Surface Detail

“Yes, afraid,” Prin said, his voice ringing out in the hushed chamber, “I am afraid that before I can take my testimony to where it really needs to be heard, before a Jury of the Galactic Council, somebody old and trustworthy and of impeccable, indisputable honour – somebody like yourself, sir – will come to me and quietly tell me that I can have my beloved back, out of Hell, if only I’ll say no more about what she and I experienced there, and indeed even retract what I’ve already said.” Prin looked, blinking, round the other members of the party opposite, then at the press and public galleries, as though suddenly seeing them for the first time. Then he looked back at Representative Errun. “Because I am afraid that I will accept that offer, sir, because I can’t bear the thought of her continuing to suffer in that place a moment longer, and I will abandon all the others there just to get my beloved back, and so will hate myself for ever for my weakness and selfishness.” He let out a deeply held breath. “That’s why I kept her-”

Errun seemed finally to wake up to the veiled accusation Prin had just levelled at him. He erupted with indignation, swiftly followed by his followers and shortly by the rest of the Traditionalist party. In moments, the chamber was as noisy as Filhyn had ever heard it, even when it was packed.

Prin might have permitted himself a smile then, Filhyn thought, if this had been no more than a debate in a debating chamber. He did not, could not, she realised, because he was perfectly serious and completely terrified of exactly what he had just revealed.

He turned to look at her. She smiled as best she could through her tears, mouthed “Well done,” at him and nodded for him to sit down.

He nodded to the Speaker, then sat.

Not that the worthy senator in the Speaker’s chair was actually in it, or taking any notice; he was on his feet roaring and waving both trunks, trying to restore order. Filhyn recognised the chamber letting off steam after having been forced to listen to something they hadn’t wanted to hear coming from somebody who was not one of their own. Not to mention somebody who had just reminded them that there were higher and greater talking shops than this one.

“That’s put the pride amidst the herd,” Kemracht muttered from behind her. Meanwhile the Speaker was rising furiously on his hind legs and clapping his front feet together. That wild breach of protocol hadn’t happened for years.

The news services carried everything – ah, the joys of a slow news day during the slack season. They showed the Speaker trampling etiquette and rearing to his feet like a disputing skivvy, they showed Errun turning shades of rage that Filhyn had not thought him capable of; and most of all they showed Prin: calm, flawless but sincere. And his words, those ghastly, searing, near-unimaginable details!

And herself. With her, mostly the news teams focused on her crying.

Her tears – not her oratory, sincerity, political skill or her principles – had made her properly famous.

Fourteen

Veppers’ aircraft hurtled across his estate at only a little over tree-top height. Veppers himself sat at the rear, shooting at things.

Leading from the grounds immediately around the torus-shaped mansion house of Espersium were seven trackways of trees; lines of dense woodland only forty or fifty metres wide but so long that they stretched – unbroken save for where they crossed major rivers – all the way to the estate’s perimeter; a distance of almost ninety kilometres in the case of the longest and most used trackway, which was the one leading towards Ubruater, the capital city of the capital planet of the whole Sichultian Enablement.

The trackways were there, famously, for one reason only: to provide sport for Veppers. Simply jumping into a flier and being bounced across to the capital on a parabolic trajectory had always seemed like something of a waste to him, for all that it was the fastest and most efficient way of getting to Ubruater. When he had the time – and he could generally make the time – he would take the slower, low-level route, having his pilots take one of his aircraft tearing over the tops of the trees, only ten metres or so above the tallest branches.

The idea was to use the flier as a beater, utilising its screaming engines and battering slipstream to disturb the wildlife in general and, in particular, to bring birds panicking up out of the foliage below. Veppers’ aircraft were all shaped like giant arrowheads with a broad flat rear containing a recessed, wind-shielded balcony where anything up to ten people could sit, firing laser rifles out through the ultraclear glass into the bustling riot of sucked-up leaves and small twigs at the startled, squawking birds.