‘Looks like another ship — maybe two. Unmarked. Looks civilian, but can’t be. Unless…’ ‘Banshees?’ suggested Clavain. They appeared not to hear him. ‘There’s something on this side too,’ Voi said. ‘Shipmaster doesn’t know what’s happening either.’ Her attention flicked to Clavain. ‘Could your side have got this close to Yellowstone?’ ‘They want me back pretty badly,’ Clavain said. ‘I suppose anything’s possible. But this is against every rule of war.’ ‘Those could still be spiders,’ Voi said. ‘If Clavain’s right, then the rules of war don’t apply any more.’ ‘Can you retaliate?’ Clavain asked. ‘Not here. Our weapons are electronically pacified inside Convention airspace.’ Perotet unhooked from one restraint and scudded to another on the far wall. ‘The other escort’s damaged — she must have taken a partial hit. She’s outgassing and losing navigational control. She’s falling behind us. Voi, how long until we’re back in the war zone?’ Her eyes glazed again. It was as if she had been stunned momentarily. ‘Four minutes to the frontier, then weps will depacify.’ ‘You haven’t got four minutes,’ Clavain said. ‘Is there a spacesuit aboard this thing, by any chance?’ Voi looked at him oddly. ‘Of course. Why?’ ‘Because it’s pretty obvious that it’s me they want. No sense in us all dying, is there?’ They showed him to the spacesuit locker. The suits were of Demarchist design, all ribbed silvery-red metal, and while they were neither more nor less technologically advanced than Conjoiner suits, everything worked differently on them. Clavain could not have put the suit on without the assistance of Voi and Perotet. Once the helmet had latched shut, the faceplate border lit up with a dozen unfamiliar status read-outs, worming traces and shifting histograms labelled with acronyms that meant nothing to Clavain. Periodically a small, polite feminine voice would whisper something in his ear. Most of the traces were green rather than red, which he took to be a good sign. ‘I keep thinking this must be a trap,’ Voi said. ‘Something you’d always planned. That you meant to come aboard our ship and then be rescued. Perhaps you’ve done something to us, or planted something…’ ‘Everything I told you was true,’ Clavain said. ‘I don’t know who those people outside are, and I don’t know what they want with me. They could be Conjoiners, but if they are, their arrival’s nothing I’ve planned.’ ‘I wish I could believe you.’ ‘I admired Sandra Voi. I hoped that my knowing her might help my cause with you. I was perfectly sincere about that.’ ‘If they are Conjoiners… will they kill you?’ ‘I don’t know. I think they might have done that already, if that was what they wanted. I don’t think Skade would have spared you, but perhaps I’m misjudging her. If indeed it is Skade…’ Clavain shuffled into the airlock. ‘I’d best be going. I hope they leave you alone once they see I’m outside.’ ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’ Clavain smiled. ‘Is it that obvious?’ ‘It makes me think you might not be lying. The information you gave us…’ ‘You really should act on it.’ He stepped into the lock. Voi did the rest. The traces on the faceplate registered the shift to vacuum. Clavain heard his suit creak and click in unfamiliar ways as it adjusted to space. The outer door heaved open on heavy pistons. He could see nothing but a rectangle of darkness. No stars; no worlds; no Rust Belt. Not even the marauding ships. It always took courage to step out of any spacecraft, most especially in the absence of any means of returning. Clavain judged that single footstep and push-off to be amongst the two or three hardest things he had ever done in his life. But it had to be done. He was outside. He turned slowly, the claw-shaped Demarchist shuttle coming into view and then passing by him. It was unharmed, save for one or two scorch marks on the hull where it had been struck by scalding fragments from the escort ships. On the sixth or seventh turn the engines pulsed and the shuttle began to put increasing distance between itself and him. Good. There was no sense sacrificing himself if Voi did not take advantage of it. He waited. Perhaps four minutes passed before he became aware of the other ships. Evidently they had moved away after the attack. There were three of them, as Perotet and Voi had thought. Their hulls were black, stencilled with neon skulls, eyes and sharks’ teeth. Now and then a thruster aperture would bark a pulse of steering gas, and the flash would pick out more details, limning the sleek curves of transatmospheric surfaces and the cowled muzzles of retractable weapons or hinged grappling gear. The weapons could be packed away and the ships would look innocent enough: sleek rich kids’ toys, but nothing you would bet on against armed Convention escorts. One of the three banshees broke from the pack and loomed large. A yellow-lit airlock irised open in the belly of her hull. Two figures bustled out, black as space themselves. They jetted towards Clavain and braked expertly when they were on the point of colliding with him. Their spacesuits were like their ships: civilian in origin but augmented with armour and weapons. They made no effort to speak to him on the suit channel; all he heard as he was snared and taken aboard the black ship was the repetitious soft voice of the suit subpersona. There was just room for the three of them in the belly airlock. Clavain looked for markings on the suits of the other two, but even up close they were perfectly black. The faceplate visors were heavily tinted, so that all he caught was the occasional flash of an eye. His status indicators shifted again, registering the return of air pressure. The inner door irised open and he was pushed forwards into the main body of the black ship. The spacesuited pair followed him. Once they were inside, their helmets detached themselves automatically and flew away to storage points. Two men had brought him aboard the ship. They could easily have been twins, even down to the nearly identical broken nose on each face. One of the men had a gold ring through one eyebrow, the other through the lobe of one ear. Both were bald except for an exceptionally narrow line of dyed-green hair that bisected their skulls from temple to nape. They wore wraparound tortoiseshell goggles and neither man had any trace of a mouth. The one with the ring through his eyebrow motioned to Clavain that he should remove his own helmet. Clavain shook his head, unwilling to do that until he was certain that he was in breathable air. The man shrugged and reached for something racked on the wall. It was a bright-yellow axe. Clavain raised a hand and began to fiddle with the connecting latch of the Demarchist suit. He could not find the release mechanism. After a moment the man with the pierced ear shook his head and brushed Clavain’s hand aside. He worked the latch and the soft voice in Clavain’s ear became shriller, more insistent. The status displays flicked mostly into red. The helmet came off with a gasp of air. Clavain’s ears popped. The pressure on the black ship was not quite Demarchist standard. He breathed cold air, his lungs working hard. ‘Who… who are you?’ he asked, when he had the
