Minla's Flowers

In a soundproofed private annexe of that same complex, Minla also lay in the care of machines. This time the assassins had come closer than ever before, and they had very nearly achieved their objective. Yet she'd survived, and the prognosis for a complete recovery - so Merlin was informed - was deemed higher than seventy-five per cent. More than could be said of Minla's aides, injured in the same attack, but they were at least receiving the best possible care in Tyrant's frostwatch cabinets. The exercise was, Merlin knew, akin to knitting together human-shaped sculptures from a bloody stew of meat and splintered bone, and then hoping that those sculptures would retain some semblance of mind. Minla would have presented no challenge at all, but the Planetary Director had declined the offer of frostwatch care herself, preferring to give up her place to one of her underlings. Knowing that, Merlin allowed himself a momentary flicker of empathy.

He walked into the room, coughing to announce himself. 'Hello, Minla.'

She lay on her back, her head against the pillow, though she was not asleep. Slowly she turned to face Merlin as he approached. She looked very old, very tired, but she still found the energy to form a smile.

'It's so good of you to come. I was hoping, but . . . I didn't dare ask. I know how busy you've been with the engine upgrade study.'

'I could hardly not pay you a visit. Even though I had a devil of a job persuading your staff to let me through.'

'They're too protective of me. I know my own strength, Merlin. I'll get through this.'

'I believe you will.'

Minla's gaze settled on his hand. 'Are those for me?'

He had a bouquet of alien flowers. They were of a peculiar dark hue, a shade that ought to have appeared black in the room's subdued gold lighting yet which was clearly and unmistakably purple, revealed by its own soft inner illumination. They had the look of a detail that had been hand-tinted in a black and white photograph, so that it appeared to float above the rest of the image.

'Of course,' Merlin said. 'I always bring flowers, don't I?'

'You always used to. Then you stopped.'

'Perhaps it's time to start again.'

He set them by her bedside, in the water-filled vase that was already waiting. They were not the only flowers in the room, but the purple ones seemed to suck the very colour from the others.

'They're beautiful,' Minla said. 'It's like I've never seen anything precisely that colour before. It's as if there's a whole circuit in my brain that's never been activated until now.'

'I chose them especially. They're famous for their beauty.' Minla lifted her head from the pillow, her eyes brightening with curiosity. 'Now you'll have to tell me where they're from.'

'It's a long story.'

'That never stopped you before.'

'A world called Lacertine. It's ten thousand light-years from here; many days of shiptime, even in the Waynet. I don't even know if it still exists.'

'Tell me about Lacertine,' she said, pronouncing the name of the world with her usual scrupulousness.

'It's a very beautiful planet, orbiting a hot blue star. They say the planet must have been moved into its present orbit by the Waymakers, from another system entirely. The seas and skies are a shimmering electric blue, the forests a dazzle of purple and violet and pink; colours that you've only ever seen when you close your eyes against the sun and see patterns behind your eyelids. White citadels rise above the treeline, towers linked by a filigree of delicate bridges.'

'Then there are people on Lacertine?'

Merlin thought of the occupants, and nodded. 'Adapted, of course. Everything that grows on Lacertine was bioengineered to tolerate the scalding light from the sun. They say if something can grow there, it can grow almost anywhere.'

'Have you been there?'

He shook his head ruefully. 'Never been within a thousand light-years of the place.'

'I'll never see it. Nor any of the other places you've told me about.'

'There are places I'll never see. Even with the Waynet, I'm still just one human man, with one human life. Even the Waymakers didn't live long enough to glimpse more than a fraction of their empire.'

'It must make you very sad.'

'I take each day as it comes. I'd rather take good memories from one world than fret about the thousand I'll never see.'

'You're a wise man,' Minla said. 'We were lucky to get you.'

Merlin smiled. He was silent for many moments, letting Minla enjoy the last calmness of mind she would ever know. 'There's something I need to tell you,' he said eventually.

She must have heard something in his tone of voice. 'What, Merlin?'

'There's a good chance you're all going to die.'

Her tone became sharp. 'We don't need you to remind us of the risks.' 'I'm talking about something that's going to happen sooner rather than later. The ruse of shadowing the Waynet didn't work. It was the best thing to do, but there was always a chance . . .' Merlin spread his hands in exaggerated apology, as if there had ever been something he could have done about it. 'Tyrant's detected a Husker attack swarm, six elements lying a light-month ahead of you. You don't have time to steer or slow down. They'd shadow every move you made, even if you tried to shake them off.'

'You promised us--'

'I promised you nothing. I just gave you the best advice I could. If you hadn't shadowed the Waynet, they'd have found you even sooner.'

'We aren't using the ramscoop design. You said we'd be safe if we stuck to fusion motors. The electromagnetic signature--'

'I said you'd be safer. There were never any cast-iron guarantees.'

'You lied to us.' Minla turned suddenly spiteful. 'I never trusted you.'

'I did all in my power to save you.'

'Then why are you standing there looking so calm, when you know we're going to die?' But before Merlin had time to answer, Minla had seen the answer for herself. 'Because you can leave,' she said, nodding at her own percipience. 'You have your ship, and a syrinx. You can slip into the Waynet and outrun the enemy.'

'I'm leaving,' Merlin said. 'But I'm not running.'

'Aren't they one and the same?'

'Not this time. I'm going back to Plenitude, I mean Lecythus, to do what I can for the people we left behind. The people you condemned to death.'

'Me, Merlin?'

'I examined the records of the Regressive War: not just the official documents, but Tyrant's own data logs. And I saw what I should have seen at the time, but didn't. It was a ruse. It was too damned easy, the way they took control of that rocket factory. You let them, Minla.'

'I did nothing of the kind.'

'You knew the whole evacuation project was never going to be ready on time. The Space Dormitories were behind schedule, there were problems with the Exodus Arks--'

'Because you told us falsehoods about the helium in the moon's soil.'

Merlin raised a warning hand. 'We'll get to that. The point is, your plans were in tatters. But you could still have completed more Dormitories and ships, if you'd been willing to leave the system a little later. You could still have saved more people than you did, albeit at a slightly increased risk to your own survival. But that wasn't acceptable. You wanted to leave there and then. So you engineered the whole Regressive attack, set it up as a pretext for an early departure.'

'The Regressives were real!' Minla hissed.

'But you gave them the keys to that rocket silo, and the know-how to target and guide those missiles. Funny how their attack just missed the one station that you were occupying, you and all your political cronies, and that you managed to move the one Exodus Ark to safety just in time. Damned convenient, Minla.'

'I'll have you shot for this, Merlin.'