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I spent quite some time in the bar briefing Arlie and Lorny on the tasks I wanted them to do. This was accompanied by much banter and ribald humour which did not quite conceal the seriousness of the challenge we faced. I also helped to pour the girls' Champagne - I didn't drink any of it, not to my taste - and otherwise feed and entertain them. After that, I left them to their own devices and made my way back to my own little apartment. Back home, I took a long shower - it had been a long and sweaty day - wrapped myself in my favourite dressing gown and poured myself a small nightcap to top up the Scotch I had consumed at both bars I had been in tonight. I sat in my favourite armchair, the lights down low, with a notebook in my lap, and my cigarettes and matches conveniently to hand on a side table. I sat and thought for a long, long time. It was time I faced an uncomfortable, even painful truth: my brother was not really a drunk, a runaway, a ne'er-do-well who had taken refuge in a bar in the surface world. The alcoholism and the Irish leprechaun impersonation was all just an act, a cover to throw the most curious off the scent - even professionally curious types like me, or even Trinity. Nether was almost certainly an agent for the Feds. Well, perhaps a word or two of explanation might be required for some of my readers. In principle, there are still independent state governing bodies covering groups of caverns, large and small - the "Realms" of the "Lower Realms" - but nobody takes them in the least bit seriously, not even in an election year. The state legislature has become a haven for tin-pot politicians of all brands and flavours; indeed, these state institutions could have been invented just to keep that kind of interfering busybody harmlessly occupied. In reality, it is the Federal government which holds all of the reins of power in our society. Oh, of course there are a plethora of elected officials in the Senate, where there is much heated debate and politicking, but little policy is decided; most of the real control is delegated to the organs of bureaucracy. The bureaucrats really decide what happens in the Lower Realms, all of them. Amongst the legion responsibilities of the Federal bureaucracy is deciding what items of commerce can, and what can not, be exported to the upper world, and what could be imported from the surface. Of course, this includes the granting of licences to those who were permitted to undertake such businesses and the extraction of considerable customs duties from the revenues of those licensed import/export companies. Inevitably, smuggling and customs duty evasion was widespread, leading to a thriving black market. The Federal customs authorities had plenty of highly-visible, uniformed officers to discourage the illegal trade. But it also had more secret, undercover operatives, in whose number, I was now nearly sure, was counted my very own brother, Nether Gask. I finished my whiskey and went to bed.
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Part 43