Alastair Reynolds - Absolution Gap

His voice appeared to emerge from the grille. It was small, tinny, like a broken toy. “Hey. The gang’s all here.”

“Have a seat, John,” Antoinette said. “Do you need to be brought up to speed? Remontoire was just explaining a technical trade-off. He’s giving us some cool new toys.”

“In return for something else, I gather.”

“No,” Remontoire said. “The technical blueprints and the other items really are a gift. But if you are willing to consider offering us a reciprocal gift, we have something in mind.”

John Brannigan assumed his seat, lowering himself into place with a hiss and chuff of contracting pistons. “You want the remaining cache weapons,” he said.

Remontoire dignified the remark with a nod. “You guess our desires well.”

“Why do you want them?” John Brannigan asked.

“Our forecasts show that we will need them if we are to ere-ate a useful diversion. There is, necessarily, an element of uncertainty. Not all the weapons have known properties. But we can make some useful guesses.”

“We will be running from the machines as well,” Scorpio said. “Who’s to say we won’t need the weapons ourselves?”

“No one,” Remontoire replied. As always he was unflappable, like an adult suggesting parlour games for children. “You may very well need them. But you will be running from the wolves, not already engaged with them. If you are sensible, you will avoid further encounters for as long as possible.”

“You said we might still have wolves on our tail,” Antoinette reminded him. “What do we do about them? Ask them nicely to go away?”

Remontoire again tapped the data recording he had placed on the table. “This will show you how to construct a hypo-metric weapon system. Our forecasts indicate that three of these devices will be sufficient to disperse a small wolf pursuit element.”

“And if your forecasts turn out to be wrong?” Scorpio asked.

“You will have other resources.”

“Not good enough,” the pig said. “Those cache weapons were the whole reason we went all the way out to the Resurgam system in the first place. They’re what got us into this steaming pile of shit. And now you’re saying we should just give them up?”

“I am still your ally,” Remontoire said. “I am merely proposing that the weapons be reassigned to their point of maximum usefulness.”

“I don’t get this,” Antoinette said, nodding at the data sliver. “You have the means to make stuff we can’t even dream of yet, and you still want those mouldy old cache weapons?”

“We cannot underestimate the cache weapons,” Remontoire said. “They were a gift from the future. Until they have been exhaustively tested, we cannot assume that they are inferior to anything Aura has given us. You must agree with this reasoning as well.”

“Guy’s got a point, I suppose,” Antoinette said.

John Brannigan’s projected form moved with a hiss of locomotive systems. It must have been Scorpio’s imagination, but he thought he smelt lubricant. The Captain spoke again in his tinny voice. “He may well have a point, but Aura’s capabilities are equally untested. We have at least deployed a number of cache weapons and found them functional. I cannot sanction handing the rest of them over.”

“Then we’ll have to arrive at a compromise position,” Remontoire said.

The Captain looked at him, his grille-mouthed face expressionless. “I’m all ears,” he said.

“Our forecasts show a reduced but still statistically significant chance of success with only a subset of the available cache weapons.”

“So you get some of ‘em, but not all of ’em, right?” Antoinette asked.

Remontoire dipped his head once. “Yes, but don’t assume that this position is arrived at lightly. With a reduced range of cache weapons at our disposal, it may not be possible to prevent a larger pursuit element coming after you.”

“Yeah,” Antoinette said, “but then we’ll have more to throw at them, right?”

“Correct,” Remontoire said, “but don’t underestimate the risk of failure.”

“We’ll take that risk,” Scorpio said.

“Wait,” Khouri said. She trembled, one hand steadying the incubator on her lap, the other gripping the wooden table with her fingernails. “Wait. I… Aura…” Her eyes became all whites, the muscles in her neck pulling taut. “No,” she said. “No. Definitely no.”

“No what?” Scorpio asked.

“No. No no no . Do what Remontoire says. Give all the weapons. Will make a difference. Trust him.” Her fingernails gouged raw white trails into the wood.

Vasko leant forwards and spoke for the first time during the meeting. “Aura might be right,” he said.

“I am right,” Khouri said.

“We should listen to her,” Vasko said. “She seems pretty clear on this.”

“How would she know?” Scorpio said. “She knows some stuff, I’ll buy that. But no one said anything about her seeing the future.”

The seniors nodded as one.

“I’m with Scorp on this one,” Antoinette said. “We can’t give Rem all those weapons. We’ve got to keep some back for ourselves. What if we can’t get the manufactories to work? What if the stuff they make doesn’t work either?”

“They will work,” Remontoire said, still utterly calm and relaxed, even though vast destinies hung in the balance.

Scorpio shook his head. “Not good enough. We’ll give you some of the cache weapons, but not all of them.”

“Fine,” said Remontoire, “as long as we’re agreed.”

“Scorpio…” Vasko said.

The pig had had enough. This was his colony, his ship, his crisis. He reached up and ripped away the goggles, breaking them in the process. “It’s decided,” he snapped.

Remontoire spread his fingers wide. “We’ll make the arrangements, then. Cargo tugs will be sent to assist in the transfer of the weapons. Another shuttle will arrive with the new manufactories and some prefabricated items. Conjoiners will arrive to help with the installation of the hypometric weapons and the other new technologies. Is it necessary to airlift any remaining personnel from the surface?”

“Yes,” Antoinette said.

“A major evacuation is out of the question,” Remontoire said. “We can open safe passage to and from the surface on one, possibly two further occasions—enough for a couple of shuttle flights, but no more than that.”

“That’ll do,” Antoinette said.

“What about the rest of them?” asked one of the seniors.

“They had their chance,” Scorpio said.

Remontoire smiled primly, as if someone had committed a faux pas in polite company. “They aren’t necessarily in immediate peril,” he said. “If the inhibitors wished to destroy Ararat’s biosphere, they could have done so already.”

“But they’ll be prisoners down there,” Antoinette said. “The wolves won’t ever let them leave.”

“But they will still be alive,” Remontoire said. “And we may stand a chance of reducing the wolf presence around Ararat. Without access to the full complement of cache weapons, however, that cannot be guaranteed.”

“Could you guarantee it if you had all the weapons?” Scorpio asked.

After a moment’s consideration Remontoire shook his head. “No,” he said. “No guarantees, not even then.”

Scorpio looked around at the assembled delegates, realising for the first time that he was the only pig amongst them. Where the Captain had been sitting only a vacant space now remained, a focus towards which everyone else’s attention was being subtly attracted. The Captain was still there, Scorpio thought. He was still there, still listening. He even thought he could still smell the lubricant.