“That’ll be risky,” he warned. “Why not just let Remontoire bring Xavier back up here? He’s already agreed to bring Orca back from Ararat. I hate to be blunt—sorry—but at least that way we’d only lose one of you if the wolves take out the shuttle.”
“Because I’m not coming back,” she said. “I’m going down to Ararat and I’m staying there.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. “But you made it out,” he said.
“No, Scorp, I came up with the Infinity because I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. But my responsibilities are down there, with the thousands we’ll be leaving behind. Oh, they don’t really need me, I suppose, but they definitely need Xavier. He’s about the only one who knows how to fix anything when it goes wrong.“
“I’m sure you’ll make yourself useful,” Scorpio said, smiling.
“Well, if they let me fly something now and then, I guess I won’t go totally insane.”
“We could still use you up here. I could use an ally any time of the day.”
“You’ve got allies, Scorp; you just don’t know it yet.”
“You’re doing a brave thing,” he said.
“It’s not such a dreadful place,” she replied. “Don’t make me out to be too much of a martyr. I never really minded Ararat. I liked the sunsets. I guess I’ve even developed a taste for seaweed tea after all these years. All I’m really doing is staying at home.”
“We’ll miss you,” he said.
She looked down. He had the feeling that she could not look at his face. “I don’t know what’s going to happen now, Scorp. Maybe you’ll take this ship to Hela, like Aura says. Maybe you’ll go somewhere else. But I’ve a feeling we won’t ever meet again. It’s a big universe out there, and the chances of our paths ever crossing again…”
“It’s a big place,” he said, “but on the other hand, I guess that also makes it big enough for a few coincidences.”
“For some people, maybe, but not for the likes of you and me, Scorp.” She looked up then, staring hard into his eyes. “I was scared of you when I met you, I don’t mind admitting that now. Scared and ignorant. But I’m glad everything happened the way it did. I’m glad I got to know you for a few years.”
“It was half my life.”
“They were good years, Scorp. I won’t forget them.” Once more she looked down. He wondered if she was looking at his small, childlike shoes. Suddenly he felt self-conscious, wishing he was larger, more human, less like a pig and more like a man. “Remontoire’s going to have that shuttle ready soon,” she said. “I’d better be going. Take care of yourself, all right? You’re a good man. A good pig.”
“I try,” Scorpio said.
She hugged him, then kissed him.
Then she was gone. He never saw her again.
THIRTY-TWO
The caravan sidled up to the kerb of the Way, overtaking one cathedral after another. Monstrous machinery loomed over Rashmika. She was too overwhelmed to take it all in, retaining only a blurred impression of great dark-grey mechanisms, projected to an inhuman scale. As the caravan wormed between them, the cathedrals appeared to remain completely still, as fully rooted to the landscape as the buildings she had seen on the Jarnsaxa Flats. Except, of course, that these buildings were true skyscrapers, jagged fingers clawing across the face of Haldora. And that stillness, Rashmika knew, was only an illusion born of the caravan’s speed. Were they to stop, one or another of the cathedrals would be rolling over them within a few minutes.
It was said that the cathedrals never stopped. It was also said that they seldom deviated from their paths unless a given obstacle was too large to be safely crushed beneath their traction mechanisms.
The Way was much narrower than she had expected. She recalled what Quaestor Jones had said: that it was never more than two hundred metres wide, and usually much less than that. Distances were difficult to judge in the absence of any familiar landmarks, but she did not think the Way was more than one hundred metres wide at any point along this stretch. Some of the larger cathedrals were almost that wide themselves, squatting across the full width of the Way like mechanical toads. The smaller cathedrals were able to travel two abreast, but only by allowing parts of their superstructures to lean out over the edges of the Way. Here, it did not really matter: the Way was just a smoothed and cleared strip across the other-wise flat and unobstructed expanse of the Flats. Any one of the cathedrals could have diverted off the path prepared ahead of it, taking its chances on the slightly rougher ground on either side. But clearly no such risk-taking was on the cards today, and the relative order of the procession looked set to remain unchallenged for the time being. This was the normal way of things: the jockeying, jousting and general dirty tricks that one heard about in the badlands were very much the exception rather than the rule, and such stories, Rashmika had long suspected, enjoyed a degree of exaggeration as they travelled north.
For now, therefore, the flotillas of cathedrals would creep along the Way in a more or less fixed formation. If she thought of them as city-states, then now would be a period of trade and diplomacy rather than war. Doubtless there would be espionage and subtle gamesmanship, and doubtless plans were continually being drawn up for future contingencies. But for the moment what prevailed was a state of genteel cordiality, with all the strained courtesies one customarily expected between historical rivals.
This suited Rashmika: it would be difficult enough fitting in with the repair gang without having to deal with additional crises and complications.
She had been given orders to collect her belongings—such as they were—and remain in one vehicle of the caravan. The reason soon became obvious, as the caravan fissioned into many smaller components. Rashmika watched as the quaestor’s workers hopped from vehicle to vehicle, unhooking umbilicals and couplings with cool indifference to the obvious risks.
Some of these sub-caravans were still several vehicles in length, and she watched as they peeled away to rendezvous with the larger cathedrals or cathedrals-clusters. To her disappointment, however, the vehicle to which she had been assigned departed on its own. She was not alone in it—there were a dozen or so pilgrims and migrant workers waiting with her—but any hope that the Catherine of Iron might turn out to be amongst the larger cathedrals was quickly dashed, if it only merited one portion of the caravan.
Well, she had to start somewhere, as the quaestor had said.
Quickly the vehicle nosed away from the major cathedrals, bouncing and jinking over the ruts and potholes they had left in their wake.
“You lot,” she said, addressing the other travellers, standing in front of them with arms akimbo. “Which one of those is the Lady Morwenna?”
One of her companions wiped a smear of mucus from his upper lip. “None of them, love.”
“One of them has to be,” she said. “That’s the main gathering. The sweet spot is right there.”
“That’s the main gathering all right, but no one said the Lady Mor was part of it.”
“Now you’re being oblique for the sake of it.”
“Hark at her,” someone else said. “Right stuck-up little cow.”
“All right,” she countered. “If the Lady Morwenna isn’t there, where is it?”
“Why are you so interested?” the first one asked.
“It’s the oldest cathedral on the Way,” she said. “I think it’d be a little strange not to want to see it, don’t you?”
“All we want is work, love. Doesn’t matter which one doles it out. It’s still the same fucking ice you have to shovel out the way.”