Shadow Captain

by Alastair Reynolds

  “Lagganvor,” I said again, quieter this time, for my benefit, not his.

  He lingered for a few heartbeats, then snapped his gaze from me. He turned, standing in profile for a moment, then passed out of my line of sight.

  17

  I was nearly back at the hotel when I swerved on my heels and took off for the infirmary instead, gripped by an impulse to speak to Doctor Eddralder. I took a roundabout route, not wanting to be followed, or at least not make it too easy for anyone, and spent a minute or two skulking under the cover of the surrounding buildings, before finally making a dash to the muddy, cratered ground over which the infirmary was suspended like a piece of scraggy gristle.

  There was no one to greet me, no one to speak to, and the rope-bridges and ladders had been drawn up off the ground.

  Glancing over my shoulder so often it must have looked as if I had a twitch in my neck, I finally summoned the nerve to ring one of the chains hanging from above, yanking it down and putting all my weight into the act until it budged enough to send a signal.

  I had to do it three or four times before a wooden shutter popped open far above and a round, scrawny-necked head projected out like a lollipop on a stick. The cove searched the surroundings before appearing to notice my presence.

  “This ain’t visiting hours,” he called down gruffly.

  “What if I was sick?” I called back.

  “Then you wouldn’t have been able to ring the bell. If you can’t ring the bell, you’re sick. If you can ring the bell, you ain’t.”

  I digested this logic, deciding it was the sort that was best not challenged.

  “And what if I had someone sick with me?”

  “Have you?”

  I looked around.

  “No.”

  “Then buzz off until visiting hours.”

  “And when are they?”

  “Whenever you ain’t around, precious. Go away and make some trouble elsewhere.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I want to speak to Eddralder.” Realising that this alone would not get me an audience with the doctor, I added: “It’s to do with Mister Glimmery, a very important medical matter. You wouldn’t want to be the one who delayed it, would you?”

  “You want a chat with Mister Glimmery, come up and see the man himself.”

  “It’s more a matter for his physician.” I dug a heel into the mud, looking up with my hands on my hips. “I bet Mister Glimmery’s had his share of hopes dashed, about treatments and cures. I wouldn’t want to add to that … but Doctor Eddralder will know what has and hasn’t been attempted, and he’ll be able to spare Mister Glimmery any unnecessary disappointment.”

  “Got some quack potion you want to peddle, is it?”

  “I can’t be the judge of that, sir—but Doctor Eddralder can.”

  I jumped as a hand settled on my shoulder. I’d let my attention linger on the man above me, but I had still been alert, and there had been no sign of anyone approaching me. The volition pistol was still in my pocket. It might as well have been back in the hotel for all the use it was going to be now.

  But a voice that I knew said: “I can be the judge of what, exactly?”

  I turned around slowly, recalculating my assumptions. I had thought it might be Sneed, or one of Sneed’s men, or perhaps Lagganvor, sneaking up on me. But it was Doctor Eddralder himself, looming over me with his umbrella held high and turning slowly, like a wheelworld spinning on its axis.

  “I thought you’d be in the infirmary,” I said.

  Eddralder set down the heavy medical bag he had been carrying. It was already covered in muddy stains so I suppose a few more made no difference. “There are needy cases beyond our walls, Tragen, and when my schedule permits, I attend to them as best I can.”

  I studied the lines of weariness etched into his face. If anything they were deeper and longer than the last time, so precisely vertical it was as if the rain had eroded them.

  “I take it there’s not much you can do?”

  He blinked away my question. “When there is news on your friend, I will be sure to let you know. That was your business here, I take it?” His eyes were hard on me, and I wondered if he saw something of the state of mind that the volition pistol had left me in. I had glimpsed the true face of free will and found that it was a paper-thin mask, easily shredded. Beneath it was a steely autonomy, a mechanism of desires and impulses over which I had much less control than I’d hitherto believed.

  “Can we talk, Doctor Eddralder?”

  He cocked back his umbrella to shout at the man above. “It’s all right—her business is legitimate. Send down my box.”

  “You certain, doc?” called the man.

  A cold insistence entered his voice. “Yes—quite certain.”

  The face retreated, shutters clacking shut. After an interval a larger door opened and a gallows-like crane swung out from a hidden recess. On the hook of the crane was an upright container, like a coffin tipped on its end. It began to lower down to us.

  “You were saying, Tragen?” Eddralder prompted.

  “You have to find a way out of this mess you’re in, sir. For your sake, and for Merrix as well.”

  “Did I not already explain my predicament, Tragen?”

  I watched as the box continued its descent. It was only large enough for one person so it was plain to me that our conversation was not going to be a long one. “You did, sir, and I understand. And I know you feel a duty of care to that man, no matter what a monster he is. But there’s got to be a way.”

  “To condemn both myself and Merrix, you mean?”

  “Maybe you’ve had the means already,” I said. “But not any way of getting away from him in safety. Wheel Strizzardy’s too small a place for you to be able to hide, and he controls most of it anyway. Even if you brought yourself to kill him, there’d be his associates to worry about. But it’s different now. There’s a ship that could take you away.” I nodded at the bag he had deposited in the mud. “You’re a good man, a good doctor.”

  “You hardly know me.”

  “I don’t need to. I know you’re in an impossible situation and I think we can help. Besides, there’s a bit of self-interest. We’ve got a good sick-bay on our ship, but none of us is really able to use it. If you’d been with us from the outset, you could’ve fixed up our friend without us ever needing to come to this place.”

  “If half the rumours about your crew are true, Tragen, then I would be condemning myself to a fugitive existence.”

  “But a free one, and with Merrix away from that man. You’d have our protection and our gratitude.”

  “And your leader—Captain Marance?” He spoke her name with an exaggerated care, as if emphasising its falsehood. “She is in concordance with this proposal?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “Totally.”

  His box landed hard next to us. It really was a like a coffin, with the same wedge-shape, flaring wider near the top. The only difference was that there was a little window in the door. He opened the box, which contained nothing except space for the doctor and his bag, the latter item being heaved inside, along with a generous skirting of mud. “Then I thank you for the kind offer, Tragen—and please express my gratitude to Captain Marance. But there remains a stumbling block. He is still my patient.”

  “With all the drugs you’ve got, sir …”

  “Each of which he insists is tested first on Merrix. There is no possibility of deception, Tragen. Nor would my conscience permit it, even if I saw a way.” He snapped shut the umbrella, which was too large to have fitted into the box when open, then stepped within, nodding a temporary farewell to me before drawing the door tight. For a moment his long, lined face loomed behind the window, and I wondered if I saw something in his eyes, some sudden calculation, but then he was being pulled aloft, up into the infirmary.

  *

  I returned to the hotel, but I could abide the emptiness of our room for no more than a minute before deciding I would prefer the bustl
e and warmth of the bar. I bought a drink for myself, sufficient to settle my nerves but not dull them, and was on my way to find a private corner when a pudgy hand grabbed at my sleeve. I was about to slap it away when a mouth pressed itself up to my ear and said: “The one you’re after ain’t around right now, but he agreed to your suggestion and says he’ll see you across the road.”

  I snapped round, dislodging the hand with a flick. The woman who had spoken to me was one of the staff, for I had seen her beating one of the cleaning robots with a broomstick when it became stuck in a decision-action loop. She wore a grubby apron, and had a gap in the front of her teeth and a scar up the side of her lip. Her eyes were set so widely in her face that I fancied she could see right around me.

  “Begging my pardon, miss,” she said, pulling away. “I thought you were someone else. I should have paid more heed.”

  More heed to my arm, I thought, for it was plain that she had mistaken me for Fura, which was not so unforgivable in the low light of the bar, especially as my hair was unruly from the neural bridges.

  “It’s all right,” I said, smiling despite my general discontentment. “Captain Marance sent me to make sure all was in hand. We are talking about the same person, aren’t we? Tall and thin?” I motioned across my face, suggesting a sweep of hair such as I thought I had seen on Lagganvor.

  “You can say his name, girlie—it ain’t any kind of secret.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You do mean Mister Cull, don’t you? Trabzon Cull?”

  Thankfully my wits were still present, and I do not think the confusion showed in my face long enough to register. “Yes—Mister Cull.” Because of course Lagganvor would not be using the name by which Bosa Sennen had known him.

  “Is that how it normally works with your captain and her crew?” she asked, and I realised that she must think some assignation had been arranged between Fura and this man, and that I was at the very least a willing intermediary.

  “So long as she finds us the quoins,” I said, moving to distance myself, “she can do what she likes in port.”

  I reached my desired corner and sat brooding over my drink, my mind a furious mill of calculation and speculation. There was almost too much going on in it, like some infernal machine whose governer had failed and which was now intent on turning itself into a pile of hot wreckage. First the Bone Reader from the White Widow, then the encounter with Sneed, and then meeting the man I now held to be Lagganvor. And then—this. Proof, if any were needed, that Fura had already used her time here most profitably. I knew she had stolen back into the bar during our first shopping expedition, and I guessed that she had been making enquiries after her quarry. Very delicately phrased enquiries, I did not doubt, but then she was adept at that sort of thing. She would never have come out with it and asked for Lagganvor directly. But she would have been sure to mention that she was in the recruiting game and particularly interested in any talented person who might have come to the wheel in recent times, who might be in want of employment. Names and habits would have been presented to her, for no one, not even a fugitive, could arrive in a place like this without making waves. Fura would have quickly homed in on the individual most likely to be Lagganvor, and then she would have begun setting her trap.

  I finished my drink. We had started from the hotel late and my shopping had taken up most of the afternoon. It was early evening now, and Port Endless was slipping back into its more habitual state of illumination, after the temporary respite of day. The lit windows of the hotel stood out like playing cards, laid out in the interrupted ranks and rows of some vast round of Solitaire. Against one of them, on the eighth floor, stiff as a marionette, a figure stood watching. She had her left arm at her side, her right at her waist. She must have been looking down into Shine Street, perhaps thinking of the coming assignation. I do not think she saw me, but after a long moment she pivoted from the window and closed the shutters.

  A few minutes later I went to my room for long enough to take off my jacket and comb my hair. I slipped the volition pistol into my blouse pocket, closed the door and knocked on the adjoining room.

  Fura was alone. Surt had gone back to the infirmary to get a first-hand account of Strambli’s condition from Doctor Eddralder. I wondered how close our paths had come to crossing, and if Eddralder might now mention something to Surt about my own conversation with him, and the offer I’d dangled.

  “Do you think Surt will be all right?”

  “I didn’t want her going off on her own, but she wouldn’t hear anything else,” Fura said. “I asked her to pass a message to Prozor, asking her to come back here and collect a few items on the way. I’ll explain when she arrives. Anyway, you’re back sooner than I expected. Did you chase up a skull?”

  “I found one that I think might fit our requirements,” I said, not without a certain brusqueness. “We can afford it, and I think it can be installed without any complications. We can collect it tomorrow, if you wish. With the other items we already have, it wouldn’t hurt to make a return trip with the launch. I don’t trust the lock-up here very much, and it would be a terrible inconvenience if we lost everything again, and had to further delay our departure.”

  “If all goes well—with Strambli, I mean—there’ll be no need to delay at all. I’m thinking we might even cast off tomorrow.”

  “Good,” I said decisively. “I’ll squawk Tindouf to make immediate preparations.”

  “No—not just yet. Squawk only when we have a firm intention, or we’ll only confuse the poor fellow. Besides, I have something in mind. Do you have the volition pistol?”

  “Yes, and I already tested it against Sneed.”

  She looked at me with fear and wonder and not a little admiration. “I’m sorry, you did what?”

  “Sneed was shadowing me. I took out the pistol and let off a shot. Don’t worry, though, I didn’t hit him.” I unpocketed the weapon and regarded it. “You should have told me what it would do. I might have thought twice about aiming it anywhere near Sneed.”

  Fura took the pistol from me and made a careful adjustment to a ring-shaped dial situated behind the grip. “It was a low setting, mercifully—if it hadn’t been, you’d have blown a hole right through to space. Slight exaggeration, perhaps, but you could still have done a lot of damage.”

  “Are you making it stronger?”

  “Exactly the opposite, dear heart. I’m putting it at the lowest setting.” She handed the weapon back to me. “You probably felt as if the pistol had a will of its own.”

  I thought back to the encounter with Sneed, and the way Bosa had almost usurped my control over the weapon.

  “It did.”

  “It’s an illusion. The only mind operating it is your own. What it does is cut through inhibitions and doubt, silencing qualms and second-guessing. It compels you to shoot the person you would most like to shoot, without any higher reasoning getting in the way. Think of it as a weapon that by-passes your frontal lobe. If you’d prefer something cruder …?”

  “No,” I answered. “If I wanted crude, I’d have brought something like a Ghostie blade with me.”

  Her smile was guarded.

  “What a curious remark.”

  Fura had a telephone directory on her bedside table. She picked it up, walked to the room’s limit and held it outstretched in her alloy fingers.

  I looked at her and shrugged.

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “I would have thought it was obvious. Shoot at the directory. These walls are paper-thin, so if a shot penetrates the directory there’s a good chance it will go through the wall as well.”

  “And this is of interest to you … why, precisely?”

  “Shoot at the directory.”

  I squeezed the jewelled trigger. The weapon gave a little twitch in my hand and a spark of pink-white light leapt from the muzzle to the telephone book, boring a crude, lopsided hole near its edge, and projecting a dark, hyphenated scorch mark against the wall beyond it.

&n
bsp; “Good. Now take it a little higher. The setting dial is that bevelled circle you saw me adjust. One notch at a time. Delicately.”

  “I am being delicate.”

  “Try again.”

  I fired. The kick was stronger, but I was ready for it and my aim was truer, concentrating the pistol’s fire on the middle of the book. The same snap of light, but this time the hole was narrower, more neatly formed, and a spark of flame danced on the wallpaper for an instant.

  “A notch higher. The wall will absorb more of the energy, when you shoot through it.”

  I did it, punching a thicker hole through the book, and creating a fist-sized scorch beyond it. Flames licked the edge, but did not take. The wallpaper was too damp to be truly combustible, I decided.

  “Good. I think we’re close.”

  “We could just shoot through the wall and eliminate the guesswork.”

  “I don’t wish to damage the wall. Later tonight I expect a visitor. He may try to get the better of me, and I can’t be seen to have a visible defence. Prozor will help, when she brings the items I asked her to collect. But you will also be watching from your own room with that piece of lookstone I gave you, ready to fire a disabling shot.”

  “Let’s hope it works better than the last disabling shot we tried.”

  Fura swapped the telephone book from one hand to the other, so that she had it in her flesh fingers. “One more time.”

  “Please don’t do that.”

  She was holding her metal hand beyond the telephone book, in the path of the energy pulse.

  “It won’t do me any harm. Fire again.”

  “Fura, please.”

  “Just do it. Or damn it, I’ll find a way to do it myself. I have to know that the blast will be debilitating, but not lethal.”

  “And this is how you propose to find out?”

  My hand wavered, feeling as if it were being nudged to one side by a subliminal pressure, and the muzzle of the volition pistol drifted onto Fura’s head. I had no doubt that a shot at this range, without the muffling influence of the telephone book, would suffice to drop her dead. Fura seemed to realise it as well. Her eyes met mine, some silent understanding passing between us, and with a distinct force of will—as if my arm would much rather be aiming the muzzle at her head—I swivelled the pistol back onto its proper alignment.