“I meant nothing by that,” I said.
“Of course you didn’t. Fire, please. I must know that we have the correct settings.”
I maintained my aim. But some wild, wicked impulse overcame me. I had been waiting for the decisive moment, half convinced it would never come, and here it was, me with a pistol pointed at my sister’s hand. There was anger in me, and indignation, but for once I did not hold Bosa entirely accountable.
“This visitor. Do you know who he is?”
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out.”
“Then I’ll help you along a bit. Around here he calls himself Trabzon Cull. But his real name is Lagganvor.”
To her credit, she controlled her reaction well. Just the merest lift of her eyebrows, the slightest curl of suspicion and doubt on her lips.
“And how would you know that?”
“It wasn’t difficult. In fact I’ve known about him for quite a while.” I watched her face take on a steadily more troubled aspect, as my words hit home. “Since before we rounded the swallower, in fact. You found his name in Bosa’s private journals and realised he could be useful to you, if only you could track him down.”
“This is … not what I expected of you. More like what I expected of her.”
“She’s gone from me. She tried to get into my head and I wouldn’t let her. But you? It’s almost like you want to live up to something.”
“How can you stand there and say that?”
“Very easily. I’m not the one who duped her own crew, and lied and cheated, for the sake of a piece of information.”
If she felt that I had gone a little far in accusing her of outright treachery, she let it pass for now.
“And what information would that be?”
“The location of Bosa’s cache of quoins. Somewhere out there in the Emptyside, most probably, but not easily found from her records. But a man like Lagganvor, her go-between, might know the whereabouts. Or have enough knowledge to break a coded entry in her navigational documents, or the ship’s own memory registers. Something even Paladin can’t get at. Either way, you won’t rest until you have him. Which is why you schemed to bring us here, making it seem as if we were going against your intentions, when in fact we were stuck on them like a tram following its rails down Jauncery Road.”
“I didn’t …”
“Shut up,” I said. “Not one more lying word, sister, or so help me I’ll turn the yield up as far as it goes. We’re finished with untruths, you and me. Total honesty from now on, or we’re done.”
“I came for you.”
“Yes, and the decent thing might be to stop reminding me of it every five minutes. You have my gratitude. You’ve had my gratitude for every waking instant since you rescued me. But that doesn’t excuse your duplicity. I could almost stand the thought of you lying to the rest of them, even Prozor, but that you’d do it to me, to my face, after all we’ve been through.” I shook my head, trusting that my disgust and disappointment needed no clarification. “I thought better of you. But you’ve changed. Whether it’s the glowy, or some of her seeping into you, there’s something in you that I neither understand nor care for. I want you back, Fura—the sister I ran away with. I know you’re still in there. But I’m worried that you’re slipping away.”
She was still holding the telephone directory, I was still holding the energy pistol. What an odd tableau we would have made, had anyone crashed through the door at the moment: two sisters, standing in stiff opposition, more alike than either of us cared to admit but with a widening gulf between us, opening like the space between two worlds moving on different processionals.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” Fura said, sounding as if she had pricked her own rage. “Not the way I did. I see that now. I ought to have trusted you—all of you—to see what I saw.”
“Why the sudden change of heart?” I asked, unconvinced by this show of contrition, which I had seen a few too many times in our long association. “Don’t you see the danger you’ve led us into?”
“Our every waking breath is a risk, Adrana. We must have those quoins, don’t you see?”
“We can barely spend what we already have. What use is more of it?”
“Not to make us richer. I’m not so callow, and neither are you. Of course a little more leverage wouldn’t hurt, but that’s not the main reason for locating the cache. There are questions that need answering, truths we need to uncover, and those quoins are the key to it.” A pleading look entered her eyes. “Admit it, Adrana. You’re drawn to it yourself. The riddle I showed you, of those intervals … the Shadow Occupations … don’t tell me that hasn’t played on your mind. It’s all interconnected.”
“Don’t drag me into this,” I said.
“But you’re in it already,” she insisted. “Tantalised and troubled, just as I am. The glowy’s got nothing to do with that.”
“Are you really so sure of that, after seeing what it’s done to Glimmery?”
“Oh, I know it has its way with me on occasion, and perhaps I’ve allowed it to run too far. But what’s driving me is the same yearning that drove us to run away in the first place. You feel it too. Maybe it burns a bit less brightly for you but you can’t deny it.”
“I would never have lied.”
“It was a mistake. But for the sake of the cohesion of the crew …”
I finished off her thought. “You want me to join you in your duplicity.”
“What’s done is done. Lagganvor is nearly ours. He’ll be here this evening.”
“I know. I was told that he meant to keep his assignation. I presume at some point you meant to tell me what my role in all of this would be?”
“Tonight. Of course tonight. Look—surely you can agree that no harm has come by any of this?”
“Tell that to Strambli.”
“Blame me for anything, Adrana, but not that. No matter which world we sailed to, we’d have needed to disguise the ship.”
“Things might have played out differently,” I said.
But it was unkind of me to blame Fura for that misfortune, and I felt one of us had to rise above such pettiness.
“Just make sure the lies end here,” I said.
“You can’t tell the others. Not now, just when we’re getting somewhere. Say you’ll keep this between us. There’ll be no more secrets.”
“Pray there aren’t.”
She swallowed. “Once we’ve got Lagganvor, the crew will see how we needed him. I’ll … make it seem that we found him by good luck, not design.”
“Yes, and you’ll need equal good luck with the consequences of letting one of Bosa’s own anywhere near the ship.”
“What would you suggest I do?”
“Stir his bowels with a yardknife, and take your sweet time doing it.”
“And you say I’m the hard one,” she said, her quiet admiration shaming me. “He escaped from her, just as you did. Who’s to say how he first fell into her employment? He might have had as little say in the matter as you did.” Her jaw tensed. “Enough of this. Do we understand each other or not? You’ve no desire to set the rest of the crew on me, and I’ve no desire to deepen your evident disappointment in me.”
“I shouldn’t give you this last chance.”
“But you will, for the sake of where we’ve been, and what we’ve been through. Just as I would, if our places were swapped.” She flicked her eyes to the energy pistol, which was growing heavy in my hand. “Be done with it. Shoot me.”
“If you insist,” I said, and squeezed the trigger.
The weapon had the desired effect. It blasted through the telephone book, adding a dark-lined hole to the ones already present, and what was left of the energy pulse—still some considerable part—lashed against Fura’s metal hand.
She let out a gasp of suppressed pain, something close to delight in her eyes, and although she was holding it with her other hand, the shock was enough that she dropped the book. She rubbed the forearm and wri
st of her artificial limb.
“Did it sting?” I asked, with cold indifference.
She was breathless for a moment. But she gathered herself, inspecting the arm—it appeared undamaged, at least to my eyes—and answered: “The cove in Mazarile told me my nervous system would eventually bind to the arm’s sensory mechanisms, so I’d feel heat and cold, the texture of things, and also pain. He was right, too. Especially about the pain.”
“Was it sufficient?”
Fura knelt down and gathered the sorry-looking telephone book. “I think so.”
“Good,” I said, levelling the pistol again. “But we had best be sure, hadn’t we?”
*
Prozor came by the hotel about half an hour later. She had the items Surt had told her to buy, and she had found them easily and without any great expenditure, although she had no idea why they were needed.
“A tin arm from the cheapest Limb Broker within a square league of here, and a filthy wig I wouldn’t embarrass a dog with.” She dropped the offending items onto Fura’s bed. “I hope you’ve got a sensible reason for sending me after these, girlie, when I could’ve been pickin’ scraps out of the gutter.”
“I’ll explain,” Fura said. “Over a drink. Did you speak to Eddralder?”
“Yes, and he’s still not makin” any promises. He wants the best for us, strangely, which means he’s ever so keen that we should leave before that launch comes in. But he won’t let Strambli out of his sight until he knows he’s got the infection beaten, and that could take days or weeks, for all he’s prepared to commit. Meanwhile, that launch will be here by about six in the morning.
“Less than twelve hours,” I said. “Assuming it’s still on course.”
“Paladin says it is,” Prozor said. “I squawked him and got the latest sweeper fix. Comin’ in a little faster than planned, if anything. They must have squeezed a few more drops of fuel from their tanks. It’s a fine old launch, too—much bigger than our little tub.”
“Big enough to contain a skull, do you think?” I asked.
“I’ve heard of such things,” Prozor said, stroking the hard angle of her chin as she reflected on this point. “Ain’t ideal. Lot of noise in a launch, and you’d have to damp the rockets if you wanted to tune in. But if you’ve already got a bone room on your main ship, and you can afford the space and room on a launch, there’s no handicap. Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“Do you think the doctor’s happy in his present employment?” Fura asked, directing her question at the two of us.
“I imagine his happiness has very little bearing on the matter,” I answered, glad not to be pushed on the question of the bone room. “He is chained to Glimmery by Merrix. So long as Glimmery has Merrix, Eddralder cannot cross him. Besides, he has his infirmary. He may slave under a monster, but I think he shows kindness to his patients, and wishes he could do more.”
“Where are you goin’ with the line of speculation?” Prozor asked Fura.
“Nowhere, other than to consider how much easier it would have been if we’d had the services of a physician on the ship. Still, as you say: speculation.” She glanced at her timepiece, flicking open its jewelled cover. “There isn’t much that needs to be discussed, but I promised you a drink and I doubt you’ll refuse. Adrana already knows her part. Yours won’t take very long to explain.”
18
I felt the lookstone’s rough edge between my fingers. I held it up to my eyes and squeezed gently, activating the mysterious and invisible machinery embedded in the relic.
The adjoining room was as dark as our own, with only a few slants of coloured light spilling in through the shutters, flickering and changing according to the illuminated signs and hoardings outside. That was sufficient, though, because my eyes were well-adjusted to the gloom. I made out the form on the bed, lying on her back, black hair spilling onto her pillow, face averted, one flesh arm tucked under the sheets, the mechanical one resting above them, metal fingers and sleeve catching the light’s play so that the alloy gleamed ruby one moment, lilac the next, bronze green the moment after that.
Footsteps passed in the hall, then halted. After a silence I heard the sound of a doorknob being tested, then a click as it worked, and a louder, more protracted creak as the door was pushed open. The hall’s brown light fanned into the room, quenching the colours, until the door was pushed shut again.
A figure moved to the bedside, moving in a stealthy but confident manner, lowering down to kneel at the level of the sleeper, reaching out with one hand to brush aside the tousled hair.
A soft voice, not without education or refinement, muffled further by the intervening wall. “Wake up, Captain Marance. Have you forgotten our appointment?”
Something gleamed in his other hand, held lightly but with unmistakable purpose.
The sleeping form murmured a response. The man swept the curls fully away from the face and some doubt or apprehension touched his expression, the first intimation of a dawning wrongness. The hair must have felt too loose in his fingers. He tugged at it again and the entire body of hair shifted, spilling onto the pillow as one mass. The hair beneath was shorter by far, and paler, consisting of matted and tousled spikes.
Lagganvor pivoted, still kneeling. Tentatively, weapon still in his other hand, he made to touch the artificial hand and sleeve. It rolled to one side, too loose to be anchored to any anatomical part. Now he began to sense the grave depths of his error and made to rise, jerking the weapon into the corners of the room while always keeping an eye on the sleeping form.
I judged my moment as carefully as my point of aim. The volition pistol discharged, most of its yield exhausted in the process of blasting through the wall, leaving only a stinging, scalding charge to strike Lagganvor. I had aimed for his weapon hand, and the shock of it made him yelp and drop his pistol. It clattered onto floorboards, and that was Fura’s signal. Before Lagganvor had a chance to scrabble around and retrieve the weapon, she was out of the cupboard and onto the man, catching him from behind.
“Don’t struggle,” she said, very loudly and firmly. “This coldness you feel against your throat is a Ghostie blade which will go through you so cleanly you won’t feel a tickle until your head thuds against the floor.”
Now that Lagganvor was preoccupied, Prozor rose from the bed. She left the wig and the false arm behind, moved to the wall and switched on the main light. Under that unsympathetic glare the artefacts of our trickery, the wig and the arm, looked incapable of fooling a child. The wig was nothing like Fura’s real hair, being far too curly and far too black, almost like catchcloth, but shot through with shimmery purple highlights, and the artificial arm, while comparable in size and function to Fura’s own, was much more crudely manufactured, and decorated in a garish and tawdry fashion.
Pocketing the lookstone—it had served its purpose—I left our room and went outside to the hallway. The other doors were dark, and if our commotion had drawn any of the other guests from sleep they were sensible enough to limit their curiosity. Perhaps they had already learned their lesson from the death of Mister Cuttle.
I entered Fura’s room, the door not quite latched. By then Prozor had retrieved Lagganvor’s energy pistol, so there were two of us covering him, as well as Fura with her Ghostie knife.
In the light it made a sort of stiletto-like mirage, dancing out from between her fingers. If I looked at it directly it squirmed from my attention, making it seem as if Fura was playing a foolish game of make-believe. But if I averted my gaze slightly, the Ghostie blade snapped back into smoky reality.
“I only wanted—”
“Shut up,” Fura said. She had her left hand to his throat with the knife, and the other dragging his right arm behind his back. “You speak when I tell you to speak.” Then, directing a nod at Prozor: “Between us I don’t think he’ll be much more bother. If you think you ought to go back to Surt and Strambli, please do so.”
“What should I tell ’em?”
“Get the straight story from Eddralder about Strambli’s chances of being moved. It might be sooner rather than later. Be coy about it—no mention of any of this. We don’t want Glimmery thinking we’re about to leave. Oh, and Proz? You did very well.”
“Much obliged, Cap’n. And when you feel like tellin’ me how all this came together, I won’t complain.”
“This man tried to break into my room earlier, according to the concierge. When I know who he is, you’ll be the first to hear.”
Prozor held the energy pistol out to Fura. “I’d watch ’im if I were you. Looks the slippery kind.” Then she lifted up the fringe of Lagganvor’s hair, studying his face with a doubtful squint. “Have we met before, cove?”
“I suspect I would recall.”
I cuffed him silent. He could ask all the question he wished, and we likewise, but only when Prozor was out of the room.
“I don’t need the weapon,” Fura said. “You hang onto it, and be very careful on your way. I’ll squawk when I have some news, but in the meantime just go about your business as if nothing’s out of the ordinary.”
“It ain’t been close to ordinary since we arrived,” Prozor said. “But I’ll do my best. You sure you can manage him?”
“Between Adrana and I? I think we have the advantage, thank you very much.”
I nodded at Prozor as she left, thinking that I was now fully complicit in this act of dishonesty, whereas before I had been only a peripheral accessory to the crime. It made me feel more than a little repulsed by myself.
I listened carefully for her steps going down the stairs at the end of the landing, then—just as telling—the chime as the elevator arrived.
“I didn’t enjoy that at all,” I said.
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