“I’m sorry we weren’t able to come to an agreement,” the Ultra replied, “but you appreciate that the safety of my ship must be my first priority. We are all aware of what happened to the Gnostic Ascension.”
Quaiche spread his thin-boned fingers by way of sympathy. “Awful business. I was lucky to survive.”
“So we gather.”
The couch angled towards Grelier. “Surgeon-General Grelier… might I introduce Captain Basquiat of the lighthugger Bride of the Wind?”
Grelier bowed his head politely at Quaiche’s new guest. The Ultra was not as extreme as some that Grelier had encountered, but still odd and unsettling by baseline standards. He was very thin and colourless, like some desiccated weather-bleached insect, but propped upright in a blood-red support skeleton ornamented with silver lilies. A very large moth accompanied the Ultra: it fluttered before his face, fanning it.
“My pleasure,” Grelier said, placing down the medical kit with its cargo of blood-filled syringes. “I hope you had a nice time on Hela.”
“Our visit was fruitful, Surgeon-General. It wasn’t possible to accommodate the last of Dean Quaiche’s wishes, but otherwise, I believe both parties are satisfied with proceedings.”
“And the other small matter we discussed?” Quaiche asked.
“The reefersleep fatalities? Yes, we have around two dozen braindead cases. In better times we might have been able to restore neural structure with the right sort of medichine intervention. Not now, however.”
“We’d be happy to take them off your hands,” Grelier said. “Free-up the casket slots for the living.”
The Ultra flicked the moth away from his lips. “You have a particular use for these vegetables?”
“The surgeon-general takes an interest in their cases,” Quaiche said, interrupting before Grelier had a chance to say anything. “He likes to attempt experimental neural rescripting procedures, don’t you, Grelier?” He looked away sharply, not waiting for an answer. “Now, Captain—do you need any special assistance in returning to your ship?”
“None that I am aware of, thank you.”
Grelier looked out of the east-facing window of the garret. At the other end of the ridged roof of the main hall was a landing pad, on which a small shuttle was parked. It was the bright yellow-green of a stick insect.
“Godspeed back to the parking swarm, Captain. We await transhipment of those unfortunate casket victims. And I look forward to doing business with you on another occasion.”
The captain turned to walk out, but paused before leaving. He had noticed the scrimshaw suit for the first time, Grelier thought. It was always there, standing in the corner of the room like a silent extra guest. The captain stared at it, his moth fluttering orbits around his head, then continued on his way. He could have no idea of the dreadful significance it represented to Quaiche: the final resting place of Morwenna and an ever-present reminder of what the first vanishing had cost him.
Grelier waited until he was certain the Ultra was not coming back. “What was all that about?” he asked. “The extra stuff he ‘couldn’t accommodate’?”
“The usual negotiations,” Quaiche said, as if the matter was beneath him. “Count yourself lucky that you’ll get your vegetables. Now—Bloodwork, eh? How did it go?”
“Wait a moment.” Grelier moved to one wall and worked a brass-handled lever. The jalousies folded shut, admitting only narrow wedges of light. Then he bent down over Quaiche and removed the sunglasses. Quaiche normally kept them on during his negotiations: partly to protect his eyes against glare, but also because without them he was not a pretty sight. Of course, that was precisely the reason he sometimes chose not to wear them, as well.
Beneath the eyeshades, hugging the skin like a second pair of glasses, was a skeletal framework. Around each eye were two circles from which radiated hooks, thrusting inwards to keep the eyelids from closing. There were little sprays built into the frames, blasting Quaiche’s eyes with moisture every few minutes. It would have been simpler, Grelier said, to have removed the eyelids in the first place, but Quaiche had a penitential streak as wide as the Way, and the discomfort of the frame suited him. It was a constant reminder of the need for vigilance, lest he miss a vanishing.
Grelier took a small swab from the garret’s medical locker and cleaned away the residue around Quaiche’s eyes.
“Bloodwork, Grelier?”
“I’ll come to that. Just tell me what that business with the Ultra was all about. Why did you want him to bring his ship closer to Hela?”
Visibly, Quaiche’s pupils dilated. “Why do you think that’s what I wanted of him?”
“Isn’t it? Why else would he have said that it was too dangerous?”
“You presume a great deal, Grelier.”
The surgeon-general finished cleaning up, then slotted the top pair of glasses back into place. “Why do you want the Ultras closer, all of a sudden? For years you’ve worked hard to keep the bastards at arm’s-reach. Now you want one of their ships on your doorstep?”
The figure in the couch sighed. He had more substance in the darkness. Grelier opened the slats again, observing that the yellow-green shuttle had departed from the landing pad.
“It was just an idea,” Quaiche said.
“What kind of idea?”
“You’ve seen how nervous the Ultras are lately. I trust them less and less. Basquiat seemed like a man I could do business with. I was hoping we might come to an arrangement.”
“What sort of arrangement?” Grelier returned the swabs to the cabinet.
“Protection,” Quaiche said. “Bring one group of Ultras here to keep the rest of them away.”
“Madness,” Grelier said.
“Insurance,” his master corrected. “Well, what does it matter? They weren’t interested. Too worried about bringing their ship near to Hela. This place scares them as much as it tantalises them, Grelier.‘’
“There’ll always be others.”
“Perhaps…” Quaiche sounded as if the whole business was already boring him, a mid-morning fancy he now regretted.
“You asked about Bloodwork,” Grelier said. He knelt down and picked up the case. “It didn’t go swimmingly, but I collected from Vaustad.”
“The choirmaster? Weren’t you supposed to be administering?”
“Wee change of plan.”
Bloodwork: the Office of the Clocktower dedicated to the preservation, enrichment and dissemination of the countless viral strains spun off from Quaiche’s original infection. Almost everyone who worked in the cathedral carried some of Quaiche in their blood now. It had reached across generations, mutating and mingling with other types of virus brought to Hela. The result was a chaotic profusion of possible effects. Many of the other churches were based on, or had in some sense even been caused by, subtle doctrinal variants of the original strain. Bloodwork operated to tame the chaos, isolating effective and doctrinally pure strains and damping out others. Individuals like Vaustad were often used as test cases for newly isolated viruses. If they showed psychotic or otherwise undesirable side-effects, the strains would be eliminated. Vaustad had earned his role as guinea pig after a series of regrettable indiscretions, but had grown increasingly fearful of the results of each new test jab.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Quaiche said. “I need Bloodwork, Grelier, more so now than ever. I’m losing my religion.”
Quaiche’s own faith was subject to horrible lapses. He had developed immunity to the pure strain of the virus, the one that had infected him before his time aboard the Gnostic Ascension. One of the principle tasks of Bloodwork was to isolate the new mutant strains that were still able to have an effect on Quaiche. Grelier didn’t advertise the fact, but it was getting harder and harder to find them.