Scab’s polite request to ’face sounded like someone knocking on his skull. Vic took the mental equivalent of a deep breath and then opened the link.
‘You got me fucking killed by an Elite! You don’t think this in-over-our-heads overkill bullshit has gone too far now?!’
‘It didn’t go well,’ Scab agreed. He was sitting on a chair outside the tank, hat in his hands, watching Vic in the tank as if looking for a clue or some sign of irredeemable weakness. Vic assumed he was engaging in the retro-vice of smoking just to annoy any of the insurance technicians who had olfactory glands.
‘I notice they didn’t kill you.’ Vic tried to put as much venom into the comment as he could manage. Scab was well known as one of the few bounty killers who never took out clone insurance. Vic was sure Scab wanted to die but on his own very specific terms. The ’sect was unsure what those terms were.
‘I had you cloned,’ Scab ’faced, the words soft and quiet in Vic’s mind.
‘Yes, thanks for that,’ Vic spat back. ‘You couldn’t leave me in peace then? Actually finally let me go?’ Vic had often thought that human tears looked very cathartic but were beyond him, and his pheromone-producing glands were not quite rebuilt yet. Scab seemed to be giving Vic’s words some thought.
‘You like life,’ he finally ’faced.
Vic gave this some thought. Scab was right. He like immersions, drink and drugs, partying, sex with experimental female-identifying humans, violence when he was in control; he sort of liked travel but was becoming more and more convinced that everywhere the uplifted races went was a shithole. Maybe it was all shallow stuff but Vic was happy with that. What he couldn’t cope with was the abusive, albeit well-paid, borderline slavery that was being Scab’s partner.
‘I’m seeking an end,’ Scab said.
Vic wasn’t sure what he meant. ‘And you have to take me along with you?’ Scab said nothing. ‘I take it we didn’t get the cocoon thing back?’ Vic just about made out Scab shaking his head through the thick opaque gel. ‘So we’re finished with this now? This is just so beyond us, even for you it’s just banging your head on a hull. There’s nothing we can do here.’
‘I got into the Citadel,’ Scab ’faced.
Oh shit, Vic thought. The insect knew this wasn’t over. He thought back to human tears. There was enough of Vic to push his way through the gel and press his chitinous features up against the tank’s transparent material.
‘So all that effort, the expense, the S-tech, the blanks, the viral attack on Arclight, the dead Church Militiaman… NOT TO MENTION MY FUCKING MURDER AT THE HANDS OF A SICK MACHINE MADE EONS BEFORE MY PEOPLE EVEN FUCKING EXISTED was for nothing?!’ He was absurdly pleased that he had managed to convey angry/shouty human across the interface.
Scab considered the outburst as a reasonably asked question.
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. He was still both worried and trying to make sense of the Elite’s words.
‘Look, this is about bridge technology. The Monarchists want it; the Consortium wants it so they can break the Church’s monopoly. It’s the key to Red Space. This is way out of our league.’
‘Fun though,’ Scab said. He almost meant it. He was healed, his hand regrown, but he still missed the graft. The eyes. What he had seen with them. ‘And you’ve said that before.’
‘We’re working for Consortium interests?’ Vic asked.
Scab said nothing, which to Vic meant he knew but was not going to say. Scab tried to avoid lying where possible.
‘What I don’t understand is why they haven’t sent their own Elite.’
‘Maybe they have. They are capable of acting with subtlety. Or maybe it’s a case of mutually assured destruction. The Monarchists are mad, the Consortium greedy. The Consortium know that sending their Elite will lead to a confrontation. A very expensive one.’
‘They must have better options than us.’
‘And they are probably using them in ways we don’t see. The nobody who gave us the S-tech graft for ex—’
‘He seemed more like a street heretic,’ Vic said. Scab just stared at the ’sect. He hated interruptions. ‘Sorry.’
‘Despite your whining, self-pity and lack of self-belief, we are two very capable operators.’
‘But it’s over now, right?’ Scab shook his hand. ‘You once told me that you were a killer, not a detective. They have the resources of the entire Monarchist systems at—’
‘They are fragmented.’
Though apparently it was okay for Scab to interrupt, Vic mused. ‘Even if it’s just one of the kingdoms. We’re two people and a ship you’ve bullied so badly the AI committed suicide.’
‘I killed it, well, lobotomised it.’
‘Whatever.’
‘We’re going to Pythia.’
Vic gave this some thought, feeling himself getting angrier as he did.
‘Why the fuck didn’t we just go there in the first place?’ he demanded.
‘Intelligence pointed to the Citadel. It would have made sense to hide it there.’
14. Northern Britain, a Long Time Ago
Ysgawyn awoke to the smells of earth, rot, decay and horse. It was a comfort. Once you were dead then nobody could kill you. All his people were warriors and all had chosen to live in Annwn. The living were their victims.
Ysgawyn climbed off his shelf in the barrow that he shared with the bones of many generations of his family. He also shared it with his horse. His horse, like him, was covered in lime, both their eyes ringed with black. Rider and mount had disturbing unnatural-looking symbols painted on the lime.
Ysgawyn took a deep breath and then turned to look at the shelf where his father’s decayed remains lay.
‘Soon,’ he said. He would often speak to his father, his grandfather and ancestors from further back. He heard their replies in his head and often took their counsel, but tonight there was little time. Armour had to be oiled and then limed, weapons honed, his mount prepared. Then he would eat the fungus and ride.
They emerged from barrows all across the plain, white like corpses, some leading their horses, others already astride them. The Dark Man had spoken to them. They would ride for the god of death and they would not stop. It would be an end to the living.
There were no war cries, no carnyx sounded, no orders were shouted; there was just the thunder of hoof beats echoing across the flat desolate plain.
Britha felt fire crawl through her, under her skin. Felt the demon in the consumed flesh try and consume her in turn. It burned. Not like a fever but like putting your hand in a fire and holding it there. The burning was pain but the agony was still to come. Her back was arched, her hands claws as she convulsed on the ground. The smell of the river, the feeling of pebbles beneath her, all of it went away as the stars in the night sky went out one by one, leaving nothing but darkness.
She saw a tribe painted white like corpses around a hearth pit, wriggling on their stomachs, so many, so close together, like white worms crawling over each other, in supplication that made Britha sick to see. How could they even call themselves people after such a display? The fire burned cold in the hearth and there was a tall man made of darkness. It hurt to look at him; his shape did not entirely make sense and there was something behind or through him, something she could feel, seething hatred and anger made of nothing. Then the screaming. Eventually, when she felt the blood in her raw throat, Britha would realise that she was the one screaming.
A cage, for people, her people, in the sea. Something inside them, a little crystalline egg waiting to hatch. She sank under the water, still burning, the water bubbling around her. Something came at her, darting through the water, a bestial fury on an alien face.