After a silence, Campion said, ‘You know what I keep coming back to? We’d never have visited this world unless something bad had happened to us. Never have heard those singing sands, seen this beautiful city ... We might have travelled here eventually, I know, but it wouldn’t be Neume the way it is now. We’d probably be seeing it half a dozen civilisations down the line, when the Ymirians will just be a memory.’
I drank the wine, wanting it to go to my head as quickly as possible. ‘If you’re trying to see good in this, I’m not sure I’m quite ready to make that leap.’
‘I’m just saying ... it’s a strange universe. It can still surprise us. That’s why it’s worth carrying on, I suppose. If I felt that all we were doing was reliving a fixed set of experiences in different permutations—’
‘That wouldn’t be so bad, if those experiences were pleasant ones. Do you ever get tired of sunsets?’
‘No,’ Campion said.
‘Do you ever get tired of waterfalls, or beaches?’
‘No.’
‘Then there’s always hope for us.’
A chime sounded behind me. I handed Campion my glass and returned to the room, leaving him alone on the balcony. When I settled myself before the console I was confronted with the waiting face of Magistrate Jindabyne.
‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you now,’ I said.
‘Did I not promise that I would be in touch?’ she asked, not bothering to hide her indignation.
‘It’s just that it’s getting late.’
‘But it isn’t midnight yet. I promised you I would give you a decision by the end of today. It just took a little longer than anticipated to make the necessary arrangements. Have you changed your mind concerning the Spirit of the Air?’
‘I’m even more convinced now that it’s the only way I can possibly help Hesperus.’
The magistrate narrowed her sharp, intelligent eyes. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, at precisely three o’clock, a flier will arrive for you at the eighteenth-level landing deck. Aboard it will be a member of the scientific study council, an expert on the Spirit of the Air. Provided conditions remain favourable, he will arrange for you to be taken to the observation platform, where you may anticipate an encounter with the Spirit.’
I was aware of Campion standing behind me. ‘Thank you, Magistrate,’ I said. ‘It’s kind of you to allow this.’
‘Not kind. Foolish, perhaps.’
I should have known something was coming, but it was only when the next morning’s breakfast was winding down that I realised what Betony had been planning. Just before we would have begun to leave the table, Cadence and Cascade appeared on the balcony, and Betony introduced them with a magicianly flourish of his napkin. The robots’ imperturbable expressions gave no hint that they knew what was about to unfold.
‘Since we’re all here,’ Betony said, looking around the table as if to make sure no one had already left, ‘this is as good a time as any to settle a small matter that has come to our attention. Our two guests from the Machine People had the unpleasant misfortune to become embroiled in Gentian affairs when they were caught in our ambush. Luckily, they were unharmed - and even more luckily, they appear to hold nothing against us for failing to keep them out of our troubles.’
‘You could hardly have anticipated the ambush,’ Cadence said.
‘I suppose that’s true, but you still have every right to feel aggrieved,’ Betony answered.
Cascade said, ‘You protected us as best you could, and then gave us passage to this world. We have no argument with Gentian Line, or by implication the Commonality. But it cannot be ignored that a crime has been committed, one that now encompasses the Machine People.’
‘We must convey news of this atrocity back to the Monoceros Ring,’ Cadence said. ‘The Machine People will weigh the evidence and decide upon an appropriate response. The shatterlings of Gentian Line may rest assured that we will support them unconditionally should punitive action be required. We hope that the perpetrator is no more than a rival Line, encompassing a few hundred or a few thousand individuals. But we will not quail even if it turns out that another civilisation is responsible.’
‘We couldn’t ask for wiser or stronger allies,’ Betony said. ‘That’s why we’ll do everything we can to assist your return to your own people.’
I tensed as it began to dawn on me where this was heading.
‘Unfortunately, we have no means of transport,’ Cascade said. ‘We could of course simply transmit the intelligence back to our people, but then we would be at the mercy of human networks until the signal escapes the main disc. It might be corrupted or fail to reach its target. If we convey it in person, we will know that the information has reached home, intact. We will also be able to ensure that it is acted upon with the necessary swiftness.’
‘There is also the business of Hesperus,’ Cadence said, turning her silver head until her eyes met mine. ‘Short of a miracle on Neume, his only chance for survival now rests in a safe return home, in the fastest possible vehicle.’
‘You want my ship,’ I said in a half-whisper.
Cadence nodded. ‘We have studied the specifications of all the craft in orbit around Neume. All are fast, but yours will be able to accelerate closer to the speed of light than any other ship available. Silver Wings of Morning also has the best chance of surviving what will be a protracted voyage, even by Line standards. It will not be possible to slow for repairs or augmentations.’
‘They’ve looked into it, crunched the numbers,’ Betony said, giving me a sympathetic look, as if none of this was his doing. ‘Your ship is the one most likely to get them home, and do it before anything untoward happens to Hesperus.’
‘Your ship is fast,’ I said.
‘She accelerates harder, but Adonis Blue doesn’t have your cruise ceiling, and that’s what really matters.’
‘We will do all in our power to return your ship,’ Cascade said. ‘You need only consider it borrowed, not given away.’
‘So I’ll get her back in a million years or so?’
‘You have owned the ship for much longer than a million years, so even an interval of that enormity would not appear unreasonable.’
‘This is very good, Betony,’ I said, turning away from the robots.
He looked intrigued. ‘In what sense?’
‘You’ve found a way to screw me without looking as if you’re screwing me. This is the punishment, isn’t it? For Campion and me, for what we did - the consorting, the being late. Never mind that we brought the Line five survivors it wouldn’t have had otherwise; never mind the prisoners or Hesperus. We’ve still got to pay, even if it’s done sneakily, without looking like official censure.’
‘Not in front of our guests, Purslane, please. We’re asking you to make a benevolent gesture, not to suffer a punishment.’
I knew, with crushing certainty, that I could not win; that any attempt to argue my way out of this would not only be futile, but would cost me even more dearly in the future.
‘How do you want to do this?’ I asked. ‘You can table a proposal, but you don’t get to decide Line policy all by yourself. The matter still needs to be voted on.’
Betony nodded keenly. ‘If you and Campion would like to leave us for a moment, we can vote. It needn’t be unanimous - we’re only deciding on a reallocation of property, not something as serious as excommunication.’
I looked around the room. There were one or two dozen shatterlings I felt certain I could count as allies, but that would not be enough to win the vote. Some of the others would undoubtedly align themselves with Betony.
‘I’ll spare myself the humiliation,’ I said. ‘You can have the ship.’
‘In which case we’ll forget your earlier outburst. It’s understandable that you’d feel a sense of attachment. I’m sure we can all empathise.’
‘Thank you, Purslane,’ said Cadence and Cascade in unison. ‘It is very generous of you. We shall take good care of the ship.’
>
‘And me?’ I asked Betony. ‘What do I do, without a ship? Do I stay here, when everyone else agrees to leave Neume?’
‘You’re amongst friends now,’ he said.
‘That’s not how it feels.’
‘You’ll get over it.’
‘She doesn’t have to,’ Campion said, standing up from the table, crumbs flying from his lap. ‘In fact, I’d be disappointed in her if she did. I hope you fuckers can live with yourselves after this.’ He glared at the seated audience. ‘I know not all of you would have gone against Purslane in a secret vote, but I didn’t hear any of you speaking up to support her just now. Not even you, Aconite. Or you, Mezereon.’
‘It’s just a ship,’ Aconite said. ‘No need to get so worked up about it, old man.’
‘It’s her ship. She’s had it longer than most of you have had memories.’
‘Then we’ll pool our resources and get her a new one,’ Aconite said, glancing nervously to his left and right, as if measuring the support for this proposal.
‘I’ll live,’ I said, although I was shivering with rage and indignation. ‘Let them have her. If Betony had had the good grace to ask me, instead of demanding it, I might just have given her away myself.’
‘We are sorry to be the cause of unpleasantness,’ the robots said.
I felt some of my irritation twist towards them, but I held it in check. ‘It’s not your fault. I’m not angry at you for wanting a fast ship. I know all you want to do is help Hesperus.’
‘He means a great deal to us,’ Cadence said.
‘More than you can imagine,’ added Cascade.
The two of them were holding hands, chrome in ivory.
Afterwards at least a dozen shatterlings came up to me in ones and twos and expressed various degrees of sympathy and indignation. My first instinct was to scold them for not showing more support when it counted, but I succeeded in biting my tongue, reminding myself that to many of them I had actually got off lightly, compared to the censure that - in theory, at least - I might have been due.
‘We don’t agree,’ was a sentiment I heard more than once. ‘You deserved a rap on the knuckles, but nothing like this. All the same - if that’s the worst Betony does to you, you’ve come out of it rather well. It could have been much, much worse.’
‘Yes - and it could also have been a lot better,’ I said, resenting the implication that I deserved any punishment whatsoever. ‘He didn’t have to censure me at all.’
They asked, ‘Do you think he’s done now? Or will he go after Campion s well?’
‘He’s done. He knows that if he hurts me, he hurts Campion. He won’t risk looking vindictive - he’s too much of a politician for that.’
There was talk of helping me get a new ship, questions about whether any of the vehicles in Silver Wings’ hold might serve for the time being, a general display of goodwill from my friends (and from one or two I had not counted as allies, but who were kind and sympathetic in unexpectedly touching ways), but it was clear to me that the vote would not have gone my way, had I pressed for it. I was relieved, in a dispirited sense. At least I had walked out of that room with my dignity intact. I could be forgiven my little outburst; I had only voiced what many of them were thinking, and even my enemies could not deny the cynical impulse behind my punishment. Even if I had not had the fastest, strongest ship in orbit, Betony would have found a way of giving mine to the robots.
Since there was no reason for Cadence and Cascade to remain on Neume indefinitely - they certainly did not need to wait until the Line made up its collective mind about where to go next - it was agreed that the handover of my ship would take place sooner rather than later. Silver Wings’ troves were nearly duplicated aboard Dalliance; the process of consolidating final backup required only hours of additional data transfer. The formal handover would involve me authorising Silver Wings to accept Cadence and Cascade as her new masters, but that would involve only a simple statement being made in the ship’s presence. Once that formality was complete, the ship would be theirs.
But there remained the matter of Hesperus. It was agreed that the robots would not depart until I had brought him into the presence of the Spirit of the Air, whatever the outcome of that might be. If he was healed, they would leave with or without him, according to his wishes. Otherwise, they would gather his remains (if any were left) and convey him back to their part of the galaxy. It was agreed that the robots would depart on a trajectory that would avoid any chance of detection by the ambushing elements, even if that added a few centuries to their journey time. Of course, once they left Neume, we would have no means of enforcing that agreement.
Weighed down with apprehension, stung by what had been done to me, the last thing I felt like was watching Mezereon resume her interrogation of the prisoners. But Campion assured me it would take my mind off what had happened at breakfast.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said sourly, but I went along anyway.
The magistrate had told me to expect a flier at three, which left five hours, allowing for a margin of error. By the time Campion and I arrived, most of the room was already dialled up on Synchromesh, the shatterlings sitting as stiffly and mutely as statues. All four cabinets were present, but only one of the occupants - the one on the right - was dialled down to a low stasis factor. Mezereon’s voice tolled like a very low, ominously cracked bell.
I let the drops settle into my eyes and then dialled up, not forgetting to set the expiration mechanism to bring me out in time for my meeting. Mezereon shifted into sudden, hectoring life.
‘We know exactly who you are,’ she said, strolling up and down the plinth in front of the cabinets. ‘What we don’t know is why you’ve come back from the dead. Would you like to tell me what really happened, Thorn, when you were supposedly lost to attrition? Was your disappearance engineered so that you could attack other Lines with impunity?’
‘Go figure,’ said the man in the cabinet.
‘Grilse was also lost to attrition. That suggests a pattern to me.’
‘Very attentive of you.’
‘I’m willing to bet the other two are also lost shatterlings. We’ll identify their lines soon enough - Marcellin, Mellictan or otherwise. In the meantime you can help me with the House of Suns.’
‘You already asked me about that.’
‘And you told me that you know nothing, but I don’t believe you. Is it a Line, Thorn, one that the Commonality doesn’t know about?’
‘There isn’t any such thing.’
‘That we know of. But if such a thing existed, could it be kept secret?’ Mezereon stroked her chin. ‘Possibly, if there was a good enough reason. But who’d benefit from the existence of a hidden Line?’
‘Call me when you find out.’
‘I think you know all about it. I think you may even be a part of it.’
‘You’ve already tied me to the Mellictans.’
‘But you left them. What’s to say you didn’t join the House of Suns afterwards?’
‘No one swaps between Lines. That’s not how it works.’
‘But the House of Suns is something else. It might operate according to entirely different rules. Feeding itself from the attrition of other Lines, for instance. That’s feasible. It could happen.’
‘Whatever you say.’
‘There’d need to be infiltration at Line-level, of course. Those shatterlings would need to fake their own deaths, which would mean elaborate planning. They’d have to know they were joining the House of Suns ahead of time. And they’d need to think it was better than staying inside their own Line, with all the rewards and limitless possibilities that entails. Tough call, wouldn’t you say? Being a shatterling is close to being a god. You’d need to offer someone the chance to become better than a god before they took that bait.’
There was a glimmer of wounded recognition in Thorn’s eyes - a hint that Mezereon had put her finger on something raw. I shuddered to think of the devil’s bargain he must have sign
ed up to. Mezereon was right: we did have almost everything we could dream of. We had lived for millions of years, crossed the galaxy countless times over, drunk from the riches and glories of ten million cultures. Matter and energy were our playthings. We could swaddle stars to stop them shining; we could flick worlds around as if they were specks of dirt. Entire civilisations owed their existence to our good deeds, unwitnessed and uncom memorated. We did marvellous, saintly things and we never stopped to ask for thanks.
What could be better than being a shatterling?
Only one thing, I thought to myself.
Being a wicked shatterling. Being a devil instead of an angel. Having all that power, all that wisdom, but being able to do anything with it. Being able to destroy as well as create.
‘I was hoping you’d tell me everything you know about the House of Suns voluntarily,’ Mezereon said. ‘It would have been easier that way, saved us all a lot of unpleasantness. But obviously that’s not going to happen. I’m going to dial you out of stasis, back into realtime. You may or may not survive the emergence. If you do, it will only be to face further interrogation. As soon as I get a living body, I’m going to section it. You know what that means, Thorn? Of course you do - you’re a man of the world. You’ve seen some horrible, sickening things. We all have. Now you’re going to become one of them - unless you talk.’
‘I don’t know anything about the House of Suns,’ he said. But there was something in his voice we had not heard before. He was frightened; the mask of defiance was beginning to crack.
Mezereon reached for the handle. ‘You’re at one hundred now. I’m taking you down to ten.’
She wrenched the lever to the left until it was resting at the penultimate notch. The cabinet made a groaning, decelerating noise, as of some huge turbine being suddenly braked. The cabinet quivered on the pedestal. The dials around the main lever tremored, registering savage, undamped time-stresses.
Mezereon adjusted her chronometer to match her subjective rate with Thorn’s. Around the room, her hidden audience did likewise.