Shadow Captain

by Alastair Reynolds

  “Nor did I,” Lagganvor said. “It’s almost as if you want to keep something from her. Does she know who I am? As you so evidently do? You’ve been asking around freely enough, after all—you at least, Captain Marance. If that’s your name, which I think doubtful.”

  Fura kept the knife on him. “Who do you think I am, exactly?”

  A strain showed on his face, and once again I felt that it was both familiar and unfamiliar, in a sense that I found very hard to analyse. “You arrived here in a dark ship, curiously rigged, having sailed from the Emptyside where there’s lately been some trouble. I think that ship used to belong to someone else, and that you are very understandably anxious that no one should mistake you for its former custodian.” He risked a smile, the strain making it a death-mask rictus. “I think I know that ship. I also think I know its former captain. There’s a similar wildness in your eyes, but you’re not the same woman. If you were, that knife would have opened me up already.”

  “You’d know Bosa Sennen, would you?” I asked, dropping her name like an oath, a dangerous flirtation given how shallowly she lay under my skin.

  “Of course,” he answered placidly. “I served under her. Knew her ship inside-out.”

  “Why did you turn from her?” I asked.

  “Because I could. Because she was insane and I knew it was only a matter of time before I said or did something that drew her spite. It’s a long story. Do you really wish to sit and discuss it with a knife against my throat?”

  “Where would you rather?” Fura asked.

  “Any place but here. I’ll be frank with you. It’s not safe for me in Wheel Strizzardy. The thought of Bosa coming after me was bad enough, but even believing her to be dead doesn’t change my predicament. You are aware of the bounty?”

  I said: “What of it?”

  “It’s only the beginning. First they grant licences to well-equipped ships—privateer sunjammers like the Calenture and the White Widow, with which you are doubtless acquainted. Yes, I gathered there had been action. I don’t blame you, either. What could you do but act in self-defence? Still, it won’t end here. They will send more ships, and encourage their captains to use increasingly ruthless and unscrupulous methods. There is speak of putting together an organised squadron—an actual fleet, under military command, with better ships and weapons than anything those two captains could muster. In the meantime, the banks and combines have been using all the intelligence-gathering tools at their disposal, including informants and advance agents, to chase down any lead on Bosa Sennen, including the identities of her former associates.”

  “Such as you,” Fura said.

  “When they learn my name, and if I were taken,” Lagganvor said, “I would either be killed, or captured for interrogation—and I am not sure the latter would be any sort of improvement on the former. When you arrived and started making such bold enquiries … I thought the net was closing in. But you could be my salvation, as much as my nemesis.”

  Fura relaxed the knife very slightly, although it was still only a nail’s thickness from his flesh. “Think you’ll be welcomed back aboard the Nightjammer, do you?”

  “No,” he answered carefully, as if a single slip or ill-judged phrase could still be the end of him. “But you are not her, and you are not the agents pursuing her. Lock me in irons if you will, but get me off this world and you will have my gratitude.”

  “We’re not cut from Bosa’s cloth,” Fura said, after favouring me with a look and giving her answer long consideration. “We took her ship, but not her methods. And you don’t have to be our prisoner. I’d like it if you came willingly, but I won’t force you.”

  I looked at my sister, saying nothing, but thinking a lot. She had been plotting her way to this encounter for weeks, prepared to sacrifice friendship and bonds of trust for it. I found it rather unlikely that she would let Lagganvor go if he was not minded to accompany us.

  “What are your terms, if I might be so bold?”

  “Did anyone follow you here?” Fura asked, not answering him.

  “I don’t think so. Were you expecting someone to?”

  Fura nodded. “Mister Glimmery’s men.”

  “You’d have done yourselves a favour by not getting involved with that gentleman.”

  “We didn’t have a lot of choice,” I said. “You heard what we told our friend. A friend of ours was injured. We had to take her to the infirmary, and that’s how we met Doctor Eddralder. But Glimmery was tracking us from the moment we approached. He wants a share of that incentive money, but he has to wait until the right moment to pounce or he risks losing the ship itself. Then there’s Sneed, and the Crawly who was hanging around with Glimmery, Mister Cuttle, who Sneed killed, right here in this hotel.”

  Fura withdrew the knife a little more.

  “Do you know these coves?”

  “To a degree. I’ve met Eddralder once or twice. He’s a decent man in an impossible position. You know about his daughter, of course. Glimmery is your average thug made good. A local crime boss who saw his moment and had the right connections in place—chains of bribery and blackmail—and who now runs all of Wheel Strizzardy. He’s extremely dangerous, more unpredictable by the day, and he gathers bad people around him, like Lasper Sneed. It wouldn’t be tolerated on any world further Sunwards, but things are a little more relaxed out here.”

  “We noticed,” I said. “What about Cuttle?”

  “Here I have something to confess. Would you mind holding that knife a little further away from my neck? I didn’t kill the Crawly. That was Sneed’s doing. But I did startle him.”

  Fura made to put the knife back against his neck, but I stilled her hand.

  “Hear him out.”

  “I wanted to learn a little more about the crew that had taken an interest me, so I decided to pay a visit to the hotel, ahead of any planned assignation. Unfortunately I went at the same time as Mister Cuttle. I think he may have come to warn you against Sneed and Glimmery.”

  “But he was with Glimmery,” I said.

  “But no friend of his, I imagine. More than likely Glimmery had compromising material on Cuttle, something that would put him in poor standing with the other Crawlies. He was squeezing Cuttle for information, and doubtless wanted Cuttle to offer to investigate your identities. Crawlies have their own intelligence networks, you see, and Bosa Sennen is just as much a problem for them as for us. Instead, Cuttle tried to reach you. He knew it was risky, and there was a chance Sneed would get to him first. When he sensed my presence on the eighth floor, he panicked and fled—he must have thought I was Sneed, or one of his associates. Only Sneed was behind him. There was nothing I could do about it.”

  “You were in the hotel when all that happened?” I asked.

  “I lay low on the seventh floor, and left when it was safe.”

  “We saw each other, I think,” I said, thinking of that floating eye in the stairwell.

  He nodded slowly. “The remote? I am sorry if that discomfited you. It was a gift from Bosa, after I suffered an accident in her service. I say ‘gift,’ but it was more a case of making sure I remained useful to her as an agent. I admit I have found it very handy since leaving her service.” He gave me an appreciative smile. “I saw you dispensing with Sneed’s attentions, as well. You showed admirable restraint in not dropping him on the spot.”

  “We don’t like being snooped on,” Fura said.

  “Neither do I,” Lagganvor answered. “So it seems we have that much in common.”

  Fura put the Ghostie knife down on the bedside table, next to the blasted telephone directory, where the knife seemed to lose focus, becoming not just harder to see, but harder to think about, harder to remember that it had ever been there in the first place.

  “We sit tight, at least until there’s news from Prozor,” Fura said. “No rash moves, from any of us. We’ll be leaving this world sooner or later, but on our terms. And I don’t want to run foul of Glimmery in the process. We have weap
ons, but we also have a friend in that infirmary so we can’t just shoot our way out of here, much as that would suit me.”

  “And do wonders for your reputation,” Lagganvor said.

  She met this remark with an equivocal look, but instead of rebuffing him she said: “I can’t help our reputations, not any more. They’ve already made up their minds about us—as far as the worlds are concerned we’re either Bosa or the remnants of her crew, still doing her bidding. We tried to act reasonably, in self-defence, and ended up destroying another ship—just as Bosa would have done. Now anything we do, for better or worse, will be viewed through that prism.” Fura forced an ironic smile. “She’s trapped us from beyond the grave. Freed us, or damned us, I don’t know which—not just yet. But I refuse to become her, not while I’ve still got a choice. Would she have shown kindness or consideration for one of her own?”

  “Only if that person was useful to her,” Lagganvor answered coldly.

  “Strambli’s useful to the crew. But beyond that, she’s one of us—our friend. We won’t leave without her.”

  Deciding that my sister and Lagganvor could be trusted not to kill each other, at least for a few moments, I moved to the window and opened the shutters just enough to peer down into the street below. It was fully dark now and the sky had begun to emit its usual quantity of rain and steam. Figures moved from bar to bar, shop to shop, trams coming and going along Shine, the neon signs and advertisements providing splashes of colour against the tomb-grey buildings and the black-mirrored puddles and sluice channels. I thought again of the man I had seen trying to light a match, striking it over and over until the flame caught, and that in turn sent my thoughts drifting back to the journal and its speculation about the Shadow Occupations.

  “Did Bosa ever speak to you of her private concerns, Lagganvor?”

  “She had very little choice,” he answered me, reaching up to push the hair from his eyes. “Anyone in my position had to know many of her operational secrets.”

  “The quoin cache?” Fura asked.

  “Yes. She called it The Miser. It’s a rock, with no field around it, so not really a true bauble. Perhaps it was a bauble once, until the field expired.”

  I glanced at my sister. This intelligence was much more specific than I would expect were he making up a story on the spot.

  “You’re willing to tell us this much?” I asked.

  “I’ve told you nothing. How many fieldless rocks do you think are out there? You could scour the Congregation for a thousand years and never stumble on The Miser.”

  “But you could find it again,” I said.

  “We visited it often enough. Bosa never wanted to carry quoins around for too long, so if she’d had a run of successes then we always swung by The Miser to off-load.”

  “Is it occupied?” Fura asked.

  “No—but it does have a will of its own. A robot mind, enslaved to control its defences. I know the location. If you gave me access to charts and an Armillary, I could plot you a course to it immediately. If I am not mistaken we’re presently on the same side of the Old Sun as The Miser, so your quarry should not lie too many weeks from the wheel.”

  “Will it recognise us?” I asked.

  “Even if it did, it would still require an approach password.”

  “Which you will give to me now,” Fura said.

  “Or I could keep it back as a form of personal insurance. I will give you the password in good time, believe me. My own survival would depend on recalling it.”

  “You are quite sure it hasn’t slipped your mind,” Fura said.

  “Little chance of that,” Lagganvor said, not without a touch of pride. “I have always had a gift for such things. It was why she was so determined to come after me. Malice was part but not all of it. She wished also to protect her long-term interests. Kill me, and she would eliminate any possibility of her stores and hideouts being discovered.”

  “You and I,” Fura said, “are going to have so much to talk about.”

  Lagganvor flashed a quick, nervous smile. “In which case I hope that I will provide sparkling company.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you won’t disappoint,” I said, trying not to sound rankled, but unable to avoid the feeling that my sister had just found herself a much more engaging conversational partner.

  The squawk buzzed. I picked up the handset, thinking that it could only be Surt, since Prozor could not have reached the infirmary yet.

  Yet it was Prozor.

  “That you, girlie?”

  “Yes,” I answered, picking up on the tension in her voice, and knowing it did not bode well. “We’re still here. We have things … under control.”

  “That’s good. That’s very good. I wish I had better news from my end, though. I’m with Glimmery’s people. They jumped me on the way, and there wasn’t nothin’ I could do about it.”

  I had the handset set to speaker, so Fura was able to follow the exchange.

  “Have they hurt you?” she asked.

  “No, Cap’n—not so you’d notice. Roughed me up a little, but what’s a little roughin’ up between friends? Anyway, they’re taking me to see Glimmery, and they wanted you to know.”

  “Is Sneed with you?” I asked.

  “No—no snot-face, just a few of the other specimens that keep bobbin’ up. Glimmery’s decided to play his hand, though. He’s got Strambli and Surt hostage, and it looks like I’ll be joinin’ ’em. He says he’d very much welcome your company.”

  “The launch hasn’t even arrived yet,” I said.

  “He’s decided not to wait, if he ever planned to. Look, I can’t speak for Surt or Strambli, but don’t get yourselves caught on my account. I’ve wriggled out of worse scrapes than this. Get to—”

  There was a thud and a crackle, then a sort of fumbling sound as someone picked up Prozor’s fallen handset.

  “No scarperin’, Cap’n Marance,” said a thick, gravelly voice, which I took to be one of Sneed or Glimmery’s enforcers. “Not you nor yer ringer, the one you claim ain’t related, oh no, sir, not at all. You get yer skates on and come over and see your chum at the infirmary, where Mister Glimmery’s very keen for a chin-wag.”

  “Why?” Fura asked, snatching the handset from me.

  “Because he likes your easy-going company. Bring your new pal, as well—Mister Glimmery can’t wait to be acquainted.”

  “Pass a message to Glimmery for me,” Fura said. “Tell him I’m coming, and to be ready.”

  “You give in easier than I expected,” said the voice.

  “You mistake my meaning,” she replied, ending the call. Then, to the two of us: “We’ll need the suits. Go to the lock-up and cobble together what you can while I squawk Paladin. Take only what we need to get back to the launch.”

  “What about the other supplies?”

  “We’ll do without.”

  I still had the volition pistol and I was glad of it as I escorted Lagganvor to the end of the corridor. I opened the lock-up. “If you’re coming with us, you’ll need a suit. Put on as much as you can, then help me carry the rest.”

  “Thoughtful of you to think of me ahead of time.”

  “We didn’t. One of us will have to make other arrangements. That may be the least of our concerns, though.” I indicated for him to get into Surt’s suit, which I judged would fit him better than Prozor’s. He put on all the parts except for the helmet, with the easy familiarity of someone who had spent ample time on ships, quickly figuring out the connections and completing the pressure seals. For all my misgivings over Fura’s duplicitous means of reaching him, I was starting to think that he might not make such a bad addition to our crew.

  “Would you like me to hold that weapon, while you put on your suit?” he asked.

  I looked at him with amused skepticism, that he could be so naive. “And shoot me where I stand?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Our interests are very closely aligned, so I would only be shooting myself.” His tone softe
ned. “Adrana, wasn’t it? That was what the woman on the squawk called you.”

  “Just a name,” I said, putting on my suit one-handed, which made a difficult process virtually impossible.

  “She is your sister, isn’t she? Arafura Ness. Two respectable daughters of Mazarile, swept into Bosa’s influence.”

  “You don’t know us.”

  “But I know everything there is to know about Bosa. I’ve made it my hobby. If I am being chased down by intelligence forces following particular leads, it is in my very best interests to be one step ahead of them.”

  “Then those same people will know we’re innocent.”

  “No—they know only that Adrana and Arafura Ness were documented victims of Bosa Sennen, and should therefore be considered turned to her side, as was her usual habit. One or both of them may even have supplanted the former Bosa.”

  “They’re wrong,” I said curtly. “She had me, it’s true. But not long enough to turn me, the way she did Illyria Rackamore.” I stepped into my boots, giving him a sharp look. “You’d know all about Illyria, I think. I imagine you were already in Bosa’s service when she took Rackamore’s daughter. Why didn’t you do something?”

  “I … did not condone what she did,” he said, glancing away at the critical moment, as if I might read some weakness or regret in his eyes. “She was turned quickly, anyway. That was a mercy.”

  “Why didn’t she turn you just as thoroughly, Lagganvor?”

  He scooped up another helmet, some boots and a pressure suit. “Let’s get these things to Arafura. I get the impression Mister Glimmery is in no mood to be kept waiting.”

  *

  The elevator doors unlatched, Fura scissored them open, and we stepped out in silence. There were only two sources of light beyond the elevator itself. One was the puddle of yellow-brown illumination concentrated over the front desk, hardly enough to read by, and the other was a changing pattern of night-time lights and neon banners playing through the glass panes of the revolving door, spilling pastel colours across black and white tiles. There was no sound but gusts of drizzle on windows, hard footsteps on damp pavements, and the rattle of passing trams.