House of Suns (33 page)

‘Whose idea was it to ask him about that?’

‘Just a hunch.’

I took my glass from his hand. ‘A good one.’

‘We still don’t know what it is. A hidden Line, maybe, something the Commonality doesn’t even know about? And how do the Marcellins and Mellictans fit into it?’

‘Or the Gentians. We’re involved as well.’

‘Because they ambushed us?’

‘Because the ambush required Line infiltration. We worked that one out already. Nobody could have got those H-guns close to the planet otherwise.’

‘I’m trying not to think about that,’ Campion said. ‘It’s bad enough knowing there might be another Line out there that wants us dead without thinking about snakes in the grass.’

‘It could even be one of us.’

‘You and me?’

‘I mean one of the survivors - one of the Gentians who made it to Neume. If someone knew about the ambush, it wouldn’t have been difficult to hide during the attack and then make it look as if you’d only just survived. How do we know the snake isn’t sitting down to breakfast with us, working out how to finish the rest of us off? Some of us have been acting a little oddly.’

‘You mean like Betony?’ Campion asked, oblivious to the possibility that someone might be spying on us. ‘No, it won’t be him. He’s just seen his chance for scoring a few points at our expense, that’s all. It’ll be someone keeping a low profile, someone we haven’t even begun to suspect.’

‘Or no one,’ I added. ‘There might not be a snake after all.’

‘No, there might not be. But until we know otherwise, I think we ought to assume the worst. We were getting complacent - that’s why someone was almost able to wipe us out. Those ships should have been inspected for concealed weapons before they got within attack range of the reunion world.’

‘Should-haves don’t count. And can you imagine how long that would take? Longer than the reunion itself. Just think of the time it would take to search through
Silver Wings’
hold - and I’m not the worst hoarder by a long way.’ I shook my head. ‘No recriminations, no going over old ground. The way we did things worked fine for thirty-two circuits. There can’t have been too much wrong with it.’

After a silence, Campion said, ‘You know what I keep coming back to? We’d never have visited this world unless something bad had happened to us. Never have heard those singing sands, seen this beautiful city ... We might have travelled here eventually, I know, but it wouldn’t be Neume the way it is now. We’d probably be seeing it half a dozen civilisations down the line, when the Ymirians will just be a memory.’

I drank the wine, wanting it to go to my head as quickly as possible. ‘If you’re trying to see good in this, I’m not sure I’m quite ready to make that leap.’

‘I’m just saying ... it’s a strange universe. It can still surprise us. That’s why it’s worth carrying on, I suppose. If I felt that all we were doing was reliving a fixed set of experiences in different permutations—’

‘That wouldn’t be so bad, if those experiences were pleasant ones. Do you ever get tired of sunsets?’

‘No,’ Campion said.

‘Do you ever get tired of waterfalls, or beaches?’

‘No.’

‘Then there’s always hope for us.’

A chime sounded behind me. I handed Campion my glass and returned to the room, leaving him alone on the balcony. When I settled myself before the console I was confronted with the waiting face of Magistrate Jindabyne.

‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you now,’ I said.

‘Did I not promise that I would be in touch?’ she asked, not bothering to hide her indignation.

‘It’s just that it’s getting late.’

‘But it isn’t midnight yet. I promised you I would give you a decision by the end of today. It just took a little longer than anticipated to make the necessary arrangements. Have you changed your mind concerning the Spirit of the Air?’

‘I’m even more convinced now that it’s the only way I can possibly help Hesperus.’

The magistrate narrowed her sharp, intelligent eyes. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, at precisely three o’clock, a flier will arrive for you at the eighteenth-level landing deck. Aboard it will be a member of the scientific study council, an expert on the Spirit of the Air. Provided conditions remain favourable, he will arrange for you to be taken to the observation platform, where you may anticipate an encounter with the Spirit.’

I was aware of Campion standing behind me. ‘Thank you, Magistrate,’ I said. ‘It’s kind of you to allow this.’

‘Not kind. Foolish, perhaps.’

 

I should have known something was coming, but it was only when the next morning’s breakfast was winding down that I realised what Betony had been planning. Just before we would have begun to leave the table, Cadence and Cascade appeared on the balcony, and Betony introduced them with a magicianly flourish of his napkin. The robots’ imperturbable expressions gave no hint that they knew what was about to unfold.

‘Since we’re all here,’ Betony said, looking around the table as if to make sure no one had already left, ‘this is as good a time as any to settle a small matter that has come to our attention. Our two guests from the Machine People had the unpleasant misfortune to become embroiled in Gentian affairs when they were caught in our ambush. Luckily, they were unharmed - and even more luckily, they appear to hold nothing against us for failing to keep them out of our troubles.’

‘You could hardly have anticipated the ambush,’ Cadence said.

‘I suppose that’s true, but you still have every right to feel aggrieved,’ Betony answered.

Cascade said, ‘You protected us as best you could, and then gave us passage to this world. We have no argument with Gentian Line, or by implication the Commonality. But it cannot be ignored that a crime has been committed, one that now encompasses the Machine People.’

‘We must convey news of this atrocity back to the Monoceros Ring,’ Cadence said. ‘The Machine People will weigh the evidence and decide upon an appropriate response. The shatterlings of Gentian Line may rest assured that we will support them unconditionally should punitive action be required. We hope that the perpetrator is no more than a rival Line, encompassing a few hundred or a few thousand individuals. But we will not quail even if it turns out that another civilisation is responsible.’

‘We couldn’t ask for wiser or stronger allies,’ Betony said. ‘That’s why we’ll do everything we can to assist your return to your own people.’

I tensed as it began to dawn on me where this was heading.

‘Unfortunately, we have no means of transport,’ Cascade said. ‘We could of course simply transmit the intelligence back to our people, but then we would be at the mercy of human networks until the signal escapes the main disc. It might be corrupted or fail to reach its target. If we convey it in person, we will know that the information has reached home, intact. We will also be able to ensure that it is acted upon with the necessary swiftness.’

‘There is also the business of Hesperus,’ Cadence said, turning her silver head until her eyes met mine. ‘Short of a miracle on Neume, his only chance for survival now rests in a safe return home, in the fastest possible vehicle.’

‘You want my ship,’ I said in a half-whisper.

Cadence nodded. ‘We have studied the specifications of all the craft in orbit around Neume. All are fast, but yours will be able to accelerate closer to the speed of light than any other ship available.
Silver Wings of Morning
also has the best chance of surviving what will be a protracted voyage, even by Line standards. It will not be possible to slow for repairs or augmentations.’

‘They’ve looked into it, crunched the numbers,’ Betony said, giving me a sympathetic look, as if none of this was his doing. ‘Your ship is the one most likely to get them home, and do it before anything untoward happens to Hesperus.’

‘Your
ship is fast,’ I said.

‘She accelerates harder, but
Adonis Blue
doesn’t have your cruise ceiling, and that’s what really matters.’

‘We will do all in our power to return your ship,’ Cascade said. ‘You need only consider it borrowed, not given away.’

‘So I’ll get her back in a million years or so?’

‘You have owned the ship for much longer than a million years, so even an interval of that enormity would not appear unreasonable.’

‘This is very good, Betony,’ I said, turning away from the robots.

He looked intrigued. ‘In what sense?’

‘You’ve found a way to screw me without looking as if you’re screwing me. This is the punishment, isn’t it? For Campion and me, for what we did - the consorting, the being late. Never mind that we brought the Line five survivors it wouldn’t have had otherwise; never mind the prisoners or Hesperus. We’ve still got to pay, even if it’s done sneakily, without looking like official censure.’

‘Not in front of our guests, Purslane, please. We’re asking you to make a benevolent gesture, not to suffer a punishment.’

I knew, with crushing certainty, that I could not win; that any attempt to argue my way out of this would not only be futile, but would cost me even more dearly in the future.

‘How do you want to do this?’ I asked. ‘You can table a proposal, but you don’t get to decide Line policy all by yourself. The matter still needs to be voted on.’

Betony nodded keenly. ‘If you and Campion would like to leave us for a moment, we can vote. It needn’t be unanimous - we’re only deciding on a reallocation of property, not something as serious as excommunication.’

I looked around the room. There were one or two dozen shatterlings I felt certain I could count as allies, but that would not be enough to win the vote. Some of the others would undoubtedly align themselves with Betony.

‘I’ll spare myself the humiliation,’ I said. ‘You can have the ship.’

‘In which case we’ll forget your earlier outburst. It’s understandable that you’d feel a sense of attachment. I’m sure we can all empathise.’

‘Thank you, Purslane,’ said Cadence and Cascade in unison. ‘It is very generous of you. We shall take good care of the ship.’

‘And me?’ I asked Betony. ‘What do I do, without a ship? Do I stay here, when everyone else agrees to leave Neume?’

‘You’re amongst friends now,’ he said.

‘That’s not how it feels.’

‘You’ll get over it.’

‘She doesn’t have to,’ Campion said, standing up from the table, crumbs flying from his lap. ‘In fact, I’d be disappointed in her if she did. I hope you fuckers can live with yourselves after this.’ He glared at the seated audience. ‘I know not all of you would have gone against Purslane in a secret vote, but I didn’t hear any of you speaking up to support her just now. Not even you, Aconite. Or you, Mezereon.’

‘It’s just a ship,’ Aconite said. ‘No need to get so worked up about it, old man.’

‘It’s
her
ship. She’s had it longer than most of you have had memories.’

‘Then we’ll pool our resources and get her a new one,’ Aconite said, glancing nervously to his left and right, as if measuring the support for this proposal.

‘I’ll live,’ I said, although I was shivering with rage and indignation. ‘Let them have her. If Betony had had the good grace to ask me, instead of demanding it, I might just have given her away myself.’

‘We are sorry to be the cause of unpleasantness,’ the robots said.

I felt some of my irritation twist towards them, but I held it in check. ‘It’s not your fault. I’m not angry at you for wanting a fast ship. I know all you want to do is help Hesperus.’

‘He means a great deal to us,’ Cadence said.

‘More than you can imagine,’ added Cascade.

The two of them were holding hands, chrome in ivory.

 

Afterwards at least a dozen shatterlings came up to me in ones and twos and expressed various degrees of sympathy and indignation. My first instinct was to scold them for not showing more support when it counted, but I succeeded in biting my tongue, reminding myself that to many of them I had actually got off lightly, compared to the censure that - in theory, at least - I might have been due.

‘We don’t agree,’ was a sentiment I heard more than once. ‘You deserved a rap on the knuckles, but nothing like this. All the same - if that’s the worst Betony does to you, you’ve come out of it rather well. It could have been much, much worse.’

‘Yes - and it could also have been a lot better,’ I said, resenting the implication that I deserved any punishment whatsoever. ‘He didn’t have to censure me at all.’

They asked, ‘Do you think he’s done now? Or will he go after Campion s well?’

‘He’s done. He knows that if he hurts me, he hurts Campion. He won’t risk looking vindictive - he’s too much of a politician for that.’

There was talk of helping me get a new ship, questions about whether any of the vehicles in
Silver Wings’
hold might serve for the time being, a general display of goodwill from my friends (and from one or two I had not counted as allies, but who were kind and sympathetic in unexpectedly touching ways), but it was clear to me that the vote would not have gone my way, had I pressed for it. I was relieved, in a dispirited sense. At least I had walked out of that room with my dignity intact. I could be forgiven my little outburst; I had only voiced what many of them were thinking, and even my enemies could not deny the cynical impulse behind my punishment. Even if I had not had the fastest, strongest ship in orbit, Betony would have found a way of giving mine to the robots.

Since there was no reason for Cadence and Cascade to remain on Neume indefinitely - they certainly did not need to wait until the Line made up its collective mind about where to go next - it was agreed that the handover of my ship would take place sooner rather than later.
Silver Wings’
troves were nearly duplicated aboard
Dalliance;
the process of consolidating final backup required only hours of additional data transfer. The formal handover would involve me authorising
Silver Wings
to accept Cadence and Cascade as her new masters, but that would involve only a simple statement being made in the ship’s presence. Once that formality was complete, the ship would be theirs.