‘It all makes sense, doesn’t it?’ she spoke up. ‘You were the one desperate to get the Oumaru into the public arena. You probably told station admin about the missing ship. Then, when they hid the Oumaru, you manipulated us to break it out into the open. What were you trying to do? Get the Colonies falling over each other to sign up with your masters? And was that the Hegemony’s idea or just yours? Just a way of scoring points with your bosses?’
Sathiel’s face was completely composed now. For a moment the whole universe seemed to be hanging on his response. In the end, all he said was, ‘This doesn’t need to change anything.’
‘Excuse me?’ Kris felt outraged beyond all reason. ‘You’re not even pretending you weren’t behind this?’
‘Why do you care?’ Sathiel asked, maddeningly nonchalant still. ‘Surely whether worlds join the Hegemony or not is a little beyond your usual level of engagement with the universe? I’ve heard you talk, you and yours. You’re not Nativists or even Colonial loyalists. I’ll intervene on your behalf here, in return for the wreck’s location. That offer still stands and it’s all that matters to you, surely? Let the politics take care of itself. Joining the Hegemony is for the best, you know. You haven’t lived under their rule. Peace, harmony, a place for everyone, nobody goes hungry or cold. It’s better.’
‘Except for the Oumaru’s crew, right?’ Olli demanded. ‘I guess you just had to murder them all. Or they might have mentioned something inconvenient, next time they made port.’
‘Listen to me,’ Sathiel insisted. ‘This can still go very well for you. When you’re clear of Berlenhof, I’ll make sure you want for nothing. You do remember that you’re for hire, yes?’
‘I . . .’ Kris said slowly. For a mad moment she’d imagined a triumphal confrontation with malefactors brought to justice, like an old-Earth murder story. But the only authority here was a criminal alien, and why would it care?
Solace took two steps, ending up standing protectively by Kris and Kittering.
‘You intervene?’ The clear voice of Aklu’s Hiver rang into the silence. ‘There are no words for those who meddle with the corpus of the gods. Such hubris!’ For a moment, nobody seemed to understand what the proclamation meant. Then Sathiel’s calm facade cracked.
‘Unspeakable . . . Razor and Hook . . . there was never any intent to act against you. I merely sought to advance the agenda of the Essiel. An action in everyone’s best interests.’ His eyes swivelled to the prisoners, as though to recruit them as allies.
‘Ready yourself,’ Solace murmured in Kris’s ear, making her shiver. Then the whole ship shuddered around them. A low moaning seemed to issue from all the white walls at once, gleaming patterns chasing each other back and forth in shifting hues. Kris just stood there dumbly, but Aklu’s people were abruptly in motion. Heremon was shouting orders, and the bulk of the pirate court abruptly dashed out of every available exit. Somewhere on the ship, a musical voice was announcing an alert in perfect couplets.
The ship was under attack, Kris realized numbly. There was a shuddering detonation and she felt the distinct shift to the air that meant a breach somewhere. Boarding? Almost immediately the sound of weapons fire came to them: the high searing song of accelerators, the rattle and bang of projectile guns. Someone was crashing Aklu’s court with extreme prejudice.
25.
Solace
Solace had heard, through her implant, a harsh tck-tck. It wasn’t repeated and it was easy enough to mistake for static, had anyone been listening in. Long conditioning set her pulse racing. The rescue party had arrived.
Monitor Superior Tact had said they were putting a team together; there must have been a picket ship closer than she’d thought. Now she sent out her own recognition code, just a stuttering of ticks, receiving bounce-back from two separate infiltrations. The ships would have ghosted up to the Broken Harvest under dead momentum, gravitic drives stilled so as to dampen any ripples that might alert the target. Everyone was so reliant on the wonders of gravitic sensor arrays. People forgot there were old-fashioned ways to do things.
Then the fun would have begun, cutting into the bigger vessel’s hull the moment they were clamped to it, knowing discovery would be inevitable and soon. She had no idea how many of her sisters had come for her, but likely it wasn’t much more than half a dozen.
Solace was shoving Kris even as the gangsters became aware of the infiltration, pushing the woman towards the closest signal. She tried to scoot Kit along with a foot, too, but the Hanni skittered away from her. They were unaware of what was going on and, reasonably enough, didn’t trust her judgement.