‘This is the state of play,’ Volyova said. ‘A real-time battle display. Aren’t you jealous of my toys, Clavain?’
‘You have no idea of the importance of those weapons,’ the servitor replied.
‘Don’t I?’
‘They mean the difference between the extinction or survival of the entire human species. We know about the Inhibitors as well, Ilia, and we know what they can do. We’ve seen it in messages from the future, the human race on the brink of extinction, almost totally wiped out by Inhibitor machines. We called them the wolves, but there’s no doubt that we’re talking about the same enemy. That’s why you can’t squander the weapons here.’
‘Squander them? I am not squandering them.’ She sounded mortally affronted. ‘I am using them tactically to delay the Inhibitor processes. I’m buying valuable time for Resurgam.’
Clavain’s voice became probing. ‘How many weapons have you lost since you started the campaign?’
‘Precisely none.’
The servitor arched over her. ‘Ilia… listen to me very carefully. How many weapons have you lost?’
‘What do you mean, “lost”? Three weapons malfunctioned. So much for Conjoiner engineering, in that case. Another two were only designed to be used once. I hardly call those “losses”, Clavain.’
‘So no weapons have been destroyed by return fire from the Inhibitors?’
‘Two weapons have suffered some damage.’
‘They were destroyed entirely, weren’t they?’
‘I’m still receiving telemetry from their harnesses. I won’t know the extent of the damage until I examine the scene of the battle.’
Clavain’s image stepped back from the bed. He had turned, if that was possible, a shade paler than before. He closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath, something that might almost have been a prayer.
‘You had forty weapons to begin with. Now you have lost nine of them, by my reckoning. How many more, Ilia?’
‘As many as it takes.’
‘You can’t save Resurgam. You’re dealing with forces beyond your comprehension. All you’re doing is wasting the weapons. We need to keep them back until we can use them properly, in a way that will really make a difference. This is just an advance guard of wolves, but there’ll be many more. Yet if we can examine the weapons perhaps we can make more like them; thousands more.’
She smiled again; Khouri was certain of it. ‘So all that fine talk just now, Clavain, about how the ends don’t justify the means — did you believe a word of it?’
‘All I know is that if you squander the weapons, everyone on Resurgam will still die. The only difference is that they’ll die later, and their deaths will be outnumbered by millions more. But hand over the weapons now, and there’ll still be time to make a difference.’
‘And let two hundred thousand people die so millions can live in the future?’
‘Not millions, Ilia. Billions.’
‘You had me going for a minute there, Clavain. I was almost starting to think you might be someone I could do business with.’ She smiled, as if it was the last time she would ever smile in her life. I was wrong, wasn’t I?‘
‘I’m not a bad man, Ilia. I’m just somone who knows exactly what needs to be done.’
‘Like you said, always the most dangerous sort.’
‘Please don’t underestimate me. I will take those weapons.’
‘You’re weeks away, Clavain. By the time you arrive, I’ll be more than ready for you.’
Clavain’s figure said nothing. Khouri had no idea what to read into that lack of response, but it troubled her greatly.
Her ship towered over her, barely contained by its prison of repair scaffolding. Storm Bird’s internal lights were on, and in the upper row of flight deck windows Antoinette saw Xavier’s silhouetted form hard at work. He had a compad in one hand and a stylus gripped between his teeth, and he was flicking ancient toggle switches above his head, taking typically diligent notes. Always the bookkeeper, she thought.
Antoinette eased her exoskeleton into a standing position. Now and then Clavain allowed the crew a few hours under conditions of normal gravity and inertia, but this was not one of those periods. The exoskeleton gave her dozens of permanent sores where the support pads and haptic motion sensors touched her skin. In a perverse way, she was almost looking forward to arriving around Delta Pavonis, since they would then be able to discard the skeletons.
She took a good long look at Storm Bird. She had not seen it since the time she had walked away, refusing to enter what no longer felt like her own territory. It felt like months ago, and some of the anger — though not all of it — had abated.
She was still pretty pissed off.
Her ship was certainly ready for the fight. To the untrained eye, there had been no drastic alteration in Storm Bird’s external appearance. The extra weapons that had been grafted on, in addition to the deterrents already present, merely amounted to a few more bulges, spines and asymmetries to add to those that were already present. With the manufactories churning out armaments by the tonne, it had been an easy enough matter to divert some of that output her way, and Scorpio had been perfectly willing to turn a blind eye. Remontoire and Xavier had even worked together to couple the more exotic weapons into Storm Bird’s control net.
For a time, she had wondered why she felt the urge to fight. She did not consider herself given to violence or heroic gestures. Pointless, stupid gestures — such as burying her father in a gas giant — were another thing entirely.
She climbed up through the ship until she reached the flight deck. Xavier carried on working after she had entered. He was too engrossed in what he was doing, and he must have become used to her never visiting Storm Bird.
She sat in the seat next to him, waiting for him to notice her and look up from his work. When he did he just nodded, giving her the space and time to say what she needed to. She appreciated that.
‘Beast?’ Antoinette said quietly.
The pause before Lyle Merrick replied was probably no longer than usual, but it felt like an eternity. ‘Yes, Antoinette?’
‘I’m back.’
‘Yes… I gathered.’ There was another long intermission. ‘I’m pleased that you’ve returned.’
The voice had the same tonal quality as ever, but something had changed. She supposed that Lyle was no longer obliged to mimic the old subpersona, the one that he had replaced sixteen years before.
‘Why?’ she asked sharply. ‘Did you miss me?’
‘Yes,’ Merrick said. ‘Yes, I did.’
I don’t think I can ever forgive you, Lyle.‘
‘I wouldn’t ever want or expect your forgiveness, Antoinette. I certainly wouldn’t deserve it.’
‘No, you wouldn’t.’
‘But you understand that I made a promise to your father?’
‘That’s what Xavier said.’
‘Your father was a good man, Antoinette. He only wanted the best for you.’
‘The best for you as well, Lyle.’
‘I’m in his debt. I wouldn’t argue with that.’
‘How do you live with what you did?’
There was something that might have been a laugh, or even a self-deprecating snigger. ‘The part of me that mattered the most isn’t greatly troubled by that question, you know. The flesh-and-blood me was executed. I’m just a shadow, the only shadow that the eraserheads missed.’
‘A shadow with a highly evolved sense of self-preservation.’
‘Again, that’s nothing I’d deny.’