Chapters (56)
- PROLOGUE
- PART 1
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- PART 2
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART 3
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- PART 4
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- PART 5
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- EPILOGUE
The smile powered up, became a laugh of sorts. She touched her upper lip with her tongue and glanced slantwise at me. It gave me an odd, electric sensation to watch.
“Alright,” she said. “Let’s be inhumanly rational about this. But Jack says she remembers the assault on Millsport. Going for the copter at Alabardos.”
“Yeah, which kind of sinks the copy stored in the heat of battle outside Drava theory, don’t you think? Since both those events postdate any presence she might have had in New Hok.”
Vidaura spread her hands. “It also sinks the idea she’s some kind of personality casing for a datamine. Same logic applies.”
“Well. Yeah.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“You mean where does it leave Brasil and the Vchira gang?” I asked nastily. “Easy. It leaves them scratching around desperately for some other crabshit theory that’ll hold enough water to let them go on believing. Which, for fully paid-up neoQuellists is a pretty fucking sad state of affairs.”
“No, I mean us.” Her eyes drilled me with the pronoun. “Where does it leave us?”
I covered for the tiny jolt in my stomach by rubbing at my eyes in an echo of the gesture she’d used earlier.
“I’ve got an idea of sorts,” I started. “Maybe an explanation.”
The door chimed.
Vidaura raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, and a guest list, looks like.”
I shot another glance at my watch, and shook my head. Outside the window, the snarling of the panthers seemed to have settled down to a low grumble and an occasional cracking sound as they ripped the cartilage in their food apart. I pulled on trousers, picked up the Rapsodia from the bedside table on an impulse and went through to open up.
The door flexed aside and gave me a view onto the quiet, dimly lit corridor outside. The woman wearing Sylvie Oshima’s sleeve stood there, fully dressed, arms folded.
“I’ve got a proposition for you,” she said.
THIRTY-NINE
It was still early morning when we hit Vchira. The haiduci pilot Sierra Tres had got out of bed—her bed, in fact—was young and cocky, and the skimmer we lifted was the same contraband runner we’d come in on. No longer bound by the need to appear a standard, forgettable item of Expanse traffic and no doubt wanting to impress Tres as much as he impressed himself, the pilot opened his vessel up to the limit and we tore across to a mooring point called Sunshine Fun Jetties in less than two hours. Tres sat in the cockpit with him and made encouraging noises, while Vidaura and the woman who called herself Quell stayed below together. I sat alone on the forward deck for most of the trip, nursing my hangover in the cool flow of air from the slipstream.