The lock opened. Prince Baskin came aboard Tyrant, wearing his armoured spacesuit with the helmet tucked under one arm.
‘There’ll be no objections, Merlin. My own ship couldn’t keep pace with Tyrant even if I wished to shadow you, so the simplest option is to join you for the operation.’ He raised a gently silencing hand before Merlin – still stung – had a chance to interject. ‘I’ll be along purely as an observer, someone with local knowledge, if it comes to that. You don’t need to lecture me on the dangers. I’ve seen my share of frontline service, as you doubtless know, having made yourself such an expert on royal affairs.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, we tracked your search patterns, while you were supposedly verifying the authenticity of the syrinx.’
‘I wanted to know everything I could about your contact with the Cohort mission.’
‘That and more, I think.’ Baskin mouthed a command into his neck ring, and Renouncer detached from the lock. ‘None of it concerns me, though, Merlin. If it amused you to sift through our many assassinations and constitutional crises, so be it. All that matters to me is the safe return of the Tactician. And I will insist on being witness to that return. Don’t insult me by suggesting that the presence of one more human on this ship will have any bearing on Tyrant’s capabilities.’
‘It’s not a taxi.’
‘But it is spacious enough for our present needs, and that is all that matters.’ He nodded at Teal. ‘Besides, I was enjoying our evening conversations too much to forego the pleasure.’
‘All right,’ Merlin said, sighing. ‘You’re along for the ride, Prince. But I make the decisions. And if I feel like pulling out of this arrangement, for any reason, I’ll do just that.’
Prince Baskin set his helmet aside and offered his empty palms. ‘There’ll be no coercion, Merlin – I could hardly force you into doing anything you disliked, could I?’
‘So long as we agree on that.’ Merlin gestured to the suite of cabins aft of the lock. ‘Teal, show him the ropes, will you? I’ve got some navigation to be getting on with. We’ll push to one gee in thirty minutes.’
Merlin turned his back on Teal and the Prince and returned to Tyrant’s command deck. He watched the dwindling trace of the Renouncer, knowing he could outpace it with ease. There would be a certain attraction in cutting and running right now, hoping that the old syrinx held together long enough for a Waynet transition, and seeing Baskin’s face when he realised he would not be returning to Havergal for centuries, if at all.
But while Merlin was capable of many regrettable things, spite was not one of his failings.
His gaze slid to the results from the analyser. He thought of running the sequence again, using the same traces from the wine glass, but the arrival of the Prince rendered that earlier sample of doubtful value. Perhaps it had been contaminated to begin with, by other members of the royal staff. But now that Baskin was aboard, Tyrant could obtain a perfect genetic readout almost without trying.
The words of Baskin returned to mind, as if they held some significance Merlin could not yet see for himself: If it amused you to sift through our many assassinations and constitutional crises, so be it.
Assassinations.
When Merlin was satisfied that Prince Baskin’s bones were up to the strain, he pushed Tyrant to two gees. It was uncomfortable for all of them, but bearable provided they kept to the lounge and avoided moving around too much. ‘We could go faster,’ Merlin said, as if it was no great achievement. ‘But we’d be putting out a little more exotic radiation than I’d like, and I’d rather not broadcast our intentions too strongly. Besides, two gees will get us to Mundar in plenty of time, and if you find it uncomfortable we can easily dial down the thrust for a little while.’
‘You make light of this capability,’ Prince Baskin said, his hand trembling slightly as he lifted a drinking vessel to his lips. ‘Yet this ship is thousands of years beyond anything possessed by either side in our system.’
Merlin tried to look sympathetic. ‘Maybe if you weren’t busy throwing rocks at each other, you could spend a little time on the other niceties of life, such as cooperation and mutual advancement.’
‘We will,’ Baskin affirmed. ‘I’ll bend my life to it. I’m not a zealot for war. If I felt that there was a chance of a negotiated ceasefire, under terms amicable to both sides, I’d have seized it years ago. But our ideological differences are too great, our mutual grievances too ingrained. Sometimes I even think to myself that it wouldn’t matter who wins, just as long as one side prevails over the other. There are reasonable men and women in Gaffurius, it’s just…’ But he trailed off, as if even he viewed this line of argument as treasonable.
‘If you thought that way,’ Teal said, ‘the simplest thing would be to let the enemy win. Give them the Iron Tactician, if you think it will make that much difference.’
‘After all our advances…? No. It’s too late for that sort of idealism. Besides, we aren’t dealing with Gaffurius. It’s the brigands who are holding us to ransom.’
‘Face it,’ Merlin said. ‘For all this talk of peace, of victory – you’d miss the war.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘I’m not so sure. You used to play at battle, didn’t you? Toy soldiers and tabletop military campaigns, you said. It’s been in your blood from the moment you took your first breath. You were the boy who dreamed of war.’
‘I changed,’ Baskin said. ‘Saw through those old distractions. I spoke of Lurga, didn’t I – the last and greatest of our surface cities? Before the abandonment my home was Lurga’s imperial palace, a building that was itself as grand as some cities. I often walk it in my dreams, Merlin. But that’s where it belongs now: back in my childhood, along with all those toy soldiers.’
‘Lurga must have been something to see,’ Merlin said.
‘Oh, it was. We built and rebuilt. They couldn’t bear it, of course, the enemy. That’s why Lurga was always the focus of their attacks, right until the end.’
‘There was a bad one once, wasn’t there?’ Merlin asked.
‘Too many to mention.’
‘I mean, a particularly bad one – a direct strike against the palace itself. It’s in your public history – I noticed it while I was going through your open records, on Havergal. You’d have been six or seven at the time, so you’d easily remember it. An assassination attempt, plainly. The Gaffurians were trying to bite the head off the Havergal ruling elite.’
‘It was bad, yes. I was injured, quite seriously, by the collapse of part of the palace. Trapped alone and in the dark for days, until rescue squads broke through. I… recovered, obviously. But it’s a painful episode and not one I care to dwell on. Good people died around me, Merlin. No child should have to see that.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’
‘Perhaps it was the breaking of me, in the end,’ Baskin said. ‘Until then I’d only known war as a series of distant triumphs. Glorious victories and downplayed defeats. After the attack, I knew what blood looked like up close. I healed well enough, but only after months of recuperation. And when I returned to my studies, and some engagement with public life, I found that I’d begun to lose my taste for war. I look back on that little boy that I once was, so single-mindedly consumed by war and strategy, and almost wonder if I’m the same person.’ He set aside his drinking vessel, rubbing at the sore muscles in his arm. ‘You’ll forgive me, both of you. I feel in need of rest. Our ships can only sustain this sort of acceleration for a few tens of minutes, not hour after hour.’