Volyova watched as her recruit appraised the titanic size of the nearest cache-weapon. Suspended vertically, its long axis aligned with the ship’s axis of thrust, it looked like a ceremonial sword dangling from a warrior-baron’s ceiling. Like all the weapons, it was surrounded by a framework which had been added by one of Volyova’s predecessors, to which were attached various control, monitoring and manoeuvring systems. All the weapons were connected to tracks — a three-dimensional maze of sidings and switches — which merged lower down in the chamber, feeding into a much smaller volume directly below, large enough to contain a single weapon. From there, the weapons could be deployed beyond the hull, into space.
‘So who built them?’ Khouri said.
‘We don’t know for sure. The Conjoiners, perhaps, in one of their darker incarnations. All we know is how we found them — hidden away in an asteroid, circling a brown dwarf so obscure it has only a catalogue number.’
‘You were there?’
‘No; this was long before my time. I only inherited them from the last caretaker — and he from his. I’ve been studying them ever since. I’ve managed to access the control systems of thirty-one of them, and I’ve figured out — very roughly — about eighty per cent of the necessary activation codes. But I’ve only tested seventeen of the weapons, and of that number, only two in what you might term actual combat situations.’
‘You mean you’ve actually used them?’
‘It wasn’t something I rushed into.’
No need, she thought, to burden Khouri with details of past atrocities — at least, not immediately. Over time, Khouri would come to know the cache-weapons as well as Volyova knew them — perhaps even more intimately, since Khouri would know them via the gunnery, through direct neural-interface.
‘What can they do?’
‘Some of them are more than capable of taking planets apart. Others… I don’t even want to guess. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of them did unpleasant things to stars. Exactly who’d want to use such weapons…’ She trailed off.
‘Who did you use them against?’
‘Enemies, of course.’
Khouri regarded her for long, silent seconds.
‘I don’t know whether to be horrified that such things exist… or relieved to know that at least it’s us who have our fingers on the triggers.’
‘Be relieved,’ Volyova said. ‘It’s better that way.’
Sylveste and Pascale returned to the spire, hovering. The winged Amarantin was just as they had left it, but now it seemed to brood over the city with imperious disregard. It was tempting to think that a new god really had moved in — what else could have inspired the building of such a monument, if not fear of the divine? But the accompanying text on the spire was maddeningly hard to unscramble.
‘Here’s a reference to the Birdmaker,’ Sylveste said. ‘So chances are good the spire had some bearing on the Burning Wings myth, even though the winged god clearly isn’t a representation of the Birdmaker.’
‘Yes,’ Pascale said. ‘That’s the graphicform for fire, next to the one for wings.’
‘What else do you see?’
Pascale concentrated for a few long moments. ‘There’s some reference here to a renegade flock.’
‘Renegade in what sense?’ He was testing her, and she knew it, but the exercise was valuable in itself, for Pascale’s interpretation would give him some indication of how subjective his own analysis had been.
‘A renegade flock which didn’t agree to the deal with the Birdmaker, or reneged on the deal afterwards.’
‘That’s what I thought. I was worried I might have made an error or two.’
‘Whoever they were, they were called the Banished Ones.’ She read back and forth, testing hypotheses and revising her interpretation as she went. ‘It looks like they were originally part of the flock who agreed to the Birdmaker’s terms, but that they changed their minds sometime later.’
‘Can you make out the name of their leader?’
She began: ‘They were led by an individual called…’ But then Pascale trailed off. ‘No, can’t translate that string; at least not right now. What does all this mean, anyway? Do you think they really existed?’
‘Perhaps. If I had to take a guess, I’d say they were unbelievers who came to realise that the Birdmaker myth was just that — myth. Of course, that wouldn’t have gone down very well with the other fundamentalist flocks.’
‘Which is why they were banished?’
‘Assuming they ever existed in the first place. But I can’t help thinking, what if they were some kind of technological sect, like an enclave of scientists? Amarantin who were prepared to experiment, to question the nature of their world?’
‘Like mediaeval alchemists?’
‘Yes.’ He liked the analogy immediately. ‘Perhaps they even tried experimenting with flight, the way Leonardo did. Against the backdrop of general Amarantin culture, that would have been like spitting in God’s eye.’
‘Agreed. But assuming they were real — and were banished — what happened to them? Did they just die out?’
‘I don’t know. But one thing’s clear. The Banished Ones were important — more than just a minor detail in the overall story of the Birdmaker myth. They’re mentioned all over the spire; all over this damned city, in fact — far more frequently than in any other Amarantin relics.’
‘But the city is late,’ Pascale said. ‘Apart from the marker obelisk, it’s the most recent relic we’ve found. Dating from near the Event. Why would the Banished Ones suddenly crop up again, after so long an absence?’
‘Well,’ Sylveste said. ‘Maybe they came back.’
‘After — what? Tens of thousands of years?’
‘Perhaps.’ Sylveste smiled privately. ‘If they did return — after that long away — it might be the kind of thing to inspire statue-building. ’
‘Then the statue — do you think it might portray their leader? The one called—’ Pascale took another stab at the graphicform. ‘Well, this is the symbol for the sun, isn’t it?’
‘And the rest?’
‘I’m not sure. Looks like the glyph for the act of… theft — but how can that be?’
‘Put the two together, what have you got?’
He imagined her shrugging, noncommittally. ‘One who steals suns? Sun Stealer? What would that mean?’
Sylveste shrugged himself. ‘That’s what I’ve been asking myself all morning. That and one other thing.’
‘Which would be?’
‘Why I think I’ve heard that name before.’
After the weapons chamber, the three of them rode another elevator further into the ship’s heart.
‘You’re doing well,’ the Mademoiselle said. ‘Volyova honestly believes that she’s turned you to her side.’
She had, more or less, been with them the whole time — silently observing Volyova’s guided tour, only occasionally interjecting with remarks or prompts for Khouri’s ears only. This was extremely disquieting: Khouri was never able to free herself of the feeling that Volyova was also privy to these whispered asides.
‘Maybe she’s right,’ Khouri answered, automatically thinking her response. ‘Maybe she’s stronger than you.’
The Mademoiselle scoffed. ‘Did you listen to anything I told you?’
‘As if I had any choice.’
Shutting out the Mademoiselle when she wanted to say something was like trying to silence an insistent refrain playing in her head. There was no respite from her apparitions.
‘Listen,’ the woman said. ‘If my countermeasures were failing, your loyalty to Volyova would force you to tell her of my existence.’
‘I’ve been tempted.’
The Mademoiselle looked at her askance, and Khouri felt a brief frisson of satisfaction. In some respects the
