"In which case," said Ripper, "I feel sorry for the ghost."

CHAPTER FOUR.

Carrion Captain Silence rose slowly to his feet, wincing despite himself as his injured ribs protested. Carrion made no move to help him, for which Silence was thankful. He didn't want any reason to feel grateful to Carrion. It would have made what he had to do that much harder. Pushing his various aches and pains to the back of his mind, he concentrated on the traitor standing before him. It had been ten years since he'd last seen the man who used to be his friend, and he'd never expected to see him again. He should have died with the Ashrai. Dead, he might have emerged as a martyr; alive, he was just another loose end, and embarra.s.sment. Someone Silence could use to solve an awkward problem.

He realised he was just standing and staring at Carrion but the words wouldn't come. He'd had it all worked out, coming down on the pinnace. He knew exactly what to say, what b.u.t.tons to push to manipulate Carrion into doing what was necessary. Only now he was face to face with an old friend, a ghost from the past, and the words were ashes in his mouth. This man had been his friend, closer than a brother, but the last time they'd met they'd tried to kill each other. For a long time, Silence believed he'd succeeded. And then he began to hear stories from men who'd served on Unseeli, stories of the man who wouldn't die. The ghost in the trees. Carrion.

The years pa.s.sed, but Silence never went back. He didn't want to have to kill his friend again. But time and circ.u.mstance had brought him back anyway, and past sins belonged in the past. All that mattered now was his mission, and the things he had to do to carry it out. Silence knew his duty. He'd always known his duty. And if that meant using and betraying his friend one more time, he could live with that.

He'd lived with worse.

Carrion reached up and pushed back the cowl that concealed his face. Silence felt a sudden chill run through him, and the hackles rose on the back of his neck. Carrion hadn't aged. He'd spent ten years alone under terrible conditions, but there wasn't a single line on his face. He looked just as Silence remembered him: young, proud, unyielding. Time had not touched him, but then, ghosts didn't age.

Silence felt suddenly awkward, ashamed at the changes that had taken place in himself over the past decade. What did Carrion make of him, with his retreating hairline and his thickening waist? Had he even noticed, and if he had, did he care? And most important, did he realise that this was not the same John Silence he'd once known, who might have hesitated to sacrifice his friend if the game demanded it. Just looking at the calm young man before him, Silence felt older, dirtier and more used. He still didn't know what to say. And in the end, Carrion was the one who broke the silence.

"What are you doing here, Captain?"

"I need your help," said Silence evenly.

Carrion smiled briefly, as though it was something he'd lost the ability to do, over the years. "I didn't think you'd come all this way just to renew old aquaintance. I always knew you'd be back someday. We have unfinished business, you and I."

"That can wait," said Silence. "Do you know what's happened in Base Thirteen?"

"I know the force screen went up, some time back. That's all."

"You didn't have any contact with the Base personnel?"

The smile came and went again, but it didn't touch Carrion's eyes. "The Base Commander had a shoot-on-sight policy where I was concerned. But they were scared of me, of what I'd become, and they were right about that, at least."

"What have you become?" said Silence. "How have you survived here all these years, with no supplies and no resources?"

"Strictly speaking, I didn't. I've been through a lot since we last met, Captain. I'm not the man you remember." He looked away for a moment, as though listening to a voice only he could hear, and then nodded slowly and looked back at Silence. "We can't talk here. You have no friends among the trees, and not even I can protect you against the whole of the forest. Come with me. My home isn't far."

He turned and walked away, without once looking back to see if Silence was following. Silence moved off after him, gritting his teeth against the grinding pain in his side. The wound didn't look too severe, but something would have to be done about it soon, before he became weakened through blood loss. He allowed his uniform to release endorphins into his system, enough to handle the pain but not enough to cloud his thinking. He walked beside Carrion through the bronze and gold forest, following a track only the outlaw could see. Nothing moved in the mists, but the quiet had a sullen, expectant feel, and Silence could sense the watching eyes even if he couldn't see them.

The trees parted suddenly to reveal a great hill of metal overgrown with silver briar. The metal was scarred and pockmarked, and briar penetrated the outer sh.e.l.l here and there like some parasitic ivy, but even so, Silence could still recognise the battle wagon beneath. There were supposed to be quite a few of them, scattered throughout the forest, left to lie where they had fallen, brought down by the Ahsrai and their psi-storms. Silence thought he remembered the clearing; it was one of the few battlegrounds where he and Carrion had both been present.

Lasers flamed on the night, and concussion grenades blossomed in the dark like scarlet flowers.

Disrupters flared, and there was the loud humming of raised force shields. The Ashrai came in never-ending waves-huge, ugly figures that moved with surprising grace and speed. Their psi-storms crackled on the air around them, altering probabilities and tearing at the mental barriers the Empire espers had cast over the ground troops. Claws and fangs met swords and shields, and blood flowed in rivers on the broken ground. Battle wagons lumbered through the night, forcing their way between the trees, and disrupter beams stabbed down from low-flying skimmers darting back and forth overhead. Science clashed with savagery, and the battle swept this way and that, neither side able to gain the upper hand for long.

Silence shivered suddenly, emerging from a memory so real it seemed to him that he could still hear the battle cries and the screams of the dying. The Ashrai had been a brave and cunning foe, but they never stood a chance against the Empire. As soon as Silence realised he couldn't take the ground the Ashrai held, or hang on to his own, he simply moved all his people off-planet and called in the starcruisers to scorch the whole d.a.m.ned planet from pole to pole. Millions died, all life was swept away, and not even the bodies remained to mark the fallen. The Empire was nothing if not thorough. Silence had won, and all it cost him was his honour and his friend. For a while he thought he'd die without them, but he didn't. No one ever really dies from a broken heart.

When it was over, the Empire hadn't known what to do with Silence. On the one hand, he'd lost control of the situation and had to be rescued by a scorching, but on the other hand, he had solved the Unseeli problem quite conclusively. And permanently. So they smiled and shook his hand and patted him on the head in public, and made a note in his file that he was never to be promoted. He could keep his Captaincy, but there'd never be anything more for him. Silence didn't care. He'd lost all taste for ambition on Unseeli.

And now here he was, back again, and it seemed the problem hadn't been solved after all.

They finally came to the clearing where Carrion had his home, and Silence was struck with an almost overpowering sense ofdeja vu . It hadn't changed at all. Before him were the same trees, the same clearing, the same patch of metal briar camouflaging the trapdoor entrance to the tunnels under the earth.

Silence watched numbly as Carrion carefully lifted the briar to one side and pulled open the trapdoor.

The last time Silence had been here was when he'd disobeyed orders and made a last-minute trip to try and talk Carrion out of turning traitor. They were still friends then, and the outlaw had yet to come by his new name. They met as friends and parted as enemies, and what happened afterward had all the inevitability of destiny. It hadn't stopped either of them from playing their role to the full. And now here they were again, with only the echoes of old friendship and enmity holding them together, looking once more for some middle ground they could agree on. Silence smiled sourly. Maybe they'd be luckier this time.

Carrion descended into the dark stairway beneath the trapdoor, and Silence followed him down. He paused briefly to test the weight of the trapdoor. It was just as heavy as he'd remembered, but Carrion had hefted it with one hand, as though it were weightless. He cleared his throat, and Carrion looked up at him.

"Do you want me to shut the door behind us?" said Silence.

Carrion smiled briefly. "There's really no need. It's not as if there was anyone else who might come in after us. Still, if it makes you feel more secure . . ."

He gestured at the trapdoor, and it started to lean forward of its own accord. Silence hurried down the narrow earth steps into the gloom of the tunnel, and the trapdoor slammed shut behind him, the impact of its weight sending tremors through the earth walls and floor. Silence glared after Carrion, but he was already walking off down the tunnel, and Silence had to hurry to keep up. The pa.s.sage was wide enough for both of them to walk side by side, with a good two- or three-foot clearance above their heads. The earth had a rich, peaty smell that was not unpleasant. Roots from the metal trees had been trained along the uneven ceiling, filling the tunnel with their warm, unwavering light. The enclosed s.p.a.ce was still distinctly claustrophobic, and Silence tried hard not to think about the increasing weight of earth above him as the pa.s.sage sloped steadily downwards.

It soon branched into two, and then in two again, with corridors leading off tunnels, and wide holes opening into vast, brightly lit caverns. Silence was soon lost in the labyrinth of underground pa.s.sages that had been the home of the Ashrai and the outlaw Carrion. The last time he'd been down here, he and Carrion had still been friends enough that Carrion had led him back to the surface once their business was concluded. Silence wasn't sure if that was the case anymore but it didn't matter anyway. He had to talk to Carrion.

Finally the outlaw stopped by a side pa.s.sage and waved for Silence to go in ahead of him. Silence stepped forward without hesitating. He didn't want Carrion to think he was intimidated. The pa.s.sage widened out into a fair-sized cavern, lit by the ubiquitous glowing roots curling in the earth ceiling.

Carrion's home was large enough to give the illusion of s.p.a.ce, yet cluttered with enough small comforts to make it seem almost cosy. There were two rickety-looking chairs, a writing table, and a length of bedding. A banked fire muttered drowsily in one wall, the smoke rising up through a narrow chimney cut into the earth above. The floor was covered with some kind of woven matting, scuffed and stained with the marks of long use. Not much of a place to spend an exile in.

Small, delicate Ashrai carvings filled discreet niches in the walls. Silence moved over to study the nearest, but its shape made no sense, and its twistings and turnings made his head ache. He looked away, frowning, and Carrion chuckled softly.

"You're supposed to touch them, Captain, not look at them. The Ashrai were a very tactile race, and their eyes were different than ours."

"Thanks," said Silence. "I'll pa.s.s."

"As you wish. Take a seat, Captain. Make yourself comfortable. I'd offer you a drink or a smoke, but I don't have any."

Silence sank cautiously into the nearest chair, but it was tougher than it looked, and held his weight easily. Carrion dropped into the chair opposite, and the two men sat facing each other for a while.

Silence couldn't get over how little Carrion had changed. Ten years of living alone hadn't put a single line in his face, or a dent in his composure. The outlaw was as infuriatingly polite as ever. After a decade of solitude he should have been falling all over Silence, desperate for the sound of a human voice. Instead he just sat there calmly, apparently quite happy to wait for whatever Silence had come to say to him. Silence stirred uneasily in his chair. He'd forgotten how cold and piercing Carrion's eyes could be.

"Nice place you have here," he said finally, just to say something.

"I like it," said Carrion. He suddenly leaned forward in his chair, and Silence jumped a little in spite of himself. Carrion didn't smile. "I don't know what to say to you, Captain. It's been a long time since I spoke to another human being."

"How have you managed to survive here on your own for ten years?" Silence asked.

Carrion raised an eyebrow. "Is it as long as that? I'd lost count. I survived by changing, adapting. By becoming more than human."

"You look human enough to me," said Silence. "You've hardly changed at all."

"That's Unseeli for you. Appearances can be deceiving. You should know that. You never did understand the Ashrai. They're what kept me alive all these years."

Silence looked at him thoughtfully. "Are you saying some of the Ashrai survived after all, hidden down here in the tunnels?"

"No, Captain. The Ashrai are extinct. You were very thorough. All the Ashrai are dead, and none but I am left to tell the tale. I survived because I was afraid to die. I've had a long time to consider whether that was a mistake or not. Why have you come back, Captain?"

"Things have changed since we last met."

"Not for me. The Ashrai are still dead, and the Empire machines are still burrowing away, tearing through the trees' roots so they can be felled and harvested. The rape of the planet goes on, day by day."

Silence sighed wearily. "Ten years of solitude haven't done much to change your arguments. You didn't listen then and you probably won't now, but I'll try again anyway, for old times' sake. The Empire needs the metals it takes from Unseeli. Each tree that's felled can provide enough heavy metals to power a starship for a year. We even use the outer metals to make ships' hulls and engine casings. It's only Unseeli's metals that made our recent expansion possible. But Unseeli is the only place where these metals can be easily found, and we've become dependent on them. Without the regular supply ships these trees make possible, half our colonies would starve or suffocate or fall apart from lack of some essential need. Millions would die, the Empire would collapse, and humanity would fall back into barbarism inside a generation."

"To the Ashrai, we are barbarians," said Carrion.

Silence shook his head impatiently. "None of that matters anymore. It's past. I need your help, Sean.

Something's happened at Base Thirteen."

Carrion looked at him steadily. "The last time we met I called the Ashrai to arms and led them against the Empire. I led them into battle for the sake of their world, and you butchered them. You maimed and slaughtered until you grew bored, and then you retreated into orbit and burned everything that lived."

Silence didn't look away. "It was necessary."

"The Ashrai . . ."

"Didn't stand a chance. Rebels never do."

"And you expect me to help you now? After everything that's happened, you expect me to help the Empire?"

"I could get you Pardoned."

"I doubt that."

Silence smiled coldly. "Don't flatter yourself, Sean. You're not that important, or a bounty hunter would have taken your head years ago. No, you're just another deserter who went native on some backwater planet. No one cares about you anymore. I can get you Pardoned, and I can take you off-planet. Take you anywhere you want to go. You could start again, start over with a clean record. Think about it. You wouldn't even have to call yourself Carrion any more."

"Why not, Captain? It's who I am." Carrion shook his head slowly, and sank back in his chair. "Thank you for the offer, Captain, but no."

"No? Think what I'm offering you! You can't want to stay here on your own . . ."

"Can't I? I've found peace here."

"What peace? The peace of the dead, of the cemetery?"

"The peace of the forest, Captain. You never did understand what you were destroying. The Ashrai and the trees were linked more closely than you ever knew. The trees are alive. I've seen branches sway when no wind blows, and heard voices on the wind and in the mists. The Ashrai are dead, but they are not gone. There's a harmony, a strength that holds the trees together, and I'm a part of it." The outlaw's voice fell to a whisper. "Leave me alone, John. Please."

"I can't, Sean. I need you."

"Why, Captain? Why does it always have to be me?"

"Because you're the best."

"Thank you, Captain."

Silence turned away from the bitterness in Carrion's voice, and rose to his feet. "Up you get, Carrion. It's a long way back to Base Thirteen, and we've a lot to discuss on the way."

Carrion looked up at him. "Are you so sure I'll help you?"

"Of course. You're my friend. And it's not as if you have anything else to do, is it?"

CHAPTER FIVE.

Ghost in the Machine The esper Diana Vertue leaned back in her seat and glared moodily at the pinnace monitors. The Al was still trying to make some sense out of the garbled responses it was receiving from inside Base Thirteen, but as far as Diana could tell, it was getting nowhere fast. She supposed it was an encouraging sign that anything at all was coming through, but in her opinion the responses were nothing more than random data from a damaged computer. She had suggested as much to Odin, but the AI ignored her. She was only an esper, and therefore the AI didn't have to listen to her if it didn't want to. Even an Artificial Intelligence rated higher than an esper.

Diana sighed, and stretched out her legs as best she could in the cramped confines of the cabin. She'd expected many things of her first official mission on an alien world, but boredom wasn't one of them.

She'd almost reached the point where she would have welcomed the two marines back on board, just to have someone to talk to. At least they had something to do, even if it was only keeping a lookout and second-guessing the Security system. All she had to do was sit and watch the computer talking to itself, and wait for something to go wrong. Not that there was a whole lot she could do if it did. She sighed again, heavily, and indulged herself in a pout. It wasn't fair. She hadn't been allowed to do anything ever since they touched down on this miserable planet. She ached for something new to happen-up to and including a major catastrophe-just so long as she got to see a little action. Anything would be better than this.

Well, almost anything. She hadn't forgotten what had happened the last time she opened up her esp, on the way down. There was something here on Unseeli with them, and to h.e.l.l with what the sensors said.

And whatever it was, it was dangerous. She'd sensed a rage and a force beyond anything she'd ever encountered before, something so powerful it almost burned out her mind just looking at it. she'd kept her esp damped down ever since, and had no intention of raising it again, no matter how bored she got. She frowned slightly, unhappy at the direction her thoughts were taking, but unable to ignore them either.

Captain Silence had known what the attacking force was, even if what he'd said had made no sense.

When he got back, she'd get some answers out of him one way or another. She could always run a quick scan on him. In and out, so fast he'd never notice. But of course she couldn't. Just thinking about it was enough to make her break out in a cold sweat. The Empire conditioned its espers very carefully from childhood on, to ensure they'd never abuse their abilities. Except in the service of the Empire, of course.

"Investigator Frost to pinnace. Acknowledge, and confirm your situation."

Diana sat up straight as the Investigator's cold, calm voice sounded in her comm implant. "This is esper Vertue. The pinnace is still secure. Nothing's happened since you left. Where are you?"

"About two miles east of the landing field, map reference Alpha Tango eighty-eight. Has the Captain returned yet?"

"No, Investigator. He hasn't contacted us, and we haven't been able to raise him. Something down here is affecting the comm system; it only works when it feels like it."

"I had hoped the Captain would be there, but we can proceed without him. This is an official log entry; Unseeli, Day One, 1543 hours. I have discovered what appears to be an alien s.p.a.ce vessel, crashed some two miles east of Base Thirteen. The ship has suffered extensive damage, and there is as yet no sign of any pilot or other crew."

"An alien ship?" said Diana excitedly as Frost paused. "What type is it? What species?"

There was another pause, but when Frost spoke again, her voice was calm and measured. "Unknown, esper."

Diana stared blankly at the comm panels, her mind racing. s.p.a.ce-traveling aliens were rare, even out here on the Rim, but a new, unknown species! This was the kind of thing careers were made on. A sudden thought struck her.

"Investigator, could this be a representative of the species who originally created the metal forest?"

"Possible, but unlikely. Any species intelligent enough to genegineer the trees would surely be able to land a ship without crashing it. Listen carefully, esper. You're going to have to leave the pinnace. I need you here, with me, to examine this ship. The marines will accompany you, to ensure your safety."

"You mean, leave the pinnace unguarded?" said Diana.

"The pinnace can look after itself. Odin, go to full battle readiness. Acknowledge."