“Yobany stos.” Petrovitch looked up at the terrified steward. “Just leave it with us. We’re big boys and we can sort ourselves out.”

Newcomen folded his table out and unscrewed the water bottle. When he tried to add some to Petrovitch’s glass, Petrovitch kicked him.

“Ow.”

“That’s not how I drink it.” He grabbed his whiskey to prevent any further attempt at adulteration. “It’s not how any decent human being should drink it, either.”

He twisted the lid off and sucked the contents out in one go. He held it in his mouth for a moment, then swallowed. Then he puffed out his cheeks and blew.

Newcomen blinked. He broke the seal on his own bottle and dribbled a little into the near-frozen water at the bottom of his glass.

“When did you become such a,” Petrovitch searched for the word, came up with several highly inappropriate ones in an online thesaurus, and finally selected, “such a milquetoast?”

“I am not,” said Newcomen, shuddering, “one of those.”

“I think I know. Your accident. I’ve seen it: it was enough to make the strongest man risk-averse. It was the last time you ever took a chance.” Petrovitch played it in his head, the banners, the roar of the crowd, the cheerleaders all so pretty in their black and gold. “The State University coach was on the touchline, and he was ready to hand you a scholarship. All you had to do was shine.”

“I did. I did shine.”

“For an hour and a half, under a hot autumn sun. Calling all those plays, throwing that pigskin. You were good, Newcomen. I can’t say for sure, as it’s always looked like a monumental waste of time and energy, but you were rated by those who cared.”

“Petrovitch. I don’t want you to mock me.”

“I know you don’t. I’m not. I’m trying to understand you: that’s important to me, important to Lucy too. Start of the third quarter, you’re well in the lead, and it’s mainly due to you. Maybe that’s when someone on the Xavier High team decides the only way they’re going to stand a chance is to put you out of the game.” He scratched at his nose. “A tackle like that? I can tell the moment your shoulder dislocates. And still you’re trying to get that loose ball back, still taking a chance.”

Newcomen poured the rest of his whiskey into his glass. His hand was trembling as he held it to his lips, the ice cubes chattering against each other to signal his discomfort.

“Do you know what it’s like to have everything you’ve ever worked for taken away from you in one single second?” the American asked.

Petrovitch nodded slowly. “Yeah. I know. I even know what it’s like to have my arm shattered like crazy paving. This,” and he held up his left arm, “the skin’s real. The blood pumping through it is real. The skeleton underneath? I could punch a hole in the fuselage with it and still have enough watts to rip the wing off.”

“I couldn’t go back. I just couldn’t.” Newcomen shrugged, his big shoulders slumping in defeat. “Even after they’d grown new bone and grafted it in, and I’d been told I’d be as strong as ever. So I took myself away. I went to Pennsylvania and hid.”

“I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you at all.” He waved the steward back over. “We’re good to go again, right?”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“I have a robotic liver. I can pretty much metabolise alcohol as fast as I pour it into myself.”

The steward recoiled. That cyborg thing again. “All the same, I like the taste of it, and I got put on to rye whiskey by the head of the Papal Inquisition, who just happened to be a Yank.” Petrovitch remembered. Cold stone steps, a bottle, two glasses. It’d been a while since he’d spoken to Carillo. “You haven’t got any Stagg, have you?”

“Get him the whiskey,” said Newcomen. “I’ll pass.”

“Sir.”

“Is that true?” asked Newcomen when the steward had hurried off again.

“Which one? The liver or the cardinal?”

“Either, I guess.”

“Both. Maddy always used to joke about my robotic spleen, since I vent it so often, but it turned out it was my liver that packed in first: too much cheap vodka destroying what was left of a radiation-damaged organ. And yeah, I get on well enough with Cardinal Carillo. He might even make pope one day. I don’t pretend to know how that works – I know smoke’s involved – but for a God-botherer he’s okay.”

Newcomen sat slightly hunched over, nursing his drink. The steward brought Petrovitch another bottle, thankfully without all the extras this time.

“Za zhenshhin!” he said, and again emptied the entire measure in one go. He smacked his lips. “There is a way back, you know. You don’t have to live the rest of your life like…”

“Like a milquetoast, you mean.”

“I should know. I’ve run before. I ran from St Petersburg. I abandoned my family and everyone who ever knew me. It got me into the habit of running from everything. Then, even before the whole New Machine Jihad thing kicked off, I decided I was in so much trouble, I was going to have to run again: I ripped up my Samuil Petrovitch persona, said goodbye to everyone important – though that took precious little time. I’d even booked plane tickets to Auckland under yet another false name.”

“None of that was in the book.”

The corner of Petrovitch’s mouth twitched. “It wouldn’t be.”

“So what made you change your mind?” Newcomen frowned. He was becoming interested, despite himself.

“That is a mystery known only to, well, whatever God you believe in. The man threatening me with death was an even bigger bastard than I was, and I realised no one was going to be able to stop him. And right there and then I decided I was going to be the one to take him down. I stopped running and started fighting. It wasn’t the wisest of decisions, and I can’t even pretend it was anything but entirely self-serving.” Petrovitch chewed at his lip. “But at least I can look at myself in the mirror without shuddering with disgust. That, as it turns out, is quite important when it comes to being a fully signed-up member of the human race.”

Newcomen faced forward, and watched the back of the seat in front for a while. His face held a series of expressions, but Petrovitch couldn’t read any of them. Something was starting to change. For better or worse.

12

The first thing Petrovitch did when he got into his hotel room was sweep it for bugs; he found five on the first pass, and another three on the second. Those he could dispose of out of the seventhstorey window, he did: those he couldn���t, he zapped in situ.

Still not satisfied, he opened his carpet bag and placed a portable jammer on the table.

Newcomen was already looking at his watch. “I don’t see why any of this is necessary.”

“It’s necessary because your side thinks it’s necessary. Now, what I’m going to do, because I’m reasonably convinced that the rooms either side of this one, and above and below, are filled with personnel and listening devices, is check the hotel’s occupancy list, and pick another room a long way away from this one. Then I’m going to reprogram my key card to open that door and tell the computer that, I don’t know, Hyram T. Wallace from New Mexico has checked in, redeeming his reservation from three weeks ago.”

He did that, and seconds later, the jammer was back in his bag. He headed out into the corridor and strode towards the lifts, Newcomen and his luggage trailing after him again. He walked straight by the metal doors and through into the stairwell. When the door had swooshed shut behind them both, he started down.

“Petrovitch, you can’t do this.”

“You say that like you have some authority to stop me.” He paused on the next landing, and fixed Newcomen with a steady gaze. “You don’t.”

“I mean, I need to go. Now, or I’m going to be late. And it’s that particular room number that my replacements are going to be asking for. If you’re not there, if we’re both not there, then what are they supposed to do? More importantly, what am I supposed to do?”