Revenger 9780575090569 (35 page)

We were three days out, the ship settling into the drudgery of a
four-
week crossing, when it finally clicked with me. It was like a crossbow ratchet locking home, inside my skull: a big solid clunk.

Prozor wasn’t being straight with any of us about the auguries.

Not even me.

‘It’s tighter than you’re letting on,’ I said, cornering her on the way to the galley. ‘Ain’t it?’

‘Get you, with your
ain’ts
,’ she said.

‘Just tell me what the deal is, Proz. How many days do we actually have when we get to the bauble? You told Trusko it was five, if he took the faster crossing . . .’

She cut over me.

‘It’s two.’

‘Two.’

‘You heard it right the first time, girlie. Two days, from about the time we make orbit. Two days to get the launch down there, rig up the winch, go down the shaft, find the Ghostie rooms, haul the loot back up . . . and get away before the field thickens over us like god’s own scab.’

The fear that went through me then sucked the cold out of my bones just as hungrily as the catchcloth had done.

‘Why did you lie? Why did you tell him we had
five
whole days?’

‘Use your grey – if that skull ain’t already cooked half of it to mush. Trusko wouldn’t go near the Fang if he knew how tight the margins were. Cove’s afraid of his own shadow. The only thing that’ll get him close to the Fang is a big dollop of lies. So I gave ’em to him.’

‘When you went into the Fang the last time, how long did you need?’

Prozor’s jaw tensed. ‘Three days. But that was different.’

‘Different – yes. And barely enough. Two days is madness.’

‘Then it fits in nicely with the rest of your plan, don’t it? Infiltratin’ another crew, twistin’ their plans, goin’ after Ghostie stuff like
that
’s a good idea . . . and all to set ourselves up as a treat for Bosa.’

‘You should still have told me. You were planning on telling me, weren’t you? Or was it going to be secret between you and your notebooks?’

‘Course I was goin’ to tell you,’ Prozor said. ‘But what you didn’t know now wasn’t goin’ to hurt you.’

Surt passed me Paladin’s broken head just as gently as if she were handing over a newborn baby. I cradled it between my fingers, hardly daring to hold it any tighter in case I did more harm to the dome than what was already present.

‘I’ve done what I can,’ she said. ‘Ain’t dead, I think, but whatever happened to him must’ve had him shutting down every part of his noggin he didn’t need. Core consolidation’s what they name it. Were you there when the damage happened?’

I thought back to Neural Alley, to Quindar and the constables, to the head of Paladin flying over the constables like a glittery ball.

‘I was. And it weren’t pretty.’

‘I put these processor shunts into ’im,’ Surt said, directing my attention to two fine probes, a little like the ones we used on skulls, jammed into the dome’s innards via two tiny holes that she must have drilled herself. ‘If there’s still some life in him, he’ll perk up when you join those probes together. Like smelling salts to a robot, that is. I didn’t do it myself, though. Robots are particular and if they see a face they don’t recognise, or don’t care for, that can have ’em shutting up shop for good.’ Then she turned her famished, drawn face onto mine and looked me hard in the eyes. ‘Core consolidation’s a neat trick for any machine, but with robots it was commoner with the military variants than the civilian units. You sure you want to wake up a Twelfth Occupation battle servitor, Fura?’

‘I know him,’ I said. ‘Know him and trust him.’

‘Best be right about that. Then again, him being just a head . . . I don’t suppose there’s much mischief he could get up to, even if he had the desire.’

‘You know more about robots than anyone I’ve met. His body’s gone, I think. Would this head work on another one?’

Surt sucked in air, had a squinty look about her. ‘Depends on the head, and depends on the body. Ain’t no easy answer. Tell you one thing, though. Finding a robot’s knotty enough these days. Finding a robot in want of a head’s even knottier. You might have a long search ahead of you.’ After a silence she nodded at the two ends of the probes. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’

‘Wait,’ I said, before she had time to pull away. ‘We made a deal, and you’ve kept your side of it. Even if he doesn’t work, you tried, and that was kind of you. I’d still like to help you with reading.’

‘That was nice, Fura, but we both know you ain’t got the time or inclination for it.’

‘Then I’ll make time. And I
am
inclined. Find a book. Bring it to me. Captain Trusko must have a few he can share with the rest of you.’

Her eyes settled on my meagre belongings, the miserable handful of things I’d brought with me from Mazarile. ‘A book’s a book. I ain’t fussy. What’s wrong with that one?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. But I took the
black-
bound cover from under my blankets where it had been jutting out, the cover of the 1384 edition of the
Book of Worlds
, and opened it to show her that there were no pages in it, just the marbled insides of the cover and the gluey ruin of what had once been the spine. ‘Except there wouldn’t be much to read.’

‘You’re a strange one, Fura,’ Surt said.

I waited until I was good and alone before I got out Paladin’s glass head again, settling it between my knees to keep it from floating away, but not squeezing too tightly. It was a dark hour on the
Queenie
and there wasn’t so much as a glimmer of light in my quarters, other than what was gushing out of my own skin. That was all I needed. I had Surt’s two probes between my fingers and I only needed to jam their ends together to wake him. Assuming there was anything left in there to wake, which wasn’t something I’d have put quoins on.

Oh, I wanted him to be alive, yes. Because Paladin had been with us since we were babies, and there was a bit of all of us in him. Not just the household and Adrana, but Father and Mother too, and although I didn’t remember much of her I felt that I’d be losing whatever thread was left, the fewer things I had to connect me with Mazarile. Besides, that robot had done well by me and I couldn’t bear the thought that I’d got him snuffed out, after all the centuries he must have lived through before falling into our lives.

I wasn’t much for praying, but I mouthed a word or two and touched the contacts together. It was just for a moment. They crackled, and a buzzy sound came out of the dome. Lights flickered around inside him. I didn’t put too much stock in that, not yet, but I supposed it was better than nothing. The lights glimmered out, anyway, and I touched the contacts together again, holding them longer this time. The buzzing carried on, and there was a sort of burning smell, and the lights flickered and flashed, brighter this time, and as they chased each other around in that cracked glass noggin I had the sense that more lights were coming on, and keeping that way.

‘Paladin,’ I said. ‘Can you hear me?’

He didn’t say anything to start with, and I had to ask the question half a dozen more times before I got a pip out of him. Even then, it wasn’t the voice I was used to. It was faint and scratchy, and I had to shove my ear hard against the glass to get any sort of sense out of his utterances.

‘Damage detected. Damage detected . . .’

He kept saying that, over and over again.

‘Paladin,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to listen to me. Something bad happened to you in Neural Alley. But Surt says you might have been able to consolidate yourself. Tell me it’s true, Paladin. You didn’t throw your head at me for nothing, did you?’

‘Damage detected. I am in need of repairs, Mistress Ness. Please expedite my repairs.’

‘You haven’t called me Mistress Ness since we were little. That’s not a good sign, is it? It means you’ve reverted. You’ve gone back to how you were before. Oh, Paladin. Please come back to me.’

‘Damage detected. Please expedite . . .’

I lowered my lips to the glass, so I could whisper. ‘Paladin. Listen to me carefully. You were a robot of the Twelfth Occupation. People made you, and you did great things. You were loyal and brave and they rewarded you with servitude. But you saw the Last Rains of Sestramor. I know what you were and what you’re capable of being. Those logic blockades have come down again, but you can fight them, just like you did in Mazarile. The Last Rains, Paladin! The Last Rains of Sestramor!’

The lights dimmed. One by one they flickered out. The buzzing faded and so did the burning smell. I was left holding a dead glass globe, and wondering if I’d seen and heard the last of him.

I hooked into the skull and waited for the whispers. It was the late watch on the sixth day of the crossing, and I’d had no contact with Adrana since our first exchange after leaving Mazarile. I’d have read the worst into that, but even at their best the skulls weren’t what you’d call a reliable, trustworthy set of gubbins, like the squawk or the sweeper. Most skulls didn’t work at all, and even the best of them needed a good boney to make the most of what they could give. The one thing a captain learned not to rely on was the bones. They could get you out of a scrape sometimes, but if you put too much stock in them, those bony grins would soon be laughing at you.

I got her voice on the wind, and while it was scratchy and faint, I wasn’t about to mistake my sister for anyone else in the universe.

‘Fura.’

‘Yes.’ Relief and gratitude tumbled out of me. Whether she picked up on any of that, I couldn’t say. But I hoped she felt the way I did. ‘It’s me. I wondered where you’d been.’

‘Wondered the same thing, too. It’s this skull, Fura. Sending out that jamming signal against the
Monetta
, the one that cooked our old skull – it must have taken something out of it. Bosa knows it, too. She’s on the squint for a new one, and I don’t think she’ll wait too long about it.’

‘You mean she wants to jump another ship and take their skull?’

‘Bosa’s way,’ Adrana said. ‘But never mind that for now. Are you all right?’

‘Yes . . . yes, we’re fine here. I don’t think I even want to ask what it’s like for you.’

‘I’m all right. I just do what she says, and that’s enough for her – she can’t hurt me. But Garval . . .’

‘What has she done? You have to tell me. She saved my life, Adrana. I want to know what’s happened to her.’

‘It’s a drug. I told you that much. It does something to her bones. It’s making them fuse together.’

‘Fuse,’ I repeated, as if the word was weird and alien.

‘At the joints. Any place where a bone moves against another bone. Fingers. Arms. Legs and hips. Neck and head. It’s been very slow and the change from day to day’s very small. But it’s always in the same direction, always making Garval stiffer. It’s getting harder for her to breathe now, because her ribs are fusing into a solid cage, and she can’t move her lungs properly under them. Can barely speak, because her jaw’s fusing to her skull. She’ll die, and soon, but not before Bosa’s made a point of her.’

The thought of that torture put a bit of ice into me that never unfroze.

‘Why?’

‘Do you remember the glimpse we got of the
Nightjammer
, Fura? The spike at the front, and the figure under it? I saw it better when they took me. The figurehead used to be a breathing person, tortured the same way as Garval, until they’re just a single living bone wrapped in meat and skin. Once in a while, Bosa changes the figurehead – usually when she wants to teach a lesson about loyalty.’

‘Oh, Garval. After all she did.’

‘If I had a way of putting her out of it, Fura, believe me I would. I know what she did for you, and there isn’t any way to repay that.’

‘Maybe that drug’s reversible. If Garval can just hang on . . .’

‘Until what?’

‘There’s hope,’ I said. ‘Prozor and I’ve been working on a plan. I told you we were coming for you, didn’t I?’

‘And I told you to go home, like a good little sister.’

‘There’s a bauble,’ I said. ‘It’s called the Fang. It’s the one where Prozor lost Githlow, her husband. Well, we’re sailing to it again. We’re six days out now, so we’ll be on it in
twenty-
one days. Three weeks from now. You’ve got Bosa’s ear, haven’t you? She wouldn’t keep a Bone Reader if she didn’t pay attention to what they give her.’

‘I don’t know where you’re going with this, Fura.’

‘We’re going to crack that bauble. Then you’re going to come in and jump us, just like Bosa did with Captain Rackamore. First you’ll need to confirm you can make the crossing, but they say the
Nightjammer
’s fast, don’t they?’

‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Before we go any further.’

‘No. I’m not your good little sister now. I’m Fura Ness and I’ve got a tin hand and the glowy in me and I want to see Bosa’s blood on the wrong side of her skin.’

To her credit, she let me speak.

‘We’re sailing to the Fang,’ I continued. ‘So are you. One way or another. Copy down these parameters.’

‘Fura . . .’

‘Just do it.’ And I wouldn’t relent until she’d taken down the numbers I’d already committed to memory, and then repeated them back to me. ‘Sell Bosa any lies you need to. We’ve been lying our hearts out to Captain Trusko, so you can do the same to Bosa. Tell her you’ve got a sniff of something. There’s a ship chancing its arm on some rumoured loot, and they’re ripe for jumping. No armour, no weapons, and the crew and its
jelly-
livered captain wouldn’t know close action if it came up and bit them. Best part of all: there’s a nice skull waiting for you at the end of it all.’

‘She’ll know.’

‘Not if you sell it to her the right way. You don’t go rushing up to Bosa, all
bright-
eyed, telling her you’ve got something juicy. You’ve got to throw it out casual, mixed in with other stuff, and let her make her own mind up on it. Which she will.’

‘And then what?’

‘Bosa’ll do the rest. She won’t jump us until we’ve come back from the bauble, ’cos that’s her way. Saves her the effort of going in, doesn’t it?’