“I didn’t load any cargo. It was the last thing on my mind before we left E2.” Then she remembered the snake robot. Even as part of it was busy sabotaging the link, another part would have been diligently loading the transport with Susan White’s accumulated possessions.
It took a machine to be that stupid, Auger thought. “OK. Now tell me what the hell you’re doing here.”
“Other than saving your life? Oh, I thought that was obvious. I’m a spy, Auger. Ever since we picked up rumours and hints that you Threshers had reopened the Phobos portal, I’ve been trying to worm my way into Caliskan’s confidence in order to find out what’s going on. And it worked, too, didn’t it? That little trip to Earth was most invigorating.”
“I always said you couldn’t be trusted.”
“Ah, but the point is that you have no one else to trust. I’m your last, best hope.”
“I think I’ll take my chances with Niagara,” Auger said.
“Oh, yes. Dear, dependable Niagara. Shall I break the bad news now or later? Niagara was also a spy. The difference is that he was working for the really nasty people.”
The white walls were curved, merging seamlessly with floor and ceiling. Fine gold threads wove themselves through the white in calligraphic swirls that oozed and flowed in a way that seemed to calm Auger on some utterly primal level.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, snapping her attention back to Cassandra. “Niagara showed us how to make the link work. Why would he have done that if he was working against us?”
“Because he needed the link up and running, you silly-billy.” Cassandra sighed, planting one hand on her hip. “Look, I’ll spell it out for you: you were all duped. Niagara was a plant, working for a particularly vicious splinter faction of the aggressors. He wasn’t a moderate sympathiser at all, but your worst enemy.”
“Nice of you to let us know.”
“And nice of your government to let us know it had found the Phobos portal in the first place,” she countered. “If your people hadn’t been so keen to keep that from us, we might have learned about Niagara’s activities sooner than we did.”
“Or you’d have made sure you controlled Niagara.”
“Are you going to keep this up for ever, Auger? Or would it kill you to trust me?”
“I can’t trust you, Cassandra. You lied to me on Earth, posing as someone you weren’t.”
“At the behest of your government, not mine. It wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest if you’d known I was a Polity citizen. It was Caliskan who insisted on that particular charade.”
“That still doesn’t excuse the fact that you were prepared to testify against me in the tribunal.”
“Testify as in ‘tell the truth,’ you mean? Well, I can’t argue with that.”
“They’d have hung me out to dry.”
“And you’d have deserved it. Nothing was worth risking a human life the way you did, Auger. Especially not some useless paper relic from two hundred years ago.”
“Is this the reason you rescued me? To rub my nose in it?”
“Do I detect a note of contrition?”
“Detect what you like. You still haven’t explained what you were doing around Mars, if you’re so friendly.”
“We were doing what we could to limit the damage,” Cassandra said. “It can’t have escaped your attention that there is civil war in the Federation of Polities. That disagreement has now spread to the inner system.”
“With Phobos one of the first casualties. I hope you’re proud of that.”
“Oh, very proud. Especially as fifty-four of my moderate friends died trying to defend your precious little moon. You can’t imagine how proud that makes me feel.”
“I’m sorry,” Auger said, chastened.
“It doesn’t matter. They were just Slashers, after all,” she said bitterly.
“I never realised—”
“The aggressors had been taking a particular interest in Phobos for some time,” Cassandra said, ignoring her. “We had been shadowing their movements, trying to infiltrate their circles, but we didn’t know what it was about Phobos that had them so excited.”
“Now you do.”
“You were in hyperweb transit when the moon was destroyed, weren’t you?”
“Is there anything about us you don’t know?”
“A great deal,” Cassandra said. “I haven’t read your minds. We have no firm idea where the portal led to, or what you were doing at the other end. We don’t know exactly what Niagara wanted with it, except that Silver Rain plays a role in his plans. But we have learned something puzzling about the man.”
“Floyd?”
“You shouldn’t have brought him with you.”
“I had no damned choice.” Auger forced herself to sit higher in the bed. As she moved, the bed effortlessly readjusted itself to support her. Beneath the silky white sheet she was wearing some kind of hospital smock. She reached up and touched the area of her shoulder where she had been shot.
No pain. No inflammation. She pushed her hand under the collar of the smock and traced the region of skin where the wound had been. It was baby smooth, revealing its healed newness only with the faintest tingle.
“We dug out the bullet,” Cassandra said. “You were very lucky.”
“Where are we?”
“Aboard our ship—the one that pulled your transport out of Mars’s atmosphere. We call the ship—” And her syrinx played one of its little ditties, although Auger heard none of the music in it. “I don’t think there would be a lot of point in attempting a translation into flat language.”
“Where is the ship now? Are we still near Mars?”
“No. We’re on our way to near-Earth space. There are, however, complications.”
“I need to talk to Caliskan.”
“He’s expecting you. It was a message from Caliskan that warned us to keep an eye out for you. It was a moving transmission, probably sent from a ship. We’re still tracking the message’s point of origin. Once we’re closer, we can open a tight-beam channel.”
“Can I see Floyd in the meantime?”
Cassandra made a precise mimelike gesture, signalling the machines hovering about her bed. A number of the smaller ones moved into Cassandra’s own cloud, becoming part of its twinkling whole. She breathed in and the cloud contracted to about half its previous volume.
“I think you’re allowed to move now,” Cassandra said, after digesting whatever information the machines had imparted. “But do take things carefully.”
Auger started to force herself up from the bed. As soon as she moved, more hummingbirds and dragonflies appeared from nowhere and assisted her, exerting gentle pressure where she needed it. Her feet barely touched the floor. Once she was free of the bed, the sheet levitated, wrapped itself around her and formed a kind of loose, billowing gown.
“This way,” Cassandra said.
The golden threads running through the walls oozed to form the outline of a doorway, which had a slightly Persian look to it. The door puckered wide, admitting them into a throatlike corridor with no recognisable floor or ceiling. The corridor curved up and around, bringing them to a blank part of wall that obliged them with a doorway when they were close enough to touch it.
They stepped through. Inside was a smaller recovery room than the one Auger had been in containing a single bed with a single occupant. Floyd was asleep, lying flat on his back, a twinkle of machines around his head. The Slashers had dressed him in a similar smock to the one Auger was wearing. His face was completely blank and masklike, with no sign of his head injury.
“He looks dead,” Auger said.
“He isn’t. Just unconscious. We’re holding him that way for the time being.”
“Why?”