Redemption Ark

‘He’ll have it ready in a jiffy,’ Clock said. ‘It’s a field trawl, Antoinette. Of spider manufacture, I’m obliged to add. Do you know a great deal about trawls?’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you anyway. It’s perfectly safe, isn’t it, Mr Pink?’

‘Perfectly safe, Mr Clock.’

‘Or at least, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be. But field trawls are a different matter, aren’t they? They’re not nearly as proven as the larger models. They have a much higher probability of leaving the subject with neural damage. Even death isn’t entirely unheard of, is it, Mr Pink?’

The pig looked up from his activities. ‘One hears things, Mr Clock. One hears things.’

‘Well, I’m sure the detrimental effects are exaggerated… but nonetheless, it’s not at all advisable to use a field trawl when there are alternative procedures available.’ Clock made eye contact with Antoinette again. His eyes were sunk deep inside their sockets and his appearance made her want to look away. ‘Are you quite sure Clavain didn’t say where he was going?’

‘I told you, he didn’t…’

‘Continue, Mr Pink.’

‘Wait,’ Xavier said.

They all looked at him, even the pig. Xavier started to say something else. And then the ship began to shake, quite without warning, yawing and twisting against its docking constraints. Its chemical thrusters were firing, loosing pulses of gas in opposing directions, the din of it like a cannonade.

The airlock behind Antoinette closed. She grabbed at a railing for support, and then tugged a belt across her waist.

Something was happening. She had no idea what, but it was definitely something. Through the nearest window she saw the repair bay choking in dense orange propellant fumes. Something broke free with a screech of severed metal. The ship lurched even more violently.

‘Xavier…’ she mouthed.

But Xavier had already got himself into a seat.

And they were falling.

She watched the pig and Clock scramble for support. They folded down their own seats and webbed themselves in. Antoinette seriously doubted that they had much more of an idea than she did about what was going on. Equally, they were smart enough not to want to be untethered aboard a ship that gave every indication that it was about to do something violent.

They hit something. The collision compressed every bone in her spine. The repair bay door, she thought — Xavier had pressurised the well so he and his monkeys could work without suits. The ship had just rammed into the door.

The ship rose again. She felt the lightness in her belly.

And then it dropped.

This time there was only a muffled bump as they hit the door. Through the window Antoinette saw the orange smoke vanish in an instant. The repair bay had just lost all its air. The walls slid past as the ship pushed its way into space.

‘Make this stop,’ Clock said.

‘It’s out of my hands, buddy,’ Xavier told him.

‘This is a trick,’ the spider said. ‘You wanted us aboard the ship all along.’

‘So sue me,’ Xavier said.

‘Xavier…’ Antoinette did not have to shout. It was perfectly silent aboard Storm Bird, even as she scraped through what remained of the bay door. ‘Xavier… please tell me what’s happening.’

‘I rigged an emergency program,’ Xavier said. ‘Figured it’d come in handy one day, if we ever got into just this situation.’

‘Just this situation?’

I guess it was worth it,‘ he said.

‘Is that why there were no monkeys working?’

‘Hey.’ He feigned insult. ‘Credit me with some foresight, will you?’

They were weightless. Storm Bird fell away from Carousel New Copenhagen, surrounded by a small constellation of debris. Fascinated despite herself, Antoinette inspected the damage they had left behind. They had punched a ship-shaped hole through the door.

‘Holy shit, Xave. Have you any idea what that’ll cost us?’

‘So we’ll be a little bit longer in the red. I figured it was an acceptable tradeoff.’

‘It won’t help you,’ Clock said. ‘We’re still here, and there’s nothing you can do to us that won’t hurt yourselves at the same time. So forget about depressurisation, or executing high-gee-load thrust patterns. They won’t work. The problem you had to deal with five minutes ago hasn’t gone away.’

‘The only difference,’ Mr Pink said,‘ is that you just burned a lot of goodwill’

‘You were about to rip her head open to get at her memories,’ Xavier said. ‘If that’s your idea of goodwill, you can stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.’

Mr Pink’s half-assembled trawl was floating through the cabin. He had let go of it during the escape.

‘You wouldn’t have learned anything anyway,’ Antoinette said, ‘because I don’t know what Clavain was going to do. Maybe I’m not putting that in sufficiently simple terms for you.’

‘Get the trawl, Mr Pink,’ Remontoire said. The pig glared at him until Clock added, with distinct overemphasis, ‘Please, Mr Pink.’

‘Yes, Mr Clock,’ the pig said, with the same snide undertone.