see my predicament. Here. Perhaps this will assist matters.’
A figure grew to solidity next to the palanquin, imaged by the room itself.
It was a woman, of course — young, but paradoxically clothed in the kind of finery which no one had worn on Yellowstone since the plague; enrobed in swirling entoptics. The woman’s black hair was raked back from a noble forehead, held in a clasp inwoven with lights. Her electric-blue gown left her shoulders bare, cut away in a daring decolletage. Where it reached the floor it blurred into nothingness.
‘This is how I was,’ the figure spoke. ‘Before the foulness.’
‘Can’t you still be like that?’
‘The risk of leaving enclosure is too great — even in the hermetic sanctuaries. I distrust their precautions.’
‘Why have you brought me here?’
‘Didn’t Manoukhian explain things fully?’
‘Not exactly, no. Other than explaining how it wouldn’t be good for my health not to go along with him.’
‘How indelicate of him. But not inaccurate, it must be admitted.’ A smile upset the pale composure of the woman’s face. ‘What do you suppose were my reasons for bringing you here?’
Khouri knew that, whatever else had happened, she had seen too much to return to normal life in the city.
‘I’m a professional assassin. Manoukhian saw me at work and told me I was as good as my reputation. Now — maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here — but it occurs to me you might want someone killed.’
‘Yes, very good.’ The figure nodded. ‘But did Manoukhian tell you this would not be the same as your usual contracts?’
‘He mentioned an important difference, yes.’
‘And would this trouble you?’ The Mademoiselle studied her intensely. ‘It’s an interesting point, isn’t it? I’m well aware that your usual targets consent to be assassinated before you go after them. But they do so in the knowledge that they will probably evade you and live to boast about it. When you do catch them, I doubt that many of them go gently.’
She thought of Taraschi. ‘Usually not, no. Usually they’re begging me not to do it, trying to bribe me, that kind of thing.’
‘And?’
Khouri shrugged. ‘I kill them anyway.’
‘The attitude of a true professional. You were a soldier, Khouri?’
‘Once.’ She did not really want to think about that now. ‘How much do you know about what happened to me?’
‘Enough. That your husband was a soldier as well — a man named Fazil — and that you fought together on Sky’s Edge. And then something happened. A clerical error. You were put aboard a ship destined for Yellowstone. No one realised the error until you woke up here, twenty years later. Too late by then to return to the Edge — even if you knew Fazil was still alive. He would be forty years older by the time you got back.’
‘Now you know why becoming an assassin didn’t exactly give me any sleepless nights.’
‘No; I can imagine how you felt. That you owed the universe no favours — nor anyone living in it.’
Khouri swallowed. ‘But you don’t need an ex-soldier for a job like this. You don’t even need me: I don’t know who you want to take out, but there are better people around than me. I mean, I’m technically good — I only miss one shot in twenty. But I know people who only miss one in fifty.’
‘You suit my needs in another manner. I need someone who is more than willing to leave the city.’ The figure nodded towards the open reefersleep casket. ‘And by that, I mean a long journey.’
‘Out of the system?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was patient and matronly, as if the rudiments of this conversation had been rehearsed dozens of times. ‘Specifically, a distance of twenty light-years. That’s how far away Resurgam is.’
‘I can’t say I’ve heard of it.’
‘I would be troubled if you had.’ The Mademoiselle extended her left hand, and a little globe sprang into existence a few inches above her palm. The world was deathly grey — there were no oceans, rivers or greenery. Only a skein of atmosphere — visible as a fine arc near the horizon — and a pair of dirty-white icecaps suggested this was anything other than some airless moon. ‘It’s not even one of the newer colonies — not what we’d call a colony, anyway. There are only a few tiny research outposts on the whole planet. Until recently Resurgam has been of no significance whatsoever. But all that has changed.’ The Mademoiselle paused, seeming to collect her thoughts, perhaps debating how much to reveal at this stage. ‘Someone has arrived on Resurgam — a man called Sylveste.’
‘That’s not a very common name.’
‘Then you are aware of his clan’s standing in Yellowstone. Good. That simplifies matters enormously. You will have no difficulty finding him.’
‘There’s more to it than just finding him, isn’t there?’
‘Oh yes,’ the Mademoiselle said. Then she snatched at the globe with her hand, crushing it between her fingers, rivulets of dust pouring between them. ‘Very much more.’
FOUR
Volyova disembarked from the lighthugger’s shuttle and followed Triumvir Hegazi down the exit tunnel. Via twisting gaskets, the tunnel led them into the weightless hub of a spherical transit lounge at the heart of the carousel.
Every fractured strain of humanity was there; a bewildering free-floating riot of colour, like tropical fish in a feeding frenzy. Ultras, Skyjacks, Conjoiners, Demarchists, local traders, intrasystem passengers, freeloaders, mechanics, all following what seemed to be completely random trajectories, but never quite colliding, no matter how perilously close they came. Some — where their bodyplans allowed it — had diaphanous wings sewn under their sleeves, or attached directly to the skin. The less adventurous made do with slim thrust-packs, or allowed themselves to be pulled along by tiny rented tugs. Personal servitors flew through the throng, carrying baggage and folded spacesuits, while liveried, winged capuchin monkeys foraged for litter, tucking what they found into marsupial pouches under their chests. Chinese music tinkled pervasively through the air, sounding to Volyova’s untutored ear like windchimes stirred by a breeze with a particular taste for dissonance. Yellowstone, thousands of kilometres below, was an ominous yellow-brown backdrop to all this activity.
Volyova and Hegazi reached the far side of the transit sphere and moved through a matter-permeable membrane into a customs area. It was another free-fall sphere, wall festooned with autonomic weapons which tracked each arrival. Transparent bubbles filled the central volume, each three metres wide and split open along an equatorial bisector. Sensing the newcomers, two bubbles drifted through the airspace and clamped themselves around them.
A small servitor hung inside Volyova’s bubble, shaped like a Japanese Kabuto helmet, with various sensors and readout devices projecting from beneath the rim. She felt a neural tingle as the thing trawled her, like someone daintily rearranging flowers in her head.
‘I detect residual Russish linguistic structures but determine that Modern Norte is your standard tongue. Will this suffice for bureaucratic processing?’
‘It’ll do,’ Volyova said, miffed that the thing had detected the rustiness of her native language.
‘Then I shall continue in Norte. Apart from reefersleep mediation systems, I detect no cerebral implants or exosomatic perceptual modification devices. Do you require the loan of an implant before the continuation of this interview?’
‘Just give me screen and a face.’
‘Very well.’
A face resolved beneath the rim. The face was female and white, with just a hint of Mongolism, hair as short as Volyova’s own. She guessed that Hegazi’s interviewer would appear male, moustached, dark-skinned and heavily
