H drew in a deep breath before speaking again. ‘A century ago I came to terms with what I had done, Mr Clavain. But there was a price to be paid for that reconciliation. I vowed to put right certain wrongs, many of which directly concerned Chasm City. They were difficult vows, and I am not one to take such things lightly. Unfortunately, I failed in the most important one of all.’
‘Which was?’
‘In a moment, Mr Clavain. First I want you to see what has become of her.’
‘Her?’
‘The Mademoiselle. She was the woman who lived here before I did, the woman who occupied this building at the time of Skade’s mission.’ H slid aside a black panel at head-height, revealing a tiny dark window set into the side of the box.
‘What was her real name?’ Clavain asked.
‘I don’t actually know,’ H told him. ‘Manoukhian may know a little more about her, I think — he used to be in her service, before he swapped allegiances. But I’ve never extracted the truth from him, and he’s much too useful, not to say fragile, to risk under a trawl.’
‘What do you know about her, then?’
‘Only that she was a very powerful influence in Chasm City for many years, without anyone realising it. She was the perfect dictator. Her control was so pervasive that no one noticed they were in her thrall. Her wealth, as estimated by the usual indices, was practically zero. She did not “own” anything in the usual sense. Yet she had webs of coercion that enabled her to achieve whatever she wanted silently, invisibly. When people acted out of what they imagined was pure self-interest, they were often following the Mademoiselle’s hidden script.’
‘You make her sound like a witch.’
‘Oh, I don’t think there was anything supernatural about her influence. It was just that she saw information flows with a clarity most people lack. She could see the precise point where pressure needed to be applied, the point where the butterfly had to flap its wings to cause a storm half a world away. That was her genius, Mr Clavain. An instinctive grasp of chaotic systems as applied to human psychosocial dynamics. Here, take a look.’
Clavain stepped up to the tiny window set into the box.
There was a woman inside. She appeared to have been embalmed, and was sitting in an upright position within the box. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, holding an outspread paper fan of translucent delicacy. She wore a high-necked brocaded gown that Clavain judged to be a century out of date. Her forehead was high and smooth, dark hair raked back from it in severe furrows. From Clavain’s vantage point it was impossible to tell whether her eyes were truly closed or whether she was just looking down at the fan. She rippled, as if she were a mirage.
‘What happened to her?’ Clavain asked.
‘She is dead, in so far as I understand the term. She has been dead for more than thirty years. But she has not changed at all since the moment of her death. There has been no decay, no evidence of the usual morbid processes. And yet there cannot be a vacuum in there, or she could not have breathed.’
I don’t understand. Did she die in this thing?‘
‘It was her palanquin, Mr Clavain. She was in it when I killed her.‘ ‘You killed her?’
H slid the little plate closed, obscuring the window. ‘I used a type of weapon designed by Canopy assassins for the specific purpose of murdering hermetics. They call it a crabber. It attaches a device to the side of the palanquin that bores through the armour while at the same time maintaining perfect hermetic integrity. There can be unpleasant things inside palanquins, you see, especially when the occupants suspect they may be the targets of assassination attempts. Subject-specific nerve gas, that sort of thing.’
‘Go on,’ Clavain said.
‘When the crabber reaches the interior it injects a slug which detonates with sufficient force to kill any organism inside, but not enough to shatter the window or any other weak point. We employed something similar against tank crews on Sky’s Edge, so I had some familiarity with the principles involved.’
‘If the crabber worked,’ he said, ‘there shouldn’t be a body inside.’
‘Quite right, Mr Clavain, there shouldn’t. Believe me, I know — I’ve seen what it looks like when these things do work.’
‘But you did kill her.’
‘I did something to her; what, I’m not quite sure. I could not examine the palanquin until several hours after the crabber had done its work, since we had the Mademoiselle’s allies to deal with as well. When I did look through the window I expected to see nothing except the usual dripping red smear on the other side of the glass. But her body was nearly intact. There were wounds, quite evident wounds which would normally have been fatal in their own right, but over the next few hours I watched them heal. The clothes as well — the damage undid itself. She has been like this ever since. More than thirty years, Mr Clavain.’
‘It isn’t possible.’
‘Did you notice the way you seemed to be viewing her body as if through a layer of shifting water? The way she shimmered and warped? It was no optical illusion. There is something in there with her. I wonder how much of what we can see was ever human.’
‘You’re talking as if she was some kind of alien.’
‘I think there was something alien about her. Beyond that, I would not care to speculate.’
H led him out of the room. Clavain risked one rearward glance at the palanquin, a glance that chilled him. H obviously kept it here because there was nothing else to be done with it. The corpse could not be destroyed, might even be dangerous in other hands. So she remained entombed here, in the building she had once inhabited.
‘I have to ask…’ Clavain began.
‘Yes?’
‘Why did you kill her?’
His host closed the door behind them. There was a palpable feeling of relief. Clavain had the distinct impression that even H did not greatly relish visits to the Mademoiselle.
I killed her, Mr Clavain, for the very simple and obvious reason that she had something I wanted.‘
‘Which was?’
‘I’m not entirely sure. But I think it was the same thing Skade was after.’
CHAPTER 22
Xavier was working on Storm Bird’s hull when the two peculiar visitors arrived at the repair shop. He checked on the monkeys, satisfying himself that they could be trusted to get on with things by themselves for a few minutes. He wondered who Antoinette had pissed off now. Like her father, she was pretty good at not pissing off the right people. That was how Jim Bax had stayed in business.
‘Mr Gregor Consodine?’ asked a man, standing up from a seat in the waiting area.
‘I’m not Gregor Consodine.’
‘I’m sorry. I thought this was…’
‘It is. I’m just minding things while he’s off in Vancouver for a couple of days. Xavier Liu.’ He beamed helpfully. ‘How may I be of assistance?’
‘We are looking for Antoinette Bax,’ the man said.
‘Are you?’
‘It’s a matter of some urgency. I gather that’s her ship parked in your service well.’
The back of Xavier’s neck bristled. ‘And you’d be…?’
‘I am called Mr Clock.’
Mr Clock’s face was an exercise in anatomy. Xavier could see the bones beneath the skin. Mr Clock looked like a man very close to death, and yet he moved with the light step of a ballet dancer or mime artiste.
But it was the other one that really bothered him. Xavier’s first careless glance at the visitors had revealed two men, one tall and thin like a storybook undertaker, the other short and wide, built like a professional wrestler. The more squat man had his head down and was thumbing through a brochure on the coffee table. Between his feet was a featureless black box the size of a toolkit.
Xavier looked at his own hands.
‘My colleague is Mr Pink.’
Mr Pink looked up. Xavier did his best to conceal a moment of surprise. The other man was a pig, not a baseline human at all. He had
a smooth rounded brow beneath which little dark eyes studied Xavier. His nose was small and upturned. Xavier had seen humans with stranger faces, but that was not the point. Mr Pink never had been human.
‘Hello,’ the pig said, and then turned his attention back to his reading matter.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Clock said.
‘Your question?’
‘Concerning the ship. It does belong to Antoinette Bax, doesn’t it?’
‘I was just told to do some hull work on it. That’s all I know.’
Clock smiled and nodded. He stepped back to the office door and closed it. Mr Pink turned over a page and chuckled at something in the brochure. ‘That’s not quite the truth, is it, Mr Liu?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Have a seat, Mr Liu.’ Clock gestured at one of the chairs. ‘Please, take the weight off your feet. We need to have a little talk, you and me.’
‘I really need to get back to my monkeys.’
‘I’m sure they won’t get up to any mischief in your absence. Now.’ Clock gestured again and the pig looked up and fixed his gaze on Xavier. Xavier sunk down into the seat, weighing his options. ‘Concerning Miss Bax. Traffic records, freely available traffic records, indicate that her vessel is the one currently parked in the service bay, the one you are working on. You are aware of this, aren’t you?’
I might be.‘
‘Please, Mr Liu, there’s really no point in being evasive. The data we have amassed points to a very close working relationship between yourself and Miss Bax. You are perfectly aware that Storm Bird belongs to her. As a matter of fact, you know Storm Bird very well indeed, isn’t that true?’
‘What is this about?’
‘We’d like to have a little word with Miss Bax herself, if that isn’t too much trouble.’
‘I can’t help you there.’
Clock raised one fine, barely present eyebrow. ‘No?’
‘If you want to speak to her, you’ll have to find her yourselves.’
‘Very well. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but…’ Clock looked at the pig. The pig put down the brochure and stood up. He had the bulky presence of a gorilla. When he walked it seemed as if he was engaged in a balancing act that was always on the point of collapsing. The pig pushed past him, carrying the black box.
‘Where’s he going?’ Xavier asked.
‘To her ship. He’s very good mechanically, Mr Liu. Very good at fixing things, but also, it must be said, very good at breaking things as well.’
*
H took him down another flight of steps, his broad-backed form descending one or two paces ahead of Clavain. Clavain looked down on the brilliant blue-black grooves of his greased hair. H appeared quite unconcerned that Clavain might attack him or attempt to make his escape from the monstrous black Chateau. And Clavain felt a strange willingness to co-operate with his new host. It was, he supposed, mostly curiosity. H knew things about Skade that Clavain did not, even if H himself did not pretend to know all the facts. Clavain, in turn, was clearly of interest to H. The two of them could indeed learn much from each other.
But this situation could not continue, Clavain knew. As urbane and interesting as his host might have been, Clavain had still been kidnapped. And he had business that needed to be attended to.
‘Tell me more about Skade,’ Clavain said. ‘What did she want from the Mademoiselle?’
‘It gets a little complicated. I shall do my best, but you must forgive me if I seem not to understand all the details. The truth of the matter is that I doubt that I ever will.‘
‘Start at the beginning.’
They arrived at a hallway. H strolled along it, passing many irregular sculptures resembling the sloughed scabs and scales of some immense metallic dragon, each of which rested on a single annotated plinth.
‘Skade was interested in technology, Mr Clavain.’
‘What kind?’
‘An advanced technology concerning the manipulation of the quantum vacuum. I am not a scientist, Mr Clavain, so I cannot pretend to have more than the shakiest grasp of the relevant principles. But it is my understanding that certain bulk properties of matter — inertia, for instance — stem directly from the properties of the vacuum in which they are embedded. Pure speculation, of course, but wouldn’t a means to control inertia be of use to the Con joiners?’
Clavain thought of the way Nightshade had been able to pursue him across the solar system at such great speed. A technique for suppressing inertia would have allowed that, and might also explain what Skade had been doing aboard the ship during the previous mission. She must have been fine-tuning her technology, testing it in the field. So the technology probably existed, albeit in prototype form. But H would have to learn that for himself.
‘I’ve no knowledge of a programme to develop that kind of ability,’ Clavain told him, choosing his words so as to avoid an outright lie.
‘Doubtless it would be secret, even amongst the Conjoiners. Very experimental and no doubt dangerous.’
‘Where did the technology come from in the first place?’
‘That’s the interesting part. Skade — and by extension the Conjoiners — seem to have had a well-developed idea of what they were looking for before they came here, as if what they sought here was merely the final part of a puzzle. As you know, Skade’s operation was viewed as a failure. She was the only survivor and she did not escape back to your Mother Nest with more than a handful of stolen items. Whether they were sufficient or not, I couldn’t guess…’ H glanced back over his shoulder with a knowing smile.
They reached the end of the corridor. They had arrived on a low-walled ledge that circumnavigated an enormous slope-floored room many storeys deep. Clavain peered over the edge, noting what appeared to be pipes and drainage vents set into the sheer black walls.
‘I’ll ask again,’ Clavain said. ‘Where did the technology come from in the first place?’
‘A donor,’ H answered. ‘Around a century ago I learned an astonishing truth. I gained knowledge of the whereabouts of an individual, an alien individual, who had been waiting undisturbed on this planet for many millions of years, shipwrecked and yet essentially unharmed.’ He paused, evidently watching Clavain’s reaction.
‘Continue,’ Clavain said, determined not to be fazed.
‘Unfortunately, I was not the first to learn of this hapless creature. Other people had discovered that he could give them something of considerable value provided that they held him prisoner and administered regular jolts of pain. This would have been abhorrent under any circumstances, but the creature in question was a highly social animal. Intelligent, too — his was a starfaring culture of great extent and antiquity. In fact, the wreck of his ship still contained functioning technologies. Do you see where this is heading?’
They had walked along one length of the vaultlike chamber. Clavain had still not deduced its function.
‘Those technologies,’ Clavain asked, ‘did they include the inertia-modifying process?’
‘So it would appear. I must confess that I had something of a head start in this matter. Some considerable amount of time ago I met another of these creatures, so I already knew a little of what to expect from this one.’
‘A less open-minded man than myself might find all this a tiny bit difficult to accept,’ Clavain said.
H paused at the corner, placing both hands on the top of the low marble walling. ‘Then I will tell you more, and perhaps you will begin to believe me. It cannot have escaped your attention that the universe is a hazardous place. I’m certain that the Conjoiners have learned this for themselves. What is the current toll — thirteen known extinct intelligent cultures, or is it fourteen now? And one or two possibly extant alien intelligences that unfortunately are so alien that they don’t do anything that might enable us to say for certain how intelligent they really are. The point being that the universe seems to have a way of stamping out intelligence before it gets too big for its boo
ts.’
‘That’s one theory.’ Clavain did not reveal how well it chimed with what he already knew; how it was perfectly consistent with Galiana’s message about a cosmos stalked by wolves that slavered and howled at the scent of sapience.
‘More than a theory. The grubs — that’s the race-name of the species of which the unfortunate individual was a member — had been harried to the point of extinction themselves. They lived only between the stars, shying away from warmth and light. Even there they were nervous. They knew how little it would take to bring the killers down upon them again. In the end they evolved a rather desperate protective strategy. They were not naturally hostile, but they learned that other noisier species sometimes had to be silenced to protect themselves.’ H resumed his stroll, brushing one hand along the wall. It was his right hand, Clavain noticed, and it left behind a thin red smear.
‘How did you learn about the alien?’
‘It’s a long story, Mr Clavain, and one I don’t intend to detain you with. Suffice it only to say the following. I vowed to save the creature from his tormentors — part of my plan for personal atonement, you might say. But I could not do it immediately. It took planning, a vast amount of forethought. I amassed a team of trusted helpers and made elaborate preparations. Years passed but the moment was never right. Then a decade went by. Two decades. Every night I dreamed of that thing suffering, and every night I renewed my vow to help him.’
‘And?’
‘It’s possible that someone betrayed me. Or else her intelligence was better than my own. The Mademoiselle reached the creature before I did. She brought him here, to this room. How, I don’t know; that alone must have taken enormous planning.’
Clavain looked down again, struggling to comprehend what kind of animal had needed a room this large as a prison. ‘She kept the creature here, in the Chateau?’
H nodded. ‘For many years. It was no simple matter to keep him alive, but the people who had imprisoned him before her had worked out exactly what needed to be done. The Mademoiselle had no particular interest in torturing him, I think; she was not cruel in that sense. But every instant of the creature’s continued existence was a kind of torture, even when his nervous system was not being poked and prodded with high-voltage electrodes. But she refused to let him die. Not until she had learned all that she could from him.’
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