Volyova glanced up at the imaged view of Resurgam. At the moment Sylveste’s location on the planet’s surface was completely unknown, like a quantum wave function which had not yet collapsed. Yet in a moment they would have an accurate triangulation fix on his broadcast, and that wave function would shed a myriad unselected possibilities.
“You have him?”
“Signal’s weak,” Hegazi said. “That storm you made is causing a lot of ionospheric interference. I bet you’re really proud, aren’t you?”
“Just a get a fix, svinoi.”
“Patience, patience.”
Volyova had not really doubted that Sylveste would call in on time. Nonetheless, when she heard from him, she could not help but feel relief. It meant that another element in the tricky business of getting him aboard had been achieved. She did not, however, deceive herself that the job was in any way complete. And there had been something arrogant about Sylveste’s demands—the way he seemed to be ordering how things should happen—which left her wondering if her colleagues really did have the upper hand. If Sylveste had set out to sow a seed of doubt in her mind, the man had certainly succeeded. Damn him. She had prepared herself, knowing that Sylveste was adept at mind games, but she had not prepared herself enough. Then she took a mental back step and asked herself how things had so far proceeded. After all, Sylveste was shortly to be in their custody. He could not possibly desire such an outcome, especially as he would know just what it was they wanted from him. If he were in control of his destiny, he would not now be on the verge of being brought aboard.
“Ah,” Hegazi said. “We have a fix. You want to hear what the bastard has to say?”
“Put him on.”
The man’s voice burst in on them again, as it had done six hours previously, but there was a difference now, very obviously. Every word Sylveste spoke was backgrounded—almost drowned out—by the continuous howl of the razorstorm.
“I’m here, where are you? Volyova, are you listening to me? I said are you listening to me? I want an answer! Here are my coordinates relative to Cuvier—you’d better be listening.” And then he recited—several times, for safety—a string of numbers which would pinpoint him to within one hundred metres; redundant information, given the triangulation which had now been performed. “Now get down here! We can’t wait for ever—we’re in the middle of a razorstorm, we’re going to die out here if you don’t hurry.”
“Mmm,” Hegazi said. “I think at some point it might not be a bad idea to answer the poor fellow.”
Volyova took out and lit a cigarette. She savoured a long intake before replying. “Not yet,” she said. “In fact, maybe not for an hour or two. I think I’ll let him get really worried first.” Khouri heard only the faintest of scuffling sounds as the open suit shuffled towards her. She felt its gently insistent pressure against her spine and the backs of her legs, arms and head. In her peripheral vision she observed the wet-looking side-parts of the head fold around her, and then felt the legs and arms of the suit meld around her limbs. The chest cavity sealed, with a sound like someone taking the last slurp from a pudding bowl.
Her vision was restricted now, but she could see enough to watch the suit’s limbs closing up along their dissection-lines. The seals lingered for a second or so before becoming invisible, lost in the bland whiteness of the rest of the suit’s hide. Then the head formed over her own, and for a moment there was darkness before a transparent oval appeared ahead of her. Smoothly, the darkness around the oval lit up with numerous readouts and status displays. Later the suit would flood itself with gel-air, to protect its occupant against the gee-loads of flight, but for now Khouri was breathing mintily fresh oxygen/nitrogen air at shipboard pressure.
“I have now run through my safety and functionality tests,” the suit informed her. “Please confirm that you wish to accept full control of this unit.”
“Yes, I’m ready,” Khouri said.
“I have now disabled the majority of my autonomous control routines. This persona will remain online in an advisory capacity, unless you request otherwise. Full suit-autonomous control can be reinstated by—”
“I get the deal, thanks. How are the others doing?”
“All other units report readiness.”
Volyova’s voice cut in: “We’re set, Khouri. I’ll lead the team; triangular descent formation. I shout, you jump. And don’t make a move unless I authorise it.”
“Don’t worry; I had no plans to.”
“I see you have her well under your thumb,” Sudjic said, on the open channel. “Does she shit to order as well?”
“Shut it, Sudjic. You’re only along because you know worlds. One step out of line…” Volyova paused. “Well, put it this way; Sajaki won’t be around to intercede if I lose my temper, and I’ve got a lot of firepower with which to lose it.”
“Talking of firepower,” Khouri said, “I’m not seeing any weapons data on my readout.”
“That’s because you’re not authorised,” Sudjic said. “Ilia doesn’t trust you not to shoot at the first thing that moves. Do you, Ilia?”
“If we run into trouble,” Ilia said, “I’ll let you have weps usage, trust me.”
“Why not now?”
“Because you don’t need it now, that’s why. You’re along for the ride; to assist if things deviate from the plan. Which of course they won’t…” She drew breath audibly. “But if they do, you get your precious weapons. Just try and be discreet if you have to use them, that’s all.”
Once outside, the shipboard air was purged and replaced by gel-air: breathable fluid. For a moment it felt like drowning, but Khouri had made the transition enough times on Sky’s Edge not to feel much discomfort. Normal speech was impossible now, but the suit helmets contained trawls which were able to interpret subvocal commands. Speakers in the helmets shifted incoming sounds by the appropriate frequency to compensate for the gel-air-induced distortions, which ensured that the voices she heard sounded perfectly normal. Although it was a harder and heavier descent than any shuttle insertion, it felt easier, apart from an occasional pressure above Khouri’s eyeballs. It was only by reference to the suit’s readouts that she knew they were routinely exceeding six gees of acceleration, impelled by the tiny antilithium-fed thrusters buried in the suit’s spine and heels. With Volyova leading the descent, the suits formed a deltoid pattern, the two inhabited suits following her and the three slaved empty suits trailing behind. For the first part of the descent, the suits remained in the configuration they had assumed aboard the lighthugger, making a rough concession to human anatomy. But by the time the first traces of Resurgam’s upper atmosphere began to glow around them, the suits had silently transformed their exteriors. Now—although none of this was obvious from within—the membrane linking the arms to the body had thickened, until the arms and body were no longer easily divisible. The angle of the arms had altered as well; now they were held rigid but slightly bent, at an angle of forty-five degrees to the body. Since the head had retracted and flattened, there was now a smooth arc running from the tip of each arm, over the head and down again. The columnar legs had fused into a single flared tail, and any transparent patches defined by the user had been forcibly re-opaqued, to protect against the glare of re-entry. The suits met the atmosphere chest-on, with the tail hanging slightly lower than the head: complex shockwave patterns being tamed and exploited by the morphing geometry of the suit hide. While direct vision was no longer possible, the suits were continuing to perceive their surroundings in other EM bands, and were perfectly capable of adapting this data for human senses. Looking around and below, Khouri saw the other suits, each seemingly immersed in a radiant teardrop of pinkish plasma.