Alastair Reynolds - Absolution Gap

“There’s no call for sarcasm, Quaestor.”

He shook his head and reached for a compad, making an exaggerated show of finding his place in whatever work he had been engaged in before her interruption. “Based on my own limited experience, you will do one of two things, Miss Els. You will either go very far, or you will shortly meet a very unfortunate end in what on the face of it might resemble a regrettable accident out on the ice. One thing I am certain about, however: in the process of reaching either outcome, you will still manage to irritate a great many people.”

“Then at least I’ll have made a difference,” she said, with vastly more bravado than she felt. She turned to go.

“Miss Els.”

“Quaestor?”

“Should you at any point decide to return to the badlands… would you do me a singular favour?”

“What?” she asked.

“Find some other mode of transport to take you back,” the quaestor said, before returning to his duties.

Scorpio cycled through the airlock as soon as the shuttle had engaged with its docking cradle, latching itself securely into place in the reception bay. The other ship that had accompanied them—it was much smaller and sleeker—was a wedge of darkness parked alongside. All he could see was its silhouette, a flint-shaped splash of ink like one of the random blots sometimes used in a psychological examination. It just sat there, hissing, its smell sharp and antiseptic, like a medicine cabinet. It looked completely two-dimensional, as if stamped from a sheet of thin black metal.

It looked like something you could cut yourself on.

Security Arm militia had already cordoned off both craft. They recognised the shuttle, but they were wary of the other arrival. Scorpio assumed it had received the same invitation, but the guards were still taking no chances. He stood most of them down, keeping only a couple handy just in case the ship really did contain an unpleasant surprise.

He raised his sleeve and spoke into his communicator. “Antoinette? You around?”

“I’m on my way up, Scorp. Be there in a minute or so. Do you have our guest?”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

He moved over to the black ship. It was not much larger than the capsule Khouri had come down in. Room in it for one or two people at the very most, he estimated. He rapped a knuckle against the black surface. It was cold to the touch. The hairs on his knuckle tingled with shock.

A dogleg of pink light split the black machine down the middle and a section of the hull slid aside, revealing a dim interior. A man was already extricating himself from the prison of an acceleration couch and fold-around controls. It was Re-montoire, just as Scorpio had suspected. He was a little older than Scorpio remembered, but still fundamentally the same: a very thin, very tall, very bald man, dressed entirely in tight black clothes that served only to emphasise his arachnoid qualities. His skull was a peculiar shape: elongated, like a teardrop.

Scorpio leaned into the cavity to help him out.

“Mr. Pink, I presume,” Remontoire said.

Scorpio hesitated a moment. The name meant something, but the association was buried decades in the past. He tugged at the strands of his memory until one came loose. He recalled the time when Remontoire and he had travelled incognito through the Rust Belt and Chasm City, pursuing Clavain when he had first defected from the Conjoiners. Mr. Pink had been the name Scorpio had travelled under. What had Remontoire called himself? Scorpio tried to remember.

“Mr. Clock,” he said at last, just at the point when the pause would have become uncomfortable.

They had hated each other’s guts back then. It had been inevitable, really. Remontoire did not like pigs (there had been something unpleasant in his past, some incident in which he had been tortured by one of them) but had been forced to employ Scorpio because of his useful local knowledge. Scorpio did not like Conjoiners (no one did, unless they were already Conjoin-ers) and he particularly did not like Remontoire. But he had been blackmailed into assisting them, promised his freedom if he did. To refuse meant being handed over to the authorities, who had a nice little pre-scripted show trial planned for him.

No; they hadn’t exactly started out as friends, but the hatred had gradually evaporated, aided by their mutual respect for Clavain. Now Scorpio was actually glad to see the man, a reaction that would have stunned and appalled his younger self.

“We’re quite a pair of relics, you and I,” Remontoire said. He stood up, stretching his limbs, turning them this way and that as if ascertaining that none of them had become dislocated.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Scorpio said.

“Clavain?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I guessed, of course. The moment I saw you, I knew he must be dead. When did it happen?”

“A couple of days ago.”

“And how did he die?”

“Very badly. But he died for Ararat. He was a hero to the end, Rem.”

For a moment Remontoire was somewhere else, wandering through a landscape of mental reflection accessible only to Conjoiners. He closed his eyes, remained that way for perhaps ten seconds and then opened them again. They were now gleaming with bright alertness, no trace of sorrow visible.

“Well, I’ve grieved,” he said.

Scorpio knew better than to doubt Remontoire’s word; that was just how Conjoiners did things. It was a measure of Remontoire’s respect for his old friend and ally that he had even deemed a period of grieving necessary in the first place. It would have been trivial for him to edit his own mind into a state of serene acceptance. By going through the motions of grief he had paid a great, humbling tribute to Clavain. Even if it had only taken ten or twelve seconds.

“Are we safe?” Scorpio asked.

“For now. We planned your escape carefully, creating a major diversion using the remaining assets. We knew the wolves would be able to reallocate some of their resources to bring you down, but our forecasts showed that we could handle them, provided you left exactly on schedule.”

“You can beat the wolves?”

“No, not beat them, Scorpio.” Remontoire’s tone was schoolmasterly, gently reproachful. “We can overwhelm a small number of wolf machines in a specific location by using a deliberate concentration of power. We can inflict some damage, push them back, force them to regroup. But really, it’s like throwing pebbles at pack dogs. Against a large grouping, there is still little we can do. And in the longer term—so our forecasts tell us—we will lose.”

“But you’ve survived until now.”

“With the weapons and techniques Aura gave us, yes. But that well is nearly dry now. And the wolves have shown a remarkable propensity for matching us.” Remontoire’s eyes sparkled with admiration. “They are very efficient, these machines.”

Scorpio laughed. After everything that he had been through, this was the outcome Remontoire was spelling out? “Then we’re screwed, right?”

“In the long run, at least according to the current forecasts, the prognosis is not good.”

Behind Remontoire, the black ship sealed itself, becoming once again a sharp-edged chunk of shadow.

“Then why don’t we just give up now?”

“Because there is a chance—albeit a small one—that the forecasts may be badly wrong.”

“I think we need to talk,” Scorpio said.

“And I know just the place,” said Antoinette Bax, stepping into the bay. She inclined her head towards Remontoire, as if they had seen each other only minutes earlier. “Follow me, you two. I think you’re going to love this.”