corvette — fired into deep space, of course.’
‘Skade
‘I will expect your response immediately. A personal transmission would be nice, but, failing that, I will expect to see a change in your thrust vector.’ She sighed, and it was in that moment that Clavain realised what had been troubling him about Skade since the start of the transmission. It was the way she never drew breath, never once stopped to take in air.
‘One final thing. I’ll give you a generous margin of error before I decide that you have rejected my offer. But when that margin has ended, I will still put Felka aboard a corvette. The difference is, I won’t make it easy for you to find her. Think of that, Clavain, will you? Felka, all alone between the stars, so far from companionship. She might not understand. Then again, she very well might.’ Skade hesitated, then added, ‘You’d know, I suppose, better than anyone. She’s your daughter, after all. The question is, how much does she really mean to you?’
Skade’s transmission ended.
Remontoire was conscious. He smiled with quiet amusement as Clavain entered the room that served as both his quarters and his prison. He could not be said to look sparklingly well — that would never be the case — but neither did he look like a man who had only recently been frozen, and before that, technically, deceased.
‘I wondered when you’d pay me a visit,’ he said, with what struck Clavain as disarming cheerfulness. He lay on his back, his head on a pillow, his hands steepled across his chest, but in every sense appearing relaxed and calm.
Clavain’s exoskeleton eased him into a sitting position, shifting pressure from one set of sores to another.
‘I’m afraid things have been a tiny bit difficult,’ Clavain said. ‘But I’m glad to see that you’re in one piece. It wasn’t propitious to have you thawed until now.’
‘I understand,’ Remontoire said, with a dismissive wave of one hand. ‘It can’t…’
‘Wait.’ Clavain looked at his old friend, taking in the slight changes in his facial appearance that had been necessary for Remontoire to function as an agent in Yellowstone society. Clavain had become used to him being totally hairless, like an unfinished mannequin.
‘Wait what, Clavain?’
‘There are some ground rules you need to be aware of, Rem. You can’t leave this room, so please don’t embarrass me by making an attempt to do so.’
Remontoire shrugged, as if this was no great matter. I wouldn’t dream of it. What else?‘
‘You can’t communicate with any system beyond this room, not while you’re in here. So, again, please don’t try.’
‘How would you know if I did try?’
‘1 would.’
‘Fair enough. Anything else?’
‘I don’t know if I can trust you yet. Hence the precautions, and my general reluctance to wake you before now.’
‘Perfectly understandable.’
‘I’m not finished. I dearly want to trust you, Rem, but I’m not certain that I can. And I can’t afford to risk the success of this mission.’ Remontoire started to speak, but Clavain raised a finger and continued talking. ‘That’s why I won’t be taking any chances. None at all. If you do anything, no matter how apparently trivial, that I think might be in any way to the detriment of the mission, I’ll kill you. No ifs, no buts. Absolutely no trial. We’re a long way from the Ferrisville Convention now, a long way from the Mother Nest.’
‘I gathered we were on a ship,’ Remontoire said. ‘And we’re accelerating very, very hard. I wanted to find something I could drop to the floor, so that I might have an idea of exactly how hard. But you’ve done a very good job of leaving me with nothing. Still, I can guess. What is it now — four and a half gees?’
‘Five,’ Clavain said. ‘And we’ll soon be pushing to six and higher.’
‘This room doesn’t remind me of any part of
‘I had some help.’
‘And the high rate of acceleration? How did you manage that without Skade’s magic box of tricks?’
‘Skade didn’t create that technology from scratch. She stole it, or enough pieces to figure out the rest. She wasn’t the only one with access to it, however. I met a man who had tapped the same motherlode.’
‘And this man is aboard the ship?’
‘No, he left us to our own devices. It’s my ship, Rem.’ Clavain whipped out an arm encased in the support rig and patted the rough metal wall of Remon-toire’s cell. ‘She’s called
‘Ah. Skade.’ Remontoire nodded, smiling.
‘Something amusing you?’
‘Has she been in touch?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. That’s why I woke you. What are you getting at?’
‘Did she make it clear what had…’ Remontoire trailed off, leaving Clavain aware that he was being observed closely. ‘Evidently not.’
‘What?’
‘She nearly died, Clavain. When you escaped from the comet, the one where we met the Master of Works.’
‘Clearly she got better.’
‘Well, that very much depends…’ Again, Remontoire trailed off. ‘This isn’t about Skade, is it? I can see that concerned paternal look in your eye.’ In one easy movement he swung himself off the bed, sitting quite normally on the edge, as if the five gees of acceleration did not apply to him at all. Only a tiny twitching vein in the side of his head betrayed the tension he was under. ‘Let me guess. She still has Felka, doesn’t she.’
Clavain said nothing, waiting for Remontoire to continue.
‘I tried to have Felka come with me and the pig,’ he said, ‘but Skade wasn’t having it. Said Felka was more useful to her as a bargaining chip. I couldn’t talk her out of it. If I’d have argued too strenuously, she wouldn’t have let me come after you at all.’
‘You came to kill me.’
‘I came to stop you. My intention was to persuade you to come back with me to the Mother Nest. Of course, I’d have killed you if it came to it, but then you’d have done precisely the same to me if it was something you believed in sufficiently.’ Remontoire paused. ‘I believed I could talk you out of it. No one else would have given you a chance.’
‘We’ll talk about that later. It’s Felka who matters now.’
There was a long silence between the two men. Clavain adjusted his position, determined that Remontoire should not see how uncomfortable he was.
‘What’s happened?’ Remontoire asked.
‘Skade’s offered to turn Felka over provided I abandon the chase. She’ll drop her behind
Remontoire nodded. Clavain sensed his friend thinking deeply, chewing over permutations and possibilities.
‘And if you refuse?’
‘She’ll still ditch Felka, but she won’t make it easy for us to catch her. At best, I’ll have to forfeit the chase to ensure a safe recovery. At worst, I’ll never find her. We’re in interstellar space, Rem. There’s a hell of a lot of nothing out there. With Skade’s flame ahead of us and ours behind, there are huge deadspots in our sensor coverage.’
There was another long silence while Remontoire thought again. He eased back on to the bed, assisting the flow of blood to his brain.
‘You can’t trust Skade, Clavain. She has absolutely no need to convince you of her sincerity, since she doesn’t think you’ll ever have anything she needs or anything that can hurt her. This is not a two-prisoner game, like they
