The Revelation Space Collection

clips or ammo cells, but our wall was gaining on us as well. No matter how many robots we destroyed, no gap ever appeared in the advancing wave. There must have been hundreds of them, squeezing us in from both directions.

‘We’re not going to make it,’ I said, sounding resigned even to myself. ‘There’s too many of them. Maybe if we still had Nicolosi’s rifle, we could shoot our way out.’

‘I didn’t come all this way just to surrender to a haunted hospital,’ Sollis said, replacing an ammo cell in her energy weapon. ‘If it means going out fighting… so be it.’

The nearest robots were now only six or seven metres away, the tips of their tentacles probing even nearer. She kept pumping shots into them, but they kept coming closer, flinging aside the hot debris of their damaged companions. There was no possibility of falling back any further, for we were almost back to back with Norbert/Martinez.

‘Maybe we should just stop,’ I said. ‘This is a hospital. It’s programmed to heal people. The last thing it’ll want to do is hurt us.’

‘Feel free to put that to the test,’ Sollis said.

Norbert/Martinez squeezed off the last discharge before his weapon went back into recharge mode. Sollis was still firing. I reached over and tried to pass Norbert/Martinez my gun, so he’d at least have something to use while waiting for his weapon to power up. But the machines had already seen their moment. The closest one flicked out a tentacle and wrapped it around the big man’s foot. Everything happened very quickly, then. The machine hauled Norbert/Martinez towards the flailing mass until he fell within reach of another set of tentacles. They had him, then. He cartwheeled his arms, trying to reach for handholds on the walls, but there was no possibility of that. The robots flicked the Demarchist weapon from his grip and then took the weapon with them. Norbert/Martinez screamed as his legs, and then his upper body, vanished into the wall of machines. They smothered him completely. For a moment we could still hear his breathing — he’d stopped screaming, as if knowing it would make no difference — and then there was absolute silence, as if the carrier signal from his suit had been abruptly terminated.

Then, a moment later, the machines were on Sollis and me.

I woke. The fact that I was still alive — not just alive but comfortable and lucid — hit me like a mild electric shock, one that snapped me into instant and slightly resentful alertness. I’d been enjoying unconsciousness. I remembered the robots, how I’d felt them trying to get into my suit, the sharp cold nick as something pierced my skin, and then an instant later the painless bliss of sleep. I’d expected to die, but as the drug hit my brain, it erased all trace of fear.

But I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t even injured, so far as I could tell. I’d been divested of my suit, but was now reclining in relative comfort on a bed or mattress, under a clean white sheet. My own weight was pressing me down onto the mattress, so I must have been moved into the ship’s reactivated centrifuge section. I felt tired and bruised, but other than that I was in no worse shape than when we’d boarded Nightingale. I remembered what I’d told Sollis during our last stand: how the hospital ship wouldn’t want to do us harm. Maybe there’d been more than just wishful thinking in that statement.

There was no sign of Sollis or Norbert/Martinez, though. I was alone in a private recovery cubicle, surrounded by white walls. I remembered coming around in a room like this during my first visit to Nightingale. The wall on my right contained a white-rimmed door and a series of discrete hatches, behind which I knew lurked medical monitoring and resuscitation equipment, none of which had been deemed necessary in my case. A control panel was connected to the side of the bed by a flexible stalk, within easy reach of my right hand. Via the touchpads on the panel I was able to adjust the cubicle’s environmental settings and request services from the hospital, ranging from food and drink, washing and toilet amenities, to additional drug dosages.

Given the semi-dormant state of the ship, I wondered how much of it was still online. I touched one of the pads, causing the white walls to melt away and take on the holographic semblance of a calming beach scene, with ocean breakers crashing onto powdery white sand under a sky etched with sunset fire. Palm trees nodded in a soothing breeze. I didn’t care about the view, though. I wanted something to drink — my throat was raw — and then I wanted to know what had happened to the others and how long we were going to be detained. Because, like it or not, being a patient aboard a facility like Nightingale wasn’t very different from being a prisoner. Until the hospital deemed you fit and well, you were going nowhere.

But when I touched the other pads, nothing happened. Either the room was malfunctioning, or it had been programmed to ignore my requests. I made a move to ease myself off the bed, wincing as my bruised limbs registered their disapproval. But the clean white sheet stiffened to resist my efforts, hardening until it felt as rigid as armour. As soon as I relaxed, the sheet relinquished its hold. I was free to move around on the bed, to sit up and reach for things, but the sheet would not allow me to leave the bed itself.

Movement caught my eye, far beyond the foot of the bed. A figure walked towards me, strolling along the holographic shoreline. She was dressed almost entirely in black, with a skirt that reached all the way to the sand, heavy fabric barely moving as she approached. She wore a white bonnet over black hair parted exactly in the middle, a white collar and a jewelled clasp at her throat. Her face was instantly recognisable as the Voice of Nightingale, but now it appeared softer, more human.

She stepped from the wall and appeared to stand at the foot of my bed. She looked at me for a moment before speaking, her expression one of gentle concern.

‘I knew you’d come, given time.’

‘How are the others? Are they okay?’

‘If you are speaking of the two who were with you before you lost consciousness, they are both well. The other two required more serious medical intervention, but they are now both stable.’

‘I thought Nicolosi and Quinlan were dead.’

‘Then you underestimated my abilities. I am only sorry that they came to harm. Despite my best efforts, there is a necessary degree of autonomy amongst my machines that sometimes results in them acting foolishly.’

There was a kindness there that had been entirely absent from the display facets. For the first time I had the impression of an actual mind lurking behind the machine-generated mask. I sensed that it was a mind capable of compassion and complexity of thought.

‘We didn’t intend to hurt you,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about any damage we caused, but we only ever wanted Jax, your patient. He committed serious crimes. He needs to be brought back to Sky’s Edge, to face justice.’

‘Is that why you risked so much? In the interests of justice?’

‘Yes,’ I answered.

‘Then you must be very brave and selfless. Or was justice only part of your motivation?’

‘Jax is a bad man. All you have to do is hand him over.’

‘I cannot let you take Jax. He remains my patient.’

I shook my head. ‘He was your patient, when he came aboard.

But that was during the war. We have a record of his injuries. They were serious, but not life-threatening. Given your resources, it shouldn’t have been too difficult for you to put him back together again. There’s no question of Jax still needing your care.’

‘Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?’

‘No. It’s simple: either Jax died under your care, or he’s well enough to face trial. Did he die?’

‘No. His injuries were, as you note, not life-threatening.’

‘Then he’s either alive, or you’ve got him frozen. Either way, you can hand him over. Nicolosi knows how to thaw him out, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘There is no need to thaw Colonel Jax. He is alive and conscious, except when I permit him to sleep.’

‘Then there’s even less reason not to hand him over.’

‘I’m afraid there is every reason in the world. Please forget about Colonel Jax. I will not relinquish him from my care.’

‘Not good enough, ship.’

‘You are in my care now. As you have already discovered, I will not permit you to leave against my will. But I will allow you to depart if you renounce your intentions concerning Colonel Jax.’