‘Yes, but nobody’s letting me get as far away from him as I’d like, either.’
‘You’re a long way from him now,’ Kabe pointed out.
‘And how long did it take us to get from there to here?’ Ziller asked. They had come by sub-Plate car that morning; the whole journey had taken just over an hour.
‘Hmm, well .
‘I’m practically a prisoner!’ Ziller said, spreading his arms.
The avatar’s face contorted. ‘No, you’re not,’ it said.
‘I might as well be! I haven’t been able to write a note since that bastard showed up!’
The avatar sat up, looking alarmed. ‘But you have finished the-?’
Ziller waved one hand exasperatedly. ‘It’s complete. But I usually wind down with shorter pieces after something this big, and this time I haven’t been able to. I feel constipated.’
‘Well,’ Kabe said, ‘if you might as well be forced into contact with Quilan, why not see him and get it over with?’
The avatar groaned and flopped back on the couch. It put its feet up again.
Ziller was staring at Kabe. ‘Is that it?’ he asked. ‘Is that you using your powers of argument to convince me I should see this piece of shit?’
‘From your tone,’ Kabe said, voice rumbling, ‘I take it you are not persuaded.’
Ziller shook his head. ‘Persuasion. What’s reasonable. Would I mind? Am I concerned? Would I be insulted? I may do as I please but then so may he.’ Ziller pointed angrily at the avatar. ‘You people are polite to the point of it becoming worse than any direct insult. All this pussy-footing, mealy-mouthed bullshit, dancing round each other ~ He waved his arms around as his voice rose to a shout. ‘I hate this hopeless congealment of flicking good manners! Can’t anyone just do something?’
Kabe thought about saying something, then decided not to. The avatar looked mildly surprised. It blinked a few times. ‘Such as what?’ it inquired. ‘Would you prefer that the major called you out and challenged you to a duel? Or moved in next door?’
‘You could kick him out!’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because he’s annoying me!’
The avatar smiled. ‘Ziller,’ it said.
‘I feel hunted! We’re a predator species; we’re only used to hiding when we’re stalking. We’re not used to feeling like prey.’
‘You could move home,’ Kabe suggested.
‘He’d follow me!’
‘You could keep moving.’
‘Why should I? I like my apartment. I like the silence and the views, I even like some of the people. There are three concert halls in Aquime with perfect acoustics. Why should I be driven from the place just because Chel sends this military bag-boy to do god-knows-what.’
‘What do you mean, god-knows-what?’ asked the avatar.
‘Maybe he isn’t here just to talk me into going back with him; maybe he’s here to kidnap me! Or kill me!’
‘Oh, really,’ Kabe said.
‘Kidnap’s impossible,’ Hub said. ‘Unless he brought a fleet of warships I’ve missed.’ The avatar shook its head. ‘Murder is almost impossible.’ It frowned. ‘Attempted murder is always possible, I suppose, but, if you were worried, I could make sure that if and when you did meet there would be a few combat drones and knife missiles and that sort of thing around. And of course you could be backed-up.’
‘I am not,’ Ziller said, deliberately, ‘going to need combat drones and knife missiles or backing-up. Because I am not going to meet him.’
‘But he’s obviously annoying you just by being here,’ Kabe said.
‘Oh, does it show?’ Ziller asked, snarling.
‘So, assuming that he’s not going to get bored and go away, Kabe went on, ‘you’d almost be better off agreeing to see him and getting it over with.’
‘Will you just stop this “getting it over with” nonsense?’ Ziller shouted.
‘Talking of not being able to get away from people,’ the avatar said heavily, ‘E. H. Tersono has discovered our whereabouts and would like to drop by.’
‘Ha!’ Ziller said, whirling round to look out of the windscreen again. ‘I can’t get away from that damn machine either.’
‘It means well,’ Kabe said.
Ziller looked round, appearing genuinely mystified. ‘So?’
Kabe sighed. ‘Is Tersono nearby?’ he asked the avatar.
It nodded. ‘It’s already on its way here. About ten minutes away. Flying in from the nearest tunnel port.’
More than just the terrain made the Breaks wasteland; there were only a few sub-Plate access points and they were all on the outskirts of the area, so to get deep into the barrens at more than walking-trail pace you either had to use the cable-car system, or fly.
‘What does it want?’ Ziller checked the wind gauge, then loosened two ropes and tightened another, to no appreciable effect.
‘Social visit, it says,’ the avatar told him.
Ziller tapped a gimballed horizontal dial. ‘You sure this compass works?’
‘Are you accusing me of not having a viable magnetic field?’ the Hub asked.
‘I was asking you if this thing works.’ Ziller tapped the Instrument again.
‘Should do,’ the avatar said, putting its clasped hands behind its head again. ‘Very inefficient way of determining your heading, though.’
‘I want to head into the wind on the next turn,’ Ziller said, looking ahead to the hill they were approaching and the stubby pylon at its scrubby summit.
‘You’ll need to start the propeller.’
‘Oh,’ Kabe said. ‘They have propellers?’
‘Big two-bladed thing stowed at the back,’ the avatar said, nodding to the rear, where two curved windows cupped a broad panelled section. ‘Battery-powered. Should be charged up if the generator vanes are working.’
‘How do I determine that?’ Ziller asked. He pulled his pipe from a waistcoat pocket.
‘See the big dial on the right just under the windscreen with a lightning flash symbol?’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘Is the needle in the brown-black section or the bright blue section?’
Ziller peered. He stuck his pipe in his mouth. ‘There is no needle.’
The avatar looked thoughtful. ‘That could be a bad sign.’ It sat up and looked about. The pylon was about fifty metres away; the ground was rising underneath them. ‘I’d ease off on that mizzen sheet.’
‘The what?’
‘Slacken the third rope from the left.’
‘Ah.’ Ziller loosened the rope and tied it off again. He pulled on a couple of the levers, braking the car and readying the steering wheels above. He clicked a couple of large switches and looked hopefully towards the rear of the car.
He caught the avatar’s gaze. ‘Oh, let the fucking emissary move to Aquime,’ he said in an exasperated voice. ‘See if I care. Just keep us apart.’
‘Certainly,’ the avatar said, grinning. Then its expression changed. ‘Oh-oh,’ it said. It was staring straight ahead.
Kabe felt a spark of worry leap in his breast.
‘What?’ Ziller said. ‘Is Tersono here already?’ Then he was thrown off his feet as, with a crashing, tearing noise, the cable car decelerated rapidly and came to a shuddering, swaying stop. The avatar had slid along the couch. Kabe had been thrown forwards, only stopping himself from falling on his face by putting out one arm and bracing himself on the brass rail separating the passenger compartment from the crew’s area. The brass rail bent and came away from the bulkhead on one side with a creak and a bang. Ziller ended up sitting on the floor between two of the instrument binnacles. The car rocked to and fro.
Ziller spat out a piece of his pipe. ‘What the fuck was that?’
‘I think we snagged a tree,’ the avatar said, sitting upright. ‘Everybody all right?’ ‘Fine,’ said Kabe. ‘Sorry about this rail.’
‘I’ve bitten my pipe in half!’ Ziller said. He picked one half of his severed pipe up from the floor.
‘It’ll repair,’ the avatar said. It pulled back the carpet between the couches and lifted open a wooden door. Wind gusted in. The creature lay on the floor and stuck its head out. ‘Yes, it’s a tree,’ it shouted. It levered itself back inside. ‘Must have grown a bit since the last time anybody used this line.’
Ziller was picking himself up. ‘Of course it wouldn’t have happened if you’d been responsible for the system, would it?’
‘Of course not,’ the avatar said breezily. ‘Shall I send a repair drone or shall we try and fix it ourselves?’
‘I have a better idea,’ Ziller said, smiling as he looked out of a side window. Kabe looked too, and saw a mainly rose-coloured object flying through the air towards them. Ziller slid open a window on that side and turned to his two companions with a smile before hailing the approaching drone. ‘Tersono! Good to see you! Glad you’re here! See that mess down below?’
10
The Seastacks of Youmier
And was Tersono equal to the task?’ ‘More than equal physically, Hub tells me, despite its protestations that it risked tearing itself apart. However I think that whatever empowers its will is also charged with maintaining its dignity and so is normally pretty much fully occupied with that.’