can do and it isn’t nice, but there isn’t any sign of scorching on this body.’ ‘It was a causal gradient,’ said a third voice. ‘Skade…’ Clavain breathed. She was behind them. She had approached with inhuman silence, not even breathing. Her armoured bulk filled the corridor, black as night save for the pale oval of her face. ‘Hello, Clavain. And hello, Scorpio, too, I suppose.’ She looked at him with mild interest. ‘So you didn’t die then, pig?’ ‘Actually, Clavain was just pointing out how lucky 1 am to have met the Conjoiners.’ ‘Sensible Clavain.’ Clavain looked at her, horrified and awestruck at the same time. Remontoire had forewarned him about Skade’s accident, but that warning had been insufficient to prepare him for this meeting. Her mechanical armour was androform, even — in an exaggerated, faintly medieval way — feminine, swelling at the hips and with the suggestion of breasts moulded into the chest plate. But Clavain knew now that it was not armour at all but a life-support prosthesis; that the only organic part of her was her head. Skade’s crested skull was plugged stiffly into the neckpiece of the armour. The brutal conjunction of flesh and machinery screamed wrongness, a wrongness that became even more acute when Skade smiled. ‘You did this to me,’ she said, obviously speaking aloud for Scorpio’s benefit. ‘Aren’t you proud?’ ‘I didn’t do it to you, Skade. 1 know exactly what happened. I hurt you, and I’m sorry it happened that way. But it wasn’t intentional and you know it.’ ‘So your defection was involuntary? If only it were that easy.’ ‘I didn’t cut your head off, Skade,’ Clavain said. ‘By now Delmar could have healed the injuries I gave you. You’d be whole again. But that didn’t fit with your plans.’ ‘You dictated my plans, Clavain. You and my loyalty to the Mother Nest.’ ‘I don’t question your loyalty, Skade. I just wonder exactly what it is you’re loyal to.’ Scorpio whispered, ‘Thirteen minutes, Clavain. Then we have to be out of here.’ Skade’s attention snapped on to the pig. ‘In a hurry, are you?’ ‘Aren’t we all?’ Scorpio said. ‘You’ve come for something. I don’t doubt that your weapons could already have destroyed Nightshade were that your intention.’ ‘Give me Felka,’ Clavain said. ‘Give me Felka, then we’ll leave you alone.’ ‘Does she mean that much to you, Clavain, that you’d have held back from destroying me when you had the chance?’ ‘She means a great deal to me, yes.’ Skade’s crest rippled with turquoise and orange. ‘I’ll give you Felka, if it makes you leave. But first I want to show you something.’ She reached up with the gauntleted arms of her suit, placing one hand on either side of her neck as if about to strangle herself. But her metal hands were evidently capable of great gentleness. Clavain heard a click somewhere within Skade’s chest, and then the metal pillar of her neck began to rise from between her shoulders. She was removing her own head. Clavain watched, entranced and repelled, as the lower part of the pillar emerged. It ended in thrashing, segmented appendages. They dribbled pink baubles of coloured fluid — blood, perhaps, or something entirely artificial. ‘Skade…’ he said. ‘This isn’t necessary.’ ‘Oh, it is very necessary, Clavain. I want you to apprehend fully what it is you’ve done to me. I want you to feel the horror of it.’ ‘I think he’s getting the picture,’ Scorpio said. ‘Just give me Felka, then I’ll leave you.’ She hefted her own head, cradling it in one hand. It continued to speak. ‘Do you hate me, Clavain?’ ‘None of this is personal, Skade. I just think you’re misguided.’ ‘Misguided because I care about the survival of our people?’ ‘Something got to you, Skade,’ Clavain said. ‘You were a good Conjoiner once, one of the best. You truly served the Mother Nest, just as I did. But then you were sent on the Chateau operation.’ He had pricked her interest. He saw the involuntary widening of her eyes. ‘The Chateau des Corbeaux? What does that have to do with anything?’ ‘A lot more than you’d like to think,’ Clavain said. ‘You were the only survivor, Skade, but you didn’t come back alone. You probably don’t remember very much of what actually happened down there, but that doesn’t matter. Something got to you, I’m certain of that. It’s responsible for everything that’s happened lately.’ He tried to smile. ‘That’s why I don’t hate you, or even much blame you. You’re either not the Skade I knew, or you think you’re serving something higher than yourself.’ ‘Ridiculous.’ ‘But possibly true. I should know, Skade, I went there myself. How do you think we stayed on your tail all this time? The Chateau was the source for the technology you and I both used. Alien technology, for manipulating inertia. Except you used it for much more than that, didn’t you?’ ‘I used it to serve an end, that’s all.’ ‘You tried to move faster than light, just the way Galiana did.’ He saw another flicker of interest at the mention of Galiana’s name. ‘Why, Skade? What was so important that you had to do this? They’re just weapons.’ ‘You want them badly, too.’ Clavain nodded. ‘But only because I’ve seen how badly you want them. You showed me that fleet, too, and that made me think you were planning on getting away from this part of space. What is it, Skade? What have you seen in your crystal ball?’ ‘Shall I show you, Clavain?’ ‘Show me?’ he asked. ‘Allow me access to your mind and I’ll implant exactly what I was shown. Then you will know. And perhaps see things my way.’ ‘Don’t…’ Scorpio said. Clavain lowered his mental defences. Skade’s presence was sudden and intrusive, so much so that he flinched. But she did not attempt to do more than paint images in his mind, as she had promised. Clavain saw the end of everything. He saw chains of human habitats spangling with bright pinpricks of annihilating fire. Nuclear garlands dappled the surfaces of worlds too unimportant to dismantle. He saw comets and asteroids being steered into colonies, wave upon wave of them, far too many to be neutralised by the existing defences. Flares were lifted from the surfaces of stars, focused and daubed across the faces of worlds, sterilising all in their path. He saw rocky worlds being pulverised, smashed into hot clouds of interplanetary rubble. He saw gas giants being spun apart, ruined like the toys of petulant children.
