Alastiar Reynolds

type='note'>note 231
We have optical monitors strewn through the halo. Surely he’ll have fallen into the line of sight of another one by now.
note 232
Were missiles launched?
note 233
She felt drool loosen itself and trail down her chin. We have to stop him, Remontoire. Grasp that .
note 234
She bit down on her fury. We have the prototype .
note 235
Skade said nothing for several seconds, calculating how much she could prudently reveal. This was Inner Sanctum business, after all, sensitive even by the clandestine standards of Closed Council. It is, Remontoire .
The door opened. One of the servitors ducked under and in, followed by Delmar. Remontoire stood and extended his hands, palms facing forwards.
note 236
Delmar stood by the door, arms folded. note 237
Skade hissed at Remontoire. He moved closer, bending down so that their heads were only centimetres apart, permitting mind-to-mind contact without amplification by the room’s systems. It can be done. The prototype has a higher acceleration ceiling than you have assumed .
note 238
A lot. You’ll see. But all you need to know is that the prototype can get close enough to Clavain’s approximate position to pick up his trail again, and then close within weapons range. I’ll need you on the crew, of course. You’re a soldier, Remontoire. You know the weapons better than I do.
note 239
It’s a little bit late for that, wouldn’t you say?
Remontoire said nothing, but she knew she had made her point. And he would come around to her viewpoint soon enough. He was a Conjoiner to the core, and would therefore accept any course of action, no matter how ruthless, that benefited the Mother Nest. That was the difference between Remontoire and Clavain.
note 240
Yes, Remontoire?
note 241
You’d have a demand of your own?
note 242
Skade narrowed her eyes. She was about to refuse when she realised that her grounds for doing so — that the operation had to be remain entirely within the purview of the Closed Council — made no difference where Felka was concerned.
What possible good would Felka’s presence serve?
note 243
Skade knew he was right, though it pained her to admit it. Clavain would have been an immensely valuable asset to the operation to recover the hell-class weapons, and his loss would make the operation very much more difficult. On one level, she could see the attraction of bringing him back into the fold, so that he could be pinned down and his hard-won expertise sucked out like so much bone marrow. But a live capture would be inordinately more difficult than a long-range kill, and until she succeeded there would remain the possibility of him reaching the other side. The Demarchists would be fascinated to hear about the new shipbuilding programme, the rumours of evacuation plans and savage new weapons.
Skade could not be certain, but she thought that the news might be enough to reinvigorate the enemy, gaining them allies who had thus far remained neutral. If the Demarchists rallied and managed to launch some kind of last-ditch attack on the Mother Nest, with the support of the Ultras and any number of previously neutral factions, all could be lost.
No. She had to kill Clavain; that was simply not open to debate. Equally, she had to give every impression that she was ready to act reasonably, just as she would have done under any other state of war. Which meant that she had to accept Felka’s presence.
This is blackmail, isn’t it?
note 244
He won’t listen to her, even if…
note 245
He’s an old man, Remontoire. An old man with delusions. They’re not my responsibility.
The servitors moved aside to allow him to leave. She watched the seemingly detached ovoid of his face bob out of the room like a balloon. There had been instants in their conversation when she had almost sensed cracks in the neural blockade, pathways that Delmar had — through understandable oversight — not completely disabled. The cracks had been like strobe flashes, opening up brief frozen windows into Remontoire’s skull. Very probably he had not even been aware of her intrusions. Perhaps she had even imagined them.
But if she had imagined them, she had also imagined the horror that went with them. And the horror came from what Remontoire was seeing.
Delmar…I really would like to know the facts…
note 246
Show me now, you bastard.
He came closer to her side. The first of the swan-