‘How did you…?’ she began.
‘It took a lot of planning but the process itself was very quick. You had a few seconds of consciousness before the crash team reached you, but I doubt you remember much of that.’
She realised, in an instant of comprehension, that it was very important to her that she not remember. But she did. She remembered bright lights and a concerned, lantern-jawed face looking at her with clinical intensity, and the face had belonged to Demikhov. She remembered a cold beyond cold, as if the interstellar vacuum itself was groping its way up her neck, reaching freezing fingers into the empty cavity of her skull.
Demikhov didn’t need nightmares for the rest of his life.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’
‘The damage to your body was severe but treatable. We neutralised the remains of the scarab and my intention was to keep you under until your head and body were fully reunited. There was a minor complication, however.’
‘With me?’
‘Not exactly. I’ll explain things later, but all you need to know right now is that Gaffney managed to escape from Panoply. He took a cutter and went after Dreyfus.’
She had a thousand questions, but most of them would have to wait. ‘How did he know where to go? Surely nobody told him about Ops Nine.’
‘Gaffney was… persuasive,’ Demikhov said. ‘Clearmountain had no option but to reveal the suspected location of the Clockmaker. In his shoes, I’d have done exactly the same thing.’
‘Is there any word from Dreyfus?’
‘Nothing. But given the anticipated timing, we can assume he’s making his way by foot from the drop-off point.’ Demikhov returned the mirror to his aide. ‘That’s not why I had you brought to consciousness, though. As you can see, the process of reuniting your head and body is only partially complete, but we were making good progress. Once you’ve dealt with the matter at hand, I have every confidence of being able to reinstate full control.’
‘The matter at hand, Doctor?’
‘Perhaps it would be better if Acting Supreme Prefect Clearmountain explained.’ Demikhov gestured at the wall, turning part of it into a display pane. From her inclined position, Aumonier could see it without difficulty. Clearmountain was looking at her from the tactical room, the edge of the Solid Orrery peeping into view behind him.
‘Can I talk to her?’ he asked.
‘She’s perfectly lucid,’ Demikhov replied.
‘Supreme Prefect Aumonier,’ Clearmountain said, trepidation in his voice, ‘I am sorry that this was necessary. I assured them that you had delegated authority to me, but they wouldn’t listen.’
‘Who wouldn’t listen?’ Aumonier asked.
‘They’re still waiting to talk to you. They won’t take orders from anyone else.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘I can put them through, if you wish.’
‘If this is why you woke me up, that would be a very good idea.’
Clearmountain vanished. He was replaced by the visage of a monster, a man who had once been human but who now faced the world through a mask of leathery, radiation-hardened skin and articulated metal plating embossed with florid bronze patterning. His eyes were two telescopic cameras, emerging from skull sockets like a pair of cannon. Glue-stiffened dreadlocks spiked back from his scalp.
‘This is Captain Tengiz, of the lighthugger Wrath Ascending. We stand ready to assist you.’
‘Thank you,’ Aumonier said.
The image switched. Now she was looking at the vastly magnified head of a praying mantis, or something very like one, emerging from the ring-shaped neck of an ancient spacesuit. The mantis’s mouthparts opened, revealing teeth and tongue of human semblance.
‘This is Captain Rethimnon, of the lighthugger Frost Wind. We stand ready to assist you.’
‘Thank you.’
The image changed again. Another face, more recognisably human this time, despite the absence of a nose. ‘This is Captain Grong, of the lighthugger Stasis in Darkness. We stand ready to assist you.’
She started to answer, but the image had already changed.
‘This is Captain Katsuura of the lighthugger Pharaoh’s Daughter. We stand ready to assist you.’
‘This is Captain Nkhata, of the lighthugger Black Narcissus. We stand ready to assist you.’
‘This is Captain Vanderlin, of the lighthugger Dawnrazor. We stand ready to assist you.’
‘This is Captain Teague…’
‘Captain Voightlander…’
The roll-call continued; a dozen ships, then a dozen more, until she had lost count.
‘Thank you, Captains,’ she said, when the last Ultra had spoken. ‘I am grateful that you have responded to my request for help. You can, I think, provide a decisive contribution. I must warn you — though I am sure you already appreciate as much — that you will be placing your ships and crew in grave danger.’
The face of Tengiz, the first Ultra to speak, reappeared on the pane. ‘I have been tasked to speak for the other ships, Supreme Prefect Aumonier. Rest assured that we are fully aware of the risks. It is still our intention to help.’
‘I’m grateful.’
‘Tell us what you want us to do.’
‘You can be of benefit to me in two ways,’ Aumonier said. ‘Your ships have a capacity exceeding anything in the Glitter Band, even the largest in-system liners. If you can start taking aboard evacuees, that will be incalculably helpful to us.’
‘We will do what we can. How else may we help?’
‘Doubtless you’ve witnessed our efforts to contain Aurora’s expansion by destroying those habitats contaminated by her war machines. Unfortunately, we’re running out of nuclear weapons. If there was any other way—’
‘You wish us to intervene.’
‘Yes.’
‘In a military sense.’
‘I don’t doubt that you have the means, Captain. At the risk of opening an old wound, we all saw what Captain Dravidian’s ship was capable of doing. And his vessel wasn’t even armed.’
‘Tell us where and when,’ Tengiz said.
‘I’d dearly like to. Unfortunately — as you’re probably aware — I’m somewhat indisposed right now and need further surgery. I appreciate your insistence on speaking only to me, but it would simplify matters enormously if you would allow me to designate Prefect Clearmountain to speak for me.’
Tengiz looked at her with his blank telescopic eyes. She couldn’t read a single human emotion in the mongrel collision of machine and flesh that was his face.
‘Do you have confidence in Clearmountain?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Absolute confidence. You have my word, Captain. Allow Clearmountain to speak for me.’
Tengiz paused, then nodded. ‘So be it.’
‘I’m going to sleep again now, if that’s all right with you. Good luck, Captain. To you and all the others.’
‘We’ll do what we can. As for you…’ Tengiz halted. For the first time she sensed indecision. ‘We have long been aware of your predicament, Supreme Prefect Aumonier.’
‘I never imagined I was of the slightest interest to Ultras.’
‘You were wrong. We knew of you. We knew of you and… you’ve long had our respect. You would have made an excellent captain.’
Dreyfus and Sparver surmounted the last rise and found themselves looking out across a shallow depression in the terrain, like an old crater that had been gradually eroded and filled in by slow and mindless processes of weather and geochemistry. Yet there was something out of place at the base of the depression, even though Dreyfus nearly missed it on his first glancing survey. It was a ramp, sloping down into the ground, its walls and sides fashioned from some kind of fused construction material with the ebony lustre of burnt sugar. It had cracked and distorted in places, evidence of shifts in the underlying landscape, but it was still remarkably intact for something that had been out there for more than two hundred years. The ramp angled down into the ground and vanished into a flat-roofed tunnel, the lip of which had formed a portcullis of dagger-like ammonia-ice stalactites or icicles. Dreyfus pointed to the middle part of the opening, where a number of the spikes had been broken off at head height.