Century Rain

by Alastair Reynolds

  “Because we’re inside an ALS sphere?”

  “Exactly. And whatever other functions that sphere has to serve, the one thing it presumably must do is provide a convincing backdrop for the world it contains.”

  The sun had begun to edge over the rooftops on the other side of the Seine.

  “Then what’s that?” Auger said.

  “A fake sun. A source of light and heat, nothing more. We know there’s no room for a real sun inside an ALS—not if you’re going to squeeze a planet in there as well. So whatever that is, it must be painted on to the inner surface of the sphere.”

  “It looks real to me.”

  “Of course, but you’re stuck on the surface of this planet with a fixed point of view—as is everyone else here.”

  “What about the Moon? Is that real?”

  “We don’t know. It looks real enough, and the Slasher intelligence suggests that some of the worlds inside ALS objects have their own moons. But without being able to get out there and check, it could be made of green cheese for all we know. Whatever the case, something raises lunar tides, and something takes care of the solar component as well. They’ve certainly covered the obvious details.”

  “They’d have to, to maintain the illusion.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So what about the non-obvious ones?”

  “That’s where astronomy comes in. Thing is, Auger, given the inevitable limitations, it would be pretty difficult to maintain this illusion for ever. They can fake the Sun and the Moon, and the stars in the night sky. They can even fake parallactic movements of the stars, to make it seem as if the Earth is orbiting the Sun. They can fake eclipses and a whole lot more. But there has to be a limit. The shell might be able to withstand scrutiny from the kind of astronomy they have here. But there is no radio astronomy here, no space-based astronomy. If any of those technologies came along, I doubt that the illusion could be sustained for very long.”

  “But we had radio astronomy by now.”

  “Another by-product of the Second World War. We also had space-based astronomy—not to mention interplanetary space probes—within a decade or so. Any one of those things would be the clincher, Auger.”

  “What would happen if the people living here discovered the illusion?”

  “Anyone’s guess. The news might cause society to unravel overnight. Or it might spur on a technological revolution, enabling them to develop the tools necessary to break through the sphere. If that were to happen, I doubt that it would take them more than a generation or two.”

  “They might even overtake us,” Auger said.

  “That, too. The point is, within a relatively short period of time they may have the means to test the accuracy of the ALS. If they find an error—some detail that doesn’t make sense—then we’ll know for sure that it isn’t a simulation, because a simulation could be as perfect as its builders wished. We’ll also know—finally—that this isn’t the real past, the real nineteen fifty-nine.”

  Auger looked at her companion. “As if that was ever likely. The maps already tell us that this isn’t any slice of history from our own past.”

  “But we can’t be absolutely sure of that,” Skellsgard said. “You’re making a judgement based on your own historical knowledge, and concluding that the maps don’t fit into it.”

  “I guess so,” Auger allowed.

  “But your knowledge is a construct stitched together from the wreckage left behind by the Nanocaust. It’s incomplete and quite possibly wrong in key details.”

  “Innocent mistakes.”

  “Maybe, but it could be more than that. It would have been the ideal time for someone to doctor the records, to change our view of the past to suit their own needs.”

  “Which sounds suspiciously like paranoid conspiracy-mongering to me.”

  “All I’m saying is that whenever we make any judgements about the nature of the nineteen-fifty-nine timeline here, we have to keep in mind that our own historical knowledge is incomplete and possibly flawed.”

  “All the same… you don’t seriously believe that you’ve actually opened a window into the past, do you?”

  “It was an issue,” Skellsgard said. “A serious one, too, because the one thing we didn’t want to do was screw around with our own timeline. That was why we brought your predecessor on to the team.”

  “Susan?”

  “Her job was to sift the evidence, to roam around the environment, measuring it against our historical knowledge. In the end she found a number of instances where this version of Paris flatly contradicts what we have excavated on E1—for instance, structures that had been demolished here but which still existed at the time of the Nanocaust. Susan’s preliminary conclusion: whatever this place is, it isn’t a window into our past.”

  “I’m glad you sorted that out.”

  “Susan was supposed to tie together all the evidence and make a definitive report. But then she got sidetracked—”

  “And killed,” Auger said darkly.

  “Yes.”

  Auger slowed her footsteps. “This boxful of papers I’m supposed to find—do you think it relates to what you’ve just been talking about?”

  “Until we see what’s in it, we won’t know.”

  “It seems to me,” Auger said, “that Susan would have made her mind up pretty quickly about this timeline. It wouldn’t have taken her long to figure out this wasn’t our nineteen fifty-nine. So what else was she interested in?”

  “Susan kept digging,” Skellsgard said. “It wasn’t enough for her just to hand in that report and not want to know more about what had happened here. She wanted answers to her questions. She wanted to know who made this place, and why. She wanted to discover the precise moment at which it diverged from our history, and she wanted to know why that happened as well. Was it a chaotic accumulation of small changes, a snowballing butterfly effect, or did some single, deliberate act of intervention change history? And if so, who was responsible for that? And if someone did that, are they still working behind the scenes, influencing things?”

  “Which brings us back to your theory about arrested development.”

  “The thing is, Auger, if someone is working behind the scenes—for whatever reason—they probably wouldn’t have taken too kindly to Susan digging around the way she did.”

  “She was an archaeologist,” Auger said. “Digging is what we do.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Skellsgard said.

  They boarded a train at Saint-Germain-des-Prés and took the number four line to Montparnasse-Bienvenüe, then changed on to the elevated number six line, taking it west across the rooftops to Dupleix. The train was full of people on their way to work, strap-hanging in long grey raincoats, heads buried in the morning editions. Nobody paid much attention to the view through the windows, but it was all Auger could do to stop herself gasping in wonder at the panorama of the city sliding by outside, meticulous in every detail. It was both exactly as she had imagined it would be and nothing at all like she had expected. The old photographs could only convey so much. There was an entire human texture that simply hadn’t registered, like the absence of colour in a monochrome print. Everywhere she looked in the angled, intersecting streets, she saw people going about their business, and it was both marvellous and chilling to think of them having their own lives, their own dreams and regrets, knowing nothing of what they really were. Auger felt a shaming, voyeuristic thrill, and snapped her attention away as soon as anyone was in danger of meeting her gaze.

  At Dupleix they left the train, descending a latticed iron staircase to street level. They walked down de Lourmel until it intersected with Emile Zola, and then walked a short way along Zola until they reached a pale-stone five-storey establishment that identified itself as the Hôtel Royale.

  “You’re booked in here for three days,” Skellsgard said, as they walked into the carpet-lined lobby, “but chances are you’ll be out a lot sooner than that. If you need to stay longer,
you have more than enough cash to cover your expenses.”

  Behind the lobby counter, the concierge was busy signing in a couple who must have arrived on an overnight train. They were flustered, and appeared to be disputing some detail of their booking.

  “Promise me one thing,” Auger said.

  “I don’t do promises, but let’s hear it.”

  “If this works out—if I get your precious box of papers back into safe hands—then let me have some time here alone.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I’m here already, Maurya. What harm can it do?”

  “Aveling won’t like it.”

  “Aveling can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. The least he can give me is some time to play tourist.”

  “He’ll say the deal was no tribunal, nothing more.”

  The couple moved away from the desk to the waiting elevator and the concierge beckoned Auger and Skellsgard forward. Auger shifted mental gears, forcing herself to speak French. The words emerged with surprising fluidity, as if some stiff part of her mind had suddenly been tuned and lubricated.

  “My name is Auger,” she said. “I have a reservation for the next three nights.”

  “Certainly, madame.” The concierge glanced at Auger, then Skellsgard, then back to Auger. “Your bags have already arrived. How was your journey?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  He handed her the room key. “Number twenty-seven. I will have your luggage sent up in a moment.”

  “Is there a telephone in the room?”

  “Of course, madame. We are a modern establishment.”

  She took the key and turned back to Skellsgard. “Guess I’m on my own now.”

  “You have the telephone number of the safe house near the station. One of us will be there around the clock. Call to keep us updated on what happens over the next few days. We’ll need to arrange downtime when you return to the tunnel.”

  “Somehow, I think I’ll remember.”

  “And go easy with Blanchard. If he doesn’t hand over the goods on the first try, don’t turn up the pressure. We don’t want him getting wind that they’re more valuable than they appear, or he may do something rash.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I know you will, Auger.” Skellsgard leaned in and gave her a quick sisterly hug. “Take care, all right?”

  “Whatever happens,” Auger said, “I’ll be glad I’ve seen this much.”

  “I’ll see what I can swing with Aveling about getting you some tourist time. No promises, OK?”

  “No promises.”

  Behind Auger, the elevator chimed open.

  The telephone was an antique, but she had handled examples like it in the museum section back home, lovingly restored and wired into a simple telephonic network. She entered the Paris number a digit at a time, waiting for the pleasant whirr as the clockwork dial spun sedately back around to its starting position. Slow, but calming. Even in the entering of a number, there was time for reflection. The task could be safely abandoned before completion. A well-bred Slasher, used to near-instantaneous communication, would have regarded the rotary telephone as not much of an improvement over semaphore. To a Thresher, by contrast, there was something deeply reassuring and trustworthy about any kind of electromechanical hardware. It couldn’t lie, or distort the information it carried. It couldn’t invade the mind or the flesh.

  At the far end of the line, a similar telephone rang. Auger felt an impulse to hang up before Blanchard responded, convinced that she wasn’t ready to go through with this. Her palm was slippery on the handset. But she forced herself to stay on the line, and after another few moments someone answered.

  An old man’s voice said, “Blanchard.”

  “Good morning, monsieur,” she replied in French. “My name is Verity Auger. I’m not sure if you know my name, but—”

  “Verity? As in the sister of Mademoiselle Susan White?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m calling about…”

  Out of courtesy, or some misguided need to demonstrate his own skill, he shifted to English. His native French accent was obvious, but his speech was perfectly comprehensible. “Miss Auger, I am not sure if you have heard the news. If not, then perhaps—”

  “It’s all right, sir,” she interrupted, also switching to English. “I know what happened to my sister.” She heard an intake of breath: relief, perhaps, that he didn’t have to break that particular piece of news to her.

  “I am very, very sorry about what happened to her. I was fortunate to know your sister quite well. She was a very nice young woman.”

  “Susan spoke well of you, sir. It’s obvious that she thought of you as someone she could trust.”

  “You speak of her belongings?”

  “Yes,” Auger replied, glad that he had raised the subject without prodding. “I understand that my sister left some items—”

  “It’s not much,” he said quickly, as if she might be expecting the crown jewels.

  “I never expected it to be, sir. All the same, whatever she left still has value to us… to her family, I mean.”

  “Of course. Might I ask where you are calling from, Miss Auger?”

  “Paris, sir. A hotel in the fifteenth.”

  “Then you are really not very far away. You can take the number six line to place d’Italie, and then walk the remaining distance. Shall we make an appointment?”

  She knew she mustn’t sound too surprised that he had agreed to hand over the box so easily. “Any time you like, sir.”

  “At the moment the box is not in my possession. I gave it to a private detective who is investigating the circumstances surrounding Susan’s death.”

  “Circumstances, sir?”

  “The possibility that it may not have been accidental,” he elaborated.

  Auger’s hand tightened on the phone. At no point in her briefing had anyone mentioned a private detective snooping around. It had to be a new development, something Aveling and the others didn’t know about.

  Already she was off-script.

  “It’s really kind of you to take an interest, sir. This detective—”

  “Oh, don’t worry about him. I’m quite sure he’s had time to examine Susan’s things thoroughly by now.”

  “Then when would be—”

  “An associate of the detective is here now. I can speak to him and arrange for the items to be back in my possession by… shall we say by the end of the afternoon?”

  “The end of the afternoon? Today, sir?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Not at all, sir. Not in the least.” Her heart was thudding in her chest.

  “Let me have the name of your hotel and the telephone number. We shall say four o’clock in number twenty-three rue des Peupliers, unless you hear from me. If you press the buzzer by my name, I shall let you into the building. My rooms are on the third floor.”

  “That’s perfect, sir.”

  “I very much look forward to making your acquaintance, Miss Auger.”

  “And I look forward to meeting you, sir,” she replied.

  Basso opened the door to his tiny flat in porte d’Asnières, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. “Wendell,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d remember the way. Is that a patient you have with you?”

  Floyd offered the saxophone case. “She probably needs a little attention.”

  “I thought you said you had nothing that needed repairing.”

  “I did,” Floyd said. “But I’m sure you can find something wrong with it.”

  Basso took the case and placed it down on the table next to his umbrella stand. “You’re too kind. I am sure that the saxophone is in excellent health. But I never turn down a patient.” He peered over Floyd’s shoulder. “Are you still driving that old relic?”

  “It’s difficult to fit a double bass into anything smaller.”

  Basso shook his head amusedly. “You’ll still be saying the same thing when that car�
��s forty years old. Now come in and have some tea.”

  Floyd removed his fedora. “Actually, I could really use some coffee. As strong as you can manage.”

  “Like that, is it?”

  Basso ushered Floyd into his dark living room. An unfeasible number of clocks ticked and whirred to themselves, some mounted on the walls, others perched on shelves and on the long granite mantelpiece. Supporting himself with a stick, Basso shuffled to one of the clocks, swung open its case and made some tiny adjustment with a tool he carried in his pocket.

  “I was thinking about what you said about the spheres,” Floyd said. “Being bells, I mean.”

  Basso wandered into his kitchen and raised his voice. “What about them?”

  “I don’t see how they could be. I’ve never heard of a completely round bell. How would it chime?

  “I didn’t mean that kind of bell, you buffoon. I meant diving bells, the kind you climb into. The size seemed about right.”

  “But they’re solid.”

  After a little while, Basso came back in with a single cup of coffee. It had the stiff, black consistency of marine fuel oil: just the ticket, as far as Floyd was concerned.

  “When you said solid, I didn’t think you meant solid all the way through. I assumed you meant that the shells were to be formed from solid metal with no perforations or joints.”

  “I’m pretty sure they’re solid spheres.”

  “Let me see the sketch.”

  Floyd passed him the paper and sat quietly, ingesting the coffee, while Basso turned the paper this way and that, squinting and frowning. A few seconds before eleven, there came a series of near-simultaneous clicks and ratcheting sounds from the clocks, as of mechanisms gearing up, and precisely on the hour the assembled clocks emitted a cacophony of chimes that lasted the better part of a minute. During this time, Basso continued studying the sheet of paper as if nothing was happening.

  When the clocks had settled down again, he lifted his face towards Floyd and said, “Well, you’re right. It is solid, and it does seem to be about the size you mentioned.” With a blunt forefinger he traced the other faint lines marked on the paper. “This seems to be some kind of support arrangement, to suspend the sphere. Why the fine cables, I wonder?” His finger moved again. “This seems to be a kind of cross-section through a vat or tub. At a guess, I suspect that the sphere is supposed to be immersed in whatever goes into this tub.”