‘So,’ says Debro. ‘What do you think?’ She means what do I think of her roof terrace, with its red tiles and low white wall and its view of a road that twists through the village towards the gates to her compound.
‘Good place for a belt-fed.’
Anton laughs. ‘She’s talking about the view.’
‘So am I.’
It would take two belt-feds. With a mortar behind them.
That would be enough to hold Wildeside for a while. In the long run, you want a place badly enough you can take it. Might be nothing left to take. That’s not the point. The owners don’t have it either.
‘Sven,’ Anton says. ‘Your lips are moving.’
‘He’s thinking,’ my gun says.
Maybe a couple of belt-feds. A mortar. A sniper behind the wall, firing through one of the squat drains that jut beyond the roof. Although God knows when it last rained around here. Some ground-to-airs to take out enemy batwings.
I know the sniper I’d choose. She’s three days from here. With the rest of my troop. There isn’t a single one of the Death’s Head auxiliaries who wouldn’t die at my order.
Give me the right battle and I’ll sacrifice the lot. Only, my quarrel with General Jaxx isn’t the right battle. So they’re in Farlight, keeping their heads down. And I’m out here on the high plains.
My attempt to keep them alive.
For later.
General Luc sits with Aptitude, under the shade of a striped awning, on one of those double seats that swings backwards and forwards from chains hooked to a bar overhead. He’s keeping the seat swinging with the lazy kick of one boot.
One arm is draped over the back of the seat.
The fact he’s watching to see if I’ve noticed doesn’t help. Although it’s the fact his other hand rests lightly on Aptitude’s wrist, and she’s sitting very still indeed, and pretending not to mind, that makes me want to wring his neck.
Only he is Debro’s guest. She’d object. People like Debro always do.
‘Going for a walk,’ I tell them. ‘See you in a minute.’
Pushing back a rattan chair, I check my pockets for cigars and sling my holster over my shoulder rather than belt it round my waist. The SIG stays silent. But you can bet it’s got an opinion on everything that’s happened so far.
‘I’ll join you,’ the Wolf says.
Anton and Debro look at each other.
‘It’s a free world. Sir.’
Actually, it isn’t. But to point that out is treason. So I smile, while he pretends to take my comment at face value. And I stand back; to show the steps down to the gardens are his. A quick push and we’d have the problem solved.
‘Sven . . .’ says Debro.
Yes, I know.
Behave.
*
Luc takes a cigar and my offer of flame without comment. Leaning against the back of a bench, in the shadow of a twisted cork tree, he manages to look both relaxed and dangerous. He has the confidence of someone who’s never lost a fight.
I have.
I’d like to say I learn from mistakes. It’s probably bullshit. The only thing I learn is to repeat them more inventively next time. Turns out the Wolf wants to talk about my losing my arm.
At least, that’s how he starts our conversation.
‘What happened?’
‘A ferox, sir.’
General Luc checks I’m not mocking him. ‘You escaped from the clutches of a ferox?’
‘Killed it.’
Now he’s really looking.
‘It was old,’ I say. ‘Almost dead. It took my arm and I took its head. Carried the damn thing back with me through the desert. Needed proof I hadn’t injured myself intentionally.’ Self-inflicted injuries are a capital offence in the Legion.
‘You were a sergeant?’
That tells me he knew who I was before Anton introduced us.
‘Ex-sergeant, sir. I got busted for punching an officer.’
Another capital offence. So now he knows there’s more to the story than I’m saying. Otherwise I wouldn’t still be alive. ‘Out there,’ the Wolf says, ‘is a crashed cargo carrier.’
‘So you said.’
‘Unlicensed. You know the penalty?’
‘Death, I imagine. That’s the penalty for everything round here.’
General Luc scowls. ‘Exactly. Could you protect a family who found themselves charged with such a crime?’
‘Without question.’
‘How?’ he demands.
‘Kill the man who accuses them.’
On our way back, he stops to point to the horizon. ‘That’s where my land starts,’ he says, indicating a low line of hills. ‘A thousand square miles of high plain, canyon and scrubland. Five towns, one city and a hundred villages. Lady Aptitude will inherit eight hundred square miles of-’
General Luc pauses.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘Debro never said how you met.’
He’s right. She didn’t.
‘We met on Paradise, sir. That’s-’
‘I know what it is.’
Yeah, he would know. I had to be sent there to discover it’s a prison planet.
‘I heard you traded OctoV’s gratitude for their freedom. What did they do, save your life?’
It was the other way round.
Three dozen exiles, dissidents and failed revolutionaries meet a common criminal. Who turns out to be the only thing keeping them alive. And then he’s a common criminal they need. That’s liberals for you.
‘Well?’ General Luc demands.
‘Something like that, sir.’
It’s the answer he expects. ‘So you only met Lady Aptitude recently?’
‘I arrived here yesterday.’
‘Avoiding General Jaxx.’ The Wolf bares his yellow teeth. As if he’s just said something clever. But you’d have to be an idiot not to realize General Jaxx is unhappy with me. I don’t know what makes Jaxx hate Anton or Anton hate him.
Anton will tell me if he wants me to know.
And General Jaxx? Indigo Jaxx isn’t the kind of man you ask personal questions. He isn’t the kind you ask any questions at all.
‘I hear you saved his son.’
I don’t answer.
‘That’s what they’re saying. You’re the real hero of Hekati.’
He names a campaign that got more publicity than it deserves. Hekati was a minor ring world. It got destroyed. As did an Uplift mother ship. I had something to do with its destruction. Colonel Vijay Jaxx was the ranking officer so he took the credit.
‘Supposed to be the only thing keeping you alive.’
I can see the hills over the Wolf’s shoulder. A long streak of purple that edges the horizon. They’re as impressive as ever. But I no longer feel the same about them. Now I know who they belong to.
‘Don’t you have anything to say?’
‘No, sir.’
His laugh is sour. ‘Silence,’ he says. ‘A good quality in a staff officer.’
And here I am thinking the qualities needed are cowardice and self-interest. Must just be the ones I’ve met.
The Wolf pretends to reconsider something.
I’m not fooled for a minute.
‘You’re an interesting man, Sven. Someone who could go a long way in the right company. Or have a very short career indeed. If his choices are wrong. You understand what I’m saying?’
I could say yes. But that would be a lie.
So I hold my tongue. Something that comes easily to me.
‘Jaxx has no family.’
Yes, he has, I think, before realizing what the Wolf means.
General Indigo Jaxx is not high clan. I didn’t know that. The Wolf must see the surprise in my eyes, because he smiles darkly. ‘What he has,’ he says, ‘is OctoV’s favour. This can be . . .’
He doesn’t bother completing that sentence.
People like me are so used to thinking of Indigo Jaxx as all-powerful, the idea he might be vulnerable to the emperor’s whims comes as a shock. The Wolf is waiting to see how I’ve taken his suggestion.
Unfortunately, I’m not quite sure what it is.
Grinding his cigar under his heel, General Luc turns to go. I think our talk is over until he turns back. ‘Interested?’
‘In what, sir?’
‘Didn’t you listen to anything I said?’
Yeah. Doesn’t mean I understood it, though.
‘Jaxx is overreaching himself,’ he says. ‘And Debro’s a doubter. As for Anton . . . he married money. Then was stupid enough to divorce it. What Anton thinks is irrelevant.’
He sighs heavily.
‘They saved your life. You had them freed. You’re quits. Find yourself a better patron.’
‘Debro’s a friend.’
Loyal to the point of stupidity. That’s from my shredded psych report.
‘Sven,’ the Wolf says. ‘Don’t make mistakes you’ll regret.’
‘Is that a threat?’
Wrong question.
He’s offered me his patronage. To piss General Jaxx off probably. I’ve just rejected it. A part of him wants to say he doesn’t need to threaten scum like me. The bigger part wants to take out my throat.
It shows in his eyes, which narrow when I smile.
‘We’ll meet again,’ he tells me.
‘I’m counting on it.’
Anger locks his shoulders as he stamps up the stairs ahead of me and kicks open the door. It’s obvious to Debro and Anton that something is badly wrong. Bowing stiffly, General Luc tells them he’s taking his leave. When he turns to Aptitude, it’s to discover she’s not even listening.
‘I’m off,’ he says.
Aptitude nods, absent-mindedly.
The Wolf’s scowl turns into something darker. He’s just realized that he could abandon the roof terrace and she’d never even notice. The girl is staring across the tiled roofs of the village to the road beyond. There is something hungry and naked about her gaze.