SBMS129
We didn't catch up with the rest of the convoy until Gustavbank, which gave me plenty of time to argue with Cup Cake, another pony I had been neglecting in favour of Uncle Blade and his fiddling with the artifacts.
"What exactly are you doing with a network, little miss prisoner?"
"A girl needs a hobby, doesn't she?"
"I thought baking was your hobby."
"Heresy! Baking is an avocation, not a mere hobby! Baking is life!"
I got the chance to roll my eyes right back at the pudgy little baker. My leg was barely twinging, but I could tell that I'd be hurting by the time we hit the Palisades. "Fine. So how is it that somepony's been letting you recruit agents right under our noses? You're still technically under Company parole, aren't you?"
"Oh, really, 'agents'. We like to call them 'sources'. Agents sounds so… active. If you run around asking questions yourself, you get arrested by paranoid local townfolk convinced you're working for blood-thirsty warlocks or necromancers planning to sacrifice the town fathers to Grogar the Undying."
"Well, you'd know about that, wouldn't you."
She stuck her tongue out at me. "Really, don't ya know? No, better to recruit sources to sit around and wait for stories to fall into their laps. And for other spooks to come along and try and recruit them. Which is how I found this guy. He started buying my bought ponies."
"Where the hay did you get deniers to pay for sources? I didn't think we paid you anything."
"Oh, it's part of my funding from home. It makes them feel like I'm not burnt if I'm still drawing on my funding and building source networks. I worked it out with Dancing Shadows. Also, she started funding my network direct from her intelligence-investment fund. No point in duplicated efforts, after all."
She paused a second, and then said, "Well, there is a point to duplicated effort, but it has to be deliberate duplication. I like to recruit twice in any situation, the first told that they're to get their stipend, but if somepony else tries to hire their awareness, they're obliged to report it first thing. Then I recruit a second pony, and tell them to keep an ear out, but also an eye for the first source, whom they know is a source. If they see the first source approached by a third party, they're to report the contact. If the first source doesn't report her contact, and the second source outs her, the second source gets both stipends, and the first is burned. The first source is informed that she's not alone, but has no idea who the second source is, just that they'll report any contacts, and if there aren't two reports of any recruiting contact, their stipend is gone. But also, if they report a contact, and the second source doesn't report the contact as well, well, the first cashes in both stipends."
"Isn't that a recipe for paranoia?"
"I stole the idea from a multi-level marketing outfit that my aunties got tangled up in when I was a filly. Those ponies are evil, I tell you what."
"Am I hearing you right, and you're running our intelligence network now?"
"Well, parts of it, anyways. A filly's gotta keep busy."
"You're not supposed to be out and about by your parole, aren't you?"
"Oh, Dancing Shadows has let up on that a bit. Enough to get out and around in the local districts. I miss Carrot when I'm gone, but they say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I shouldn't make him feel he can take me for granted, you know? So, road trips. And sometimes he can travel with me. Gerlach's ponies know where we're going, and can retrieve Carrot easily enough if you need the standard-bearer to kill somepony important."
"You know, we're languishing in darkest ignorance right now on the Imperial front. Bragging about running the intelligence network might not be the smartest move. Why shouldn't I suspect you of slacking off? We need to know how they're going to jump."
"Well, I did say part of the network. I can't get all that far with this parole business. No further than Pepin City or the little towns up on the plateau. This damned sugar shortage gives me all sorts of excuses to go gallivanting about the province, that's for sure. Nopony's got anything refined. Damnedest thing. I'm starting to suspect hoarding somewhere up the supply chains."
"One of the reasons we're going up to the Palisades is to see if we can't shake the Imperial-tree, see why they're not reacting to all of these exterminated liches."
"Any news you get up there, ought to be redundant to my sources in the plateau."
"There's supposed to be militia officers from every province in the northlands, somepony should have heard something, shouldn't they?"
"You'd think, but far as I can tell, the Imperials think of militia as mushrooms at best, and mushroom-manure at worst."
"Kept in the dark, fed bullshit?"
"Bullshit is premium militia-feed. They're lucky if they get squirrel-shit."
"On the actual subject here, who the hell is our Earth Listens working for? Is that his actual name?"
"On that last question, oh, probably. It has the ring of a proper pony name. Especially one with a sneaky mark like that, a proper spook mark he has. Some of the ponies in this world, they have no idea how to be subtle. Spies with spook marks, soldiers with blood and blades on their flanks, really! Nopony knows how to tack close to the winds of destiny around these parts."
"Who is he reporting to, Cup Cake?"
"Oh, I have no idea. Well, I do have one. He didn't recognize the Equestrian codes, he isn't a sign that my controllers have lost faith in me. I'm pretty sure. I think. That accent of his is too perfect, though. Practiced. He isn't Rimean. Building a comprehensive sources network in Pepin, though? Too extensive to be commercial, I don't think. Business-ponies are too cheap to buy in bulk like that. He's got funding, that's clear. The Duc's too cash-poor to be building his own early-detection network, and supposedly I'd be hearing from Dancing if the ducal court was setting something up. We're gonna look like a bunch of fools if it turns out to be that, though, dontcha think?" She grinned, looking a little strained at the idea.
"So, what, Imperials or White Rose?"
"My guess, yeah. I'm kinda hoping Imperials. Might open up another line of communication. We've got that gormless engineer of the Bride's, but nopony tells him anything. His letters are duller than my Aunt Maple's gossip-sessions with her cronies. Barely worth steaming open."
The humble walled compound of the caribous on Gustavbank came into view, ending our conversation. Visible just ahead, on the great causeway beyond that settlement, was the rest of Brass Tone's convoy. The dying sun's last rays lit up each wagon like silver beads on the Road's sable ribbon. We leaned into the traces, straining against the uphill haul, and there was no more wind for talking over spookcraft and the secrets of quiet ponies.
We arrived at Plateau Palisades in complete darkness, everypony exhausted and strained at the long haul. Even if Swing Shift had wanted to go into camp along the side of the Road, it hadn't been possible on the long causeway, so many dozens of yards above the valley floors. The convoy rearranged itself in the fortification's great marshalling-yard, a chaos that allowed our Company armspony escort to quietly unload the unconscious spy, and put him into storage. My old infirmary was now the theoretical property of a very, very part-time militia surgeon whose normal practice was up in Charred Horton. I spent more time in that facility than she did, and I was barely if ever up there. We had to dust out a quarantine room for our new involuntary guest.
Between the militia-pony conference, and the interrogation to come, I would be having a busy weekend, it seemed.
And my rear leg burned like all Tartarus, Grogar damn it.