reach the authorities because she knows how dangerous the information I hold is.’ ‘And this faction, what have they been doing?’ ‘Building an exodus fleet,’ Clavain told Antoinette. ‘I’ve seen it. It’s easily large enough to carry all the Conjoiners in this system. They’re planning on evacuating, basically. They’ve determined that a full-scale wolf attack is imminent — that’s my guess, anyway — and they’ve decided that the best thing they can do is run away.’ ‘What’s so abhorrent about that?’ Xavier asked. ‘We’d do the same thing if it meant saving our skins.’ ‘Perhaps,’ Clavain said, feeling a weird admiration for the young man’s cynicism. ‘But there’s an added complication. Some time ago the Conjoiners manufactured a stockpile of doomsday weapons. And I mean doomsday weapons — nothing like them has ever been made again. They were lost, but now they’ve been found again. The Conjoiners are trying to get their hands on them, hoping that they’ll be an additional safeguard against the wolves.’ ‘Where are they?’ Antoinette asked. ‘Near Resurgam, in the Delta Pavonis system. About twenty years’ flight time from here. Someone — whoever now owns the weapons — has re-armed them, causing them to emit diagnostic signals that we picked up. That’s worrying in itself. The Mother Nest was putting together a recovery squad which they, not unnaturally, wanted me to lead.’ ‘Wait a sec,’ Xavier said. ‘You’d go all the way there just to pick up a bunch of lost weapons? Why not make new ones?’ ‘The Conjoiners can’t,’ Clavain said. ‘It’s as simple as that. These weapons were made a long time ago according to principles which were deliberately forgotten after their construction.’ ‘Sounds a bit fishy to me.’ I never said I had all the answers,‘ Clavain replied. ‘All right. Assuming these weapons exist… what next?’ Clavain leaned closer, cradling his beer. ‘My old side will still do their best to recover them, even without me. My purpose in defecting is to persuade the Demarchists or whoever will listen that they need to get there first.’ Xavier glanced at Antoinette. ‘So you need someone with a ship, and maybe some weapons. Why didn’t you just go straight to the Ultras?’ Clavain smiled wearily. ‘It’s Ultras we’ll be trying to take the weapons from, Xavier. I don’t want to make things more difficult than they already are.’ ‘Good luck,’ Xavier said. ‘Yes?’ ‘You’re going to need it.’ Clavain nodded and held his bottle aloft. ‘To me, in that case.’ Antoinette and Xavier raised their own bottles in toast. ‘To you, Clavain.’ Clavain said goodbye to them outside the bar, asking only that they give him directions as to which rim train to take. There had been no customs checks coming into Carousel New Copenhagen, but according to Antoinette he would have to pass through a security check if he wanted to travel elsewhere in the Rust Belt. That suited him very well; he could think of no better way to introduce himself to the authorities. He would be examined, trawled, his Conjoiner identity established. A few more tests would prove beyond reasonable doubt that he was indeed who he claimed to be, since his largely unmodified DNA would mark him as a man born on Earth in the twenty-second century. From that point he had no real idea what would happen. He hoped that the response would not be his immediate execution, but it was not something he could rule out. He just hoped he would be able to convey the gist of his message before it was too late. Antoinette and Xavier showed him which rim train to take and made sure he had enough money to cover the fare. He waved goodbye as the train slid out of the station, the battered ruin of Lyle Merrick’s ship vanishing around the gentle curve of the carousel. Clavain closed his eyes, willing his consciousness rate into a three-to-one ratio, snatching a few moments of calm before he arrived at his destination. CHAPTER 20 Thorn had been ready to argue with Vuilleumier, but she had agreed to his wishes with surprising ease. It was not that she viewed the prospect of diving into the heart of the Inhibitor activity around Roc with anything less than deep concern, she told him, but that she wanted him to believe that she was totally sincere about the threat. If the only way to convince him of that was to let him see things in close-up, then she would have to go along with his wishes.
‘But make no mistake, Thorn. This is dangerous. We’re in uncharted territory now.’
‘I’d say we were never exactly safe, Inquisitor. We could have been attacked at any moment. We’ve certainly been within range of human weapons for the last few hours, haven’t we?’ The snake-headed ship plunged towards the top of the gas giant’s atmosphere. The trajectory would take them close to the impact point of one of the extruded tubes, only a thousand kilometres from the roiling chaos of tortured air around the eyelike collision zone. Their sensors could not glimpse anything beneath that confusion, only the vaguest suggestion that the tube continued to plunge deeper into Roc, unharmed by the impact. ‘We’re dealing with alien machinery, Thorn. Alien machine psychology, if you want. It’s true that they haven’t attacked us yet, or shown the slightest interest in any of our activities. They haven’t even bothered wiping life off the surface of Resurgam. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a threshold we might inadvertently cross if we’re not very careful.’ ‘And you think this might constitute being not very careful?’ ‘It worries me, but if this is what it takes…’ ‘It’s about more than just convincing me, Inquisitor.’ ‘Do you have to keep calling me that?’ ‘I’m sorry?’ She made an adjustment to the controls. Thorn heard an orchestrated creaking as the ship’s hull reshaped itself for optimum transatmospheric insertion. The gas giant Roc was about all they could see outside now. ‘You don’t have to call me that all the time.’ ‘Vuilleumier, then?’ ‘My first name is Ana. I’m a lot more comfortable with that, Thorn. Perhaps I shouldn’t call you Thorn, either.’ ‘Thorn will do. It’s a name I’ve grown into. It seems to fit me rather well. And I wouldn’t want to help Inquisition House in its investigations too much, would I?’ ‘We know exactly who you are. You’ve seen the
