‘The Colonial citizen Idris Telemmier will be leaving aboard the liner Sepulchrave, which is currently standing by,’ Borodin said flatly. ‘Good ship, actually. My own family are on it, as are all non-essential Hugh staff. I’ll be heading there soon.’
‘No,’ Idris told him. ‘I’ll leave on the Vulture God then. With my crew.’
‘You won’t.’
He felt a keen need for Kris. But who’d have thought this old argument would raise its head now. ‘You can’t—’
‘Menheer Telemmier,’ Borodin addressed him, ‘Saint Xavienne died. They couldn’t save her.’
Idris made a sound like grieving. ‘No.’
‘She died,’ Borodin said heavily. ‘And that makes you almost the last of the first wave. The hope our new Intermediaries need. Which means we can’t let you rush off and get killed facing this particular Architect. I’m sorry.’
‘I need a ship. I can save your fucking planet!’ Idris shouted at him, at them both, at all the universe. ‘Just get me out there. I have a right to screw with my own head, if that’s what I want.’ His eyes narrowed, words coming too fast for thought. ‘You’re Magdan, right? Is that what this is about? Lose Berlenhof – then Magda’s centre of the Colonies? That what you want?’
‘Idris.’ Solace’s hand was on his arm, trying to rein in his temper.
Borodin just looked sad. ‘I’m going to have my people take you to the Sepulchrave now.’
Idris looked to Tact. ‘Do something.’
She didn’t meet his gaze. ‘This is very much out of my hands, I’m afraid.’ And a warning look passed from her to Solace. ‘Right now, Partheni writ is running very thin. This is a Hugh matter.’
Colonial soldiers were coming in, four of them. Solace tensed, but under Tact’s stern gaze she was not going to make a diplomatic incident of it.
‘I could save everyone,’ Idris said, not shouting now, barely audible. ‘You just have to let me.’
‘Get him away, keep him safe,’ Borodin told his soldiers. ‘I’ll be along in time for the launch.’
*
Borodin’s people took Idris’s stick and put him in a chair, which they drove for him. He kept trying to get out but, each time, one of the soldiers pushed him back down. Not forcefully; respectfully, even.
In that part of his head that made him an Intermediary, Idris felt the Architect out there, getting closer. He didn’t feel the world full of people about to be obliterated, but they weighed on him anyway. Bleakly, he knew that Borodin and Hugh were going to be disappointed in him. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself and this failure. He’d put himself outside their control, even if release came via the edge of a razor.
After his first attempts at Berlenhof, and Far Lux, it seemed profoundly unjust that he’d be remembered as the man who let a planet die. It was as though the Architects were personally invested in erasing every good thing he’d ever done.
Then they wheeled Idris into what would have been the wealthy passenger lounge, in better times. It was currently crammed full of people shouting, crying, arguing and holding each other. Through the clear far wall, he could see the sleek flank of the Sepulchrave, painted with a hotch-potch of colours – a rich man’s attempt to replicate the old mismatch of Colonial scarcity. There were ten hatches with umbilicals connected to the ship, and Hugh staff were diligently trying to hurry people aboard as efficiently as possible. The transparent window also revealed some of the planet below. Idris could see the lights of shuttles and lifters rising up from the gravity well, each one surely filled to the brim with the desperate and the lucky.
I could just shout, ‘Hey, someone else want my place?’ and start a riot, he thought. But he said nothing, just sat in the chair while his escort jockeyed, threatened and pulled rank to get closer and closer to the nearest hatch.
I could . . . I could . . . But he couldn’t. There was nothing he could do.
They reached the hatch, with a trail of angry people resenting their every step. He wondered, with new horror, whether someone at the back of the queue had lost their place for his sake.
‘I’m not going,’ he said and made a game effort to get out of the chair.
‘Remain seated for your own safety, Menheer,’ one of the soldiers said. Idris grabbed at the hand that came for him, but he was too weak. And even if he’d been strong, the man would have been stronger.
‘Help,’ he said, ridiculously. ‘I’m being kidnapped. I don’t want to go. I can save the world . . .’ In the general hubbub, almost nobody heard him. And those who did plainly thought he was deranged. ‘I’m an Int,’ he squeaked as the soldier shoved him back again. ‘I can stop it. Get me on a ship!’ Which was even more stupid because they were getting him on a ship. Just not in the way he wanted.