Alastair Reynolds - Absolution Gap

“One of Skade’s allies, then.”

“No. Her friends were all cast from the same mould: new-model Conjoiners, fast and efficient and as cold as ice. Their minds feel different.”

“You’re losing me, Nevil.”

“You think we’re all alike, Scorp. We’re not. We never were. Every Conjoiner I ever linked minds with was different. Whenever I touched Remontoire’s thoughts it was like…” Clavain hesitated for a moment, smiling slightly when the right analogy occurred to him. “Like touching the mechanism of a clock. An old clock, good and dependable. The kind they had in churches. Something made of iron, something ratcheted and geared. I think to him I was something even slower and more mechanical… a grindstone, perhaps. Whereas Galiana’s mind…”

He faltered.

“Easy, Nevil.”

“I’m all right. Her mind was like a room full of birds. Beautiful, clever songbirds. And they were singing—not in some mindless cacophony, not in unison, but to each other—a web of song, a shining, shimmering conversation, quicker than the mind could follow. And Felka…” He hesitated again, but resumed his thread almost immediately. “Felka’s was like a turbine hall, that awful impression of simultaneous stillness and dreadful speed. She seldom let me see deep into it. I’m sure she thought I wouldn’t be able to take it.”

“And Skade?”

“She was like a shining silver abattoir, all whirling and whisking blades, designed to slice and chop reality and anyone foolish enough to peer too far into her skull. At least, that’s what I saw when she let me. It may not have had very much to do with her true mental state. Her head was like a hall of mirrors. What you saw in it was only what she wanted you to see.”

Scorpio nodded. He had met Skade on precisely one occasion, for a few minutes only. Clavain and the pig had infiltrated her ship, which was damaged and drifting after she had attempted, with the aid of dangerous alien machinery, to exceed the speed of light. She had been weakened then, and evidently disturbed by the things that she had seen after the accident. But even though he had not been able to see into her mind, he had come away from the meeting with a sure sense that Skade was not a woman to be trifled with.

Frankly, he did not very much mind that he would never be able to see into her skull. But he still had to assume the worst. If Skade was in the capsule, it was entirely possible that she would be disguising her neural packets, lulling Clavain into a false sense of security, waiting for the moment when she could claw her way into his skull.

“The instant you feel anything odd…” Scorpio began.

“It’s Rem.”

“You’re absolutely certain of that?”

“I’m certain it isn’t Skade. Good enough for you?”

“I suppose it’ll have to do, pal.” ‘

“It had better,” Clavain said, “because…” He fell silent and blinked. “Wait. Something’s happening.”

“Good or bad?”

“We’re all about to find out.”

The glowing displays in the side of the egg had never been still since the moment it had been pulled from the sea, but now they were changing abruptly, flicking from one distinct mode to another. A pulsing red circle was now flashing several times a second rather than once every ten. Scorpio watched it, hypnotised, and then observed it stop flashing entirely, glaring at them with baleful intent. The red circle became green. Something inside the egg made a muffled series of clunks, making Scorpio think of the kind of old mechanical clock Clavain had described. A moment later the side of the capsule cracked open: Scorpio, for all that he was expecting something, jumped at the sudden lurch of movement. Cool steam vented out from under the widening crack. A large plaque of scorched metal folded itself back on smooth hinged machinery.

A jangle of smells hit the pig: sterilising agents, mechanical lubricants, boiling coolants, human effluvia.

The steam cleared to reveal a naked human woman packed inside the egg, bent into a foetal position. She was covered in a scum of protective green jelly; lacy black machinery curled around her, like vines wrapping a statue.

“Skade?” Scorpio said. She didn’t look like his memories of Skade—her head was the right shape, for a start—but a second opinion never hurt.

“Not Skade,” Clavain said. “And not Remontoire, either.” He stood back from the capsule.

Some automated system kicked in. The machinery began to unwind itself from around her, while pressure jets cleansed her skin of the protective green jelly. Beneath the matrix her flesh was a pale shade of caramel. The hair on her skull had been shaved almost to the scalp. Small breasts were tucked into the concave space between her legs and upper body.

“Let me see her,” Valensin said.

Scorpio held him back. “Hold on. She’s come this far on her own; I’m sure she can manage for a few more minutes.”

“Scorp’s right,” Clavain said.

The woman quivered like some inanimate thing shocked into a parody of life. With stiff scrabbling movements she picked at the jelly with her fingers, flinging it away in cloying patches. Her movements became more frantic, as if she was trying to douse a fire.

“Hello,” Clavain said, raising his voice. “Take it easy. You’re safe and amongst friends.”

The seat or frame into which the woman had been folded pushed itself from the egg on pistons. Even though much of the enveloping machinery had unwrapped itself, a great many cables still vanished into the woman’s body. A complex plastic breathing apparatus obscured the lower part of her face, giving her a simian profile.

“Anyone recognise her?” Vasko asked.

The frame was slowly unwinding the woman, pulling her out of the foetal position into a normal human posture. Ligaments and joints creaked and clicked unpleasantly. Beneath the mask the woman groaned and began to rip away the cables and lines that punctured her skin or were attached to it by adhesive patches.

“I recognise her,” Clavain said quietly. “Her name’s Ana Khouri. She was Ilia Volyova’s sidekick on the old Infinity , before it fell into our hands.”

“The ex-soldier,” Scorpio said, remembering the few times he had met the woman and the little he knew of her past. “You’re right—it’s her. But she looks different, somehow.”

“She would. She’s twenty years older, give or take. They’ve also turned her into a Conjoiner.”

“You mean she wasn’t one before?” Vasko asked.

“Not while we knew her,” Clavain said.

Scorpio looked at the old man. “Are you sure she’s one now?”

“I picked up her thoughts, didn’t I? I could tell she wasn’t Skade or one of Skade’s cronies. Stupidly, I assumed that meant she had to be Remontoire.”

Valensin attempted to push past one more time. “I’d like to help her now, if that’s not too much of an inconvenience.”

“She’s taking care of herself,” Scorpio said.

Khouri sat in what was almost a normal position, the way someone might sit while waiting for an appointment. But the moment of composure only lasted a few seconds. She reached up and pulled away the mask, tugging fifteen centimetres of phlegmy plastic tubing from her throat. At that point she let out a single bellowing gasp, as if someone had punched her unexpectedly in the stomach. Hacking coughs followed, before her breathing settled down.

“Scorpio…” Valensin said.

“Doc, I haven’t hit a man in twenty-three years. Don’t give me a reason to make an exception. Sit down, all right?”

“Better do as he says,” Clavain told him.

Khouri turned her head to face them. She held up a palm to shade the bloodshot slits of her eyes, blinking through the gaps between her fingers.