Inhibitor Phase

by Alastair Reynolds

  ‘We did nothing,’ Glass said indignantly.

  ‘Other than create a commotion near that tracking beacon. I’m afraid that may have been all it took. The wolves have been roused to an additional readiness level: cubes are warming up, beginning to aggregate. Some organised movement, precursor flows. Left to itself, and with no other provocation, it will likely die down. That’s what always happens. But signalling Yellowstone risks another escalation. Never mind actually going down there, if the Swine Queen agrees to the trade . . .’ Single-handedly, Snowdrop took something from her belt, then offered it to me. ‘Clip yourself in.’

  It was a loop of metal with a spring-loaded fastener. Wordlessly I fixed the loop onto my coat, hitching it around the belt. A line ran from the loop, floating loose for the moment. Snowdrop had the other end of it, wrapped around her wrist a few times but otherwise held slackly.

  ‘He’s mine,’ Glass said.

  Snowdrop jerked the muzzle at Glass. ‘Keep out of this.’

  ‘What’s this about?’ I asked.

  Snowdrop kicked me away from the crag. I flailed, but within a moment the handholds and wires had already drifted out of reach. I was floating away at about a metre per second, Snowdrop playing out the line as the distance increased.

  ‘I was ready to give you the benefit of the doubt,’ Snowdrop said, her voice turning hollow and echoing as the space between us increased. ‘Ready to go along with whatever you brought to the table. But you put that idea in Lady Arek’s head. Now she’s going to send Pinky down to the Swinehouse, and it’s all because of you.’

  The mist was already clouding my view of Snowdrop and Glass – the latter wisely keeping her distance.

  ‘I wouldn’t have proposed it if I didn’t think we had a means of making it work. No one’s talking about sending Pinky to his death.’

  ‘Your conscience is clear, then.’

  ‘No! It’s not. But this is war. We need those stones.’

  ‘They haven’t even told you what they need them for.’

  ‘They haven’t needed to. It’s obvious enough to me that we need them to strike back against the wolves. How is for another day.’

  ‘That simple?’

  ‘It is, actually. The wolves will find and kill us all eventually. It’s just a matter of time. Nowhere’s safe, unless we go back to the trees. And maybe even then they won’t stop. Without the stones, there’s no future. We all die, or our children die, or our grandchildren do.’

  There was a tug as the line reached its present limit. The mist had closed in almost completely now, offering only furtive glimpses of the crag and the two watchers.

  ‘I could cut you loose now, Clavain. Say it was an accident. Lady Arek can’t see a thing from the Overlook, not with this mist. And do you think she’d doubt me over Glass?’

  ‘You’d gain nothing.’

  ‘I’d gain you not pushing a stupid, reckless idea that could get Pinky killed. We were doing fine until you showed up.’

  ‘Fine doing nothing,’ Glass murmured, evidently unable to help herself.

  ‘Not helping!’ I shouted back at her.

  ‘You see Pinky and all you see is a pig,’ Snowdrop said. ‘Maybe you think you see more than that. Maybe you tell yourself that you’re not like all those other men and women who see something less than human. Other than human, yes. But not less than.’

  ‘I see a man,’ I said. ‘A man with pig genes in him. But still a man. His being a pig isn’t the issue here. It’s that she has something we want, and she happens to want him in return.’

  Snowdrop shook her head slowly. ‘Sure it isn’t the issue.’

  ‘I can attempt an intervention,’ Glass commented.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ I called back. Then, to Snowdrop: ‘Those ninecats wouldn’t take long to find me, would they?’

  ‘When they did, though, you’d have the consolation of it being a relatively quick end. Quicker than being cut up and cooked a piece at a time by some cackling lunatic.’

  ‘You wouldn’t kill me, not after all the trouble it’s taken to get me here.’

  ‘I’ve told you I would.’ The line went limp, momentarily, and I had a horrible intimation of falling, of being sucked into the mist. But the line retightened and I saw that Snowdrop had released and snatched it again, quite expertly.

  ‘I don’t want to die out here, Snowdrop.’

  ‘And I don’t want Pinky to die down there.’

  ‘He won’t. I promise you. And I’ll . . .’ I hesitated, conscious that there could be no going back once the words were out of my mouth. ‘I’ll guarantee that. I’ll guarantee it by going down there with him.’

  ‘Anything that he says now is under duress,’ Glass said. ‘And therefore void.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I replied.

  ‘Yes, shut up,’ Snowdrop said.

  ‘We agree on that much, at least,’ I said, trying to find a scrap of common ground. ‘A little Glass goes a long way.’

  ‘You mean what you just said, about him not being alone?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, then with more emphasis. ‘Yes, you have my word on that. I’ll not let him down. I’ll not let you down. Pinky comes back with me, and we keep the Gideon stones.’

  ‘Understand this.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Pinky can come back on his own. Or the both of you can come back. Either outcome’s acceptable to me. But if, for some reason, he doesn’t make it out, you’d be doing yourself a great favour if you never saw my face again.’ The line jerked again as she hauled me in. ‘Because I’d make you pay. And the things I’d do to you would give the Swine Queen night terrors.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I asked Lady Arek to call her associates to the Overlook. Before all the others had taken their seats, I made sure to position myself directly opposite Pinky, so that there was no chance of either of us avoiding the other’s gaze. I wanted him to look into my eyes and know that I meant every word of what I was about to say.

  But my first question was for Lady Arek.

  ‘How detailed is the Swine Queen’s knowledge of your operations here?’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘Does she know the names and faces of everyone involved, the number of people around this table?’

  ‘No,’ Lady Arek answered carefully, eyeing me with interest, as if she already had a strong sense of where I was going. ‘Her contact with us was confined to the extraction operation alone. She knows the identities of some of those who escaped back into orbit with us, but nothing of those who were already here.’

  ‘Good.’ I nodded. ‘Then there shouldn’t be any difficulty presenting me as one of your own. When you hand Pinky over to the Swine Queen, you’ll make me part of the same exchange.’

  Some mild interest registered on his face. ‘You think I need someone to hold my hand, Stink?’

  ‘No,’ I said evenly, refusing to be baited. ‘I’m in no doubt at all that you’re perfectly capable of doing this on your own, especially if you’re sober. But since I initiated the idea, it seems only fair that I accept my share of the risk. We’ll go in together. Glass will have to manufacture two samples of the haemoclast, and provide two spare suits instead of one, but it doesn’t complicate the operation in any way.’

  ‘Unacceptable,’ Glass said. ‘I found him. He’s my asset. I won’t see him risked.’

  ‘But you will countenance Pinky being exposed to the same danger?’ Lady Arek asked. ‘Is his life somehow less valuable than Clavain’s?’

  Glass gave her answer due reflection. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it’s good to get your prejudices out in the open,’ Pinky said.

  ‘Clavain is tactically critical to the second and third phases of this operation. You are . . . not without your talents. But there is a difference between useful and irreplaceable.’

  ‘Thank you for that warm endorsement, Glass,’ I said. ‘But I’m going down with Pinky. It’s not a question of whethe
r I do or don’t, but of how we make it work.’

  Pinky regarded Snowdrop. ‘Wonder what made the guy grow a spine overnight?’

  ‘We came to an accommodation,’ Snowdrop said, eyeing me with something that was not yet approbation, but at least the recognition that I was not totally beneath consideration.

  ‘I had a spine. I just needed reminding.’ I paused. ‘I’m not asking for your friendship or respect, Pinky. I know I haven’t done nearly enough for that. Just your cooperation. Acting together, I believe we can increase the chances of getting you out of there.’

  ‘The terms of the exchange are already settled,’ Lady Arek said, shaking her head slowly. ‘Pinky for the stones. The Swine Queen won’t understand why I’d offer more than I need to. That will make her suspicious, maybe even expecting a trap. That in turn will jeopardise the stones.’

  ‘Which is why we won’t do it that way. I’ll be a last-minute offering, a scrap of meat thrown to the dogs.’

  There was silence. I was certain that none of Lady Arek’s close associates were comfortable with the idea of Pinky going to the Swinehouse, but each had accepted, in their own way, that there might be no other way of gaining the stones. Snowdrop liked it least of all.

  Except for Glass. I do not think she disliked the pig, but she certainly considered him an acceptable exchange for the stones. And if Pinky was willing to submit himself voluntarily, with a chance of surviving, her conscience need not be too troubled.

  Now I had complicated things for her.

  ‘Someone else must go with him,’ she said, looking around for a candidate. ‘Not I. Nor Lady Arek. Our minds will be . . . needed.’

  ‘And ours won’t?’ asked Cater.

  ‘It’s settled,’ I said. ‘I go with Pinky. No one else.’ Then, to Glass: ‘I understand that you consider me tactically valuable, although you still haven’t had the decency to tell me how I fit in with your plans. But this will only give you more of an incentive to work on those weapons. They must work, now. You can’t run the risk of not getting me back alive, and Pinky will benefit from the same advance preparation.’

  Pinky drew his arms across his barrel chest. ‘I’ll do just fine without riding your slipstream.’

  ‘It will help us both,’ I affirmed, not wishing to be drawn into an argument. ‘Lady Arek, we’ve seen the ninecats. I think you’re right. If Glass can make them work with us, rather than against us, they’d be a useful infiltration tool.’

  ‘Apparently you failed,’ Glass said.

  Lady Arek directed a sharp look at Snowdrop for this indiscretion, but she was much too wise to be goaded into a denial. ‘Yes, I did, in all senses. Even this Demi-Conjoiner could not get deeply enough into their programming before they began to fight back. But perhaps I lacked your tenacity and insight.’

  Glass looked sympathetic. ‘Perhaps you did.’

  ‘Be aware of one thing, though, before Snowdrop allows you near our captured samples. From the corpses we found in the core, left there quite deliberately, like architectural flourishes, we know that Conjoiners were sometimes set against the ninecats. They were alone, and likely handicapped, but not even their quick bright minds were enough. The ninecats cut and gored them, and that was not all. Something got inside them, and took them apart from the inside, perhaps not as quickly as one might wish.’

  Glass flinched; some tiny moment of slippage, her control faltering. But she regained herself just as speedily. ‘Show me to your toys.’

  ‘Can we depend on you with regard to both the ninecats and the haemoclast?’ Lady Arek asked, settling her hands before her.

  ‘By all means suggest some other candidates for the work,’ Glass answered reasonably.

  ‘You know that there aren’t any.’

  ‘Ah, good – just needed that clarifying, in case there was any doubt.’ Glass considered. ‘But I will need some time – some few days, at the very least.’

  ‘And when will you be able to give us an idea of your chances of success?’ Lady Arek asked.

  The question seemed to puzzle Glass. She mock-frowned and cocked her head questioningly, before some dawning realisation broke her spell. ‘Oh, I see. You think there’s some doubt, some likelihood that I won’t succeed. Yes – I understand now. How silly of me not to have done so sooner.’

  ‘Glass,’ I said, my patience straining.

  ‘Now. You have my assurance of success now. It will be done, Lady Arek, just as I count on you to facilitate your own small contribution to the operation. The fact that I said I would need days in no way—’

  ‘I think you can start your negotiations immediately,’ I interjected.

  ‘Good,’ Lady Arek said, blanking Glass even as she nodded at me. ‘We shall indeed do so, the instant the weather permits.’

  ‘With regard to the haemoclast,’ I said. ‘Once it’s ready, do we need a period of familiarisation, learning how to use it? You said it would be concealed about our persons. I’m still not sure how that’s going to work, if we’re examined.’

  ‘Did I say “about”?’ Glass asked anxiously. ‘That was an unforgivable slip, if I did.’

  ‘It goes into us, doesn’t it?’ Pinky said. ‘Not “about” our persons, but inside them.’

  ‘You could have mentioned that,’ I said, knowing full well that there had been no mistake.

  ‘The truth is,’ Glass said, smiling as she gushed false concern, ‘the less you know about the haemoclast before it’s time, the better it will be for you. And from what I can gather about the prototype, there’s an additional consideration.’

  ‘Which is?’ I asked pleasantly.

  ‘There’s no record of anyone ever using it twice.’

  Glass split her time between preparing the haemoclast specimens and taming the captured ninecats. She worked quickly with the latter, and was ready to show off her progress after only three days of study.

  A secure, windowless room had been prepared near the Overlook. In its former life, according to Snowdrop, this was where the guests of the gaming complex were required to deposit privately owned weapons and anti-personnel toxins, lest any disputes turn violent. We stood with our backs to the wheel-locked door, Glass facing us with her back to the rear face of the room. She held a pliant ninecat: gripping it by its smooth, matte-silver body with the nine arms draping down like jellyfish stingers.

  ‘Have no concerns,’ she said, clearly relishing being the centre of attention, even with Lady Arek in attendance. ‘The unit is now completely subjugated to my authority. It was simple, in hindsight. The ninecats’ engineers left a neural back-channel, a means of accessing the deep programming layers. If they wanted to enter the core for maintenance, for instance, or to extract bodies, it allowed them to place all the ninecats into a temporary safe mode.’

  ‘Why did none of their Conjoiner victims find it in time?’ Lady Arek asked.

  ‘Doubtless they tried. Maybe some did? It was one thing for me to map and probe the ninecat’s control architecture at my leisure, when the unit was restrained behind a layer of hyperdiamond. Another for someone to search out those vulnerabilities when the ninecat was closing in on them, in the core, when they were likely already defenceless, weakened and handicapped.’

  ‘All the same, I had the same opportunities as you. But I could not breach the fortifications. I felt the ninecat resisting: mounting neural counter-attacks against my own architecture.’

  ‘It was why we wouldn’t let her carry on, yes and verily,’ said Probably Rose.

  ‘What can I say?’ Glass asked rhetorically. ‘I persisted. Now, would you like to see what the ninecat can do for us?’ She tossed the unit to the floor, bringing the ninecat alive in the same motion. The needle-tipped legs stiffened into arcs, cushioning the impact and elevating the body a few centimetres into the air. The legs’ tips skittered against the polished surface, making a nervous pitter-patter.

  All of us, even Lady Arek, pressed back a little nearer the door.

  ‘I’ll
need some reassurance that you really have cracked those security protocols,’ Lady Arek said.

  ‘I’ll let the ninecat demonstrate my control. I am sending it a neural command: asking it to establish a defensive cordon.’

  The ninecat scuttled from one side of the room to the other, tracing the same line like a neurotic spider. It got faster, the pitter-patter becoming a blur of white noise. Soon it had become a silvery blur, like a low net stretched across the room.

  ‘Traverse it, if you dare,’ Glass said. ‘I wouldn’t, though; not if you value your extremities.’

  ‘How good is it at telling friend from foe?’ I asked.

  ‘Sufficient for our needs.’

  I nodded at her non-answer, wondering what it concealed. ‘I don’t doubt that it’s dangerous. Can it actually help us in the Swinehouse?’

  ‘Most certainly. The ninecats have the means to be biometrically locked to individuals, identifying targets, or safe subjects. Again, it’s a maintenance precaution. Before you enter the Swinehouse, the ninecats will be programmed to recognise you as friendly parties. Not only that, but they will zero in on your positions, aided by the haemoclast. Wherever you are in the Swinehouse, no matter how well guarded, the ninecats will find you, and I will follow.’

  ‘Quickly, I hope,’ I said.

  ‘Once the ninecats have found you, they will establish defensive perimeters similar to this. You will be protected for the short interval it takes for the suits to arrive.’

  ‘So they’ll recognise us,’ Pinky said. ‘What about anyone else they meet while getting there?’

  ‘The ninecats will avoid detection at all times. But should it be met, resistance will be neutralised.’

  ‘And if these things run into some pissed-off pigs being held in meat racks?’

  ‘They will recognise the phenotype, and mark it at a lower priority for neutralisation.’

  ‘All the reassurance I needed, thanks.’

  ‘How many will we need?’ Snowdrop asked, standing next to Pinky.