To the Ultras our planet must have seemed like some kind of experiment in social engineering: a time-capsule imperfectly preserving technologies and ideologies which were three or four centuries out of date. That was not all our own fault, of course. When the Flotilla had left Mercury at the end of the twenty-first century, the technologies on board had been cutting-edge. But the ships took a century and a half to crawl across space to Swan’s system — during which time technology stampeded back around Sol, but remained locked in stasis aboard the Flotilla.
By the time we landed, other worlds had developed near-light space travel, making our entire journey look like some pathetic, puritanical gesture of self-inflicted punishment.
Eventually the fast ships arrived at Sky’s Edge, their data caches pregnant with the technological templates that could have leapfrogged us into the present, had we wished.
But by then we were at war.
We knew what could be achieved, but we lacked the time or resources to duplicate what had been achieved elsewhere, or the planetary finances to buy off-the-shelf miracles from passing traders. The only occasions when we bought any new technologies was when they had some direct military application, and even then it almost bankrupted us. Instead, we fought centuries-long wars with infantry, tanks, jet fighters, chemical bombs and crude nuclear devices; only very rarely graduating to such giddy heights as particle-weapons or nanotech-inspired gadgetry.
No wonder the Ultras had treated us with such ill-concealed contempt. We were savages compared to them, and the hardest thing of all was the fact that we knew it to be true.
We docked inside the Orvieto.
Inside, it was like a much larger version of the shuttle, all twisting pastel passages reeking of antiseptic purity. The Ultras had arranged gravity by spinning parts of their ship within the outer hull; it was slightly heavier than on Sky’s Edge, but the effort was no worse than walking around with a heavy backpack. The lighthugger was also a ramliner: a passenger-carrying vessel outfitted with thousands of reefersleep berths in her belly. Some people were already being brought aboard; wide-awake aristocrats complaining loudly about the way they were being treated. The Ultras seemed not to care. The aristocrats must have paid well for the privilege of riding the Orvieto to wherever its next destination was, but to the Ultras they were still savages — just marginally cleaner and richer ones.
We were shown to the Captain.
He sat on an enormous powered throne, suspended on an articulated boom so that he could move throughout the bridge’s vast three-dimensional space. Other senior crew were riding similar seats, but they carefully steered away from us when we entered, moving towards displays set into the walls which showed intricate schematics. Cahuella and I stood on a low-railed extensible catwalk which jutted halfway into the bridge.
‘Mister… Cahuella,’ said the man in the throne, by way of greeting. ‘Welcome aboard my vessel. I am Captain Orcagna.’
Captain Orcagna was only slightly less impressive than his ship. He was dressed from neck to foot in glossy black leather, his feet in knee-length black boots with pointed toes. His hands, which he steepled beneath his chin, were gloved in black. His head was perched above the high collar of his black tunic like an egg. Unlike his crew he was completely bald, utterly hairless. His unlined, characterless face could almost have belonged to a child — or a corpse. His voice was high, almost feminine.
‘And you are?’ he said, nodding in my direction.
‘Tanner Mirabel,’ Cahuella said, before I had a chance to speak. ‘My personal security specialist. Where I go, Tanner goes. That’s not…’
‘… open to negotiation. Yes, I gathered.’ Absently, Orcagna glanced at something in mid-air, which only he could see. ‘Tanner Mirabel… yes. A soldier once, I see — until you moved into Cahuella’s employment. Confide in me: are you a man entirely without ethics, Mirabel, or are you only gravely ignorant of the kind of man you work for?’
Again, Cahuella answered. ‘It’s not his job to lose sleep, Orcagna.’
‘But would he anyway, if he knew?’ Orcagna looked at me again, but there was nothing much to be read into his expression. We might even have been talking to a puppet driven by a disembodied intelligence running on the ship’s computer net. ‘Tell me, Mirabel… are you aware that the man you work for is regarded as a war criminal in some quarters?’
‘Only by hypocrites happy to buy weapons from him, as long as he doesn’t sell to anyone else.’
‘A level killing field is so much better than the alternative,’ Cahuella said. It was one of his favourite sayings.
‘But you don’t just sell weapons,’ Orcagna said. Once again he seemed to be viewing something hidden from us. ‘You steal and kill for them. Documentary evidence implicates you in at least thirty murders on Sky’s Edge, all connected with the arms black market. On three occasions you were responsible for the redistribution of weapons which had been decommissioned under peace agreements. Indirectly, you can be shown to have prolonged — even reignited — four or five local territorial disputes which had been close to negotiated settlement. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost through your actions.’ Cahuella started to protest at that point, but Orcagna was having none of it. ‘You are a man driven utterly by profit; completely devoid of morals or any fundamental sense of right and wrong. You are a man enthralled by the reptilian… perhaps because in reptiles you see your own reflected self, and at heart you are infinitely vain.’ Orcagna stroked his chin, and then allowed a faint smile. ‘In short, therefore, you are a man much like myself… someone with whom I believe I can do business.’ His gaze snapped to me again. ‘But tell me, Mirabel — why do you work for him? I’ve seen nothing in your history to suggest that you have much in common with your employer.’
‘He pays me.’
‘That’s all?’
‘He’s never asked me to do anything I wouldn’t do. I’m his security specialist. I protect him and those around him. I’ve taken bullets for him. Laser impacts. Sometimes I set up deals and meet potential new suppliers. That’s dangerous work, too. But what happens to the guns after they’ve changed hands is no concern of mine.’
‘Mm.’ He touched his little finger to the corner of his mouth. ‘Perhaps it should be.’
I turned to Cahuella. ‘Is there a point to this meeting?’
‘Yes, as always,’ Orcagna snapped. ‘Trade, of course, you tiresome man. Why else do you think I would risk contaminating my ship with planetary dirt?’
So it was a business meeting after all.
‘What are you selling?’ I asked.
‘Oh, the usual — weaponry. That’s all your master ever wants from us. It’s the usual local attitude. Time and again, my trading associates have offered your planet access to the longevity techniques commonplace on other worlds, but on each occasion the offer has been declined in favour of sordid military goods…’
‘That’s because what you ask for the longevity tech would bankrupt half the Peninsula,’ Cahuella said. ‘It’d put quite a dent in my assets, too.’
‘Not as big a dent as death,’ Orcagna mused. ‘Still; it’s your funeral. Something I have to say, though: whatever we give you, look after it, will you? It would be quite unfortunate if it were to fall into the wrong hands again.’
Cahuella sighed. ‘It’s not my fault if terrorists rob my clients.’
The incident he was talking about had happened a month earlier. Amongst those who knew something about the transactional web of black market commerce on Sky’s Edge, it was something of a talking point even now. I had set up the deal with a legitimate, treaty-abiding military faction. The exchange had been conducted through an elaborate series of fronts, with the ultimate source of the arms — Cahuella — discreetly concealed. I had handled the swap, too, conducted in a clearing similar to the one where the Ultras had met us — and that was where my involvement ended. But someone had tipped off one of the less-legitimate factions about the arms transfer, and they had ambushed the first faction on their way home from the deal.