Even sitting up in the pa.s.senger cabin, the trip had not been pleasant. The wheeler had only a conventional roof, no air-conditioned bubble, and the air Cheloi jerked into her lungs was hot and smothering. The terrain was also rough, jolting the vehicle with every sudden move. Cheloi wanted to scream, wanted to stop and storm out of the vehicle but, like the good soldier she was, she remained in place. She had to trust her subordinate to use her own initiative to get them out of the rebel's grasp and smiled encouragement whenever they stopped for a quick break. Her teeth were chattering but she gritted them shut. The day's travel had been completed with hardly a word shared between them.

Now they were in the sh.e.l.l of what used to be Sab-Inuk.

Cheloi noted with relief that their refuge turned out to be only a half-bas.e.m.e.nt. The narrow windows, set high and peering to the outside, were long gone but the gaps the frames used to sit in remained. Lith forced her to lie down on a makeshift cot she threw together from some boards of wood and two blankets. Cheloi eased herself down carefully and watched the red of the sun's rays on the ceiling, gazing at them as they deepened amid the scuffling sounds of Lith's fussing.

Cheloi felt like she was somehow floating in a world divorced from reality. She could feel the pain of her own body but no awareness beyond that. She didn't know what temperature the room was or what she was lying on. And she didn't care. The errant flashes from the ionic storms were quick in the darkening sky but everything else seemed to move more slowly and it was still black at the periphery of her vision.

"I'll give you another shot of a.n.a.lgesics," Lith told her in a more normal tone of voice.

She had been terse and muted until now, as if afraid the rebels could pluck their utterances from the air. Cheloi thought that was a possibility...if they had a circle of appropriately-specified satellites...o...b..ting the planet. And if Menon IV didn't suffer from the kind of storms that reduced most advanced technology to the level of atomic-age savagery.

"And a broad-spectrum antibiotic."

"What for?" It seemed to take ages for her neurons to fire, for her mouth to form the question. After speaking, Cheloi clenched her jaw to stop herself from shaking but Lith had already noticed.

"Pneumonia," she replied shortly. "You've been drawing in shallow breaths and liquid could have built up in your lungs. I don't think you've got a punctured lung but you have a fever, your eyes are too bright and you're shaking." She dug through the emergency medkit she must have stolen from Drel's lair. "I wonder if I have anything for that?"

In the end, Lith came up with her own concoction. "Antibiotics to stem the pneumonia, a.n.a.lgesics for the pain, muscle relaxant for the spasms, but not too much. It'll have to do until we can get back to friendlier territory."

Cheloi tried to watch Lith as she worked, but it was too much effort and strained the wrong set of muscles. She lay on the makeshift pallet. Staring up. Blinking slowly. Listening to the scrabbling sounds as her driver got organised.

Maybe she was going insane, but the sounds of another person moving about purposefully around her was reminiscent of home. Love. A partnership. Remembrances of Eys walking from one room to another, picking up something she'd forgotten, checking the latest events at Gaard's Sub-Prime, or welcoming the odd visitor. Cheloi missed those innocent reminders of domesticity. Beloved yet taken for granted at the same time. If only she'd known that they would be the last sounds of joy she'd hear for more than a decade.

"You know. A lot," Cheloi croaked, trying for a tone of friendly rea.s.surance. Beyond some basic field treatments for trauma-related wounds, she wouldn't have been able to figure out with any confidence what to use when. Her skills lay in other directions.

It was too dark to see if Lith blushed. From her tone of voice, Cheloi thought it a distinct possibility. "I've dabbled in some medical courses," she replied, moving closer with the hypodermic. It hissed with a sibilant whisper. She moved away.

Cheloi continued staring at the ceiling, watching as the red of the setting sun slowly faded. The darkness in their small shelter increased. Her meditation was interrupted by Lith returning with a flask. A straw, inserted into the container and bent near Cheloi's face, indicated how she was supposed to drink from it. The medical c.o.c.ktail was taking effect. After only a few minutes, Cheloi started feeling halfway sentient again. As an added bonus, her throat was lubricated enough to enable more normal speech.

Lith had retreated to the other side of the bas.e.m.e.nt without setting any illumination and Cheloi declined to ask for any. If it wasn't for the physical circ.u.mstances in which she found herself, she could almost believe this was a replay of their first dusk-shrouded conversation in the mute bubble high on one of her headquarters' escarpments.

"How were you treated? At Drel's camp?" Cheloi asked, when it seemed Lith would be content spending the night in complete silence. It was her burning question of the moment.

"Not as badly as you." Lith's voice was soft and lilting.

Cheloi closed her eyes. "I was the star attraction, but you were my accomplice. I've been wondering...why they didn't treat you worse."

"They did." There was defensiveness in her voice. "I've got bruises and contusions all over my body from their rough handling."

"Lith." The one word stilled all movement from across the room. Cheloi gathered the little strength she had. She had noticed more than just their surroundings during their escape. Like the fact that, besides one fat bruise on the side of her head, Lith's face was untouched. That she was walking without effort. That her appearance was still too neat for someone held in a dungeon and interrogated for two days. "I've got little enough time for any bulls.h.i.t. Why did they leave you alone?"

Silence.

"Did you...tell them something?" Cheloi prompted. "Share intel? I wouldn't blame you. If you had." She tried forcing breaths deeper into her lungs but her body was resisting such overtures. She had to gasp out her phrases quickly, in between shaky inhales of air. "If you gave them information. In an attempt to negotiate a prisoner swap. It was a wasted effort. Nothing. Short of your miraculous escape plan. Would have saved my life."

When Lith eventually answered, it was as a disembodied voice from the darkness.

"Saving you was the last thing on my mind."

Cheloi frowned at the sardonic thread in her voice.

"Then why did you?"

She was uncomfortable. Cheloi could tell that by the abrupt sounds as Lith changed position. She was making short jittery movements denoting discomfort and an internal struggle. Cheloi steeled herself for what she was about to hear.

"You're known throughout the galaxy as the Butcher of Sab-Iqur."

Cheloi was arrested by the unexpected statement. Throughout the galaxy? Throughout the system, she could understand. Throughout the Perlim Ground Forces. But throughout the galaxy?

"Responsible for the slaughter of thousands of innocents," Lith continued. "How do you feel about that...Cheloi?"

She was using the darkness as a form of camouflage, Cheloi thought, using the cloak of night to say all the things she thought she couldn't say in daylight. If they were ever to get back to the Nineteen in one piece then this night in Sab-Inuk was probably going to be the most private moment they would ever share. The realisation made Cheloi weigh her words before speaking.

"The ma.s.sacre at Sab-Iqur was," evil. A travesty. A crime, "a necessity."

"And how can it be a necessity to kill children?" There was a choked sob in the question. "Can you tell me that?"

Cheloi sighed even though it hurt to do so. "Lith-"

"I saved your life," she cut in savagely. "I think that gives me the right to ask some questions and get some f.u.c.king answers. Don't you?"

Yes, she supposed it did.

"So you want to know about Sab-Iqur?" She paused. "In that case, you should also know what led up to Sab-Iqur."

Cheloi had never spoken about this to anyone other than the Copan avatar. She tried to put her thoughts in order. Already, she found she could breathe a bit easier. That would make the narration of her tale smoother. She took a deep swallow of water through the straw. It was important that her words be as clear as possible.

"At the time of Sab-Iqur," she began, "I was newly promoted and just a.s.signed to command of the Nineteen. There were questions around the death of the Nineteen's previous commander, Senior Colonel Samnett. To be honest, from the reports I read, he was an incompetent commander, lazy and wasteful, so his death wasn't the issue. The rumour that kept everyone whispering was that both sides of the war, Perlim and Menon, had reason to want him dead. Looking through his record, I had no doubt that was true."

She paused to take a few breaths before continuing.

"Although n.o.body could prove a thing, several people within Central Control suspected that Koul Grakal-Ski had him a.s.sa.s.sinated. I think that's why I eventually won command rather than Koul. Central Control doesn't trust him as much as he thinks they do." She smiled briefly into the darkness. "It was a very volatile time for the territory and for the Perlim effort. When I a.s.sumed command, it was very important for me to gain control and keep it."

Exhausted by the effort of speaking for so long, Cheloi dropped her head back and closed her eyes.

"So your idea of gaining control was by murdering civilians?"

Cheloi didn't try to deny the charge. "What else could I have done?"

It wasn't just the Perlim who had run through the scenarios on Menon. The Fusion had done so as well, coolly and dispa.s.sionately. Better minds than hers had tracked multiple scenarios years into the future, including the outcome of putting Koul in command of the Nineteen.

"I don't know what you should've done," Lith told her savagely, "but nothing, nothing, excuses what you did at Sab-Iqur."

Koul would have turned the Menon even more against the Perlim, that much was true. That was an action in the Fusion's favour. But because of his inherent brutality-if Koul knew how finely dissected he was by the psychoa.n.a.lysts of the Fusion, he would have blown his brains out in horror-he would have inevitably gone too far.

"But it's not just Sab-Iqur, is it?" Cheloi murmured to herself.

The Fusion figured that Perlim losses under Koul would have risen to indefensible levels, leaving only one way out. He'd be ousted by Central Control within six months, no doubt aided along by a juicy promotion off planet, and replaced by an unknown quant.i.ty.

"Sab-Solin, Sab-Supehn, Bul-Vehim." She recited them slowly, not caring if Lith heard, lost in her own thoughts.

Six months was not enough time to both weaken the Perlim and rouse the locals, especially when there was no guarantee of what would follow. What the Fusion wanted was a slow burn over a couple of years before the explosive conflagration, not merely the conflagration itself. That was how they trained her for the job. Even if she couldn't be transferred to the Nineteen, she could still carry out part of her mission in one of the other important territories. That was the backup plan: get command of one of the other centres of action as quickly as possible.

"You murdered civilians," Lith cut in, her voice choked. "Children. You killed children."

Cheloi thought it was luck as much as skill that finally placed her exactly where the Fusion wanted her to be, although she knew the a.n.a.lysts would have disagreed with her. And the rest of her mission wrote itself.

"I know." She let the silence lengthen between them. "I'm sorry. It was a mistake."

Telling Lith that such actions were considered normal by the Perlim would have made things worse. The Empire claimed no adherence to any rules of morality when suppressing a revolt. Her own rationalisation at the time of the ma.s.sacre was that what happened at Sab-Iqur would bring a quicker end to the war and, eventually, to the Empire itself, but the thought held little comfort.

She heard Lith's quick, angry intake of breath. "A bit late to be sorry now, Cheloi."

Yes, it was. The lives lost could never be brought back, thrown into entropy forever. The only slight sliver of hope she had was a long-term view of the ultimate consequence of her actions. The nightmares that haunted her about the hapless village were almost balanced by her conviction that that small action had resulted in one more crack in the edifice of the Perlim Empire.

"It still stands, Lith. For what it's worth." She let her driver think on that for a while. "Now it's my turn. Why did you rescue me?"

Why did I rescue her?

How could Lith even begin to explain the mora.s.s of emotions Cheloi Sie had roused in her? The frustrating contradictions, the faltering hesitations, the feel of hands on her body and the lap of a tongue against her sensitive wanting skin. How could she balance that against the cool aloof tones of command and the casual ability to send hundreds to their deaths?

"I wanted to hate you," she said softly, almost to herself. "I came to Menon prepared to hate you, for all you did to the people of this planet."

"You wanted to hate me?"

In the darkness, it was easy to imagine that the voice only sounded like Cheloi without it actually being her.

"Yes."

It was easy to imagine a kinder, more supple character behind those words, slightly slurred through the effects of medication. A voice that didn't belong to the person who could anger her to a frenzy while seducing her with tenderness.

"If you hated me, why would you want to work for me?"

Grakal-Ski knew the answer to that one. And it suddenly occurred to Lith that, by rescuing the Colonel, she had just put herself in grave danger when (if) they ever made it back to Perlim-controlled territory alive. The sub-Colonel would not appreciate being betrayed.

"Maybe I was curious," she answered, trying to sound unconcerned while thoughts careened through her head.

But she could tell Cheloi was unconvinced. "Curious about a murderer?"

Lith licked suddenly dry lips, glad of the cloak of darkness that surrounded them. She changed position, pulling her legs up underneath her sitting figure. How could she have forgotten Koul Grakal-Ski?

"I wonderedI wondered what you would be like, how you would act."

"And have you come to any conclusions?" The voice was dry.

How could she possibly ask such a question? Wasn't her own physical abandonment to the Colonel an answer in its own right? Lith clenched her jaw, tightening her lips. Did nothing reach this woman? Their stolen kisses. Their heated coupling. The rescue. Could nothing rock her contained and impersonal demeanour, even lying injured as she was? In that moment, she understood how Koul could so thoroughly hate the rational and efficient Cheloi Sie.

"Grakal-Ski wants you dead," she said abruptly, changing tack.

"Yes, I imagine he's been having that fantasy for the past couple of years."

"I mean, this was one of his attempts."

She heard one slight movement and imagined Cheloi was trying to find her in the darkness.

"Our capture?"

Lith nodded, even though she knew Cheloi couldn't see it. "I don't have definitive proof but...."

"But?" Cheloi prompted.

"I think it was him."

"How?"

How. What was Lith supposed to say? That she knew about an "accident" and the happy discovery by the rebels and agreed to the scheme to save her own skin? That she was sent by a disillusioned splinter of the Fusion to try righting an obvious wrong?

"Hehe approached me one day. In my quarters."

If anything, the silence deepened, adding its own ominous accent to the conversation. Lith looked through one of the broken windows, high up near the ceiling. She saw the cold glitter of faint stars through the opening, obscured every few seconds by the pastel flashes of the eternal ion storms sweeping the planet's atmosphere.

It had all seemed so clear-cut and simple when Nils explained it to her. This was her chance to do something for the homeland her parents had escaped from. Her chance to start righting the wrongs that an older generation couldn't.

"What did Koul say?" Cheloi's voice was unsurprised.

And what had happened when the chance finally arrived? She didn't have to raise a weapon. Didn't even have to open her mouth. All she had to do was let the situation play out and save herself. Drel, and justice, would have done the rest. But instead of leaving the Butcher of Sab-Iqur to a brutal but well-deserved fate, she rescued her. Was there any penance in the galaxy that would wash away such culpability?

"He told me he expected a promotion after Senior-Colonel Samnett was killed." Lith's voice was dull with remembrance and the self-accusations running through her head. "That he was a certainty for command, until you came along."

Cheloi coughed out a laugh, a rasping sound that made Lith move towards her until she checked the action, coming to a sudden stop metres from the Colonel's pallet.

"Trust Koul to blame someone else for his own shortcomings." Cheloi took a breath. Across the room, Lith heard its shallow wheeze. "The man's an able thinker, but he's never going to get anywhere if he doesn't develop any self-criticism."

That was the thing that stunned Lith. She didn't even sound angry. She took it in stride, as if Lith told her Grakal-Ski had purchased new supplies rather than plotted to get her killed. Was everything a game to her? Did she regard their liaison the same way? Look at their pa.s.sionate interlude with the same coolness with which she eyed the daily despatches? Did anything make any difference to this woman?

"But why you?" Cheloi mused, aloud. "Why not approach Rumis? He'd be the more likely target."

"Rumis is very loyal to you," Lith answered in a faint voice, seating herself again. "Everybody knows that. Whereas I'm the newcomer. And he was responsible for my transfer to your staff. Maybe he thought I owed him some loyalty."

"True enough," Cheloi conceded after a short pause. "Where did he first approach you? At the Nineteen? Or before that?"

"We met for the first time in Blue Sector. After our forces were routed."

She wished she could see the Colonel's face. See for herself if the dispa.s.sion in that calm dark voice was matched by the look in her eyes.

"That recently?"

Lith heard surprise threading through the words.