“The suit…?”
“Was not fully disabled, or killed off, if you prefer. My apologies. Back-ups. Obviously the scenario continues!” He looked pleased.
“If you mean a scenario as in a simulation,” Cossont said, “this is not — for the last fucking time — a simulation.”
The android nodded, looked serious. “I hear what you say.”
“Oh, good grief,” Pyan muttered.
Cossont found herself shuddering uncontrollably. Her trews and jacket had already automatically fluffed themselves up to their max but they weren’t designed to work in serious sub-zero temperatures, especially with nothing covering the wearer’s head. “And why,” she asked, “is it so cold?”
“Please, keep your voice low,” Parinherm told her. “We have to allow heat to bleed naturally from the craft, otherwise it will become clear that there is warmth-producing, probably biological life within it, and it is likely to be attacked.”
“There won’t be any more biological life within it if I freeze to d-death,” Cossont said, another tremendous shudder running through her. She could see her breath going out in front of her face and couldn’t feel any of her fingers or toes.
The android frowned deeply. “I know. It’s a tricky balance.”
“C-can we get more heat in here?” she asked. “Not k-kidding with the way I’m speaking by the way; genuinely involuntary shivering g-going on here.”
Parinherm nodded. “I know. I’m monitoring you, and your vital signs are showing cause for concern. You will begin to exhibit the first symptoms of frostbite within the next hour unless the situation changes.” He shrugged. “We could let you lose the body,” he said brightly, as though just coming up with a good new idea, “and let the emergency helmet-collar take over keeping your brain alive. And your head. Well, mostly.”
Pyan went rigid, as though reacting to this, but then stayed that way.
Parinherm stared at the creature, which was still draped over Cossont’s shoulders like a thick scarf but had now gone stiff as metal. The android put a finger to his lips again and started to move slowly towards Cossont, his gaze fixed on Pyan.
“You keep away!” Cossont hissed, suddenly realising what Parinherm was about to do. She struggled to her feet and backed off as far as she could within the cramped cabin, bumping into the case of the elevenstring.
The android’s eyes went wide. “Don’t move!” he whispered, sounding desperate. “It’ll give us away!” he said, gaze flicking down from Cossont’s eyes to Pyan. “I can disable it!” he told her, still moving slowly closer.
“You’re going to kill it!” Cossont replied, sticking three arms out to try and fend the android off. She was fully aware how useless this was going to be, even if she’d been some sort of fully trained and augmented special agent, which she wasn’t. She had fantasised about four arms and four fists giving her a real edge in a fight, but was under no illusion that she had any chance against the android. She even knew that the machine was right, and if whatever had taken over the dead trooper’s suit was now trying to take over Pyan — fat chance that promiscuous, easily led creature would put up a fight anyway — they might well all be about to die.
Still, she just found the idea of her familiar being turned off, killed by the android, simply revolting. Perhaps she couldn’t stop it happening, but she could at least put up a fight. That this was probably more than Pyan would have done for her in roughly similar but reversed circumstances was beside the point.
“I could probably,” Parinherm whispered, halting just beyond the reach of her furthest outstretched hand, “do this just through comms, straight in, straight through you without touching, but induction is more subtle.”
“Don’t do it at all!” Cossont hissed. Her hands were shaking. “Leave her alone!”
Parinherm looked at her oddly, an expression that might have indicated suspicion crossed his face, then he seemed to shake himself. “It is an it, not a her,” he informed her, sounding cross. Cossont realised that he — it — probably thought of itself in the same way, even though she had quickly come to think of it as male. “Now, if you please,” he said, reaching his hand out towards hers again.
Cossont thought about making a grab for the dead trooper’s carbine, but it was too far away, almost behind the android; she’d never get there in time.
Parinherm went to put his hand to one side, curving past hers, then he stopped. He straightened a little. “Ah,” he said, in his normal, conversational voice, a smile on his face. “This probably is end-run!”
Something hit the little up-ended craft, throwing Cossont off her feet and sending the android staggering back against the dead trooper’s body. The shuttle’s rear door burst open, flapping outwards. The chill air inside the tiny craft fogged white and rushed out, disappearing over a dark and airless plain, sucking Cossont and the android out with it in a brief storm that seemed to start to roar but quickly died away to nothing.
Somebody or something shrieked — it might have been her, with a last breath ripped out of her, leaving her throat suddenly raw and burning — but, before she knew about it, that had gone too, replaced by a ringing silence and pain in her ears as though they’d been stabbed with spikes.
There was a noise like a very loud snap that she seemed to hear through her bones first and only then her assaulted ears, and a sort of bubble sprang into existence round Cossont’s head while her chest spasmed, her battered throat seemed to close up, her clothes bloomed then tore in a hundred tiny punctures and — as she tumbled across what felt like a smooth plate of super-cooled iron beneath her — feeling returned briefly to her extremities, tingling.
Pyan had gone limp at last, fluttering inanimately over the bubble of emergency helmet and blocking her view after briefly showing her the android starting to stand up on that dark terrible surface, then collapsing as though felled.
An enormous buzzing, humming sound overtook Cossont then.
Everything went dark and silent and fuzzy and surprisingly but comfortingly warm, and her last thought was, Shit, maybe it is all a sim…
“I’m told you had your two little pals back in the shop for a refit or something,” Marshal Chekwri said to the avatar Ziborlun.
Ziborlun nodded. “These old ships,” it said, with what might have sounded like a suppressed chuckle. “Constant maintenance.”
They were in one of the parliament building’s antechambers before the daily meeting of the Watch committee, which was supposed to take care of any outstanding matters in the days before the Instigation and Subliming.
This was mostly deadly dull stuff but the place was busier than it had been since the break-up of the parliament; a small throng of diplomats and other interested parties had got itself together on the strength of a rumour regarding the committee’s final decision on Scavengers.
“And then,” Ziborlun added, “they want some refitting done, the better to do long-range monitoring of all these Scavenger fleets and ships, and… well, of course what one wants the other has to get…” The silver-skinned avatar smiled down at the marshal.
“How like pets you make them sound.”
“I was thinking children, but the point stands.”
Ziborlun gazed round the antechamber as the doors to the committee chamber were opened. Two Liseiden were present in their globular float-suits like giant fish bowls, alongside Ambassador Mierbeunes, who was smiling broadly to all and sundry as though his grin was something unpleasant attached to his face and he was trying to find a place to wipe it off.