he wanted to use it to bleed the city’s poor. I made myself feel the pulse of adrenaline she’d have experienced. I imagined her thrilling to the sheer audacity of Heidelbrecht’s vision, and a tingle as she pondered the bleak evilness that made it forbidden fruit.

I dangled the toy in front of Rumple. “No interest, huh?” I tossed it into the shoebox where the rest of Rumple’s rejected toys lived. He strolled to the box, tail raised in a lazy S-curve, and sniffed.

Sitting back, I considered what I was learning. Was it the idea of a central heating system that had reeled Vandie in? For someone who conceived of herself as a righteous crusader for a new generation, greed seemed like an awfully pedestrian motive. I pulled off one of my shoes to get at an itch, half-listening to Heidelbrecht go on about various rock formations and how they might amplify or dampen the reach of manna bonds, and tried to picture Vandie Cedrow sitting at her desk, furiously copying notes, rewinding, copying more. What did you want, Vandie?

Rumple emerged from the box with a plastic ring I’d popped off a milk container. He trotted over, and dropped it at my feet. I remembered one of Vandie’s bumper stickers plastered on the side of the desk: Spread the Wealth, Spread the Warmth, Spread the LOVE!

Love was ambiguous, and Vandie didn’t seem to have much in the way of personal wealth to spread. But the warmth? I scratched my foot and thought on it. What if Vandie literally wanted to spread the warmth of the geo-vents? What if she believed that Heidelbrecht’s research could allow her to bring the warmth of the Titan’s suffering to everyone in equal measure? It was a chance to create change on a massive scale.

I jumped up and began pacing, kicking off the other shoe as I went. “You’d need money to do that,” I muttered. “Lots of money. And enough knowhow to access the vents.” I paused, then ran back to the notes, flipping through them again. She had the clues from Heidelbrecht, and she had connections with people like Murphy CaDell who knew drilling and logistics. She was, without a doubt, in a position to start digging in the precious ground beneath our feet.

I winced at the thought. The one thing you couldn’t do in Titanshade was damage the geo-vents. Still . . .

Vandie must have been overcome with excitement as she listened to the tapes. Heidelbrecht was making the case that not only was it possible to follow the geo-vents to their source, he was claiming that he’d actually done so. Or almost. He would have if it weren’t for that meddling previous employer and their conservative stance. I imagined Vandie’s rage at that unknown employer, who had snuffed out the very equality of warmth Vandie believed in so much. Of course, I had a good guess as to who that person was. The only other person I knew of in Titanshade who’d employed Heidelbrecht. Ambassador Paulus.

And that would explain the bodies in the vents. They were clearly tied to Paulus, and they were clearly related to the experiments that created Gellica. Rumple chirped, irritated that I’d lost track of our game.

“Let’s assume,” I told him, “that Vandie planted the badge. She saw the bodies, and Paulus’s ID. She’d have realized Paulus was Heidelbrecht’s previous employer.” I rotated the