The general smiled. It was not a convincing expression. “Only, the Zihdren ship never arrived at Zyse. It was intercepted by a Gzilt ship en route, and destroyed on some pretext,” she said. “Just before it was incinerated the Zihdren ship tried to reason with the Gzilt craft by explaining how important its mission was. It released the sealed information it was carrying. Until that point we believe it hadn’t known itself what the message contained. It was destroyed anyway and a component of the Gzilt ship loyal to something beyond the regiment it belonged to ensured the information duly made its way to us.”
Reikl stepped a little closer to Cossont, making Vyr want to step back. She resisted the urge, let the other woman put her face close to hers. “And the thing is,” the general continued, “the message mentioned Ngaroe QiRia by name, as somebody who might help provide proof that this was all true, even if there would have been precious little time to have done the checking required by the time this information was supposed to have been passed on.” Reikl did her faux smile thing again. “So, Ms Vyr Cossont, Lieutenant Commander Cossont, reserve, in her civilian blouse and the Lords of Excrement jacket she’s been trying to hide,” Reikl said, reaching out with both hands and gently patting down Cossont’s shirt collar, “we are looking to you to help us here, because some of us would dearly love to know if all this really is all true, and what further light on matters Mr QiRia — in any of his incarnations — might be able to throw on things. Because we understand — I understand — that the gentleman concerned might exist in more than one form now, is that not right?”
“Ah,” Cossont said, “that.”
“Yes,” Reikl said softly. “That.”
“The mind-state thing.”
“Just as you say; the mind-state thing.”
“It’s not something that I have any more, ma’am,” Cossont confessed.
“I know,” Reikl told her, leaning back a little from her. “You donated it to one of the Centralised Dataversities on the Bokri microrbital, Ospin.”
Cossont nodded. “The Incast facility. They specialise—”
“—specialise in that sort of thing,” Reikl said, nodding. “Yes, I’ve read your journal.”
Cossont frowned. “But that was in the private—”
“Don’t be naive,” Reikl said, shaking her head. “We’re your regiment. The point is, would you be prepared to go there and get it back?”
“To Ospin?”
“We’re practically en route,” the general said, her gaze wandering all over Cossont now, as though inspecting her in some military parade, taking in her overall appearance, her clothes, everything. Cossont felt oddly helpless, transfixed. In a parade the inspecting officer traditionally looked for the slightest thing out of place or badly done; perhaps Reikl was looking for anything on her that had any military merit whatsoever. “It would be very helpful,” Reikl was saying, still inspecting her. “You could even be doing something Gzilt as a whole would be most grateful for. Obviously we all respect life-tasks but this could be rather more important than playing a piece of music all the way through, however difficult it might be. Really, promotion and medals and awards and such nonsenses mean nothing if we’re all about to step into the big bright and shining light, Vyr, but there is just a chance that we’d be doing so under false pretences, and it would be good to know the truth, don’t you think? Just in case we wanted to rethink, and stay in the Real and accomplish more here first, and leave Subliming for another time. That ought to be a choice, don’t you agree?”
“I—”
“Shouldn’t even be too dangerous. And much better than us going piling in. The regiment, I mean, mob-handed, fully tooled. That could be awkward. There might be ructions. In fact, ructions would be pretty much guaranteed, given that Ospin and the Dataversities fall under the protection of the Home Systems Regiment, and it was one of their ships, we think, that wasted the Zihdren vessel. Powf! Like that.” She snapped her fingers gently in front of Cossont’s face. “You, however, have a plausible motive for inspecting something you donated, so we’d like to send you to see if the shade of Mr QiRia will talk to you and shed any light. Do you think you could do that? Would you be prepared? I’m very much hoping it’s not too much to ask. Is it, Vyr? Is it too much to ask?” The general was suddenly quite close to her again.
Cossont shook her head; she felt she’d been half hypnotised. “No, ma’am. I’ll… I’ll go. I’ll… it’ll be my…” Cossont shook her head, cleared her throat, pulled herself upright. “I will do what you ask.”
The general leaned back again, smiled — sincerely, this time, or so it appeared. “Thank you,” she said, with a little side-nod of the head. “Now, let’s find your android bodyguard, shall we?” She turned and walked smartly along the awkwardly curved floor of the corridor; the door ahead rolled open. Cossont followed.
The mind-state thing.
It had been a final present she’d received from the Anything Legal Considered; a copy of QiRia’s soul, basically. The ship hadn’t handed it over to her until the day and the moment she was leaving, a bag in her hand and the elevenstring’s case sitting on a float-pallet slaved to her, hovering obediently at her side like a slightly annoying pet.
She’d been bade farewell by the ship’s golden-skinned avatar and had started to turn — one foot still on the floor of the ship’s hangar, her other foot on the rear ramp of the Gzilt transfer shuttle — when the avatar had said, “Oh, and there’s this,” and, when she’d turned, handed her a little dark-grey, subtly glittering cube which lay heavy in her palm.
“From our old friend on Perytch IV,” the avatar had told her. “That’s him, in there, in a sense. For you alone; to be ignored, consulted, insulted, thrown aside, as you wish, he told me to say.” The creature had held up its gleaming golden hand. “Goodbye.”
Outside the corridor end, in a wider cross-chamber, there was sudden noise and a line of men and women in a mixture of uniform and fancy dress, dancing past, roaring with laughter. Almost all sobered instantly the moment they saw the general, and stood to attention, breathless, grinning. One or two stood at ease, or even hunched over, hands on knees, getting their breath back or still laughing.
“At ease, all of you,” Reikl said, then put some volume and steel into her voice and repeated, “All of you,” to bring the last couple into line. She looked at them as Cossont stood behind her, finding herself the object of some interest. Reikl caught the glances. “Yes,” she said, “somebody in civilian clothes, behaving with rather more decorum than any of you.” She nodded. “However; as you were.” She glanced at Cossont and they set off up the larger corridor.
Behind them, the hilarity quickly resumed.
A travel capsule was waiting, door open for them, a few metres away. The doors closed. Reikl muttered something Cossont didn’t catch — the general might even have been sub-vocalising badly.
The only thing indicating they were moving was a holo display showing the capsule travelling through the asteroid moon from near the centre towards the stern where the hangar complex lay. Cossont watched this with Reikl next to her. The general was gnawing at a finger pad, a brooding look on her face.