Fassin handed over the little image-leaf. The Dweller looked at it, rim mantle rippling in a smile. 'Yes, you still wear us away, don't you?' He handed it back. 'Take good care of that. And so, how was Oazil? I take it he found you at the house and you're not here by coincidence.'
'He was well. Eccentric, but well.'
The old Dweller's smile grew, then faded. 'And the house? My libraries?'
'They are sinking into the Depths. What's left.'
'What's left?'
'A bit was missing.'
'Ah. The study'
'What happened to it?'
'The CloudTunnel started to get too heavy to maintain. I had the house decoupled. I cleared the study first. The tunnel section fell into the Depths.'
'And the contents?'
The old Dweller roted back a fraction, creating small roils of smoke in the haze. 'You are still testing me, aren't you, Fassin Taak? You are still not prepared to trust me that I am who you think I am.'
'Who do I think you are?'
'Your - I thought - old friend, Valseir, once choal, now acting like a Sage-child and hoping for the confirmation of my peers if I ever get to come out of hiding. Do you think I will ever get to come out of hiding, Seer Taak?'
'That depends.' Beyond the old Dweller, the GasClipper race continued, well ahead of the labouring Blimper. Screens relaying signals from camera jets showed the action in close-up. The sounds of distant cheers came through the open diamond-pane windows of the private box. 'Why did you go into hiding?'
The Dweller switched to signal-whispering. - Because I thought to skim through what I'd traded you for the Expressionist paintings you had brought. I read a certain note at the end of a certain volume. Which reminds me that I must apologise. It was not my intention to seem to fob you off with three different translations of the same volume instead of all three parts of the one work. However, read that note I did, and came to the conclusion that what was being referred to was the sort of information that people die for, and most certainly will kill for. I decided to disappear. I became dead.
'Sorry I doubted you, Valseir,' Fassin said, moving forward and holding out two manipulators towards the old Dweller.
'Suspicious to the last,' sighed Valseir, ignoring the left manipulator and shaking the right with his own extended right hub-arm. 'There; how humans greet. Are you satisfied now, Seer Taak?'
Fassin smiled. 'Entirely. Good to see you again.'
- You must feel emotional pain, then. I feel sorry for you.
-I am trying not to feel too sorry for myself. Which is helped by getting on with what needs to be done.
Fassin had told Valseir about the attacks on Third Fury and Sept Bantrabal. Valseir had related his life since they had last met, a time dominated by the Dweller List in a way that even Fassin's hadn't been until recently. Most of that period he had spent in hiding, after arranging what looked like his own death with the help of Xessife, the Dweller captain whom Fassin had seen briefly earlier. He was an old StormSailor, a Jammerhand and Clipperine with a collection of trophies and medals that outweighed him. Retired now, pursuing a more contemplative course, content to take charge of a Blimper now and again just to stay part of the whole StormSailing scene.
- And what needs to be done, Seer Taak?
- I think we need to find that third volume. Do you still have it?
- I do not. However, it is not the third volume itself that is
of consequence in this matter.
- Then what is?
- A note, a brief appendix.
- Do you have that?
- No.
- Do you know where it is?
- No.
- Then we may all, to use a human term, be fucked.
- I do know the direction it went in.
- That could help.
- You agree that it may be that important? That we may all be 'fucked' without it?
- Oh, we may very well all be thoroughly fucked with it, but without it, while people think this thing exists, they will do terrible things to anybody who gets in their way or isn't being what they regard as a hundred per cent helpful. My minder here, an oerileithe Ocula colonel, tells me there's a fleet of
Mercatoria warships over Nasqueron. The excuse is they're here to help pick up me and her, but I think they might have another purpose.
- Military intervention?
- The instant they think there might be a firm lead towards the List.
- Well, we must try not to furnish them with one. I must also try not to furnish my fellow Dwellers with an excuse for regarding me as the most terrible traitor for even thinking of passing on anything to do with the thing in question to alien powers, even if my own studies and those of many others indi-cate that the data being sought is hopelessly out of date or a
fantasy, or both. However, I do need to tell somebody which direction to point in, or I may have to stay dead for ever.
- Fate seems to dictate that it's me you tell. Where do I go?
- Ah. Now then. I must explain. When I realised what was being referred to in the note in the first volume, I naturally looked for volume three. Well, at least I did so after spending some days in a state of horror and rage, realising that through no fault of my own - save the usually harmless hobby of biblio-philia - I had potentially unleashed something capable of destroying much, starting with my own quite happy and content life. This episode over, I devoted myself to my search and discovered the volume eventually. I have never had such cause to curse my own lackadaisical approach to cataloguing. The relevant piece was in the form of a separate folder attached within the appendices. I myself took the original of the folder to a friend and fellow collector in the city of Deilte, in the South Polar Region, contained within a safekeep box which I asked him to look after for me, and not to open. In the event of my death, he was to hand the safekeep box on to somebody he in turn would trust not to open the box. A family member or some other trusted person would appear in due course carrying an image-leaf with a particular image in it. The one you now carry. They were to be given the box.
- So would your friend in Deilte have known of your death?
I didn't.
- Perhaps, perhaps not. He is an antiquarian data-collector like myself, but a recluse. He may have heard through mutual acquaintances.
- Right, Fassin sent. - So I must make for Deilte. What was your friend's name?
- Chimilinith.
The name was barely out of Valseir's signal pit when Fassin registered a neutrino burst.
- Any particular part of Deilte? he asked, starting to look round in more detail.
- Chimilinith tended to move his house around. But I imagine the locals will know of him.
- Okay. So, did you take a look at this data? What did it look like?
The diamond-bubble private box was nearly empty: just the two of them, the float-tray and bowl - he'd scanned them automatically when he'd entered and they were just what they appeared to be, no more - and the screens, which also seemed perfectly standard. Who'd be using neutrino comms? From where? Why the sudden burst, just then?
- It looked like algebra.
Fassin scanned Valseir's simple clothes. No hint of anything high-tech there. The most sophisticated thing in his robes was the weave itself.
- Algebra? he asked.
There was nothing on the inside or the outside surface of the diamond bubble itself. He scanned the access tube. Clear.
- It looked like alien algebra, Valseir told him.
Fassin looked up at the undersurface of the Blimper immediately above, then swept for anything in the clear gas space outside within the same radius. Still nothing. Something further outside, then.
- Alien? he asked, distracted.
There seemed to be nothing nearby. There was the Dzunda, then nothing for a hundred metres or so until the next Blimper, then the other spectator and ancillary craft beyond — with the single accompanying Dreadnought Puisiel a few klicks further up in th
e atmosphere, easily keeping pace with the spectating fleet - then the GasClippers themselves, currently starting to round the Storm Wall buoy which marked this short race's first turning point.
- Alien symbology. Though not entirely. I thought I recognised some of the symbols. They looked like a form of Translatory IV, a pan-species type, so-called 'universal' notation dating from perhaps two billion years ago, invented by the Wopuld - long extinct invert spongiforms - though with elements of ancient Dweller icons. I would have made notes, but I thought better of committing any of it to a form I could carry around save what exists - necessarily sketchy - in my own mind. Hence I have not been able to work on it since.
Fassin was taking in what was being said - and recording it on the gascraft's systems in case he wanted to review it later -but he was still frantically scanning the volume all around them for some form of bug or surveillance device. Another burst of what certainly seemed like neutrino comms registered on the little gascraft's sensors; a sudden pattern in the general wash of near-massless particle chaos.
The first burst had come immediately Valseir had spoken the name of the Dweller he'd given the folder to. Could it really just have been coincidence? But how could anybody have overheard? They were communicating by whisper signal, coherent light beams flickering from one surface-sunk transceiver pit to another. There was no way to intercept what they were saying unless someone dropped a mirror or some sensor into the beams.
Could it be him? Had the gascraft itself been bugged? Had Hatherence put something on him? He scanned and system-checked, finding nothing.
The Blimper above them ascended quickly and steadily as the GasClippers roared up the sheer face of the storm. The Dzunda rose into direct sunlight.
- So, just a field of equations ? Fassin asked the old Dweller.
The drug-fume haze in the private box was suddenly lit up, resolving into tiny individual particles of vapour, a tiny fraction of them glinting and glittering.
- Possibly just the one long one.
Horrified, Fassin sucked a little of the surrounding vapour into the arrowhead's high-res analysis unit.
- One piece of algebra? he asked.
The results coming from the gascraft's high-tech nose looked bizarre, surface receptors seeming to change their mind about what they were smelling. Fassin toggled the analysis down another level of detail to electron microscopy.
- Possibly, Valseir replied.
Outside, towards the Storm Wall, a few tens of metres away, something showed, briefly caught in the slanting sunlight and taking just an instant too long to adapt to the new lighting conditions.
The results from the arrowhead's internal electron microscope were for a moment baffling. Then Fassin realised what his analysis unit was looking at. Nanotech. A thin soup of tiny machines, receptors, analysers, processors and signallers, small enough to be suspended in the atmosphere, light enough to float in the midst of the drug smoke like particles of the fumes themselves. That was how they'd been bugged. There was something in the gas between them, riding right in the middle of their signal beams and capable of picking up their meaning. Nothing as gross as a mirror or some photon microphone dangling from a wire, just this, just these, just stuff that was supposed to be banned.
- Valseir, he sent urgently. - Who brought this drug bowl in here?
He turned up visual magnification, staring hard at the point in the open gas outside, where something had shown in the sunlight an instant before. There. He up-magged again, almost to the point of graininess.
- What? Valseir said, sounding confused. - Well, it was here when I—
A rough sphere, forty metres away, barely ten centimetres across, almost perfectly camouflaged, like a disc of clear glass in front of the real view. Hint of a comms pit, a tiny crater-like dish, pointing right at them. Fassin swung round to put himself between the tiny, distant machine and the old Dweller, then went right up to him, comms pit to comms pit like amorous Dwellers kiss-signalling.
Valseir tried to rote back. - What the—?
- We've been bugged, Valseir, Fassin sent. - Watched, listened to. The bowl smoke is part nanotech. We need to get out, now.
- What? But—
Another burst of neutrino comms. Now that he knew where to look, it was definitely coming from the camouflaged sphere outside.
- Out, Valseir. Now.
And another burst. This time from above. High above. Valseir pushed Fassin away. - The bowl smoke . . . ?
- Get out! Fassin sent, pushing the old Dweller towards the access port in the top of the diamond bubble box.
Outside, the little sphere was rushing towards them. Fassin got underneath Valseir and forced him upwards.
- Fassin! All right! Valseir started to rise under his own power, entering the vertical access tube. The little sphere burst through the diamond bubble, shards spraying. It came to a stop just inside the jagged hole, still disguised, just a blur in the air.
'Major Taak!' it shouted. 'This is General Linosu of the Shrievalty Ocula. This device is under the control of the Nasqueron Expeditionary Force. Don't be alarmed. We're coming down to—'
The voice cut off as the little sphere was pierced by a hair-thin line of cerise light. The noise resounded, sharp and sudden, round the diamond bubble enclosure. Debris flew from the tiny machine, rattling against the far side of the private box. Fassin whirled to see Hatherence dropping down round the side of the Dzunda, carapace silvered. The laser beam had come from her. The little spherical device dropped its disguise, revealing itself as a mirror-finish machine with stubby wings. It had a tiny hole in one flank, a much larger one on the far side, producing smoke. It rolled over in the air, made a crackling noise, then dropped to the transparent floor. Above him, Fassin was aware of Valseir hesitating in the access tube. Slipstream wind whistled in through the hole in the diamond bubble.
The colonel swung quickly in towards them. - You all right, major? she signalled, stopping immediately outside, buffeted by the slipstream. She tipped to look at the device lying rolling on the clear curved floor of the box.
- Shit, she sent. - That looks like one of ours. There was a white flash, as though from everywhere at once, blinding Fassin for an instant. As the light faded Hatherence was already falling away, tumbling like a dropped stone through the gas. Something moved, faster than the GasClippers, across the StormWall face, carving in towards the Blimper.
When the colonel had fallen twenty metres below the private box, a line of searing yellow-white light flicked into existence between the incoming machine and Hatherence's esuit, which erupted in fire and blew apart. The fast-moving device looked like a small gascraft or missile, sharp and finned. Its exhaust flared bright as it powered round.
Fassin looked down to see Hatherence. She was a dark, ragged manta shape falling, whirling downwards amongst the smoking debris of the destroyed esuit. She seemed to twist in the air, flicking round, something glinting in a stubby tentacle; a violet beam lanced towards the finned craft, missing by a metre. Another white line from the machine speared the colonel, obliterating her in a sun-bright burst of light.
Valseir had cleared the access tube. Fassin blasted up it like a shell up a gun barrel, letting the pulse of down draught tear the diamond bubble box out in a convulsive explosion of wreckage that whipped away from the Dzunda and followed the remains of the colonel and her esuit towards the storm's concave base and the Depths beyond.
Valseir was waiting in the broad corridor above. 'Fassin! What is going on?'
'How do we get off this thing?' he asked, taking the old Dweller by the hub-arm and leading him towards the next vertical access.
'Do we really need to?'
'Something's attacking us, Valseir.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes. So how do we get off?'
'What's wrong with roting?'
'Bit vulnerable. I was thinking of a craft.'
'Well, I'm sure we can arrange a taxi. Or one of the Blimper's own skiffs.
I'll ask Captain Xessife.'
'No,' Fassin said. 'Not Captain Xessife.'
'Why not?'
'Somebody had to put that drug bowl there.'
They got to the vertical. 'But . . .' Valseir hesitated. 'Wait, what's that noise?'
Fassin could hear a deep warbling sound coming from various directions. 'That could be an alarm.' He indicated the tube above. 'After you. Let's move.'
They were halfway up the vertical to the central corridor when the Dzunda lurched. 'Oh-oh,' Valseir said.
'Keep going.'
When they got to the main concourse, the alarm noise was louder. Dwellers were shouting at each other, picking up dropped trays, food and drugs and staring at some of the wall-screens. Fassin looked too. 'Oh fuck,' he said quietly.
The screens showed confused pictures of the surroundings, not all the cameras and screens now focusing on the still continuing GasClipper race. One camera seemed to be following a slim, finned craft, the one which had attacked Hatherence, as it circled the Blimper.
Other screens showed ships, dozens of dark ships, dropping from the sky.
They were gas-capable Mercatoria spacecraft, some as little as fifty metres long, others three or four times that size; soot-black ellipsoids with thick wings and sleek but rudimentary tailplanes and engine pods. They were diving towards the Blimper fleet, two or three peeling off every vertical klick or so to circle, guarding. Much higher above - another snatched camera angle, drifting out of focus then snapping clear more slick shapes gyrated above the high haze layer, like scavengers over carrion.
Another screen's view spun, then settled, jerking, on the spec-tating fleet's accompanying Dreadnought, the Puisiel, whose turrets were swinging, gun barrels elevating. A yellow white beam flicked on and off, boring straight through the war craft, making it shudder and sending shock waves running along its outer fabric. The beam hit the Storm Wall beyond at almost the same time, raising a dark puff of vapour like a bruise, quickly whipped away. The GasClippers seemed to have disappeared. 'What in all the gods' farts is going on?' Valseir asked. They had come to a stop, transfixed by the screens like most of the rest of the people in the concourse.