‘Son of a bitch, I knew it!’ The voice was Olli’s. It was amplified by the speakers of her Scorpion frame until her words shook every loose piece of kit in the drone bay. Because of course Kittering could continue sending queries quite happily while Olian Timo went snooping to see who was messing with her signal.
Solace twitched and her hand sent the message, not sure whether it would actually go anywhere or whether Olli had already blocked her. She stood up – unarmoured, unarmed – wondering if Olli was just going to go for her. Given the frame’s shears, pincers and saws, she didn’t think she could do much about that.
‘Not so tough now, soldier?’ The specialist leant forward in her capsule at the frame’s heart. She’d reinforced it since the fight with Mesmon, Solace saw: less clear plastic, more armour. Her face was simultaneously wrathful and gleeful – someone finally given an excuse to let loose. ‘What’s it going to be?’
‘You tell me,’ Solace said, standing very still. Her mind was racing through countermeasures, for if Olli just lunged at her. The drone bay was the biggest space in the ship, but with all its limbs and tail extended, the Scorpion could cover just about all of it.
‘Everyone get in here!’ Olli’s voice roared from the ship’s comms, and Solace heard a yelp from Kris over in command. A moment later she came running, expecting who knew what and finding the pair of them facing off. Kittering tapped in a moment later, Trine last of all.
‘This is really not conducive to—’ the Hiver academic started.
‘You, shut up,’ Olli told them. ‘You’re not one of us.’
‘Olli, what is this?’ Kris asked.
‘Warrior angel has been phoning home,’ the specialist revealed. ‘Piggybacking on my own call and thought Kit wouldn’t track her down.’
Kris’s eyes flicked over. If Solace had thought to see sympathy there, she was disappointed. ‘What did she tell them?’
‘All in code, but I’ll give you three guesses.’
‘Did you sell Idris to them?’ Kris asked. Solace saw her fingers twitch at the sleeve where she kept her knife.
‘I am not selling anyone to anything,’ she said, as calmly as possible.
‘It’s the relics,’ Olli spat. ‘Of course it’s the relics.’
‘Well what were you going to do with them?’ Solace demanded. ‘Trade them for Largesse? So some Boyarin can keep his holiday planet safe, when the galaxy burns? Or you want Hugh to unravel them for secrets? Even assuming they don’t screw it up and just render the whole thing useless, what then? Who’s been causing trouble for us? The Parthenon? No. Who hunted us across Jericho? Was that the Parthenon? Who grabbed Kittering and the Vulture? Not us. And was it my people who arrested and interrogated us after that?’
‘Oh, the Parthenon have been our problem all this time,’ Olli told her, ‘just from inside. Just sneakier. Pretending to be one of us. And I fucking knew it would come to this.’
‘I told them to pay you!’ Solace tried desperately. She heard a catch in her voice, because Olli’s barb had caught. Because she had felt like one of them, and here she was, just a spy in their midst – an outsider, a traitor. Fuck.
‘Reward without contract is an unacceptable standard of business,’ came Kittering’s strident translation.
‘And you knew they’d take Idris. Especially in the state he is now, when he can’t say no,’ Kris added.
‘Look, he needs help. We can help.’
‘And after helping, you’d let him go? I’m sorry, Solace.’ And Kris’s eyes glittered with hurt. ‘Maybe you even believe it’s for the best, but no. Just . . . no.’
Solace’s fists clenched. ‘The Architects are coming back,’ she said. ‘Who will save you, who will save everyone, if not us? That is what we do. That is what we are for.’
‘You and your people would let us all burn if you knew you’d be safe,’ Olli’s voice boomed from her Scorpion. ‘Everyone not born perfect out of your fucking vats.’
‘That’s not true!’ And Solace surged forward, well within the arc of those lethal arms. All her training abandoned for one stupid moment, because the woman was being so unfair. Olli just brandished a stump at her – a clutch of stubby fingers jutting from what would have been her truncated elbow. And of course her words weren’t fair, it wasn’t fair. Yet on another level it was something the woman absolutely had the right to say.