As the colonel and I walk back, we meet neen coming in the other direction. His face is grim and he’s dragging a prisoner behind him. The man is broad-shouldered, sandy-haired, with one of those little beards meant to age him. He is four or so years younger than I am, so five or six years older than Neen. What with his beard and sharp nose, his looks are enough like our colonel’s to tell me he’s high clan.
Blood drips from one of his nostrils, a bruise is beginning to close his right eye, and his hands are roped tightly behind his back.
What I notice, of course, is his uniform.
He’s wearing the parade dress of a captain in the Death’s Head, right down to a cavalry sword hanging from his left hip and a little black dagger on the right. A waterfall of braid tells me he’s general staff.
Braid relating to your own rank hangs one side. Braid relating to the rank of the officer you serve hangs the other. Worked that out for myself when I was on the general’s mother ship.
‘Found him in the control room,’ says Neen. Before admitting, ‘Actually, Haze found him.’ Which explains it. Haze was probably drawn by the smell of all that exotic naked machinery, or something.
‘What was he doing?’ I mean our captive, obviously.
Neen hesitates. ‘Field-stripping a gun.’
Sounds like a man after my own heart. Well, he would be, if he weren’t a traitorous fucker who has gone over to the Enlightened.
‘Permission to question him, sir?’
Colonel Vijay glances between the three of us. That’s me, Neen and our captive. ‘Rules of war,’ he says. ‘Remember that, Sven.’
I salute. ‘Leave it with me,’ I say.
Nodding doubtfully, Colonel Vijay makes his way down the corridor alone. The moment he disappears around a corner, I bounce our prisoner against the nearest wall, and then do it again. He looks up from his knees.
‘Rules of war,’ he says.
‘First rule,’ I tell him. ‘There aren’t any.’
Dragging him to his feet, I go through his pockets. A handful of gold coins, a key card for a room, a watch with its strap broken. Another of those little pearl-handled knives.
‘What’s this?’
He looks at me in disbelief. Maybe he’s trying to work out the reason behind my question. The reason is, I want to know. My backhand bounces him into a wall again. This time it’s Neen who drags him to his feet.
‘If I were you,’ says Neen, ‘I’d answer his question.’
‘It’s a fruit knife.’ He says it twice, because he bit his tongue on the way down and now his lisp’s worse than before.
‘And what are you doing up here?’
‘Guard duty . . .’
I look at him. Young, expensively dressed and elegant if you ignore five days’ worth of stubble that barely troubles his cheeks. He should be playing cards in some Farlight cafe or dancing attendance on a general. To draw guard duty like this you need to piss someone off, badly.
‘What did you do?’
He shuts his mouth, and it remains shut while Neen slaps him around a little. But we’ve had all we are getting. Eventually, he falls back on telling us to fuck off and die.
I’m impressed. ‘Make it quick,’ I tell Neen. It’s the best I can offer in the circumstances.
‘Yes, sir,’ says Neen, reaching for his dagger.
Turning to go, I hear the young captain force himself to his feet. And that impresses me as well. Face death on your feet and look it in the eyes. Not enough of us take that vow.
‘Challenge.’
I could pretend not to hear. ‘You’re a prisoner,’ I tell him. ‘That’s one. You’re a traitor, that’s two. Challenge refused.’
‘I am not a traitor.’ The words bubble between broken lips.
Somehow, I find myself with one hand round his throat, and he’s against a mirror-hub wall and keeping still, because my prosthetic fingers have closed so tight that any further movement is going to snap his spine like a twig.
Neen is looking worried. Must be down to me, because there’s nothing else round here to worry him.
‘You’re all traitors,’ I say. ‘Every single fucking one of you.’
A tiny flex of muscle under my hand says the prisoner wants to shake his head. ‘Not,’ he manages at last. ‘Refused the virus.’
I let him go. ‘They’re giving you the virus? ‘
He nods.
Fuck, now that is nasty. Once the virus has you, it’s for ever. You have it, your brats have it, and their brats have it. A hundred generations or more of little monsters growing braids. Makes me realize what uniting with the Uplifted would involve.
‘Do it now,’ I tell Neen.
He nods. And the captain asks my name.
Weirdest thing. But he is from a Farlight high clan. Maybe it’s rude to be killed by someone who hasn’t been formally introduced. Fuck knows, they’re not like you and me, the high clans. Actually, they’re not like anyone except themselves.
‘Sven,’ I tell him. ‘Sven Tveskoeg.’
‘Tveskoeg,’ he says. ‘That’s an old Earth name.’
Should have just killed him. Still got time, could do it myself. A slash to the neck or a stab to the heart. A cut from abdomen to throat.
‘Old Earth?’ I say.
The man nods, introducing himself. Captain Emil Bonafonte deMax Bonafonte, Obsidian Cross, first class. ‘What?’ he asks, seeing my scowl.
‘You got an older brother?’
He shakes his head.
Heart, I think. Let’s get this over with.
‘Why?’ he asks, watching a knife appear in my hand.
‘Used to know a Bonafonte in a fort south of Karbonne. Drank himself to death.’
‘My uncle. We were told he died in battle.’
Fucking great. ‘You know someone called Debro Wildeside?’
‘Of course I-’ He looks at me. ‘Bad business,’ he says. ‘Very bad indeed.’
He’s right too. Debro is Aptitude’s mother. Debro and I met on a prison planet called Paradise. As far as I know she’s still there.
‘You know Senator Wildeside?’ he asks me.
‘Yeah . . .’ I don’t tell him she reminds me of my sister, unlikely as that sounds. Even nags me in the same way. I don’t tell him I made a vow to protect her daughter that I will carry to my death. Some things you don’t say.
Colonel Vijay takes Captain Bonafonte being alive as proof I am improving; he makes that obvious. And it turns out they know each other. Of course they do.
Well, they have cousins who met on campaign.
At least they believe so.
Eldest sons of each branch of a high clan take the same name. It seems there are three Vijay Jaxx and four Emil Bonafonte deMax Bonafontes. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t bother pointing that out.
Having asked for the captain’s parole, Colonel Vijay seals the deal by shaking hands. Apparently we are all now friends.
‘What?’ the captain asks, seeing me scowl.
‘He’d prefer you in chains,’ Colonel Vijay says.
The colonel’s wrong. I’d prefer it if Emil wasn’t a Bonafonte. I’d prefer it if he was dead.