Nova War

Corso was lucky Honeydew had turned up when he did. If he'd suffered severe concussion, it might have had serious consequences (as Honeydew later explained), given the Bandati lack of understanding of human physiology. They'd in fact had to spend time researching human-related databases in order to learn how to treat his dislocated shoulder – the same databases, Corso later came to suspect, they'd have needed in figuring out how to drug and torture him most effectively.

He was promised his clothes back, and open quarters on the ground, as soon as feasible. The ambrosia was now free of soporifics. Honeydew even delivered an apology of sorts: Corso's torture had apparently been a mistake, a failure on the part of the Bandati equivalent of a civil service. Honeydew had also tried to explain the Hive's organizational structure, but it sounded more like an archaic exercise in genealogy and birthright, and Corso eventually gave up trying to understand. It seemed the individuals responsible for retrieving Corso and Dakota from the Magi derelict had simply panicked when faced with a situation they weren't equipped to deal with.

Corso thus learned that Honeydew was an expert in human affairs, a member of a consulate who'd travelled widely throughout the Consortium. The creature's ability to communicate clearly and concisely with Corso filled the captured Freeholder with such gratitude that, at times, he'd come close to weeping.

As his shoulder healed and his bruises faded, he himself talked about his life in the Freehold, about his studies, and about the series of events that had taken him to Nova Arctis in the first place. They had discussed Senator Arbenz, Corso's initial encounters with the first Magi derelict, and the means by which he'd gained entrance to it. He then described in detail the sabotage wreaked by a Shoal AI secreted inside Dakota's implants.

It didn't take long, however, for his initial burst of hopeful optimism to be replaced by a growing paranoia. Every day after they had first met, Honeydew arrived either on the metal lip outside Corso's cell or – very occasionally – via a door that slid seamlessly back in one wall, closing again to leave no evidence any such entrance existed. Corso was once or twice awarded a momentary glimpse of a dimly lit passageway beyond, with walls like burnished copper that appeared to be decorated with abstract patterns much like the graffiti-like squiggles adorning the cell itself. But at least they had now given him bedding as well as reading material, although the former would have seemed excessively spartan if Corso hadn't been sleeping on a hard metal floor for so long. By contrast, the thin woven mattress felt almost decadent in its luxury.

His first hint of trouble came when he asked about the aerial battle he'd witnessed.

'There was no such incident,' Honeydew informed him blankly.

'Unless you've been putting some really mind-bending shit in that stuff you feed me, I think there was,' Corso protested. He was angry that his clothes had still failed to materialize. 'I saw some kind of, of… military action, with your people shooting at each other. It was a fair distance away, but I got a pretty good idea something very serious was happening.'

'There was no military action,' Honeydew repeated pedantically.

'So what, then, I imagined it? Or maybe you're just lying, is that it?'

'Yes.'

'Yes, what?' Corso demanded, balling his fists and yet enjoying an increasingly familiar sense of frustration. He couldn't work out whether the damn alien was being deliberately obtuse or not. 'Yes, I imagined it, or yes, you're feeding me a line of bullshit?'

Honeydew gazed back with those unreadable black eyes, the glowing bead of the interpreter bobbing gently in the air between them. 'There was no military action,' the alien repeated.

Corso leaned back and laughed derisively, the harsh sound echoing off the bare walls. 'I saw it. One airship started firing missiles at another. What was going on? Was that something to do with me and Dakota?'

Another long pause from Honeydew. Then, suddenly, the creature reached out and touched the interpreter bead where it floated between them. It changed colour, and Honeydew let loose a stream of clicks. Corso guessed the creature was now consulting with his superiors.

A reply soon came in the form of another torrent of indecipherable clicks. Honeydew listened intently as this went on for some while.

Once or twice, while Corso watched with decreasing patience, Honeydew nodded his head in a disturbingly human fashion, before finally turning his attention back to him.

'There was no military action,' Honeydew repeated. Despite such setbacks, and the increasing hollowness of Honeydew's original promises, Corso's continued confinement had at least become more bearable. Before very long, Honeydew assured him, Corso would be free to take part in negotiations that would include participation by the Freehold's new rulers, and together their two species could then unlock the secrets the Shoal had kept from them all for so very long.

But before any of that, Honeydew explained one morning, he had to do them just one favour in return.

'You must speak with Dakota Merrick,' Honeydew explained. 'She is currently in a cell like your own, but she has necessary information, and it is our understanding that she has no intention of being cooperative.'

'Look, she does have some kind of link with the derelict, but she doesn't have the programming knowledge. Her implants do all the work for her.'

'Yet our own observations strongly suggest she is still in communication with the derelict – observations we might not have been able to make without your help and advice.'

'Yes, but I myself don't entirely understand how it works. Look, I told you I have the tools I need to get you inside the derelict, but they're uploaded into the Piri Reis's data stacks. I can't do anything more to help you without those.'

'The Piri Reis has been… uncooperative, therefore we believe Merrick is actively controlling it. You previously suggested you yourself might be able to persuade her to grant us access to her ship, as well as to the derelict.'

'No… I mean yes, maybe.'

Corso blinked, wary and also unsure of just what Honeydew was driving at. 'She's misguided, that's all. I'm sure I could talk her round if I had the chance.'

And by the next morning he had found himself inside Dakota's cell. Nine Dakota dreamed she was falling.

The thick, humid air beyond her cell cradled her, and she felt no fear, even as the wall of the tower rushed by. She looked up, catching sight of the faraway summits of other towers appearing to crowd together as she tumbled. Yet she knew, deep in her sleeping mind, that she would never reach the ground. Below her there was only a dense haze, and no evidence of the river and the landscape that had become so familiar during her weeks of incarceration.

Her fall was endless, tranquil, untroubled.

She woke and found she couldn't move. Drowsiness gave way to a bottomless dread. She managed to wrench her head upwards a bit, and discovered she was once again secured to a gurney.

This time, however, she was still in her cell, and there was no sign of Bandati interrogators. The wind sighed softly past the door-opening. She could just see it if she bent her head back and to one side.

She looked the other way, towards the rear of her cell, and suddenly found herself face to face with someone who was supposed to be dead.

Hugh Moss.

She screamed, wrenching at her restraints. Surely she was still asleep, and trapped in a nightmare. She had to be.

Moss was wearing a sumptuous fur-lined coat, interwoven with threads that glittered in the dim light. It looked impossibly, luxuriously soft to Dakota after her long imprisonment. He reached up and touched a cord holding the garment closed. It opened, revealing his naked body beneath, and he let it fall from his shoulders to the ground.