‘For the time being,’ Sylveste said. ‘But don’t get used to it, Calvin. Because I’m not planning on having you around on a permanent basis.’
‘This wife of yours worries me.’
Sylveste looked at the Triumvirs. Suddenly he did not want his half of the conversation to be public knowledge, so he switched to mentalising what he would say.
‘I worry about her too, but that doesn’t happen to be any of your business.’
‘I saw the way she responded when Volyova and Khouri tried to turn her.’
Yes, Sylveste thought — and who could honestly blame her? It had been hard enough for him when Volyova had dropped Sun Stealer’s name into the conversation, like a depth charge. Of course, Volyova had not known how significant that name was — and for a moment Sylveste had hoped that his wife would not remember where she had heard it, or even that she had ever heard it before. But Pascale was too clever for that; it was half the reason he loved her. ‘It doesn’t mean they managed, Cal.’
‘I’m glad you’re so sure.’
‘She wouldn’t try and stop me.’
‘That rather depends,’ Calvin said. ‘You see, if she imagines that you’re putting yourself in harm’s way — and if she loves you as much as I think she does — then stopping you is going to be something she does as much out of love as logic. Maybe more so. It doesn’t mean she’s suddenly decided to hate you, or that she even gets pleasure out of denying you this ambition. Quite the opposite, in fact. I rather imagine it’s hurting her.’
Sylveste looked at the display again; at the conic, sculpted mass of Volyova’s bridgehead.
‘What I think,’ Calvin said, eventually, ‘is that there may be rather more to any of this than meets your eye. And that we should proceed with caution.’
‘I’m hardly being incautious.’
‘I know, and I sympathise. The mere fact that there could be danger in this is fascinating in itself; almost an incentive to push further. That’s how you feel, isn’t it? Every argument they could use against you would only strengthen your resolve. Because knowledge makes you hungry, and it’s a hunger you can’t resist, even if you know that what you’re feasting on could kill you.’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Sylveste said, and wondered, but only for an instant. Then he turned to Sajaki and spoke aloud. ‘Where the hell is that damned woman? Doesn’t she realise we have work to do?’
‘I’m here,’ Volyova said, stepping into the bridge, followed by Pascale. Wordlessly, she summoned a pair of seats, and the two women rose into the central volume of the room, positioning themselves near the others, where the spectacle playing on the display could best be appreciated.
‘Then let battle commence,’ Sajaki said.
Volyova addressed the cache; the first time she had accessed any of these horrors since the incident with the rogue weapon.
In the back of her mind was the thought that at any time one of these weapons could act in the same way; violently ousting her from the control loop and taking charge of its own actions. She could not rule that out, but it was a risk she was prepared to take. And if what Khouri had said was true, then the Mademoiselle — who had been controlling the rogue cache-weapon — was now dead, ruthlessly absorbed by Sun Stealer, then at the very least it would not be she who tried to turn the weapons renegade.
Volyova selected a handful of cache-weapons, those at (she assumed and hoped) the lower end of the destructive scale available, where their destructive potential overlapped with the ship’s native armaments. Six weapons came to life and communicated their readiness via her bracelet, morbid skull-icons pulsing. The devices moved via the network of tracks, slowly threading their way out of the cache chamber into the smaller transfer chamber, and then deploying themselves beyond the hull, becoming, in effect, hugely overcannoned robotic spacecraft. None of the six devices resembled any of the others, except in the underlying signature of common design which was shared by all the hell-class weapons. Two were relativistic projectile launchers, and so bore a certain similarity, but no more than as if they were competing prototypes constructed by different design teams to satisfy a general brief. They looked like ancient howitzers; all elongated barrel, festooned with tubular complications and cancerous ancillary systems. The other four weapons, in no particular order of pleasantness, consisted of a gamma-ray laser (bigger by an order of magnitude than the ship’s own units), a supersymmetry beam, an ack-am projector and a quark deconfinement device. There was nothing to compare with the planet-demolishing capability of the rogue weapon, but then again, nothing which one would wish to have pointed at oneself — or indeed, the planet one happened to be standing on. And, Volyova reminded herself, the plan was not to inflict arbitrary damage on Cerberus; not to destroy it — but merely to crack it open, and for that a certain amount of finesse was in order.
Oh, yes… this was finesse.
‘Now give me something a novice can use,’ Khouri said, dithering in front of the warchive’s dispensary. ‘I’m not talking about a toy, though — it’s got to have real stopping power.’
‘Beam or projectile, madame?’
‘Make it a low-yield beam. We don’t want Pascale putting holes in the hull.’
‘Oh, marvellous choice, madame. Would madame care to rest her feet while I search for something which matches madame’s discerning requirements?’
‘Madame will stand, if you don’t mind.’
She was being served by the dispensary’s gamma-level persona, which consisted of a rather glum and simpering holographic head projected at chest height above the slot-topped counter. At first she had restricted her choices to those arms which were arrayed along the walls, stowed behind glass with little illuminated plaques detailing their operation, era-of-origin and history of usage. That was fine, in principle, and she had soon selected lightweight weapons for herself and Volyova, choosing a pair of electromagnetic needle-guns which were similar in design to Shadowplay equipment.
Volyova had, rather ominously, mentioned heavier ordnance, and Khouri had taken care of that as well, but only partially from the displayed wares. There had been a nice rapid-cycle plasma rifle, manufactured three centuries ago, but by no means outdated, and its neural-feed aiming system would make it very useful in close combat. It was light, as well, and when she hefted it, she felt that she knew the weapon immediately. There was also something obscenely alluring about the weapon’s protective jacket of black leather: mottled and oiled to a high sheen, with patches cut away to expose controls, readouts and attachment points. It would suit her, but what could she bring back for Volyova? She perused the shelves for as long as she dared (which could not have been more than five minutes), and while there was no shortage of intriguing and even bewildering hardware, there was nothing which exactly matched what she had in mind.
Instead, she had turned to the warchive’s memory. There were, Khouri was reliably informed, exemplars of in excess of four million hand weapons, spanning twelve centuries of gunsmithery, from the simplest spark-ignited projectile blunderbusses to the most gruesomely compact concentrations of death-directed technology imaginable.
But even that vast assortment was small compared to the warchive’s total potential, because the warchive could also be creative. Given specifications, the warchive could sift its blueprints and merge the optimum characteristics of pre-existing weapons until it had forged something new and highly customised. Which, in minutes, it could synthesise.
When it was done — as it was with the little pistol Khouri had imagined for Pascale — the slot in the tabletop would whir open and the finished weapon would rise on a little felt-topped platter, gleaming with ultrasterility, still warm with the residual heat of its manufacture.
She lifted Pascale’s pistol, sighting along the barrel, feeling the balance, running through the beam-yield settings, accessed by a stud recessed into the grip.
‘Suits you, madame,’ said the dispensary.
‘It isn’t for me,’ Khouri said, hiding the gun in a pocket.
Volyova’s six cache-weapons powered up their thrusters and vectored rapidly away from the ship, following a complex course which would position them to strike against the impact point, albeit obliquely. And the bridgehead, meanwhile, continued to reduce the distance between itself and the surface, always slowing. She was certain that
