‘But would he anyway, if he knew?’ Orcagna looked at me again, but there was nothing much to be read into his expression. We might even have been talking to a puppet driven by a disembodied intelligence running on the ship’s computer net. ‘Tell me, Mirabel… are you aware that the man you work for is regarded as a war criminal in some quarters?’
‘Only by hypocrites happy to buy weapons from him, as long as he doesn’t sell to anyone else.’
‘A level killing field is so much better than the alternative,’ Cahuella said. It was one of his favourite sayings.
‘But you don’t just sell weapons,’ Orcagna said. Once again he seemed to be viewing something hidden from us. ‘You steal and kill for them. Documentary evidence implicates you in at least thirty murders on Sky’s Edge, all connected with the arms black market. On three occasions you were responsible for the redistribution of weapons which had been decommissioned under peace agreements. Indirectly, you can be shown to have prolonged — even reignited — four or five local territorial disputes which had been close to negotiated settlement. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost through your actions.’ Cahuella started to protest at that point, but Orcagna was having none of it. ‘You are a man driven utterly by profit; completely devoid of morals or any fundamental sense of right and wrong. You are a man enthralled by the reptilian… perhaps because in reptiles you see your own reflected self, and at heart you are infinitely vain.’ Orcagna stroked his chin, and then allowed a faint smile. ‘In short, therefore, you are a man much like myself… someone with whom I believe I can do business.’ His gaze snapped to me again. ‘But tell me, Mirabel — why do you work for him? I’ve seen nothing in your history to suggest that you have much in common with your employer.’
‘He pays me.’
‘That’s all?’
‘He’s never asked me to do anything I wouldn’t do. I’m his security specialist. I protect him and those around him. I’ve taken bullets for him. Laser impacts. Sometimes I set up deals and meet potential new suppliers. That’s dangerous work, too. But what happens to the guns after they’ve changed hands is no concern of mine.’
‘Mm.’ He touched his little finger to the corner of his mouth. ‘Perhaps it should be.’
I turned to Cahuella. ‘Is there a point to this meeting?’
‘Yes, as always,’ Orcagna snapped. ‘Trade, of course, you tiresome man. Why else do you think I would risk contaminating my ship with planetary dirt?’
So it was a business meeting after all.
‘What are you selling?’ I asked.
‘Oh, the usual — weaponry. That’s all your master ever wants from us. It’s the usual local attitude. Time and again, my trading associates have offered your planet access to the longevity techniques commonplace on other worlds, but on each occasion the offer has been declined in favour of sordid military goods…’
‘That’s because what you ask for the longevity tech would bankrupt half the Peninsula,’ Cahuella said. ‘It’d put quite a dent in my assets, too.’
‘Not as big a dent as death,’ Orcagna mused. ‘Still; it’s your funeral. Something I have to say, though: whatever we give you, look after it, will you? It would be quite unfortunate if it were to fall into the wrong hands again.’
Cahuella sighed. ‘It’s not my fault if terrorists rob my clients.’
The incident he was talking about had happened a month earlier. Amongst those who knew something about the transactional web of black market commerce on Sky’s Edge, it was something of a talking point even now. I had set up the deal with a legitimate, treaty-abiding military faction. The exchange had been conducted through an elaborate series of fronts, with the ultimate source of the arms — Cahuella — discreetly concealed. I had handled the swap, too, conducted in a clearing similar to the one where the Ultras had met us — and that was where my involvement ended. But someone had tipped off one of the less-legitimate factions about the arms transfer, and they had ambushed the first faction on their way home from the deal.
Cahuella called the new faction terrorists, but that was to place too great a distinction between them and their legitimate victims. In a war in which the rules of engagement and the definitions of criminality changed by the week, what distinguished a legitimate faction from a less-legitimate one was often only the quality of the former’s legal advice. Alliances were always shifting, past actions constantly being rewritten to cast a revisionist light on the participants. It was true that Cahuella was regarded as a war criminal now by many observers. In a century, they might be feting him as a hero… me his trusty man-at-arms.
Stranger things had happened.
But it would be very hard to see the outcome of that terrorist ambush in anything but a negative light. Within a week of the ambush, they had used the same stolen weapons to murder most of an aristocratic family in Nueva Santiago.
‘I don’t remember the family’s name.’
‘Reivich, or something,’ Cahuella said. ‘But listen. Those terrorists were animals, agreed. If I could, I’d skin them for wallpaper and make furniture out their bones. But that doesn’t mean I’m overflowing with sympathy for Reivich’s clan. They were rich enough to get offworld. The whole planet’s a shithole. They want somewhere safe to live, there’s a whole galaxy out there.’
‘We have some intelligence that might interest you,’ said Orcagna. ‘The youngest surviving son — Argent Reivich — has sworn vengeance against you.’
‘Sworn vengeance. What is this, a morality play?’ Cahuella held out a hand in front of him. ‘Hey, look. I’m trembling.’
‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ I said. ‘If I had thought it was worth bothering you about, you’d already have known. That’s another thing you pay me for: so you don’t have to worry about every crank with a grudge against us.’
‘But we don’t think the fellow is, as you say, a crank.’ Orcagna examined his black-gloved fingers, pulling each sequentially until there was a tiny pop. ‘Our intelligence suggests that the gentleman has recovered weapons from the same militia which murdered his family. Heavy-particle armaments — suitable for a full-scale assault against a fortified stronghold. We’ve detected signatures from these devices, indicating that they are still operational.’ The Ultra paused, then added, almost casually, ‘It may amuse you to know that the signatures are moving south, down the Peninsula, towards the Reptile House.’
‘Give the positions to me,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet the kid and find out what he wants. It’s possible he just wants to negotiate more arms — he may not have fingered you as the supplier.’
‘Yeah,’ Cahuella said. ‘And I deal in fine wines. Forget it, Tanner. You think I need someone like you to handle a louse like Reivich? You don’t send a pro against an amateur.’ To Orcagna, he said, ‘He’s up country, you say? How far, what kind of territory?’
‘That information can, of course, be provided.’
‘Fucking bloodsucker.’ For a moment his face was blank, then he smiled and pointed at the Ultra. ‘I like you, I really like you. You’re a fucking leech. Name your price, then. I don’t need to know exactly where he is. Give me a positional fix accurate to — oh — a few kilometres. Otherwise it just wouldn’t be fun, would it?’
‘What the hell are you thinking of?’ The words had jumped out of my mouth before I had time to censor them. ‘Reivich may be inexperienced, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous — especially if he has the kind of weapons the militia used against his family.’
‘So it’ll be sporting, then. A real safari. Maybe we’ll catch us a hamadryad while we’re at it.’
‘You like sport,’ Orcagna said, knowingly.
I understood it, then. If Cahuella had not had this audience, he would never have acted like this. If we’d been back in the Reptile House, alone, he would have done the logical thing: ordered me or one of the men under me to take Reivich out with no more ceremony than flushing a toilet. It would have been beneath him to waste his time with someone like Reivich. But in front of the Ultras he could not be seen to show any weakness. He had to play the hunter.
When all was over; when our ambush against Reivich had failed, and when Gitta had been murdered, Cahuella with her, and Dieterling and myself injured, one thing became clearer than anything I had ever known in my life.
It was my fault.
I had allowed Gitta to die through my ineptitude. I had allowed Cahuella to die at the same time. The two deaths were horribly wedded. And Reivich, his hands bloodied with the wife of the man he had really sworn
