‘Will digging up the past really help?’ Dreyfus asked, his own voice sounding small and childlike.
‘I don’t know. But I can’t let you go down there without knowing everything there is to know about the Clockmaker. Ultimately, though, the choice has to be yours.’
‘I understand.’
‘I’m sorry I have to do this to you, Tom. If there was any other way in the world…’
He looked at the thin red line etched across her throat like a premonitory scar. ‘You don’t have anything to apologise for.’
Captain Pell was talking to Thyssen when Dreyfus arrived in the pressurised observation platform overlooking the nose bay. Pell had already been briefed on the general nature of the mission, though not its precise objective.
‘We’ll make our approach into the atmosphere just like any other ship on its way to Chasm City,’ Dreyfus said. ‘But once we’re under cover of the clouds, you fly me to the other hemisphere. Can you do that without Aurora picking up our movement?’
‘Nothing’s guaranteed,’ Pell said. ‘If we go supersonic, and she happens to have sensors pointed down at the right part of the sky, she may see the disturbance in the atmosphere caused by our Mach cone.’
Dreyfus didn’t welcome the news, but he’d been expecting it. ‘Then we’ll have to hold subsonic. How long will that take?’
‘Eight, nine hours, depending on the trajectory. Too long for you?’
‘It’s still faster than using surface transportation, even if I could get closer than Loreanville.’
Pell tapped a stylus at the compad he held in the crook of his arm. ‘There are some deep canyon systems we can use for cover. I may be able to take us supersonic for brief periods, using the canyon walls to soak up most of our shockwave.’
‘Just give me the fastest approach you can consistent with our staying hidden from orbital surveillance.’
‘You want me to drop you right on the doorstep of that place?’
Dreyfus shook his head. ‘I’m not expecting a warm welcome when I get there. You’ll have to assess the terrain and put me down as close as you can without risking detection by anti-ship systems. If that means I have to walk twenty or thirty klicks overland, so be it.’
‘It’s your call, Prefect. I’ll try to pick a spot where you’ll have an easy approach.’
‘I know you’ll do your best, Captain, but I’m not expecting miracles.’ Dreyfus glanced through the nearest window at the waiting form of the cutter, a flint-like wedge of black poised on the end of its launch rack. ‘Are we good to go?’
Pell nodded. ‘We can move out as soon as we’re aboard and lashed down.’
‘There’s a surface suit aboard?’
‘Everything you asked for on the checklist, and as many weapons as Thyssen’s people could cram into the remaining space.’
‘I’m hoping it won’t come to a gunfight,’ Dreyfus said, ‘but I’ll take what I can get.’
He was about to board the ship when an internal prefect came rushing into the observation area, braking himself to a halt against a restraining strap.
‘Prefect Dreyfus!’ the man called. ‘I’m glad I caught you, sir. We were told you’re shipping out and that you’ll be out of comms range. But you need to hear this before you go.’
‘Is it about Thalia?’
The man smiled. ‘She’s alive, sir. She’s alive and well and she’s managed to get a whole party of Aubusson citizens out of that place.’
‘Thank God.’ Despite his nerves, Dreyfus couldn’t help smiling as well. ‘I want to speak to her. Is she back yet?’
‘Sorry, sir. We need that deep-system cruiser out there for the time being.’
‘But she’s okay?’
‘We have reports of minor injuries, sir, nothing worse than that. But Thalia had some bad news for us. It looks like there are no other survivors from Aubusson.’
‘None?’
‘It wasn’t the decompression, sir. According to Thalia the servitors inside the habitat have been rounding people up and killing them for hours. She doesn’t think anyone else made it through the night.’
‘Thank you,’ Dreyfus said. ‘You’ll make sure the supreme prefect is informed, won’t you? If Aubusson is depopulated, she needs to know. It could make all the difference.’
‘She already has the intelligence, sir. Is there anything else?’
‘Just this: I want you to pass on a message to Thalia Ng when she gets back to Panoply. Tell her I was very pleased to hear that she made it out in one piece. Tell her that I’m very proud of her actions. Tell her that she’s a credit to the organisation, and that I look forward to telling her that in person.’
‘I’ll see the message gets through, sir.’
Dreyfus nodded. ‘You do that for me.’
Pell boarded the cutter first, sealing the flight-deck passwall while Dreyfus attended to the organisation of his suit, weapons and equipment, satisfying himself that everything he had requested was present. It was a more complicated ensemble than could be created by a standard suitwall. There had been no oversights, he was glad to see. If anything, the technicians had stocked more armour and weapons than he could ever have hoped to carry. It was all lashed down or fixed into place via conjured restraints. He resisted the urge to suit-up now; there would be time enough for that during the long subsonic flight to the drop-off point, once they were safely inside Yellowstone’s atmosphere.
Dreyfus felt a tightness in his stomach. It was fear, moving back in like an old lodger.
He felt the cutter move on the rack. He buckled in for launch, wishing he had remembered to shave. His neck hairs rasped against his collar and he could smell his own sweat seeping out of his pores.
His bracelet chimed. It was Jane Aumonier, as he had anticipated.
‘They say we should remain out of contact once you’ve cleared Panoply,’ she said, ‘just in case Aurora can eavesdrop on our long-range comms.’
‘It’s a sensible precaution.’
‘Concerning the matter we discussed, Tom — the document is now available on your compad. There’s also a package under your seat. I had it loaded aboard before you arrived. You’ll know exactly what it is when you open it.’
‘I’ve made my decision,’ Dreyfus said. He was on the verge of adding something, feeling that he ought to wish Aumonier well, but he did not want to risk her guessing Demikhov’s intentions. ‘I’ll see you back in Panoply,’ he said.
The cutter surged forward. He waited until the vehicle had ramped up to full thrust and then carefully loosened his webbing. He reached under the seat and found the package Aumonier had mentioned. It came loose with a gentle tug. He settled the black box onto his lap, allowing the cutter’s thrust to hold it in place. The box was unfamiliar, but his fingers located a catch and the lid sprang open easily.
Dreyfus examined the contents.
The box contained six boosters of the same basic type that maintained his Pangolin clearance. He took one of them out. The label on the side read: Manticore clearance. To be self-administered by Senior Prefect Tom Dreyfus only. Unauthorised use may result in neurological injury or permanent irreversible death.
He felt as if he was holding a bomb in his hands, and the bomb had just stopped ticking.
‘Senior Prefect Dreyfus,’ he said, mouthing the words as if there must have been some mistake.
But he knew there hadn’t been.
The thrust sequence ended. The cutter was now in free fall and would remain so until it commenced its braking phase prior to atmospheric insertion. Through the window he’d sketched in the wall upon his arrival, Dreyfus saw that they had already cleared the main orbits of the Glitter Band. Habitats of all shapes and sizes crowded upon each other, sliding silently through space as if they were the ornamented, treasure-bedecked barques and argosies of some marvellous flotilla. The clear space between them, which he knew was at least fifty or sixty kilometres, looked too narrow to allow the passage of a single cutter. He could see now, with a forcefulness that had never really struck him when staring into the Solid Orrery, that it would be the simplest matter in the world for Aurora to spread her infection from state to state. Her weevils had almost no distance to cross. The habitats were stepping stones towards total dominion.