Captain was at least prepared to let her discuss the outside events. On the other hand, she had yet to raise any of the subjects that usually triggered a shutdown.
Well, it was now or never.
‘I think we can, Captain. Perhaps not stop the machines for good, but at least throw a fairly large spanner into their works.’ She eyed her bracelet, noting that nothing unusual was happening elsewhere in the ship. ‘Of course, I’m talking about a military strike. I don’t think reasoned argument is going to work against a force that dismantles three of your planets without even saying “please” first.’
There was something then, she thought. A tremor reaching her from somewhere else in the ship. It had happened before, and it seemed to mean something, but exactly what she was not prepared to say. It was certainly a kind of communication from whatever intelligence ruled the ship, but not necessarily of the sort she might have wished for. It was more a sign of irritation, like the low growl of a dog that did not like being disturbed.
‘Captain… I understand this is difficult. I swear I do. But we have to do something, and soon. A deployment of the cache weapons would seem to me to be our only option. We have thirty-three of them left; thirty-nine if we can salvage and re-arm the six I deployed against Hades… but I think even thirty-three will be sufficient if we can use them well and use them soon.’
The tremor intensified, subsided. She was really touching a nerve now, she thought. But the Captain was still listening. ‘The weapon we lost on the edge of the system may have been the most powerful we had,’ she went on, ‘but the six we discarded were, by my estimate at least, at the lower end of the destructive scale of the others. I think we can make do, Captain. Shall I tell you my plan? I propose that we target the three worlds where the matter streams are coming from. Ninety per cent of the extracted mass is still in orbit around each collapsed body, although more and more is being pumped towards Roc. Most of the Inhibitor machines are still around those moons. They might not survive a surprise attack, and even if they do, we can disperse and contaminate those matter reservoirs.’
She began to talk faster, intoxicated with the way the plan was unfolding in her mind. ‘The machines might be able to regroup, but they’ll need to find new worlds to dismantle. But we can beat them at that as well. We can use the other cache weapons to rip apart as many probable candidates as we can find. We can poison their wells; stop them from doing any more mining. That’ll make it harder — perhaps even impossible — for them to finish what they have in mind for the gas giant. We have a chance, but there’s a catch, Captain. You’ll have to help us do it.’
She looked at the bracelet again. Still nothing had happened, and she allowed herself to breathe a mental sigh of relief. She would not push him much more now. Merely discussing the need for his co-operation had gone further than she had imagined would be possible.
But it came, then: a distant, growing howl of angry air. She heard it shrieking towards her through kilometres of corridor.
‘Captain… ’
But it was too late. The gale stormed the command sphere, knocking her to the floor with its ferocity. The cigarette butt flew from her hand and executed several orbits of the chamber, caught in a whirlwind of ship air. Rats and sundry other items of loose ship debris precessed with it.
She found it hard to talk. ‘Captain… I didn’t mean… ’ But then even breathing became difficult. The wind sent her skidding across the floor, arms windmilling. The noise was excruciating, like an amplification of all the years, all the decades of pain that John Brannigan had known.
Then the gale died down, and the chamber was still again. Somewhere else in the ship all he had needed to do was open a pressure lock into one of the chambers that was normally under hard vacuum. Very likely no air had actually reached space during his show of strength, but the effect had been as unnerving as any hull rupture.
Ilia Volyova got to her feet. Nothing seemed to be broken. She dusted herself down and, shaking, lit herself another cigarette. She smoked it for at least two minutes, until her nerves were as steady as they were going to get.
Then she spoke again, calmly and quietly, like a parent talking to a baby that had just thrown a tantrum. ‘Very well, Captain. You’ve made your point very effectively. You don’t want to talk about the cache weapons. Fine. That’s your prerogative, and I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. But understand this: we’re not just talking about a small local matter here. Those Inhibitor machines haven’t just arrived around Delta Pavonis. They’ve arrived
She took another drag on the cigarette. The rats had scampered back into the darkness and slime and the ship felt almost normal again. He appeared to have forgiven her that one indiscretion.
She continued, ‘The machines haven’t paid us much attention yet. But my guess is they’ll get around to it eventually. And do you want my theory as to why we haven’t been attacked so far? It might be that they just don’t see us yet; that their senses are attuned to signs of life on a much larger scale than just a single ship. It could also be that there’s no need to worry about us; that it would be a waste of effort to go to the trouble of wiping us out individually when what they’re working on will do the job just as effectively. I suspect that’s how they think, Captain. On a much larger, slower scale than we’re used to. Why go to the trouble of squashing a single fly when you’re about to exterminate the entire species? And if we’re going to do something about them, we have to start thinking a little bit like them. We need the cache, Captain.’
The room shuddered; the display illumination and the surrounding lights failed. Volyova looked at her bracelet, unsurprised to see that the ship was in the process of going catatonic again. Servitors were shutting down on all levels, abandoning whatever tasks they had been assigned. Even some of her bilge pumps were dying; she could hear the subtle change in the background note as units dropped out of the chorus. Warrens of shipboard corridor would be plunged into darkness. Elevators would not be guaranteed to arrive. Life was about to get harder again, and for a few days — perhaps a few weeks — merely surviving aboard the ship would require most of her energies.
‘Captain…’ she said softly, doubtful that anything was now listening. ‘Captain, you have to understand: I’m not going to go away. And nor are they.’
Alone, standing in darkness, Volyova smoked what remained of her cigarette then, when she was done, she pulled out her torch, flicked it on and left the bridge.
The Triumvir was busy. She had much work to do.
Remontoire stood on the adhesive skin of Skade’s comet, waving at an approaching spacecraft.
It came in hesitantly, nosing towards the dark surface with evident suspicion. It was a small ship, only slightly larger than the corvette that had brought them here in the first place. Globular turrets bulged from its hull, swivelling this way and that. Remontoire blinked against the red glare of a targeting laser, then the beam passed, doodling patterns on the ground, surveying it for booby-traps.
‘You said there were two of you,’ said the commander of the ship, his voice buzzing in Remontoire’s helmet. ‘I see only one.’
‘Skade was injured. She’s inside the comet, being looked after by the Master of Works. Why are you speaking to me vocally?’
‘You could be a trap.’
‘I’m Remontoire. Don’t you recognise me?’
‘Wait. Turn a little to the left so I can see your face through your visor.’
A moment passed while the ship loitered, scrutinising him. Then it eased closer and fired its own set of grapples, ramming them hard into the ground where the three severed lines were still anchored. Remontoire felt the impacts drum through the membrane, the epoxy tightening its grip on his soles.
He tried to establish neural communication with the pilot.
