prayer.
‘Oliveira,’ said Gomez, reading the nameplate on the helmet. ‘That’s a Portuguese name. He must have come from the Brazilia.’
‘Why did he die here?’ said Norquinco. ‘He had power, didn’t he? He could have made it back home.’
‘Not necessarily.’ Sky pointed to one of the status displays. ‘He might have had power, but he certainly didn’t have any fuel. He must have burned it all getting here in a hurry.’
‘So what? There must still be dozens of shuttles inside the Caleuche. He could have ditched this one and taken another one back.’
Gradually they formed a working hypothesis to explain the dead man’s presence. No one had heard of Oliveira, but then again he was from another ship and he would certainly have vanished many years ago.
Oliveira must have learned about the Caleuche as well, perhaps in the same way Sky had: a slow accretion of rumour which had eventually hardened into fact. Like Sky, he had decided to go back and see what the ghost ship had to offer, perhaps hoping to score some massive advantage for his own crew, or — just possibly — himself. So he had taken a shuttle, secretly, one presumed, but he had also decided to make the dash at a high fuel expenditure. Perhaps he was forced into this strategy by a narrow window in which his absence would not be noticed. It must have seemed a reasonable risk to take. After all, as Gomez had said, there would be fuel supplies aboard the Caleuche — other shuttles, for that matter. Getting back ought not to have proved problematic.
Yet evidently it had.
‘There’s a message here,’ Norquinco said, peering over one of the readouts.
‘What?’
‘Like I said. A message. From, um, him, I presume.’ Before there was any time for Sky to ask him, Norquinco had called up the message, translated it through several software protocols and then piped it through to their suits, with the audio track playing over the normal comms channel and the visual component projected as a head-up display, making Oliveira’s ghostly form seem to join them in the cabin. He was still wearing the same suit he had died in, but now he had the helmet visor raised over the helmet’s crown so that they could see his face properly. He was a young-looking man with dark skin and a look in his eyes of both horror and profound resignation.
‘I think I’m going to kill myself,’ he said, speaking Portuguese. ‘I think that’s what I’m going to do. I think it’s the only sensible course of action. I think, in my circumstances, that’s what you would have done. It won’t take any great courage on my behalf. There are a dozen painless ways to kill yourself in a spacesuit. Some of them are better than painless, I’m told. I’ll know soon enough. Let me know if I died with a smile on my face, won’t you? I hope I do. Anything else just wouldn’t be fair, would it?’
Sky had to concentrate to follow the words, but it was not insurmountably difficult. As security officer it had been his duty to have a good grasp of the Flotilla’s other languages — and Portuguese was a lot closer to Castellano than Arabic.
‘I’m going to assume that you — whoever you are — have come here for much the same reason I did. Sheer, unadulterated greed. Well, I can’t really blame you for that — and if you’ve come here for some infinitely more altruistic reason, you must accept my very humble apologies. But somehow I doubt it. Like me, you must have heard about the ghost ship and wondered what she had on board worth plundering. I just hope that you didn’t make quite the same miscalculation I did, concerning her fuel supplies. Or maybe you did, and you already understand exactly what I’m talking about, because you’ve been inside her. And if you do need the fuel, and you haven’t been inside her yet, well — I’m sorry — but you have something of a disappointment coming. If that’s quite the word I’m looking for.’ He paused, glancing down at the top of his suit’s life-support tabard. ‘Because she isn’t quite what you thought she is. She’s infinitely less. And infinitely more. I should know. I’ve been inside her. We both have.’
‘Both?’ Sky said, aloud.
It was as if the man had heard him. ‘Or maybe you haven’t found Lago yet. Did I mention Lago? I should have — my mistake. He used to be a good friend of mine, but now I think he’s the reason I’m going to kill myself. Oh, I can’t get home without fuel, I know that — and if I asked for help, I’d be executed for coming here in the first place. Even if the Brazilia didn’t hang me, the other ships would. No — there’s really no way out. But like I said, it’s Lago that really has me convinced. Poor, poor Lago. I only sent him to look for fuel. I’m really so very sorry.’ Suddenly, as if snapping out of a muse, he seemed to look all of them in the eye individually. ‘Did I tell you the other thing? That if you can, you should leave immediately? I’m not sure I did.’
‘Turn the fucking thing off,’ Sky said.
Norquinco hesitated, then obeyed, leaving Oliveira’s ghost hanging there with them, frozen in the middle of his soliloquy.
THIRTY-FOUR
‘Get out,’ Chanterelle said when the forward door had opened and Quirrenbach’s bruised and bloodied face had looked out. ‘You too,’ she said, pointing the barrel of her gun at the other heavy, who — unlike his associate — was still conscious.
‘I think I owe you thanks,’ I said, doubtfully. ‘You were hoping I’d survive that attack, weren’t you?’
‘It occurred to me you might. Are you all right, Tanner? You look a bit on the pale side.’
‘It’ll pass.’
Chanterelle’s three friends, who had maintained a surly detachment, had Voronoff; he was already safely aboard Chanterelle’s car, nursing a shattered wrist. They’d given me barely more than a sideways glance, but I couldn’t blame them for that. The last time we had met had been when I put bullets through their legs.
‘You’re in grave trouble,’ Quirrenbach said, once we were in the car and he had Chanterelle’s undivided attention. ‘Whoever you are.’
‘I know who she is,’ Voronoff said, gazing down at his wrist while the car deployed a little servitor to tend the wound. ‘Chanterelle Sammartini. She’s a hunt player. One of the better ones, whatever that means.’
‘How the hell would you know?’ Quirrenbach said.
‘Because she was with Mirabel the night he tried to take me down. I had her checked out.’
‘Not very thoroughly,’ Quirrenbach said.
‘Piss off. You were meant to be shadowing him, in case you forgot.’
‘Now, now, boys,’ Zebra said, the gun resting casually on her knee. ‘Just because they’ve taken your big guns from you, no need to squabble.’
Quirrenbach stabbed a finger at Chanterelle. ‘Why the hell is Taryn still holding a gun, Sammartini? She’s one of us, in case you didn’t realise.’
‘According to Tanner she stopped working for you some time ago.’ Chanterelle smiled. ‘Frankly, I’m not surprised.’
‘Thanks,’ Zebra said, guardedly. ‘I’m not sure why you trust me, though. I mean, I definitely wouldn’t.’
‘Tanner said I should. Tanner and I have had a few points of disagreement, but I’m prepared to take his word on this one. Can I trust you, Zebra?’
She smiled. ‘You’re not exactly spoilt for choice, are you?’ Then added, ‘Well, Tanner — what happens now?’
‘Exactly what Quirrenbach had in mind all along,’ I said. ‘A trip to Refuge.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? It has to be a trap.’
‘It’s also the only way I’ll ever end this. Reivich knew that as well, didn’t he?’
Quirrenbach said nothing for a few moments, as if uncertain of whether he had won, or had in fact lost beyond all hope of redemption. Then, weakly, he said, ‘We’ll need to go to the space-port, then.’
‘Eventually, yes.’ Now it was my turn to play games. ‘But there’s somewhere I want to go first, Quirrenbach. Somewhere closer. And I think you know how to take me there.’
I pulled out the vial of Dream Fuel which Zebra had given me; spent now. ‘Ring any bells?’
I hadn’t known for certain that Quirrenbach would be any closer to the Dream Fuel production centre than Vadim, but it was a reasonable guess. Vadim had carried supplies of the drug, but his little empire of extortion was restricted to the Rust Belt and its orbital environs. Only Quirrenbach moved freely between Chasm City and space,
