The Revelation Space Collection (190 page)

‘You haven’t met?’ I shook my head. ‘What the hell’s he been up to since he arrived, in that case? And what about the woman with him?’

‘Tanner underestimated my influence here,’ Reivich said. ‘Not just here in Refuge, but in the vicinity of Yellowstone as a whole. You did too, didn’t you?’

‘Forget me. Let’s talk about Tanner. He’s a much more interesting subject.’

Reivich’s fingers caressed the edge of the quilt. One hand remained entirely concealed beneath it - assuming there was another hand. I tried to reconcile this apparition with the young aristocrat I had been following, but there was nothing they seemed to have in common. The machine even stripped Reivich of his Sky’s Edge accent.

‘Tanner came to Refuge intending to kill me,’ he said. ‘But his main reason for coming here was to draw you from the shadows.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’

‘I’m rather surprised you came, put it like that.’

‘Tanner and I have unfinished business.’

‘Such as?’

‘I can’t let him kill you, even as an incidental detail. You don’t deserve it. You acted in revenge - stupidly, even - but not dishonourably.’

The head canted forward again, this time in mute acknowledgement of what I had just said. ‘If Cahuella hadn’t tried to ambush my squad, Gitta would never have died. And he deserved worse than he got.’ The eyeless sockets lifted to me, as if some reflex demanded that he ‘look’ in the direction of whoever he was addressing, even though his vision was undoubtedly being relayed from some hidden camera situated in the chair. Reivich said, ‘But of course, it’s you I’m talking to, isn’t it. Or do you still pretend otherwise?’

‘I don’t pretend anything. I’m just not Cahuella. Not any more. Cahuella died the day he stole Tanner’s memories. What’s left is . . . someone else. Someone who didn’t exist before.’

An eyebrow raised above one of the enucleated sockets. ‘A better man?’

‘Gitta asked me a question once. How long would you have to live; how much good would you need to do, to compensate for one act of pure evil you’d committed as a younger man? It struck me as an odd question at the time, but I understand now. She knew, I think. She knew exactly who Cahuella was; exactly what he’d done. Well, I don’t know the answer to that question, even now. But I think I’m going to find out.’

Reivich seemed unimpressed. ‘Is that the entirety of your unfinished business with Tanner?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘The woman with him. Amelia. She’s a Mendicant, no matter what disguise she’s travelling under. I believe Tanner will kill her the instant she ceases to be of use to him.’

‘You came to save her, putting yourself in danger? How gallant.’

‘Gallantry doesn’t come into it. It’s . . . human goodness.’ The words sounded completely alien to me, but I wasn’t ashamed of speaking them. ‘Maybe this place could use a little more of it, don’t you think?’

‘You’d kill him - the man whose memories you carry? Isn’t that a little close to suicide?’

‘I’ll worry about the ethical problems when I’ve cleaned the blood up.’

‘I admire your clarity of mind,’ Reivich said. ‘It makes what’s about to happen all the more interesting.’

I tensed. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I told you Tanner was here, didn’t I? I meant here; literally here. I’ve had him entertained at my pleasure until you arrived.’

A rectangle of deeper shadow interrupted the gloom behind Reivich. From out of it stepped a man who looked very much like myself.

FORTY-TWO

Once again I felt the spasm of need; the soldier’s instinct to reach for an instrument of death. But there was nothing to hand, and in any case, for all my bravado, I knew that the one thing that I would not be able to do would be to kill Tanner Mirabel in cold blood. It would be too much like shooting myself.

Sister Amelia of the Ice Mendicants came behind him, emerging from the darkness into the chamber’s glade of golden light. She was no longer dressed as a Mendicant - her clothes were functionally dowdy - but she was unmistakable. She wore a symbolic snowflake pendant around her neck.

Tanner stepped forward until he towered over Reivich’s seat. Dressed in a dark greatcoat which almost reached the floor, he was taller than I had been expecting - an inch or so above me - and deported himself differently: a swagger which was just one element of a bodily choreography we barely shared, for all our physical similarity. We did not exactly look like twins, but we could have been brothers, or the same man seen in different illumination, where the changed aspects of shadows subtly differentiated our characters. There was a cruel set to Tanner’s face which I thought I had never seen in my own, but maybe I had just not looked in the mirror at the right times.

Amelia was the first to speak. ‘What’s going on? I don’t understand. ’

‘Good question,’ Tanner said, placing a gloved hand on the high, scrolled back of Reivich’s chair. ‘Very good question indeed.’ Then he peered over the back of the chair until he was looking down into the sightless face of the man he had come to kill. ‘Any time you feel like answering that, you go ahead and do it, handsome. ’

‘You realise who I am, then?’ Reivich said.

‘Yeah. You went for the quick and dirty, obviously. Let me guess. Extensive neural, cellular and genetic trauma. The goons here probably buffered you with medichines, but that would have been like trying to shore up a collapsing building with drinking straws. I’d say - judging by the look of things - you’ve probably only got a few hours left, maybe not even that. Am I right?’

‘Unerringly so,’ Reivich said. ‘I hope that gives you some consolation. ’

‘Consolation for what?’ Tanner was fingering Reivich’s head now, tracing it as one might trace the texture of an antique globe.

‘You arrived too late to kill me.’

‘I could make amends.’

‘Very good. But what use would it be? You could crush this body of mine and I’d thank you for it with my dying breath. Everything that I am - everything I ever knew or felt - is preserved for eternity.’

Tanner stepped back. His tone was businesslike now. ‘The scan was successful?’

‘Entirely. I’m running even as we speak, somewhere in Refuge’s vast distributed architecture of processors. Backup copies of me have already been transmitted to five other habitats even I can’t name. You could detonate a nuclear weapon in Refuge and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference.’

It was obvious now that the version of Reivich I had spoken to only an hour earlier had been the scanned copy. The two were playing a game together; co-conspirators. Reivich was right. Nothing that Tanner could do now would have any meaning. And maybe that did not matter to Tanner, since in drawing me here, he’d already achieved his primary aim.

‘You’d die,’ Tanner said. ‘You expect me to believe that doesn’t matter to you?’

‘I don’t know what you believe. Frankly, Tanner, it’s of no real interest to me either way.’

‘Who are you?’ Amelia said, incomprehension flooding her face. I realised that even until now, he’d maintained her trust, concealing the true nature of his mission. ‘Why are you talking about killing?’

‘Because it’s what we do,’ I said. ‘We’ve both lied to you. The difference is I never had any plans to kill you.’

Tanner reached for her. But he was not quite fast enough; too keen to linger around Reivich. Amelia padded across the floor’s chevrons, bewilderment on her face. ‘Please tell me what’s going on!’

‘No time,’ I said. ‘You just have to trust us. I lied to you and I’m sorry - but I wasn’t myself when I did it.’

Chanterelle said, ‘You’d better believe him. He risked his life to come here, and it was mainly to save you.’

‘She’s telling the truth,’ Zebra said.

I looked into Tanner’s eyes. He was still stationed behind Reivich’s chair. The three servitors stood inert, as if oblivious to all that was happening around them.

‘There’s just one of you, Tanner,’ I said. ‘I think your number’s finally up.’ I turned to the others. ‘We can take him, if you let me lead. I’ve got his memories. I’ll anticipate every move he makes.’

Quirrenbach and Zebra flanked me, Chanterelle slightly to my rear, while Amelia retreated further behind us.

‘Be careful,’ I whispered. ‘He might have smuggled a weapon into Refuge, even if we didn’t.’

I took two steps closer to Reivich’s throne.

Something moved under the quilt. His other hand, unseen until now, emerged from darkness, clutching a tiny jewelled gun. He levelled it with impressive speed, all frailty gone in the instant of aiming, and squeezed off three shots. The projectiles slammed past me, leaving silver smears on my retina.

Quirrenbach, Zebra and Chanterelle dropped to the floor.

‘Remove them,’ Reivich croaked.

The servitors came to life, all three of them gliding silently past me like ghosts, before kneeling down to pick up the bodies. They carried them away from the light, like spirits returning to the dark of a forest, laden with trophies.

‘You piece of shit,’ I said.

‘They’ll live,’ Reivich said, returning his hand beneath the quilt. ‘They’re just tranquillised.’

‘Why?’

‘I was wondering the same thing myself,’ Tanner said.

‘They spoilt the symmetry. Now it’s just the two of you, don’t you see? The perfect conclusion to your hunt.’ He tilted his skull towards me. ‘You must admit, the simplicity is appealing.’

‘What is it you want?’ Tanner said.

‘What I want is what I already have. The two of you in the same room. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’

‘Not long enough,’ I said. ‘You know more than you admitted, don’t you?’

‘Let’s just say that the intelligence I gained before leaving Sky’s Edge was intriguing, to say the least.’

‘Maybe you know more than me,’ I said.

Reivich poked the nozzle of the gun from under the quilt again, this time directing it back towards Tanner. His aim was no more than approximate, but it seemed to have the desired effect, causing Tanner to step away from the chair until we were equidistant from it. Then he said, ‘Why don’t the two of you tell me what you remember? Then I’ll fill in the gaps.’ He nodded at Tanner. ‘You can start, I think.’

‘Where would you like me to begin?’

‘You can start with the death of Cahuella’s wife, since you brought it about.’

I felt a weird instinct to defend him. ‘He didn’t kill her deliberately, you shit. He was trying to save her life.’

‘Does it matter?’ Tanner said, contemptuously. ‘I just did what I had to do.’

‘Unfortunately you missed,’ Reivich said.

Tanner seemed not to hear. He was speaking now, recounting what he remembered. ‘Maybe I missed; maybe I didn’t. Maybe I knew I’d rather kill her than have her live without her being mine.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That isn’t how it happened. You tried to save her . . .’

But I wondered if I really knew.

Tanner continued, ‘Aftewards, I knew Gitta was finished. I could save Cahuella, though. His injuries weren’t that bad. So I kept them both on life-support until I got back to the Reptile House.’

I nodded involuntarily, remembering the hellish length of the journey back through the jungle, suppressing the pain of my own severed foot. Except it never happened to me . . . it happened to Tanner, and I only knew about it from his memories . . .

‘When I got back I was met by some of Cahuella’s other staff. They took the bodies from me and did what they could for Gitta, even though they knew it was pointless. Cahuella was in a coma for a few days, but he came round eventually. He didn’t remember too much of what had happened, though.’

I remembered waking after a long and dreamless sleep, choked by fever, consumed with the knowledge that I’d been impaled. And remembered not remembering what had happened. I called for Tanner, and was told that he was injured but alive. No one mentioned Gitta.

‘Tanner came to see me,’ I said, taking over the narrative. ‘I saw that he had lost a foot, and knew that something very bad had happened to us. But I hardly remembered anything, except that we had gone north to set up an ambush for Reivich’s party.’

‘You asked for Gitta. You remembered she’d been with us.’

Fragments of that long-forgotten conversation were coming back to me now, as if recalled through layers of gauze.

‘And you told me. Everything. You could have lied - made up some story which protected you; said that Reivich’s man had killed her - but you didn’t. You told it exactly as it happened.’

‘What would have been the point?’ Tanner said. ‘You’d have remembered it all eventually.’

‘But you must have known.’

‘Must have known what?’ Reivich said.

‘That I’d kill you for it.’

‘Ah,’ Reivich said, a soft phlegmatic chuckle emerging from his life-support module. ‘Now we’re almost there. The crux of it all.’

‘I didn’t think you’d kill me,’ Tanner said. ‘I thought you’d forgive me. I didn’t even think I’d need forgiveness.’

‘Maybe you didn’t know me quite as well as you thought.’

‘Maybe I didn’t.’