What have I become?

* * *

Fassin felt restless as the Protreptic powered its way through the belts and zones of Nasqueron, heading for the RushWing Sheumerith, riding high in the clear gas spaces between two haze layers in Band A. The ex-Voehn ship shredded clouds as it sped through the atmosphere, keeping just under the median cloud level. Quercer Janath amused themselves by taking turns to pilot in real-time and see by how little they could miss shaving the edges of PlungeStems. This involved quite a lot of whooping and the occasional softish collision, making the whole ship shudder.

Fassin left them to it and floated away back through the ship, ending up in the chamber where their interrogation and the fight had taken place. He looked round it, at the dent-seats and restraints, at the scars and burn marks on the floor, ceilings and walls, and could remember nothing about what had happened. He felt frustrated, even depressed. He floated back towards the command space, stopping just before he got there to look inside what appeared to be the commander’s cabin, close to the flight deck.

The cabin was sparsely furnished and decorated. Fassin suspected that it had lost a few bits and pieces to some of the more acquisitive alien-ship enthusiasts back at Quaibrai. He looked at a square on the wall where something had been removed. The Protreptic shook very slightly. A distant whoop sounded from the command space, a couple of open doors and a short corridor away. Fassin experienced a shudder of his own, and a feeling of something like deja vu, or Swim.

I was born in a water moon, he thought to himself, knowing he was quoting something or somebody but not knowing what or who.

Another shudder ran through the ship. High-pitched giggles rang from the flight deck.

Zero.

— Hey! Fassin! Quercer Janath sent. — Call for you. Patch through?

— Who is it? he asked.

— No ident.

— Human female voice. Hold on, we’ll ask.

Zero, Fassin thought. Zero. It was a fucking answer.

— Aun Liss, name given.

— Any bells rung?

* * *

The RushWing Sheumerith, a thin blade across the dun sky, held no sign of Valseir. The Protreptic went off to bag more PlungeStems, promising to return. Fassin flew the little gascraft wearily along the line of tethered, oblivious, wing-hanging Dwellers, waiting for a sign.

In the end, the other gascraft was obvious. He spotted it from a couple of thousand metres away. The other device saw him at the same time and sent,

· Fassin?

· No, I’m a warhead. Who are you?

· Aun. See you’ve brought a gun.

He’d taken a Voehn hand-weapon from the Protreptic, once he’d found an armoury that hadn’t been raided for souvenirs by the ship enthusiasts of Quaibrai. Quercer Janath hadn’t objected. On the contrary, they’d advised him in rather too much detail on the differing capabilities and skill profiles of the various guns on offer when all he wanted was something robust, reliable and powerful that he could use to defend or kill himself with.

So in his good manipulator Fassin now toted a chunky device of what Quercer Janath had termed the CBE persuasion — Crude But Effective.

He made a show of holding the charged weapon in front of his primary sensing band as he approached. — Yes, he sent. — It’s a souvenir.

He drew up by the other machine. It was about the same size and shape as his own, if in rather better condition, and oriented at ninety degrees, the vertical axis longer than the horizontal. It rode inside the cup of still gas behind the open diamond shelter trailing behind the RushWing, near the port limit of the ten-kilometre wing. Wary — unable to be anything else — he noted that the two enclosures on either side of the one holding the other small gascraft were each occupied by large Dwellers who looked rather young to have given themselves up, even temporarily, to a life of high-speed, high-altitude contemplation. The nearest few tether points beyond those on either side were all empty.

— Come on in, the other machine sent, moving forward until its nose nestled into the inner surface of the diamond enclosure. He pulled in behind, wobbling in the sudden pool of still gas after the howl of slipstream.

They were almost touching. Most of the upper surface of the machine facing him turned transparent, showing somebody who certainly looked like Aun Liss lying nearly fully prone in a high-gee seat. He saw her fight to raise an arm and wave, a grim expression on her face that turned into a grin as she looked out at him. He de-opaqued what he could of his own gascraft’s carapace, though the results weren’t perfect.

Fassin didn’t even try to smile back.

· Think you could point that thing away from me? she sent. He saw her grin. — I realise this is the first time I’ve ever said that to -

· No, he sent back, still pointing the Voehn gun at her.

·…Okay, she sent, smile vanishing. — So, welcome back. Good trip?

· No. You got a manipulator you can use in that thing?

· Yes. Won’t claim I’m an expert, but…

He moved his own gascraft forward until it was centimetres from hers. — Talk to me the old way.

He saw her frown, then smile uncertainly. — Okay, she sent. — This might be a bit, ah… He could see her shifting her gaze to look down at her right forearm, lying squashed on the cradle-arm of the gee-chair. She looked like she always had, and at the same time quite different. Hair dark, not blonde or auburn or white this time. The high gravity and her attempt to look at her arm as she worked the unfamiliar manipulator interface gave her jowls. He was already fairly sure it was Aun, but he was still quite prepared to kill her.

The manipulator came out slowly, unsteadily. Fassin kept his own well out of the way, still holding the gun on her. The two big Dwellers on either side hadn’t made any move. The manipulator came forward and touched the hull carapace of his own little gascraft, finger ends spreading awkwardly.

In the end, he saw, she had to close her eyes to do it. The fingers on the abraded, nearly insensitive gascraft’s skin spelled out… SS ( )… SOL ( ) SOTL ( ). He could see her getting frustrated. He watched the expression on her face deepen into a profound, eyes-tightly-closed frown as she struggled to make the manipulator do exactly what she wanted. He felt tears prick his eyes again. Though he could still shoot her, or himself: anybody.

… SO STL CRZY? she managed at last, and her eyes opened and she flashed a hugely relieved and pleased-with-herself smile at him.

He switched the gun off.

They rode together in the still ball of gas behind the cup of diamond, held on a deep curve of line behind the RushWing’s thin blade.

· Not us. That wasn’t us. Not guilty. It wasn’t even the Starvelings, murdering fucks though they may be.

· Then who did do it?

· The Mercatoria, Fass. They killed your people.

· What? Why?

· Because they found out that Sept Bantrabal had kept whatever they were sent that briefed you. They were supposed to junk it from the substrate as soon as it was finished but they didn’t. It wasn’t quite an AI like they sent to the Hierchon, but it had a lot in common. It was a big step along the way to a true AI and it was onward-engineerable. That’s why. The attacks we and the Starvelings were making gave them the cover, but even if the truth got out, it would just reinforce how seriously they took the no-AIs thing.

Fassin supposed it made sense. Old Slovius had always been looking for an edge, some advantage over the other Septs. That was what had brought Bantrabal to its position of prominence over the years. It sounded plausible, sounded like something Slovius would do and browbeat his underlings into doing. And certainly he’d put nothing past the Mercatoria.