Somehow, I find myself with one hand round his throat, and he’s against a mirror-hub wall and keeping still, because my prosthetic fingers have closed so tight that any further movement is going to snap his spine like a twig.
Neen is looking worried. Must be down to me, because there’s nothing else round here to worry him.
‘You’re all traitors,’ I say. ‘Every single fucking one of you.’
A tiny flex of muscle under my hand says the prisoner wants to shake his head. ‘Not,’ he manages at last. ‘Refused the virus.’
I let him go. ‘They’re giving you the virus? ‘
He nods.
Fuck, now that is nasty. Once the virus has you, it’s for ever. You have it, your brats have it, and their brats have it. A hundred generations or more of little monsters growing braids. Makes me realize what uniting with the Uplifted would involve.
‘Do it now,’ I tell Neen.
He nods. And the captain asks my name.
Weirdest thing. But he is from a Farlight high clan. Maybe it’s rude to be killed by someone who hasn’t been formally introduced. Fuck knows, they’re not like you and me, the high clans. Actually, they’re not like anyone except themselves.
‘Sven,’ I tell him. ‘Sven Tveskoeg.’
‘Tveskoeg,’ he says. ‘That’s an old Earth name.’
Should have just killed him. Still got time, could do it myself. A slash to the neck or a stab to the heart. A cut from abdomen to throat.
‘Old Earth?’ I say.
The man nods, introducing himself. Captain Emil Bonafonte deMax Bonafonte, Obsidian Cross, first class. ‘What?’ he asks, seeing my scowl.
‘You got an older brother?’
He shakes his head.
Heart, I think. Let’s get this over with.
‘Why?’ he asks, watching a knife appear in my hand.
‘Used to know a Bonafonte in a fort south of Karbonne. Drank himself to death.’
‘My uncle. We were told he died in battle.’
Fucking great. ‘You know someone called Debro Wildeside?’
‘Of course I-’ He looks at me. ‘Bad business,’ he says. ‘Very bad indeed.’
He’s right too. Debro is Aptitude’s mother. Debro and I met on a prison planet called Paradise. As far as I know she’s still there.
‘You know Senator Wildeside?’ he asks me.
‘Yeah . . .’ I don’t tell him she reminds me of my sister, unlikely as that sounds. Even nags me in the same way. I don’t tell him I made a vow to protect her daughter that I will carry to my death. Some things you don’t say.
Colonel Vijay takes Captain Bonafonte being alive as proof I am improving; he makes that obvious. And it turns out they know each other. Of course they do.
Well, they have cousins who met on campaign.
At least they believe so.
Eldest sons of each branch of a high clan take the same name. It seems there are three Vijay Jaxx and four Emil Bonafonte deMax Bonafontes. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t bother pointing that out.
Having asked for the captain’s parole, Colonel Vijay seals the deal by shaking hands. Apparently we are all now friends.
‘What?’ the captain asks, seeing me scowl.
‘He’d prefer you in chains,’ Colonel Vijay says.
The colonel’s wrong. I’d prefer it if Emil wasn’t a Bonafonte. I’d prefer it if he was dead.
Chapter 39
The argument is short and I win. As we walk out of a room together the Aux stare, and Neen slicks the others a glance that says, Shut the fuck up. So they pick their jaws up off the floor and stare straight ahead.
Coming to attention, Neen orders a salute.
As I return his salute, I tell Trooper Emil to join the ranks. We might as well begin as I intend to go on.
On my collar are Vijay’s silver eagles. Captain Bonafonte’s braid falls from my left shoulder. An Obsidian Cross with crown and oak leaves hangs around my neck, because I’ve taken Vijay’s medal as well.
Meet Colonel Sven Tveskoeg, accompanied by Lieutenant Vijay Tezuka . . . Aptitude’s father won’t mind me stealing his family name. In fact, he’ll probably approve, assuming he ever gets to hear of it.
With us go the Aux, including the newly cropped, shaved and demoted Emil Bonafonte deMax Bonafonte, who has lost three of his names, as well as his commission and his jacket. Falling in, he ranges right and takes his position.
He’ll do.
‘We couldn’t find the Silver Fist,’ I say, ‘because they’re not on Hekati. They’re camped outside . . .’
Shock greets my words.
‘An Uplift vessel is locked to her outer rim. It has been for months. A parasite on this habitat.’ Vijay opens his mouth to say something and I hold up my hand. He shuts his mouth again, although his face tightens.
Time to reveal my secret. ‘Hekati told me.’
We have a choice of seven ships. Four are museum pieces. Semi AI at the most, all fins and curves. One even has portholes. The fifth is ours. Well, the U/Free hopper we arrived in. The sixth is a standard Z-class tug, squat and battered. The damn thing looks like a beetle/wasp hybrid, with a grapple harpoon and a couple of mechanical arms. You could probably shift a planet if you had enough of them. You’ll find the Z-class anywhere cargo needs dragging.
The seventh is like the sixth, but small and rougher. I choose that one, obviously.
‘Suicide,’ says the SIG. ‘With added rust.’
Yeah, worked that out for myself.
‘Sure I can’t interest you in a retro-special? Or a neat little hopper? We can make up our cover story later.’
‘No,’ I say.
The SIG sighs.
Our new ship has been berthed for so long that space grit has blasted one side back to metal. The door creaks as it opens, and rust flakes onto the scuzzy deck of its airlock. Everyone pretends not to notice. Emergency lights burn on a bulkhead, and a calendar advertising Bukiball Towropes shows a long-dead blonde.
Assuming she was ever real to begin with.
The crewpit is tiny, designed to hold three at most. Gravity carpet covers the floor, the kind that sticks to those tiny hooks on the heels of cheap space suits. An area behind the pit will do for the others.
Although it means they’ll be without seats.
A lash-up of wire and cheap memory crystal provides a navigation system. Semi AI at most, probably not even that. A diode on the console announces our ship’s beacon needs recharging; which is one thing we won’t be doing, since the fewer people who know we are leaving here the better.
Using simple words, my gun explains what will happen unless the ship agrees to release the security block on its engines. The ship agrees before the SIG’s halfway through; but the SIG’s on a roll. ‘And then,’ it says, ‘I’ll screw every-’
‘I’ve unlocked.’
‘Oh,’ says the SIG. ‘Yeah.’
Ajac and Iona are to remain in the hub, that’s my ruling. The air’s got enough oxygen to breathe, the radiation is no worse than on Hekati itself, and we will leave them rations. I would tell them to go home, but they don’t have one. Not any longer.
Iona frets that she is being abandoned. So does Neen on Iona’s behalf. I always come back; he should know that by now. So I decide to fold one problem into another, to come up with a solution.
The problem is my prosthetic arm.
Has General Tournier heard of me? Extremely unlikely, but my arm was made by Colonel Madeleine, and he will have heard of her. The arm’s black metal, swallows light and rings when tapped. No arm at all is less obvious, at least that is the way it seems to me. Although when I say this to Colonel Vijay, he smiles.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
He loses his smile soon enough.
The colonel’s never seen me without an arm before. If he thinks that looks bad, he should see the stump before Colonel Madeleine remade it.
‘Look after this for me,’ I tell Iona.