During the 3-Kilo lay-off Captain Tahget had his crew scour through the ship’s habitable areas, cleaning, refurbishing and repairing. It was make-work to keep the crew and passengers busy, but after a few hours Futurity conceded he welcomed the replacement of the ship’s accumulated pale stink of sweat, urine and adrenaline with antisepsis.
But the continuing refusal of Mara, reluctant terrorist, to come out of her cabin caused a crisis.
‘She has to leave her cabin, at least for a while,’ Tahget thundered. ‘That’s the company’s rules, not mine.’
‘Why?’ Poole asked evenly. ‘You recycle her air, provide her with water and food. Give her clean sheets and she’ll change her own bed, I’m sure.’
‘This is a starship, Michael Poole, an artificial environment. In a closed, small space like that cabin there can be build-ups of toxins, pathogens. And I remind you she is sharing her cabin with a monopole bomb, a nasty bit of crud at least two thousand years old, and Lethe knows what’s leaking out of that. We need to clean out her nest.’
Poole’s eyes narrowed. ‘What else?’
‘That woman needs exercise. You’ve seen the logs. She only gets off her bed to use the bathroom, and even that’s only a couple of times a day. What good will it do anybody if she keels over from a thrombosis even before we get to the Chandra? Especially if she’s got a dead man’s switch, as she claims.’
‘Those are all reasons for separating Mara from her bomb, despite your promises to the contrary. I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, Captain. And if I don’t, how can Mara?’
Captain Tahget glared; he was a bulky, angry, determined man, and his scar was livid. ‘Michael Poole, my only concern is the safety of the ship, and everybody aboard – yes, including Mara. I am an honourable man, and if you have half the intuition for which your original was famous you will understand that. I give you my word that if she is willing to leave her room, briefly, for these essential purposes, Mara’s situation will not be changed. When she is returned, everything will be as it was. I hope that we can progress this in a civilised and mutually trusting fashion.’
Poole studied him for long seconds. Then he glanced at Futurity, and shrugged. ‘After all,’ Poole said, ‘she’ll still be able to detonate her bomb whether she’s in the cabin with it or not.’
So Mara emerged from her room, for the first time since before Futurity’s first visit to the ship.
A strange procession moved around the ship, with Tahget himself in the van, and a handful of crew, mostly female, surrounding the central core of Poole, Futurity and Mara. Mara insisted that Poole and Futurity stay with her at all times, one on either side, and she brought a pillow from her cabin which she held clutched to her chest, like a shield. Futurity couldn’t think of a thing to say to this woman who was holding them all hostage, but Poole kept up a comforting murmur of mellifluous small-talk.
Futurity saw that the crew checked over Mara surreptitiously. Maybe they were searching for the devices that linked her to her bomb. But there was nothing to be seen under her shapeless grey smock. Surely any such device would be an implant, he decided.
The peculiar tour finished in the observation lounge, where the view was still half obscured by the hull of an over-friendly ship that had sidled up to the Ask Politely. Further out, nuzzling ships drifted around the sky, like bunches of misshapen balloons.
Mara showed a flicker of curiosity for the first time since leaving her cabin. ‘The ships are so strange,’ she said.
‘That they are,’ Poole said.
‘What are they doing?’
‘I don’t know. And the Captain won’t tell me.’
She pointed. ‘Look. Those two are fighting.’
Futurity and the others crowded to the window to see. It was true. Two ships had come together in an obviously unfriendly way. Both lumbering kilometre-long beasts, they weren’t about to do anything quickly, but they barged against each other, withdrew, and then went through another slow-motion collision. As they spun and ground, bits of hull ornamentation were bent and snapped off, and the ships were surrounded by a pale cloud of fragments, detached spires and shields, nozzles and antennae and scoops.
‘It’s a peculiar sort of battle,’ Futurity said. ‘They aren’t using any weapons. All they are doing is smashing up each other’s superstructure.’
‘But maybe that’s the point,’ Poole said.
‘So strange,’ Mara said again.
Captain Tahget blocked her way. ‘But,’ he said, ‘not so strange as the fact that you, madam, were able to smuggle a monopole bomb onto my ship.’
The mood immediately changed. Mara, obviously frightened, shrank back against Poole, coming so close she brushed against him, making his flank sparkle with disrupted pixels.
Poole said warningly, ‘Captain, you promised you wouldn’t interfere with her.’
Tahget held up his big hands. ‘And I will keep my word. Nobody will touch the bomb, or Mara here, and we’ll go through with our flight to Chandra as we agreed.’
‘But,’ Poole said heavily, ‘you had an ulterior motive in getting her out here, despite your promises.’
‘All right,’ Captain Tahget snapped. ‘I need some answers. I must know how she got us all into this situation.’
Futurity asked, ‘Why?’
Tahget barely glanced at him. ‘To stop it happening again.’ He glared at Mara. ‘Who helped you? Somebody must have. You’re nothing but a refugee from Chandra; you came to 478 with nothing. Who helped you smuggle a bomb on board? Who equipped you with the means to use it? And why? I know what you want – I don’t understand, but I’ve heard what you said. What I don’t know is what your benefactors want. And I need to know.’
She returned his stare defiantly. ‘I want to go back to my cabin.’
But Tahget wouldn’t back down. The stand-off was tense, and Futurity, his heart pumping, couldn’t see a way out.
Poole intervened. ‘Mara, it may be best to tell him what he wants to know.’
‘But—’
‘Telling him who helped you will make no difference to you. You aren’t going to come this way again, are you? And I can see the other point of view. Captain Tahget is responsible for his ship.’ Mara hesitated, but Poole continued to reassure her. ‘I believe he’ll keep his word. Just tell him.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Her name is Ideator First Class Leen.’
Tahget growled, ‘Who?’
But Futurity was shocked. He knew the name: the person who had helped Mara set all this up was a priest belonging to the Guild of Virtual Idealism.
Poole’s jaw dropped when he heard this. ‘My own makers! How delicious.’
Mara began to explain how the Ideator had helped her smuggle the bomb and other equipment aboard, but Tahget waved her silent. ‘If that bunch of illusionists was involved, anything could have been done to us and we wouldn’t know it.’ His suspicious frown deepened. ‘And then, once you were aboard, you asked for Poole himself. So was that part of the scheme?’
‘No,’ she insisted. ‘The Ideator did tell me Michael Poole had been reincarnated on 478. But it was my idea to ask for him, not hers.’
Poole shook his head. ‘I’m not part of this, captain, believe me. I’m a mere creature of the Idealists – rather like Mara here, I suppose.’
Now the Captain’s ferocious stare was turned on Futurity. ‘And you,’ Tahget snarled, his scar livid. ‘What do you have to do with it? The truth, now.’
Futurity, flustered, protested, ‘Why, nothing, Captain. You know why I was brought in – to negotiate with Mara. You asked for the Ecclesia’s help! And I don’t understand why you’re even asking me such a question. I’m an Engineer, not an Idealist.’