‘You’re ahead of me,’ Quaiche said.
‘I think we’re all ahead of each other in certain respects,’ Grelier said. He scooped his swab under an eyelid, the tip yellow with infection. ‘Is it true what he said, about the delegates taking over their ship?’
‘I don’t think he’d have any reason to lie,’ Quaiche said.
‘You set that up?’
‘I needed their ship,’ Quaiche said. He sounded like a child explaining why he had been caught stealing apples.
‘We know that much. Why else did you spend all that time looking for the right one? But now that they’ve brought the ship, what’s the problem? You’re better off letting them run it, if protection’s what you want.’
‘It was never about protection.’
Grelier froze, the swab still buried under the dean’s eyelid. ‘It wasn’t?’
‘I wanted a ship,’ Quaiche said. ‘Didn’t matter which one, so long as it was in reasonably good condition and the engines worked. It wasn’t as if I was planning on taking it very far.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Grelier said.
‘I know why,’ the man said. ‘At least, I think I have a good idea. It’s about Hela, isn’t it?’
Grelier looked at him. ‘What about it?’
‘He’s going to take our ship and land it on this planet. Somewhere near the equator, I’d guess. He’s probably already constructed something for docking — a cradle of some kind.’
‘A cradle?’ Grelier said blankly.
‘A holdfast,’ Quaiche said, as if that explained everything. Grelier thought about the diverted Permanent Way resources, the fleet of construction machines Rashmika had described to him. Now he knew exactly what they were for. They must have been on their way to the holdfast — whatever that was — to put the finishing touches to it.
‘Just one question,’ Grelier said. ‘Why?’
‘He’s going to land the ship sideways,’ the man replied. ‘Lie it down on Hela with the hull aligned east-west, parallel to the equator. Then he’ll lock it in place, so that it can’t move.’
‘There’s a point to all this?’ Grelier said.
‘There will be when I start the engines,’ Quaiche said, unable to contain himself. ‘Then you’ll see. Then everyone will see.’
‘He’s going to change the spin rate of Hela,’ the man said. ‘He’s going to use the ship’s engines to lock Hela into synchronous rotation around Haldora. He doesn’t have to change the length of the day by much — twelve minutes will do the trick. Won’t they, Dean?’
‘One part in two hundred,’ Quaiche said. ‘Sounds trivial, doesn’t it? But worlds — even small ones like Hela — take a lot of shifting. I always knew I’d need a lighthugger to do it. Think about it: if those engines can push a million tonnes of ship to within a scratch of the speed of light, I think they can change Hela’s day by twelve minutes.’
Grelier retrieved the swab from under Quaiche’s eyelid. ‘What God failed to put right, you can fix. Is that it?’
‘Now don’t go giving me delusions of grandeur,’ Quaiche chided.
Vasko’s bracelet chimed. He looked at it, not daring to move.
‘Answer it,’ Quaiche said eventually. ‘Then we can all hear how things are going.’
Vasko did as he was told. He listened to the report very carefully, then snapped the bracelet from his wrist and passed it to Grelier. ‘Listen to it yourself,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll find it very interesting.’
Grelier examined the bracelet, his lips pursed in suspicion. ‘I’ll take this call, I think,’ he said.
‘Suits me either way,’ Vasko said.
Grelier listened to the voice coming out of the bracelet. He spoke into it carefully, then listened to the answers, nodding occasionally, raising his snow-white eyebrows in mock astonishment. Then he shrugged and passed it back to Vasko.
‘What?’ Quaiche said.
‘The Cathedral Guard have failed in their attempt to take the ship,’ he said. ‘They’ve been cut to shreds, including the reinforcements. I had a nice chat with the pig in command of ship operations. Seemed a very reasonable fellow, for a pig.’
‘No,’ Quaiche breathed. ‘Seyfarth gave me his promise. He told me he had the men to do it. It can’t have failed.’
‘It did.’
‘What happened? What did they have on that ship that Seyfarth didn’t know about? A whole army?’
‘That’s not what the pig says.’
‘The pig’s right,’ Vasko said. ‘It was the ship that ruined your plans. It’s not like other ships, not inside. It has ideas of its own. It didn’t take very kindly to your intruders.’
‘This wasn’t how it was meant to happen,’ Quaiche moaned.
‘You’re in a spot of bother, I think,’ Grelier said. ‘The pig mentioned something about taking the cathedral by force.’
‘They set me up,’ Quaiche said, realisation dawning.
‘Oh, don’t think ill of them. They just wanted access to Haldora. It wasn’t their fault they stumbled into your scheme. They’d have left you alone if you hadn’t tried to use them.’
‘We’re in trouble,’ Quaiche said quietly.
‘Actually,’ Grelier said, as if remembering something important, ‘things aren’t quite as bad as you think.’ He leant closer to the dean, then looked back at the three people sitting around the table. ‘We still have a bit of leverage, you see.’
‘We do?’ Quaiche said.
‘Give me the bracelet,’ he told Vasko.
Vasko passed it to him. Grelier smiled and spoke into it. ‘Hello, is that the pig? Nice to speak to you again. Got a bit of news for you. We have the girl. If you want her back in one piece, I suggest you start taking instructions.’
Then he handed the bracelet to the dean. ‘You’re on,’ he said.
FORTY-FOUR
Scorpio struggled to hear the whispery, paper-thin voice of Dean Quaiche. He held up a hand to silence his companions, screwing his eyes closed against the tight, nagging discomfort of his sealed wounds. His work finished, Valensin began wrapping up the soiled blood-red bundle of surgical tools and ointments.
‘I don’t know about any girl,’ Scorpio said.
The dean’s answer was like a scratch of nails against tin. ‘Her name is Rashmika Els. Her real name, I neither know nor care. What I do know is that she arrived on Hela from your ship nine years ago. We’ve established the connection beyond any doubt. And so much else suddenly tumbles into place.’
‘It does?’
The voice changed: it was the other man again, the surgeon-general. ‘I don’t know exactly how you did it,’ he said, ‘but I’m impressed. Buried memories, autosuggestion… what was it?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘The business with the Vigrid constabulary.’
Again, ‘I’m sorry?’
‘The girl had to be primed to emerge from her shell. There must have been a trigger. Perhaps after eight or nine years she knew, on a subconscious level, that she had spent enough time amongst the badland villagers to begin the next phase of her infiltration: penetrating the highest level of our very order. Why, I don’t yet know, although I’m a wee bit inclined to think
Scorpio said nothing. He let the man continue speaking.
‘She had to wait until a means arrived to reach the Permanent Way. Then she had to signal to you that she
