Strapped into his seat in the body of the dropbird, Stanton felt uneasy. He was not uneasy at the mission at hand, but at Pelter's behaviour. There was that tension about the Separatist leader, almost like a suppressed and vicious glee. Stanton fiddled with his ring and wondered who was going to the next. Svent, sitting opposite him, wore a twisted and angry expression on his face; he seemed lost in himself. Mennecken merely seemed bored as he stared at the screen at the back of the cabin. That screen showed Lyric slowly receding from them. Corlackis sat next to Stanton, with his arms folded over his straps and his eyes closed. Perhaps he had the right idea. Stanton rested his head back and tried to relax.
Re-entry would take some time. The trick was to not let the bird heat up too much and thus give away its presence. That required care in the thin upper atmosphere, as it would be easy to let it build up a lot of speed. But Pelter had the skill to do things right; as a rich kid he had flown his fair share of re-entry gliders. Stanton wondered if he possessed the patience, however. Considering that thought, he allowed his attention to slide further along the wall of the cabin.
Mr Crane was perfectly still, strapped in place amongst the few crates they had loaded aboard, still packed. Stanton now realized that this particular stillness required direct control, no matter how tenuous. Perhaps Pelter did not want Crane taking out his toys and playing with them while the bird descended. Everything had to be totally secured in place during such a descent. Moreover, there was something embarrassing about seeing a killer android playing with a small rubber dog.
'John, something for you to see.'
Stanton turned his attention to the cockpit. Pelter was leaning round and staring at him. He had a nasty expression on his face. He pointed to the screen moulded into the back of the craft. Though internal, it gave the appearance of a rear cockpit screen.
'Jarvellis, are you getting this?' he asked.
'I'm getting this. What do you want, Pelter?' Jarvellis said.
'I just wanted to say it has been a pleasure working with you… John, I said look at the screen.'
Stanton started to get a very bad feeling. He moved his hand towards the release on his safety harness. The cold nose of Corlackis's little stun gun pressed into the side of his neck.
'Look at the screen, John, and keep your hands where I can see them. Oh, and if anything knife-shaped should, by any strange chance, happen to leap into your right hand, you won't get a chance to use it.'
Stanton drew his thumb away from the ring. The Tenkian knife might get to his hand quickly, but getting it into Corlackis before the mercenary pulled the trigger was another matter.
'What's going on in there?' said Jarvellis.
Stanton could hear the edge of panic in her voice.
'Just listen and you will learn,' said Pelter, before returning his attention to Stanton. 'The Lyric, John.'
Stanton turned his head so he was looking at the screen behind. The magnification had been upped so he had a clear view of the ship.
'Now,' said Pelter, 'you remember I got all that lovely planar explosive from friend Grendel.'
Stanton stared at the ship. No, this can't be happening.
'Answer me, John.'
'Yes, I know,' said John.
Pelter went on. 'Well damn me if I've gone and forgotten to bring it with us.'
Mennecken gave a little chuckle at this, and every- thing clicked into place. Stanton hit his belt release and turned his head. Corlackis's gun cracked, and Stanton felt a horrible deadness invade his right shoulder. As the Tenkian tore through his trousers and slapped against his hand, he couldn't even close his fingers. Next thing, he was down on his knees on the floor.
'Jarv, get out,' he managed at barely a whisper.
Pelter reached up and touched his fingers to his aug. It was a habit he retained. 'Bye-bye, Captain Jarvellis.'
Stanton went over on his side. He wished he had fallen the ouier way. His view of the screen was now utterly and uncompromisingly clear. The Lyric blew. A disc of white fire flashed out from the B hold, cutting into the other two spheres of the ship. Multiple explosions followed, and turned the ship into a sphere of fragments that expanded and swallowed the now fading disc. The view clicked back to show the sphere at a distance. As it faded, there were flashes as bits of wreckage re-entered atmosphere behind the dropbird.
'Jarv…'
As his consciousness faded, Stanton heard Pelter speaking to the rest of them.
'That has the added benefit that now we can go in a lot faster. Any heat signatures the AI detects, it will assume to come from the debris.'
Blackness swamped Stanton, to the sound of Men-necken chuckling.
19
Antigravity: In the first three centuries of this millennium, people still viewed gravity with the same lack of comprehension their primitive forebears had for the properties of lodestones. (Could those forebears have had any idea of what would happen when a current was put through copper wire wrapped around a lump of iron?) Antigravity was considered the province of science-fiction writers, and real scientists chuckled about such writers' inability to grasp plain facts. That they took this attitude, while their fellows were hacking the foundations from underneath Einstein's special and general theories of relativity, showed a lack of foresight comparable to that of an eminent Victorian, who, upon hearing of what forms of travel might become possible because of this new-fangled steam engine, categorically stated that humans travelling faster than twenty miles an hour would be crushed to death.
From Quince Guide, compiled by humans
Aiden eased the joystick forwards and the shuttle slid towards the wall of cloud. He tilted the stick and thumbed a side control. The turbines droned and the shuttle climbed for the top of the wall. Cormac gazed down at mountain chains like puckered yellow scars and at frozen seas of reflected gold. Samarkand was a beautiful planet, but it was the beauty of arctic waste that could be best appreciated up here, rather than down on the ground where it might kill you. Fingers of cloud slid across and hid the view. Soon the shuttle was high above what seemed a second land, one of roiling white over guts of brass. This land seemed to have its own red but lightless sun: an oblate object a kilometre across, which seemed to be rolling above the cloud. There was other movement actually on it as well, a slow rippling of its surface, but that motion was so huge it fooled the eye.
'It's almost an insult that something like that should exist,' said Carn.
'It's one of four at the last count,' Cormac pointed out.
'Oh, right, I'd forgotten.'
Carn leaned further forwards, perhaps scanning with his yellow eye. He said, 'No way its orbital velocity is keeping it up.' He inspected the miniconsole he was holding in his silvered hand. 'As I thought,' it's using antigravity.'
'The least of its abilities, one would suspect,' said Aiden. 'I know of no runcible gates a kilometre wide.' He paused for a moment, listening, then he said, 'Hubris informs me that when it arrived there were underspace distortions similar to the kind left by a ship. Dragon probably has a drive system much the same as Hubris's.'