The Revelation Space Collection (491 page)

Martinez opened the door and ushered me through, into the windowless room beyond. By now we must have been back into the canyon wall. The air had the inert stillness of a crypt. ‘Yes, Kessler was Jax’s man,’ Martinez said. ‘I’m glad you made the connection: it saves me explaining why Jax ought to be brought to justice.’

‘I agree completely. Half the population would agree with you. But I’m afraid you’re a bit late: Jax died years ago.’

Two other people were already waiting in the room, sitting on settees either side of a low, black table set with tea, coffee and pisco sours.

‘Jax didn’t die,’ Martinez said. ‘He just disappeared, and now I know where he is. Have a seat, please.’

He knew I was interested; knew I wouldn’t be able to walk out of that room until I’d heard the rest of the story about Colonel Brandon Jax. But there was more to it than that: there was something effortlessly commanding about his voice that made it very difficult not to obey him. During my time in the Southland Militia I’d learned that some people have that authority and some people don’t. It can’t be taught; can’t be learned; can’t be faked. You’re either born with it or you’re not.

‘Dexia Scarrow, allow me to introduce you to my other two guests,’ Martinez said, when I’d taken my place at the table. ‘The gentleman opposite you is Salvatore Nicolosi, a veteran of one of the Northern Coalition’s freeze/thaw units. The woman on your right is Ingrid Sollis, a personal-security expert with a particular interest in counter-intrusion systems. Ingrid saw early combat experience with the Southland, but she soon left the military to pursue private interests.’

I bit my tongue, then turned my attention away from the woman before I said something I might regret. The man - Nicolosi - looked more like an actor than a soldier. He didn’t have a scar on him. His beard was so neatly groomed, so sharp-edged, that it looked sprayed on through a stencil. Freeze/thaw operatives rubbed me up the wrong way, no matter which side they’d been on. They’d always seen themselves as superior to the common soldier, which is why they didn’t feel the need for the kind of excessive musculature Norbert carried around.

‘Allow me to introduce Dexia Scarrow,’ Martinez continued, nodding at me. ‘Dexia was a distinguished soldier in the Southland Militia for fifteen years, until the armistice. Her service record is excellent. I believe she will be a valuable addition to the team.’

‘Maybe we should back up a step,’ I said. ‘I haven’t agreed to be part of anyone’s team.’

‘We’re going after Jax,’ Nicolosi said placidly. ‘Doesn’t that excite you?’

‘He was on your side,’ I said. ‘What makes you so keen to see him crucified?’

Nicolosi looked momentarily pained. ‘He was a war criminal, Dexia. I’m as anxious to see monsters like Jax brought to justice as I am to see the same fate visited on their scum-ridden Southland counterparts.’

‘Nicolosi’s right,’ said Ingrid Sollis. ‘If we’re going to learn to live together on this planet, we have to put the law above all else, regardless of former allegiances.’

‘Easy coming from a deserter,’ I said. ‘Allegiance clearly didn’t mean very much to you back then, so I’m not surprised it doesn’t mean much to you now.’

Martinez, still standing at the head of the table, smiled tolerantly, as if he’d expected nothing less.

‘That’s an understandable misapprehension, Dexia, but Ingrid was no deserter. She was wounded in the line of duty: severely, I might add. After her recuperation, she was commended for bravery under fire and given the choice of an honourable discharge or a return to the front line. You cannot blame her for choosing the former, especially given all she had been through.’

‘Okay, my mistake,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I never heard of many people making it out alive, before the war was over.’

Sollis looked at me icily. ‘Some of us did.’

‘No one here has anything but an impeccable service record,’ Martinez said. ‘I should know: I’ve been through your individual biographies with a fine-tooth comb. You’re just the people for the job.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, moving to stand up. ‘I’m just a retired soldier with a grudge against deserters. I wasn’t in some shit-hot freeze/thaw unit, and I didn’t do anything that resulted in any commendations for bravery. Sorry, folks, but I think—’

‘Remain seated.’

I did what the man said.

Martinez continued speaking, his voice as measured and patient as ever. ‘You participated in at least three high-risk extraction operations, Dexia: three dangerous forays behind enemy lines, to retrieve two deep-penetration Southland spies and one trump-card NC defector. Or do you deny this?’

I shook my head, the reality of what he was proposing still not sinking in. ‘I can’t help you. I don’t know anything about Jax—’

‘You don’t need to. That’s my problem.’

‘How are you so sure he’s still alive, anyway?’

‘I’d like to know that, too,’ Nicolosi said, stroking an elegant finger along the border of his beard.

Martinez sat down on his own stool at the head of the table, so that he was higher than the three of us. He removed his glasses and fiddled with them in his lap. ‘It is necessary that you take a certain amount of what I am about to tell you on faith. I’ve been gathering intelligence on men like Jax for years, and in doing so I’ve come to rely on a web of contacts, many of whom have conveyed information to me at great personal risk. If I were to tell you the whole story, and if some of that story were to leak beyond this office, lives might well be endangered. And that is to say nothing of how my chances of bringing other fugitives to justice might be undermined.’

‘We understand,’ Sollis said.

I bridled at the way she presumed to speak for all of us. Perhaps she felt she owed Martinez for the way he’d just stood up for her.

Again I bit my lip and said nothing.

‘For a long time, I’ve received titbits of intelligence concerning Colonel Jax: rumours that he did not, in fact, die at all, but is still at large.’

‘Where?’ Sollis asked. ‘On Sky’s Edge?’

‘It would seem not. There were, of course, many rumours and false trails that suggested Jax had gone to ground somewhere on this planet. But one by one I discounted them all. Slowly the truth became apparent: Jax is still alive; still within this system.’

I felt it was about time I made a positive contribution. ‘Wouldn’t a piece of dirt like Jax try to get out of the system at the first opportunity?’

Martinez favoured my observation by pointing his glasses at me. ‘I had my fears that he might have, but as the evidence came in, a different truth presented itself.’

He set about pouring himself some tea. The pisco sours were going unwanted. I doubted that any of us had the stomach for drink at that time of the day.

‘Where is he, then?’ asked Nicolosi. ‘Plenty of criminal elements might have the means to shelter a man like Jax, but given the price on his head, the temptation to turn him in—’

‘He is not being sheltered,’ Martinez said, sipping delicately at his tea before continuing, ‘He is alone, aboard a ship. The ship was believed lost, destroyed in the final stages of the war, when things escalated into space. But I have evidence that the ship is still essentially intact, with a functioning life-support system. There is every reason to believe that Jax is still being kept alive, aboard this vehicle, in this system.’

‘What’s he waiting for?’ I asked.

‘For memories to grow dim,’ Martinez answered. ‘Like many powerful men, Jax may have obtained longevity drugs - or at least undergone longevity treatment - during the latter stages of the war. Time is not a concern for him.’

I leaned forward. ‘This ship - you think it’ll just be a matter of boarding it and taking him alive?’

Martinez looked surprised at the directness of my question. He blinked once before answering.

‘In essence, yes.’

‘Won’t he put up a fight?’

‘I don’t think so. The Ultras that located the vessel for me reported that it appeared dormant, in power-conservation mode. Jax himself may be frozen, in reefersleep. The ship did not respond to the Ultras’ sensor sweeps, so there’s no reason to assume it will respond to our approach and docking.’

‘How close did the Ultras get?’ Sollis asked.

‘Within three or four light-minutes. But there’s no reason to assume we can’t get closer without alerting the ship.’

‘How do you know Jax is aboard this ship?’ Nicolosi asked. ‘It could just be a drifter, nothing to do with him.’

‘The intelligence I’d already gleaned pointed towards his presence aboard a vehicle of a certain age, size and design - everything matches.’

‘So let’s cut to the chase,’ Sollis said, again presuming to speak for the rest of us. ‘You’ve brought us here because you think we’re the team to snatch the colonel. I’m the intrusion specialist, so you’ll be relying on me to get us inside that ship. Nicolosi’s a freeze/thaw veteran, so - apart from the fact that he’s probably pretty handy with a weapon or two - he’ll know how to spring Jax from reefersleep, if the colonel turns out to be frozen. And she - what was your name again?’

‘Dexia,’ I said, like it was a threat.

‘She’s done some extractions. I guess she must be okay at her job or she wouldn’t be here.’

Martinez waited a moment, then nodded. ‘You’re quite right, Ingrid: all credit to you for that. I apologise if my machinations are so nakedly transparent. But the simple fact of the matter is that you are the ideal team for the operation in question. I have no doubt that, with your combined talents, you will succeed in returning Colonel Jax to Sky’s Edge, and hence to trial. Now admit it: that
would
be something, wouldn’t it? To fell the last dragon?’

Nicolosi indicated his approval with a long nasal sigh. ‘Men like Kessler are just a distraction. When you crucify a monster like Kessler, you’re punishing the knife, not the man who wielded it. If you wish true justice, you must find the knifeman, the master.’

‘What will we get paid?’ Sollis asked.

Martinez smiled briefly. ‘Fifty thousand Australs for each of you, upon the safe return of Colonel Jax.’

‘What if we find him dead?’ I asked. ‘By then we’ll already have risked an approach and docking with his ship.’

‘If Jax is already dead, then you will be paid twenty-five thousand Australs.’

We all looked at each other. I knew what the others were thinking. Fifty thousand Australs was life-changing money, but half of that wasn’t bad either. Killing Jax would be much easier and safer than extracting him alive . . .

‘I’ll be with you, of course,’ Martinez said, ‘so there’ll be no need to worry about proving Jax was already dead when you arrived, should that situation arise.’

‘If you’re coming along,’ I asked, ‘who else do we need to know about?’

‘Only Norbert. And you need have no fears concerning his competency.’

‘Just the five of us, then,’ I said.

‘Five is a good number, don’t you think? And there is a practical limit to the size of the extraction team. I have obtained the use of a small but capable ship, perfectly adequate for our purposes. It will carry five, with enough capacity to bring back the colonel. I’ll provide weapons, equipment and armour, but you may all bring whatever you think may prove useful.’

I looked around the cloister-like confines of the room, and remembered the dismal exterior of the offices, situated at the bottom of Threadfall Canyon. ‘Three times fifty thousand Australs, ’ I mused, ‘plus whatever it cost you to hire and equip a ship. If you don’t mind me asking - where exactly are the funds coming from?’

‘The funds are mine,’ Martinez said sternly. ‘Capturing Jax has been a long-term goal, not some whimsical course upon which I have only recently set myself. Dying a pauper would be a satisfactory end to my affairs, were I to do so knowing that Jax was hanging from the highest mast at Bridgetop.’

For a moment none of us said anything. Martinez had spoken so softly, so demurely, that the meaning of his words seemed to lag slightly behind the statement itself. When it arrived, I think we all saw a flash of that corpse, executed in the traditional way, the Haussmann way.

‘Good weapons?’ I asked. ‘Not some reconditioned black-market shit?’

‘Only the best.’

‘Technical specs for the ship?’ Sollis asked.

‘You’ll have plenty of time to review the data on the way to the rendezvous point. I don’t doubt that a woman of your abilities will be able to select the optimum entry point.’

Sollis looked flattered. ‘Then I guess I’m in. What about you, Salvatore?’

‘Men like Colonel Jax stained the honour of the Northern Coalition. We were not all monsters. If I could do something to make people see that . . .’ Nicolosi trailed off, then shrugged. ‘Yes, I am in. It would be an honour, Mister Martinez.’

‘That leaves you, Dexia,’ Sollis said. ‘Fifty thousand Australs sounds pretty sweet to me. I’m guessing it sounds pretty sweet to you as well.’

‘That’s my call, not yours.’

‘Just saying . . . you look like you could use that money as much as any of us.’

I think I came close to saying no, to walking out of that room, back into the incessant muddy rain of Threadfall Canyon. Perhaps if I’d tried, Norbert would have been forced to detain me, so that I didn’t go blabbing about how a team was being put together to bring Colonel Jax back into custody. But I never got the chance to find out what Martinez had in mind for me if I chose not to go along with him.