Then he turned around and walked slowly into the darkness. A skirl of red-brown dust swelled up to block him from view. It was like a sandstorm on Mars.
Hela, 2727
THE ULTRA CAPTAIN was called Heckel, his ship the Third Gazo-metric. He had come down in a red-hulled shuttle of very ancient design—a triad of linked spheres with large, stylised tarantula markings.
Even by recent standards, Heckel struck Quaiche as a very strange individual. The mobility suit in which he came aboard the Lady Morwenna was a monstrous contraption of leather and brass, with rubberised accordion joints and gleaming metal plates secured by rivets. Behind the tiny grilled-over eyeholes of his helmet, wiper blades flicked back and forth to clear condensation. Steam vented from poorly maintained joints and seals. Two assistants had accompanied him: they were constantly opening and closing hatches in the suit, fiddling with brass knobs and valves. When Heckel spoke, his voice emerged from a miniature pipe organ projecting from the top of his helmet. He had to keep making adjustments to knobs in his chest area to stop the voice becoming too shrill or deep.
Quaiche understood none of Heckel’s utterances, but that was all right: Heckel had also brought along a baseline interpreter. She was a small doe-eyed woman dressed in a more modern spacesuit. Her helmet had folded back on itself, retracting like a cockatoo’s crest so that everyone could see her face.
“You’re not an Ultra,” Quaiche remarked to the interpreter.
“Does it matter?”
“I just find it amusing, that’s all. It’s where I started, doing the same line of work as you.”
“That must have been a long time ago.”
“But they still don’t find it any easier to negotiate with the likes of us, do they?”
“Us, Dean?”
“Baseline humans, like you and me.”
She hid it well, but he read her amused reaction. He saw himself from her point of view: an old man reclining on a couch, deathly frail, surrounded by an audience of moving mirrors, his eyed peeled open like fruits. He was not wearing the sunglasses.
Quaiche moved a hand. “I wasn’t always like this. I could pass for a baseline human, once, move in normal society with no one so much as batting an eyelid. I was taken into the employment of Ultras, just as you have been. Queen Jasmina, of the Gnostic Ascension…”
Heckel adjusted his chest knobs, then piped out something incomprehensible.
“He says Jasmina did not have the best of reputations, even amongst other Ultras,” the interpreter said. “He says that even now, in certain Ultra circles, mentioning her name is considered the height of bad taste.”
“I didn’t know Ultras even recognised bad taste as a concept,” Quaiche replied archly.
Heckel piped back something shrill and peremptory.
“He says there is a lot you need to remember,” the interpreter said. “He also says he has other business he needs to attend to today.”
Quaiche fingered the edge of his scarlet blanket. “Very well, then. Just to clarify… you would be willing to consider my offer?”
The interpreter listened to Heckel for a moment, then addressed Quaiche. “He says he understands the logic of your proposed security arrangement.”
Quaiche nodded enthusiastically, forcing the mirrors to nod synchronously. “Of course, it would work to the benefit of both parties. I would gain the protection of a ship like the Third Gazometric, insurance against the less scrupulous Ultra elements we all know are out there. And by agreeing to provide that security—for a fixed but not indefinite period, naturally—there would be compensations in terms of trading rights, insider information, that sort of thing. It could be worth both our whiles, Captain Heckel. All you’d have to do is agree to move the Third Gazometric closer to Hela, and to submit to some very mild mutual friendship arrangements… a small cathedral delegation on your ship and—naturally—a reciprocal party on the Lady Morwenna. And then you’d have immediate access to the choicest scuttler relics, before any of your rivals.” Quaiche looked askance, as if seeing enemies in the garret’s shadows. “And we wouldn’t have to be looking over our shoulders all the time.”
The captain piped his reply.
“He says he understands the benefits in terms of trading rights,” the interpreter said, “but he also wishes to emphasise the risk he would be taking by bringing his ship closer to Hela. He mentions the fate that befell the Gnostic Ascension …”
“And there was me thinking it was bad taste to mention it.”
She ignored him. “And he wishes to have these beneficial trading arrangements clarified before any further discussion takes place. He wishes also to specify a maximum term for the period of protection, and…” She paused while Heckel piped out a series of rambling additions. “He also wishes to discuss the exclusion from trade of certain other parties currently in the system, or approaching it. Parties to be excluded would include, but not be limited to, the trade vessels Transfigured Night, Madonna of the Wasps, Silence Under Snow …”
She continued until she noticed Quaiche’s raised hand. “We can discuss these things in good time,” he said, his heart sinking. “In the meantime, the cathedral would—of course—require a full technical examination of the Third Gazometric, to ensure that the ship poses no hazard to Hela or its inhabitants…”
“The captain wonders if you doubt the worthiness of his ship,” the interpreter said.
“Not at all. Why should I? He made it this far, didn’t he? On the other hand, if he has nothing to hide…”
“The captain wishes to retire to his shuttle to consider matters.”
“Of course,” Quaiche said with sudden eagerness, as if nothing was too much to ask. “This is a serious proposal, and nothing should be agreed in haste. Sleep on it. Talk to some other parties. Get a second opinion. Shall I call an escort?”
“The captain can find his own way back to the shuttle,” she said.
Quaiche spread his fingers in farewell. “Very well, then. Please convey my best wishes to your crew… and consider my offer very seriously.”
The captain swung around, his assistants continuing to adjust the control valves and levers in his ludicrous kettle of a suit. With a mad rhythmic clanking he began to locomote towards the door. His departure was as painfully slow as his arrival had been, the suit appearing incapable of moving more than an inch at a time.
The captain paused, then laboriously turned around. The wiper blades flicked back and forth. The pipe organ chimed out another sequence of notes.
“Begging your pardon,” the interpreter said, “but the captain has another question. Upon his approach to the Lady Morwenna, he made an unscheduled excursion from the usual flight path due to a technical problem with the shuttle.”
“A technical problem? Now there’s a surprise.”
“In the process of this deviation he witnessed significant excavation work taking place a little to the north of the Permanent Way, near the Jarnsaxa Flats. He saw what appeared to be a partially camouflaged dig. Investigating with the shuttle’s radar, he detected a sloping cavity several kilometres in length and at least a kilometre deep. He assumed that the dig was related to the unearthing of scuttler relics.”
“That may be the case,” Quaiche said, affecting an uninterested tone.
“The captain was puzzled. He admits to being no expert on Hela affairs, but he was given to understand that most significant scuttler relics have been unearthed in the circumpolar regions.”
“Scuttler relics are found all over Hela,” Quaiche said. “It’s just that due to quirks of geography they’re easier to get at in the polar regions. I don’t know what this dig was that you saw, or why it was camouflaged. Most of the digging work takes place outside the direct administration of the churches, alas. We can’t keep tabs on everyone.”
“The captain thanks you for your most helpful response.”
Quaiche frowned, and then corrected his frown to a tolerant smile. What was that: sarcasm, or had she
just not hit quite the right note? She was a baseline human, like himself, the kind of person he had once been able to read like a diagram. Now she and her kind—not just women, but almost everyone—lay far beyond the boundaries of his instinctive understanding. He watched them leave, smelling something hot and metallic trailing in the captain’s wake, waiting impatiently while the room cleared of the noxious steam.
Soon, the tapping of a cane announced Grelier’s arrival. He had not been far away, listening in on the proceedings via concealed cameras and microphones.
“Seems promising enough,” the surgeon-general ventured. “They didn’t dismiss you out of hand, and they do have a ship. My guess is they can’t wait to make the deal.”
“That’s what I thought as well,” Quaiche said. He rubbed a smear of condensation from one of his mirrors, restoring Hal-dora to its usual pinpoint sharpness. “In fact, once you stripped away Heckel’s not very convincing bluster I got the impression they needed our arrangement very badly.” He held up a sheet of paper, one that he had held tightly to his chest throughout the negotiations: “Technical summary on their ship, from our spies in the parking swarm. Doesn’t make encouraging reading. The bloody thing’s falling to bits. Barely made it to 107 P.”
“Let me see.” Grelier glanced at the paper, skimming it. “You can’t be certain this is accurate.”
“I can’t?”
“No. Ultras routinely downplay the worthiness of their ships, often putting out misinformation to that effect. They do it to lull competitors into a false sense of superiority, and to dissuade pirates interested in stealing their ships.”
“But they always overstate their defensive capabilities,” Quaiche said, wagging a finger at the surgeon-general. “Right now there isn’t a ship in that swarm that doesn’t have weapons of some kind, even if they’re disguised as innocent collision avoidance systems. They’re scared, Grelier, all of them, and they all want their rivals to know they have the means to defend themselves.” He snatched back the paper. “But this? It’s a joke. They need our patronage so they can fix their ship first. It should be the other way around, if their protection is to have any meaning to us.”
“As I said, where the intentions of Ultras are concerned nothing should be taken at face value.”
Quaiche crumpled the paper and threw it across the room. “The problem is I can’t read their bloody intentions.”
“No one could be expected to read a monstrosity like Heckel,” Grelier said.
“I don’t mean just him. I’m talking about the other Ultras, or the normal humans that come down with them, like that women just now. I couldn’t tell if she was being sincere or patronising, let alone whether she really believed what Heckel was having her say.”
Grelier kissed the head of his cane. “You want my opinion? Your assessment of the situation was accurate: she was just Heckel’s mouthpiece. He wanted to do business very badly.”
“Too bloody badly,” Quaiche said.
Grelier tapped the cane against the floor. “Forget the Third Gazometric for the time being. What about the Lark Descending! The third-party summaries suggested a very useful weapons allocation, and the captain seemed willing to do business.”
“The summaries also mentioned an instability in her starboard drive. Did you miss that bit?”
Grelier shrugged. “It’s not as though we need them to take us anywhere, just to sit in orbit around Hela intimidating the rest of them. As long as the weapons are sufficient for that task, what do we care if the ship won’t be capable of leaving once the arrangement is over?”
Quaiche waved a hand vaguely. “To be honest, I didn’t really like the fellow they sent down. Kept leaking all over the floor. Took weeks to get rid of the stain after he’d left. And a drive instability isn’t the mild inconvenience you seem to assume. The ship we come to an agreement with will be sitting within tenths of a light-second of our surface, Grelier. We can’t risk it blowing up in our faces.”
“Back to square one, in that case,” Grelier said, with little detectable sympathy. “There are other Ultras to interview, aren’t there?”
“Enough to keep me busy, but I’ll always come back to the same fundamental problem: I simply cannot read these people, Grelier. My mind is so open to Haldora that there isn’t room for any other form of observation. I cannot see through their strategies and evasions the way I once could.”
“We’ve had this conversation before. You know you can always seek my opinion.”
“And I do. But—no insult intended, Grelier—you know a great deal more about blood and cloning than you do about human nature.”
“Then ask others. Assemble an advisory council.”
“No.” Grelier, he realised, was quite right—they had been over this many times. And always it came round to the same points. ‘These negotiations for protection are, by their very nature, extremely sensitive. I can’t risk a security leak to another cathedral.“ He motioned for Grelier to clean his eyes. ”Look at me,“ he went on, while the surgeon-general opened the medicine cabinet and prepared the antiseptic swabs. ”I’m a thing of horror, in many respects, bound to this chair, barely able to survive without it. And even if I had the health to leave it, I would remain a prisoner of the Lady Morwenna, still enmeshed in the optical sightlines of my beloved mirrors.“
“Voluntarily,” Grelier said.
“You know what I mean. I cannot move amongst the Ultras as they move amongst us. Cannot step aboard their ships the way other ecumenical emissaries do.”
“That’s why we have spies.”
“All the same, it limits me. I need someone I can trust, Grelier, someone like my younger self. Someone able to move amongst them as I used to. Someone they wouldn’t dare to suspect.”
“Suspect?” Grelier dabbed at Quaiche’s eyes with the swabs.
“I mean someone they would automatically trust. Someone not at all like you.”
“Hold still.” Quaiche flinched as the stinging swab dug around his eyeball. It amazed him that he had any nerve endings there at all, but Grelier had an unerring ability to find those that remained. “Actually,” Grelier said, musingly, “something did occur to me recently. Perhaps it’s worth mentioning.”
“Go ahead.”
“You’re aware I like to know what’s happening on Hela. Not just the usual business with the cathedrals and the Way, but in the wider world, including the villages.”
“Oh, yes. You’re always on the hunt for uncatalogued strains, reports of interesting new heresies from the Hauk settlements, that sort of thing. Then out you ride with your shiny new syringes, like a good little vampire.”
“I won’t deny that Bloodwork plays a small role in my interest, but along the way I do pick up all sorts of interesting titbits. Keep still!‘
“And you keep out of my sightlines! What sort of titbits?”
“The last but one time I was awake was a two-year interval, between ten and eight years ago. I remember that revival very well: it was the first occasion on which I found myself needing this cane. Towards the end of that period awake I made a long trip north, following leads on those uncatalogued strains you just mentioned. On the return journey I rode with one of the caravans, keeping my eyes peeled—sorry—for anything else that might take my fancy.”
“I remember that trip,” Quaiche said, “but I don’t recall you saying that anything of significance happened during it.”
“Nothing did. Or at least nothing seemed to, at the time. But then I heard a news bulletin a few days ago and it reminded me of something.”
“Are you going to drag this out much longer?”
Grelier sighed and began returning the equipment to its cabinet. “There was a family,” he said, “from the Vigrid badlands. They’d travelled down to meet the caravan. They had two children: a son and a younger daughter.”
“Fascinating, I’m sure.”
“The son was looking for work on the Way. I sat in on the recruitment interview, as I was permit
ted to do. Idle curiosity, really: I had no interest in this particular case, but you never know when someone interesting is going to show up.” Grelier snapped shut the cabinet. “The son had aspirations to work in some technical branch of Way maintenance—strategic planning, something like that. At the time, however, the Way had all the pencil-pushers it needed. The only vacancies available were—shall we say—at the sharp end?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Quaiche said.
“Quite. But in this case the recruiting agent decided against a full and frank disclosure of the relevant facts. He told the son that there would be no difficulty in finding him a safe, well-paid job in the technical bureau. And because the work would be strictly analytical, requiring a clear-headed coolness of mind, there would be no question whatsoever of viral initiation.”
“If he’d told the truth, he’d have lost the recruit.”
“Almost certainly. He was a clever lad, no doubt about that. A waste, really, to throw him straight into fuse laying or something with an equally short life-expectancy. And because the family was secular—they mostly are, up in the badlands—he definitely didn’t want your blood in his veins.”
“It isn’t my blood. It’s a virus.”
Grelier raised a finger, silencing his master. “The point is that the recruiting agent had good reason to lie. And it was only a white lie, really. Everyone knew those bureau jobs were thin on the ground. Frankly, I think even the son knew it, but his family needed the money.”
“There’s a point to this, Grelier, I’m sure of it.”
“I can barely remember what the son looked like. But the daughter? I can see her now, clear as daylight, looking through all of us as if we were made of glass. She had the most astonishing eyes, a kind of golden brown with little flecks of light in them.”
“How old would she have been, Grelier?”
“Eight, nine, I suppose.”
“You revolt me.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Grelier said. “Everyone there felt it, I think, especially the recruiting agent. She kept telling her parents he was lying. She was certain. She was visibly affronted by him. It was as if everyone in that room was playing a game and she hadn’t been told about it.”
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