The Revelation Space Collection

also have the means to destroy them.’

Despite the timelag he knew he only had a second or so to concoct an answer. ‘What good would that do me, Ilia? I’d be destroying the very things I’ve come to collect.’

Volyova’s response snapped back twenty seconds later. ‘Not necessarily, Clavain. You could just threaten to destroy them. I presume the destruction of a cache weapon would be fairly spectacular no matter which way you went about it? Actually, I don’t need to presume anything. I’ve already seen it happen, and yes, it was spectacular. Why not threaten to detonate one of the weapons still inside my ship and see where that takes you?’

‘You shouldn’t give me ideas,’ he told her.

‘Why not? Because you might do it? I don’t think you can, Clavain. I don’t think you have the means to do anything but stop the weapons from firing.’

She had led him into a trap by then. He could do nothing but follow her. ‘I do…’

‘Then prove it. Send a destruction signal to one of the other weapons, one of those across the system. Why not destroy the one you’ve already stopped?’

‘It would be silly to destroy an irreplaceable weapon just to make a point, wouldn’t it?’

‘That would very much depend on the point you wanted to make, Clavain.’

He realised that he gained nothing more by lying to her. He sighed, feeling a tremendous weight lift off his shoulders. ‘I can’t destroy any of the weapons.’

‘Good…’ she purred. ‘Negotiation is all about transparency, you see. Tell me, can the weapons ever be destroyed remotely, Clavain?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There is a code, unique to each weapon.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t know those codes. But I am searching for them, trying permutations.’

‘So you might get there eventually?’

Clavain scratched his beard. ‘Theoretically. But don’t hold your breath.’

‘You’ll keep searching, though?’

‘I’d like to know what they are, wouldn’t you?’

‘I don’t have to, Clavain. I have my own self-destruct systems grafted to each weapon, entirely independent of anything your own people might have installed at root level.’

‘You strike me as a prudent woman, Ilia.’

‘I take my work very seriously, Clavain. But then so do you.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘So what happens now? I’m still not going to give you the things, you know. I still have other weapons.’

Clavain watched the battle on extreme magnification, glints of light peppering the space around the Triumvir’s ship. The first fatalities had already been recorded. Fifteen of Scorpio’s pigs were dead, killed by Volyova’s hull defences before they got within thirty kilometres of the ship. Other assault teams were reportedly closer — one team might even have reached the hull — but whatever the outcome, it no longer stood any chance of being a bloodless campaign.

‘I know,’ Clavain said, before ending the conversation.

He placed Remontoire in complete control of Zodiacal Light, and then assigned himself one of the last remaining spacecraft in the ship’s bay. The ex-civilian shuttle was one of H’s; he recognised the luminous arcs and slashes of the banshee war markings as they stammered into life. The wasp-waisted ship was small and lightly armoured, but it carried the last functioning inertia-suppression device and that was why he had kept it back until now. On some subconscious level he must have always known he would want to join the battle, and this ship would get him there in little more than an hour.

Clavain was suited-up, cycling through the airlock connection that allowed access to the berthed ship, when she caught up with him.

‘Clavain.’

He turned around, his helmet tucked under his arm. ‘Felka,’ he said.

‘You didn’t tell me you were leaving.’

‘I didn’t have the nerve.’

She nodded. ‘I’d have tried talking you out of it. But I understand. This is something you have to do.’

He nodded without saying anything.

‘Clavain…’

‘Felka, I’m so sorry about what I…’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, taking a step closer. ‘I mean, it does matter — of course it matters — but we can talk about it later. On the way.’

‘On the way where?’ he said stupidly.

‘To battle, Clavain. I’m coming with you.’

It was only then that he realised that she was carrying a suit herself, bundled under one arm, the helmet dangling from her fist like an overripe fruit.

‘Why?’

‘Because if you die, I want to die as well. It’s as simple as that, Clavain.’

They fell away from Zodiacal Light. Clavain watched the ship recede, wondering if he would ever set foot in it again. ‘This won’t be comfortable,’ he warned as he gunned the thrust up to its ceiling. The inertia-suppression bubble swallowed four-fifths of the banshee craft’s mass, but the bubble’s effective radius did not encompass the flight deck. Clavain and Felka felt the full crush of eight gees building up like a series of weights being placed on their chests.

‘I can take it,’ she told him.

‘It’s not too late to turn back.’

‘I’m coming with you. There’s a lot we need to discuss.’

Clavain called a battle realisation into view, appraising any changes that had taken place since he had gone to fetch his spacesuit. His ships swarmed around Nostalgia for Infinity like enraged hornets, arcing tighter with each loop. Twenty-three members of Scorpio’s army were now dead, most of them pigs, but the closest of the attack swarm were now within kilometres of the great ship’s hull; at such close range they became very difficult targets for Volyova’s medium-range defences. Storm Bird, identified by its own fat icon, was now approaching the edge of the combat swarm. The Triumvir had pulled all but one of her hell-class weapons back within cover of the lighthugger. Elsewhere, on the general system-wide view, the wolf weapon continued to sink its single gravitational fang into the meat of the star. Clavain contracted the displays until they were just large enough to view, and then turned to Felka. ‘I’m afraid talking isn’t going to be too easy.’

[Then we won’t talk, will we?]

He looked at her, startled that she had spoken to him in the Conjoiner fashion, opening a window between their heads, pushing words and much more than words into his skull. Felka…

[It’s all right, Clavain. Just because I didn’t do this very often doesn’t mean I couldn’t…]

I never thought you couldn’t… it’s just… They were close enough for Conjoined thought, he realised, even though there was no Conjoiner machinery in the ship itself. The fields generated by their implants were strong enough to influence each other without intermediate amplification, provided they were no more than a few metres apart.

[You’re right. Normally I didn’t want to. But you aren’t just anyone.]

You don’t have to if you don’t…

[Clavain: a word of warning. You can look all the way into my head. There are no barriers, no partitions, no mnemonic blockades. Not to you, at least. But don’t look too deeply. It’s not that you’d see anything private, or anything I’m ashamed of… it’s just…]

I might not be able to take it?

[Sometimes I can’t take it, Clavain, and I’ve lived with it since I was born.]

I understand.

He could see into the surface layers of her personality, feel the surface traffic of her thoughts. The data was