The room’s wall flashed red. The whisk would be a short one this time - it would feel like an instantaneous translation between the two chambers.
Something happened.
I think I must have blacked out for a moment, because there was a stall in my thoughts that had nothing to do with the process of whisking. In that stall I appeared to have been pushed violently out of the region of influence of the field, so violently that I had hit the floor and was now lying in a shocked heap, not so much in pain as waiting for the pain to arrive, which I knew with certainty it was about to do. I coughed for breath and groaned. I still had no idea what had happened, but as my blurred eyes resumed some focus I made out a golden form looming over me, a form that was unmistakably Hesperus, who was unmistakably alive.
Cadence and Cascade had vanished.
‘We must leave,’ Hesperus said, leaning down to pick me up off the floor. ‘We must leave and leave quickly.’
Bruised as I was, I did not have the impression that anything was actually broken - the pain was too diffuse for that. ‘Hesperus,’ I said, relieved and bewildered in equal measure. ‘What—’
‘There isn’t time to discuss it here. I pushed you out of the transit field just as it reached operating strength. Cadence and Cascade went on as intended. They’ve arrived at the far end.’
‘The bridge,’ I said, my voice hoarse. I was standing, though not without Hesperus’s assistance.
‘Can we return to the cargo bay from this chamber?’
My eyes were still blurry, my thoughts still addled. ‘No ... got to get to the other side, over the bridge.’
‘Very well. May I carry you? It will be faster.’
I do not recall if he waited for my answer. His golden arms swept me up and held me securely. Hesperus started walking, then the walk became a pounding, superhumanly fast run. We crossed the shaft where the anvil-shaped machines rose and fell according to their own unfathomable agendas, and then we were in the whisking chamber. Hesperus touched the go-board. The ship accepted the command, still recognising him as a valid guest. We slammed to the other end of the ship, to the chamber at the entrance to the cargo bay.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked, as some of the fog began to lift.
‘I tricked Cadence and Cascade,’ Hesperus said as we entered the cargo bay. ‘They were lying about their intentions.’
‘They wanted my ship. I was about to give her to them. What’s to lie about?’
‘I don’t know yet. All I know is that they’ve no intention of returning me to the Monoceros Ring. When they interfaced with me just now they were doing their best to kill me.’
Hesperus had ... loosened, somehow - his voice was the same, but the speech had become more colloquial, less rigid and precise than before.
‘Why would they want to kill you?’
‘When they interfaced with me aboard your ship, their intention was to suck information out of me and leave me dead. Then they would lie and say I had died from my earlier injuries. They failed then - I was stronger than they expected, and they couldn’t be too obvious about what they were doing. Unfortunately, they left me too weakened to communicate my fears to you. Later, they were overjoyed that you wanted to convey me to the Spirit of the Air.’
‘Because they thought you’d die there instead.’
‘Which I didn’t. When I returned from the Spirit there was still a spark of life in me. As we lifted from Neume, they tried once more to kill me. They were doing their best to track down that spark of life and extinguish it. It took all of my resources and cunning to fend them off without looking as if I was fending them off. I succeeded, obviously, or I would never have surprised them the way I did.’ My golden conveyor paused. ‘Are you having problems with your eyes, Purslane?’
‘Everything’s a bit foggy.’
‘I had to shove you very hard. It’s likely that you burst some capillaries in your eyes. You may even have suffered a detached retina. I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you, or prepare you for the shock. Speed was unfortunately of the essence.’
‘I still don’t understand ... why are they lying?’
‘When they interfaced with me, I saw a little way into their minds as well. They were glad that you complied with their request, Purslane, but if you had obstructed them, or given them cause for delay, I do not think they would have hesitated to kill you. Your only consolation is that it would have been spectacularly, mercifully fast.’
I had too many questions to know where to begin, but all I could do was ask them one at a time. ‘What’s happened to them now?’
‘I intervened before you had assigned control to them. Unless I’m mistaken, they are currently marooned at the other end of the whisking tube, in the bridge.’
‘You’re right. They won’t be able to whisk, not without my say-so.’
‘Will the ship assign authority to them without your permission, even if it’s only to use the whisks, or open sealed doors?’
‘No - we should be all right. They’re effectively prisoners in the bridge. If they start to damage it, to try and force their way out, she should detect what they’re doing and treat them as harmful elements.’
‘She’ll eject them?’
‘Not unless I tell her to. But she’ll definitely lock them down with restraining fields.’
‘That may not hold them for very long - they are a lot stronger, a lot more resourceful, than you probably realise.’ Hesperus’s voice took on a graver tone. ‘You must ask
Silver Wings
to eject them now, Purslane. If she can’t eject them, she must destroy them.’
‘It isn’t that easy.’
‘You can issue the command from here, can’t you?’
‘That’s not the point. I can’t just kill the robots, or throw them into space - that’s not how it works.’
‘They are not what they claim to be.’
‘But I only have your word for that.’ I groaned, as much in frustration as discomfort. ‘I don’t mean it like that, but a couple of minutes ago you were dead. How do I know you aren’t suffering the after-effects of whatever happened to you on Neume? Those robots are guests of the Line. How do you think it’ll look if I go back down to Neume and say I tossed them into space?’
‘I wouldn’t lie,’ he said.
‘Hesperus, see it from my side. You’re asking me to take a vast amount on faith.’
‘You trusted me before.’
‘It’s not that I don’t trust you now, just that I need a little time to think things over. You’re different - you even sound different, more like a human. How do I know something else hasn’t changed?’
‘More has changed than you can possibly imagine - I am still Hesperus, but I am also much more than he ever was. And I am telling you that you must act against Cadence and Cascade.’
‘They can’t do anything from the bridge. I can consult with the Line, see what action needs to be taken.’
‘There isn’t time. Those robots didn’t need you to assign them control of this ship - it was just a step that saved them a certain amount of difficulty. It has been several minutes since they arrived - centuries, in machine terms. By now, they are likely to be well advanced in their efforts to achieve direct control. They have probably already explored and discarded thousands of stratagems for gaining command. They will have thousands more to try. Sooner or later, one of them will succeed. There is always a back door.’
‘They won’t get control of her.’
‘They will, given time - time that may now be measured in minutes, or even seconds. She is big, she is old, but they are clever and resourceful. If I was there, I could do it as well, and there are two of them.’
‘If you’re wrong, and I’m shown to have acted against Machine People—’
‘The blame will be all mine - and I can be very, very persuasive. Do it, Purslane. Time is not on your side. I am.’
‘Put me down,’ I said. ‘I can’t do this while you’re carrying me around.’
Hesperus slowed and placed me on the deck. The unlit ships and obscure machines of the cargo bay loomed around us, heavy with the past.
‘Silver,’
I said, ‘can you hear me?’
The voice in my head answered, ‘I can hear you, Purslane.’
‘Cadence and Cascade - the two guests I introduced to you before.’
‘Yes, Purslane?’
‘Are they on the bridge now?’
‘Yes, Purslane.’
‘Show them to me.’
A picture appeared before me, hanging in the darkness. The robots were on the bridge. They were standing quite still, side by side with their hands at their sides.
‘They don’t look as if they’re doing anything,’ I said.
‘They wouldn’t,’ said Hesperus.
The words came to me with difficulty. ‘Silver, I want you to immobilise them.’
‘Do they pose a threat, Purslane?’
‘Yes,’ Hesperus said.
‘Just immobilise them for now. Use impassors to hold them where they are.’
‘It is done, Purslane.’
The robots looked just the same. Nothing about them gave the slightest clue that they were now pinned in place, bracketed by a sheath of constraining forces.
‘They can’t do anything now,’ I said to Hesperus.
‘They can do everything they could do before. They are reaching out with their minds, trying to find a crack in your ship’s defences. She won’t even know they’re doing it. They’re that clever. When they succeed, Purslane, their very first act will be to disarm those immobilisers. Nothing you can say or do will bring them back up again. Cadence and Cascade will have free run of your ship - or more precisely
their
ship, since they will own her - and there will be nothing you can do to stop them. Within seconds they will have entered the whisking system, and seconds after that they will be in this room.’ Hesperus turned his head towards the door through which we had entered. ‘There is one of me, and two of them. I will do what I can to protect you, but the odds are not in my favour. Even now.’
‘Even now?’ I asked, sensing an oddness in his tone.
‘Never mind. Please take me at my word, Purslane. We have been through a lot together. It would be a shame to end it all now, wouldn’t it? Especially when we have so much to talk about.’
I felt as if there was a boulder lodged in my throat. ‘I should consult ... I can be in touch with Campion, or Betony, in a few seconds—’
‘They will tell you to ignore me. From their perspective, it’s a perfectly rational standpoint. But you do not have that luxury. You are
in
this situation and I am telling you that those robots are seconds away from gaining control of your ship. They must be destroyed now, or ejected.’
‘This is a hard one, Hesperus.’
He was speaking faster now, as if he sensed that he had only moments to make his case. ‘How did they come to Neume, Purslane? Did you ever investigate that?’
‘Of course. Sainfoin brought them. They were her guests.’
Hesperus must have read that crack of doubt opening in my face. ‘Sainfoin didn’t bring them,’ he said. ‘She may have thought she did, but that’s not how it would have happened. They would have sought her out. They wanted to come here - I sensed that very clearly. They have business with Gentian Line, but their arrival had to look serendipitous. She was their puppet, not the other way around.’
‘She said she met them at a reunion of Dorcus Line.’
‘They would have been counting on a Gentian dropping by. If no one had, they would have found a more circuitous route to reach you. But their ultimate goal was to attend your reunion.’
‘What are they?’
‘Purslane! No more questions!’
I nodded once. He had not persuaded me completely - far from it. But my natural inclination was to trust Hesperus and he was right about Sainfoin. There was something else as well - a kind of commanding gravitas about him that had not been there before, for all that his mannerisms of speech were less formal than before he had fallen ill.
‘Silver,’
I said, my voice shaky, ‘take the immobilised guests and eject them into space.’
‘Are you certain, Purslane? This is a
very
unusual order.’ By which the ship meant it was not something she ever recalled me asking of her, in all the circuits I had been master.
‘Yes. Certain. Give them enough of a shove to keep them from falling into the atmosphere for at least a hundred orbits. They’ll come to no immediate harm.’
‘Executing the order, Purslane.’
I waited for
Silver Wings
to tell me that the robots had been ejected.
And waited.
‘This is not a good sign,’ Hesperus said. He picked me up again and started running. Beneath me his legs became a blur of pistoning gold.
‘Silver,’
I said, raising my voice above the roar of the wind as Hesperus raced through the bay. ‘Confirm execution of last order.’
No answer came.
‘You’ve lost the ship,’ Hesperus said.
‘No,’ I said, refusing to accept it. All around,
Silver Wings
looked exactly the way she always had.
‘You mustn’t blame yourself. You gave the order eventually. It’s quite probable that the machines had already taken over your ship when you asked for them to be immobilised. They may just have been curious as to your intentions.’
‘And now?’
‘I think they will try to kill you, and to destroy me. It is my hope that we can reach the shuttle first.’
‘And then what?’
‘Leave, and hope that we are not fired upon by
Silver Wings’
defences before we have a chance to get away.’
It was not far to the shuttle from that point, but it might as well have been kilometres as far as I was concerned. We passed many other ships that might have been equally useful, had they been powered-up and tested for flight. The temptation was to get inside one of them and bring it to life.
Silver‘
s jurisdiction reached into the cargo bay, but not into the ships inside it. With armour between us and the robots, we might last long enough to escape. But the shuttle was working, and I had left it idling, ready to be flown at a moment’s notice. When we reached it, Hesperus lowered me to the decking and I told the shuttle to open and admit us. As the hull sealed behind us, I allowed my anxiety to drop down a notch.