‘She’s telling the truth,’ Zebra said.
I looked into Tanner’s eyes. He was still stationed behind Reivich’s chair. The three servitors stood inert, as if oblivious to all that was happening around them.
‘There’s just one of you, Tanner,’ I said. ‘I think your number’s finally up.’ I turned to the others. ‘We can take him, if you let me lead. I’ve got his memories. I’ll anticipate every move he makes.’
Quirrenbach and Zebra flanked me, Chanterelle slightly to my rear, while Amelia retreated further behind us.
‘Be careful,’ I whispered. ‘He might have smuggled a weapon into Refuge, even if we didn’t.’
I took two steps closer to Reivich’s throne.
Something moved under the quilt. His other hand, unseen until now, emerged from darkness, clutching a tiny jewelled gun. He levelled it with impressive speed, all frailty gone in the instant of aiming, and squeezed off three shots. The projectiles slammed past me, leaving silver smears on my retina.
Quirrenbach, Zebra and Chanterelle dropped to the floor.
‘Remove them,’ Reivich croaked.
The servitors came to life, all three of them gliding silently past me like ghosts, before kneeling down to pick up the bodies. They carried them away from the light, like spirits returning to the dark of a forest, laden with trophies.
‘You piece of shit,’ I said.
‘They’ll live,’ Reivich said, returning his hand beneath the quilt. ‘They’re just tranquillised.’
‘Why?’
‘I was wondering the same thing myself,’ Tanner said.
‘They spoilt the symmetry. Now it’s just the two of you, don’t you see? The perfect conclusion to your hunt.’ He tilted his skull towards me. ‘You must admit, the simplicity is appealing.’
‘What is it you want?’ Tanner said.
‘What I want is what I already have. The two of you in the same room. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’
‘Not long enough,’ I said. ‘You know more than you admitted, don’t you?’
‘Let’s just say that the intelligence I gained before leaving Sky’s Edge was intriguing, to say the least.’
‘Maybe you know more than me,’ I said.
Reivich poked the nozzle of the gun from under the quilt again, this time directing it back towards Tanner. His aim was no more than approximate, but it seemed to have the desired effect, causing Tanner to step away from the chair until we were equidistant from it. Then he said, ‘Why don’t the two of you tell me what you remember? Then I’ll fill in the gaps.’ He nodded at Tanner. ‘You can start, I think.’
‘Where would you like me to begin?’
‘You can start with the death of Cahuella’s wife, since you brought it about.’
I felt a weird instinct to defend him. ‘He didn’t kill her deliberately, you shit. He was trying to save her life.’
‘Does it matter?’ Tanner said, contemptuously. ‘I just did what I had to do.’
‘Unfortunately you missed,’ Reivich said.
Tanner seemed not to hear. He was speaking now, recounting what he remembered. ‘Maybe I missed; maybe I didn’t. Maybe I knew I’d rather kill her than have her live without her being mine.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘That isn’t how it happened. You tried to save her…’
But I wondered if I really knew.
Tanner continued, ‘Aftewards, I knew Gitta was finished. I could save Cahuella, though. His injuries weren’t that bad. So I kept them both on life-support until I got back to the Reptile House.’
I nodded involuntarily, remembering the hellish length of the journey back through the jungle, suppressing the pain of my own severed foot. Except it never happened to me… it happened to Tanner, and I only knew about it from his memories…
‘When I got back I was met by some of Cahuella’s other staff. They took the bodies from me and did what they could for Gitta, even though they knew it was pointless. Cahuella was in a coma for a few days, but he came round eventually. He didn’t remember too much of what had happened, though.’
I remembered waking after a long and dreamless sleep, choked by fever, consumed with the knowledge that I’d been impaled. And remembered not remembering what had happened. I called for Tanner, and was told that he was injured but alive. No one mentioned Gitta.
‘Tanner came to see me,’ I said, taking over the narrative. ‘I saw that he had lost a foot, and knew that something very bad had happened to us. But I hardly remembered anything, except that we had gone north to set up an ambush for Reivich’s party.’
‘You asked for Gitta. You remembered she’d been with us.’
Fragments of that long-forgotten conversation were coming back to me now, as if recalled through layers of gauze.
‘And you told me. Everything. You could have lied — made up some story which protected you; said that Reivich’s man had killed her — but you didn’t. You told it exactly as it happened.’
‘What would have been the point?’ Tanner said. ‘You’d have remembered it all eventually.’
‘But you must have known.’
‘Must have known what?’ Reivich said.
‘That I’d kill you for it.’
‘Ah,’ Reivich said, a soft phlegmatic chuckle emerging from his life-support module. ‘Now we’re almost there. The crux of it all.’
‘I didn’t think you’d kill me,’ Tanner said. ‘I thought you’d forgive me. I didn’t even think I’d need forgiveness.’
‘Maybe you didn’t know me quite as well as you thought.’
‘Maybe I didn’t.’
Reivich tapped his empty hand against the ornate armrest of his chair, his blackened nails clicking against the metalwork. ‘So you had him murdered,’ he said, addressing me. ‘But in a manner tailored to your own obsessions.’
‘I don’t really remember,’ I said.
And it was almost the truth.
I recalled looking down on Tanner, imprisoned within that ceilingless white enclosure. I remembered the way he slowly became aware of his predicament; aware that he was not alone. That something else shared the space with him.
‘Tell me what you remember,’ Reivich said, turning to Tanner.
His voice was as flat and devoid of emotion as Reivich’s synthetic tones. ‘I remember being eaten alive. It’s not something you forget in a hurry, believe me.’
And I remembered how the hamadryad had died almost instantly, killed by the alien poisons which every human carried; a fatal clash of metabolisms. The creature had spasmed and curled like a loose firehose.
‘We slit it open,’ I said. ‘Removed Tanner from its throat. He wasn’t breathing. But his heart was still beating.’
‘You could have ended it there and then,’ Reivich said. ‘A knife to the heart, and it would have been over. But you had to take one more thing from him, didn’t you?’
‘I needed his identity. His memories, particularly. So I had him kept alive on a cuirass while a trawl was prepared.’
‘Why?’ Reivich said.
‘To chase you. I knew by then that you’d left the planet; that you’d soon be aboard a lighthugger making the run to Yellowstone. I’d punished Tanner. Now I had to do the same to you, for Gitta’s sake. But I needed to become Tanner to do it.’
‘You could have become anyone on the planet.’
‘His skills suited me. And I had him to hand.’ I paused. ‘It was never meant to be permanent. I suppressed my own identity just long enough to get aboard the ship. Tanner’s memories were meant to fade gradually. They’d remain as a residue — as they do now — but distinct from my own.’
‘And your other secrets?’
