‘I told Sajaki he needed a miracle worker. It’s his problem if he didn’t believe me.’
‘The problem is, I think he did believe you. That’s what I mean when I said we weren’t meant to succeed.’
Sylveste happened to be looking at the Captain, Calvin having judiciously arranged the view. Confronted with the thing before his eyes, he experienced a moment of epiphany in which he knew that Calvin was absolutely right. They could go through the preliminary motions of healing the Captain — the rituals of establishing just how corrupted the man’s flesh was — but it could never progress beyond that. Whatever they tried, no matter how intelligent, no matter how conceptually brilliant, could not possibly succeed. Or, more significantly, could not be permitted to succeed. It was that latter realisation which was the most disturbing, because it had come from Calvin, rather than Sylveste. He had seen something which to Sylveste was still opaque, and now it seemed obvious; shatteringly so.
‘You think he’ll hinder us?’
‘I think he already has. We both observed that the Captain’s rate of growth had accelerated since we were brought aboard, but we dismissed it — either just a coincidence or our imaginations. But I don’t think so. I think Sajaki allowed him to warm.’
‘Yes… I was drawn to that conclusion myself. There’s something else, isn’t there?’
‘The biopsies — the tissue samples I asked for.’
Sylveste knew where this was leading. The drone that they had sent in to extract the cell samples was now half-digested by the plague. ‘You don’t think that was a genuine malfunction, do you? You think Sajaki made it happen.’
‘Sajaki, or one of his crewmates.’
‘Her?’
Sylveste felt himself glance towards the woman. ‘No,’ Calvin said, effecting an entirely unnecessary murmur. ‘Not her. That doesn’t mean I trust her, but on the other hand, I don’t see her as one of Sajaki’s automatic minions.’
‘What are you discussing?’ asked Volyova, stepping towards them.
‘Don’t come too close,’ Calvin said, speaking through Sylveste, who, for the moment, was unable to form his own sounds even subvocally. ‘Our investigations may have unleashed plague spore — you wouldn’t want to inhale them.’
‘It wouldn’t harm me,’ Volyova said. ‘I’m brezgatnik. I have nothing in me that the plague can touch.’
‘Then why are you looking so stand-offish?’
‘Because it’s cold, svinoi.’ She paused. ‘Wait a minute. Which one of you am I actually talking to? It’s Calvin, isn’t it? I suppose I owe you fractionally more respect — it isn’t you holding us to ransom, after all.’
‘You’re too kind,’ Sylveste found himself saying.
‘I trust you’ve arrived at a strategy here? Triumvir Sajaki won’t be pleased if he suspects you aren’t keeping up your side of the bargain.’
‘Triumvir Sajaki,’ Calvin said, ‘may well be part of the problem.’
She had come closer now, even though she was visibly shivering, lacking the thermal protection which Sylveste wore. ‘I’m not sure I understand that remark.’
‘Do you honestly think he wants us to heal the Captain?’
She looked as if he had slapped her across the face. ‘Why wouldn’t he?’
‘He’s had a long time to get used to being in command. This Triumvirate of yours is a farce — Sajaki’s your Captain in all but name, and you and Hegazi know it. He isn’t going to relinquish that without a fight.’
She answered too hastily to be totally convincing. ‘If I were you I’d concentrate on the job in hand and stop worrying about the Triumvir’s wishes. He brought you here, after all. He came light-years for your services. That’s hardly the work of a man who doesn’t want to see his Captain reinstated.’
‘He’ll ensure that we fail,’ Calvin said. ‘But in the course of our failure, he’ll find another glimmer of hope; something or someone else who can heal the Captain, if only he can find it or them. And before you know it, you’ll be on another century-long quest.’
‘If that’s the case,’ she said slowly, as if fearful of being drawn into a trap, ‘then why hasn’t Sajaki already killed the Captain? That would safeguard his position.’
‘Because then he’d have to find a use for you.’
‘A use?’
‘Yes, think about it.’ Calvin let go of the medical tools and stepped away from the Captain, like an actor preparing to enter the limelight for his soliloquy. ‘This quest to heal the Captain is the only god you’re capable of serving. Maybe there was a time when it was a means to an end… but that end never came, and after a while it didn’t even matter. You have the weapons aboard this ship; I know all about those, even the ones you don’t really like talking about. For now, the only purpose they serve is bargaining power when you need someone like me — someone who can go through the motions of healing the Captain, without actually making any real difference.’ Sylveste was glad when Calvin did not speak for a few seconds, for he needed to catch his breath and lubricate his mouth. ‘Now, if Sajaki suddenly became Captain, what would he do next? You’d still have the weapons — but who could you use them against? You’d have to invent an enemy from scratch. Maybe they wouldn’t even have something you wanted — after all, you’re the ones with the ship; what else do you need? Ideological enemies? Tricky, because the one thing I haven’t noticed among you is an ideological attachment to anything, except perhaps your own survival. No; I think Sajaki knows what would happen, deep down. He knows that if he became Captain, sooner or later you’d have to use those weapons just because they existed. And I don’t mean the kind of minimalist intervention you demonstrated on Resurgam. You’d have to go all the way: use every one of those horrors.’
Volyova was quick; Sylveste had already been impressed by that. ‘In which case, we owe Triumvir Sajaki our gratitude, don’t we? By not killing the Captain, he’s keeping us from the brink.’ But the way she spoke, it was as if she were reciting the argument of a devil’s advocate, saying it aloud only to better illuminate its heresies.
‘Yes,’ Calvin said, dubiously. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘I don’t believe any of this,’ Volyova said, with sudden fire. ‘And if you were one of us, it would be treason just to entertain those thoughts.’
‘Suit yourself. But we’ve already seen evidence that Sajaki wants to sabotage the operation.’
For a moment curiosity flashed in her expression, but she crushed it just as efficiently. ‘I’m not interested in your paranoia, Calvin — assuming it’s Calvin I’m talking to. I have an obligation to Dan, which is to get him into Cerberus. And I have an obligation to you, which is to help with the healing. The discussion of any other topics is superfluous.’
‘So you have the retrovirus, I take it?’
Volyova reached into her jacket and removed the vial she had been carrying. ‘It works against the plague samples I was able to isolate and keep in culture. Whether or not it will work against that is another question entirely.’
Sylveste felt his hands jerk forward to catch the vial as she threw it. The tiny glass autoclave reminded him of the vial he had carried before his wedding, but only fleetingly.