47.0

They told me you were awake,” Vasconcelos said. “Speaking personally, I was rather hoping you wouldn’t make it.”

“I love you, too,” Ravi croaked. His head was thumping like an unbalanced impeller, and the lights in the Spirit of St. Petersburg’s infirmary were far too bright. He tugged uselessly at the pair of handcuffs chaining him to the zero-g bed.

“Tell him to take a long walk around Hungary,” Boz suggested. “Without a suit.”

“Belay that, Crewman!” Vasconcelos snapped.

“Or what? You’ll mulch me?”

The commander-inspector sighed. He looked tired, Ravi thought. There was a slump to his shoulders, a lumpiness to his movements that radiated weariness. He floated across to hover by Ravi’s head, his hands tucked into his armpits.

“I’d like to know what the two of you have been up to,” he said quietly. “And what’s your connection to her?” Careful not to set himself spinning, he nodded in the direction of Lisette, still unconscious but handcuffed to her bed nonetheless. Her face was puffy, and there was an unhealthy tinge of gray about her, but she seemed to be breathing easily enough.

“We’re just trying to stop a war,” Ravi said. He was exhausted. He didn’t have the energy for this.

“And a fine job you did of that, by the looks of it,” Vasconcelos said. “Bohr’s adrift, and we were this close to being vaporized.” He held thumb and forefinger less than a centimeter apart.

Ravi managed a faint smile.

“Archie’s still with us?”

“Of course she is. You’re on an Archimedes lifeboat, for sard’s sake. How else do you think you got rescued?”

“Bet you wouldn’t have bothered if you’d known it was us,” Boz said.

An expression of annoyance surfaced on Vasconcelos’s face, quickly suppressed.

“You weren’t what we expected,” he conceded. “We were hoping for intel—for prisoners. Some leverage to use against Newton. I hope for your sake you have some.”

Ravi had other things on his mind.

“How come the ship wasn’t destroyed?” he asked. “We were out there when the dragon blew. We saw it happen. No one could have survived that.”

Vasconcelos gave Ravi a long, thoughtful stare. Perhaps he was weighing the pros and cons of sharing information with a suspect.

“The incoming torpedoes detonated too far away,” he said, at last. “Much closer and we’d have been destroyed for sure, but explosions, even nuclear ones, dissipate pretty rapidly in a vacuum. We might not be so lucky next time. Which is why you need to tell me everything you know.”

Ravi’s relief, overwhelming though it was, was tinged with sadness. The missiles they’d seen must have been an exchange of fire between Kur and Fafnir, not Fafnir and the ship. In the end, Kur must have burned both himself and his sibling rather than let her reach Archimedes.

“There’s not a lot to tell,” he said quietly. “We’ve made a peace agreement.”

“You?” Vasconcelos snorted. “You’ve made a peace agreement?”

“Too sarding right,” Boz chimed in. “We’ve saved the whole Archie-damned fleet!”

“You don’t need to believe us,” Ravi pointed out. “You can ask Lisette—the Newton crewman.”

“Oh, I believe you, MacLeod. But if you think the fleet’s going to accept whatever surrender scenario your masters on Newton have cooked up for us, you are sadly mistaken.” The inspector’s face was rigid with dislike. “You’re both traitors. If you want any chance of mercy, you’d better tell me everything you damn well know—and fast.”

Hidden coms speakers burst into life.

“Commander-Inspector? We have an incoming communication.”

“I’m busy,” Vasconcelos snapped. “Take a message. I’ll deal with it later.”

“The communication isn’t for you, Commander. It’s for our, er, passengers. It’s routed from the Captain’s office on Archimedes.”

Vasconcelos’s eyebrows arched almost all the way to his hairline.

“Put it through.”

“Midshipman MacLeod, Crewman MacLeod, are you reading me?” The voice was firm, its every syllable weighted with authority.

Captain Strauss-Cohen. Ravi’s heart pounded in his chest. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“We’re reading you, Captain,” Boz said, without a hint of nerves or deference. “What can we do for you?”

“You can speak with the talking bomb that’s sitting a hundred meters off the stern of my ship and threatening to detonate, crewman. That’s what.”

“Er, sure.” Boz’s face flickered with surprise. “Put it through.”

What came through was cold, and distant, and contralto.

“Am I talking to Kur’s cargo?” asked Ao Qin.

“You are.”

“Do you stand by our agreement? Unlimited fuel, maintenance, and upgrades? Freedom to roam at will?”

“Yes.”

“Then convince the foolish and stubborn leader of your people to also stand by your agreement; otherwise, I will detonate in one hundred and twenty seconds, as will Lawu, who is presently within one hundred meters of ISV-Three Chandrasekhar.”

“Whoa there, Ao Qin. Cut your thrust, okay? Have you kept your part of the bargain? Has someone taken care of Newton?”

“Con-rit and Dreq are both in position. The Mother Ship understands the situation and has agreed to stand down. You now have one hundred and two seconds.”

Vasconcelos was looking on in horror. He turned to glare at Boz, who simply ignored him.

“Then have Isaac and the secretary guy confirm that they’ve stopped fighting.”

There was a pause. Ravi’s implanted clock counted down the seconds.

“Isaac? Mr. Secretary?” It was Con-rit speaking. “Please confirm you have ceased hostilities on penalty of immediate destruction.”

“This is Secretary Caliskan, representing the true humans of Newton.” The secretary’s voice was angry and leavened with no small amount of fear. “Albeit under duress, we have ceased hostilities. We hope to negotiate an honorable peace.”

“Fifty-three seconds.”

“It’s pretty simple, ma’am,” Boz said. “Agree to cease fire; agree to provide a home base for the dragons with fuel, maintenance, and upgrades, and this war is over. Everybody gets to live.”

“To be controlled by LOKI’s?” the Captain shot back. “Forget it. It violates the Mission. We didn’t go through one hundred and thirty-two years of pain and suffering to—”

“Captain,” Ravi cut in, finding his voice at last, “the LOKIs are going to Destination World whether we like it or not. Newton has already taken the deal. The only issue is whether the rest of us are around to see it.”

“Thirty-one seconds.”

“I need to consult with Bohr and Chandrasekhar.”

“Twenty seconds.”

Ravi could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. Boz’s fingers gripped an imaginary cigarette. Vasconcelos held his breath.

“All right,” Strauss-Cohen snapped. “The LOKIs have a deal. Under duress, like the man says. No hostilities. Fuel, maintenance, and upgrades as requested.”

The clock in Ravi’s head swept down to zero.

“Now what?” the Captain asked.

“Nothing much,” Boz said sweetly. “Now you talk.”

For the first time in her life, Ravi thought, Boz MacLeod sounded like a grown-up. He let out a brief sigh of relief and then steeled himself for what had to come next.

“Commander-Inspector?”

“What?”

“There’s a bomb in the ship’s drive. The kind that doesn’t talk.”