“Depend upon it, Septame.” The marshal looked at Banstegeyn’s time-to, turning her head over to one side to read the upside-down figures and hands on the piece of jewellery adorning his chest. “Our five minutes are almost up,” she observed. “Excuse me.” She turned, took a step.

“I did what had to be done,” he said. “You believe that, don’t you?”

He hadn’t really meant to say this. Not to her, not to anybody. He was surprising himself here. That wasn’t good.

Chekwri turned, looked at him.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe, Septame,” she told him coolly. “All that matters is what you tell me to do.”

He shook his head, gave a half-laugh. “Do you lose any sleep at all over any of this, Chekwri?”

The marshal raised her eyebrows. “I sleep like the drugged, every night, Septame. I’m just a humble military officer obeying orders. Nobody’s ordered me to worry. Or to lose sleep.”

A bitterness seemed to fill his mouth. “It had to be done,” he told her.

“Of course, Septame.” Chekwri shrugged. “I never liked her anyway. Pleasant enough, but … too weak for the position she held. Too … accommodating.” Her eyebrows flexed again. “Still, eh? She died in the arms of somebody who really loved her. They both did. That’s something. In the circumstances, it’s almost kind.” She nodded to one side. “I think I can hear the physician general knocking. We’d best go.”

“There was one more thing, Septame,” Locuil said, as they sat in the back of the aircraft hopping them from the diplomatic quarter to the parliament for the press conference. Chekwri had taken her own flier back to the Home System regimental ground HQ.

“What?” Banstegeyn asked.

“Excuse me,” the physician general said, and reached forward to click a switch. The night-dark privacy screen rose silently between them and their respective senior staff members, sitting across from them.

Locuil leaned over, and, very quietly, into Banstegeyn’s ear, as the flier levelled out, said, “Ms Orpe was pregnant.”

“What?” Banstegeyn said.

“Only by about forty days; it would not have shown even at the time of the Subliming.”

“Are you—?”

“Entirely sure. No question of doubt.”

“But … Would she have …? She must have known …”

“She certainly would have known. And she was no primitivist in her elective physiology. She had all the standard medically advised augmentations and amendments. The pregnancy must have been deliberate, Septame. It must have been willed.”