Redemption Ark

not to say fragile, to risk under a trawl.’

‘What do you know about her, then?’

‘Only that she was a very powerful influence in Chasm City for many years, without anyone realising it. She was the perfect dictator. Her control was so pervasive that no one noticed they were in her thrall. Her wealth, as estimated by the usual indices, was practically zero. She did not “own” anything in the usual sense. Yet she had webs of coercion that enabled her to achieve whatever she wanted silently, invisibly. When people acted out of what they imagined was pure self-interest, they were often following the Mademoiselle’s hidden script.’

‘You make her sound like a witch.’

‘Oh, I don’t think there was anything supernatural about her influence. It was just that she saw information flows with a clarity most people lack. She could see the precise point where pressure needed to be applied, the point where the butterfly had to flap its wings to cause a storm half a world away. That was her genius, Mr Clavain. An instinctive grasp of chaotic systems as applied to human psychosocial dynamics. Here, take a look.’

Clavain stepped up to the tiny window set into the box.

There was a woman inside. She appeared to have been embalmed, and was sitting in an upright position within the box. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, holding an outspread paper fan of translucent delicacy. She wore a high-necked brocaded gown that Clavain judged to be a century out of date. Her forehead was high and smooth, dark hair raked back from it in severe furrows. From Clavain’s vantage point it was impossible to tell whether her eyes were truly closed or whether she was just looking down at the fan. She rippled, as if she were a mirage.

‘What happened to her?’ Clavain asked.

‘She is dead, in so far as I understand the term. She has been dead for more than thirty years. But she has not changed at all since the moment of her death. There has been no decay, no evidence of the usual morbid processes. And yet there cannot be a vacuum in there, or she could not have breathed.’

I don’t understand. Did she die in this thing?‘

‘It was her palanquin, Mr Clavain. She was in it when I killed her.‘ ‘You killed her?’

H slid the little plate closed, obscuring the window. ‘I used a type of weapon designed by Canopy assassins for the specific purpose of murdering hermetics. They call it a crabber. It attaches a device to the side of the palanquin that bores through the armour while at the same time maintaining perfect hermetic integrity. There can be unpleasant things inside palanquins, you see, especially when the occupants suspect they may be the targets of assassination attempts. Subject-specific nerve gas, that sort of thing.’

‘Go on,’ Clavain said.

‘When the crabber reaches the interior it injects a slug which detonates with sufficient force to kill any organism inside, but not enough to shatter the window or any other weak point. We employed something similar against tank crews on Sky’s Edge, so I had some familiarity with the principles involved.’

‘If the crabber worked,’ he said, ‘there shouldn’t be a body inside.’

‘Quite right, Mr Clavain, there shouldn’t. Believe me, I know — I’ve seen what it looks like when these things do work.’

‘But you did kill her.’

‘I did something to her; what, I’m not quite sure. I could not examine the palanquin until several hours after the crabber had done its work, since we had the Mademoiselle’s allies to deal with as well. When I did look through the window I expected to see nothing except the usual dripping red smear on the other side of the glass. But her body was nearly intact. There were wounds, quite evident wounds which would normally have been fatal in their own right, but over the next few hours I watched them heal. The clothes as well — the damage undid itself. She has been like this ever since. More than thirty years, Mr Clavain.’

‘It isn’t possible.’

‘Did you notice the way you seemed to be viewing her body as if through a layer of shifting water? The way she shimmered and warped? It was no optical illusion. There is something in there with her. I wonder how much of what we can see was ever human.’

‘You’re talking as if she was some kind of alien.’

‘I think there was something alien about her. Beyond that, I would not care to speculate.’

H led him out of the room. Clavain risked one rearward glance at the palanquin, a glance that chilled him. H obviously kept it here because there was nothing else to be done with it. The corpse could not be destroyed, might even be dangerous in other hands. So she remained entombed here, in the building she had once inhabited.

‘I have to ask…’ Clavain began.

‘Yes?’

‘Why did you kill her?’

His host closed the door behind them. There was a palpable feeling of relief. Clavain had the distinct impression that even H did not greatly relish visits to the Mademoiselle.

I killed her, Mr Clavain, for the very simple and obvious reason that she had something I wanted.‘

‘Which was?’

‘I’m not entirely sure. But I think it was the same thing Skade was after.’

CHAPTER 22

Xavier was working on Storm Bird’s hull when the two peculiar visitors arrived at the repair shop. He checked on the monkeys, satisfying himself that they could be trusted to get on with things by themselves for a few minutes. He wondered who Antoinette had pissed off now. Like her father, she was pretty good at not pissing off the right people. That was how Jim Bax had stayed in business.

‘Mr Gregor Consodine?’ asked a man, standing up from a seat in the waiting area.

‘I’m not Gregor Consodine.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought this was…’

‘It is. I’m just minding things while he’s off in Vancouver for a couple of days. Xavier Liu.’ He beamed helpfully. ‘How may I be of assistance?’

‘We are looking for Antoinette Bax,’ the man said.

‘Are you?’

‘It’s a matter of some urgency. I gather that’s her ship parked in your service well.’

The back of Xavier’s neck bristled. ‘And you’d be…?’

‘I am called Mr Clock.’

Mr Clock’s face was an exercise in anatomy. Xavier could see the bones beneath the skin. Mr Clock looked like a man very close to death, and yet he moved with the light step of a ballet dancer or mime artiste.

But it was the other one that really bothered him. Xavier’s first careless glance at the visitors had revealed two men, one tall and thin like a storybook undertaker, the other short and wide, built like a professional wrestler. The more squat man had his head down and was thumbing through a brochure on the coffee table. Between his feet was a featureless black box the size of a toolkit.

Xavier looked at his own hands.

‘My colleague is Mr Pink.’

Mr Pink looked up. Xavier did his best to conceal a moment of surprise. The other man was a pig, not a baseline human at all. He had a smooth rounded brow beneath which little dark eyes studied Xavier. His nose was small and upturned. Xavier had seen humans with stranger faces, but that was not the point. Mr Pink never had been human.

‘Hello,’ the pig said, and then turned his attention back to his reading matter.

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Clock said.

‘Your question?’

‘Concerning the ship. It does belong to Antoinette Bax, doesn’t it?’

‘I was just told to do some hull work on it. That’s all I know.’

Clock smiled and nodded. He stepped back to the office door and closed it. Mr Pink turned over a page and chuckled at something in the brochure. ‘That’s not quite the truth, is it, Mr Liu?’