Ilias unconsciously stroked his slung combo-weapon, Selene, as one might a cherished pet perched on one's lap. He watched Sander gesture to one of the dark uniformed workers, who slid Haris's body onto a grate and lowered it to just below eye level behind a heatproof translucent screen. The Crematorium was an elaborate tunnel carved into Black Mary's asteroid ribbed with steel and tyrnium girders. Music, some kind of dirge vibrated from hidden speakers.
"I assume you have no parting words?" said Sander. Rather than looking at Ilias he stared down at the stiffened remains of their dead pilot. The heat screen surrounded a large pit where bodies were being lined up. Once Haris was ashes, at least ten more dead bodies would get the same treatment. Though, Ilias noted, there didn't seem to be any one else waiting to pay their last respects.
Ilias sucked in a breath of warm wet air. His heart pounded with a rush of anxiety. He hated that they were wasting time with this farce of a funeral for their dead pilot, but he was also relieved for a brief detour before they had to tell the others that they were all doomed. Looking down at the dead man, he said, "Farewell, you useless chat. I am sure you're still flying starships in hell, badly. We will be joining you shortly. Inferopachina." He looked over at Sander. "How was that?"
Sander folded his arms; lights flickered across his green eyes. Working his mouth he said, "Haris, you traveled with us and fought with us. You died doing your job and you were always loyal. You had no family that we know of, but you were Konsilia, and you didn't die alone. Inferopachina." He kissed the silver bullet around his neck and nodded to a nearby worker.
Ilias moved his massive shoulders and cracked his neck as Haris's body was lowered and red heat began glowing from below. It truly looked like the pale corpse was being lowered into some kind of fiery hell. They hadn't told Spiro about the Ladesic when they had returned to take the body. Ilias hadn't said anything because he didn't want to believe it was real until he had no other choice. He also clung to a vain hope of having a flash of inspiration, an epiphany that would save them. He assumed Sander was desperately holding on to a similar hope.
Lieutenant Marshal Zero had commissioned a crew to repair the Harlequin free of charge and, with top quality Syndicate Starship Repair robots, it would be done in hours instead of days. The massive things had already started work when they had left, blazing cutting tools across blackened and twisted panels that seemed barely attached anyway.
Both him and Sander had tried very hard to appear grateful for this gesture of goodwill, but Ilias couldn't help but hate the man and his top of the line robots. Up until the moment Zero could no longer provide the Ladesic, Ilias had been permitted to believe he had relative control over his existence. Now, with one conversation he was facing dissolution in body and mind, and he was powerless to do anything about it.
He looked over at Sander. "We need to talk about what we're going to do," he said, quietly. "We can't just bring this to the others without some kind of plan." Down below, Haris' dull brown clothes singed and caught fire, blackening across his skin. The heat screen, fortunately, blocked both the heat and the smell of roasting flesh that Ilias knew would be surrounding the corpse now. The thought reminded him of shivering hunger and long, bonfire lit, nights. There had never been enough supplies to go around on Carnival even when they met their quotas. Suspicions were that the Syndicate wanted them constantly on edge, fighting for survival. Ilias had always thought it more likely that their captors and suppliers were simply inefficient or incompetent.
He breathed in chemical laced antiseptic air, it was oddly comforting.
Sander nodded, keeping his eyes on the body. "I already have a plan," he said. Red and orange light flickered across his face.
Ilias smiled a little. "That's good," he said. "I couldn't think of anything past wandering that stellar region where Zero's links used to be and hoping for the best." Haris' flesh was cooking now, fat and grease bubbling, lifeless skin smoking and darkening. Something inside Ilias balked at the waste of good meat, and he pushed that thought away.
"Not enough time," said Sander. "We'd only get to a handful of locations before our bodies and minds deteriorated beyond recovery." His voice was an empty, resigned monotone. Below, Haris' body was shrouded in flames and black smoke. Ilias wondered for a moment if the Crematorium workers had injected the corpse with some kind of accelerant. Vid screens that had been mounted here and there on the walls showed the body burning from various angles.
"I agree," said Ilias. "I just couldn't think of anything better." He slid his hand across Selene, letting the cool metal glide under his fingertips. He waited, but Sander remained silent, just watching the body burn below them. Finally, Ilias said, "So what is it? What's your plan?"
Sander touched the heat screen. "Do you remember when we finally got the ship?" he asked.
"Of course," said Ilias. Stealing the ship had meant fighting the human crew and the robotic goons they had with them while simultaneously keeping the ship from leaving the ground. He'd watched one of their original Konsilia, Volker, get slagged into red paste. The young man had only been on Carnival a handful of years. When his body was ripped apart, four of his teeth had embedded themselves into Ilias' chest and arm like shrapnel. Ilias had had to cut them out with a combat knife. The memory brought a taste of blood and bile to his tongue.
"Everyone told us that escape was pointless," said Sander. "Without Ladesic we'd all just die in space instead of in the jungle." Below them, Haris was nothing but blackened bones, flames ripped and danced across them. One of the workers checked a clicking monitor.
Ilias nodded, remembering. "But the Captain," he said. "He told us..."
"...if we got him a ship, he'd get us Ladesic," finished Sander, still staring down as Haris' body burned and smoked until the charred bones collapsed. Black and gray dust fell into dull little piles.
"The Captain. That's your plan?" asked Ilias, frowning. "You just risked all our lives with the Brain because you trusted a self-destructive machine more than him." He stared at the red lights from the fire below reflecting across Sander's face and eyes. It was unnerving to be so surprised by someone as utterly unsurprising as Sander.
"The Brain was another option, and I would always choose another option over the Captain," said Sander. "This though...Zero was our only supplier, there is truly no other choice." He turned to look him in the eye. Ilias saw pain in Sander's face, pain and frustration.
"We could always blow each other's brains out before loss of higher brain function and dementia sets in," said Ilias, with a tight smile.
"Don't think that hasn't crossed my mind," murmured Sander.
A worker with an elaborate black tattoo curling up his face stepped up to the two of them. He had young, pale features and cold eyes. "Would you like a canister with the ashes?" he asked.
Ilias was silent. He could barely register the worker's question. He felt the same cold desperation as when Zero had first told them, barely an hour ago, that all links to Ladesic had been murdered. The extremity of the situation made him clutch at his weapon. Violence had been the solution to so much in his life, that reaching for it was instinctive.
"No," said Sander to the young worker. "We just wanted to pay our respects." He pushed past the worker, through the layer of automatic doors and out into the street. Ilias followed, holding his combo-weapon but pointing it at the ground.
"You never talked to him, did you?" said Ilias. "Not once, since we locked him away." Noise from vendors and buyers rose up around them. Stinking wet moisture collected across his skin and combat suit. It darkened and dampened his hair and beard.
"No, I never did," said Sander, his eyes straight ahead.
"Not even to ask him why?" asked Ilias.
"I don't care why," said Sander. "No reason would ever be good enough." He was walking faster now. Ilias had to knock other people aside with his large frame to keep up.
"But you want to be the one to convince him?" said Ilias, he asked it like a question, but both men knew it was an accusation.
Sander spat on the ground. "Nobody is going to convince him," he said. "That's what you don't understand. He is going to say he'll help us so that we'll let him out and then he is going to either help us or kill us...and we are going to have to watch him do it because we are desperate."
Ilias shouldered a woman aside. Just the sight of him had sent her hand immediately to the weapon on her belt. "Either way," he said, ignoring her. "At least we'll only have a couple weeks to endure the suspense. He'll have to make his move quick."
"He could always be too slow," muttered Sander, barely loud enough for Ilias to hear. "Maybe we'll get a chance to see him as a drooling mess before our faces slide down our skulls."
"Maybe we should forgo survival and just go down to his cage and watch the show, Maybe take bets on who drops first?" said Ilias.
"It's almost irresistible, isn't it?" said Sander.
They both laughed.
As they kept walking, Ilias tried to keep a little smile plastered on his face, but he couldn't escape a black dread settling over his insides. He watched Sander's face fall as well, and Ilias wanted to pull the triggers right at his fingertips just to prove he still had control over something.