Remontoire continued, ‘He was one of us. A good friend of mine, in fact. Better than that: he was a good Conjoiner. He’d been one of us for four hundred years, and we wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for his deeds. He was the Butcher of Tharsis once, you know. But that’s ancient history now; I don’t imagine you’ve even heard of Tharsis. All that matters is that Clavain defected, or is in the process of defecting, and he must be stopped. Because he was — is — a friend, I would sooner that we stopped him alive rather than dead, but I accept that it might not be possible. We tried killing him once, when it was the only option we had. I’m almost glad that we failed. Clavain tricked us; he used his corvette to drop himself off in empty space. When we destroyed the corvette, he wasn’t aboard it.’ ‘Clever guy. I like him better already.’ ‘Good. I’m glad to hear it. Because you’re going to help me find him.’ He was good, Scorpio thought. The way Remontoire said it, it was almost as if he believed it might happen. ‘Help you?’ ‘We think he was rescued by a freighter. We can’t be certain, but it looks as if it was the same one we encountered earlier, around the Contested Volume — just before we captured you , as a matter of fact. Clavain helped the pilot of the freighter then, and he must have hoped she’d pay back the favour. That ship just made an unscheduled, illegal detour into the war zone. It’s just possible that it rendezvoused with Clavain, picked him up from empty space.’ ‘Then shoot the fucking thing down. I don’t see what your problem is.’ ‘Too late, I’m afraid. By the time we pieced this together, the freighter had already returned to Ferrisville Convention airspace.’ Remontoire gestured over his shoulder to the line of habitats slashed across the darkening face of Yellowstone. ‘By now, Clavain will have gone to ground in the Rust Belt, which happens to be more your territory than mine. Judging by your record, you know it almost as intimately as you know Chasm City. And I’m sure you’ll be very eager to be my guide.’ Remontoire smiled and tapped a finger gently against his own temple. ‘Won’t you?’ ‘I could still kill you. There are always ways.’ ‘You’d die, though, and what good would that do? We have a bargaining position, you see. Assist us — assist the Conjoined — and we will ensure that you never reach Convention custody. We’ll supply the Convention with a body, an identical replica cloned from your own. We’ll tell them that you died in our care. That way you not only get your freedom, but you’ll also no longer have an army of Convention investigators after you. We can supply you with finances and credible false documentation. Scorpio will be dead, but there’s no reason why you can’t continue.’ ‘Why haven’t you done that already? If you can fake my body, you could have given them a corpse by now.’ ‘There’ll be repercussions, Scorpio, severe ones. It is not a path we would ordinarily choose. But at this point we need Clavain back rather more than we need the Convention’s good will.’ ‘Clavain must mean a lot to you.’ Remontoire turned back to the control panel and played it again, his fingers arpeggiating like a maestro. ‘He does mean a lot to us, yes. But what he carries in his head means even more.’ Scorpio considered his position, his survival instincts clicking in with their usual ruthless efficiency, just as they always did in times of personal crisis. Once it was Quail, now it was a frail-looking Conjoiner with the power to kill him by thought alone. He had every reason to believe that Remontoire was sincere in his threat, and that he would be handed over to the Convention if he did not co- operate. With no opportunity to alert Lasher to his return, he was as good as dead if that happened. But if he assisted Remontoire he would at least be prolonging his arrest. Perhaps Remontoire was telling the truth when he said that he would be allowed to go free. But even if the Conjoiner was lying about that — and he did not think that he was — then there would be still more opportunities to contact Lasher and make his ultimate escape. It sounded like the sort of offer one would be very foolish to refuse. Even if it meant, for the time being at least, working with someone he still considered human. ‘You must be desperate,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I am,’ said Remontoire. ‘At the same time, I really don’t think it’s much of your business. So, are you going to do what I asked?’ ‘If I say no…’ Remontoire smiled. ‘Then there won’t be any need for that cloned corpse.’ About once every eight hours Antoinette opened the airlock door long enough to pass him food and water. Clavain took what she had to offer gratefully, remembering to thank her and to show not the least sign of resentment that he was still a prisoner. It was enough that she had rescued him and that she was taking him back to the authorities. He imagined that in her shoes he would have been even less trusting, especially since he knew what a Conjoiner was capable of doing. He was much less her prisoner than she believed. His confinement continued for a day. He felt the floor pitch and shift under him as the ship changed its thrust pattern, and when Antoinette appeared at the door she confirmed, before passing another bulb of water and a nutrition bar through to him, that they were en route back to the Rust Belt. ‘Those thrust changes,’ he said, peeling back the foil covering the bar. ‘What were they for? Were we in danger of running into military activity?’ ‘Not exactly, no.’ ‘What, then?’ ‘Banshees, Clavain.’ She must have seen his look of incomprehension. ‘They’re pirates, bandits, brigands, rogues, whatever you want to call them. Real badass sons of bitches.’ I haven’t heard of them.‘ ‘You wouldn’t have unless you were a trader trying to make an honest living.’ He chewed on the bar. ‘You almost said that with a straight face.’ ‘Hey, listen. I bend the rules now and then, that’s all. But what these fuckers do — it makes the most illegal thing I’ve ever done look like, I don’t know, a minor docking violation.’ ‘And these banshees… they used to be traders too, I take it?’ She nodded. ‘Until they figured out it was easier to steal cargo from the likes of me rather than haul it themselves.’ ‘But you’ve never been directly involved with them before?’ ‘A few run-ins. Everyone who hauls anything in or near the Rust Belt has been shadowed by banshees at least once. Normally they leave us alone. Storm Bird’s pretty fast, so it doesn’t make an easy target for a forced docking. And, well, we have a few other deterrents.’ Clavain nodded wisely, thinking that he knew exactly what she meant. ‘And now?’ ‘We’ve been shadowed. A couple of banshees latched on to us for an hour, holding off at one-tenth of a light-second. Thirty-thou klicks. That’s pissing-distance out here. But we shook ’em off.‘ Clavain took a sip from the drinking bulb. ‘Will they
