evidently offworld — who had bought enough snakes for the keeper to be able to shut up shop for the rest of the day. That had been yesterday: the man had obviously planned Dominika’s murder long before her actual execution.
The man, the snake seller said, looked a lot like me. Not precisely, but the resemblance was strong if you squinted, and we both spoke with a similar accent, even though the man was far less loquacious.
Of course we spoke similarly. We were not just from the same planet. We were from the same Peninsula.
‘What about the woman who was with him?’ I asked.
He had not mentioned a woman, but there was something in the way he fingered the extremities of his waxed moustache which told me I was right to ask.
‘Now you’re beginning to take up my time,’ he said.
‘Is there anyone or anything in this city which can’t be bought?’ I said, slipping him a note.
‘Yeah,’ the man said, laughing quietly. ‘But I’m not it.’
‘What about the woman?’ I asked, eyeing a caged snake the colour of spearmint. ‘Describe her.’
‘Don’t have to, do I? Don’t they all look the same?’
‘Don’t who all look the same?’
He laughed, louder this time, as if he found my ignorance hysterical. ‘The Mendicants, of course. Seen one, seem ’em all.’
I looked at him in horror.
I had made a call to the Mendicants the day after I arrived in Chasm City. I was trying to reach Sister Amelia; to ask her what — if anything — she knew about Quirrenbach. I had not been able to get through to her; had instead spoken to Brother Alexei and his black eye. But I had been told that she was as interested in seeking me as I was her. The remark had not meant much at the time. But now it detonated in my skull like a starshell.
Sister Amelia was the woman with Tanner.
Zebra’s contacts had not even hinted that the woman was from the Mendicant order. The snake seller, on the other hand, was sure. Maybe I was wrong in assuming that the other woman was always Amelia. But I thought otherwise. I figured she had to be slipping in and out of disguise; either deliberately, or because she just wasn’t thorough enough in maintaining whatever new identity she had concocted.
What was her part in this?
I had trusted her implicitly after my revival. I had allowed her to help my mind heal after the identity- shattering processes of reefersleep. And in the whole time I had spent in the Mendicant habitat, nothing she had done had given any hint that my trust was anything other than well-placed.
But how much did she trust me?
Tanner — the real Tanner — might have come through Hospice Idlewild after me. He must have come through on the same ship from Sky’s Edge, his revival delayed a little after my own, just as my own had been delayed a little after that of Reivich. But I had already used the name Tanner Mirabel, which meant that Tanner had to be travelling under an identity other than his own. Unless he wanted to sound screamingly insane, his mind pulverised by adverse reefersleep trauma, he would not have advertised his real name too quickly. Better to keep up the lie and let the Mendicants think he was someone else.
It was getting confusing. Even I was getting confused. I tried not to think how this must look to Zebra, Chanterelle and the others.
I was not Tanner Mirabel.
I was… something else. Something hideous and reptilian and ancient which my mind recoiled from, but which I could not really continue to ignore. When Amelia and the other Mendicants had revived me, I had been travelling under Tanner’s name and I also carried what appeared to be his memories, skills and — more importantly — the knowledge of his immediate mission. I had never thought to question any of it; everything had seemed correct. Everything had seemed to fit in place.
But all of it had been false.
We were still talking to the snake seller when Zebra’s phone chimed again, a noise almost lost in the ceaseless susurration of rain and the hissing of caged reptiles. She took the phone from her jacket, staring at it suspiciously without actually answering it.
‘It’s coming in on your name, Pransky,’ Zebra said. ‘But you’re the only person who knows that number, and you’re standing right next to me.’
‘I think you should be very careful before answering that call,’ I said. ‘If it’s from who I think it is.’
Zebra cuffed the phone open; Pandora opening the lid of her box, fearful of what might lie within. Speckles of rain dimpled the screen, like a parade of tiny glass beetles. Zebra lifted the phone to her face and said something quietly.
Someone answered her. She said something back — her tone uncertain — and then turned her face to mine.
‘You were right, Tanner. It’s for you.’
I took the phone from her, wondering how something so innocent could contain so much evil. Then I looked into a face which was very much like my own.
‘Tanner,’ I said quietly.
There was an appreciable delay before the man answered, amusement in his voice. ‘Are you asking or telling?’
‘Very funny.’
‘I’ve got something to tell you, you know.’ The voice was faint, backdropped by sounds of machinery. ‘I don’t know if you’ve quite put the pieces together yet.’
‘I’m beginning to.’
Another delay. Tanner was in space, I realised — somewhere near Yellowstone, but appreciable fractions of a light-second away from low-orbit; probably out near the belt of habitats where the Mendicants held tenancy. ‘Good. I won’t insult you by using your real name; not just yet. But this much I will tell you.’
I felt myself stiffen.
‘I’ve come to do what Tanner Mirabel does, which is to complete something he started. I’ve come to kill you — just as you came to kill Reivich. Symmetric, don’t you think?’
‘If you’re in space then you’re already going in the wrong direction. I know you were here before. I found your calling card with Dominika.’
‘Nice touch with the snakes, wasn’t it? Or haven’t you quite figured that part out yet?’
‘I’m doing my best.’
‘I’d love to chat, I really would.’ The face smiled. ‘And maybe we’ll still get the chance.’
I knew it was bait, but I fell for it anyway. ‘Where are you?’
‘On my way to an engagement with someone dear to your heart.’
‘Reivich,’ Quirrenbach said quietly, and I nodded, remembering how Quirrenbach had claimed to be taking us into space — for a meeting with Reivich — before Chanterelle rescued us.
One of the high carousels, he had said. A place called Refuge.
‘Reivich doesn’t figure in this,’ I said. ‘He’s an accessory; nothing more. This is only about you and me. We don’t have to make it any more than it already is.’
‘Quite a change of tune from a man who was intent on killing Reivich up to only a few hours ago,’ Tanner said.
‘Maybe I’m not the man I thought I was. But why do you have to go after Reivich?’
‘Because he’s an innocent.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means he’ll bring you to me.’ Tanner’s smile flashed on the screen, daring me to find fault with his logic. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? You came here to kill him, but you’d rather save him than have me do the job for you.’
I had no idea how I felt, in all truth. Tanner was forcing me to confront questions I had skirted around until now while I dealt with the schism in my memories. But that schism had opened into a cleft which had ripped my
