“No,” Lune said. “I knew what I was doing. I knew what you were, and I knew what you were capable of.”
Madame Bezile nodded gravely. “Then what’s about to happen won’t come as any great surprise. That’s good. This late in the game, I’d hate for there to be any misunderstanding between us.”
“I’m sure there won’t be,” Lune answered
With genuine regret she said: “I gave you everything. I took you as a child, took you from the piss-stinking sewer of your life, made you something. I had hopes for you, Lune. You were quick and clever and you showed uncommon courage. I dared to think that one day you might inherit my mantle. I see now that my investment was wasted. A foolish whimsy, nothing more. You’re no better than the rest.”
The floor lurched. “We’re losing control,” Derain said urgently. “We should attempt landfall now, or abandon the argosy.”
“Let it crash,” Bezile said, as if the flying machine was of no more consequence than the soiled handkerchief. “I’ll find another one, as I did before. Tell the crew they may leave, and ready my own parachute. I’ll be at the door in a few moments.” When she had finished speaking, she reached into a secret pocket and withdrew a tiny gem-encrusted discharge pistol. For a second or two she marvelled at it, as if it had been years since she last set eyes on the dainty little weapon.
Then she flicked an arming stud, and caused lights to glimmer along the involute barrel.
Lune backed away.
“It’ll be quick,” Bezile said. “I said you were my favorite, and I meant it. Only the best for my good Lune. But I can’t let this treachery go unrewarded.”
She aimed the vile thing at Lune’s face.
“It’s over,” Lune said. “Don’t you realise? It’s over.”
“Yes, it is.”
But it was Soutine who had spoken, not Bezile. And in his hand was another discharge pistol, the one he had sometimes let her handle, against the day when she might be allowed to carry one herself.
Now he pointed it at his mistress, his hand trembling, but not so badly that the shot wouldn’t be fatal, were he to squeeze the trigger. “You were right, Lune,” he said softly. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Charleroi,” Bezile said, astonished. “I thought better of you.”
“Go to the parachutes,” he told Lune. “There’ll still be one left for you.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be there shortly.”
She did as she was told, as she had always done, whether it was Madame Bezile or Arquelle or Captain Pallas. When she reached the parachutes, three parachutes remained on the rack. She took one of the black, pillow-sized packages in her hands, bewildered by its dangling straps and obscure fastenings. She had never been shown how to use the parachutes. Why would she? No one had seriously expected the argosy to come to grief, and if it did, she had never imagined that she would be among the last to leave.
The floor lurched sickeningly. The exit door was wide open. No problem stepping through that, except now she didn’t have the suspensor belt. Another lurch, as the argosy lost still more power, and she had to grab a handhold to stop herself sliding along the deck plates, to the door’s hungry night-black aperture.
Even if she succeeded in wearing the parachute, she had no idea how to use it, how to control her descent, how to select a landing spot, in the confusion of streets and buildings below. But she thought even less of her chances of surviving the argosy’s fall, when at last it succumbed to gravity.
“Slip your arm through that hoop. Yes. Now the other one.”
It was Soutine, still holding the discharge pistol, steadying himself against a bolted wall strut. “Now the belt. Tight as you can. That’s good.”
“I don’t know how to work it.”
“The ripcord is that yellow tag. Pull it when you’re clear of the argosy’s engines, and not a moment sooner. That’s blackflame silk, and it won’t rip, but it still won’t thank you for being tangled in the propellers.”
“Where will I land?”
“With the wind as it is, you’ve a good chance of hitting Bestiary Park. But only if you go now.”
She hesitated. “Shouldn’t you be wearing yours?”
“I’m not going, Lune.’ His hand tightened on the pistol. “I’m afraid there’s still work to be done here.”
“Leave her. She doesn’t need you. She’s . . .”
“Nothing. I know. And I should follow you. But what you said, about things not having to be this way? You were right. It is over, for her. But not just Bezile.” As the floor tilted again he redoubled his grip. “I saw what happened down there, Lune. It was beautiful fire. Whatever happens after tonight, whether or not your Captain Pallas was mad or sane, it won’t be the same Paris, or even the same Free France. Because there’s an idea loose in the world that wasn’t there yesterday, and that changes everything. An idea that maybe it’s better to be wise than warm.” He jogged the pistol at her, not with the threat of violence, but urging her to go. “She made me what I am, Lune. I knew what she was long before you ever found out, but I didn’t have the strength to turn against her. And if I couldn’t make that change then, I can’t make this one. I don’t belong in the future you’ve just made happen. But you do. Now jump.”
“Soutine . . .”
This time, for an instant, she thought he might well fire the discharge pistol.
So she jumped. Through the door, into the cold-clawed wind, into the air above Paris, her Paris, her city.