‘I think Ateshga could be taking us for a ride,’ Purslane said.
‘Let’s wait and see what he has to show us.’
Ateshga took us deeper. Dalliance protested against the increase in pressure - her impassors straining to support the bubble - but I had subjected her to worse conditions and I had every confidence that she would hold. Purslane had eased into the chair next to mine, buckled in against the stomach-churning surges caused by Dalliance’s lagging acceleration damper.
We nosed through those ochre thunderheads, our abrupt passage triggering a chain of electrical storms behind us. For a few moments we were in the mustard smog, losing all sense of onward motion. Then we cut through into a pocket of clear air, suffused with the silvery gloom of the sunlight that made it through the overlying cloud layers.
That was when we saw the collection of ships Ateshga had for sale.
‘Please tell me I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing,’ Purslane said.
‘I wish I could.’
‘There were more ships around the Centaurs’ world.’
‘I warned you not to trust this man,’ Doctor Meninx said. ‘It was clear from the outset that we were dealing with a charlatan, with nothing to offer but second-hand junk.’
There were twelve ships.
They were suspended in the atmosphere, each floating in a neutrally buoyant impasse bubble. The ships varied in dimension from the same size as Dalliance, five or six kilometres in length, to vessels in the same medium-size class as Silver Wings of Morning, twenty or thirty kilometres from end to end. One dagger of a ship was a full fifty kilometres long; its red and white dazzle markings identified it as a Redeemer needle-craft. It looked impressive, but most of that ship would have been taken up with propulsion and field-generating equipment, with only a few cubic metres of living space somewhere near its middle.
Nearly as large, and much more impressive, was the densely patterned golden sphere of a Second Imperium moonship. It was hollow, with openings at either pole. There was room within a moonship for a city of a billion souls, or the treasure of a thousand worlds. But moonships were enticing targets for less scrupulous travellers and it suited me not to have to keep looking over my shoulder.
Very much at the other end of the scale, Ateshga’s smallest ship was a twenty-two-hundred-metre-long fluted cylinder seemingly hewn from turquoise-veined marble, its sombre lines and unornamented hull establishing it as a Margravine artefact. Such a ship, assuming it was in good order, would have both excellent acceleration and a very high cruising velocity. But the mental modifications I would have to endure just to survive aboard it, let alone operate it, were of the kind expressly forbidden by the rules of the Line.
That left nine other ships, but most of them could be dismissed at a glance. Too slow, too ancient, too vulnerable, too difficult to obtain the spares when some non-regenerative component broke down. A Rimrunner vehicle looked to have some possibilities - faster than Dalliance, easily - but then I noticed the telltale fuzziness at the boundary of her flotation bubble, indicating that her impassors were approaching life-expiration. A five-kilometre-long skullcraft of the Canopus Sodality was also briefly tempting, until I remembered how those ships had a well-earned reputation for murdering their occupants. A trimaran of the Perpetual Commonwealth had novelty value, but the field spars linking the three hulls together imposed a very low acceleration ceiling on the ship. Getting anywhere quickly had not been a priority for the citizens of the Perpetual Commonwealth, who had fondly imagined that their empire would endure unchanging for millions of years.
That, unfortunately, was the extent of Ateshga’s collection. Twelve relics, not one of which came anywhere near what I wanted.
‘Take your time,’ Ateshga’s imago told me. ‘Feel free to examine the offerings at your leisure. If one might be so bold ... how much are you hoping to spend?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Ateshga. I’m afraid I’m just not interested in any of these ships.’
‘Let us not be so hasty, traveller. There is much we can discuss. I don’t even know which civilisation sent you, and we’re already about to say our farewells.’ Then he raised his head, cocking it to one side as if an idea had just occurred to him. ‘If none of these ships take your fancy, might it not still be possible to come to a mutually agreeable arrangement? An upgrade, perhaps? I can sell you a replacement engine or field generator, a new suite of weapons or sensors.’
‘Stripped from one of these clapped-out derelicts?’
‘Not at all. I maintain a modest collection of spare parts inside the moonship. All are of impeccable quality.’ He linked his hands together again, bowing slightly. The white face shaped an inviting grin. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you have for sale, and then we’ll take a look at the wares?’
Purslane leaned over to whisper, ‘I’m not sure about this. You came looking for a new ship, not spare parts. Shouldn’t you stick to the plan?’
‘Let’s see what he has,’ I said. ‘Maybe we can salvage something from this after all.’
‘Traveller?’
‘I’m not going to open my trove until we know there’s something worth haggling over,’ I told the imago. ‘But I can give you an idea of what’s in there. Sensorium epics from the War of the Local Bubble, none of which are in general circulation. Technical documents and appendices from the Machine People. Seven logically consistent explanations for the Absence. My account of a trip to the Vigilance, and the time I spent inside the digestive system of one of the curators. A map of the Emporium Worlds, before the forced migration. Any of that tickle your fancy?’
‘Most definitely,’ Ateshga said. ‘Please, come inside the moonship - I am sure you will find it most interesting. Are you familiar with the relics of the Second Imperium?’
‘This and that.’
‘Then you must not let this opportunity slip. Come, let us see what trinkets await you.’
Ateshga’s ship touched and then penetrated the impasse of the moonship, a widening circle of blue-white energy delineating the interface of the two fields. Once within the impasse, he doused his own generator and moved to a position above the northern pole. The richly patterned skin of the moonship curved down into the pole, suggesting that those patterns flowed onto the inner surface. I did not know; I had never been this close to a moonship.
Ateshga’s ship would barely fit into the northern hole. There could only have been a few hundred metres of clearance on either side of the ten-kilometre-wide aperture as his vehicle passed inside. I followed him without incident and came to a halt just to the rear of his faceted black ship. Golden light bathed us from all directions. A vast number of objects of various sizes and forms floated all around us, soaked in that opulent radiance.
‘See anything you like?’ Ateshga asked. ‘Over there, to your left, we have the engine of a Forger cloud-shepherd. To your right, Sycorax armouring modules. Seen some use, but still as good as the day they were made.’
I had begun to answer him - to say that I needed time to look around, but that I was optimistic of finding something - when his ship vanished.
‘This always looked like a bad idea,’ Purslane said.
Ateshga’s imago had vanished as well: we were alone on the bridge. I urged Dalliance forward, but as soon as my ship tried to move she reported unacceptable stress levels and went into an emergency drive shutdown.
‘We’re trapped.’
‘I noticed,’ Purslane said.
I looked at her with an exaggeratedly sweet smile. ‘Any constructive suggestions, beyond saying we wouldn’t be in this mess if we’d used your ship?’
‘If this is how Gentian Line takes care of its guests, I should hate to be its prisoner,’ said Doctor Meninx.
‘What we do to prisoners,’ I said, ‘you don’t want to know. Hold on, both of you. I’m taking her to the wall.’
The engine got louder, and then louder still. It screamed at us, even though the engine was in fact silent, even at maximu
m output. It was all down to ancient recordings, piped through to the bridge. Purslane had never quite approved of that melodramatic touch, but I think even she was grateful for the indication that the engine was doing its utmost.
It was not good enough. The ship began to shake, the console warning me that the engine was about to punch its way right through the hull and out the other side.
I instructed the ship to abandon her efforts. The drive note died back down to a purr and then to a sullen, reproachful silence.
After a long silence I said, ‘Ateshga? Are you listening?’
‘He won’t answer,’ Purslane said. ‘He’s already got what he wants: your ship, and everything in it.’
‘I demand that you shoot our way out,’ Doctor Meninx said.
Purslane turned to him. ‘We’re in a moonship, held in place by a force field. I suggest you give some thought to the likely consequences of using weapons in this situation.’
The avatar said nothing, but stared at her with peevish resentment, as if she was somehow responsible for the objection she had raised.
‘Mind if I have a word with him?’ Purslane asked.
‘Be my guest, if you think he’ll answer.’
She pulled the console closer. ‘Ateshga? This is Purslane, the owner of Silver Wings of Morning. I hope you’re listening, because what I’m about to tell you is of great importance. I had my doubts about your little operation from the moment you popped out of the atmosphere. Big enough doubts that the last thing I did, before allowing Campion to carry me into this trap, was to send an order to my ship. If she doesn’t hear from me within a period of time I’ve no intention of disclosing, Silver Wings is to head away from this system at emergency acceleration.’
I looked at her with an expression that said I sincerely hoped she was telling the truth. Knowing Purslane, it was quite likely.
‘Shall I tell you about the other order I gave my ship, Ateshga?’ she went on. ‘She is to pulse a detailed message into the private network of Gentian Line. Yes, Campion and I are both shatterlings. That didn’t even cross your mind, did it? If it had, you wouldn’t have wondered which civilisation we were from.’
After a moment, Ateshga’s figure reappeared. ‘Anyone could make this claim.’
‘But I am making it, and I am Gentian. You should have been more alert, Ateshga. You saw two ships and thought: they can’t be shatterlings, because shatterlings always travel alone. Most of the time you’d be right, too. But Campion and I are not your normal run-of-the-mill shatterlings. We consort. That means we travel as a pair, and it means you are in unimaginably deep trouble.’
‘You have given me no reason to believe you are Gentian.’
‘I’m about to. In the meantime, I want you to think about what it means to make an enemy of us. There may not be a thousand of us any more, but there are still eight hundred and eighty, not including the two of us. That’s eight hundred and eighty enemies you don’t want to make. Enemies who not only know the location of your system, but who also have access to some of the fiercest weapons ever invented.’
‘Threats mean nothing without proof.’
‘I know, and that’s why the Line has taken pains to enable any member to establish his or her authenticity. I know from the data in Campion’s trove that a Gentian shatterling visited this system only a few hundred thousand years ago. That shatterling - her name was Mimulus - revealed herself to you with a password left by a previous member of the Line. Upon her departure, Mimulus left you with another password, a word of her own choosing, which she then registered with the private network. Since no shatterling has visited you in the meantime, that password remains valid.’ Purslane took a theatrically deep breath. ‘The word is “passacaglia”.’
There was a silence. The gowned figure hovered before us, its face frozen in a deeply inscrutable expression. This was just the form he chose to adopt for the purposes of entrapment. He might have looked similar, or he might have been embodied as a city-sized intellect floating just above the liquid hydrogen ocean that lay beneath the lowest clouds.
‘You could have learned that password,’ he said. ‘You could have intercepted and interrogated a Gentian shatterling, or broken into their private network.’
‘Or we could be exactly who we say we are,’ Purslane said.
At last a flicker of doubt crossed the mask. ‘Perhaps there has been a degree of misunderstanding.’
‘More than a degree, Ateshga. The question is: what are you going to do about it?’
Dalliance lurched slightly as the field relinquished its hold. Cautiously I applied power, half-expecting to be pinned down again, but we were free to move. I cleared the southern pole of the moonship, emerging back into the vacuum bubble surrounding the vast spacecraft, and then reactivated my own impassor before slipping back into the crush of the Jovian’s atmosphere.
‘We’re waiting,’ Purslane said.
‘Might we soothe matters with a generous discount?’
‘It’ll take more than a discount. The gift of a ship might begin to cut it.’
‘But there aren’t any—’ I started to say.
Purslane shushed me. ‘Then we’ll talk about the people, crews and passengers of the other ships.’
‘The people?’ Ateshga asked vaguely.
‘Let’s get something straight. If I even begin to sense that you’re not telling me the whole truth, I’ll send an order to my ship telling it to alert the Line immediately.’
He shot back a hasty smile. ‘Just seeking clarification, shatterling.’
‘Then let’s be clear. There were people in those ships. You might have killed them, but I’m guessing you opted to keep them alive, or at least in abeyance. It wouldn’t have cost you anything, and you’d always have the option of selling them on down the line. Civilisations will pay a lot for minds stuffed full of ancient memories.’
‘How many are we looking at?’ I asked.
‘I took good care of them,’ Ateshga said.
‘You can prove that by showing them to us,’ Purslane told him. ‘Bring them out, as many as you can.’
‘That will take a little while.’
‘No one’s going anywhere in a hurry. When you’re done with the people, we can discuss the other ships.’
‘The other ships?’
‘That thing I was saying to you just now, about not keeping anything from me ...’
‘Of course. The other ships. I was going to get to those.’
I whispered, ‘What other ships?’
‘Wait and see,’ Purslane hissed back.
It took a while, as Purslane must have known it would, but I do not think Ateshga could have arranged matters any faster if he had wanted to. The people were stored in ones, twos, clusters of three or more, and much larger aggregations. Each unit - whether it held one or a hundred individuals - consisted of an armoured, independently powered shell equipped with abeyance mechanisms and a small impassor; not large enough to swallow a ship but sufficient to protect a sleeping capsule.
Floating in the atmosphere after being liberated from the belly of the moonship, the units were a cloud of glassy baubles, each with a differently coloured and shaped trinket at the heart. Some of the units were very ancient, while others were of a design and antiquity completely unfamiliar to me.
They reminded me of the marbles in the playroom, in the family house in the Golden Hour.
‘Are there any Line members here?’ I asked.
‘Gentian Line, honoured shatterling? Insofar as one is aware, no.’
‘And other Lines? Did you dupe anyone else?’
‘I believe there may be some members of other Lines - Chancellor, Tremaine, Parison and Zoril amongst them - although one cannot of course vouch for their provenance.’
I shivered, realising what a startling bounty I was about to receive. The liberation of members of other Lines - shatterlings who might already have been presumed to be victims of attrition - would inflate the prestige of the G
entians by a huge margin.
‘Have the Line members - and anyone you think might be a Line member - moved into the hold of my ship. There’ll be room if the impassors are turned off as soon as they enter Dalliance’s own bubble.’
‘And the others?’ Purslane cut in. ‘What are we dealing with? Nascents? Lost starfarers from turnover cultures, I presume?’
Ateshga’s voice quavered on the edge of some perilous truth. ‘For the most part.’
‘Here is what you’ll do,’ I said. ‘Take whichever ship is large enough to hold all the subliminals. Pack them inside, with enough support machinery to keep them in abeyance until they get somewhere. Then send that ship away, programmed to stop in promising systems until they all find somewhere to live. We’ll be keeping an eye on that ship.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Ateshga replied, as if this was all perfectly reasonable.
‘Now let’s see the other ships,’ I said.
Purslane raised a finger. ‘Wait a second. Who haven’t we accounted for, Ateshga? If we’ve cleared out the Lines and the turnovers, who does that leave behind? And remember what I said about the consequences of holding anything back.’
I sensed vast hesitation in his voice. ‘There is one. He has been in my care for some considerable while.’
‘We’re listening.’
‘His name is Hesperus. He’s an emissary of the Machine People.’
I shook my head in astonishment. ‘You trapped and imprisoned a member of the Machine People, and you’re still alive?’
‘It was a simple mistake. Hesperus was posing as a biological traveller, so that he might journey unobtrusively. Had I known his true nature, I would never have detained him. Needless to say, once I had announced my intentions, I had no choice but to follow through. I could not let Hesperus return home.’