I made my way over to the body, my vision darkening at the edges, as if seen through a tube of foreboding clouds. I knelt down until I could reach the dead man, unclipping his torch and taking his night-vision goggles. Cahuella had shot him blind, in near total darkness, and while the shot was a fraction low for my tastes, it had done the job. I remembered how, only a few hours earlier, I had watched him pump shots into the night, as if there was something there only he could see.
‘They did something to you and Dieterling,’ I said, clenching my teeth as I spoke and hoping that I was comprehensible. ‘The Ultras…’
‘It’s nothing to them,’ he said, his broad frame turning towards me like a wall. ‘They all have it. They live in nearly total darkness on their ships, so that they can bathe in the glories in the universe more easily, when they’ve left sunlight behind. Are you going to live, Tanner?’
‘If any of us do.’ I snapped the night-vision goggles over my eyes and saw the room brighten in hues of choleric green. ‘There wasn’t much blood loss, but I can’t do anything about shock. That’s bound to set in soon, and then I’m not going to be very much use to you.’
‘Get yourself a gun, something useful at close range. We’ll go and see what damage we can do.’
‘Where’s Dieterling?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s dead.’
Automatically, barely having to think about it, I tugged a compact pistol from the rack, flicking its ammo-cell to readiness and hearing the shrill whine as its condensers charged up.
Gitta screamed from the next partition.
Cahuella pushed through ahead of me and then stopped dead just beyond the drape. I nearly knocked him over, the stock of the boser-rifle scuffling against the floor as I tried to approximate walking. I had no need for the goggles now, since the room was already lit by the tent’s glowlamp, which Gitta must have ignited. She was standing up in the middle of the space, clutching a dun-coloured blanket around her.
One of the attackers stood behind her, one hand drawing her head back by a clump of scalp-hair, the other holding a wickedly serrated knife to the convex whiteness of her throat.
She made no scream now. The only sounds she allowed herself were small and snatched, like someone choking.
The man holding her had removed his helmet. He was not Reivich, just some mildly competent thug who might have fought with or against me during the war, or against both sides. His face was lined and his black hair was tied back in a topknot, like a Samurai. He was not exactly grinning — the situation was too tense for that — but there was something in his expression which suggested he was enjoying it.
‘You can stop or you can take a step closer,’ he said, his rough voice accentless and surprisingly reasonable. ‘Either way I’m going to kill her. It’s just a matter of time.’
‘Your friend’s dead,’ Cahuella said, needlessly. ‘If you kill Gitta, I’ll kill you as well. Except for every second she suffers, I’ll make it an hour for you. How’s that for generosity?’
‘Fuck you,’ the man said, and drew the blade across her throat. A caterpillar of blood formed beneath the track of the incision, but he had been careful not to draw too deeply. Good with his knife, I thought. How many ways had he practised to cut with such precision?
Gitta, to her credit, hardly flinched.
‘I’ve got a message for you,’ he said, lifting the blade slightly from her skin, so that the scarlet bloom on its edge was clearly visible. ‘It’s from Argent Reivich. Does that surprise you in any way? It shouldn’t, because I understand you were expecting him. Only just not so soon.’
‘The Ultras lied to us,’ Cahuella said.
The man smiled now, but only briefly. The pleasure was all in his eyes, narrowed to ecstatic slits. I realised we were dealing with a psychopath and that his actions were essentially random.
There was not going to be a negotiated settlement.
‘There are factions amongst them,’ the man said. ‘Especially between crews. Orcagna lied to you. You needn’t take it personally. ’ His fist tensed on the knife again. ‘Now, would you be so good as to put down that gun, Cahuella?’
‘Do it,’ I whispered, still standing behind him. ‘No matter how good your vision is, there’s only a tiny area of him not covered by Gitta, and I doubt you’re that confident of your aiming just yet.’
‘Don’t you know it’s rude to whisper?’ the man said.
‘Do it,’ I hissed. ‘I can still save her.’
Cahuella dropped the gun.
‘Good,’ I said, still whispering. ‘Now listen carefully. I can hit him from here, without harming Gitta. But you’re in the way.’
‘Talk to me, you fuck.’ The man pushed the knife against her skin so that the blade depressed a valley of flesh without actually breaking it. It would only take a flick now and he would sever her carotid artery.
‘I’m going to shoot through you,’ I said to Cahuella. ‘It’s a beam weapon, so it’s only the line of sight that matters. From the angle where I’m going to fire, I won’t hit any vital organs. But be ready for it.’
The man’s hand brought the knife deeper, so that the valley was suddenly rivened, and blood welled from its depths. Time slowed down, and I watched him begin to drag the knife across her throat.
Cahuella started to speak.
I fired.
The pencil-thin particle beam chewed through him, entering his back an inch or so to the left of his spine, in the upper lumbar region, around the twentieth or twenty-first vertebra. I hoped I missed the right common iliac vein, and that the beam angle would direct its energies between the left lung and the stomach. But it was not precision surgery, and I knew that Cahuella would have to count himself lucky if this did not actually kill him. I also knew that, if it were a question of dying to save Gitta, he would accept that wholeheartedly, and would even order me to make it so. I paid very little attention to Cahuella anyway, since Gitta’s position effectively limited the range of angles I could select. It was simply a matter of saving her, no matter what it did to her husband.
The particle beam fired for less than a tenth of a second, although the ion trail lingered long after, in addition to the track it had seared on my vision. Cahuella fell to the ground in front of me, like a sack of corn dropped from the ceiling.
And so did Gitta, with a hole bored neatly in her forehead, her eyes still open and seemingly alert, and the blood still oozing from the partial throat-wound.
I had missed.
There was no avoiding that; no softening or sweetening of that one acidic message. I had meant to save her, but intention meant nothing. What mattered was the red weal above her eyes where I had hit her, meaning to hit the man holding a knife to her throat.
The beam had missed him completely.
I had failed. In the one moment where failure mattered most; in the one moment of my life where I actually thought I could win — I had failed. Failed myself, and Cahuella, by betraying the terrible burden of trust he had implicitly placed in me, without saying a word. His wound was serious, but with the proper attention, I had had little doubt that he would live.
But there was no saving Gitta. I wondered who was the luckier.
‘What’s wrong?’ Zebra asked. ‘Tanner, what’s wrong? Don’t look at me like that, please. I’m beginning to think you might actually do it.’
‘Can you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t?’