here, nutrients there — it’s not rocket science. I imagine that you can exist in this can for decades, provided I keep you fed and watered. And that is precisely what I am going to do, until the moment you die.’ He glanced at Zebra and nodded. ‘I think that’ll be all, don’t you?’ ‘Shall I put him in the same room as the others, H?’ ‘I think that will do very nicely.’ He beamed at his guests and then watched with obvious fondness as Zebra wheeled the prisoner away. When she was out of earshot Clavain said, ‘You’re a cruel man, H.’ ‘I am not cruel,’ he said. ‘Not in the sense you mean. But cruelty is a useful tool if one can only recognise the precise moment when it must be used.’ ‘That fucker had it coming,’ Antoinette said. ‘Sorry, Clavain, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over that bastard. He’d have killed us all if it wasn’t for H.’ Clavain still felt cold, as if one of the ghosts they had recently discussed had just walked through him. ‘What about the other victim?’ he asked with sudden urgency. ‘The other Conjoiner. Was it Skade?’ ‘No, it wasn’t Skade. A man this time. He was injured, but there’s no reason why he won’t make a full recovery.’ ‘Might I see him?’ ‘Shortly, Mr Clavain. I am not done with him yet. I wish to make absolutely certain that he can’t do me any harm before I bring him to consciousness.’ ‘He lied, then,’ Antoinette said. ‘Bastard told us he didn’t have any implants left in his head.’ Clavain turned to her. ‘He’ll have kept them while they were still useful, only flushing them out of his body when he was about to pass through some kind of security check. It doesn’t take long for the implants to dismantle themselves — a few minutes, and then all you’re left with are trace elements in the blood and urine.’ Scorpio said, ‘Be careful. Be very fucking careful.’ ‘Any particular reason why I should be?’ H asked. The pig pushed himself forwards in his seat. ‘Yeah. The spiders put something in my head, tuned to his implants. Like a little valve or something, around one vein or artery. He dies, I die — it’s simple.’ ‘Mm.’ H had one finger on his lip. ‘And you’re totally certain of this?’ ‘I already passed out once, when I tried strangling him.’ ‘Friendly relationship you two had, was it?’ ‘Marriage of convenience, pal. And he knew it. That was why he had to have a hold on me.’ ‘Well, there may have been something there once,’ H said. ‘But we examined all of you. You have no implants, Scorpio. If there was anything in your head, he flushed it out before you reached us.’ Scorpio’s mouth dropped open in a perfectly human expression of astonishment and intense self-disgust. ‘No… the fucker couldn’t have…’ ‘Very probably, Scorpio, you could have walked away at any time and there wouldn’t have been a thing in the world he could have done to stop you.’ ‘It’s like my father told me,’ Antoinette said. ‘You can’t trust the spiders, Scorpio. Ever.’ ‘Like I need to be told that?’ ‘You were the one they tricked, Scorpio, not me.’ He sneered at her, but remained silent. Perhaps, Clavain thought, he knew there was nothing he could say that would not make his position worse. ‘Scorpio,’ H said, with renewed seriousness, ‘I meant it when I said you were not my prisoner. I have no particular admiration for the things you did. But I have done terrible things myself, and I know that there are sometimes reasons that others don’t see. You saved Antoinette, and for that you have my gratitude — and, I suspect, the gratitude of my other guests.’ ‘Get to the point,’ Scorpio grunted. ‘I will honour the agreement that the Conjoiners made with you. I will let you leave, freely, so that you can rejoin your associates in the city. You have my word on that.’ Scorpio pushed himself from the seat, with noticeable effort. ‘Then I’m out of here.’ ‘Wait.’ H had not raised his voice, but something in his tone immobilised the pig. It was as if all that had come before was mere pleasantry, and that H had finally revealed his true nature: that he was not a man to be trifled with when he moved on to matters of gravity. Scorpio eased back into his seat. Softly he asked, ‘What?’ ‘Listen to me and listen well.’ He looked around, his expression judicial in its solemnity. ‘All of you. I won’t say this more than once.’ There was silence. Even the Talkative Twins seemed to have fallen into a deeper state of speechlessness. H moved to the grand piano and played six bleak notes before slamming the cover down. ‘I said that we live in momentous times. End times, perhaps. Certainly a great chapter in human affairs appears to be drawing to a close. Our own petty squabbles — our delicate worlds, our childlike factions, our comical little wars — are about to be eclipsed. We are children stumbling into a galaxy of adults, adults of vast age and vaster power. The woman who lived in this building was, I believe, a conduit for one or other of those alien forces. I do not know how or why. But I believe that through her these forces have extended their reach into the Conjoiners. I can only surmise that this has happened because a desperate time draws near.’ Clavain wanted to object. He wanted to argue. But everything he had discovered for himself, and everything that H had shown him, made that denial harder. H was correct in his assumption, and all Clavain could do was nod quietly and wish that it were otherwise. H was still speaking. ‘And yet — and this is what terrifies me — even the Conjoiners seem frightened. Mr Clavain is an honourable man.’ H nodded, as if his statement needed affirmation. ‘Yes. I know all about you, Mr Clavain. I have studied your career and sometimes wished that I could have walked the line you have chosen for yourself. It has been no easy path, has it? It has taken you between ideologies, between worlds, almost between species. All along, you have never followed anything as fickle as your heart, anything as meaningless as a flag. Merely your cold assessment of what, at any given moment, it is right to do.’ ‘I’ve been a traitor and a spy,’ Clavain said. ‘I’ve killed innocents for military ends. I’ve made orphans. If that’s honour, you can keep it.’ ‘There have been worse tyrants than you, Mr Clavain, trust me on that. But the point I make is merely this. These times have driven you to do the unthinkable. You have turned against the Conjoiners after four hundred years . Not because you believe the Demarchists are right, but because you sensed how your own side had become poisoned. And you realised, without perhaps seeing it clearly yourself, that what lies at stake is bigger than any faction, bigger than
