But we didn’t have long to wonder about that. Suddenly the sky was cut in two by a brighter meteor than any we had seen during the earlier display. It boomed, reverberating down to the horizon and left a greenish aftertinge.
Another followed it: brighter now.
As if the meteor had triggered something, the sea erupted with a vast wave of departing aquatics. Thousands of them now, packed into huge and ponderous shoals or flocks, each aggregation moving with its own dim identity. The seas were emptying of life. Another meteor slashed the sky, bringing a temporary daylight to the scene. Over the horizon, an ominous false dawn signalled some terrible impact. Something large had smashed into my world. As more trails of light split the sky, I sensed that it would not be the last.
The island shook beneath our feet. That made no sense at alclass="underline" there surely hadn’t been enough time for Shockwaves to reach us yet, but none of us had imagined the vibration. I steadied myself on the handrail.
“What…” Purslane began.
The island shook again. That was a cue for the crowd to renew their interest in me, tearing their attention away from the departing aquatics. Purslane squeezed closer to me. I tightened my hold on her, while she redoubled her hold on me.
The crowd advanced.
“Stop,” boomed out a voice.
Everyone halted and turned to look at the speaker. It was Fescue, and he was kneeling by the figure I had shot. He had a hand in the wound I had bored through the body, plunged deep to the wrist. Slowly he withdrew his hand, slick to the cuff with blood, but holding something between his fingers, something that wriggled in them like a little silver starfish.
“This wasn’t Burdock,” he said, standing to his feet, while still holding the obscene, wriggling thing. “It was… a thing. Just like Campion and Purslane told us.” Fescue turned to look at me, his expression grave and forgiving. “You told the truth.”
“Yes,” I said, with all the breath I could muster. I realised that I had been wrong about Fescue: utterly, utterly wrong.
“Then it’s true,” he said. “One of us has committed a crime.”
“Burdock’s body is still on his ship,” I said. “All of this can be proved… if you allow us.”
The ground shook again. Overhead, the meteor assault had become continuous, and the horizon was aglow with fire. I had no sooner registered this than a small shard slammed out of the sky no more than fifteen kilometres from the island, punching a bright frothing wound into the sea. Sensing danger, the island’s screen came on, muting the impact blast to a salty roar. Another trail lanced down fifty kilometres away, raising a huge plume of superheated steam.
The impacts were increasing in severity.
Fescue spoke again. “We’ve all seen the evidence Purslane submitted. Given the truth about Burdock… I believe we should take the rest of the story seriously. Including the part about the murder of an entire culture.” He looked at the two of us. “You wanted to see our anti-collision fields, I believe.”
“That’ll tell us who did it,” Purslane said.
“I think you may shortly have your wish.”
He was right. All around the island, the ships were raising their screens again, as protection against the bombardment. The smaller ships at first, then the larger ones—all the way up to the biggest craft of all, those that were already poking into space. The screens quivered and stabilised, and a hail of minor impacts glittered off them.
“Well,” Fescue said, addressing Purslane. “Do you see a match?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
Fescue nodded grimly. “Would you care to tell us who it is?”
Purslane blinked, paralysed by the enormity of what she had to reveal. I held her hand, willing her to find the strength. “I thought it might be you,” she told Fescue. “Your ship matched the size profile… and when you ruined Campion’s ploy…”
“I don’t think he meant to,” I said.
“No, he didn’t,” Purslane said. “That’s obvious now. And in any case, his ship isn’t the best match. Samphire’s ship, on the other hand…”
As one, the crowd’s attention locked onto Samphire. “No,” he said. “There’s been a mistake.”
“Perhaps,” Fescue said. “But there is the matter of the weapons Purslane mentioned: the ones used against Grisha’s people. You’ve always had an interest in ancient weapons, Samphire… especially the weapons of the Homunculus wars.”
Samphire looked astonished. “That was over a million years ago. It’s ancient history!”
“But what’s a million years to the Gentian Line? You knew where those weapons were to be found, and you probably had more than an inkling of how they worked.”
“No,” Samphire said. “This is preposterous.”
“It may well be,” Fescue allowed. “In which case, you’ll be allowed all the time you need to make your case, before a jury of your peers. If you are innocent, we’ll prove it and ask your forgiveness—just as we did with Betony, all those years ago. If you are guilty, we will prove that instead—and uncover the rest of your collaborators. You’ve never struck me as the calculating kind, Samphire: I doubt that you put this together without assistance.”
A wave of change overcame Samphire: his expression hardening. “You can prove what you like,” he said. “It will change nothing.”
“That sounds suspiciously like an admission of guilt,” Fescue said. “Is it true? Did you really murder an entire culture, just to protect the Great Work?”
Now his expression was full of disdain. There was an authority in his voice I had never heard before. “One culture,” Samphire said. “One pebble on the beach, against an ocean of possibility! Do you honestly think they mattered? Do you honestly think we’ll remember them, in a billion years?”
Fescue turned to his Advocate friends. “Restrain him.”
Three of the Advocates took purposeful steps toward Samphire. But they had only taken three or four paces when Samphire shook his head, more in sorrow than anger, and ripped open his tunic, exposing his smooth and hairless chest to the waist. He plunged his fingers into his own skin and pulled it aside like two theatrical curtains, showing no pain. Instead of muscle and bone, we saw only an oozing clockwork of translucent pink machines, layered around a glowing blue core.
“Homunculus machinery,” Fescue said, with an awesome calm. “He’s a weapon.”
Samphire smiled. A white light curdled in his open chest. It brightened to hellfire, ramming from his mouth and eyes. The construct body writhed as the detonating weapon consumed its nervous system from within. The outer layers crisped and collapsed.
But something was containing the blast. The white light—almost too bright to look at now—could not escape. It was being held back by a man-sized containment bubble, locked around Samphire.
I looked at Fescue. He stood with his arms outstretched, like a sculptor visualising a composition. Thick metal jewellery glinted on his fingers. Not jewellery, I realised now, but miniature field generators. Fescue was holding the containment bubble around Samphire, preventing the blast from escaping and destroying us all. His face was etched with the strain of controlling the generators.
“I’m not sure of the yield,” Fescue said to me, forcing each word out. “Sub-kilotonne range, I think, or else your systems would have detected the homunculus machinery. But it will still be enough to destroy this balcony. Can the island lock a screen around him?”
“No,” I said. “I never allowed for… this.”
“That’s as I thought. I can’t hold it much longer… twenty-five, thirty seconds.” Fescue’s eyes bored into me with iron determination. “You have complete control of the structure, Campion? You can reshape it according to your requirements?”