‘No.’ ‘If you want me to help you, I want to know what I’m getting myself into.’ ‘The ship can’t take it.’ Thorn smiled. ‘It just took more crap than you said it would ever be able to take. Stop being such a pessimist.’ The Demarchist representative entered the white holding room and looked at him. Behind her stood three Ferrisville police, the ones he had surrendered to in the departure terminal, and four Demarchist soldiers. The latter had surrendered their firearms but still managed to look foreboding in their fiery red power-armour. Clavain felt old and fragile, knowing that he was completely at the mercy of his new hosts. I am Sandra Voi,‘ the woman said. ’You must be Nevil Clavain. Why did you have me come here, Clavain?‘ ‘I’m in the process of defecting.’ That’s not what I mean. I mean why me in particular? According to the Convention officials you specifically asked for me.‘ I thought you’d give me a fair hearing, Sandra. I used to know one of your relatives, you see. Who would she have been, your great-grandmother? I can never get the hang of generations these days.‘ The woman pulled up the other white chair and stationed herself in it, opposite Clavain. Demarchists pretended that their political system made rank an outmoded concept. Instead of captains they had shipmasters; instead of generals they had strategic planning specialists. Naturally, such specialisations required visual signifiers, but Voi would have frowned at any suggestion that the many bars and bands of colour across the breast of her tunic indicated anything as outmoded as military status. ‘There hasn’t been another Sandra Voi for four hundred years,’ she said. I know. The last one died on Mars, during an attempt to negotiate peace with the Conjoiners.‘ ‘You’re talking ancient history now.’ ‘Which doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Voi and I were part of the same peacekeeping mission. I defected to the Conjoiners shortly after she died, and I’ve been on their side ever since.’ The eyes of the younger Sandra Voi momentarily glazed over. Clavain’s implants sensed the scurry of data traffic in and out of her skull. He was impressed. Since the plague few Demarchists carried very much in the way of neural augmentation. ‘Our records don’t agree.’ Clavain raised an eyebrow. ‘They don’t?’ ‘No. Our intelligence indicates that Clavain did not live for more than a century and a half after his defection. You can’t possibly be him.’ I left human space on an interstellar expedition and only returned recently. That’s why there hasn’t been much record of me lately. Does it matter, though? The Convention’s already verified that I’m a Conjoiner.‘ ‘You could be a trap. Why would you wish to defect?’ Again, she had surprised him. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ ‘Maybe you’ve been reading too many of our newspapers. If you have, I’ve got some real news for you: your side is about to win this war. A single spider defection won’t make any difference now.’ I never thought it would,‘ Clavain said. ‘And?’ ‘That’s not why I’d like to defect.’ Down, down they went, always remaining ahead of the transonic shock wave of the Inhibitor machinery. The smudge on the passive radar display — the thing that shadowed them at a distance of thirty thousand kilometres — remained present, fading in and out of clarity but never leaving them completely. The daylight grew steadily darker, until the sky overhead was only fractionally lighter than the unmoving black depths below. Ana Khouri turned off the spacecraft’s cabin illumination, hoping that it would make the exterior brighter, but the improvement was marginal. The only real source of light was the cherry-red slash of the tube’s leading edge, and even that was duller than it had been before. The tube moved at only twenty-five kilometres per second now, relative to the atmosphere: it had steepened its descent, too, plunging nearly vertically towards the transition zones where the atmosphere thickened to liquid hydrogen. She winced as another pressure warning sounded. ‘We can’t go much deeper. I’m serious now. We’ll crush. It’s already fifty atmospheres outside, and that thing is still sitting on our tail.’ ‘Just a little closer, Ana. Can we reach the transition zone?’ ‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘Not in this ship. She’s an airbreather. She’ll stall in liquid hydrogen, and then we’ll fall and be crushed by hull implosion. It’s not a nice way to go, Thorn.’ ‘The tube doesn’t seem bothered by the pressure, does it? I think it probably goes a lot deeper. How much do you think they’ve laid already? One kilometre every four seconds, isn’t it? That’s not far off a thousand kilometres in an hour. By now there must be enough to loop around the planet quite a few times.’ ‘We don’t know that that’s what’s happening.’ ‘No, but we can make an educated guess. Do you know what I keep thinking of, Ana?’ ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’ ‘Windings. Like in an electric motor. I could be wrong, of course.’ Thorn smiled at her. He moved suddenly. She was not expecting it and for a moment — for all her soldier training — she was frozen in surprise. He was out of his seat, pushing himself towards her across the cabin. He had some weight, since they were moving at much less than orbital speed, but he still swung across with ease, his movements fluid and pre-planned. Gently, he pulled her out of the pilot’s position. She fought back, but Thorn was much stronger and knew enough to parry her defensive moves. It was not that she had forgotten her soldiering, but there was only so much advantage that technique could give, especially against an equally skilled opponent. ‘Easy, Ana, easy. I’m not going to hurt you.’ Before she knew what was happening, Thorn had her in the passenger seat. He forced her to sit on her hands, then tugged the crash webbing tight across her chest. He asked her if she could breathe, then tugged it tighter. She wriggled, but the webbing contracted snugly, holding her in place. ‘Thorn…’ she said. Thorn eased himself into the pilot’s seat. ‘Now. How shall we play this? Are you going to tell me everything I want to know, or do I have to supply some additional persuasion?’ He worked the controls. The ship lurched; alarms
