Most of us are better off for the not knowing.
The Queenie’s hull flashed along its flanks on one side, like a chain of fireworks. That was the coil-guns going off, the electromagnetics in them heating up so hard and fast that they shone.
‘Pre-emptive fire, Trusko!’ Bosa sounded impressed, in a mocking sort of way. ‘And just when we were getting on so well, discussing terms, polite as you can be. Bosa’s shocked, shocked, to the very core of her being.’
The squawk screamed out a roar of static, and off to one side, visible to my own eyes, I saw the flash of the Nightjammer’s return volley. I couldn’t tell if she was ten leagues away or a hundred, all that I knew was that she was too close, and that Trusko could forget any thought of cutting and running.
I watched a dozen slugs rain against the Queenie, scabbing off parts of her hull where they landed. One clanged against the launch and sent us into a wild tumble that Trusko only just had time to correct before we were angling into the docking mouth. Bosa could have hit us much harder if she meant to, though. That was a scatterfire volley, normally intended to rip away sails and rigging, immobilising a ship rather than gutting her. The Queenie didn’t even have her sails run out, but Bosa’s point had been to let us know she could take us, even if for the moment she chose not to.
It was a straight fight Trusko could never win. Rackamore had burned out his coil-guns before he did any harm to Bosa, and I didn’t doubt the same would apply here. We were outgunned, and in a way it was a kindness of her to point it out.
The launch slammed into its docking cradle. Behind us, the door began to close its jaws. Weightless again now, we undid our restraints. ‘I’ll go first,’ Trusko said, rising from his control position. ‘I’ll speak to Drozna, Surt and Tindouf, tell them what’s happening. You can follow through when I’ve explained about the Ghostie armour.’
‘Don’t take an age about it,’ Prozor said. ‘Bosa’s boarding squad’s probably already on its way.’
Trusko worked the airlock that led back into the main part of the Queenie. We watched him go through it, holding back for the moment. I touched a hand around the invisible sleeve of her Ghostie armour, while Strambli looked on.
‘I had to do it,’ I said. ‘I ain’t apologising, or explaining myself, so don’t get that idea. Bosa hurt you, but she hurt me as well and I wasn’t going to roll the dice on us ever crossing orbits again. I want you to stay my friend. Nothing would mean more to me than that. But if you can’t set this aside, I understand.’
‘You played us,’ Prozor said.
‘I played Bosa, not you. You wanted Trusko to stay in character, so you kept some of the truth from him. I did the same. If you’d known how near she was, you’d have acted differently, and maybe we wouldn’t be getting this chance.’
‘This chance to die?’
‘This chance to end her,’ I said. ‘That’s what’s happening. This day, this hour.’
‘You really think you can do this? That glowy’s been in you too long, girlie. It’s crossed over into your grey.’
‘I just know what needs to be done. And I want you with me while we do it.’
That was when I noticed the light on Trusko’s console, flashing on and off. I didn’t know what it meant – just that it hadn’t been there before.
‘What’s that?’ I asked Strambli.
‘The squawk,’ she said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘The Queenie’s squawk, on the backup channel. It’s Cap’n Trusko. He must be sending a message to Bosa.’
I knew then that he had lied to us, just as we’d lied to him. Trusko hadn’t gone ahead to break the news to the others about the armour. He’d gone ahead to use the squawk.
‘Get him,’ Prozor said.
23
Drozna was the only one waiting for us on the other side of the lock. The cove had no warning what to expect, so it was instructive to see the play of reactions across his face, like a speeded-up version of what we’d already been through at our leisure, between the bauble and the Queenie. First there was the confusion and bewilderment brought on by the first sight of the Ghostie armour – the eyes and the optic nerves and the brain all befuddled by encountering something that got harder to see the more you looked at it, until – when you were peering right at it – it not only wasn’t there, but neither was the notion of it. Then there was the secondary reaction, a kind of squinting, headachey puzzlement, brought on by the notion that our bodies had been shattered into something abstract, so that while Drozna could keep tabs on our hands and feet and the gaps between the pieces of armour, assembling that jigsaw into three people, moving independently of each other, was twenty times knottier than it ought to have been. Then there was the third stage of it, and that was closer to revulsion or sickness than confusion, and it showed in a slackening of his jaw, a curl to his lips, a widening of his eyes, all signalling the realisation that what he was seeing wasn’t only wrong, it was wrong in ways that churned the stomach and left a person feeling shivery and tainted, as if just seeing the Ghostie armour left a hard blemish on the soul.
‘It’s all right, cove,’ I said to Drozna, before he coughed up his insides. ‘It’s us. We’re on your side. But Trusko’s knotting things up for us nicely.’
‘I think you should listen to them,’ Strambli said. ‘They’ve tricked us, the two of them. But it’s them that’s going to dig us out of the same mess.’
‘Or it was,’ Prozor said, and I didn’t like the tone of that at all.
We pushed through the Queenie until we reached the galley, and then the bridge, where Trusko was floating next to the squawk console, resting one hand on the ceiling over it to steady himself. He was flipping switches with the other hand, saying a few words over and over again.
‘Trusko to Bosa Sennen. Respond immediately. I have vital information. Do not attempt to board us. You are walking into a trap. They have Ghostie armour.’ Then he’d flip a switch, say it again. ‘Trusko to Bosa Sennen . . .’
Prozor came up behind him. Or at least I kept forcing myself to hold onto the idea of it being Prozor, even as the effort of it made my head spin.
‘Stop, Captain,’ she said, holding the edge of a Ghostie blade not far off his throat, bare above the ring of his helmet collar.
He flipped one more switch. ‘Trusko to Bosa Sennen!’
‘Stop!’ Prozor snarled, bringing the smoky mirage of that blade even closer to his neck.
‘The squawk’s damaged,’ Drozna said behind us, his frame nearly filling the doorway. ‘The scatterfire. Coil-guns took out everything on that side of the Queenie, including our eyes. We haven’t been able to send or receive since it happened. I’m sorry, Captain. All the channels are burned out.’
Prozor reached over with her free hand and threw a master switch, damping all the lights on the console. ‘You nearly killed us all,’ she said, saying it just loud enough for the rest of us to hear. ‘Thought you’d spook her off, by mentionin’ the Ghostie stuff, did you? First thing, Bosa doesn’t spook. She probably wouldn’t have believed you, but even if she had, she’d have just turned those coil-guns on you, properly this time, not that little slap and tickle she showed you just now. Have you seen a coil-gun slug go right through a hull, Trusko? I have. Have you ever seen a coil-gun slug go right through a hull, and right through the cove that happened to be in the way? Seen that as well. There isn’t much left. Just a pink cloud, which gets everywhere. They say it’s quick, at least. Was that what you wanted? A quick end to it all?’
‘You said “first thing”, ’ Trusko answered, in a voice that belonged on a boy better than it did on a captain. ‘What’s the second?’
‘The second is that you tried to trick us, and you’ve got to die for that, but I felt I owed you an explanation.’
Prozor brought the knife against his neck.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Leave him.’
; Trusko’s neck moved. I bet there was nothing in the universe he wanted to move less than his own neck, but we aren’t always the master of our own bodies, especially when someone’s pressing a Ghostie knife against us.
‘Why?’ Prozor asked.
‘Because you want Bosa to think she’s got the better of us. Having him already dead, cut open with a Ghostie blade, floating around with his blood coming out everywhere? Don’t you think that’d make her think twice?’
‘You’re the expert on Bosa now?’
‘No,’ I said calmly, even though calm was the last thing I felt. ‘I’m not. None of us are. But if she waltzes in here and finds Trusko already peeled by his own crew, she’s going to think something’s fishy.’
‘We’ll take her anyway.’
‘No,’ I said, willing that knife away from Trusko’s skin. ‘Not until we’ve got the lot of ’em inside the Queenie. We can’t risk her cutting back to the Nightjammer and turning those coil-guns on us.’
Finally, some part of that got through to her. She gave a grunt and shoved Trusko into the console. But at least she was fixing the Ghostie blade back onto her armour.
Trusko’s eyes met mine. ‘Thank you,’ he wheezed out.
‘You’re welcome. But keep this in mind. It could easily have been me pushing that blade into you, and Prozor trying to talk me out of it. Only difference is, I don’t think I’d have the sense to listen.’
From behind us, Drozna said: ‘That armour, whatever it is. I can’t even . . .’
‘It’s Ghostie stuff,’ Strambli told him. ‘They knew it was in the bauble. It’s the whole reason they had us go to the Fang. There’s more of it, too. More armour and weapons.’
Two more faces were in the door now. One belonged to Tindouf, the master of ions, and the other was the bandaged-up head of Surt. ‘We were stitched up, then,’ Surt said.
‘Properly stitched,’ Strambli said. ‘And you were a bother they had to get out of the way.’
‘I s’pose Gathing was another bother,’ Surt said.
‘You can mourn him later,’ I said. ‘If any of you care enough. I’m sorry we had to hurt you, Surt. Prozor and I needed to be in that bauble. None of you knew what was at stake, and we weren’t exactly in a position to go explaining ourselves.’
‘They called her in,’ Strambli said. ‘Bosa didn’t just stumble on us out here. They made it happen. Tell ’em, Captain.’
‘It’s the truth,’ Trusko said, easing away from the console with the caution of a man who might still lose his throat at any minute. ‘We were made into bait, and now she’s here. The fault’s mine and mine alone. I signed on Prozor and I signed on Fura, and my every instinct should have been screaming at me not to.’
‘But they weren’t, and now we’re here,’ Prozor said. ‘Which is why we need to talk particulars. The plan’s simple. Bosa likes to board the ships she takes. She’ll be boardin’ this one in two shakes, and we need to be ready for her when she comes. There are two more suits of Ghostie armour.’
‘There’s four of us who aren’t wearing suits,’ Drozna said.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But we couldn’t all wear the armour, anyway. I’m sorry, Drozna. I think you’d be handy in a fight, but the armour just wouldn’t fit you.’
He gave a thoughtful look, nodded, accepting the blunt logic of his fate with a certain equanimity. ‘But you mentioned weapons.’
‘We’ll dole ’em out,’ Prozor said. ‘And we’ll need crossbows, too.’
‘They’re ready,’ the big man said.
‘Captain,’ I said, turning to Trusko. ‘I know this is tough, but I think it would be for the best if you weren’t wearing one of the suits. You’ll be the one who meets her. She’ll expect to find you, having heard you on the squawk, and she’ll want to keep you alive as she finishes off your crew.’
Perhaps Trusko had gone through some barrier of fear into the calm air beyond, but I had the sense that something had changed in him. Or perhaps he just didn’t think the armour was going to make that much difference, and he was damned either way.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet her. But I want one of those knives with me when I do.’
‘You’d need to move quickly to take Bosa,’ Prozor said.
‘It wasn’t Bosa I was thinking of,’ Trusko said.
Something donged against the hull.
‘She’s on us,’ Prozor said.
‘How big a party?’ I asked.
‘Take your pick,’ she said. ‘Could be individuals, could be a launch. No way of knowing with our hull burned out.’
‘Drozna,’ I said. ‘Can you fetch the lookstone, the one we pulled out of the first bauble?’
Drozna met my eyes for a second, then nodded. He was back quickly, with the little shard of lookstone bundled in cloth like a holy relic. He slipped it from its protection and offered it to me.
I held the lookstone before me and squeezed it gently, as I’d been shown. Gradually the view through it changed: the walls of the room melting away, the wires and cables behind them next, the insulation and gubbins between the wires and the outer armour, then the armour itself, and then I was looking out to empty space. I swept the lookstone slowly, picking up the bauble, the folded edges of sail-control gear, the distant spangling of the Congregation – which we’d all be lucky to see with our own eyes again, never mind breathe the lungstuff of any of those worlds. Then my sweep found a sharp knot of bony angles and spines, only a bit less black than the space behind them, and I knew I was staring right at the Nightjammer. She couldn’t be more than ten leagues off us. I moved off her, picking up a brassy cylinder, flanged along its sides and with fins at the back, docked onto our ship at right angles, and I knew it wasn’t any part of the Queenie.
The lookstone showed the outside of the docked launch. But I squeezed a tiny bit harder and it peered all the way through, into her guts, and I found myself looking at the coves inside, tiny and neat as paper dolls.
‘I see ’em,’ I said quietly, like I might break a spell if I raised my voice. ‘There’s eight of them inside it, and they’re moving out.’
‘One of ’em in a silver suit, all chromey?’ Prozor asked, and I could tell she was itching for a squint through the lookstone herself.
‘Yes. At the front. One silver suit. The rest black. I never saw Bosa, but I saw those black suits when they came for Adrana. That’s Bosa, isn’t it?’ Finally I passed her the lookstone, and after a moment she nodded a grim confirmation.
‘We wanted her, and now she’s here,’ Prozor said. ‘So why ain’t I jubilant?’
I turned to Trusko. ‘When Bosa comes, try and hold her in the galley. Stall her, however you need to, until she thins out her search party and starts moving through the ship. Then we’ll take them. One at a time if need be, silent and quick as we can.’
‘I can take the other suit,’ Surt said, and if ever someone looked less keen on an idea, I never saw it.
‘Good,’ I answered. ‘It’s not difficult to wear.’ No, not difficult at all – almost like slipping on a second skin, almost like the thing wanted to be worn. ‘Tindouf, would you . . .’
‘I’d like to do me some killings, yes,’ Tindouf said cheerfully, as if we were asking him whether he cared to be dealt into a game of cards. ‘It’s been a while since I killeds anyone, and I needs a new notch or two in my pipe.’
‘Bosa’s going to find it awful odd, opening up a ship and only two coves being inside it,’ Strambli said.
‘We’ll hold her,’ Drozna said. ‘She heard my voice on the squawk, and the captain’s. We’ll say we took losses in the bauble; that we’re not running at full capacity.’
‘She’ll buy that?’ Strambli asked.
He gave a shrug of his powerful shoulders, as if he fully recognised that this gambit wasn’t going to satisfy Bosa for long. ‘Just mak
e that armour count. It ought to count. I’m getting shivery just being near it, and you’re on my side.’
‘We are,’ I said. ‘You had your doubts about us, Drozna, I know. But that was only right and proper and I didn’t hold it against you. Now can we be solid?’
‘Yes,’ Drozna said, but I could tell that the word had cost him effort. ‘I’ll show you the crossbows. Prozor: you’d better get Surt and Tindouf into that armour while there’s still time.’
Prozor and Strambli went back to the launch and returned with the rest of the Ghostie armour. They were getting the other two dressed up in it when we felt our ears pop. We all looked at each other without needing to say what it was. Bosa was through one of the locks. Easiest thing would have been for her to blow all the lungstuff in the Queenie, but skulls were delicate things and she wouldn’t risk ours being knocked around by decompression.
I used the lookstone again, and saw that the Nightjammer had crept in closer, thinking we were going to be easy pickings. Two leagues out now, maybe three.
‘Come as close as you dare,’ I whispered.
It couldn’t have taken more than a couple of minutes to get Surt and Tindouf into the Ghostie armour. Now there was more of us in it than out of it, but I can’t say that made me feel any safer or more able to face Bosa. We were broken, shattered pieces of ourselves, trying to hold on to the idea of who we were and what we’d been.
‘They were right,’ Prozor said.
‘Who was?’
‘The coves who decided this stuff was better off locked away in baubles. If they’d known what was right, they’d have fed it into the Old Sun, or sent if off into the Empty.’