by Ian Sales
“You’re sure of that?”
Ormuz nodded. Exactly who Riz was, he didn’t know. Nor did he know for whom she worked. But it wasn’t this Serpent, his own… clone-father.
“That’s everything you know?” he asked.
Plessant nodded sadly.
“I’m a clone of the Serpent and you’re going to use me to defeat him. How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who does?”
“The people we’re going to meet on Kapuluan.”
“They’ll answer all my questions?”
“I don’t know.”
Ormuz pushed the button to power back the chair. He scrambled from it once it had jerked into place. “I have to think about this,” he said. He regarded Plessant with detachment. He had liked her immensely. He remembered liking her. But that was before she had told him he was no more than the product of life science—and a tool to be used. He turned his back on her and stepped across to the airlock. One hand to the jamb, he spoke, gazing at the bulkhead abaft the ladder. “You weren’t supposed to tell me this, were you?”
Plessant’s voice came tonelessly from behind him: “No, I wasn’t.”
“Why did you?”
“Because I don’t want to see you used. No one should forfeit control over their own destiny.”
He jerked his head round to look at her. “You’re a yeoman,” he accused. “You’re not a prole like the rest of us.” Plessant’s sentiment had not been a proletarian sentiment: proles had no control over their own destiny.
Plessant lifted her gaze from her lap. Ormuz was shocked to see the sorrow which bled from her expression. “Neither are you. The Serpent is after the Imperial Throne, Cas. How can he be a prole?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Rinharte smiled as Lotsman delivered the punch-line to his anecdote, and lifted her fork to her mouth. Her gaze flicked to the left, over the pilot’s shoulder. She saw Kordelasz, dining alone at a table in the corner. He was frowning down at his plate, as if unsure of its contents. Her smile widened and she turned her attention back to Lotsman.
The pilot had chosen the restaurant, so naturally its clientele was almost exclusively ship-crew and its menu incorporated dishes from over one hundred worlds. The restaurant occupied the area between four pillars. Ceiling-high sound-proofed walls stretched between each pillar. Each wall had been painted and textured to seem as if made from crumbling ancient plaster, and decorated with large stylised murals of landscapes. Climbing plants spidered across the faux plaster, and explosions of greenery drooped from clay pots hanging from wall-sconces. In the centre of the square, water trickled from a vase held by a figure so weathered it was little beyond a collection of curves in stone. Rinharte thought it might once have been a woman, perhaps clad in some flowing robe.
Rinharte and Lotsman sat opposite each other at a small square table with a red table-cloth. Between them sat a flickering candle afloat in a wide flat dish and a bottle of red wine. The pilot had made an effort to impress and had swapped his ship-coverall for a white shirt, navy-blue over-jacket and tan trousers. He was at his most charming.
Rinharte too had dressed up for this dinner date and wore a gauzy black dress, opaque black hose and black sandals. A gold scarf was draped across her shoulders. It was generic prole fashion, not Opholdish.
“One of these days,” Lotsman said, “you’ll have to tell me exactly what we got up to on the Puwit Kali.”
Rinharte looked down for a moment. “I don’t think so,” she said. “It’ll only embarrass the both of us.”
Lotsman placed his elbow on the table and cupped his chin in his hand. He stared intently at Rinharte. She couldn’t meet that rapt gaze and dropped her eyes once again.
“I don’t understand how I could have forgotten you,” he remarked.
She blushed— And marvelled at her response. She changed the subject. “You leave the day after tomorrow,” she said. “For Kapuluan?”
“Um?” Lotsman was still gazing at her. “Yes, Kapuluan.” He blinked and gave a sour smile, as if he had just inadvertently revealed a confidentiality.
“You’re not trading?” Rinharte added. “Still living off your proceeds from Darrus?”
“How do you know about that?” Lotsman asked, frowning.
“I… I looked up your route. Your profits were posted there too. That was quite a deal.”
Lotsman gestured dismissively. “We were lucky. Cas made a good choice of cargo—”
“You let a general crew-member decide what you carry? I thought that was the cargo-master’s job.”
“It is.” The pilot blinked, briefly confused by the swerve in topic. “But Cas—” He broke off and barked a laugh. “You won’t believe this… but he said he dreamt we should buy those agricultural protocols. Some dream, eh?”
Rinharte arched an eyebrow. “It sounds very… curious.”
“‘Curious’. Ha!” Lotsman laughed again.
“But you’re not trading here on Ophavon?” asked Rinharte, returning to the original topic of conversation.
“No. We’re, um, running an errand. Delivering… something… to Kapuluan.”
“A cargo?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Rinharte knew full well that Divine Providence’s data-vats were empty. Captain Plessant had declared them so, and made no move to fill them. Which implied that whatever the data-freighter was delivering, it was not data. A person, perhaps? One of the crew? If that were true, it made Rinharte’s mission easier: she need only wait until Kapuluan, and see who left the data-freighter’s complement. She would be a step closer to solving Divine Providence’s role in the conspiracy…
Lotsman reached for the bottle of wine and refilled his glass. He made to do the same for Rinharte, but she put a hand across her glass to signal that she had had enough. “I know,” he said, putting the bottle down, “a small night-club on level 42. What do you say we head there when we’ve finished our dinner?”
Rinharte was still trying to guess which of Divine Providence’s crew would be left behind on Kapuluan. “Um?” She looked up. “Yes, why not? I’d like that.”
The tube-train slid from the station and entered the dark maw of the tunnel. Rinharte gestured the carriage servant away. She was neither hungry nor thirsty. She gazed out of the window beside her but saw only her reflection… a pale, white-haired spectral face hovering in the blackness. She felt like that ghostly figure, only intermittently connecting with the real world. She haunted the crew of Divine Providence, desperate to conclude her mission so she could move on to another plane of existence. She had occupied so many different and alien worlds since that fateful day on Tanabria Station, reality had lost its reassuring physicality.
Kordelasz snapped her back from her reverie. “You were enjoying yourself last night,” he accused bitterly.
“Um? Lex is a charming companion.”
“A little rough around the edges I would have thought.”
She turned to the marine-lieutenant. Was he jealous? “Sometimes,” she said absently, “polish is a little too… slippery.” She gave a smile. “There’s nothing to hold onto.”
Kordelasz was scandalised. “You like him! I’d never have thought you to be one to fraternise with proles.”
Rinharte straightened. “That’s enough, Mr Kordelasz.” She shifted to a more comfortable position. “We learnt what we came to Ophavon to learn.”
“Did we, ma’am? We still don’t know how Divine Providence is involved—”
“We’ll find out on Kapuluan,” Rinharte replied curtly.
“The Admiral will be unhappy—”
Rinharte snorted. The Admiral was already unhappy with her lieutenant of intelligence. There had been the confusion over Divine Providence and Divine Wind. The Admiral disliked unnecessary deaths. If Vengeful had indeed destroyed the wrong data-freighter in the Ralat system…
Rinharte rose to her feet. She fel
t a need to visit the head. She glanced about her but saw nothing noteworthy. For this return trip to their point of entry, Rinharte and Kordelasz were travelling first class. The carriage was appointed to the level of comfort required of yeomen and nobles: deep well-upholstered chairs in pairs facing each other; a fold-out lacquered table between each facing pair of seats; a wide aisle with room for a trolley heavily-laden with beverages and condiments; and ornamental fittings.
She took her sword from the receptacle by her seat and deftly fastened the lockets to her belt. After giving the hem of her reefer-jacket a tug to seat it better, she strode towards the end of the carriage. A servant in the silver and white livery of the tube-line, his coat of arms a pair of arrows facing in opposite directions emblazoned on one breast, popped out of a niche as she approached. He gave a subservient bow:
“My lady?”
She waved a hand dismissively. “I wish to use the hea— the facilities.”
The servant stepped back and pulled open a door at his side. He ushered Rinharte into the toilet and closed the door soundlessly behind her.
She stood there in the centre of the small chamber for a moment. Immediately before her was a flush-toilet. To her left were a pair of basins with intricately-worked taps. A cabinet at her right held a profusion of toiletry articles, colognes and perfumes. A concertina-door beside the cabinet led into a shower cubicle. Although cramped, the toilet was palatial in comparison to a warship’s heads.
She slid shut the bolt on the door. She shrugged off her jacket and hung it on a hook on the wall. She unbuckled her belt and draped it, and her sheathed sword, on a second hook. She dropped her trousers and underwear and sat.
There was a mirror on the back of the door and it gave Rinharte a good view of herself as she passed water. It was not a flattering picture. She looked away. She felt as though she were invading her own privacy.
After she had finished and redressed, she freshened up at the basins. There was another mirror above the two sinks, and Rinharte felt the eyes of her reflection watching her. It was the hair. Even now, three days after dyeing it, the colourlessness continued to take her by surprise. It rendered her pale and lifeless, an incomplete sketch of a real person. She would wash out the dye as soon as she was back aboard Vengeful.
She slid back the bolt and opened the door. She stepped out into the corridor—
And almost collided with a figure in grey with white sleeves. Her hand went to her hilt.
“I am most sorry, my lady.” The Sikkerpoliti officer appeared horrified at having been responsible for the near-accident.
“Just be careful,” Rinharte replied darkly.
The officer’s gaze dropped to her sword, then flicked back up to her face. He frowned. “My lady,” he said, “perhaps you will show me your papers?”
Rinharte glanced past him. The corridor behind was empty. If there was a second officer, he was not in sight. “My servant has them,” Rinharte lied.
“This is not procedure. It is requested that all visitors carry their papers on their person.”
“Force of habit, I’m afraid. You’ll have to forgive me.”
The Sikkerpoliti officer gave an abrupt nod. “Where is your servant, my lady?”
She raised an eyebrow condescendingly. “With the other servants, of course.” She gestured airily. “Somewhere back that way.”
“You must return to your seat. I will call my partner and he will watch you while I seek out your servant.”
“I’m hardly going to run away.”
The officer ignored the remark. “Please furnish me with a description of your servant.”
“A long-necked white bird and a running man.” It was all the description needed: proles were defined by the escutcheon they wore.
“We must wait for my partner. He will be along soon.”
Rinharte turned and strode back to her seat. Kordelasz looked up as she stopped in the aisle by his side. She flicked her gaze right to indicate the Sikkerpoliti officer. Kordelasz twisted round to look. He frowned. Rinharte gave a rueful grimace. She looked for other occupants in the carriage and saw only a single man sitting near the forward end. He was concentrating on the contents of a notepad’s circular glass.
“We have to do it,” she said quietly to Kordelasz. “There’s a second on his way.”
“You wouldn’t rather ‘effect a strategic withdrawal’?” Kordelasz asked with a grin.
“To where? We’re trapped, Garrin.”
“Ah well.” Kordelasz scrambled to his feet, and stepped between Rinharte and the approaching Sikkerpoliti officer. He put his hand to a seat back to steady himself as the tube-train entered a curve. The officer stumbled.
Kordelasz took the offered opportunity. He whipped out his sword. The point slid deep under the officer’s jaw. The Sikkerpoliti coughed wetly. His eyes went wide. His knees began to fold and his stumble became an inelegant lurch forward.
Kordelasz, his sword back in its scabbard, caught the officer as he fell against him. “Whoops,” he said loudly. “Have to watch your step, you know.” He manhandled the officer into the chair by his side and arranged his lifeless limbs into some semblance of a natural pose. A crimson droplet beaded above the officer’s Adams’ apple. It wormed its way down his neck and beneath his collar, writing a thin red line on his throat.
“Time to depart, I believe,” Kordelasz said, straightening from his task.
Rinharte pulled her bag from the locker between the back-to-back seats and strode for the connecting door to the next carriage. She heard Kordelasz behind her. They didn’t have much time. A second Sikkerpoliti officer would be there in moments. Or perhaps the carriage servant would discover the body first.
The tube-train straightened from the curve and rushed onwards. Until the collision with the Sikkerpoliti officer, Rinharte and Kordelasz had done well. They had changed trains several times and encountered no trouble. They had only run afoul of the authorities on this, the last leg of their trip. Two more stations and they would be near the section where they had infiltrated Ophavon.
Rinharte felt the train begin to decelerate. She glanced back at Kordelasz and raised an eyebrow. He nodded: he had felt it too. They had traversed two first-class carriages. They hurried to the nearest exit and waited impatiently. The black wall of the tunnel shot away with nauseating swiftness—
The tube-train was going too fast. It could not stop in time. It began to accelerate. The station blurred past, a confusion of colours and shapes. Blink. Black-walled tunnel filled the windows once again.
Kordelasz swore. “They’ve found the body,” he said unnecessarily. “They’ll keep the train moving so we can’t escape.”
“They can’t do that,” Rinharte pointed out. “There are trains ahead of us.”
“Five minutes to the next station: that may be all they need.”
“They’ll have a whole squad waiting for us.”
Kordelasz barked a savage laugh. “They’ll need to go on a recruitment drive when I’ve finished.”
“Before or after they display your body on the nearest gibbet?” Rinharte returned sarcastically.
“They use gibbets here?” Kordelasz was shocked.
“No, of course they don’t. But we can’t go rushing out blades bared. We need to be… cunning.”
Kordelasz grunted. He glanced back along the carriage in the direction they had come. No grey and white uniform was visible. “So what do you recommend? Locking ourselves in the heads?”
Rinharte shook her head. She peered at the door. “Can we get this open?”
“Ma’am! This train’s doing 300 miles per hour! You jump out and you’ll just be a thin smear on the tunnel wall.”
“We wait until it stops first, of course.”
“We don’t know which side the platform will be on,” Kordelasz pointed out.
Rinharte rounded on him. “I suppose you have a plan,” she snapped tartly. “I’m trying to g
et us out of here, Mr Kordelasz, and avoid capture by the local authorities. Perhaps you could try helping?”
“But, ma’am—”
“Lieutenant.” Rinharte crossed her arms and glared at Kordelasz. He shrugged fatalistically and moved to help her.
They both looked but neither could find any form of control-mechanism near the door. Clearly it was controlled from elsewhere on the train. There was no way of subverting it short of brute force.
Rinharte withdrew her sword from its scabbard. “So much for being cunning,” she remarked. She saluted Kordelasz with her blade. “It has been a pleasure serving with you, Mr Kordelasz.”
The second Sikkerpoliti officer appeared some seven minutes later. He approached warily, his truncheon held before him. It was no help. Kordelasz almost negligently flicked his sword within the man’s guard and pricked him on the shoulder. Reflexively, the officer snapped his truncheon up. Kordelasz stepped forward and hammered the pommel of his sword between the man’s eyes. The marine-lieutenant left the unconscious Sikkerpoliti officer blocking the aisle. It was unlikely there would be any more officers: they patrolled in pairs, and Rinharte was reasonably certain only a single pair had been assigned to first class on this tube-train. There could be a second pair in second class, but that was blocked off from first class.
A minute or two later, the train began to slow. Rinharte and Kordelasz had guessed right: the Ophavon authorities had set a trap at the next station. It was not a comforting thought.
The tunnel wall outside the window lightened to a dirty white and then vanished as the tube-train drew into the station. The platform was deserted. The lack of passengers to board the train told Rinharte the Sikkerpoliti were waiting.
The train jerked to a halt. Rinharte rocked but kept her blade steady. The door hissed open. The two of them stepped onto the platform, swords at guard…
And froze—
Facing them was not the expected squad of Sikkerpoliti, but a trio of figures in white padded coveralls, and black boots and gauntlets. Their right upper-arms bore badges of rank and distinction. Over the coveralls, they wore knee-length surcoats of grey cloth, a device depicting a blank shield centred prominently on the chest. A heavy belt, with a strap over the right shoulder, held the surcoat in tight at their waists. From this hung a scabbard and a variety of equipment pouches.