‘Sit,’ I say.
Leaning against a dirt bank, we stare at the stars. I’ve forgotten how many there are. Pretty soon I’ll forget I ever knew. Until the next time the kyp ties me into the information storm slopping round this edge of the galaxy.
I’m drunk, but that’s fine. Shil’s drunk too. Pulling a bottle from my pocket, I fill two shot glasses and toast the new Duke of Farlight’s health. In the circumstances I’d be better off toasting my own.
‘What aren’t you telling me?’ she says.
‘That’s-’
‘Yeah, I know. What aren’t you telling me, sir?’
‘Things are going to change . . .’
There, I’ve said too much or not enough. Silence tells me she’s waiting to find out which. That’s one of the things about Shil. She knows how to keep quiet. ‘Our glorious leader, beloved and victorious, whose very sweat is perfume to his subjects . . .’
Shil thinks it’s a toast. She must do. She raises her glass.
We drink. I refill.
OK, where was I? ‘He offered me a reward for destroying the Uplift mother ship.’
‘What?’
I look at her. Well, it’s more of a drunken squint.
‘Sven,’ says Shil. ‘What did he offer you?’
‘Anything I wanted.’
Somehow I end up telling her about Paradise and how I met Aptitude’s parents. Senator Debro Wildeside and Anton, ex-captain of the palace guard. We touch on my taking over the prison. Although I drop the body count a little.
‘This has to do with what you chose?’
It has.
What do you do when offered whatever you want? I don’t know. It’s never happened before. Probably not going to happen again; and maybe I made the wrong choice, but that wouldn’t be the first time – and I’m still here.
‘Sven,’ says Shil. ‘You OK?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I asked him for Anton and Debro’s freedom.’
‘Shit,’ she says. ‘Does Aptitude know?’
‘Not yet. It’s a surprise.’
‘So why aren’t you happy?’
I want to say happiness is overrated. My sister told me that. Sounds like something Debro would say as well. Only Shil is right. ‘Because Jaxx doesn’t know yet.’
And then I have to tell her about killing Aptitude’s husband, Senator Thomassi, and how I was meant to kill Aptitude and who gave the order . . . Shil’s looking at me as if I’m mad, and there are days I am, but this isn’t one of them.
‘The general’s going to be furious,’ she says.
That’s the least of it.
Jaxx will want me dead.
I don’t say that. I don’t need to. Shil’s smart. She’ll work it out. And there’s something else, to do with Farlight itself. Something that’s been nagging me from the moment I walked out of the cathedral after Jaxx was made duke.
‘Can’t you smell it?’ I say.
‘Smoke from barbecues,’ says Shil. ‘That’s what I can smell.’
Also dog shit, pollution, stale drains and static from the landing field. Yes, I’ve got those as well. A rocket breaks for the sky from the square below. We get coloured stars to hide the real ones. All of the scents we mention are out there. Plus smoke from the fireworks. But there’s something else. Something deeper.
‘Well?’ she demands.
What can I smell that she can’t? What I can always smell, just before things get really nasty.
‘Trouble.’