Redemption Ark

Later, when they had put a light-minute between themselves and the gas giant, the console signalled an incoming tight-beam transmission relayed from Nostalgia for Infinity. Ilia must have tracked Khouri’s ship with deep-look sensors, waiting until there was sufficient angular separation between it and the Inhibitor machines. Even with the relay drones she was deeply anxious not to compromise her position.

‘I see you are on your way home,’ she said, intense displeasure etched into every word. ‘I see also that you went much closer to the heart of their activity than we agreed. That is not good. Not good at all.’

‘She doesn’t sound happy,’ Thorn whispered.

‘What you did was exceptionally dangerous. I just hope you learned something for your efforts. I demand that you make all haste back to the starship. We mustn’t detain Thorn from his urgent work on Resurgam… nor the Inquisitor from her duties in Cuvier. I will have more to say on this matter when you return.’ She paused before adding, ‘Irina out.’

‘She still doesn’t know that I know,’ Thorn said.

‘I’d better tell her.’

‘That doesn’t sound terribly wise to me, Ana.’

She looked at him. ‘No?’

‘Not just yet. We don’t know how she’d take it. Probably better that we act as if I still think… et cetera.’ He made a spiralling gesture with his forefinger. ‘Don’t you agree?’

‘I kept something from Ilia once before. It was a serious mistake.’

‘This time you’ll have me on your side. We can break it to her gently once we’re safe and sound aboard the ship.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

Thorn narrowed his eyes playfully. ‘It will work out in the end, I promise you that. All you have to do is trust me. That isn’t so hard, is it? After all, it’s no more than you asked of me.’

‘The trouble was we were lying.’

He touched her arm, a contact that might have seemed accidental had he not prolonged it for several artful seconds. ‘We’ll just have to put that behind us, won’t we?’

She reached over and delicately removed his hand, which closed gently around her own, and for a moment they were frozen like that. Khouri was conscious of her own breathing. She looked at Thorn, knowing full well what she wanted and knowing that he wanted it too.

‘I can’t do this, Thorn.’

‘Why not?’ He spoke as if there were no valid objection she could possibly raise.

‘Because…’ She slipped her hand from his. ‘Because of what I still am. Because of a promise I made to someone.’

‘Who?’ Thorn asked.

‘My husband.’

‘I’m sorry. I never thought for a moment that you might be married.’ He sat back in his seat, putting a sudden distance between them. ‘I don’t mean that in an insulting way. It’s just one minute you’re the Inquisitor, the next you’re an Ultra. Neither exactly fitted my preconceptions of a married woman.’

She raised a hand. ‘It’s all right.’

‘Who is he, if you don’t mind my asking?’

‘It isn’t that simple, Thorn. I honestly wish it was.’

‘Tell me. Please. I do want to know.’ He paused, perhaps reading something in her expression. ‘Is your husband dead, Ana?’

‘It isn’t that simple, either. My husband was a soldier. I used to be one as well. We were both soldiers on Sky’s Edge, in the Peninsula wars. I’m sure you’ve heard of our quaint little civil dispute.’ She did not wait for his answer. ‘We were fighting together. We were wounded and shipped into orbit unconscious. But something went wrong. I was misidentified, mis-tagged, put on the wrong hospital ship. I still don’t know all the details. I ended up being loaded aboard a bigger ship heading out-system. A lighthugger. By the time the error was discovered I was around Epsilon Eridani, Yellowstone.’

‘And your husband?’

‘I still don’t know. At the time I was led to think that he’d been left behind around Sky’s Edge. Thirty, forty years, Thorn — that’s how long he’d have had to wait, even if I’d managed to get on a ship making the immediate return trip.’

‘What kind of longevity therapies did you have on Sky’s Edge?’

‘None at all.’

‘So there would have been a good chance of your husband being dead by the time you got back?’

‘He was a soldier. Life expectancy in a freeze/thaw battalion was already pretty damned short. And anyway, there wasn’t any ship headed straight back.’ She rubbed her eyes and sighed. ‘That was what I was told had happened to him. But I still don’t know for sure. He might have come with me on the same ship; everything else might have been a lie.’

Thorn nodded. ‘So your husband might still be alive, but in the Yellowstone system?’

‘Yes — supposing he ever got there, and supposing he didn’t ship back on the next outbound ship. But even then he’d be old. I spent a long time frozen in Chasm City before I came here. And I’ve spent even more time frozen since then, while Ilia and I waited for the wolves.’

Thorn was silent for a minute. ‘So you’re married to a man you still love, but who you probably won’t ever see again?’

‘Now you understand why it isn’t easy for me,’ she said.

‘I do,’ Thorn said quietly, with something close to reverence in his voice. ‘1 do, and I’m sorry.’ Then he touched her hand again. ‘But maybe it’s still time to let go of the past, Ana. We all have to one day.’

It took much less time to reach Yellowstone than Clavain had expected. He wondered if Zebra had drugged him, or whether the thin cold air in the cabin had caused him to slip into unconsciousness… but there appeared to be no gap in the sequence of his thoughts. The time had simply passed very rapidly. Three or four times Manoukhian and Zebra had spoken quietly and urgently between themselves, and shortly thereafter Clavain had felt the ship change its vector, presumably to avoid another tangle with the Convention. But there had never been any tangible sense of panic.

He had the impression that Zebra and Manoukhian regarded another conflict as something to be avoided out of a sense of decorum or neatness, rather than a pragmatic matter of survival. Whatever else they were, they were professionals.

The ship looped above the Rust Belt, avoiding it by many thousands of kilometres, and then made a spiralling approach towards Yellowstone’s cloud layers. The planet swelled, filling every window within Clavain’s field of view. A skin of neon-pink ionisation gases surrounded the ship as she cleaved into atmosphere. Clavain felt his gravity return after hours of weightlessness. It was, he reminded himself, the first actual gravity that he had felt in years.

‘Have you visited Chasm City before, Mr Clavain?’ Zebra asked him, when the black ship had completed its atmospheric insertion.

‘Once or twice,’ he said. ‘Not lately. I take it that’s where we’re going?’

‘Yes, but I can’t say where exactly. You’ll have to find out for yourself. Manoukhian, can you hold her steady for the next minute or so?’

‘Take your time, Zeb.’

She unbuckled from her acceleration couch and stood over Clavain. It appeared that the stripes were zones of distinct pigmentation rather than tattoos or skin paint. Zebra flipped open a locker and slid out a metallic-blue box the size of a medical kit. She opened it and dithered her finger over the contents, like someone puzzling over a box of chocolates. She pulled out a hypodermic device.

i’m going to put you under, Mr Clavain. While you’re unconscious I’ll run some neurological tests, just to verify that you really are a Conjoiner. I won’t wake you until we’ve arrived at our destination.‘

‘There’s no need to do that.’

‘Ah, but there is. My boss is very protective of his secrets. He’ll want to decide for himself what you get to know.’ Zebra leaned over him. ‘I can get this into your neck, I think, without getting you out of that suit.’

Clavain saw that there was no point in arguing. He closed his eyes and felt the cold tip of the hypodermic