Kris looked to Solace, whose face was set in a stubborn expression. She was determined not to betray her companions to anyone else. Olli was being bloody-minded, too. And probably Kit had worked out that a Hanni wouldn’t fit on that frame: it was a nastiness designed for a human physique.
‘Damn it,’ she muttered, because apparently it came down to her, but then Trine stepped forward. Despite their oft-repaired leg, they managed a halfway decent parody of the major-domo’s elegant dance.
‘I would – how does this go? – I would address the most Unspeakable from my position here of abject dread. How’s that, does that work?’ Their fake face beamed genially at all and sundry.
‘Show first the relics,’ the major-domo cautioned.
‘Gladly shall I so,’ and Trine’s torso just folded outwards. Within the hollow canister of Trine’s body, a honeycomb hosted a seething nest of thumb-sized insects. Slotted in front of them were the precious Originator regalia. The rods and fragments hovered there without obvious support, as though they were visuals projected from some hidden lens. Despite her life being on the line, Kris still found herself wondering, How? Where does the power come from, for the a-grav? She hoped Trine knew, because those relics would become trash in a blink if they lost their mystical provenance.
Trine’s arms spread out and the regalia drifted out from the confines of their body. All eyes tracked the fragments, as they danced in the air above their many hands. ‘Behold the treasure of an elder age,’ the archaeologist murmured. ‘May I now speak, ’fore sentence is pronounced?’
A deep, pained sound ground out from Aklu, but apparently it was positive because the major-domo said, ‘Be brief.’
‘Whoever’d think such enemies would cosy up,’ Trine declared, in rough mimicry of the other Hiver’s rhythms. Their nest of arms spread and curled inwards, perhaps conveying something cutting to an Essiel, save that it brought the relics closer to their open body again. ‘Who’d think to find such daggers sheathed that formerly’d been drawn? Or something like that.’ They abandoned the pose and forced metre for a moment, rolling ghostly eyes at all the room as though mortally embarrassed. ‘Or I mistake myself, but these robed dullards set themselves against your divine majesty.’ The room was very quiet when he’d finished, and he gurned at them all. ‘Did I not do it right? Well excuse me, O my captors, but that’s the best you’ll get from me. They are enemies, is my meaning. The clown with the beard and his robed loons.’
Sathiel sighed. ‘You misunderstand, my friend. We are foes, yes, but on an abstract, philosophical level—’
‘No. I’m talking about the Oumaru. That was the name of the ship, wasn’t it, old Hierograve, old sect-captain?’ Trine swung back to face the Essiel. ‘For lo! The vessel ’pon which you had placed your treasures, all secured against the world, has foundered! Who’da thunk it’d go that way?’
Nobody seemed to know what was going on. Mesmon was obviously waiting for the signal to shut the Hiver up, but Aklu just watched, fidgeting without giving any apparent order. The major-domo paused, then pulled their limbs in, steepling all six hands together.
‘The Architect of our misfortune came . . .’ they tried, a questioning tone to their golden voice.
‘I can’t be bothered with this nonsense talk,’ Trine snapped. ‘Just tell your boss I am the foremost expert of the age . . . Or rather, I am the greatest scholar on Originator lore this side of the Hegemonic Sphere, and I used to analyse Architected wreckage for the war effort. Tell it that. I’ve gone over pieces of your Oumaru and I can tell you this for free. It wasn’t Architected.’
‘You fucking what?’ Olli barked out, wide-eyed.
‘No Architect!’ Trine declared. ‘Someone mangled it with a gravitic drive and a complex program. The subatomic signature you’d expect is completely absent. This was someone’s shoddy forgery. Someone who had no idea what the freighter contained. Because let’s face it, the one thing we do know about Architects is that they won’t go near Originator gubbins. Whoever perpetrated this little scam must have been hoping for unquestioning panic at the return of the Bad Times, so they would surely have picked another ship to ruin, if they’d known. Isn’t that the case, Menheer Hierograve Sathiel?’ And their rack of arms made a rippling gesture towards Sathiel.
‘You’re accusing me?’ the cultist demanded. And Kris read his expression of outrage and knew for certain that Trine had landed it.