Iain Banks - The Algebraist

So the system was his, even if the only ground he’d trodden personally was when making one brief appearance at a small mansion in the middle of a jungle to accept the formal surrender of the Hierchon. He’d have preferred the symbolic value of the big spherical palace in Borquille, even if it was damaged, but the security people felt there was still a danger from a well-hidden nuke or something equally unpleasant, so a house in the middle of nowhere it had been. The Hierchon and his people were being held aboard the Luseferous VII. Let the Summed Fleet kill him if that was the way it had to be.

The Beyonders reported that there had been a few engagements with elements of the Ulubine Mercatoria military which had turned tail to run and then encountered their forces. But even there the Archimandrite was hearing rumours that the fleeing Navarchy ships were being allowed to surrender, or even accept a sort of neutral internment, still fully crewed and armed, rather than being destroyed or captured.

So Luseferous was alone again, abandoned by his treacherous allies. They’d lured him here, got him to remove part of the threat against them, and now no doubt hoped that he’d take on the Summed Fleet squadrons when they arrived, doing the work they were too cowardly to do themselves.

Well, the strategists and tacticians were seriously considering cutting their losses and heading back home again. This would seem ignominious to some, but if it was the best thing to be done then that was all there was to it. Again, he’d kept calm when he’d first heard this latest galling concept. He wasn’t stupid; he could see the situation for himself. Do what the enemy least expected, what they would least want you to do.

They might — it was still just a might — set off back for the relative safety of Epiphany 5, far away across the empty regions of space they’d spent all those years crossing. It would be unfortunate, but it might be the best thing to do all the same. They’d have to leave a lot of ships behind and they’d certainly have to abandon the Luseferous VII — it was too slow and too tempting a target — but they could do it. They’d leave behind sufficient forces to force the Summed Fleet to first fight within the system and then station some craft there, they’d take only the fastest ships and so have a head start, and they’d hope to lure away the main part of the remainder of the Summed Fleet squadrons — the bit that would be likely to come after them — by sending the Luseferous VII and a small escort screen of lesser ships off in a different direction.

It was a horrible thing to have to think about, this running away so soon after getting here and achieving complete victory. But it might be better than standing and fighting when the outcome of the resulting battle was so finely balanced.

Or, of course, they could find what they had really come for. This Dweller List key, this Transform, this magic formula. With that in his possession, Luseferous would have a bargaining counter of almost infinite value. So he was told, anyway, and for the sake of their own hides his advisers had better be utterly spot-on right with this one. Literally. He’d have the fuckers skinned alive if they’d led him all this way for nothing.

In the meantime, one last throw, one final chance to find what they’d come for. All far too rushed and desperate, but — like all the greatest leaders — the Archimandrite knew that he was at his best when he was under pressure, when the odds were against him and victory was far from certain. Of course, this didn’t happen very often to him because he didn’t allow it to — always better to win easily — but he’d had his share of narrow victories and pressure situations in the past and come out on top, and he hadn’t forgotten and he certainly hadn’t lost his touch. He knew he would prevail. He always did. Victory was the only thinkable option.

He could do it. He just had to be decisive and determined. That was what he was best at. It was almost better this way; with so little time, with just the one chance, there was no question that it had to be an all-or-nothing, no-holds-barred approach. There was simply no time to go through all the other more “reasonable’ techniques. Forget playing it calm and quiet, fuck diplomacy, abandon all thought of being reasonable and hoping people would be reasonable in return. Just fucking do it.

The Archimandrite had made his preparations as best he could. The tacticians thought the first elements of the Summed Fleet could be hurtling past at near-light speed in less than a dozen days, with the rest not far behind. No more waiting. It was now or never.

They were in the belly of the great ship. The hideous, swirling, hallucinogenic face of Nasqueron lay beneath their feet, visible through diamond film. The Archimandrite had risked coming aboard the Luseferous VII for this. If there was some attack on it — unlikely, but not impossible, so far ahead of the main part of the Summed Fleet squadrons — then it would almost certainly have to come from above, and the sheer bulk of the vessel ought to protect them. He had the Rapacious waiting immediately underneath the main hull nearby, linked by a short ship-to-ship. He could be out of his impressively large seat, across the chamber and aboard and away in a minute. To be on the safe side, he had dressed in an emergency esuit, a thin, constrictive but reassuring presence beneath his formal robes. The collar-helmet was hidden by his cowl, which, like the rest of his outer garment, was made of tanned Voehn blizzardskin.

Cradled against the Rapacious, now that it had been fully checked for bugs and bombs, was the ship that the Liss woman had used to bring the man Saluus Kehar to him. The tech people were very impressed with it. They thought it could probably outrun any ship the other side had. Luseferous would have been more impressed if it could outrun any missile or beam the other side had.

They were here for a conference, a meeting ostensibly to discuss how the new regime in power within the rest of Ulubis system might liaise with the Dwellers.

The Hierchon Ormilla was present, as was the rest of the surviving Mercatoria top brass. There hadn’t really been time to start serious alterations on the Mercatorial power structure, and when he’d found that, as the Beyonders had reported, the Mercatoria was disliked and resented by most of its citizens\subjects, but not actively hated by them, Luseferous had left the bulk of the civil authorities in place. The main players had all pledged allegiance to him, apart from Fleet Admiral Brimiaice, who’d been killed in action, the Shrievalty colonel Somjomion, who’d disappeared and was probably on one of the ships that had run away, and the Cessorian Clerk-Regnant, Voriel, who’d chosen death rather than what he seemed to regard as the dishonour of recanting his religious vows. Idiot. Luseferous had shot him himself.

He’d had some of the people who’d been involved in the Dweller Embassy — set up a few months before the invasion -brief him on what to expect from the floats. Most of the Embassy people had been killed when the commander of the ship they were in had refused to surrender, but a few had survived. Luseferous wasn’t sure he trusted them, though.

Three of his own top half-dozen commanders were present too. The rest were engaged elsewhere, keeping an armed presence wherever it might be needed and preparing for the anticipated high-speed pass-through of the Summed Fleet’s advance units.

No Beyonders, of course. They were still in shock from his unconscionable behaviour in the matter of the single small city and a habitat full of artists, weirdos and do-gooders. He must tell them he’d only chosen the city — whatever it was called, he’d forgotten — because it was on the coast and sheltered by mountains, so that he could do his sculpting trick again. That would horrify them all over again, with luck.