‘News travels fast, especially when my own people were able to carry it up the coast and past your Second Army, wherever that might be now.’ The Colonel-Auxillian was picking his words with care, observing as fine a line as Chasme had ever walked.
‘Then you know why I am here.’ Varsec spread his hands bitterly. ‘I am…’ He gave a glance back at the other Wasps. The soldiers stood silently, whilst the Consortium man seemed to be making a mental manifest of everything that he saw. ‘I am on a knife-edge. My corps has suffered a terrible defeat.’
‘However did you convince them not to make an example of you?’ Drephos murmured.
‘I am still doing so, day to day.’ And, without visibly changing at all, the guards behind Varsec assumed a different aspect: not escorts but jailers.
‘And you need to fortify your Corps against whatever happened, and you need to do so now — ready for the next engagement of the war. And so you come here, to the Empire’s bastard son.’ It was not clear whether he meant himself or Chasme and the Iron Glove. ‘But I was under the impression that what happened to your Farsphex was not understood.’
‘Pingge, step forwards,’ Varsec beckoned, and the Fly-kinden woman did so. ‘Pingge flew in the assault on Collegium. She is the sole survivor. She saw it all.’
The Fly spoke at length, sometimes faltering with emotion, but pushing herself on. Whatever she had been before, there was a steely determination to her now. It demanded revenge — revenge for all the friends and comrades lost over Collegium. As she made her report, describing Collegium’s new weapon, Drephos became more and more focused, his iris-less eyes gleaming, gesturing for Totho to bring him pen and paper.
And, when she had finished, Drephos turned to confer with Totho, his guests utterly forgotten, the two artificers muttering together as excitedly as two young students. The Colonel-Auxillian even got as far as sketching three or four figures, before remembering that he had an audience, and at last he said, ‘Why, yes, I believe I see the problem.’ He was striving for calm now, but it was plain that Pingge’s news had inspired him.
‘And your price?’ Varsec pressed.
‘Can be negotiated with your factor there but’ — Drephos’s tone made it clear that this was the real prize — ‘I will have to see the full schematics for your orthopters, of course.’ Varsec’s great triumph of mechanics had been denied to Drephos’s insatiable curiosity until now.
But Varsec had thought that far ahead. ‘Of course. I have them here,’ he said, without a pause. ‘But it must be soon — even now.’ Here was a man in whose future loomed the crossed pikes of the executioner.
Drephos smiled, seldom a pleasant sight. ‘It is an invitation I extend to few, Colonel Varsec, but will you join us, then? For I see what must be done, and we had better get to work.’