“Reaction mass?” Djan Seriy said, looking sceptical.
“To be used in a deeply retro fusion drive I’m also putting together,” Hippinse said with an embarrassed- sounding sigh. He was himself looking reconfigured, becoming taller and less rotund with every passing day.
“Oh dear,” Anaplian said, thinking it seemed called for.
“Yes,” the ship’s avatoid said with evident distaste. “I am preparing to turn myself into a rocket.”
“They’re saying some terrible things about you, sir, where they mention you at all any more.”
“Thank you, Holse. However, I am scarcely concerned with the degree to which my own reputation has been defamed by that tyrant-in-waiting tyl Loesp,” Ferbin said, lying. “The state of our home and the fate of my brother is all that matters to me.”
“Just as well, sir,” Holse said, staring at the display hovering in mid-air in front of him. Ferbin sat nearby, inspecting another holo-screen. Holse shook his head. “They’ve painted you as a proper rapscallion.” He whistled at something on the screen. “Now I
“Holse!” Ferbin said sharply. “My brother lives, tyl Loesp goes unpunished and disports himself round the Ninth. The Deldeyn are entirely defeated, the army is partially disbanded, the Nameless City is more than half revealed and — we’re told — the Oct gather round Sursamen. These things are of far greater import, would you not agree?”
“Course I do, sir,” Holse agreed.
“Then to those things attend, not gossip germed by my enemies.”
“Just as you say, sir.”
They were reading material about Sursamen and the Eighth (and, now, the Ninth) from news services run by the Oct, the Nariscene and the Morthanveld, as commented upon by people, artificial minds and what appeared to be non-official but somehow still respected organisations from within the Culture, all of it expressed in commendably succinct and clear Sarlian. Ferbin hadn’t known whether to be flattered that they drew so much attention or insulted that they were so spied upon. He had searched in vain — or at least he had asked the ship to search for, unsuccessfully — any sort of verbatim recordings of the sort Xide Hyrlis had suggested might exist of what had happened to his father, but had found none. Djan Seriy had already told him such records did not appear to exist but he had wanted to check.
“All highly interesting,” Ferbin agreed, sitting back in his almost excessively accommodating seat. They were in the ship’s other small lounge area, one short sleep and a half-day into their journey. “I wonder what the latest information is regarding the Oct ships…?” Ferbin’s voice trailed off as he inadvertently read another vicious exaggeration regarding his own past behaviour.
“What do you want to know?” the ship’s voice asked, making Holse jump.
Ferbin collected himself. “The Oct ships,” he said. “Are they really there, around Sursamen?”
“We don’t know,” the ship admitted.
“Have the Morthanveld been told the Oct might be gathering there?” Ferbin asked.
“It has been decided that they’ll be told very shortly after we arrive,” the ship said.
“I see.” Ferbin nodded wisely.
“How very shortly afterwards?” Holse asked.
The ship hesitated, as though thinking. “Very very shortly afterwards,” it said.
“Would that be a coincidence?” Holse enquired.
“Not exactly.”
“He died in his armour; in that sense he died well.”
Ferbin shook his head. “He died on a table like a spayed cur, Djan Seriy,” he told her. “Like some traitor of old, broken and cruelled, made most filthy sport of. He would not have wished upon himself what I saw happen to him, believe me.”
His sister lowered her head for a few moments.
They had been left alone after their first substantial meal aboard the
“It was his hand, sister.” Ferbin looked deep into Djan Seriy’s eyes. “He twisted the life from our father’s heart and made all possible anguish in his mind too, in case that in his breast was somehow insufficient. He told him he would order massacre in his name, both that day on the battlefield around the Xiliskine and later when the army invaded the Deldeyn level. He would claim that Father had demanded such against tyl Loesp’s advice, all to blacken his name. He scorned him in those last moments, sister; told him the game was always greater than he’d known, as though my father was not ever the one to see furthest.”
Djan Seriy frowned momentarily. “What do you think he meant by that?” she asked. “The game was always greater than he’d known?”
Ferbin tutted in exasperation. “I think he meant to taunt our father, grasping anything to hand to hurt him with.”
“Hmm,” Djan Seriy said.
Ferbin sat closer to his sister. “He would want us to revenge him, of that I’m sure, Djan Seriy.”
“I’m sure he would.”
“I am not illusioned in this, sister. I know it is you who holds the power between us. But can you? Will you?”
“What? Kill Mertis tyl Loesp?”
Ferbin clutched at her hand. “Yes!”
“No.” She shook her head, took her hand away. “I can find him, take him, deliver him, but this is not a matter for summary justice, Ferbin. He should suffer the ignominy of a trial and the contempt of those he once commanded; then you can imprison him for ever or kill him if that’s still how we do these things, but it’s not my place to murder him. This is an affair of state and I’ll be present, on that level, in a purely personal capacity. The orders I have now have nothing to do with him.” She reached out, squeezed her brother’s hand. “Hausk was a king before he was a father, Ferbin. He was not intentionally cruel to us and he loved us in his own way, I’m sure, but we were never his priority. He would not thank you for putting your personal animosity and thirst for revenge above the needs of the state he made great and expected his sons to make greater.”
“Will you try to stop me,” Ferbin asked, sounding bitter, “should I take aim at tyl Loesp?”
Djan Seriy patted his hand. “Only verbally,” she said. “But I’ll start now; do not use the death of this man to make you feel better. Use his fate, whatever it may be, to make your kingdom better.”
“I never wanted it to be my kingdom,” Ferbin said, and looked away, taking a deep breath.
Anaplian watched him, studying the set of his body and what she could still see of his expression, and thought how much and how little he had changed. He was, of course, much more mature than he had been fifteen years ago, but he had changed in ways that she might not have expected, and probably had changed quite recently, just due to all the things that had happened since their father had been killed. He seemed more serious, less self- obsessed and much less selfish in his pleasures and aims now. She got the impression, especially after a few brief conversations with Choubris himself, that Holse would never have followed the old Ferbin so far or so faithfully. What had not changed was his lack of desire to be king.
She wondered how much he thought she had changed, but knew there was almost no comparison. She still had all her memories of childhood and early adolescence, she appeared vaguely similar to how she’d looked when she’d left and she could contrive to sound much like her old self, but in every other regard she was another person altogether.
She used her neural lace to listen in to the
