‘You’ll tell me to go get him now though, I take it?’
‘Not outside the realms of possibility,’ she confirmed. ‘Though if Borodin and his clowns do their job, we may not have to act. And I fear the matter may be taken out of our hands. But to move to our next problem: ever been to the Hegemony, Havaer? The real Hegemony, not just some turncoat human colony.’
‘Couple of times. That’s our next problem, is it?’
‘This business with the hierograve, Sathiel, and his fake Architect evidence. I don’t like it. I think the Essiel might have bitten off more than they can chew when they started taking on human converts. Human cults tend to proselytize, and it’s changing the passive Hegemonic dynamic. Mark my words, we’ll have some flashpoints there in the next few years.’
‘The Hegemony’s issued a formal statement on the Oumaru?’
‘I don’t think the Essiel even understand the problem. All rather beneath them. Although I’d like to think we’ve caused some consternation when we showed their damn relics aren’t actually all that. I would like that very much. Bring them down to the mud like the rest of us.’ She chuckled, a singular event. ‘And here are our visitors, just ahead of schedule. The legendary efficiency of the warrior angels.’
‘I don’t . . .’ Havaer squinted into the void. Were there three points of light out there, which had been absent a moment before? They were moving, cruising at an angle to Berlenhof, making an oblique approach.
‘The Lady of the Night, the Sister of Mercy, the Witch Queen,’ Laery reeled off, staring past her own reflection. ‘Yes . . . the Parthenon had three warships within striking distance, just a few days away. Until they were underway, we didn’t even know they existed. Very hard to get intel from that quarter. Can’t infiltrate spies into that sisterhood.’
‘I know our own reinforcements have turned up too,’ Havaer advanced cautiously. A grab-bag of Colonial military vessels had pitched in over the last few days. They’d been summoned by packet runners and the first wave of Far Lux refugees, expecting to go toe-to-doomed-toe with an Architect. Not that they’d have been in time anyway.
‘It had looked as though we could keep Tact and her mob in their place, before their ships arrived. Allies we could put back in their box once we didn’t need them anymore. Yet with the Thunderchild, the Heaven’s Sword and these new arrivals, they can punch harder than we can, if it comes to it.’
‘It won’t come to it.’
‘It won’t, now they can punch harder,’ Laery replied with bleak humour. She sagged and her exoskeletal frame didn’t, doing odd things to the contours of her shoulders. ‘Yes, I’m sure you’ll be disappointed, but your disciplinary will have to wait. It’s going to be all hands to the pumps, Agent Mundy. Now and for the foreseeable future.’
Kris
‘We’re within our rights to consider this an act of war!’ was the first thing Kris heard as the crew entered. Because this time, the diplomats had started without them. The talks weren’t taking place on a Partheni ship either, but in a well-appointed conference room on the Hugh orbital. Although it seemed to Kris that the parties preferred to stand and shout at one another, rather than sit in comfort.
‘If you choose to view it as an act of war, that’s up to you. But see where it gets you, Menheer Borodin,’ came Monitor Superior Tact’s acid reply. ‘However, wearing my diplomat’s mantle, I’d say our “relief force” shows our commitment to humanity in general, not just our own people. And our determination to defend them against any threat.’
Approaching the square central table, Olli tapped forward in her walker. She loudly yanked two chairs away with a metal leg, making room at the table for herself and Idris, whose walker she was also piloting. He hadn’t much liked that, but he was almost endearingly hopeless at moving the thing about himself.
‘Ah, Menheer Telemmier.’ Borodin turned smoothly to smile at them as though he hadn’t been shouting at the Partheni a moment before. ‘I’m delighted to see you with us again. I’ve been asked to formally extend the Council of Human Interests’ sincere thanks. Your actions headed off a humanitarian disaster on a scale we’ve not seen since the war. And I add my own personal thanks to that. We owe you a great debt.’
‘Does that mean you’ll listen to me this time?’ Idris rasped. He still looked nine-eighths dead to Kris’s critical eye, slumped in the walker with his bare feet dangling.