‘He wants you.’
Her face changes as if someone has flicked a switch. All the life goes out of it, leaving only a mask. A very beautiful mask, with blue eyes and long blonde hair that tumbles around her shoulders.
Seeing it is looking at Aptitude’s future.
‘As his mistress?’
‘Aptitude,’ I say, ‘he wants you as his wife.’
‘Lady Aptitude Luc.’ She tries the words for size. Tears magnify her eyes, not yet falling. She bites her lip hard enough to cut flesh. The fingers that were fists now dig nails into her hands. They dig so hard her knuckles turn white.
‘You don’t have to say yes.’
‘Of course I do.’
Her anger is enough to make the tears fall.
‘You know I do. If I don’t Luc will . . .’ She looks at me, some of the fierceness leaving her face. ‘He’ll cut out Vijay’s heart. I can’t let that happen.’
‘Aptitude.’
‘I love him,’ she says fiercely. ‘In a way I can never love anyone else.’ Not sure what she sees in my eyes, but she looks away. ‘Tell the Wolf my answer is yes. But Vijay must be free first. And I want his word he won’t hurt Vijay once we’re married.’
She glares at me.
‘I was going to wed Senator Thomassi,’ she says. ‘How can this be worse?’
Chapter 50
Debro walks me to my bike.Shegives me bread and dried beef and a flask of water and an ice-cold bottle of beer that will be warm by the time I drink it. Then she kisses me on both cheeks and steps back.
I have no idea what Aptitude said.
All I know is I haven’t seen Aptitude since she stood up from the wall in the garden, smoothed down her skirt and said goodbye as politely as if I was a stranger.
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Debro says.
Her words increase my rage.
‘Sven,’ she says, ‘I mean it. You’re just the messenger.’
My link with this family will go, I think as I fire up the gyro. General Luc will marry Aptitude and Vijay Jaxx will go into exile. I’ll be someone Debro met, from a time she no longer wants to remember.
Rage is a habit.
One I learnt young and traded, turning it into something I could use. But this is a cold fury. In part with Debro, that she can let go this easily. But mostly with General Luc, although it’s not that simple.
My fury feeds on memories of OctoV’s deviousness. It feeds on my hatred for the U/Free, which now burns fiercer than my hatred for the Uplifted and Enlightened, which burns fierce enough . . .
‘Listen,’ I say.
Debro steps back.
‘Farlight is burnt, most of the area south of the river anyway. The furies that attacked you? Many more ripped through that area, killing doubters. That’s why your comms system is down. Vijay’s father is dead. The head of the Thomassi has declared himself Prince of Farlight. The U/Free have accepted his claim.’
‘But OctoV . . .’
Funny how everyone comes back to that.
‘He’s dead.’ Seems fussy to point out he was actually a she. And there are more important points to consider. ‘OctoV betrayed General Jaxx and the U/Free betrayed OctoV, Senator Thomassi is their choice. You know what that means?’
‘We’re in danger?’ That’s only half a question, but she has a real one. ‘Sven, how could this happen?’
What I ask myself.
I run Debro through events on Hekati, some of which she knows and more of which she doesn’t. I’m putting it in words to give myself thinking time. For someone who doesn’t like thinking I’m doing too much of it lately.
‘General Tournier offered Jaxx a dukedom and a planet to change sides. OctoV made him send Vijay to kill Tournier. And then made Jaxx a duke anyway and gave him Farlight City, which isn’t a planet, but it’s still capital of the empire.’
Debro nods.
‘Suppose OctoV decides Jaxx is too powerful? So he cuts a deal with the U/Free, who blame General Jaxx for the empire’s failure to sign that treaty with the Uplifted.’
‘Though you said Paper didn’t want the treaty signed?’
‘Who knows what she wants?’
We’re back to bloody board games again.
Before she left Golden Memories, Aptitude bought me a T-shirt that read My computer beat me at chess. It was crap at kick boxing. It was a joke, but not much of one.
The problem with the U/Free is that while you’re congratulating yourself on planning three moves ahead, they’re winning the game after next.
I give her the memory crystal Vijay filled with data from Morgan’s AIs before trashing them.
‘There might be something on them you can use to negotiate.’
Debro looks doubtful.
Although she doesn’t doubt the U/Free are involved, she’s more worried by what a Thomassi victory means for Wildeside. Nothing good. If she’s been left alone for the last three days it’s because Sebastian Thomassi is still locking down Farlight.
The favelas will riot.
They always do after something like this.
Sebastian Thomassi’s first job will be to strip power from the crowds who gave him his victory. After that, he’ll cut deals with some high clans and kill others. Only then will he begin to tidy up outside. As for the other planets, in the short-term the war against the Uplifted and Enlightened will go on, because it will take months, if not years, for the news of a truce to reach them, and longer still to be believed.
‘Targeted,’ the SIG tells me.
It sulks when I say that is obvious.
The Wolf has me targeted from the moment I reach the road to his castle. For all I know, he has me targeted my entire trip from Wildeside to here.
A comm sat could do it.
Something hanging in geostationary orbit. Say a simple targeting laser, particularly if it ties to a signalling-
‘Earth to Sven,’ the SIG says.
A long shot of our planet, with bright dotted rings showing communication satellite orbits, fades inside my head. The world’s edges vanish, and for a split second I’m near vomiting as a mountain range rushes towards me.
‘Sven.’
The spiral flicks into focus.
‘Don’t,’ the SIG-37 says. ‘All right? Just don’t.’
‘Do what?’ Can’t remember the gun talking to me like this. Mostly it’s just snotty, now it sounds somewhere between angry and worried.
‘Choose now to format. OK?’
I’m still thinking about that when a steel door opens ahead to lock off my route. A door behind also opens and I’m trapped, with rock one side, steel barriers front and back, and a long drop on my outside edge.
A dozen Wolf Brigade exit the doors carrying pulse rifles. The visors on their helmets are down and all wear grey flak jackets. I’m flattered.
Just how dangerous do they think I am?
‘Unbuckle your holster,’ shouts a major. ‘Put it on the ground.’
‘Fucking great,’ the SIG says. ‘See what you’ve done?’
No, I don’t.
‘Now,’ the officer insists.
I reckon I can kill him before they get me. If I can reach the edge and use a boulder as cover, I can probably kill a lot more . . .
‘Sven,’ the gun says. ‘Just fucking unbuckle me.’
I step back from the SIG.
There’s a knife in my boot. Actually, there’s a knife in each boot, and the webbing between my shoulders holds another, its blade honed to a sliver of steel, carbon and molybdenum. Never did get that laser sabre back.
The first trooper to pick up the SIG collapses. Must be an electric pulse that has him wetting himself, as if someone poked his arse with a shock stick.
‘Deactivate it,’ the major orders.
‘Nothing to do with me.’
He stares, not sure what to do next.
‘Do I get to see Luc?’ I ask. ‘Or do we stand here?’
‘You call him General Luc,’ he tells me. ‘Or the Wolf.’