By then, the Zodiacal Light had completed its self-repairs and the human exploration of the Hades object had reached its logical conclusion. As Remontoire and his allies moved out of the system, therefore, Skade had shadowed them. Tentative communications ensued, and Skade had deployed her existing assets to protect die evacuees from the pursuing Inhibitor elements. The gesture was calculated and risky, but nothing else would convince Remontoire that she was to be trusted.
But Skade had wanted nothing more than to be trusted. She had seen the evidence of Remontoire’s new technologies and had realised that she was now at a tactical disadvantage. She had originally come to take the cache weapons—but the new ones would do equally well.
What had really interested her, however, was Aura.
Over months of shiptime, as the Zodiacal Light and the other two Conjoiner ships raced towards Ararat, Skade had played a delicate game of insinuation. She had gained Remontoire’s confidence, making conspicuous sacrifices, trading intelligence and resources. She had played on his old loyalties to the Mother Nest, convincing him that it was in their mutual best interests to co-operate. When, finally, Remontoire had allowed some of Skade’s fellow Conjoiners aboard his ship, it had merely seemed like the latest cordial step in a thawing detente.
But the Conjoiners had turned out to be a snatch-team. Killing dozens in the process, they had located Khouri, drugged her and taken her back to Skade’s ship. There, Skade’s surgeons had operated on Khouri to remove Aura. The foetus, still only in its sixth month of development, had then been reintroduced into another womb. A biocybernetic support construct of living tissue, the womb had then been installed in the new body Skade had grown for herself after discarding her old, damaged one in the Mother Nest. The implants in Aura’s head were meant to communicate only with their counterparts in Khouri, but Skade’s infiltration routines had quickly undone Remontoire’s handiwork. With Aura now growing inside her, Skade had tapped into the same flow of data that had already given Remontoire his new weapons.
She had her prize, but even then Skade was clever. Too clever, perhaps. She should have killed Khouri then and there, but in Khouri she had seen another means of obtaining leverage over Remontoire. Even after her child had been ripped from her, Khouri was still useful as a potential hostage. Following negotiations, Skade had returned her to Remontoire in return for even more technological trade-offs. Aura would have given her these things sooner or later, but Skade had been in no mood to wait.
By then, the Inhibitors were almost upon them.
When the ships eventually arrived around Ararat, the battle had entered a new and silent phase. As the humans had escalated their conflict to include the use of novel, barely understood weaponry, the Inhibitors had retaliated with savage new strategies of their own. It was a war of maximum stealth: all energies were redirected into undetectable wavebands. Phantom images were projected to confuse and intimidate. Matter and force were thrown around with abandon. Day by day, skirmish by skirmish, even hour by hour, the human factions had fallen in and out of co-operation, depending on minute changes in battle projections. Skade had only wanted to aid Remontoire if the alternative was her own guaranteed annihilation. Remontoire’s reasoning had not been so very far removed.
But a week ago, Skade had changed her tactics. A corvette had left one of her two remaining heavy ships. Remontoire’s side had tracked the swiftly moving ship to Ararat as it slipped between the major battle fronts. Analysis of its acceleration limits suggested that it was carrying at least one human occupant. A small detachment of Inhibitor forces had chased the corvette, cutting much closer to the planet than they usually did. It was as if the machines had realised that something significant was at stake, and that the corvette must be stopped at all costs.
They had failed, but not before damaging the Conjoiner ship. Again, Remontoire and his allies had managed to track the limping spacecraft as its stealth systems shifted in and out of functionality. They had watched the ship ditch in Ararat’s atmosphere, making a barely controlled landing in the sea. There was no sign that anyone on Ararat had even noticed.
A few days later, Khouri had followed. Remontoire had refused to commit a larger force, not when there was so little chance of making it past the Inhibitors to the surface. But they had agreed that a small capsule might stand a slim chance. In addition, someone really needed to let the people on Ararat know what was going on, and sending Khouri would kill two birds with one stone.
Vasko thought about the strength of mind that it must have taken for Khouri to come down here on her own, with no guarantee of rescue, let alone of being able to save her daughter. He wondered what the stronger emotion was: her love for her daughter, or the hatred she must have felt towards Skade.
The more he considered it, the less likely it seemed that this situation was the result of any kind of misunderstanding. And he very much doubted that any of this was going to be resolved by negotiation. Skade might have stolen Aura from Khouri, but she had had the element of surprise, and she would have lost nothing if her attempt had resulted in the death of either mother or baby. But that wasn’t true now. And Skade—if she was still alive and if the baby was still alive inside her—would be expecting them.
What would it take to make her give up Aura?
In the lamp-light, Vasko saw a flicker of silver-grey from Clavain’s direction, and watched as the old man examined the knife he had brought with him from his island retreat.
Rashmika had arranged a private meeting with Quaestor Jones. It took place immediately after a trading session, in the same windowless room she had visited with Crozet. Behind his desk, the quaestor waited for her to say something, hands folded across his generous paunch, his lips conveying suspicion mingled with faint prurient interest. Now and then he popped a morsel of food into the jaws of his pet, which squatted on the desk like a piece of abstract sculpture moulded from bright-green plastic.
As she studied him, Rashmika wondered how good he was at telling truth from lies. It was difficult to tell with some people.
“She’s a persistent little madam, Peppermint,” the quaestor said. “Warned her away from the roof, and there she was, not two hours later. What do you think we should do with her, eh?”
“If you don’t want people up on the roof, you ought to make it a bit harder to get up there,” Rashmika said. “In any case, I don’t particularly like being spied on.”
“I have an obligation to protect my passengers,” he said. “If you don’t like that, you’re very welcome to leave when Mr. Crozet returns to the badlands.”
“Actually, I want to stay aboard,” Rashmika said.
“You mean you wish to make the pilgrimage to the Way?”
“No.” She hid her distaste at the thought of the people on the racks. She had learned that they were called Observers. “Not that. I want to travel to the Way and to find work there. But pilgrimage hasn’t got anything to do with it.”
“Mm. We’ve already been over your skills profile, Miss Els.”
It did not please her that he remembered her name. “We barely discussed it, Quaestor. I don’t think you can really make an honest assessment of my skills based on one short conversation.”