‘So,’ says the SIG, when I finish running it through. ‘Killing that braid was a bad career move?’
That is one way of putting it.
‘What now?’ asks Neen.
‘We find the Enlightened. We get your sister back. We kill General Tournier. We go home . . .’
‘Yeah,’ the gun says sourly. ‘Sounds like a plan to me.’
The drop is swift; the sideways flick as the elevator hits the bottom and begins its travel up the side of Hekati’s shell is brutal enough to make our stomachs lurch. Should have known all those temples were good for something. Makes me wonder what else the colonel forgot to tell me.
Apart from the obvious. He expects to die.
After he panicked in the hub that first time, my killing the braid meant his choice was made for him. Even if Colonel Vijay had wanted to sign a treaty, he couldn’t. Nor could he get within killing distance of General Tournier. Our CO went from honoured guest to hunted enemy with my first blow.
Mind you, what did he expect?
If he didn’t bother to brief us all properly first.
A second lurch tells me we’re climbing one of Hekati’s spokes. I know it’s true, because gravity gets weaker.
‘Arriving in five,’ says the lift. ‘Hope you have a good day.’
‘Wow,’ my gun says. ‘It’s house-trained.’
We ignore the SIG.
Our elevator opens into a corridor that runs all the way round the inside of Hekati’s mirror hub. All the lifts begin here. It is faster to pass through the central hub than trek round inside the ring.
Screens show ships docked within the hub. A bot scuttles across the floor towards a wall and disappears when it sees us. A dozen doors lead to storerooms and arrival halls. A dozen more are on the far side of the ring, out of sight. This is where we killed the braid and the Silver Fist, before taking the first lift down.
‘Check the corpses,’ I tell Neen.
‘Gone, sir,’ he says.
I didn’t really expect them to be there. If the splatter patterns were still there, I’d think the bodies had been removed by the Uplifted. But the blood has gone, along with all the weapons, the uniforms and the bodies themselves. So maybe the spider bots have been busy after all.
‘Find anything useful,’ Colonel Vijay orders.
‘What’s useful?’ whispers Ajac. Neen tells him to use his brain.
‘Sir,’ I say, when we’re safely out of the others’ hearing. ‘Have you met General Tournier before?’
‘No.’ Colonel Vijay shakes his head. ‘But I’ll recognize him.’ That’s not what interests me, although I say this politely.
‘How about his staff?’
The list he reels off means nothing to me. They all have at least two names, some have three and one has four. You need to understand that people I know have only one. Neen is Neen, Franc is Franc . . . I was always just Sven, until I met Aptitude’s mother and she gave me a second name.
‘But will they recognize you, sir?’
‘Doubt it,’ says Colonel Vijay. He looks at me. ‘Sven,’ he says, ‘what’s your point?’
‘I’ll kill General Tournier,’ I tell him.
‘You . . . ?’
‘Sir,’ I say, ‘I’m faster and stronger and we’ll get one crack. We can’t afford a fuck-up.’ I tag sir onto the end of that. Although I doubt it removes the sting.
‘I’ll do it,’ he says. ‘After I sign the treaty.’
‘You won’t be signing any treaty, sir.’
‘Want to tell me why?’
‘Because dead people can’t sign their names.’
Colonel Vijay thinks it’s a threat. He’s wrong.
‘You’re dead, sir. Remember? Pavel killed you that night in the hills. At least that’s what General Tournier believes. We need to leave it like that. Also . . .’
‘Also what?’
‘No way anyone betrays OctoV while I’m around.’
Opening his mouth to protest, he shuts it when I glare at him. ‘Don’t care if it’s pretend,’ I say. ‘Don’t care if it’s a trick. We’re not signing.’
Chapter 38
As the colonel and I walk back, we meet neen coming in the other direction. His face is grim and he’s dragging a prisoner behind him. The man is broad-shouldered, sandy-haired, with one of those little beards meant to age him. He is four or so years younger than I am, so five or six years older than Neen. What with his beard and sharp nose, his looks are enough like our colonel’s to tell me he’s high clan.
Blood drips from one of his nostrils, a bruise is beginning to close his right eye, and his hands are roped tightly behind his back.
What I notice, of course, is his uniform.
He’s wearing the parade dress of a captain in the Death’s Head, right down to a cavalry sword hanging from his left hip and a little black dagger on the right. A waterfall of braid tells me he’s general staff.
Braid relating to your own rank hangs one side. Braid relating to the rank of the officer you serve hangs the other. Worked that out for myself when I was on the general’s mother ship.
‘Found him in the control room,’ says Neen. Before admitting, ‘Actually, Haze found him.’ Which explains it. Haze was probably drawn by the smell of all that exotic naked machinery, or something.
‘What was he doing?’ I mean our captive, obviously.
Neen hesitates. ‘Field-stripping a gun.’
Sounds like a man after my own heart. Well, he would be, if he weren’t a traitorous fucker who has gone over to the Enlightened.
‘Permission to question him, sir?’
Colonel Vijay glances between the three of us. That’s me, Neen and our captive. ‘Rules of war,’ he says. ‘Remember that, Sven.’
I salute. ‘Leave it with me,’ I say.
Nodding doubtfully, Colonel Vijay makes his way down the corridor alone. The moment he disappears around a corner, I bounce our prisoner against the nearest wall, and then do it again. He looks up from his knees.
‘Rules of war,’ he says.
‘First rule,’ I tell him. ‘There aren’t any.’
Dragging him to his feet, I go through his pockets. A handful of gold coins, a key card for a room, a watch with its strap broken. Another of those little pearl-handled knives.
‘What’s this?’
He looks at me in disbelief. Maybe he’s trying to work out the reason behind my question. The reason is, I want to know. My backhand bounces him into a wall again. This time it’s Neen who drags him to his feet.
‘If I were you,’ says Neen, ‘I’d answer his question.’
‘It’s a fruit knife.’ He says it twice, because he bit his tongue on the way down and now his lisp’s worse than before.
‘And what are you doing up here?’
‘Guard duty . . .’
I look at him. Young, expensively dressed and elegant if you ignore five days’ worth of stubble that barely troubles his cheeks. He should be playing cards in some Farlight cafe or dancing attendance on a general. To draw guard duty like this you need to piss someone off, badly.
‘What did you do?’
He shuts his mouth, and it remains shut while Neen slaps him around a little. But we’ve had all we are getting. Eventually, he falls back on telling us to fuck off and die.
I’m impressed. ‘Make it quick,’ I tell Neen. It’s the best I can offer in the circumstances.
‘Yes, sir,’ says Neen, reaching for his dagger.
Turning to go, I hear the young captain force himself to his feet. And that impresses me as well. Face death on your feet and look it in the eyes. Not enough of us take that vow.
‘Challenge.’
I could pretend not to hear. ‘You’re a prisoner,’ I tell him. ‘That’s one. You’re a traitor, that’s two. Challenge refused.’
‘I am not a traitor.’ The words bubble between broken lips.