Surface Detail

“Nothing new. News blackout.” Himerance paused. “Actually, something new. Couple of agencies Veppers doesn’t control reporting members of his entourage killed and injured in some sort of flier crash; survivors arriving back at Ubruater at one of his private hospitals.” Another pause. “Hmm. Guess that counts as speculation.”

“What does?”

Himerance looked at her. “Reports that Veppers might be dead.”

“I’d better let you go. You take care. I mean, I’m staying; this Demeisen unit right here is sticking with you, but me myself I, the ship; I have to stick around here, see what’s up. Sleeve-rolling, palm-spitting time for me. You get to stay inside the shuttle inside this element, this shiplet. It’ll take you on to Sichult.”

“Okay,” Lededje said. “Thanks for the ride so far.”

“My pleasure. Take care. See you later, I hope.”

“Me too.”

The image of Demeisen waved bye-bye against the star field. The screen inside her suit’s helmet showed the main body of the ship slipping away to one side, fields flickering between the element she was looking from and the main body of the vessel. It was still elongatedly ellipsoidal, but each curved sliver of ship-element had separated slightly from the other, so that the ship looked like a fat throw-ball knifed open from tip to tail, segments teased apart. As she watched, the gap left by the departure of the part that she was in started to close up, the other sections pulling fractionally further away from each other. Then they reached the ship’s outer field boundary and passed through opaque layers. Outside, the Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints was just a giant silver ellipsoid. It shimmered, disappeared.

The Demeisen figure was still there, seemingly floating in space. He turned to her. “Just you and me now, babe. And the ship-section sub-Mind, of course.”

“Does it have a separate name?” she asked.

Demeisen shrugged. “Element twelve?”

“That’ll have to do.”

He crossed his arms, frowned. “Now; the good news first or the bad news?”

She frowned too. “Good,” she said.

“We’ll have you on Sichult in a few hours.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“This just in: Veppers might be already dead.”

She stared at the image of the avatar. She hadn’t expected this. “That it?” she said after a moment.

“Yup. You seem relatively unconcerned.”

She shrugged. “I wanted him dead. If he’s dead, good. Why only ‘might’? What happened?”

“Someone nuked his aircraft as it was flying low over his estate. Some of his retinue killed, some injured; Veppers himself… mysteriously unaccounted for.”

“Huh. I bet he’s still alive. I’d want to see the body before I believe otherwise. And check it for neural laces or whatever.”

Demeisen smiled at her. It was a strange, unsettling sort of smile. She wondered if this version of Demeisen would be different to the one controlled by the main ship. “Thought you wanted to kill him yourself,” he said.

She looked at him for a moment. “I’ve never killed anyone before,” she told him. “I don’t really want to have to kill another person. I’m not… totally, completely sure that I can even kill Veppers. I think I can, and I’ve fantasised about it a hundred times, but… If he really was dead, maybe that would be a relief. Part of me would be angry he didn’t die by my hand, but part of me would be grateful; I get out of finding whether I could really do it or not.”

Demeisen raised an eyebrow. “How many times did he rape you?”

She let a couple of controlled, regular breaths pass before she answered. “I lost count.”

“And then he murdered you.”

“Yes,” she said. “Though to give him his due, he only did that once.” When the avatar didn’t say anything, but simply kept looking at her, she added, “I’m not him, Demeisen. I’m not even like him. If I get close to him and have the gun or the knife in my hand but then find that I can’t do it, then I’ll be angry at myself for not being strong enough, for letting him get away with it, and for giving him the chance to rape and murder again.” She took another breath. “But if I can do it, if I do do it, then on one level I’m no better than him, and he’ll have won by making me behave like he does.” She shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong; I fully intend to put a bullet through his head or slit his throat if I get the chance, but I won’t know if I can do it until the moment actually presents itself.” Another shrug. “If it ever does.”

Demeisen shook his head. “That is the sorriest, limpest, most self-defeating piece of self-motivating I have ever fucking heard. We should have talked about this before. I ought to have been giving you assassin lessons for the past umpteen days. How long we got now? Five hours?” Demeisen slapped one hand over his forehead and eyes, theatrically. “Oh fuck. You’re going to die, kid.”

Lededje’s frown deepened. “Thanks for your confidence.”

“Hey, you started it.”

Twenty-six

“Veppers dead?” Yime Nsokyi said. “How?”

“In that explosion or the flier crash. Reports remain confused,” Himerance said.