Terminal World (42 page)

‘You weren’t.’

‘Weigh your predicament, Doctor. You’ve been treated well by Curtana and Ricasso, but you’re still technically a prisoner, albeit one with generous benefits. If you doubt me, ask to be allowed to leave Swarm. See how far you get.’

‘I’ve no interest in leaving.’

‘My point is merely that you don’t owe these people anything. You were rescued by Swarm, not by Curtana personally. She was just doing her job.’

‘And I’d like to be able to get on with mine.’

‘You will. And you’ll be able to continue to do that job after the power structure has changed - if you do the right thing now. If you don’t, however, we’d have to regard you as ideologically tainted ... and, of course, I wouldn’t be able to guarantee your safety once your nature—and the girl’s - becomes generally known.’

‘And who’d engineer that, I wonder?’ Quillon sighed, knowing he had no choice but to face the inevitable. ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’

‘Nothing too troubling. There’s a document in Ricasso’s possession that we’d very much like to have a look at. It’s a blue leather-bound volume kept in the rack under the table where he plays that game of chequers with himself. We believe it contains a record of his experiments on the vorgs to date, in his own hand, a record that is far more truthful and accurate than any of the progress reports he has released for wider consumption.’

‘You think it’ll undermine him?’

‘It’ll show, in his own words, the continued futility of his efforts. We’ll let the citizenry make their own minds up about it.’

‘If you know about this book, why not just take it?’

‘Because it’s proven quite impossible for any of us to get near it with Ricasso in the room - and we don’t have access to the stateroom when he’s absent.’

‘Haven’t you heard of picking locks?’

‘Too many safeguards, Doctor. Ricasso’s a ditherer, but he’s no fool. You, on the other hand, are still his new best friend. He entertains you alone in the stateroom. You have long discussions. There must be occasions when his back is turned.’

Quillon thought of the long monologues Ricasso had delivered while looking out of the window, or while preparing drinks.

‘I will not compromise his research programme. If those notes are genuine, then they’re invaluable.’

‘He’ll have a duplicate copy somewhere. And besides, we’re not going to burn or tear up the very document we’ll use to incriminate him. The log is and will remain Swarm property - and when the regime change is complete, there’s no reason why it can’t be released to you, to continue—if you so wish - his work.’

‘I won’t do it,’ Quillon said. ‘I can’t do it. Even if I wanted to, even if I had the chance - I wouldn’t be able to smuggle that book out of the stateroom without him noticing.’

‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. We’ll find a way, between the two of us.’ Spatha patted him on the back, in the soft hollow between his wing-buds. ‘It’s been good to talk, Doctor. Don’t, of course, say a word about this to another living soul. Because I will find out if you do.’

Quillon watched him go back inside. Then he returned his own attention to the fog, and the shifting, atavistic forms that were barely discernible within it.

 

Ricasso leaned across the table to recharge Quillon’s glass from an ornate decanter, frost-etched with airships and improbable billowing cloudscapes. It was evening. Together with Curtana, Agraffe and Gambeson, they had just finished dining. Meroka, so far as he could tell, had either declined or not been invited. Quillon suspected that the former was more likely.

The stateroom talk had been terse and superficial, skirting around anything of substance. Matters had not been improved by the endless stream of aides filtering in and out of the room to whisper morsels of intelligence into Ricasso’s ear. Nor were they assisted by the microscopic tremors and surges, detectable only by the movement they caused in the drinks, that made Ricasso halt in mid-conversation and hold his breath, no doubt anticipating some fiery conjunction of air and fuel and ponderous, combustible moving bodies. When the aides left, or the anxious moments passed, he generally struggled to regain the thread of whatever they had been talking about.

There was much to be tense about. Just before sundown one of the protector ships had returned to report a hard visual contact with another airship skulking thirty-five leagues from the fuel depot. It had only been a glimpse, a sighting of a few moments when a clearing opened in the fog, but it had been observed by several reliable spotters and there could be no doubt of its authenticity. The other ship had all the characteristics of a Skullboy raider. Beneath its baroque, intimidating embellishments its outline had even been tentatively identified as matching
Grayling
, a Swarm vessel that had been captured with all hands fifty years earlier. The Skullboys would have another name for it, of course:
Eviscerator
, perhaps, or
Gouger
. They were known for a certain single-minded literalness in the naming of their craft.

In response, Ricasso had ordered more ships to peel away from the main body to provide additional recon patrols and flanking cover. It was tactically risky, as he had explained to Quillon. There was no guarantee that the raider had even seen the protector ship, and it might now have moved on without any notion that it had come so close to Swarm. Even if there were other ships out there, they might simply be waiting for the weather to clear. But merely by committing more ships to the patrols, Ricasso risked exposing their position.

‘I have to do it, though. If there are Skullboys out there and they stumble on us with half the fleet docked onto fuel towers, they’ll cut us open like squealing pigs.’

‘At least you can’t be accused of turning your back on the Skullboy problem,’ Quillon said mildly, glad that Ricasso had dispensed his metaphor after the meal’s completion.

‘There are plenty who’d argue that I’ve done just that.’ Ricasso placed the stopper in the decanter. ‘Fools, of course. They think that all we have to do is concentrate our main force on a handful of Skullboy nests and the problem will magically wither away. They don’t grasp that the Skullboys are infinitely dilutable. While there are dirt-rats down there, and drugs that turn dirt-rats mad, there will always be Skullboys, or something so close it makes no difference.’ He studied Quillon with his head cocked, like a dog that had just heard a suspicious footfall. ‘Actually, I’m surprised that you’d take much of an interest in the matter.’

‘Just a passing one.’ Quillon smiled briefly.

‘Anyone who has a problem with Ricasso’s handling of the Skullboy problem,’ Curtana said, ‘can take it up with me first.’

‘They wouldn’t have the balls, my dear.’

‘Has there been any more news from the semaphores?’ Quillon asked.

‘Not a chance, Doctor,’ Ricasso said regretfully. ‘We’re far too far away from any of the lines, even if they are sending now. What we’ve got from
Brimstone
is all we’re going to get, I’m afraid.’

‘And you wouldn’t consider sending out another scout to the same position where Brimstone intercepted the original transmission?’

Ricasso gave a short, sorrowful shake of his head. ‘It really isn’t practical. I’m truly sorry that the news from Spearpoint wasn’t better, but you’ve seen how desperate things were. All you can do, Doctor - and I realise this is more easily said than done - is begin to put your old life behind you. Spearpoint’s ending is a tragedy, unquestionably, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it now. The onus, instead, is on the rest of us to start preparing for the future.’

‘Spearpoint isn’t dead,’ Quillon said. ‘It’s dying. But a doctor doesn’t abandon a dying patient. And we shouldn’t abandon Spearpoint.’

‘It had no compunctions about abandoning Swarm,’ Agraffe said, reaching up to loosen his tunic collar, his face flushed with the evening’s consumption.

‘Then you have the moral high ground.’ Quillon met the young captain’s eyes. ‘Why not think of capitalising on that, instead of digging into an even more entrenched position?’

‘Noble and uplifting sentiments,’ Ricasso observed, pausing to dab a napkin against his crumb-flecked lips. ‘But rather irrelevant, I’m afraid. There’s nothing we could do for Spearpoint, even if we had the will. We’re just Swarm; a handful of airships.’

‘I wouldn’t call a hundred and fifty a handful,’ Quillon retorted. ‘Or however many it is.’

‘Still a scratch against Spearpoint,’ Ricasso said. ‘Granted, we were once much more numerous. A force to be reckoned with. But that was before the Salient; before perfidious betrayal and the predations of time ate into our number.’

‘I’m not talking about attacking it,’ Quillon said. ‘I’m talking about offering material assistance. We’ve all been privy to the news Brimstone picked up. Surely there’s
something
Swarm could do.’

Ricasso looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Why on Earth would you want to go back there, Doctor, of all places? They’d as soon flay you alive!’

‘Some of them. But should the others suffer just because of that?’

‘Again,’ Ricasso said, irritation beginning to break through his normal unflappability, ‘it might make a difference if there was something that could be done. Some tiny gesture. But there isn’t. Nothing. And even if there was ... the storm began in the Mire, in the heart of Spearpoint.’ He emphasised this point by tapping the table. ‘To some, that suggests Spearpoint brought this on itself.’

‘We don’t all hold to that notion,’ Gambeson said tartly. ‘Just in case you were wondering, Doctor.’

Quillon acknowledged the other man’s common sense with a nod. ‘I doubt Ricasso holds to it either. Unless that spirit of sceptical enquiry he likes to present to us is a facade, draped over superstition and prejudice.’

‘This is getting too intense for me,’ Curtana said, glancing at Agraffe for signs of support.

He shrugged and made an agreeing noise. ‘Bedtime?’

‘It’s very tempting.’ But instead of making to leave she paused, sighed and looked around the room. ‘Sure, I’ve got no love for the Spearpointers - I’d have thought that was fairly obvious by now - but if there was something we could do, I’d jump on it. If only to poke them in the eye and make them really bitter and twisted about what they did to us.’

‘I could go along with that,’ Agraffe said.

‘But there
isn’t
anything,’ Curtana said. ‘That’s the point. You’ve seen how stretched things are here, Doctor. We’re scrabbling around just to find fuel to keep our engines running. We’re low on ammunition and basic supplies: it’s not very noticeable yet, but we can’t afford to go dispensing favours to any needy cause.’

‘A gesture would still be better than nothing,’ Quillon said.

‘A gesture that would cost precious fuel, put ships at risk and force us to overfly the territory around Spearpoint that the Skullboys are now occupying,’ Ricasso said.

‘We’re not afraid of a fight,’ Curtana retorted, as if her personal honour was being disputed.

‘No,’ Ricasso said. ‘We’re not. Never have been. But at the same time we’ve never indulged in futile, risky exercises for the sake of it. Now, more than ever, we need to protect what we have. Spearpoint’s managed without us since the Salient. It must manage without us now.’

‘It’s asked for help,’ Quillon said. ‘Doesn’t that change things?’

‘Not from us specifically,’ Ricasso returned.

‘As if that makes a shred of difference. If a man’s drowning, do you wait until he calls your name before throwing him a rope?’

Ricasso smiled tolerantly. ‘This is getting us nowhere, Doctor. I appreciate your sentiments. It’s entirely right and proper that you should feel a measure of loyalty to Spearpoint. But I must remind you that you are a guest of Swarm, not part of our decision-making hierarchy. We will indulge your opinions, but you cannot expect to have influence here. You barely knew of our existence before we rescued you.’ There was a stinging emphasis at the end of the sentence, Ricasso firmly reminding Quillon of the debt he still owed Swarm. ‘Now can we put an end to it, please? What’s done is done. We have our own problems to deal with.’

Doctor Gambeson, who had said very little that evening, cleared his throat delicately. ‘Tell them,’ he said in Ricasso’s direction.

‘What, Doctor?’ Ricasso asked.

‘About Serum-15.’

Quillon said, ‘I thought it was Serum-16.’

‘That’s the one he’s working on now,’ Gambeson answered. ‘Serum- 15 was the previous batch, one of the rejected trials. Tell them, Ricasso. I think they all have a right to know now.’

‘This is an unfortunate betrayal of confidence, Doctor,’ Ricasso said warningly.

‘And these are unfortunate times. Tell them about the batch, or I’ll do it for you.’

Ricasso had their attention now, so he milked it unashamedly. He poured himself another drink, making a protracted spectacle of swilling the fluid around in the glass before taking a cautious mouthful. ‘Serum- 15 was a failure,’ he said slowly. ‘It didn’t do what I wanted it to do. That’s why I progressed to Serum-16.’

‘But it didn’t fail in the way everyone around this table undoubtedly assumes,’ Gambeson said. ‘Did it, Ricasso? It failed to meet your objectives. In other respects it might be deemed ... considered ... something of a success.’

Curtana narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s he talking about?’

‘I was looking for something to free us from dependence on antizonals,’ Ricasso said. ‘A drug or treatment that could be administered once, and which would then give long-lasting protection against the effects of zone transitions. Not permanent immunity, perhaps, but something almost as good. A drug that you didn’t have to match to every individual, one whose effects didn’t depend on change-vector. A drug that could protect us where the best now fail. Serum-16 is another step in that direction.’

‘And Serum-15?’ Curtana pushed.