‘You think the worms are elevating the orbit to avoid a cataclysm so far in the future?’
‘I don’t know,’ Remontoire said. ‘I suppose the orbital alterations could also be a by-product of some less meaningful worm activity.’
‘I agree,’ Clavain said. ‘But the danger remains. If the worms can elevate the moon’s apocentre — even accidentally — we can assume they also have the means to lower its pericentre. They could drop Phobos on top of your nest. Does that scare you sufficiently that you’d consider cooperation with the Coalition?’
Galiana steepled her fingers before her face; a human gesture of deep concentration that her time as a Conjoiner had not quite eroded. Clavain could almost feel the web of thought looming the room: ghostly strands of cognition reaching between each Conjoiner at the table, and beyond into the nest proper.
‘A winning team, is that your idea?’ she said at length.
‘It’s got to be better than war,’ Clavain said. ‘Hasn’t it?’
Galiana might have been about to answer him when her face grew troubled. Clavain saw the wave of discomposure sweep over the others almost simultaneously. Something told him that it was nothing to do with his proposal.
Around the table, half the display facets switched automatically over to another channel. The face that Clavain was looking at was much like his own, except that the face on the screen was missing an eye. It was his brother. Warren was overlaid with the official insignia of the Coalition and a dozen system-wide media cartels.
He was in the middle of a speech. ‘… express my shock,’ Warren said. ‘Or, for that matter, my outrage. It’s not just that they’ve murdered a valued colleague and a deeply experienced member of my team. They’ve murdered my brother.’
Clavain felt the deepest of chills. ‘What is this?’
‘A live transmission from Deimos,’ Galiana breathed. ‘It’s going out to all the nets, right out to the trans-Pluto habitats.’
‘What they did was an act of unspeakable treachery,’ Warren said. ‘Nothing less than the premeditated, cold-blooded murder of a peace envoy.’ And then a video clip sprang up to replace Warren. The image must have been snapped from Deimos or one of the Interdiction satellites. It showed Clavain’s shuttle, lying in the dust close to the dyke. He watched the Ouroborus destroy the shuttle, then saw the image zoom in on himself and Voi, running for sanctuary. The Ouroborus took Voi. But this time there was no ladder lowered down for him. Instead, he saw weapon beams scythe out from the nest towards him, knocking him to the ground. Horribly wounded, he tried to get up, to crawl a few centimetres nearer to his tormentors, but the worm was already upon him.
He watched himself get eaten.
Warren was back again. ‘The worms around the nest were a Conjoiner trap. My brother’s death must have been planned days — maybe even weeks — in advance.’ His face was a granite-like mask of military composure. ‘There can only be one outcome from such an act — something the Conjoiners must have well understood. For months they’ve been goading us towards hostile action.’ He paused, then nodded at an unseen audience. ‘Well, now they’re going to get it. In fact, our response has already commenced.’ ‘Dear God, no,’ Clavain said, but the evidence was everywhere now: all around the table he could see the updating orbital spread of the Coalition’s dropships, knifing down towards Mars.
‘I think it’s war,’ Galiana said.
Conjoiners stormed onto the roof of the nest, taking up defensive positions around the domes and the dyke’s edge. Most of them carried the same guns they had used against the Ouroborus. Smaller numbers were setting up automatic cannon on tripods. One or two were manhandling large anti-assault weapons into position. Most of it was war surplus. Fifteen years ago the Conjoiners had avoided extinction by deploying weapons of awesome ferocity — but those ship-to-ship armaments were simply too destructive to use against a nearby foe. Now it would be more visceral, closer to the primal templates of combat, and none of what the Conjoiners were marshalling would be much use against the kind of assault Warren had prepared, Clavain knew. They could slow an attack, but not much more than that.
Galiana had given him another breather mask, made him don lightweight chameleoflage armour and then forced him to carry one of the smaller guns. The gun felt alien in his hands; something he had never expected to carry again. The only possible justification for carrying it was to use it against his brother’s forces — against his own side.
Could he do that?
It was clear that Warren had betrayed him; he had surely been aware of the worms around the nest. So his brother was capable not just of contempt, but of treacherous murder. For the first time, Clavain felt genuine hatred for Warren. He must have hoped that the worms would destroy the shuttle completely and kill Clavain and Voi in the process. It must have pained him to see Clavain make it to the dyke… pained him even more when Clavain called to talk about the tragedy. But Warren’s larger plan had not been affected. The diplomatic link between the nest and Deimos was secure — even the Demarchists had no immediate access to it. So Clavain’s call from the surface could be quietly ignored; spysat imagery doctored to make it appear as if he had never reached the dyke… had in fact been repelled by Conjoiner treachery. Inevitably, the Demarchists would unravel the deception, given time… but if Warren’s plan succeeded, they would all be embroiled in war long before then. That, thought Clavain, was all that Warren had ever wanted.
Two brothers, Clavain thought. In many ways so alike. Both had embraced war once, but, like a fickle lover, Clavain had wearied of its glories. He had not even been injured as severely as Warren… but perhaps that was the point, too. Warren needed another war to avenge what one had stolen from him.
Clavain despised and pitied him in equal measure.
He searched for the safety clip on the gun. The rifle, now that he studied it more closely, was not all that different from those he had used during the war. The read-out said the ammo-cell was fully charged.
He looked into the sky.
The attack wave broke orbit hard and steep above the Walclass="underline" five hundred fireballs screeching towards the nest. The insertion scorched centimetres of ablative armour from most of the ships; fried a few others that came in just fractionally too hard. Clavain knew exactly what was happening: he had studied possible attack scenarios for years, the range of outcomes burned indelibly into his memory.
The anti-assault guns were already working — locking on to the plasma trails as they flowered overhead, swinging down to find the tiny spark of heat at the head, computing refraction paths for laser pulses, spitting death into the sky. The unlucky ships flared a white that hurt the back of the eye and rained down in a billion dulling sparks. A dozen — then a dozen more. Maybe fifty in total before the guns could no longer acquire targets. It was nowhere near enough. Clavain’s memory of the simulations told him that at least four hundred units of the attack wave would survive both re-entry and the Conjoiner’s heavy defences.
Nothing that Galiana could do would make any difference.
And that had always been the paradox. Galiana was capable of running the same simulations. She must always have known that her provocations would bring down something she could never hope to defeat.