Free On the Steel Breeze by Alastair Reynolds Page B

can decide what we should do next.’
    This was definitely more strangeness than she needed at the end of a hard day. But Noah was a good husband and not given to dramas. Shenodded wordlessly, knelt down to kiss the children – tousled their hair, whispered that they should play nicely. And then – steeling herself – she entered the house.
    Travertine was sitting at the kitchen table, hands before ver, fingering a wine glass.
    ‘Hello, Chiku.’
    Chiku said nothing at first. Travertine had poured the wine from the same bottle she and Noah had started the evening before their mission to Malabar. Chiku eased into the seat opposite Travertine and helped herself to a sip from the same glass. Then the sip became a gulp, and she carried on drinking until the glass was empty and her throat was burning.
    She said: ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
    ‘In the immediate sense, or the existential?’
    ‘Dead, alive, whatever – you shouldn’t be in my house. Not after whatever happened today.’
    ‘I have no idea what happened today.’
    ‘Whatever went wrong, it started with your laboratory. You did this. You did this and they’re going to hang you for it.’
    ‘Well, it’s good to know I can turn to friends for reassurance.’
    ‘Get out of my house.’
    Travertine took the glass from her and poured more wine. ‘I’m not an idiot. I expect to be arrested for this. The only reason I was able to get here in the first place was because there was so much chaos and confusion.’
    ‘Were you in Kappa when it happened?’
    ‘If I had been, we wouldn’t be having this cosy little chat, would we?’
    ‘I can’t shelter you.’
    ‘I’m not asking you to.’
    ‘What happened? What the hell were you doing?’
    ‘Nothing much. Just trying to save the world. And how was your day?’
    ‘You were punished once. You were lucky they didn’t lock you up then. Wasn’t that lesson enough for you?’
    ‘All it did was teach me that I needed to be cleverer.’
    ‘Oh, please.’
    ‘In case you haven’t noticed, that little problem of ours hasn’t magically vanished. Does it keep you awake at night? It really ought to. It gives me cold, shivering nightmares.’
    ‘I won’t argue with you. There’d be nothing to gain. Are you going to turn yourself in, or do I have to call the authorities?’
    ‘You are the authorities, Chiku. That’s rather the point.’ But Travertinesighed, then. ‘I am going to turn myself in – it’s not as if I’d have a hope in hell of evading justice.’
    ‘So why have you come here instead of going straight to the constables?’
    ‘There’s something we need to discuss.’
    ‘I’ve heard enough of your justifications over the years. You just blew a hole in the skin of the holoship.’
    ‘True. But you know what? It proves there’s something we don’t understand. Pemba proved it, too, but that time there was no wreckage to comb through, and no survivors to question. We had no idea what they’d been doing in there before it all went pop.’
    ‘The same as you – meddling.’
    ‘Meddling is what we do. It’s what defines us. Meddling gave us fire and tools and civilisation and the keys to the universe. Fingers will get burnt along the way, yes. That’s the way of it.’ Travertine examined vis fingers. They were strong and elaborately wrinkled around the knuckles. Unlike Chiku’s, they looked like they had done honest work.
    ‘Well?’ she prompted, after Travertine fell silent and appeared to be in no hurry to speak again.
    ‘I found something. A hint of a breakthrough, a door into Post-Chibesa physics. A glimpse of the energies we’ll need to decelerate, when we approach Crucible. I decided to investigate further with a simple experiment. In secret, of course – underneath my lab.’
    ‘I think you should save all this for the hearing.’
    ‘When you dig under something, Chiku, you often make discoveries.’
    ‘What the hell are you talking about, Travertine?’
    ‘I have