‘You got a problem, my son?’ asks Scarface.
‘Er . . . No.’
Then the cold, psychopath laugh.
‘Three minutes,’ says Xala in a low voice.
Soon enough – as seen through a holoview opened by Xala – the Rotunda they are in has detached from Pneumos City and is rising through gold-and-orange clouds, leaving the sky-city shrinking below. Among the family, the baby is crying and the parents look worried.
‘Um, Miss . . .’ The father approaches Xala. ‘We were wondering. I mean, about the Pilot for the journey. How does—?’
‘Don’t,’ says Xala.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Don’t wonder. Go back to your wife and children.’
‘Oh,’ says the man. ‘Oh.’
Scarface calls over: ‘Pretty daughters you have, old man.’
It is enough to drain the blood from the father’s face and send him to his family, who shrink together as if for protection, really just for comfort. False comfort, tactically speaking.
For Carl to break cover might ruin the operation. If there really is an illegal mu-space voyage taking place, he needs to discover the same thing the father wanted to know: who or what will be flying the vessel. But there comes a point when mission integrity becomes secondary.
He will not allow Scarface to touch the children.
And there is the danger of mono-focus, because if he deals with Scarface then the six other hard men are likely to react. One of them, mental label Greybeard, has a carry-case at his feet that might contain anything, weaponry included. He will need to take them all down as well, while remaining alert to the third danger: that there is someone or something else here, a threat he has not identified. If that threat is automated, it might react in femtoseconds.
Blinking, he cranks up his tu-ring’s weapon displays.
Hoping they will remain unused.
]]]
Roger checked: Vachss Station was still waiting for him to initiate approach procedures. He ought to do just that. But one more segment first, just one . . .
sequence [[[
When the chamber reaches the edge of space beneath its vast extended balloon, impellers kick in and it rises higher, to Congregation Orbital where other ellipsoids like this one, balloons reabsorbed into their quickglass hulls, form a huge shoal, many linked by tendril-like tunnels, while others drift around the periphery, and a small number move alone, approaching or leaving the rest.
Off to one side floats a magnificent, unusual silver vessel, largely teardrop-shaped. Even if he had not seen it before, Carl would have known it for Lianna’s ship, as distinctive as her personality. In the Academy she was consistently top of the class yet remained an individualist.
‘Is that our ship, Daddy?’
‘Shh. Maybe.’
No, child. Not for a flight to an embargoed world.
‘Delta-bands all round.’ Xala is handing out the strips. To the father: ‘Children first, and then your own.’
‘Shouldn’t we wait until we’re—?’
‘Delta-bands now. It’s a condition of travelling.’
Scarface calls over: ‘No one’s making us miss this flight.’ He waits for the father to gulp before adding, ‘See? Blessed are the fucking peacemakers, right?’
None of the hard-faced men disguised as priests show a reaction, not even a smirk. As potential threats, Carl scales them upwards once more. Amateurs use intimidation as a social game, professionals as a tool.
Then he has a delta band in hand, given to him by Xala, while all around his fellow would-be passengers are settling on couches newly extruded from the quickglass deck. As they put their delta-bands on their foreheads and press the tiny studs, their eyelids flutter and they fall into deep, protective coma.
Lying there helpless against anyone left awake.
Time to choose.
He did not expect this, and it’s another form of cut-off: to go along with the risk or blow the whole thing open, when he has not even seen the rogue mu-space vessel – assuming one exists.
Luckily, autohypnosis is a basic part of Labyrinthine education.
‘Thank you,’ he says to Xala, as if grateful. ‘Press here?’
‘That’s right.’
He takes his time lying back on the couch and getting comfortable, while his internal voice talks his divided self through progressive relaxation with definite commands – move your hand – designed to kick in if he senses danger or ambient mu-space – remember to move your hand – before pressing the stud and falling backwards into sleep.
]]]
Roger shivered at the memory of risk, although it predated his own birth by more than a standard decade, therefore his father had clearly survived whatever followed. Only selective mindwipe had rendered those memories inaccessible to Carl, even when conjoined with his beloved ship, who retained these fragments in her own deep unconscious.
It was strange to immerse himself in his father’s memories of Molsin, after his own experiences there last year.
sequence [[[
Golden sleep, and his hand is rising, reaching for the delta band—
Coldness.
—and falls, as they drop straight away into realspace once more. Perhaps they were in mu-space for longer than it seems: perhaps it took time for the suggestion to kick in, to remove the band and come awake while the others slept.
He feels a hand on his forehead, and the delta-band comes off.
‘—are we?’ someone was saying.
It is the father of the family, Carl realises, squinting his way to wakefulness. They are in a cabin formed of something akin to flowmetal, but not a material used by Pilots.
A Zajinet ship. It was always a possibility.
But he had not intended to sleep in coma while surrounded by wakened human criminals, never mind the Zajinet crew, and even the ship itself: Zajinet vessels are mystery.
‘What kind of a ship is this?’ asks someone.
‘Ain’t no kind of ship at all,’ says one of the pseudo-priests. ‘It’s a robbery.’
Someone has already pocketed the funds paid in advance. Do the passengers really have anything worth stealing? Worth setting up a real voyage with Zajinets?
‘No robbery,’ says Xala. ‘That’s not it at all.’
Carl misinterpreted the hard man: it was not a threat but an assessment.
‘We have a little problem,’ Xala continues. ‘Someone isn’t who they claim to be.’
Oh, shit.
He feels the pulse behind his eyes, energy building up. His tu-ring is ready to cut loose.
‘Someone’s not quite human.’ Xala nods to the nearest bulkhead. ‘So they tell me.’
Zajinets could sense Pilots. Of course they could.
Ready.
But the chances of being able to fly a Zajinet vessel, even if he can take out the crew without causing damage to the ship, are minimal. And then there is the family, with children he will not allow to be harmed.
The fake priests are sitting up but saying nothing, analysing the situation.
All except one.
No!
Carl sees it now, the thing that the Zajinets must already have sensed: the shards of darkness, twisting. The sense of something deep and awful controlling what might once have been a normal man; or perhaps there had to be something odd about a person to render them vulnerable to such manipulation.
Greybeard.
It is stronger now, the darkness, as Greybeard stands amid glimmering smartmist, ready to destroy everyone. For the sake of visible persuasion, he grabs Xala by the throat one-handed, while keeping hold of the carry-case he has had all along; but the smartmist is the deadly threat.
Carl should have seen this coming.
But the darkness . . .
It’s a weird, faint phenomenon – and for now, irrelevant.
Everyone is holding still, Scarface included. Even Xala is not struggling, for the one-handed pinch-hold around her throat is to intimidate, not kill. Not yet.
‘No need to speak, sweetheart,’ Greybeard tells her. ‘It’s your weird-minded masters I’m talking to. You hear me, Zajinets?’ Then, to Scarface and the other hard men: ‘Change of plans. We’re going to drop off the case all right’ – he hefts it briefly, his other hand still firm against Xala’s throat, fingers and thumb ready to pinch the larynx fatally shut – ‘but not on Nerokal Tertius. And you bastards are not coming with me.’