The plane would not linger at the delivery point. After Sylveste and Pascale had been let off—with enough provisions to survive in the storm for a few hours at most—the plane would return swiftly to Mantell, evading the few extant radar systems which could have alerted Resurgam City to its trajectory. Sylveste would then contact Volyova and inform her of his location, although, because he would then be broadcasting directly, she would have no difficulty triangulating his position. Thereafter things would be in Volyova’s hands. Sylveste had no real idea how events would proceed, how she would bring him aboard the ship. That was her problem, not his. All he knew was that it was very unlikely that this whole affair was a trap. Although the Ultras wanted access to Calvin, Calvin was essentially useless without Sylveste. They would want to take very good care of him indeed. And if the same logic did not automatically apply to Pascale, Sylveste had taken steps to amend that deficiency.
The aircraft levelled now. It was flying below the average height of the mesas, using their bulk for cover. Every few seconds it would veer, steering through the narrow, canyonlike corridors which spaced the mesas. Visibility was near zero. Sylveste hoped that the terrain map on which the plane was basing its manoeuvres had not been compromised by any recent landfalls, or else the ride would be very much shorter than the six hours Volyova had allocated.
“Where the hell…” Calvin, who had just appeared in the cabin, looked around frantically. He was, as usual, reclining in an enormous, fussily upholstered chair. There was not enough room for its bulk in the fuselage, so its extremities had to vanish awkwardly into the walls. “Where the hell am I? I’m not getting anything! What the hell’s happened? Tell me!”
Sylveste turned to his wife. “The first thing he does, on being woken, is sniff the local cybernetic environment—allows him to get his bearings, establish the time frame, and so on. Trouble is, right now there isn’t a local cybernetic environment, so he’s a bit disorientated.”
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here. Wherever the hell here is!”
“You’re in a plane,” Sylveste said.
“A plane? That’s novel,” Cal nodded, regaining some of his composure. “Very novel indeed. Don’t think I’ve ever been in one of those before. I don’t suppose you’d mind filling your old dad in on a few key facts?”
“That’s exactly why I’ve woken you.” Sylveste paused to cancel the windows; there was no view now and the unchanging pall of dust served only to remind him of what lay ahead once the plane had deposited them. “Don’t for one moment imagine it was because I felt in need of a fireside chat, Cal.”
“You look older, son.”
“Yes, well, some of us have to get on with the business of being alive in the entropic universe.”
“Ouch. That hurts, you know.”
Pascale said, “Stop it, will you? There isn’t time for this bickering.”
“I don’t know,” Sylveste said. “Five hours—seems like more than enough to me. What do you think, Cal?”
“Too right. What does she know anyway?” Cal glared at her. “It’s traditional, dearie. It’s how we—how shall I put it? Touch base. If he showed even the remotest hint of cordiality towards me, then I’d really start worrying. It would mean he wanted some excruciatingly difficult favour.”
“No,” Sylveste said. “For merely excruciatingly difficult favours, I’d just threaten you with erasure. I haven’t needed anything big enough from you to justify being pleasant, and I doubt I ever will.”
Calvin winked at Pascale. “He’s right, of course. Silly me.”
He was manifesting in a high-collared ash-coloured frock coat, its sleeves patterned with inter-locked gold chevrons. One booted foot was resting on the knee of his other leg, and the frock’s tail draped over the raised leg in a long curtain of gently rippling fabric. His beard and moustache had attained some realm beyond the merely fussy, sculpted into a whole of such complexity that it could only have been maintained by the fastidious attention of an army of dedicated grooming-servitors. An amber data-monocle rested in one socket (an affectation, since Calvin had been implanted for direct interfacing since birth), and his hair (long now) extended beyond the back of his skull in an oiled handle, reconnecting with his scalp somewhere above his nape. Sylveste attempted to date the ensemble, but failed. It was possible that the look referred to a particular era from Calvin’s days on Yellowstone. It was equally possible that the simulation had invented it entirely from scratch, to kill the time while all his routines booted.
“So, anyway…”
“The plane’s taking me to meet Volyova,” Sylveste said. “You remember her, of course?”
“How could we forget.” Calvin removed the monocle, polishing it absently against his sleeve. “And just how did all this come about?”
“It’s a long story. She’s put the squeeze on the colony. They had little choice but to hand me over. You too, in fact.”
“She wanted me?”
“Don’t look all surprised about it.”
“I’m not; just disappointed. And of course this is rather a lot to take in all of a sudden.” Calvin popped the monocle back in, one eye glaring magnified behind the amber. “Do you think she wanted us together as a safeguard, or because she has something specific in mind?”
“Probably the latter. Not that she’s been exactly open about her intentions.”
Calvin nodded thoughtfully. “So you’ve been dealing only with Volyova, is that it?”
“Does that strike you as odd?”
“I would have expected our friend Sajaki to show his face at some point.”
“Me too, but she hasn’t made any reference to his absence.” Sylveste shrugged. “Does it really matter? They’re all as bad as each other.”
“Granted, but at least with Sajaki we knew where we were.”
“Shafted, you mean?”
Calvin rocked his head equivocally. “Say what you like about the man, at least he kept his word. And he—or whoever is running things—has at least had the decency not to bother you again until now. How long has it been since we were last aboard that Gothic monstrosity they call Nostalgia for Infinity?”
“About a hundred and thirty years. A lot less for them, of course—only a few decades as far as they were concerned.”
“I suppose we’d better assume the worst.”
“The worst what?” Pascale said.
“That,” Calvin began, with laboured patience, “we have a certain task to perform, in connection with a certain gentleman.” He squinted at Sylveste. “How much does she know, anyway?”
“Rather less than I imagined, I suspect.” Pascale did not look amused.
“I told her the minimum,” Sylveste said, glancing between his wife and the beta-level simulation. “For her own good.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“Of course, I had some doubts of my own…”
“Dan, just what is it these people want with you and your father?”
“Ah, well, that’s another very long story, I’m afraid.”
“You’ve got five hours—you just said so yourself. Assuming, of course, you two can bear to break off from your mutual admiration session.”
Calvin raised one eyebrow. “Never heard it called that before. But maybe she’s got something, eh, son?”
“Yes,” Sylveste said. “What she’s got is a severe misapprehension of the situation.”
“Nonetheless, maybe you should tell her a bit more—keep her in the picture and all that.”