“As we ascertained as soon as we were in scan range, the capital Cuvier has been gutted by a number of large explosions. As we were also able to deduce by examining the degree of reconstruction, these events happened very recently on the colonial timescale. My investigations here have established that the second coup—when these weapons were used—took place barely eight months ago. However, the coup was not entirely successful. The old regime still control what remains of Cuvier, though their leader—Girardieau—was killed during the disturbance. The True Path Inundationists—those responsible for the attacks—control many of the outlying settlements, but they seem to lack cohesion, and may even have fallen into factional squabbles. In the week in which I have been here there have been nine attacks against the city, and some suspect internal saboteurs: True Path infiltrators working from within the ruins.” Sajaki collected his thoughts at this point, and Volyova wondered if he felt some distant kinship with the infiltrators he had mentioned. If so, there was not a hint of it in his expression.
“Concerning my own actions, my first task, of course, was to order the suit to dismantle itself. It would have been tempting to use it to make the journey overland to Cuvier, but the risk would have been excessive. Yet the journey was easier than I had feared, and on the outskirts I hitched a ride with a gang of pipeline technicians returning from the north, using them as cover to enter Cuvier. They were suspicious at first, but the vodka soon persuaded them to take me aboard their vehicle. I told them we distilled it in Phoenix, the settlement where I said I’d come from. They’d never heard of Phoenix, but they were more than happy to drink to it.”
Volyova nodded. The vodka—along with a satchel-full of trinkets—had been manufactured aboard ship shortly before Sajaki’s departure.
“People mostly live underground now, in catacombs which were dug fifty or sixty years ago. Of course, the air is tolerably adapted for breathing, but you have my assurance that the procedure is not exactly comfortable, and one is never far away from the onset of hypoxia. The exertion which was required to reach this mesa was considerable.”
Volyova smiled to herself. If Sajaki even admitted such a thing, his ascent of the mesa must have been close to torture.
“They say that the True Pathers have access to Martian genetic technology,” he continued, “which facilitates easier breathing, though I’ve seen nothing to prove this. My pipeline friends helped me find a room in a hostel used by miners from beyond the city, which of course fitted in perfectly with my cover story. I wouldn’t describe the accommodation as salubrious, but it suited my purpose well enough, which was of course to gather data. In the course of my enquiries,” Sajaki added, “I learnt much that was contradictory, or at best vague.”
Sajaki had now turned almost from horizon to horizon. The sun was now beyond his right shoulder, making his image increasingly difficult to interpret. The ship, of course, would simply switch to infrared, reading Sajaki’s speech in the shifting blood-patterns of his face.
“Eyewitnesses say Sylveste and his wife managed to escape the assassination attempt which killed Girardieau, but they have not resurfaced since. That was eight months ago. The people I have spoken to, and the covert data sources I have intercepted, lead me to one conclusion. Sylveste is someone’s prisoner again, except this time he is being held outside the city, probably by one of the True Path cells.”
Volyova was tense now. She could see where all this was leading: there had always been a kind of inevitability to it. The only difference was that in this case it stemmed from what she knew about Sajaki, rather than the man he sought.
“It would be futile to negotiate with the official powers here—whoever they are,” Sajaki said. “I doubt that they could give us Sylveste even if they wanted to hand him over, which of course they wouldn’t. Which unfortunately leaves us only one option.”
Volyova bridled. Here it was.
“We must arrange things so that it is in the best interests of the colony as a whole to give us Sylveste.” Sajaki smiled again, teeth flashing against the shadow of his face. “Needless to say, I have already begun laying the necessary groundwork.” And now he really was addressing her directly, no doubt about it. “Volyova; you may make the necessary formal overtures at your discretion.”
Ordinarily she might have felt some consolatory pleasure at having judged Sajaki’s intentions so accurately. Not now. All she felt was a slow-burning horror, the realisation that, after all this time, he was going to ask her to do it again. And the worst component of her horror stemmed from the realisation that she would probably do what he wanted.
“Go on,” Volyova said. “It won’t bite.”
“I do know suits, Triumvir.” Khouri paused, and took a step into the room’s whiteness. “It’s just I didn’t think I’d see one again. Let alone get to actually wear the bastard.”
The four waiting suits rested against the wall in the oppressively white storage room, six hundred levels below the bridge, adjacent to Chamber Two, where the training session would take place.
“Listen to her,” one of the two other women present said. “Talking as if she’s going to do more than just wear the damn thing for a few minutes. It’s not like you’re going down with us, Khouri, so don’t wet yourself.”
“Thanks for the advice, Sudjic—I’ll bear it in mind.”
Sudjic shrugged—a sneer would have been too much of an emotional expenditure, Khouri figured—and stepped towards her designated suit, followed by her companion, Sula Kjarval. Preparing to welcome their occupants, the suits resembled frogs which had been exsanguinated, eviscerated, dissected, stretched and pinned out on a vertical table. In their current configurations the suits were at their most androform, with well-defined legs and outstretched arms. There were no fingers on the “hands’—for that matter, no obvious hands at all, simply streamlined flippers—although at the user’s wish the suits could extrude the necessary manipulators and digits.
Khouri did indeed know suits, just as she had claimed. The suits on Sky’s Edge had been rare imports, purchased from Ultra traders who made stopover around the war-torn planet. No one on the Edge had the expertise to actually duplicate them, which meant that those units which her side had bought were fabulously valuable: powerful totems dispensed from gods.
The suit scanned her, assessing her bodily dimensions before adjusting its own interior to precisely match her contours. Khouri then allowed it to step forward and surround her, suppressing the tinge of claustrophobia that accompanied the process. Within a few seconds the suit had locked tight and filled itself with gel-air, enabling manoeuvres which would otherwise have crushed its occupant. The suit’s persona interrogated Khouri regarding small details she might wish changed, allowing her to customise her weapons suite and adjust its autonomous routines. Of course, none but the lightest weapons would actually be deployed in Chamber Two; the combat scenarios which were to be enacted would be a seamless mixture of real, physical action and simulated weapons-usage, but it was the point that counted. One had to treat every aspect of the enterprise with the utmost seriousness, including the limitless choices which the suit offered for the convenience of despatching any enemies who might have the misfortune to stray into its sphere of superiority.