“Cytherea took out a handful of adults, a handful of kids, and an old science project,” said Pyrrha impatiently. “And she let two new Lyctors through the net. It wasn’t her best effort. Whatever she was doing at Canaan House, it wasn’t helping you out. Come on, Commander. When you say they want progress, do you mean they want to weaponise her? Or is she merely another part of their negotiation bundle?”
Camilla said, “Anyone who would describe two fourteen-year-olds as high-ranking House personnel isn’t interested in Nona as a person.”
We Suffer held up a hand. “Camilla Hect,” she said, “I am not trying to be cruel. You must see it from our point of view. When you stand in our shoes, Chrysaor—Cytherea the First—came to us, and identified the crisis of many new Lyctors about to rise, and removed it. There were eight powerful necromancers at Canaan House … to us, the seeds of eight more enemies we could never hope to defeat. Lyctors take out the very flooring from beneath our feet. We cannot see them coming. We can never stop them. When they arrive the clock starts, and another home is taken away from us … our children stateless, our grandchildren perpetual nomads. How many lives, balanced against those ten dead people and that one old—thing?”
“Cytherea didn’t kill ten people,” Cam said. The pen was held very tightly between thumb and forefinger now, and it didn’t move. “She only killed six. The cavalier primary of the Second House killed your monster, and died at its hands. The Eighth was killed by something even we don’t understand. And the Sixth House went out on its own terms.”
There was an unpleasant silence.
“What happened at Canaan House wasn’t your victory, Commander,” said Camilla. “It was Cytherea’s. She was the only person in that whole building who got what they wanted … you just got lucky off the scraps she dropped. And you still think Lyctors are a gun you can wield? What happens if we give you the one you want, right here, right now? In these barracks, at full power, and mad with hive exposure? Assume the worst, ignore the best. And the worst here is pretty bad.”
“You don’t know anything about the worst,” said the bodyguard. “You want to know what the real worst-case plan is? I helped craft it. We go over the cowards’ heads, we don’t wait for negotiations. We evacuate who we can, we liquidate that barracks, we carpet-bomb the whole place. We make sure that every zombie on the planet is dead. I think that big blue son of a bitch is here looking for zombies. No more zombies? No more sphere. Isn’t it crazy how you always argue for a plan in which the zombies get to live?”
Crown slapped the table so sharply that everyone jumped, except Pyrrha.
“Oh, shut up! Just shut up … I’m sick of your fake bravado and bloodlust. Leave my wing alone. I can’t stand listening to you rark.”
The room fell silent, the bodyguard too. Crown and the guard stared at each other through a layer of air-toggle mask and welding goggles with a hate that was genuine.
“You’re only boobs, hair, and talk, Crown,” said the guard.
“No,” said Crown. “I’m boobs and hair and talk and a hell of a sword hand.”
“Did you think that sounded cool?” said the guard.
“You ignored my warning. Both of you are on bullet duty in your frees today,” said We Suffer. “This is for saying boobs, and for being boobs yourselves. Repeat it again and it is two days, as promised.”
The bodyguard stood so tall and so hard that they trembled, vibrating slightly. Crown fell back in her chair, arms crossed. We Suffer sat back too. The hood fell a little away from her face, and the black lenses covering her eyes now gleamed beneath the dimmed lamps, reflecting all of them in the glass.
“Troia cell,” she said, “this is an old conversation. It is one we have had over and over again. You know the ways in which I am sympathetic and in which I am not. It is not simply a matter of the sixteen. If I say, ‘The Lyctor experiment is going well in that the Lyctor now talks in full sentences but shows no signs of power,’ then the others will definitely say, ‘Useless. Offer her up with the others.’ If I lie and say, ‘We will soon have a Lyctor on hand,’ the Hopers will want me to prove it. And the Hopers are the ones who are in charge of your people’s incarceration, and I cannot fob them off. Everyone wants to know what we have on the table before the negotiators arrive, and I am expected to say our part later today. Exactly what I say … exactly how I say it … should matter very much to you right now.”