Remontoire became very calm. His experience told him that nothing would be gained by using the hypometric weapon other than giving the machines another chance to study its operational function. He also knew that the wolves had yet to capture one of the weapons, and that he could not allow it to happen today.
He prepared the suicide command, visualising the coronet of fusion mines packed into the nacelle of the alien weapon. They would make a spectacular flash as they went off, almost as bright as the one that would follow an instant later when the Conjoiner drive went the same way. There was, he thought, very little chance that either would be appreciated by spectators.
Remontoire adjusted his state of mind so that he felt no fear, no apprehension about his own death. He felt only a tingle of irritation that he would not be around to see how events unfurled. In every significant respect he approached the matter of his own demise with the bored acceptance of someone waiting to sneeze. There were, he thought, some consolations to being a Conjoiner.
He was about to execute the command when something happened. The remaining machinery began to pull away from his ship, retreating with surprising speed. Beyond the machinery, his sensors picked up suggestions of weapons discharges and a great deal of moving mass - bladder-mine detonations, the signatures subtly different from the ones he had used. Antimatter and fusion warhead bursts followed, then the streaking exhaust plumes of missiles, and finally a single massive explosion that had to be a crustbuster device.
None of it would have made much difference ordinarily, but he had weakened the Inhibitor machinery with his own assault. The mass sensor teased out the signature of a single small ship, consistent, he realised now, with a Conjoiner moray-class corvette.
He guessed that it was the same ship he had spared. They had turned around, or perhaps had shadowed him all along. Now they were doing their best to draw the Inhibitor machinery away from him. Remontoire knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the gesture was suicidal: they couldn’t hope to make it back to their faction in the engagement. Yet they had taken a decision to help him, even after their earlier attack and his refusal to hand over the hypometric weapon. Typical Conjoiner thinking, he reflected: they would not hesitate to shift tactics at the last minute if that shift was deemed beneficial to the long-term interests of the Mother Nest. They had no capacity for frustration, no capacity for shame.
They had tried to negotiate with him, and when that had failed they had tried to take what they wanted by force. That hadn’t worked either, and to rub it in he had made a show of sparing them. Was this a demonstration of their gratitude? Perhaps, he thought, but it was likely to be more for the benefit of those observing the battle, for Remontoire’s allies and the other Conjoiner factions, than for himself: let them see the brave sacrifice they had made here. Let them see the wiping clean of the slate. If twenty-eight thousand and one offers to share resources had failed, perhaps this gesture would be the thing that made a difference.
Remontoire didn’t know: not yet. He had other matters on his mind.
His ship pulled away from the entanglement of wolf and Conjoiner assets. Behind, naked energy and naked force strove to gore matter down to its fundamentals. Something absurdly bright lit up the sky, something so intense that he swore a glimmer of it reached him through the black hull of his ship.
He turned his attention to the other aggregate, the one that was now very close to the planet. At extreme magnification he saw a black mass squatting a few hours into the dayside of the planet, hovering above a specific point on the surface. It was doing something.
TWENTY-THREE
Hela, 2727
Quaiche was alone in his garret, save for the scrimshaw suit. He heard only his own breathing and the attentive sounds of the couch on which he rested. The jalousies were half-drawn, the room scribed with parallel lines of fiery red.
He could feel, very faintly - and only because he had learned to feel it - the tiny residual side-to-side and back-to-front lurching of the Lady Morwenna as it progressed along the Way. Far from annoying him, the swaying was a source of reassurance. The instant the cathedral became rock steady, he would know that they were losing ground on Haldora. But the cathedral had not stopped for more than a century, and then only for a matter of hours during a reactor failure. Ever since then, even as it had grown in size, doubling and then quadrupling in height, it had kept moving, sliding along the Way at the exact speed necessary to keep Haldora fixed directly above, and therefore transmitted via the mirrors into his pinned-open, ever-watchful eyes. No other cathedral on the Way had such a record: the Lady Morwenna’s nearest rival, the Iron Lady, had failed for an entire rotation fifty-nine years earlier. The shame of that breakdown - having to wait in the same spot until the other cathedrals came around again after three hundred and twenty days - still hung heavy six decades later. Every other cathedral, including the Lady Morwenna, had a stained-glass window in commemoration of that humiliation.
The couch propelled him to the westerly window, tipping up slightly to improve his view. As he moved, the mirrors shuffled around him, maintaining sight-lines. No matter which way he steered the couch, Haldora was the predominant object reflected back to him. He was seeing it after multiple reflections, the light jogged through right angles, reversed and inverted again, magnified and diminished by achromatic lenses, but it was still the light itself, not some second- or third-hand image on a screen. It was always there, but the view was never quite the same from hour to hour. For one thing, the illumination of Haldora changed throughout the forty-hour cycle of Hela’s orbit: from fully lit face, to crescent, to storm-racked nightside. And even during any given phase the details of shading and banding were never quite the same from one pass to the next. It was enough, just, to stave off the feeling that the image had been branded into his brain.
It was not all that he saw, of course. Surrounding Haldora was a ring of black shading to silver grey, and then - packed into a band of indistinct detail - his immediate surroundings. He could look to one side and shift Haldora into his peripheral vision, for the mirrors were focusing the image on to his eyes, not just his pupils. But he did not do this very often, fearful that a vanishing would happen when the planet did not have his full attention.
Even with Haldora looming head-on, he had learned how to make the most of his peripheral vision. It was surprising how the brain was able to fill in the gaps, suggesting details that his eyes were really not capable of resolving. More than once it had struck Quaiche that if human beings really grasped how synthetic their world was - how much of it was stitched together not from direct perception, but from interpolation, memory, educated guesswork - they would go quietly mad.
He looked at the Way. In the far easterly distance, in the direction that the Lady Morwenna was headed, there was a distinct twinkling. That was the northern limit of the Gullveig Mountains, the largest range in Hela’s southern hemisphere. It was the last major geological feature to be crossed before the relative ease of the Jarnsaxa Flats and the associated fast run to the Devil’s Staircase. The Way cut through the northern flanks of the Gullveig Range, pushing through foothills via a series of high-walled canyons. And that was where an icefall had been reported. It was said to be a bad one, hundreds of metres deep, completely blocking the existing alignment. Quaiche had personally interviewed the leader of the Permanent Way repair team earlier that day, a man named Wyatt Benjamin who had lost a leg in some ancient, unspecified accident.
‘Sabotage, I’d say,’ Benjamin had told him. ‘A dozen or so demolition charges placed in the wall during the last crossing, with delayed timing fuses. A spoiling action by trailing cathedrals. They can’t keep up, so they don’t see why anyone else should.’
‘That would be quite a serious allegation to make in public,’ Quaiche had said, as if the very thought had never occurred to him. ‘Still, you may be right, much as it pains me to admit it.’
‘Make no mistake, it’s a stitch-up.’
‘The question
is, who’s going to clear it? It would need to be done in - what, ten days at the maximum, before we reach the obstruction?’
Wyatt Benjamin had nodded. ‘You may not want to be that close when it’s cleared, however.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’re not going to be chipping this one away.’
Quaiche had absorbed that, understanding exactly what the man meant. ‘There was a fall of that magnitude three, four years ago, wasn’t there? Out near Glum Junction? I seem to remember it was cleared using conventional demolition equipment. Shifted the lot in fewer than ten days, too.’
‘We could do this one in fewer than ten days,’ Benjamin told him,
‘but we only have about half of our usual allocation of equipment and manpower.’
‘That sounds odd,’ Quaiche had replied, frowning. ‘What’s wrong with the rest?’
‘Nothing. It’s just that it’s all been requisitioned, men and machines. Don’t ask me why or who’s behind it. I only work for the Permanent Way. And I suppose if it was anything to do with Clocktower business, you’d already know, wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose I would,’ Quaiche had said. ‘Must be a bit lower down than Clocktower level. My guess? Another office of the Way has discovered something they should have fixed urgently already, a job that got forgotten in the last round. They need all that heavy machinery to get it done in a rush, before anyone notices.’
‘Well, we’re noticing,’ Benjamin had said. But he had seemed to accept the plausibility of Quaiche’s suggestion.
‘In that case, you’ll just have to find another means of clearing the blockage, won’t you?’
‘We already have another means,’ the man had said.
‘God’s Fire,’ Quaiche had replied, forcing awe into his voice.
‘If that’s what it takes, that’s what we’ll have to use. It’s why we carry it with us.’
‘Nuclear demolitions should only ever be used as the absolute final last resort,’ Quaiche had said, with what he hoped was the appropriate cautioning tone. ‘Are you quite certain that this blockage can’t be shifted by conventional means?’
‘In ten days with the available men and equipment? Not a sodding hope.’
‘Then God’s Fire it will have to be.’ Quaiche had steepled the twigs of his fingers. ‘Inform the other cathedrals, across all ecumenical boundaries. We’ll take the lead on this one. The others had better draw back to the usual safe distance, unless they’ve improved their shielding since last time.’
‘There’s no other choice,’ Wyatt Benjamin had agreed.
Quaiche had placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s all right. What has to be done, has to be done. God will watch over us.’
Quaiche snapped out of his reverie and smiled. The Permanent Way man was gone now, off to arrange the rare and hallowed deployment of controlled fusion devices. He was alone with the Way and the scrimshaw suit and the distant, alluring twinkle of the Gullveig Range.
‘You arranged for that ice, didn’t you?’
He turned to the scrimshaw suit. ‘Who told you to speak?’
‘No one.’
He fought to keep his voice level, betraying none of the fear he felt. ‘You aren’t supposed to talk until I make it possible.’
‘Clearly this is not the case.’ The voice was thin, reedy: the product of a cheap speaker welded to the back of the scrimshaw suit’s head, out of sight of casual guests. ‘We hear everything, Quaiche, and we speak when it suits us.’
It shouldn’t have been possible. The speaker was only supposed to work when Quaiche turned it on. ‘You shouldn’t be able to do this.’
The voice - it was like something produced by a cheaply made woodwind instrument - seemed to mock him. ‘This is only the start, Quaiche. We will always find a way out of any cage you build around us.’
‘Then I should destroy you now.’
‘You can’t. And you shouldn’t. We are not your enemy, Quaiche. You should know that by now. We’re here to help you. We just need a little help in return.’
‘You’re demons. I don’t negotiate with demons.’
‘Not demons, Quaiche. Just shadows, as you are to us.’
They had had this conversation before. Many times before. ‘I can think of ways to kill you,’ he said.
‘Then why not try?’
The answer popped unbidden into his head, as it always did: because they might be useful to him. Because he could control them for now. Because he feared what would happen if he killed them as much as if he let them live. Because he knew there were more where this lot came from.
Many more.
‘You know why,’ he said, sounding pitiable even to himself.
‘The vanishings are increasing in frequency,’ the scrimshaw suit said. ‘You know what that means, don’t you?’
‘It means that these are the end times,’ Quaiche said. ‘No more than that.’
‘It means that the concealment is failing. It means that the machinery will soon be evident to all.’
‘There is no machinery.’
‘You saw it for yourself. Others will see it, too, when the vanishings reach their culmination. And sooner or later someone will want to do business with us. Why wait until then, Quaiche? Why not deal with us now, on the best possible terms?’
‘I don’t deal with demons.’
‘We are only shadows,’ the suit said again. ‘Just shadows, whispering across the gap between us. Now help us to cross it, so that we can help you.’
‘I won’t. Not ever.’
‘There is a crisis coming, Quaiche. The evidence suggests it has already begun. You’ve seen the refugees. You know the stories they tell, of machines emerging from the darkness, from the cold. Engines of extinction. We’ve seen it happen before, in this very system. You won’t beat them without our help.’
‘God will intervene,’ Quaiche said. His eyes were watering, blurring the image of Haldora.
‘There is no God,’ the suit said. ‘There is only us, and we don’t have limitless patience.’
But then it fell silent. It had said its piece for the day, leaving Quaiche alone with his tears.
‘God’s Fire,’ he whispered.
Ararat, 2675
When Vasko returned to the heart of the iceberg there was no more music. With the light bulk of the incubator hanging from one hand he made his way through the tangle of icy spars, following the now well-cleared route. The ice tinkled and creaked around him, the incubator knocking its way through obstructions. Scorpio had told him not to rush back to the ruined ship, but he knew that the pig had only been trying to spare him any unnecessary distress. He had made the call to Blood, told Urton what was happening and then returned with the incubator as fast as he dared.
But as he neared the gash in the ship’s side he knew it was over. There was a pillar of light ramming down from the ceiling of ice, where someone had blasted a metre-wide hole through to the sky. Scorpio stood in the circle of light at the foot of the pillar, his features sharply lit from above as if in some chiaroscuro painting. He was looking down, the thick mound of his head sunk into the wide yoke of his shoulders. His eyes were closed, the fine-haired skin of his forehead rendered blue-grey in the light’s dusty column. There was something in his hand, speckling red on to the ice.
‘Sir?’ Vasko asked.
‘It’s done,’ Scorpio said.
‘I’m sorry you had to do that, sir.’
The eyes - pale, bloodshot pink - locked on to him. Scorpio’s hands were shaking. When he spoke his perfectly human voice sounded thin, like the voice of a ghost losing its grip on a haunt.
‘Not as sorry as I am.’
‘I would have done it, if you’d asked me.’
‘I wouldn’t have asked you,’ Scorpio said. ‘I wouldn’t have asked it of anyone.’
Vasko fumbled for something else to say. He wanted to ask Scorpio how merciful Skade had allowed him to be. Vasko thought that he could not have been away for more
than ten minutes. Did that mean, in some abhorrent algebra of hurting, that Skade had given Clavain some respite from the prolonged death she had promised? Was there any sense in which she could have been said to have shown mercy, if only by shaving scant minutes from what must still have been unutterable agony?
He couldn’t guess. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know.
‘I brought the incubator, sir. Is the child . . .’
‘Aura’s all right. She’s with her mother.’
‘And Skade, sir?’
‘Skade is dead,’ Scorpio told him. ‘She knew she couldn’t survive much longer.’ The pig’s voice sounded dull, void of feeling. ‘She’d diverted her own bodily resources to keep Aura alive. There wasn’t much of Skade left when we opened her up.’
‘She wanted Aura to live,’ Vasko said.
‘Or she wanted a bargaining position when we came with Clavain.’
Vasko held up the light plastic box, as if Scorpio had not heard him properly. ‘The incubator, sir. We should get the child into it immediately.’
Scorpio leaned down, wiping the blade of the scalpel against the ice. The red smear bled away into the frost in patterns that made Vasko think of irises. He thought Scorpio might discard the knife, but instead the pig slipped it into a pocket.
‘Jaccottet and Khouri will put the child into the incubator,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile, you and I can take care of Clavain.’
‘Sir?’
‘His last wish. He wanted to be buried at sea.’ Scorpio turned to step back into the ship. ‘I think we owe him that much.’
‘Was that the last thing he said, sir?’
Scorpio turned slowly back to face Vasko and studied him for a long moment, his head tilted. Vasko felt as if he was being measured again, just as the old man had measured him, and the experience induced exactly the same feeling of inadequacy. What did these monsters from the past want of him? What did they expect him to live up to?
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