I wouldn’t repeat that mistake.
Kowalski had made good on asking Grim to trace the supplier-chains. All acquired intel, manifestos, datastacks and substrates were made accessible to him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so excited to work. He’d wasted no time setting up his technest, adding even more clutter to the room. Grim was seated in the centre of a wrap-around terminal, membrane-thin display panes swirling around him like interstellar bodies in orbit. Data feeds streamed in rivers of neon blue, complex graphics and icons churning over the display facets. Grim’s eyes were that creepy milk-white, arm hairs stiffening, body jerking as he trawled through search parameters, codewords, logs across a dozen spaceports. I swear I could hear the firehose pressure of data flooding through the stream of ribbed cables.
‘Why is this taking so long?’ I asked on the third or fourth day. I was flat on my back, lying in my armour. The inner tendrils and gritty abrasives were set to massage-mode, the vibrations shuddering up and down my body.
‘Lot of variables, Vak,’ Grim called out. ‘You know how difficult it is to do a Deep Dive across space? With a tightbeam commsline?’
‘No, Grim. I don’t.’
‘And allowing for infra-species spelling, mistranslations, broken waybills, faulty substrates? Or maybe I could sit around, and you can be the one translating alien space-jargon and their systems of record-keeping.’
I swallowed a retort, blackened my visor and interior lights and submerged into my thoughts. You don’t get much time alone as a Reaper. Any moments during travel, holing up at wayward outposts, or waiting to be relieved were the best you got. I used the moment to think. House of Suns had to have a base; a centralised core of operations. The Warren and Tipei Corporation had just been temporary outposts. If they were stationed elsewhere and shipping to the asteroid, that presented another problem: there was no way they could be sneaking stormtech through the spaceports. Compass had insane security, handled by firms I’d heard of even when I was on New Vladi. Armed with thermal detectors, pheromone-sniffers, and scanners that went down into skin-flakes and dust motes. Unless they had someone high on the ladder who was being bribed to turn a blind eye, which I found very unlikely, they had to be manufacturing their product on the asteroid.
For an insane moment, I wondered if Artyom would help me out, if I asked. In the next moment I wondered if he was still alive. Jae had known we were brothers, and it hadn’t been Artyom who’d informed her of that inconvenience. But in our brief conversation, she’d struck me as the pragmatic type. A businesswoman. If Artyom was as much of an asset as he appeared to be, they wouldn’t have axed him.
But I also felt sure if they had, that I’d have known. Somehow, I’d feel it. He’d almost died when we were kids. I’d had to go into the mountains for three nights, as everyone did when they came of age, to live in the wilderness of New Vladi’s mountain ranges. Didn’t matter if there was a blizzard, or wild animals stalking about. When you came of age, you went. It was to remind us of Siberia, our ancestral land.
Frostbite had nearly gnawed my fingers off, but I’d done it. I was climbing back down the tree-studded slopes when I saw someone stumbling towards the frozen lake near our home. At first I thought it was a drunk, struggling home after a hard night. Something told me to take another look.
That’s when I saw Artyom holding the knife.
By the time I’d caught up with him, he’d cut his wrist open and was trying to start on the other. I wrestled the dripping blade away, one hand clamped over the wound as the other rummaged for the bandages in my emergency pack. His blood dripped warm between my fingers as I fought to get him patched up. I’d only been away for three days, but the fresh bruises on his tear-stained face told me the whole story. He’d been trying to end the nightmare first, to at least have that tiny measure of control over his life. The cut wasn’t deep enough to do significant damage, but bad enough.
‘You can’t ever do this, Artyom,’ I’d told him gently. ‘What about me?’ I knelt in front of him. My hands on his shoulders. ‘What about Kasia? What would she say if you went away for ever?’
‘I’m s-s-sorry,’ he’d said through chattering teeth. ‘Please don’t love me less for this.’
‘Never,’ I told him fiercely. ‘Never.’ I held him close as the wind howled over the mountains, the first flakes of snowfall swirling down from the skies. I did what little I could to make it the best week of Artyom’s life. But his favourite was always listening to music in the afternoons, before our father came back and we had the house to ourselves. We’d sit with our backs to the peeling walls. The gunmetal sky bruised with clouds, the windows streaking with little drops of rain while the sound of instruments filled the room. He’d close his eyes and tuck his knees to his chest. Nodding along with the rhythm, lost in the little moment of peace I’d given him. I sat beside him, knowing it couldn’t last. I remember my heart warming and cracking at the same time. Just wishing there was more I could do for him, but knowing the only thing I could afford was staying beside him, being the best brother I could be.
And I promised myself I’d always be around to do exactly that.
Grim came up with a result on the fifth day and Kowalski wasted no time coming over to discuss it. ‘Remember that compound in the Warren where the Suns were hiding out?’ she asked me.
‘Not likely to forget it,’ I said evenly.
Kowalski winced. ‘Yeah. Sorry.
