‘Ah,’ said Kris heavily, taking that in. The mob.
She had been expecting Nativists maybe, opposing Sathiel’s cult. Perhaps even Hugh spooks. Yet the Vulture God had been stolen from them by actual thieves.
It was nothing personal, was her guess. Nobody on the crew had tangled with the Broken Harvest as far as she was aware. She set her covert search agents in motion once more and precious little they brought back was good. It looked as though Broken Harvest operated in the Hegemony as much as in the Colonies. If they’d taken their prize across the border – or rather, deeper into Hegemonic space, now – the Vulture’s crew would be powerless to intervene.
She took a meagre lunch with Olli in a nearby canteen and went over what she’d found. The remotes specialist nodded, her capsule opened up so she could feed herself with the Scorpion’s smaller arms.
‘Where’s the Sark out of?’
‘Registered in a place called G’murc or something, in the Hegemony. Not that it means anything,’ Kris told her.
Olli frowned, chewing mechanically. ‘And if we knew where they’d gone? What then?’
‘Depends where that was. Maybe we could . . . go after them. Book passage there? I don’t know. If we wanted to butt heads with Broken Harvest, anyway.’
‘Rollo would,’ Olli decided. ‘Rollo is pissed. Don’t know if it’s the ship or Barney and Med, but he’s in a mood to cut the throat of God if he has to. What about you?’
Kris blinked at her. ‘The throat of God?’
‘Or this Mesmon triggerman, anyway. Are you ready to do the same?’
Kris felt within and found the same urge that had led to her carrying the knife on Scintilla – now tempered and hardened by two dead friends. ‘Maybe,’ she allowed.
‘Then let me link to the station and I’ll show you a trick.’ Olli gave her a fierce smile.
It was simple, really. Kris almost laughed when she found out. It was the packet trade. Everyone carried news, after all. That was how word travelled from one planet to another through unspace. Everyone made a little money on the side by downloading encrypted communications to deliver at their destination. But to do so, you had to say where you were going.
The Vulture God had obviously not taken on packets in its violent exit from Lung-Crow. On the other hand the Sark, given its innocent departure, had. It was just what you did when you travelled, natural as breathing, second nature to any crew.
The Sark crew had taken on the packet for Tarekuma. Maybe it had been an elegant piece of misdirection. Maybe they weren’t even heading for the same destination as the stolen Vulture, but it was all they had to go on.
10.
Havaer
New screens lined the corridors leading from the passenger bays. Kicking his heels at Lung-Crow customs, Havaer had plenty of time to see twenty different pundits making hay over the flight of the Vulture God. Some of the talking heads claimed the ship’s captain was responsible, but the prevailing opinion was that parties unknown had hijacked the Vulture God and vanished it away.
There were several recordings that certainly seemed to show an Architected wreck clutched in the Vulture’s claws. And there was some panic, but there was also denial. Nobody wanted to admit what everyone was thinking. So: a fragile calm prevailed at Lung-Crow. No screaming exodus yet. In fact, now the planet was under Hegemony rule, maybe prices for a berth to Huei-Cavor would be climbing . . . Public opinion might sway towards the Essiel – here and elsewhere – when this news spread.
All the more reason to find the truth about the wreck.
At last Havaer was let through and he dusted off his credentials as mediotype opinionator, under which guise the office supplied a handful of articles a month below his byline.
Later that same day, having pulled some local strings, he met with His Wisdom the Bearer Sathiel. The man was urbane, grandfatherly and opulently dressed, surrounded by worshipful followers. He clasped Havaer’s bony arm warmly, in the Colonial fashion, as they ordered a cup of the Caffenado that humans drank in the Hegemony. It tasted like the best parts of coffee, lemon and almonds.
Havaer gave the man his attentive smile and decided he didn’t trust Sathiel an inch, but then the whole cult business gave him the creeps. To his mind, inventing a religion venerating extraterrestrial barnacles was a ludicrous response to meeting an alien species. Except, he admitted, it did seem to provide a framework for human-Essiel interactions.
‘You’ve been very vocal about the Oumaru rumours, Your Wisdom,’ he commented diplomatically, channelling his persona of highbrow mediotype reporter. They were in a small eatery, and most patrons were wearing cult heraldry – from a simple badge to full-on robes like Sathiel. Havaer’s long-sleeved charcoal tunic, trousers and slip-ons were standard kit for someone out of the richer settled colonies, but in this mish-mash place, he stood out amongst both the spacers and Hegemonic types.