‘Is this Grilse?’ I asked, remembering what Mezereon had already told Campion.
‘As far as we know,’ she said. ‘There was a Grilse in the Marcellin Line, circuits ago. And of course, the Marcellins were given responsibility for the H-guns. But until we can get into his skull, we won’t know for sure.’
‘How did you catch them?’ Campion asked.
‘Some shatterlings had broken cover and were making a run for interstellar space,’ Mezereon said. ‘The ambushers tried to stop them - they really didn’t want any of us ever to leave that system. Fescue intercepted one of the ambushers’ ships and damaged it badly, and the other Gentians were able to make their escape. I don’t think Fescue ever found out that there were survivors still aboard the ambusher ship - he was dead by the time we pulled them in.’
Campion frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The damaged ambusher drifted within range of my ship. On the chance that it might contain weapons or supplies we could use, we decided to risk dropping the impassor and sending out a shuttle. It was a risk - don’t think we didn’t argue about it.’ She looked steadily at Aconite. ‘I didn’t approve; I’ll admit that. But in the end it was the right thing to do. There wasn’t much we could use aboard the wreck, but we got the four prisoners.’ She sneered. ‘Cowards: if they’d had a fucking atom of courage they’d have killed themselves rather than run the chance of falling into our hands.’
‘We put them into stasis almost immediately,’ Aconite said. ‘The cabinets are old, but they were all we had. If we’d left them in shiptime there’d have been a chance of them escaping, alerting the other ambushers or finding a way to commit suicide.’
‘And before you locked them away?’ I asked.
‘We interrogated them as best we could,’ he said. ‘Didn’t get anything useful, though.’
‘Except from Grilse,’ I said.
‘That was after he went into the casket.’ Mezereon touched part of the casket to the left of the doors, causing a hidden panel to reveal itself. It was set with heavy brass controls, ornately engraved dials and clocks. The main control was a lever running in a graduated quadrant from left to right. At the moment the lever was pushed four-fifths of the way to the right, at a setting of one hundred thousand. That was enough to ensure that a second of time as experienced in the stasis cabinet equalled a day as measured beyond it. The logarithmic control could be pushed all the way to the right, giving a time ratio of one million, but even with the best equipment that was a setting to be used under emergency conditions only. ‘He’s safe enough now,’ Mezereon said, with one eye on the Marcellin, ‘but when we dialled him back down we started to see signs of unstable field collapse. We held him low enough to reach with Synchromesh, so we could talk in person, but we didn’t want to push our luck.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ I said. ‘And the others?’
‘Just as risky, if not more so. Grilse’s cabinet is the best of the four - the other three are in even worse repair.’ Mezereon closed the control panel, then swung shut the patterned doors. ‘I wouldn’t recommend attempting to bring him out until we reach the Belladonna world. At least there we’ll be able to call on the technical assistance of the rest of the Line.’
‘What’s left of it,’ I said.
‘There’ll be more of us at the fallback,’ Mezereon said. ‘Call that an act of faith, if you will. But if I didn’t believe that ... I’d end myself. Voluntary attrition.’
‘We all feel that way,’ Campion said.
Aconite turned to him. ‘Did you tell Purslane what Grilse told us?’
‘She knows.’
‘And what do you both make of it?’
‘I’d love to ask Grilse in person,’ Campion said.
Aconite’s smile was grim. ‘You’ll get your chance, don’t worry about that.’
‘I believe Grilse,’ I said. ‘It’s not comfortable, but why would he invent a detail like that unless it had some substance? It doesn’t make Campion complicit in any of this.’
‘And Doctor Meninx - what does he have to say?’ Mezereon asked.
‘Not a lot lately,’ Campion said.
‘He died,’ I said. ‘Tank failure.’
Aconite winced. ‘Spectacular timing, old man.’
Campion raised his hands defensively. ‘It wasn’t my fault! I was under strict instructions not to touch his tank, and I didn’t.’
Aconite clapped him on the back in a comradely fashion. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I’ll take a look at the tank. But I can already tell you what I’ll find, based on all the aquatics I’ve known: some rusting piece of junk with nothing inside it newer than a million years old, just begging to go wrong.’
‘Thank you,’ Campion said, sounding taken aback.
‘See, he does have his uses,’ Mezereon said.
That was when Silver Wings whispered into my brain, telling me there as something vital I needed to know.
The image was a rectangular volume, divided into cubic cells by a scaffold of fine green lines. At one end of the volume was a representation of our two ships, close enough together that they almost resembled a single vessel. At the other end lay a halo of smeared light indicating the heliopause of the system we had just departed; the boundary where the star’s influence became negligible and beyond which we could consider ourselves to be in true interstellar space. Halfway along the rectangle was a trio of icons representing the three ships that had been pursuing Campion ever since he rescued Mezereon and the others.
‘We already knew about the three ships,’ Aconite said. ‘Maybe I’m being dim, but I don’t quite see what all the fuss is about.’
We had whisked over to my ship. The four of us were standing on Silver Wings’ bridge, grouped around the central displayer. ‘One of the three ships is making headway on the other two,’ I said. ‘That’s what the fuss is about.’
Aconite scratched at his chin. ‘Now you mention it - that is a bit odd.’
The trio of icons formed an elongated triangle, with the lone ship at the apex. We were all accelerating hard; it was only necessary to look at the image for a few minutes to spot the oozing motion of the grid from left to right, with the magnetopause slowly disappearing from the frame.
‘If they had power in reserve, they’d have used it already,’ I said. ‘There’s only one explanation. I know you thought you saw her being destroyed, Campion, but that third ship can only be Vespertine. She must have survived the attack after all.’
‘A direct hit from an H-gun?’ Campion asked.
‘I’m not saying she’s in one piece.’
‘But there’s been no direct contact from Hesperus himself?’ Mezereon asked.
‘Nothing—only the agreed distress code he installed in the ship. Hesperus is the only one who’s supposed to be able to transmit that signal.’
‘Could someone have got aboard and cracked the safeguards?’ Aconite asked.
‘Theoretically, yes - but they’d have to be very clever and very quick, and for some reason Hesperus must not have destroyed the signalling apparatus even though he would have known he was being boarded.’
‘So it could be him - but you can’t be sure,’ Mezereon said.
‘No way to know for certain until we open up Vespertine and peer inside.’
Aconite looked concerned. ‘In other words, let him catch up with us and see what happens?’
‘He can’t. We’re outrunning him, and short of engine failure we’ll keep on doing so. He may have some pseudo-thrust in reserve, but given the circumstances I rather doubt it.’
Mezereon bit her lip. ‘So it’s a lost cause.’
‘Unless we go back for him,’ Campion said.
I nodded. ‘He’s sending that signal because he wants our help. He helped Gentian Line in our moment of need. We can’t turn our backs on him now.’
‘I’m probably missing something,’ Aconite said, ‘but if we turn around now, or even just slow down, won’t we be in danger of
falling back in range of the killers?’
‘There are other options,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a lot of ships in my hold. Some of them can sustain a much higher rate of acceleration than either Dalliance or Silver Wings. Not for ever - but long enough to get to Hesperus and back.’
Mezereon still did not look convinced. ‘Can this really be done? I mean, the idea is nice in theory ... but you’re going to be cutting things very close.’
‘It can be done,’ I said. I had already primed the displayer; now it showed an icon leaving Silver Wings and racing back towards Vespertine. I had overlaid ovoid volumes that indicated the likely range of the enemy’s weapons, assuming they were carrying nothing on the scale of the Homunculus device or the Spitting Cobra. ‘If Hesperus holds his current rate,’ I continued, ‘we can reach him without ever falling in range of their guns. Then we speed back to Silver Wings and notch back up to maximum acceleration. We’ll still lose them, and we’ll still be able to make the turn to the fallback without being traced.’
‘There’s an element of risk, though,’ said Mezereon.
I shrugged. ‘There’s an element of risk in breathing.’
‘It’s not that I’m against rescuing him,’ Aconite said, ‘but from now on every action we take has to be measured against the future existence of the Line. There simply isn’t room for brave gestures any more.’
‘I feel the same way,’ I answered, ‘but I also know that if we don’t do this for Hesperus, we’ve got no right to call ourselves Gentian.’
‘In any case, the Line - such as it is - won’t be threatened,’ Campion said, nodding at the other two. ‘Purslane and I are in agreement: you’ll stay aboard Dalliance while Purslane and I take one of the ships in Silver Wings’ hold. Silver Wings will have to notch down a bit to allow the other ship to catch up, but she can make up the ground again when we’re back aboard.’
‘And you’ll both ride that ship back to Hesperus?’ Mezereon asked.
‘We’ve talked about it. Neither of us much likes the idea of continuing without the other, so it makes perfect sense.’
‘There’s another way,’ Aconite said, as if the idea was forming even as he spoke the words. ‘If this Hesperus has done as much for the Line as you say he has ... then his preservation becomes our responsibility as well, not just yours. I should take that ship.’
‘Unthinkable,’ Campion said.
‘After everything you’ve done for us? I don’t think so, old man.’ I started to say something, but he held his hand up firmly. ‘It’s no good, Purslane: I’ve made my mind up.’
‘Are you sure?’ Mezereon asked quietly.
‘Resolute.’ He nodded forcefully. ‘I mean it. What kind of ship do you have in mind, Purslane?’
‘I’ve got a Rimrunner scow.’
‘Very tasty.’
‘It hasn’t been switched on for about three million years, planetary. You all right with that?’
‘They built them to last. Just show me how to work the music.’
He reappeared as swiftly as he had disappeared. One moment I was in the bay looking at an iron-black sky peppered with doppler-squeezed starlight, the next there was a chrome and black Rimrunner scow making final approach, as if it had just popped into existence in my wake. Campion, Mezereon and I were aboard almost before the retaining field had clamped the ship into place.
That was when we learned what had become of Hesperus.
‘He was alive when I got to him,’ Aconite said. ‘He moved slightly. He was aware of me.’
But if Hesperus was aware of anything now, there was no evidence of it. His head did not move, nor did his facial expression change. His eyes, which had twinkled between turquoise and jade, were now devoid of intelligence. The only hint that Hesperus was still alive, in some arcane sense, was the continued movement of lights in the fretted windows of his skull. But those lights moved slowly, and their colours were muted, like the last embers of a fire.
Yet it must have taken some volition to send that distress transmission.
The paucity of life was not the most disturbing thing about Hesperus, however: even if the lights had been dead, I could have convinced myself that he had placed himself into the machine equivalent of a deep coma, the better to preserve his deep functions while he awaited rescue. But we were not even looking at all of Hesperus. His left side was almost entirely gone, or rather was concealed or absorbed within a misshapen ingot of black and gold metal that appeared to be partly an extension of him and partly an eruption of the fabric of his ship, which had infiltrated and combined with Hesperus’s own body. The ship was gone, but we could see the clean silvery surfaces where Aconite must have sliced through the mass to free Hesperus.
‘There wasn’t time to think it through,’ he said, as if his actions needed explaining. ‘I barely had time to free him.’
‘Was there any change?’ I asked.
‘The lights got a bit dimmer, I think, but they weren’t bright to start with. I don’t know if that mass was keeping him alive, or killing him slowly.’
‘When the ship was damaged,’ Campion said, ‘its repair systems must have gone haywire. I think Hesperus must have been caught in that - it looks as if the ship was trying to reconstitute him back into its own matrix, mistaking him for some broken component.’
‘Then it was a mistake to separate him from the ship.’
‘Hesperus sent that signal for a reason,’ I said. ‘He probably knew he couldn’t stay ahead of them for much longer. Whatever happens, you gave him a better chance than he had.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I don’t know how we’re going to get him out of that, though,’ Campion said, standing with his hands on his hips, like a gardener surveying a plot of soil.
‘As far as I’m concerned,’ I said, ‘the best thing we can do is put him into abeyance and get him into the care of other Machine People as quickly as possible.’
‘I’m not even sure we have a stasis chamber big enough,’ Campion said. ‘And we can’t very well start hacking bits off him until he fits inside.’
I looked at the slow crawl of the muted lights. ‘We can’t just leave him like this.’
‘We’re not going to,’ Campion said. ‘We’ll scan him, like you said, and if there’s something obvious we can do, something that we can be certain won’t hurt him, we will. But if we can’t, he’ll have to wait until we get to Belladonna. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed another Machine Person shows up - a guest of someone who survived—and that they’ll know what to do.’
‘And if they don’t show up?’
‘We’re not miracle workers,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll have done the best we can. That’s all anyone can hope for.’
The scans brought no better news. The structures under that fused black and gold exterior were complex and intertwined, with parts of Hesperus extending deep into the mass and vice versa. Of his left side, including the living arm, little or nothing appeared to have retained anatomical integrity. There was activity within the combined growth, the arterial flow of energy and matter that indicated ongoing processes. Aconite had been fortunate not to sever any of those conduits when he freed Hesperus, but it was distinctly possible that attempting to free him further would do more harm than good.
But there was something still thinking inside him, and he did find a way to communicate with us, albeit briefly. It was not long after we had made the turn to Neume, the Belladonna fallback, confident that the pursuing ships had now fallen too far behind to track our movements. I was the one who noticed it, during one of my periodic and increasingly despondent attempts to coax some evidence of recognition from him. I was looking into his eyes and the fretted windows when my attention was snared by a tremor at the edge of my vision. I looked down and saw that the thumb of his right hand - the only visible hand - was quivering from the highest joint, as if a palsy afflicted that digit while the rest of him was paralysed into total immobility.
The thumb had
not been moving before.
I stared at in puzzled astonishment for several seconds before I remembered what Hesperus had done with the wine goblet. With the prickling sense that this might be temporary, a window of lucid communication that could close at any moment, I dashed out of the room to the nearest maker and had it spin another goblet into existence. I pressed it into his hand so that the thumb lay against the glass, as if that was going to be all that I needed to do. But the thumb merely scratched a vertical white line into the glass, deepening the cut with each vertical movement.
I looked into his face, hoping for a clue, some nuance of expression that would make it all clear. Then I recalled the way he had rotated the goblet in his fingers as his thumb worked up and down, carving out a picture line by line in the manner of a scanning beam. Delicately I took hold of the glass, his thumb still moving, and started turning it, as slowly and smoothly as I was able, and something began to take form, not a line but a rectangle of impressions that was too pale and scratchy for me to make out until he was done.
I knew when he was finished because the thumb stopped moving; when I took the glass from his hand and touched the digit, it was as stiff and dead as the rest of him. But the evidence that it had moved was in my hands, scribed indelibly onto the goblet. I held it up to the light and squinted, but at first the array of scratches made no sense at all and I wondered if what I had seen was no more than a reflex quiver. I was afraid that I so desperately wanted Hesperus to come back to us that I had clutched at the meaningless twitch of a carcass.
But there was something in those scratches. It was almost impossibly faint, nearly lost in the noise, but Hesperus had engraved a design into the glass. It was a circular motif, a rim with spokes - like a wagon wheel with a thick hub.
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