General Luc scowls. ‘Exactly. Could you protect a family who found themselves charged with such a crime?’
‘Without question.’
‘How?’ he demands.
‘Kill the man who accuses them.’
On our way back, he stops to point to the horizon. ‘That’s where my land starts,’ he says, indicating a low line of hills. ‘A thousand square miles of high plain, canyon and scrubland. Five towns, one city and a hundred villages. Lady Aptitude will inherit eight hundred square miles of-’
General Luc pauses.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘Debro never said how you met.’
He’s right. She didn’t.
‘We met on Paradise, sir. That’s-’
‘I know what it is.’
Yeah, he would know. I had to be sent there to discover it’s a prison planet.
‘I heard you traded OctoV’s gratitude for their freedom. What did they do, save your life?’
It was the other way round.
Three dozen exiles, dissidents and failed revolutionaries meet a common criminal. Who turns out to be the only thing keeping them alive. And then he’s a common criminal they need. That’s liberals for you.
‘Well?’ General Luc demands.
‘Something like that, sir.’
It’s the answer he expects. ‘So you only met Lady Aptitude recently?’
‘I arrived here yesterday.’
‘Avoiding General Jaxx.’ The Wolf bares his yellow teeth. As if he’s just said something clever. But you’d have to be an idiot not to realize General Jaxx is unhappy with me. I don’t know what makes Jaxx hate Anton or Anton hate him.
Anton will tell me if he wants me to know.
And General Jaxx? Indigo Jaxx isn’t the kind of man you ask personal questions. He isn’t the kind you ask any questions at all.
‘I hear you saved his son.’
I don’t answer.
‘That’s what they’re saying. You’re the real hero of Hekati.’
He names a campaign that got more publicity than it deserves. Hekati was a minor ring world. It got destroyed. As did an Uplift mother ship. I had something to do with its destruction. Colonel Vijay Jaxx was the ranking officer so he took the credit.
‘Supposed to be the only thing keeping you alive.’
I can see the hills over the Wolf’s shoulder. A long streak of purple that edges the horizon. They’re as impressive as ever. But I no longer feel the same about them. Now I know who they belong to.
‘Don’t you have anything to say?’
‘No, sir.’
His laugh is sour. ‘Silence,’ he says. ‘A good quality in a staff officer.’
And here I am thinking the qualities needed are cowardice and self-interest. Must just be the ones I’ve met.
The Wolf pretends to reconsider something.
I’m not fooled for a minute.
‘You’re an interesting man, Sven. Someone who could go a long way in the right company. Or have a very short career indeed. If his choices are wrong. You understand what I’m saying?’
I could say yes. But that would be a lie.
So I hold my tongue. Something that comes easily to me.
‘Jaxx has no family.’
Yes, he has, I think, before realizing what the Wolf means.
General Indigo Jaxx is not high clan. I didn’t know that. The Wolf must see the surprise in my eyes, because he smiles darkly. ‘What he has,’ he says, ‘is OctoV’s favour. This can be . . .’
He doesn’t bother completing that sentence.
People like me are so used to thinking of Indigo Jaxx as all-powerful, the idea he might be vulnerable to the emperor’s whims comes as a shock. The Wolf is waiting to see how I’ve taken his suggestion.
Unfortunately, I’m not quite sure what it is.
Grinding his cigar under his heel, General Luc turns to go. I think our talk is over until he turns back. ‘Interested?’
‘In what, sir?’
‘Didn’t you listen to anything I said?’
Yeah. Doesn’t mean I understood it, though.
‘Jaxx is overreaching himself,’ he says. ‘And Debro’s a doubter. As for Anton . . . he married money. Then was stupid enough to divorce it. What Anton thinks is irrelevant.’
He sighs heavily.
‘They saved your life. You had them freed. You’re quits. Find yourself a better patron.’
‘Debro’s a friend.’
Loyal to the point of stupidity. That’s from my shredded psych report.
‘Sven,’ the Wolf says. ‘Don’t make mistakes you’ll regret.’
‘Is that a threat?’
Wrong question.
He’s offered me his patronage. To piss General Jaxx off probably. I’ve just rejected it. A part of him wants to say he doesn’t need to threaten scum like me. The bigger part wants to take out my throat.
It shows in his eyes, which narrow when I smile.
‘We’ll meet again,’ he tells me.
‘I’m counting on it.’
Anger locks his shoulders as he stamps up the stairs ahead of me and kicks open the door. It’s obvious to Debro and Anton that something is badly wrong. Bowing stiffly, General Luc tells them he’s taking his leave. When he turns to Aptitude, it’s to discover she’s not even listening.
‘I’m off,’ he says.
Aptitude nods, absent-mindedly.
The Wolf’s scowl turns into something darker. He’s just realized that he could abandon the roof terrace and she’d never even notice. The girl is staring across the tiled roofs of the village to the road beyond. There is something hungry and naked about her gaze.
Chapter 6
‘Expecting someone?’The general’s voice is mild.
Way too mild.
And Aptitude has her back to him. So she misses the anger in his eyes. ‘There’s a gyrobike,’ she says. ‘Coming through the hills.’
In three steps the general stands beside her.
‘An Icefeld 38.’
The Wolf’s eyes must be augmented to see that distance. He glances back. ‘Your regiment uses Icefelds,’ he says, looking at me. ‘Don’t they?’
‘Most regiments use Icefelds.’
‘Perhaps your general wants a word.’
Aptitude opens her mouth to disagree. It’s all Debro can do not to tell her to keep it shut. But she doesn’t want to draw General Luc’s attention. Mind you, there’s no need. He’s seen for himself.
‘Or are you expecting someone?’ he asks, voice silky.
Aptitude blushes.
About the worst thing she can do.
Six months she lived in Farlight at Golden Memories. That’s my bar below Calinda Gap. Yet every street smart we taught her vanishes the moment she finds herself home. Even now, she can’t smell trouble brewing.
‘Who are you expecting?’
‘Vijay Jaxx,’ Aptitude says. ‘Well, not Vijay himself. He’s off-planet. But he said he’d be sending-’
‘A message?’
Aptitude’s blushing again.
‘A little present? Some love token?’
General Luc is grinning. Like this is the funniest thing he’s heard.
‘Your beloved is the son of the man who wants to kill Sven?’
‘Wants to-?’ Aptitude is so busy being shocked by the bit about General Jaxx wanting me dead that she misses his reference to Vijay as her beloved. I don’t. The Wolf and I are unequal in rank, birth and wealth. But we share one habit. We use words sparingly.
When Aptitude doesn’t deny it, something goes flat behind the general’s grey eyes. ‘So,’ he says. ‘This is what your mother didn’t mention. Your heart belongs to Colonel Vijay Jaxx, hero of the battle for Hekati?’
Aptitude stares at the tiles.
‘Well?’
She nods.
‘And his heart belongs to you?’
This time she looks up. ‘Yes,’ she says, walking straight into his trap. ‘My heart is his. And his is mine.’ She sounds about twelve, and in need of a good slap.
Debro puts her head in her hands.
‘Mine is his and his is mine . . .’ Sweeping Debro’s daughter a low bow, General Luc says, ‘In that case, it would be my pleasure to deliver it to you . . . On a plate.’ A second later, he disappears.
*
I’m out of my seat when Anton grabs me. Breaking his grip, I flip him round and slam him into a wall.