The Revelation Space Collection

alone.’

‘Is it possible he would have accepted Sun Stealer’s help?’

She shook her head. ‘Forget it. He didn’t even believe in Sun Stealer. If he’d had an inkling that he was being led — pushed into something — no; he wouldn’t have accepted it.’

‘Maybe he didn’t have any choice,’ Khouri said. ‘But anyway; assuming he took a suit, is there any way we can catch him?’

‘Not before he reaches Cerberus.’ There was no need to think about that. She knew just how quickly a million kilometres of space could be traversed if one could tolerate a constant ten gees of acceleration. ‘It’s too risky to take suits ourselves; not the kind your husband used. We’ll have to get there in one of the shuttles. It’ll be a lot slower, but there’s less chance Sun Stealer will have infiltrated its control matrix.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Claustrophobia. The shuttles are about three centuries less advanced than the suits.’

‘And that’s supposed to help us?’

‘Believe me, when you’re dealing with infectious alien mind parasites, I always find primitive is best.’ Then, calmly, almost as if it were a recognised form of verbal punctuation, she took aim with the needler and gutted a rat which had dared stray into the corridor.

‘I remember this place,’ Pascale said. ‘This is where you brought us when—’

Khouri made the door open; the one marked with a barely legible spider.

‘Get in,’ she said. ‘Make yourself at home. And start praying that I remember how Ilia worked this thing.’

‘Where is she going to meet us?’

‘Outside,’ Khouri said. ‘I sincerely hope.’

By which time she was already closing the spider-room’s door; already looking at the brass and bronze controls and hoping for some spark of recognition.

THIRTY-THREE

Cerberus/Hades Orbit, 2566

Volyova slipped out the needler, approaching the Captain.

She knew that she had to get to the hangar chamber as quickly as possible; that any delay might give Sun Stealer the time he needed to find a way to kill her. But there was something she had to do first. There was no logic to it, no rationality — but she knew she had to do it anyway. So she took the stairwells to the Captain’s level, into the deadening cold, her breath seeming to solidify in her throat. There were no rats down here: too cold. And servitors would not be able to reach him without running the risk of becoming part of him, subsumed by the plague.

‘Can you hear me, you bastard?’ She told her bracelet to warm him enough for conscious thought processes. ‘If so, pay attention. The ship’s been taken over.’

‘Are we still around Bloater?’

‘No… no, we’re not still around Bloater. That was some time ago.’

After a few moments the Captain said, ‘Taken over, did you say? Who by?’

‘Something alien, with some unpleasant ambitions. Most of us are dead now — Sajaki, Hegazi; all the other crew you ever knew — and the few of us left are getting out while we can. I don’t expect to ever come back aboard, which is why what I’m about to do might strike you as slightly drastic.’

She aimed the needler now; directing it towards the cracked, misshaped husk of the reefer encasing the Captain.

‘I’m going to let you warm, do you understand? For the last few decades it’s been all we can do to keep you as cool as possible — but it hasn’t worked, so maybe it was never the right approach. Maybe what we need to do now is let you take over the damned ship, in whatever way you see fit.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘I don’t care what you think, Captain. I’m doing it anyway.’

Her finger grew tight against the needler’s trigger; already she was mentally calculating how his rate of spread would increase as he warmed, and the numbers she was coming up with were not quite believable… but then, they had never considered doing this before.

‘Please, Ilia.’

‘Listen, svinoi,’ she said, finally. ‘Maybe it works; maybe it doesn’t. But if I’ve ever shown any loyalty to you — if you even remember me — all I’m asking is that you do what you can for us.’

She was about to fire; about to unload the needler into the reefer, but then something made her hesitate.

‘There’s one other thing I have to say to you. Which is that I think I know who the hell you are, or rather who the hell you became.’

She was acutely conscious of the dryness of her mouth, and of the time she was wasting, but something made her continue.

‘What do you have to say to me?’

‘You travelled with Sajaki to the Pattern Jugglers, didn’t you? I know. The crew spoke of it often enough — even Sajaki himself. What no one discussed was what happened down there: what the Jugglers did to the two of you. Oh, I know there were rumours — but that’s all they were; engineered by Sajaki to throw me off the scent.’

‘Nothing happened there.’

‘No; what happened was this. You killed Sajaki, all those years ago.’

His answer came back, amused, as if he had misheard her. ‘I killed Sajaki?’

‘You had the Jugglers do it; had them erase his neural patterns and overlay your own on his mind. You became him.’

Now she had to catch her breath, although she was almost done.

‘One existence wasn’t enough for you — and maybe by then you’d sensed that this body wasn’t going to last too long; not with so many viruses flying around. So you colonised your adjutant, and the Jugglers did what you wished because they’re so alien they couldn’t even grasp the concept of murder. But that’s the truth, isn’t it?’

‘No…’

‘Shut up. That’s why Sajaki never wanted you healed — because by then he was you, and he didn’t need healing. And that’s why Sajaki was able to denature my treatment for the plague — because he had all your expertise. I should let you die for this, svinoi — except of course you already are, because what’s left of Sajaki is now redecorating the medical centre.’

‘Sajaki — dead?’ It was as if her news of the others’ deaths had not reached him at all.

‘Is that justice for you? You’re alone now. All on your own. So the only thing you can do is protect your own existence against Sun Stealer by growing. By letting the plague have its way with you.’

‘No… please.’

‘Did you kill Sajaki, Captain?’

‘It was… such a long time ago…’ But there was something in his voice which was not quite denial. Volyova delivered the needler rounds into the reefer. Watched the few remaining indices on its shell flicker and die, and then felt the chill fading, by the second, ice on the shell already beginning to glisten with its own warming.

‘I’m going now,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to get to the truth. I suppose I should wish you good luck, Captain.’

And then she was running, afraid of what might be happening behind her.

Sajaki’s suit stayed tantalisingly ahead of Sylveste as they commenced the descent into the funnel of the bridgehead. The half-submerged, inverted cone of the device had seemed tiny only minutes ago, but now it was all he could see, its steep grey sides blocking the horizon in all directions. Occasionally the bridgehead shuddered, and