stone’s throw of the Captain.
‘No,’ Khouri said. ‘I want to know. What do you mean, none of that actually happened?’
Sylveste’s voice was slow and calm. ‘I’m talking about that business with the settlement Volyova wiped out.’
Khouri stepped ahead of the entourage, blocking their progress. ‘You’d better explain that.’
‘That can wait,’ Sajaki said, stepping forward to push her aside. ‘Certainly until you’ve explained your role in things to my complete satisfaction, Khouri.’ The Triumvir was eyeing her suspiciously all the time now, convinced that the two deaths in her presence had to be more than coincidence. With Volyova out of the way — and the Mademoiselle silent — she had no one to shelter her. It would be only a matter of time before Sajaki acted on his suspicions and did something drastic.
But Sylveste said, ‘No. Why need it wait? I think we should all be absolutely clear about what’s going on here. Sajaki; you didn’t go down to Resurgam just to obtain a copy of the biography, did you? What would have been the point? You had no knowledge that
‘Intelligence gathering,’ Sajaki said, carefully.
‘More than that. You went there to glean information, yes. But you also had to plant some.’
‘About Phoenix?’ Khouri said.
‘Not just about Phoenix, the place itself. It never existed.’ Sylveste allowed a pause before continuing. ‘It was a ghost planted there by Sajaki. It wasn’t even on the old maps we kept at Mantell, but as soon as we updated them from the master copies in Cuvier it appeared. We just assumed it was a new settlement; too recent to show up on the previous maps. That was stupid, of course — I should have seen through it then. But we assumed the master copies hadn’t been corrupted.’
‘Doubly stupid,’ Sajaki said. ‘Given that you must have wondered where I was.’
‘If I’d given it more than a moment’s thought…’
‘Pity you didn’t,’ Sajaki said. ‘Or we might not be having this conversation. But then again, we’d have only resorted to another means of securing you.’
Sylveste nodded. ‘I suppose your next logical step would have been to blow up a bigger fictitious target. But I’m not entirely sure you could have pulled off the same trick twice. I’ve a nasty suspicion you might have had to hit somewhere real.’
The cold had a steely texture to it, like a thousand pieces of barbed metal constantly scraping softly against the skin; threatening to pierce to the bone with each movement. But as soon as they were truly in the Captain’s realm, it became impossible to notice the cold, since the cold in which he was imprisoned was so obviously deeper.
‘He’s sick,’ Sajaki said. ‘With a variant of the Melding Plague. You know all about that, of course.’
‘We heard reports from Yellowstone,’ Sylveste said. ‘I can’t say they were exceptionally detailed.’ All the while he had not actually looked directly at the Captain.
‘We haven’t been able to contain it,’ Hegazi said. ‘Not properly, anyway. Extreme cold goes some way to slowing it, but no more than that. It — or rather, he — is spreading slowly, incorporating the mass of the ship into his own template.’
‘Then he’s still alive, at least by some biological definition?’
Sajaki nodded, ‘Of course, no organism can really be said to be alive at these temperatures. But if we were to warm the Captain now… parts of him would function.’
‘That’s hardly reassuring.’
‘I brought you aboard to heal him, not to hear reassurances.’
What the Captain resembled was a statue smeared in ropelike silver tendrils, extending tens of metres in either direction; beautifully aglisten with sinister biochimeric malignancy. The reefersleep unit at the heart of the frozen explosion was still, by some miracle of design or accident, nominally functional. But its once symmetrical form had been tugged and warped by the glacially slow but unyielding forces of the Captain’s spread. Most of its status readouts were now dead; there were no active entoptics surrounding it. Of the display devices which still worked, some showed unreadable mush; the senseless hieroglyphics of machine senility. Khouri was grateful that there were no entoptics. She had the feeling that if there had been any, they too would have been corrupted; a host of malignant seraphim or disfigured cherubim signifying the excessive state of the Captain’s illness.
‘You don’t need a surgeon here,’ Sylveste said. ‘You need a priest.’
‘That isn’t what Calvin thought,’ Sajaki said. ‘He was rather eager to begin the work.’
‘Then the copy they had in Cuvier must have been delusional. Your Captain isn’t sick. He isn’t even dead, since there isn’t enough left which was ever alive in the first place.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Sajaki said. ‘You will help us. You’ll have Ilia’s assistance, as well — as soon as she’s well herself. She thinks that she has created a counteragent for the plague — a retrovirus. I’m told it works on small samples. But she’s a weaponeer. Applying it to the Captain would be strictly a medical matter. But at least she can provide you with a tool.’
Sylveste directed a smile at Sajaki. ‘I’m sure you’ve discussed the matter with Calvin already.’
‘Let’s just say he’s been briefed. He’s willing to try it — he thinks it might even work. Does this encourage you?’
‘I would have to bow to Calvin’s wisdom,’ Sylveste replied. ‘He’s the medical man, not me. But before I enter into any commitment we’d have to negotiate terms.’
‘There won’t be any,’ Sajaki said. ‘And if you resist us, don’t imagine we won’t consider ways of persuading you via Pascale.’
‘You’d probably regret it.’
Khouri prickled. For the dozenth time this day, something felt seriously wrong. She sensed that the others were also attuned to it, though there was nothing to read in their expressions. Sylveste sounded too cocksure; that was it. Too cocksure for someone who had been abducted and was about to be forced to undergo a painful ordeal. Instead he sounded like someone who was about to reveal a winning hand.
‘I’ll fix your damn Captain,’ Sylveste said. ‘Or at least prove it can’t be done; one of the two. But in return, there’s a small favour you have to do for me.’
‘Excuse me,’ Hegazi said, ‘but when negotiating from a position of weakness, you don’t ask for favours.’
‘Who said anything about weakness?’ Sylveste smiled again, this time with unconcealed ferocity, and something which looked dangerously like joy. ‘Before I left Mantell, my captors did me a small, final favour. I don’t think they particularly felt they owed me anything. But the act was a small thing, and it allowed them to spite you, which did, I think, rather appeal to them. They were losing me, after all — but they saw no reason why you should get quite what you thought you were getting.’
‘I don’t like this at all,’ Hegazi said.
‘Believe me,’ Sylveste said, ‘you’re about to like it a lot less. Now; I have to ask a question, just to clarify our positions.’
‘Go ahead,’ Sajaki said.
‘Are you all completely familiar with the concept of hot-dust?’
‘You’re talking to Ultras,’ Hegazi said.
‘Well, of course. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t under any illusions. And you’ll know that hot-dust fragments can be sealed within containment devices smaller than pinheads? Of course you do.’ He tapped his finger against his chin, extemporising like an expert lawyer. ‘You heard about Remilliod’s visit, of course? The last lighthugger to trade with the Resurgam system before you came?’
‘We heard about it.’
‘Well, Remilliod sold hot-dust to the colony. Not many fragments; just enough for a colony which might want to do some hefty landscape-rearranging in the near future. Of his sample, a dozen or less fell into the hands of the people who were holding me prisoner. Do you want me to continue, or are you ahead of me already?’
‘I fear I may be,’ Sajaki said. ‘But continue anyway.’
‘One of those pinheads is now installed in the vision system which Cal made for me. It draws no current, and even if you dismantled my eyes, you would not be able to tell which component was the bomb. But you wouldn’t
