Evening's Empires (Quiet War 3) (44 page)

Nabhoj shouted out and cringed as the figures lunged and snapped at him. The assassin did not move. She said, ‘I am not affected by silly tricks. And I still have control of the
ship.’

‘Maybe you do,’ Hari said. ‘But I have control of everything else.’

The two manikins let go of his arms and there was a sudden commotion at the entrance to the omphalos as a crowd of manikins and service and maintenance bots rushed in, clambering along the
architectural weave or swimming through the air, swarming towards the platform.

Nabhoj shouted again, and launched himself at Hari. Hari had barely enough time to bring his knees up to his chest. He kicked out, pushing against Nabhoj’s chest, the moment of contact
shocking: a hard, shocking jar in his feet and spine. They flew apart. Action/reaction. Hari shot backwards across the shaft, grabbed a strand of the architectural weave and hung there, breathless.
Nabhoj was intercepted by Riyya, who crashed into him and crooked her forearm under his beard and braced and hauled back, choking him into silence as they spun in the air.

The assassin watched this, calm and still between the pair of bristling maintenance bots that had settled on either side of her. ‘You still don’t have the ship,’ she told
Hari.

‘Perhaps I can help,’ Eli Yong said.

‘I don’t need any help to take back my ship,’ Hari said. ‘But there is something you can do for me.’

After Hari had performed the reset that gave him control of the drive and navigation systems of
Pabuji’s Gift
, after he had confirmed that his father’s
viron had been comprehensively trashed, Eli Yong helped him download a copy of Dr Gagarian’s files into the ship’s mind. He told her that she could keep the original.

‘It’s more than you deserve. But then again, it’s worth less than you think.’

Eli Yong met his gaze, attempting to project her version of sincerity. ‘The arrangement I made with Rav, that was strictly business. I had nothing against you personally.’

‘Tell me something. Were you planning to cheat Rav after you extracted the files?’

Eli Yong’s gaze didn’t waver. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think that neither you nor Rav were interested in what the research meant, or how it could be used. You were only interested in what it was worth. How much you could sell it for. And
because it’s only worth something to people like you while it remains a secret, I intend to seriously devalue it.’

Hari watched Eli Yong think about that. Her posture and the mask of her face didn’t change – she was very good at hiding her emotions – but something in her gaze hardened.
Small shifts in the muscles around her eyes, a slight narrowing of her pupils.

She said, ‘If you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, you are making a foolish mistake.’

‘I have no doubt that you hid a copy of the files somewhere. Either on
Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
or inside your head. The Saints may have made copies you didn’t
have time to find. It’s possible that the tick-tock matriarch lied, and made a copy. The skull feeders probably made a copy, too,’ Hari said, remembering Rav moving from pole to pole on
the moss island, methodically crushing the bouquets of skulls. Not out of malice, as Hari had thought at the time, but in case the skull feeders had unlocked Dr Gagarian’s files and
downloaded them into the mindscape of their dead.

He said, ‘Riyya was right. Once an idea is out in the world, it’s impossible to suppress it or keep it secret. Only a fool would try.’

‘She is an idealist,’ Eli Yong said. ‘The worst kind of fool.’

‘She’s too honest, perhaps. Too trusting. But she sees the world more clearly than you or I. She sees it straight.’

‘She’s a fool,’ Eli Yong said. ‘And so are you.’

‘Cheer up,’ Hari said. ‘If you’re as clever as you want everyone to think you are, you have a good chance of winning the race to find something useful in the files. And
if you aren’t, well, at least you have a head start.’

Hari knew that Riyya would be angry when he told her about his plan. He tried to harden his heart. He told himself that it was strictly business, family business. He told
himself that he was protecting her, that he was saving her life. But it still wasn’t easy.

‘I made no secret about what I wanted to do,’ he said. ‘The assassin and her sisters have to pay for what they did. And I have to go to them because they will not come to
me.’

He’d tried and failed to contact the assassin’s sisters – the assassin had refused to help him, saying that she was their arm and their hand, not their voice.

‘This isn’t just about what you want to do,’ Riyya said. ‘It’s also about how you’re going about it. We got here, you, me, and Rav’s son, because we
helped each other. And we helped each other because we have all lost people. But you think that your loss counts more than anyone else’s. You think it gives you the right to abandon us and do
whatever it is you want to do. Well, it isn’t right, Hari. It’s entirely selfish. And without our help you’ll probably get yourself killed.’

‘I don’t ask for or expect forgiveness, but I have to do this alone,’ Hari said. ‘I can’t explain why, but you’ll understand soon enough.’

Riyya looked away. Hari waited out her silence. He knew what she was going to say, knew she was going to condemn him, hoped that things would go more easily once she had decided that he was a
monster.

But when she looked back, her gaze was softer, sadder. ‘You’ve changed,’ she said.

‘Long before I met you, while I was still marooned on Themba, I vowed that I would find out who destroyed my family and my future. That I would have my revenge. That was me then. This is
me now.’

‘You want to balance out greed and foolishness and murder with more of the same,’ Riyya said. ‘How does that work? It won’t bring back your dead. It won’t bring
back mine. You have your ship. You have your brother. You know what he did, and why. Isn’t that enough?’

‘The ship was hijacked and my father and Agrata were killed far beyond the jurisdiction of any city or settlement. And there’s no common police force in the Saturn system. There
isn’t even any traffic control out here. I can’t invoke a higher authority. So if I’m going to make this right, I have to do it myself.’

‘You don’t have to do it by yourself. Let us help you.’

‘I don’t need any help.’

‘It must have been a terrible shock, finding out what your brother did, how he betrayed you. You’re angry,’ Riyya said, ‘and you want to hurt the people who hurt you. I
understand. I do. But if you run straight at them, they’ll kill you. Let me help. Let Rav’s son help too. We’ve all been hurt by these assassins. We all want to make them pay.
Talk it through with us. We can work up a plan—’

‘I already knew,’ Hari said. ‘I already knew what Nabhoj had done before he confessed – when the Ardenists told me where my ship was, they also showed me picts of him and
the assassin in Dione’s orbital docks. I didn’t tell you because it was family business. And that’s why I didn’t tell you what I was planning to do. That’s why I
don’t need or want your help. You left your family, Riyya. You ran away. I don’t think you are in any position to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do now that I’ve come
home.’

It was easier, after that. After he had said a few unforgivable things, after Riyya had told him that he deserved to die alone, he called up half a dozen manikins, hustled her into the only gig
left in the garages, and sent her across to
Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
with Eli Yong and Rav’s son. The Ardenist was still unconscious, sedated by the ship’s doctor
thing. Hari reckoned that he wouldn’t recover consciousness for at least a day. More than enough time to do what needed to be done.

After the gig returned, Hari fired up the motors of his ship.
Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
and the seraphs and their supplicants dwindled into the darkness astern. He was on his
way.

The Saints’ cutter was driving towards Titan, presumably planning to shed its excess delta vee and swing back and resume the chase, and Hari had a lot to do before he
reached Enceladus. But before he started work he had a last conversation with his brother, the last of his farewells. Nabhoj hung between two manikins in one of the staging areas for the
ship’s lifepods. Lifting his head when Hari floated into the bright spherical space, saying, ‘It has done you good to get off this ship, Gajananvihari. You’ve changed.
You’ve grown up. You’ve had an education. You’ve learnt that there’s more to life than salvage work and serving the old man. Think about those lessons, brother. Think hard.
Think about what you want to do with the rest of your life.’

‘You’ve had two hours to work up that speech,’ Hari said. ‘Is that the best you can do?’

He felt very cool, very calm. Watching everything as if it was a scene in a saga, as if he and his brother were mimesists playing out preordained parts.

Nabhoj had difficulty meeting Hari’s gaze, but he retained some of his dignity and authority.

‘I am not pleading for my life,’ he said. ‘I know that you want to kill me, and I understand why. All I ask is that you do what you want to do, not what you think you should
do. Forget me, forget our father, forget the family. Save yourself.’

‘I’m doing exactly what I want to do,’ Hari said.

‘Nabhomani and I thought we were going to escape the old man’s influence,’ Nabhoj said. ‘We thought that we were going to make a new life for ourselves. Instead, we were
following a course he’d already taken. We planned to steal his ship, the same ship he’d stolen when he broke the agreement he’d made with our uncle, Tamonash. Do you know that
story?’

‘I met Tamonash. I know that our father stole more than the ship.’

‘Nabhomani met Tamonash’s daughter some years ago, and got the story from her. Perhaps it began then,’ Nabhoj said, as if he’d thought of it for the first time.
‘Perhaps that was the seed of our decision to take charge of the ship.’

‘You could have left the ship and our family, and started a new life elsewhere. Or you could have killed our father and taken command of the ship by yourself. Instead, you and Nabhomani
relied on outsiders. That’s what I can’t forgive.’

‘Perhaps we were cowards,’ Nabhoj said. ‘Yes, I admit that’s possible. Or perhaps our father inserted subtle checks and balances into our minds that made it difficult for
us to rebel. We knew that our father’s obsession with the Bright Moment would destroy the family. We knew we had to do something. We could think about it. We could make plans. But when it
came to acting on those thoughts, those plans . . . Well, we needed help. We needed a push. And if the old man did that to us, he did it to you, too. He made us all in his image.

‘We weren’t ever a family. It’s clear to me now. We were a cult. Controlled by the old man, doing whatever he wanted to do without question. He had passed over. He was dead.
And he refused to let go. He would not give up the world, and he would not allow us to live our own lives. I always hoped you’d rise above that, Gajananvihari. That you’d be the first
of us to escape, to make a life for yourself. And you can still do it. You can still put an end to this poisonous thing of his. My life is over. I know that. But whatever it is you’re
planning to do, walk away from it. Erase the old man’s backup. Give him true death. Leave all this behind and find your own path.’

‘You betrayed our family to outsiders,’ Hari said. ‘You are responsible for the erasure of our father, and the deaths of Agrata and Nabhomani and Dr Gagarian. But you are still
my brother, Nabhoj, and I still love you. I’m not going to kill you, but I can’t let you stay here. So I’m going to send you away.’

‘If you had any kind of spine you’d kill me,’ Nabhoj said.

‘If you had any kind of spine you wouldn’t ask for the easy way out. I’m going to send you to a remote little rock. 207061 Themba. It isn’t much of a place, but I know
from first-hand experience that with a little work it’s possible to survive there. Perhaps you’ll even contrive to escape, as I did. If you do, don’t bother coming to look for me.
I’m going to confront the people who helped you destroy my family. There’s only a small chance that I’ll survive it.’

Nabhoj began to speak, but Hari didn’t listen. He signalled to the drone controlled by the doctor thing and it moved forward and injected his brother with a soporific. After that, the
mechanics of the operation were easy. The manikins dressed Nabhoj in a pressure suit and stowed him in a lifepod, and Hari launched the pod on the long, long course that would take it out of
Saturn’s gravity well and across the vast gulf to a remote and unremarkable rock at the outer edge of the Belt.

Then Hari was outside, riding in good old utility pod
09 Chaju
, supervising a gang of manikins as they made alterations to
Pabuji’s Gift
’s motors
and laid the explosive charges he’d spun in the ship’s maker. For a few hours, he lost himself in the details of the work. It was almost like the old days. Enthroned behind the little
pod’s diamond blister, choreographing the stately dance of its arms and tools. The lower left-hand arm still had that stiffness in its rotator cuff he’d never been able to fix . . .

Two hours passed. Three. Working as quickly and accurately as he knew how while the hard bright point of the sun dropped past the lower edge of the inner rings and set in a glorious arc of amber
light that extended through the outermost layer of Saturn’s atmosphere towards the north and south poles, and
Pabuji’s Gift
swung into the giant planet’s shadow. Four
hours, five. Trying to ignore the tick of time passing, everything outside the overlapping pools of light dropped by the pod’s lamps. And at last he was finished, and he drove the utility pod
back to its bay and powered it down, and swam along the curve of the maintenance shaft to the docking garage.