“They’re going to evacuate an Orbital?” Horza said. This really was the first he’d heard of any of this. The Idirans had mentioned nothing about Vavatch Orbital in the briefings they had given him, and even once he was actually impersonating the outworld minister Egratin, most of what had been coming in from outside had been rumour. Any idiot could see that the whole volume around the Sullen Gulf was going to become a battle space hundreds of light-years across, hundreds tall and decades deep at least, but exactly what was going on he hadn’t been able to find out. The war was shifting up a gear indeed. Still, only a lunatic would think of trying to move everybody off an Orbital.
Yalson nodded, all the same. “So they say. Don’t ask me where they’re going to pull the ships from for that one, but that’s what they say they’re going to do.”
“They’re crazy.” Horza shook his head.
“Yeah, well, I think they proved that when they went to war in the first place.”
“OK. Sorry. Go on,” Horza said, waving one hand.
“I’ve forgotten what else I was going to say,” Yalson grinned, looking at the three fingers she had extended as though they would give her a clue. She looked at Horza. “I think that about covers it. I’d advise you to keep your head down and your mouth shut until we get to Marjoin, where this temple is, and still to keep your head down once we get there, come to think of it.” She laughed, and Horza found himself laughing with her. She nodded and picked up her spoon again. “Assuming you come through OK, people will accept you more once you’ve been in a fire-fight with them. For now you’re the baby on the ship, no matter what you’ve done in the past, and regardless of Zallin.”
Horza looked at her doubtfully, thinking about attacking anywhere — even an undefended temple — in a second-hand suit with an unreliable projectile rifle. “Well,” he sighed, spooning more food from his plate, “so long as you don’t all start betting on which way I’ll fall again…”
Yalson looked at him for a second, then grinned, and went back to her food.
Kraiklyn proved more inquisitive about Horza’s past, despite what Yalson had said. The Man invited Horza to his cabin. It was neat and tidy, with everything stowed and clamped or webbed down, and it smelt fresh. Real books lined one wall, and there was an absorber carpet on the floor. A model of the CAT hung from the ceiling, and a big laser rifle was cradled on another wall; it looked powerful, with a large battery pack and a beam-splitter device on the end of the barrel. It gleamed in the soft light of the cabin as though it had been polished.
“Sit down,” Kraiklyn said, motioning Horza to a small seat while he adjusted the single bed to a couch and flopped into it. He reached behind to a shelf and picked up two snifflasks. He offered one to Horza, who took it and broke the seal. The captain of the Clear Air Turbulence drew deeply on the fumes from his own bowl, then sipped a little of the misty liquid. Horza did the same. He recognised the substance but couldn’t remember the name. It was one of those you could snort and get high on or drink and just be sociable; the active ingredients lasted only a few minutes at body temperature, and anyway were broken up rather than absorbed by most humanoid digestive tracts.
“Thanks,” Horza said.
“Well, you’re looking a lot better than when you came on board,” Kraiklyn said, looking at Horza’s chest and arms. The Changer had almost resumed his normal shape after four days of rest and heavy eating. His trunk and limbs had filled out to something approaching their fairly muscular usual and his belly had grown no larger. His skin had tautened and taken on a golden-brown sheen, while his face looked both firmer and yet more supple, too. His hair was growing in dark from the roots; he had cut off the yellow-white lankness of the Gerontocrat’s sparse locks. His venom-teeth were also regrowing, but they would need another twenty days or so before they could be used. “I feel better, too.”
“Hmm. Pity about Zallin, but I’m sure you could see my point.”
“Sure. I’m just glad you gave me the chance. Some people would have zapped me and thrown me out.”
“It crossed my mind,” Kraiklyn said, toying with the flask he held, “but I sensed you weren’t totally full of crap. Can’t say I believed you about this ageing drug and the Idirans, at the time, but I thought you might make a fight of it. Mind you, you were lucky, right?” He smiled at Horza, who smiled back. Kraiklyn looked up at the books on the far wall. “Anyway, Zallin was sort of dead weight; know what I mean?” He looked back at Horza. “Kid hardly knew which end of his rifle to point. I was thinking of dropping him from the team next place we hit.” He took another gulp of the fumes.
“Like I say — thanks.” Horza was deciding that his first impression of Kraiklyn — that the Man was a shit — was more or less correct. If he had been going to drop Zallin anyway there was no reason for the fight to be to the death. Horza could have bunked down in the shuttle or the hangar, or Zallin could have. One more person wouldn’t have made the CAT any more roomy for the time it took to get to Marjoin, but it wouldn’t have been for all that long, and they weren’t going to start using up all the air or anything. Kraiklyn had just wanted a show. “I’m grateful to you,” Horza said, and raised the flask towards the captain briefly before inhaling again. He studied Kraiklyn’s face carefully.
“So, tell me what it’s like working for these guys with the three legs,” Kraiklyn said, smiling and resting one arm on a shelf at the side of the couch bed. He raised his eyebrows. “Hmm?”
Ah-hah, thought Horza. He said, “I didn’t have much time to find out. Fifty days ago I was still a captain in the marines on Sladden. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of it?” Kraiklyn shook his head. Horza had been working on his story for the past two days, and knew that if Kraiklyn did check up he would find there was such a planet, its inhabitants were mostly humanoid and it had recently fallen under Idiran suzerainty. “Well, the Idirans were going to execute us because we fought on after the surrender, but then I was hauled out and told I’d live if I did a job for them. They said I looked a lot like this old guy they wanted on their side; if they removed him, would I pretend to be him? I thought, what the hell. What have I got to lose? So I ended up on this Sorpen place with this ageing drug, impersonating a government minister. I was doing all right, too, until this Culture woman shows, blows my whole bloody act and nearly gets me killed. They were just about to bump me off when this Idiran cruiser came in to snatch her. They rescued me and captured her and they were making their way back to the fleet when they got jumped by a GCU. I got stuffed into that suit and thrown overboard to wait for the fleet.” Horza hoped his story didn’t sound too rehearsed. Kraiklyn stared into the flask he held, frowning.
“I’ve been wondering about that.” He looked at Horza. “Why should a cruiser go in by itself when the fleet was just behind it?”
Horza shrugged. “Don’t really know, myself. They hardly had time to debrief me before the GCU showed up. I guess they must have wanted that Culture woman pretty badly, and thought if they waited for the fleet to show, the GCU would have spotted it, picked up the woman and made a run for it.”
Kraiklyn nodded, looking thoughtful.
“Hmm. They must have wanted her awful bad. Did you see her?”
“Oh, I saw her all right. Before she dropped me in it, and afterwards.”
“What was she like?” Kraiklyn furrowed his brows and played with the flask again.
“Tall, thin, sort of good looking, but off-putting as well. Too damn smart for my liking. I don’t know… Not much different from any Culture woman I’ve seen. I mean, they all look different and so on, but she wouldn’t have stood out.”