Nor was it the kind he was interested in serving. Like all the hard choices he had ever made, the heart of the problem was childishly simple: he could concede the weapons and accept his complicity in humanity’s coming extinction, while knowing that he had done his part for sentient life’s ultimate destiny. Or he could take the weapons now — or as many of them as he could get his hands on — and make some kind of stand against tyranny.
It might be pointless. It might just be postponing the inevitable. But if that was the case, what was the harm in trying?
[Clavain…]
He felt a vast, searing, calm. All was clear now. He was about to tell her that he had made his mind up to take the weapons and make a stand, future history be damned. He was Nevil Clavain and he had never surrendered in his life.
But suddenly something else merited his immediate attention. Zodiacal Light had been hit. The great ship was breaking in two.
CHAPTER 39
‘Hello, Clavain,’ Ilia Volyova said, her voice a fine papery rasp that he had to struggle to understand. ‘It’s good to see you, finally. Come closer, will you?’
He walked to the side of her bed, unwilling to believe that this was the Triumvir. She looked dreadfully ill, and yet at the same time he could feel a profound calm about the woman. Her expression, as well as he could read it, for her eyes were hidden behind blank grey goggles, spoke of quiet accomplishment, of the weary elation that came with the concluding of a lengthy and difficult business.
‘It’s good to meet you, Ilia,’ he said. He shook her hand as gently as he could. She had already been injured, he knew, and had then gone back into space, into the battle. Unprotected, she had received the kind of radiation dose that even broad-spectrum medichines could not remedy.
She was going to die, and she was going to die sooner rather than later.
‘You are very like your proxy, Clavain,’ she said in that quiet rasp. ‘And different, too. You have a gravitas that the machine lacked. Or perhaps it is simply that I know you better now as an adversary. I am not at all sure I respected you before.’
‘And now?’
‘You have given me pause for thought, I will certainly say that much.’
There were nine of them present. Next to Volyova’s bed was Khouri, the woman Clavain took to be her deputy. Clavain, in turn, was accompanied by Felka, Scorpio, two of Scorpio’s pig soldiers, Antoinette Bax and Xavier Liu. Clavain’s shuttle had docked with Nostalgia for Infinity after the immediate declaration of cease-fire, with Storm Bird following shortly after.
‘Have you considered my proposal?’ Clavain asked, delicately.
‘Your proposal?’ she said, with a sniff of disdain.
‘My revised proposal, then. The one that didn’t involve your unilateral surrender.’
‘You’re hardly in a position to be putting proposals to anyone, Clavain. The last time I looked, you only had half a ship left.’
She was right. Remontoire and most of the remaining crew were still alive, but the damage to the ship was acute. It was a minor miracle that the Conjoiner drives had not detonated.
‘By proposal I meant… suggestion. A mutual arrangement, to the benefit of both of us.’
‘Refresh my memory, will you, Clavain?’
He turned to Bax. ‘Antoinette, introduce yourself, will you?’
She came closer to the bed with something of the same trepidation that Clavain had shown. ‘Ilia…’
‘It’s Triumvir Volyova, young lady. At least until we’re better acquainted.’
‘What I meant to say is… I’ve got this ship… this freighter…’
Volyova glared at Clavain. He knew what she meant. She was acutely conscious that she did not have a great deal of time left, and what she did not need was indirection.
‘Bax has a freighter,’ Clavain said urgently. ‘It’s docked with us now. It has limited transatmospheric capability — not the best, but it can cope.’
‘And your point, Clavain?’
‘My point is that it has large pressurised cargo holds. It can take passengers, a great many passengers. Not in anything you’d call luxury, but…’
Volyova gestured for Bax to come closer. ‘How many?’
‘Four thousand, easily. Maybe even five. The thing’s crying out to be used as an ark, Triumvir.’
Clavain nodded. ‘Think of it, Ilia. I know you’ve got an evacuation plan going here. I thought it was a ruse before, but now I’ve seen the evidence. But you haven’t made a dent in the planet’s population.’
‘We’ve done what we could,’ Khouri said, with a trace of defensiveness.
Clavain held up a hand. ‘I know. Given your constraints, you did well to get as many off the surface as you’ve managed to. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do a lot better now. The wolf weapon — the Inhibitor device — has nearly bored its way through to the heart of Delta Pavonis. There simply isn’t time for any other plan. With Storm Bird we’d need only fifty return trips. Maybe fewer, as Antoinette says. Forty, perhaps. She’s right — it’s an ark. And it’s a fast one.’
Volyova let out a sigh as old as time. ‘If only it were that simple, Clavain.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We aren’t simply moving faceless units off the surface of Resurgam. We’re moving people. Frightened, desperate people.’ The grey goggles tilted a fraction. ‘Aren’t we, Khouri?’
‘She’s right. It’s a mess down there. The administration…’
‘Before, there were just two of you,’ Clavain said. ‘You had to work with the government. But now we have an army, and the means to enforce our will. Don’t we, Scorpio?’
‘We can take Cuvier,’ the pig said. ‘I’ve already looked into it. It’s no worse than taking a single block of Chasm City. Or this ship, for that matter.’
‘You never did take my ship,’ Volyova reminded him. ‘So don’t overestimate your capabilities.’ She turned her attention to Clavain and her voice became sharper, more probing than it had been upon his arrival. ‘Would you seriously consider a forced takeover?’
‘If that’s the only way to get those people off the planet, then yes, that’s exactly what I’d consider.’
Volyova looked at him craftily. ‘You’ve changed your tune, Clavain. Since when was evacuating Resurgam your highest priority?’
He looked at Felka. ‘I realised that the possession of the weapons was not quite the clear-cut issue I’d been led to believe. There were choices to be made, harder choices than I would have liked, and I realised that I had been neglecting them because of their very difficulty.’
Volyova said, ‘Then you don’t want the weapons, is that it?’
Clavain smiled. ‘Actually, I still do. And so do you. But I think we can come to an agreement, can’t we?’
‘We have a job to do here, Clavain. I’m not just talking about the evacuation of Resurgam. Do you honestly think I’d leave the Inhibitors to get on with their business?’
He shook his head. ‘No. As a matter of fact, I already had my suspicions.’
‘I’m dying, Clavain. I have no future. With the right intervention I might survive a few more weeks, no more than that. I suppose they might be able to do something for me on another world, assuming anyone still retains a pre-plague technology, but that would entail the tedious business of being frozen, something I have had quite enough of for one existence. So I am calling it a day.’ She raised a bird-boned wrist and thumped the bed. ‘I bequeath you this damned monstrosity of a ship. You can take it and the evacuees away from here once we’re done airlifting them from Resurgam. Here, I give it to you. It’s yours.’ She raised her voice, an effort that must have cost her more than he could even begin to imagine. ‘Are you listening, Captain? It’s Clavain’s ship now. I hereby resign as Triumvir.’
‘Captain…?’ Clavain ventured.