“Do you actually have the nerve to ask about Ellyn?” She drummed her own fingers on the table; Ellyn wasn’t the person Zavcka wanted to know about. “She’s alive. She’s healthy. She’s as happy as it’s possible for her to be.”
Zavcka stared down at her hands. They were no longer shaking, but they still seemed to require much of her attention. “And the child?”
“What makes you think I know?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Aryel!” Another angry explosion, quickly contained this time. “Please don’t insult my intelligence. You will know exactly where she is and what she’s up to for as long as you’re both alive. It’s what I would do.” It was no more than the truth, and they both knew it.
“Ellyn’s daughter is also doing well,” Aryel said. “She’s happy and she’s safe.”
“She isn’t—” Zavcka drew a deep breath, visibly calming herself. “Never mind. Call her Ellyn’s child if it makes you feel better. Where is she?”
“Come now, Zavcka. You know you’ll never be told that.”
“Surely you can tell me whether she’s in England, or if they placed her abroad—?”
Aryel was slowly, deliberately, shaking her head.
Zavcka sighed. “Fine. But you’re sure she’s all right?”
“She’s all right.”
“She doesn’t know anything?”
“Not yet. Possibly not ever.”
“Or . . . need anything?”
“No. She’s well taken care of.” Aryel looked her over, remembering, acutely aware of the room’s bareness. “The thought that she might have ended up poor really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“It would just be . . . wrong. Unnecessary.” Aryel’s stare was so long and hard that eventually Zavcka twitched and snapped, “What?”
“Wealth is no more necessary than poverty.” Aryel didn’t try to keep the sting out of her voice. “She has everything she needs. We would never allow her to suffer on your account.”
She’d expected a comeback and was surprised instead to see Zavcka deflate, slumping in her chair, silent and stubborn. She was still the haughty aristocrat, still refusing to yield an inch, but there was an edginess to her now, an inconsistency to her focus and her temper, an odd fragility that Aryel had never seen in her before. Maybe it was just the grinding-down of illness and the stark reality of age, the soul-crushing bitterness of defeat and incarceration, but perhaps there was something else as well.
She thought back through the conversation, replaying bits of it in her head, and something Zavcka had said at the beginning came back to her. “‘After all this time,’” she quoted. “Does that bother you, Zavcka? I did ask to visit, when you were first sent here. You wouldn’t allow it then.”
“I’d had enough of you at the trial. I couldn’t imagine what else you wanted, except to gloat.”
“You know that’s not my style.”
Zavcka shifted uncomfortably. “Whatever. I didn’t want to, and it’s not like you kept on asking.”
“You’d made your feelings clear, and I had other things to deal with. But send a message if you ever want me to come again.”
“You’re too kind.”
“Sneering really doesn’t become you, you know. And I didn’t say it was a kindness. It is what it is.” Aryel pushed herself to her feet. “Eli would also like to talk to you, by the way. When you get out.”
“Oh, would he?”
She ignored the sarcasm. “He’s mapping attitudinal changes in the post-Syndrome era and you’ve been alive for most of it. Your recollections would be very helpful for his research.” The corner of her mouth kinked up in a wry smile. “He’s not confident you’ll say yes.”
“Very wise of him.”
“But he’s going to put the request in anyway.” Aryel went to the door and rapped her knuckles against it sharply. “Maybe you’ll change your mind. It’d give you something to do, since you’ll be so idle.”
Zavcka Klist sat for a time after Aryel left. A keen observer might have noticed that she began again to play with her hands: rubbing the fingers together, worrying at the nails, as if distractedly delaying for as long as possible the moment when she would have to get up and quit the bare little interview room for a space even less inviting. They would have thought no more of it than that.
In fact she was noticing the network of tiny lines that she was sure had not been there a few years ago: the topography of veins and tendons on once-smooth skin, a faint scattering of spots, knuckles that looked more prominent than before. Her hands, like her face, like her voice and every other part of her, were beginning to show their age.
This is happening. It’s really happening, and there is nothing I can do.
Despair and fear washed over her, along with an old, worn-out anger. She thought of Ellyn and the hope that had once resided there; of the child she had never seen. She would have given anything for a picture—just a glimpse—to tell her whether the image in her mind’s eye reflected reality. Her eyes were hot and swollen with unshed tears.
The need to know was so intense that she found herself paralyzed by it, unable to catch her breath as though it were a physical pain. She’d anticipated this moment when the request for the meeting had come through; had almost refused it out of hand. She hadn’t been sure she could bear the presence of Aryel Morningstar, ascendant, serene and self-possessed. The absence of spite, the lack of acrimony, was almost the most infuriating thing about her, second only to the resolve that Zavcka knew no threat, bribe, or promise could shake.
Aryel was never going to tell her anything; she would never offer her a crumb of comfort. She would never understand, or pretend to sympathize—and yet Aryel had come to her, and had offered to come again.
What was the fucking point?
Zavcka’s rage crested and broke on the thought, then receded, revealing a landscape that she had, in her anger and self-pity, failed to notice. She felt her own sharp intake of breath, an easing of the tightness in her chest as she began to pick out the shapes and shadows of a bigger picture.
Aryel Morningstar did not ask stupid questions, or make empty gestures. Nor did she act without purpose.
Have you forgotten with whom you’re dealing, Zavcka? Foolish girl. It was never about what you could learn from her.
What did she learn from you?
6
In another meeting room, many miles from where Zavcka Klist sat in contemplation while Aryel Morningstar, equally troubled, launched herself from the roof of the prison into a storm-wracked sky, Detective Superintendent Sharon Varsi was picking through the details of a different skirmish. It was not going as well as she’d hoped.
“I understand that the technical specifications filed with Planning would have been enough for someone to work out how to damage the turbines with a water-jet,” she said to Pilan and the young compliance coordinator, Qiyem. “And although access to the full application must be requested, there’s no real barrier to anyone getting hold of that data. But the security setup for the power plant is not public information. And yet whoever sabotaged the turbines knew precisely how to pilot their vehicle to stay out of sight of the cams as well as how to avoid setting off proximity alarms. So who has access to that information?”
“The security plan was included in the submission,” Qiyem pointed out. “It’s redacted from the infostreams, but it is nevertheless held by the city’s Planning Department and the Energy Regulatory Authority. It had to be approved by Environmental Management and the Home Office, as well as the police, in order for the submission as a whole to be successful.”
He nodded respectfully at her, and she felt her jaw tighten. She had at first been pleased to have his comprehensive knowledge of what information had flowed where, and when, placed at the service of the investigation, but his endless repetition of facts she already knew was becoming annoying.
“So at various points in the process it would have been reviewed by departmental specialists and signed off,”
she snapped. “I get that. But as I said before, none of those people would have been able to make copies. They could only have accessed the files at work, via a secure connection. And that’s not just wishful thinking on my part—forensics have already confirmed there were no security breaches during the submissions process.”
She turned her attention to Pilan. “So let me rephrase the question: Who else could have had access?”
“Just us,” Pilan shot back. “And a detailed security schematic isn’t available to everyone on our own infostream either: only a handful of us can see it.”
“Do you think,” Sharon said steadily, “that there is anyone in Thames Tidal we should be taking a closer look at? Anyone who has that access, or might have been able to gain it?” She raised her hands for calm as Pilan’s copper-brown face began to turn red. “I know you’re not going to take kindly to that idea; no employer ever does. But we need to be realistic, Pilan. If there’s someone who might be disgruntled, for whatever reason, or could be persuaded to pirate a file in exchange for payment . . .”
Qiyem, she noted, was listening with a kind of placid disinterest; he appeared to be in no doubt about what the answer would be.
Pilan breathed deeply and flattened his webbed hands on the table. “None of our people have anything to do with this,” he said. “I’d stake my life on it. And remember, no one here is employed in the usual way. This is a cooperative—so everyone owns a share of the business. Everyone stands to win if it does well, and we all lose out if it doesn’t.”
“The owners—that’s us—will make a hell of a lot more money in the long run,” Qiyem interjected. “Trading that for a bribe doesn’t make any sense.”
Sharon and Pilan both looked at him in surprise; it was the first time he had spoken less than formally, or volunteered anything that sounded like a personal view. He shifted as though embarrassed by the attention and said, “But it’s not only us and the authorities who know the security setup. There’ve been a few outside specialists, including the consultant who identified the sabotage. She also helped design the system—a fact which is noted in the submission. So maybe she was hacked—she probably doesn’t have the same level of protection . . .”
Oh yes she does, Sharon thought. If only you knew.
“No,” Pilan said. “We constructed it based on Gaela’s recommendations, but she doesn’t have the final layout. And we’ve already had our own servers checked—by Herran.” His tone was heavy with the significance of that fact.
He turned back to Sharon. “My money’s on it being someone in one of those departments Qiyem mentioned: some disgruntled civil servant, taking a kickback from Bankside.”
Sharon sighed. “Be careful, Pilan. I can’t completely rule it out, but so far there’s no sign of any unauthorized access or hack. And Bankside might be heavily involved with the Estuary Preservation Society, but that doesn’t automatically make them suspects. You don’t want to go throwing around accusations that you can’t back up.”
“They’ve been hell-bent on stopping us from joining the grid tonight. Both Bankside and the EPS. And we know they requested the technical specs.”
“So did a great many other interested parties. Having the information and a motive doesn’t mean they had the intent, or the means.” She swiped at her tablet in irritation. “I can tell you that the key players all have rock-solid alibis for the night of the sabotage.”
“Suspiciously solid?”
“We’re looking into it.” Sharon tucked the tablet away. “In the meantime, we need to consider every other possibility, even if it’s just to rule it out. That includes internal access to security information. I want to know who looked at what, from installation to the date of the sabotage.”
Pilan looked baleful, but he didn’t argue. “I’ll tell the security director to run an analysis.”
“No. I know you trust her completely, but it can’t be anyone who has responsibility in that area.”
“I can do it,” said Qiyem.
“You have access? Good. Send it via the secure link you used before.” She stood up. “The answer is here somewhere, Pilan. We just have to find it.”
Gabriel caught a glimpse of Sharon hurrying along the quayside, wrapped in a wind-whipped raincoat. He doubted it was giving her much protection from the deluge, which was washing down the transparent biopolymer membrane in rippling sheets. The interior of the Thames Tidal project office felt watery, cool and slightly gray; everything outside was refracted and distorted, as if seen in some strangely warped mirror. The first true storm of autumn appeared to be trying to submerge them entirely, drenching the topside levels of the amphibious building as thoroughly as those below the waterline. Standing at the window with a steaming cup of tea in his hands, Gabriel thought that perhaps this was what it was like to see and move and breathe and live underwater.
He glanced around, past colleagues clustered at workstations in intense, quiet discussion or working with heads bent and webbed fingers flying, to where Agwé was sitting. It was the kind of notion that she, with her eye for composition and documentarian’s feeling for perspective, would appreciate—but she too was concentrating, earbuds in, hands dancing across screens, the activity light on her band pulsing softly. As he was the one who’d requested the last-minute edits, he could hardly interrupt her.
Qiyem walked by, head turning to watch Agwé as he did so. As always, his tablet was in hand, although his band was in place; as always, its light was a steady standby blue. Gabriel sighed inwardly and told himself not to mind. Qiyem was not the only person who used the band to guard against the risk of having his mind read, and he could guess at least one of the things the compliance coordinator did not want him, of all people, to know.
As though aware of the thought, Qiyem looked across at him and their eyes met. Gabriel nodded a greeting; Qiyem stared back, unsmiling. For the briefest of moments his expression was a mixture of the usual jealousy and, oddly, contempt. Dropping his gaze to the tablet, he began to tap away ostentatiously.
Gabriel turned back to the window and sipped his tea. That’s it, he thought. I’m done trying. No one quite knew what Qiyem’s problem was, why he was so remote and unsociable—he labored as hard as any of them for Thames Tidal, though he never looked inspired or sounded passionate about the company. Agwé had once declared he was more go-along than gillung. Gabriel had laughed heartily, although he suspected there was more to his reserve than that. But Qiyem had rebuffed every attempt to get to know him better, anything that tended toward friendliness.
He wouldn’t rebuff Agwé, though, and Gabriel was quite sure she knew it—but he hadn’t appeared to grasp that his coolness toward the people she liked left her with no reason to like him back.
Whatever. Gabriel buried the sting of this latest snub in that knowledge, staring out at the rain-washed basin as Qiyem passed behind him. He wondered what would happen in the months to come when it became evident that there were no more submissions to coordinate, no need for an ongoing liaison with Planning; and that, in spite of his talents, no one wanted Qiyem in their team.
Don’t be spiteful, Gabriel, he scolded himself. Think about something else. Resting a hand against the gently curving biopolymer, cool but not cold against his palm, he squinted at the material. It was latticed through with a silver-white honeycomb of fibers, a unique cellular geometry that gave the walls strength and rigidity, while keeping enormous energies in quantum stasis. He had struggled to grasp the sheer scale of what was stored there, until one of the engineers explained in terms morbid enough for any teenage imagination. Now he found himself contemplating the power beneath his palm: Here in this hand’s-breath, this finger’s-width, the curve of a nail, is enough to take my hand, my arm, my life. Right here against my skin, completely safe. It was like stroking a tame dragon.
Agwé would like that notion too, though perhaps it wasn’t the best metaphor with which to calm an anxious public. A new alert popped into his consciousness; he sent the fee
d to his workstation and closed his eyes as he formed another, less familiar command.
The background hum in his brain dimmed as the content flagged up by the monitor apps became intelligible. He suspected the new app would scare as many users as it enticed. No longer just a command-and-response interface between user and equipment, it turned the cranial band into a kind of translator: a conduit that converted stream chatter into mental conversation. It would be the closest thing to telepathy most people would ever know, if it could be perfected enough to work for someone who was not already a telepath. So far, Gabriel had his doubts.
He was pleased to see how quickly the input resolved into a coherent dialogue. He was less pleased with the discussion itself. It lacked the emotional resonance of human thought, but the meaning was clear enough.
> [City Council rejection of petition to delay TTP pure political gerrymandering. They have failed the people.]
> {Expected better? All in the pocket of the New-nited People!}
> [Quantum storage could be a catastrophe for Thames Estuary. Should never have been allowed. Next “sabotage” target?!]
> (What about fishes crabs plants etc. Power radiation equipment, what will it do to them.)
> {What’ll it do to US? Eat quantum-farmed lobster! Grow your own gills!}
> (Is that true!?)
> {Guess we’ll find out!}
> [Police response inappropriate & unacceptable. Should have supported postponement until investigation complete.]
> {Better luck next time, hey? Can’t get the staff.}
> (Another petition?)
> [Can’t tell what might disrupt quantum containment. TTP denials not credible.]
> {We’ll see if electricity & water mix after all! KABOOM!!!}
Gabriel slid into his chair, his tea unfinished and all but forgotten. He checked their IDs onscreen, making a mental note to let Herran know that while this latest version of the app could distinguish between different participants, it was no good at communicating their identities. The pompous complainant about the failed petition turned out, predictably, to be the group that had sponsored it: @EstPresSoc, the Estuary Preservation Society. The credulous streamer ready to believe in mutant shellfish looked like a real person. Kaboom was obviously an avatar: a syntactically generated alphanumeric ID, a boilerplate profile and a timeline that went back all of ten minutes. They were randomly generated, existing only for the duration of a particular streamchat and then were never seen again—an increasingly common tactic among corporate rivals and lobbyists, despite breaching the Code of Practice they all claimed to abide by.
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