Prefect

by Alastair Reynolds

  "You've always vouched for Thalia Ng," Crissel said. "Her promotion to field was fast-tracked on your recommendation. Beginning to look like a mistake now, isn't it?"

  "I still have total faith in her."

  "Touching, undoubtedly, but the fact is she's visited four habitats and now they've all fallen silent. All she had to do was make a series of minor polling core upgrades. At the very least, doesn't that suggest procedural incompetence?"

  "Not from where I'm standing."

  "What, then?" Crissel asked, fascinated.

  "I think it's possible ... " But Dreyfus tailed off, feeling a sudden reluctance to state his theory openly. The seniors regarded him with stony-faced indifference. "The deep-system cruiser that rescued us — is it still flight-ready?" he asked.

  Baudry spoke now. "Why do you ask?"

  "Because the one way to settle this is to pay a visit to Aubusson. That's where Thalia was due last. If one of my deputies is in trouble, I'd like to know about it."

  "You've done enough gallivanting around for now," Gaffney said. "We're in a state of emergency, in case you hadn't noticed."

  Baudry coughed gently. "Let's deal with the other matter, shall we? And please — sit down."

  "What matter would that be?" asked Dreyfus with exaggerated civility. But he took his seat as Baudry had requested.

  "You brought a Conjoiner into Panoply, in express contravention of protocol."

  Dreyfus shrugged. "Protocol can take a hike."

  "She can read our goddamn machines, Tom." Baudry looked to the others for support. "She's a walking surveillance system. Every operational secret in our core is hers for the taking, and you let her stroll into Panoply without even putting a Faraday cage around her skull."

  Dreyfus leaned closer. "Isn't it written down somewhere that we look after victims and go after criminals?"

  Crissel looked exasperated. "We're not the law-enforcement agency you seem to think we are, Tom. We're here to ensure that the democratic apparatus functions smoothly. We're here to punish fraudulent voting. That's it."

  "My personal remit extends further than that, but you're welcome to yours."

  "Let's focus on the matter at hand — the Conjoiner woman," Baudry said insistently. "She may already have done incalculable harm in the short time she's been inside Panoply. That can't be helped now. What we can do is make sure that she doesn't do any more damage."

  "Do you want me to throw her into space, or will you do it?"

  "Let's be adult about this, shall we?" Crissel said. "If the Spi- if the Conjoiner woman is a witness, then naturally she must be protected. But not at the expense of our operational secrets. She must be moved to a maximum-security holding facility."

  "You mean an interrogation bubble."

  Crissel looked pained. "Call it what you like. She'll be safer there. More importantly, so will we."

  "She'll be moved when Mercier says she's well enough," Dreyfus said.

  "Is she breathing?" When Dreyfus said nothing, Crissel looked satisfied. "Then she's well enough to be moved. She isn't going to die on us, Tom. She's a survival machine. The human equivalent of a scorpion."

  "Or a spider," Dreyfus said.

  There was a gentle tap on the main doors. Crissel's eyes flashed angrily to the widening gap. A low-ranking operative — a girl barely out of her teens, with a pageboy haircut — entered the room timidly. "Pardon, Seniors, but I was asked to bring this to your attention."

  "It'd better be good," Crissel said.

  "CTC contacted us, sirs. They say they're picking up reports about House Aubusson and the Chevelure-Sambuke Hourglass."

  "They're off the network. Yes. We know."

  "It's more than that, sir." The girl placed the compad on the table, next to Gaffney. He picked it up by one corner, inhaling slowly as he digested its message. Without a word he slid it to Crissel. He glanced at it, glanced again, then passed the compad to Baudry. She read it, her lips moving slowly as she did so, as if she needed the sound of her own voice to lend the report a degree of reality.

  Then she slid the compad over to Dreyfus.

  "He doesn't have authority," Crissel said.

  "His deputy's inside Aubusson. He needs to see this."

  Dreyfus took the compad and read it for himself. His Pangolin boost was fading and it took more than the usual effort to read the words. At first he was convinced that he had made a mistake, despite the fears he was already nursing.

  But there had been no error.

  Two separate but similar incidents had occurred, within a few minutes of each other. One ship had been on final approach for docking at the Chevelure-Sambuke Hourglass when it was fired on by the habitat with what appeared to be normal anti-collision defences. The ship had sustained a near-fatal hull breach, too large to be patched by the intervention of quickmatter repair systems. The ship had abandoned its docking approach and put out an emergency distress signal, to which CTC had responded by redirecting two nearby vessels. The crew of the damaged ship had all survived, albeit with decompression injuries.

  The second ship, on an approach to House Aubusson, had been less fortunate. The anti-collision defences had gored it open in an instant, spilling air and life into space. Its crew had died with merciful speed, but the ship itself had retained enough sentience to put out its own distress signal. CTC had again directed passing traffic to offer assistance, but this time there was nothing that could be done to save the victims.

  All this had happened within the last eighteen minutes.

  "I think we can safely rule out coincidence," Dreyfus said, placing the compad back on the table.

  "What are we dealing with?" Baudry asked with rigid composure. "A systemic defence-system malfunction triggered by the loss of abstraction? Could that be the answer?"

  "Everything I know about defence systems says that they can't malfunction in this way," Crissel said.

  "Yet it rather looks as if someone doesn't want anyone coming or going from those habitats," Gaffney observed, reading the CTC report again.

  "And the other two?" Baudry asked. "What about those?"

  "They're isolationist," Dreyfus said. "New Seattle-Tacoma is a haven for people who want their brains plugged into abstraction and don't care what happens to their physical bodies. Szlumper Oneill is a Voluntary Tyranny gone sour. Either way, neither's going to see much in- or outgoing traffic on a given day."

  "He's right," Crissel said, favouring Dreyfus with a conciliatory nod. He turned to the still-waiting operative. "You're still in contact with CTC?" Without waiting for an answer or conferring with the other seniors, he continued, "Have them identify four unmanned cargo drones currently passing near the four habitats. Then put them on normal docking trajectories, just as if they were on scheduled approaches. If these were malfunctions, then someone inside may have had time to disable the anti-collision systems by now. If they weren't, we'll have confirmation that we're not dealing with one-off incidents."

  "There'll be hell to pay," Gaffney said, shaking his head. "Whatever those cargo drones are hauling, someone owns it."

  "Then I hope they have good insurance," Crissel replied tersely. "CTC has the right to requisition any civilian traffic moving inside the Glitter Band, manned or otherwise. Just because that clause hasn't been invoked in a century or so doesn't mean it isn't still valid."

  "I agree," Dreyfus said. "This is the logical course of action. If you were still allowing Jane her rightful authority, she'd agree to it as well."

  The operative coughed awkwardly. "I'll get on to CTC immediately, sir."

  Crissel nodded. "Tell them not to hang around. I don't want to have to wait hours before finding out what we're looking at here."

  An icy silence endured for many seconds after the girl had left the room. It fell to Dreyfus to break it. "Let's not kid ourselves," he said. "We know exactly what's going to happen to those drones."

  "We still need confirmation," Crissel said.

  "Agreed. But we also nee
d to start thinking about what we do once the news comes in."

  "Hypothesise for a moment," Baudry said, a quaver in her voice that she could not quite conceal. "Could we be dealing with a breakaway movement? Four states that wish to secede from the umbrella of Panoply and the Glitter Band?"

  "If they wanted to, they'd be free to do so," Dreyfus said. "The mechanism already exists, and it doesn't require shooting down approaching ships."

  "Maybe they don't want to secede on our terms," Baudry said, in the manner of one advancing the suggestion for debating's sake rather than out of any deep personal conviction that it was likely.

  Crissel nodded patiently. "Maybe they don't. But once you've decided to opt out of Panoply's protection, out of the democratic apparatus, what do you gain from staying inside the Glitter Band anyway?"

  "Not much," Dreyfus said. "Which is why this can't be an attempt at secession."

  "A hostage situation?" Baudry speculated. "Fits the facts so far, doesn't it?"

  "For now," Dreyfus allowed.

  "But you don't think that's what we're looking at."

  "You don't take hostages unless there's something you want that you don't already have."

  Crissel looked pleased with himself. "Everyone wants to be richer."

  "Maybe they do," Dreyfus answered, "but there's no way hostage-taking is going to achieve that for you."

  "So they're not trying to become richer," Baudry said. "That still leaves a universe of possibilities. Suppose someone doesn't just want to opt out of our system of government, but dismantle it completely?"

  Dreyfus shook his head. "Why would they want to? If someone wants to experiment with a different social model, they're welcome to do so. All they have to do is recruit enough willing collaborators to set up a new state. Provided they let their citizens have the vote, they can even stay within the apparatus. That's why we have freak shows like the Voluntary Tyrannies. Someone somewhere decided they wanted to live in that kind of place."

  "But like you said, they have to abide by certain core principles. Maybe they find even those basic strictures too stifling. Perhaps they want to force a single political model on the entire Glitter Band. Ideological zealots, for instance: political or religious extremists who won't rest until they force everyone else to see things their way."

  "You might have something if we weren't looking at four completely disparate communities. Thalia's habitats have almost nothing in common with each other."

  "All right," Baudry said, clearly wearying of debate. "If it isn't about forcing through a political end, what is it about?"

  Once again Dreyfus thought back to the things he had learned inside the Nerval-Lermontov rock, including the possibility that not everyone in the room could necessarily be trusted. He had wanted more time to evaluate his position, more time in which to bring at least one of the other seniors around to his side and use them as leverage to put Aumonier back into the saddle. But the news concerning the latest attacks had forced his hand sooner that he would have wished. He had to say something or he would be guilty of withholding vital data from his own organisation.

  "The prisoner told me something," he said, choosing his words with exquisite care, like a man picking his way through a minefield. "Obviously, I can't be certain that she was telling the truth, or that her isolation hadn't turned her insane. But all my instincts — all my old policeman's instincts, you might say — told me she was on the level."

  "Then perhaps you'd better tell us," Gaffney said.

  "Clepsydra believes that some group or organisation within the Glitter Band has obtained intelligence concerning a coming crisis. Something worse than what we're facing now, even given the latest news."

  "What kind of crisis?" Baudry asked.

  "Something catastrophic. Something in the order of a collapse of the entire social matrix, if not the end of the Glitter Band itself."

  "Preposterous," Crissel said.

  Gaffney raised a restraining hand. "No. Let's hear him out."

  "Clepsydra believes that this group or organisation has devised a plan for averting whatever disaster they've seen coming, even if that means denying us our usual liberties."

  Baudry nodded in the general direction of the Solid Orrery. "And the blackout, the hostile actions we've just heard about?"

  "I think we could be seeing the start of a takeover bid."

  "Voi," Baudry answered sharply. "You're not serious. Surely you're not serious."

  "Makes perfect sense to me," Dreyfus said. "If we couldn't be trusted to guarantee the future security of the Glitter Band, what would you do?"

  "But only four habitats ... there are ten thousand more out there that are still ours!"

  "I think Thalia was the key," Dreyfus said. "Unwittingly, of course. Her code was contaminated. It must have been tampered with to open a security loophole that didn't exist before. Thalia was supposed to make that upgrade Bandwide, across the entire ten thousand, in one fell swoop."

  "But she didn't want to do that, I recall," said Baudry.

  "No," said Dreyfus. "She insisted on identifying four of the likely worst cases and running manual installations. That way she could correct errors in realtime, on the spot, and make sure no one was without their precious abstraction for more than a few minutes. Once she'd supervised those four installations, she could tweak the code to make sure the remaining ten thousand went without a hitch."

  "But those habitats have been without abstraction for hours," Crissel said.

  "That isn't Thalia's fault. Her diligence didn't cause this, Michael. It prevented an even worse crisis. If Thalia had done the easy, obvious thing, we wouldn't be looking at four habitats off abstraction, we'd be looking at ten thousand. The takeover would be complete. We'd have lost the Glitter Band."

  "Now let's not get carried away," Gaffney said, smiling at the others. "We have enough of a mess to deal with without indulging in apocalyptic fantasies."

  "It isn't a fantasy," Dreyfus said. "Someone wanted this to happen."

  "Why, though?" Crissel asked. "What group of people could possibly organise themselves to seize control of the entire Band? It's one thing to take habitats off abstraction. But the citizens inside won't just roll over and accept that. You'd need an armed militia to actually subjugate them. Thousands of people for each habitat, at the very least. We'd be looking at an invisible army ten million strong just to have a chance of making this work. If there was a movement that powerful, that coordinated, we'd have seen it coming years ago."

  "Maybe it's a different kind of takeover," Dreyfus said.

  "What did the Conjoiner say about the people behind this?" asked Baudry.

  "Not much." Dreyfus hesitated, conscious that every divulgence carried a measurable risk. "I got a name. A figure called Aurora. She may have some connection to the Nerval-Lermontov family."

  Baudry peered at him. "They lost a daughter in the Eighty. Her name was Aurora, I believe. You're not seriously suggesting — "

  "I'm not making any inferences. Maybe I can get more out of Clepsydra when she's feeling stronger, and she's certain she can trust us."

  "You're worried about her trusting us?" Baudry said.

  A knock at the door signalled the return of the operator. She entered the room with a trace less diffidence than before.

  "And?" Gaffney asked.

  "The drones have been requisitioned, sirs. First is scheduled to dock at Szlumper Oneill in eleven minutes. Within twenty-two minutes, the remaining three will have completed approaches to their respective habitats."

  "Very good," Gaffney allowed.

  "I've secured high-res visual feeds of all four habitats, sirs. I can pipe the observations through to the Solid Orrery, with your permission."

  Gaffney nodded. "Do it."

  The Solid Orrery reconfigured itself, allocating much of its quickmatter resources to providing scaled-up representations of the four silent communities. They swelled to the size of fruit, while the rest of the Glitter Band shra
nk down to a third of its former size. Tiny moving jewels signified the requisitioned drones, steered onto docking approaches. The prefects watched the spectacle wordlessly as the minutes oozed by.

  Make me wrong, Dreyfus thought. Make all this turn out to be the deluded fabulation of a worn-out field prefect, resentful at the shabby treatment accorded his boss. Make Clepsydra's testimony turn out to be the burblings of a mad woman, driven insane by years of isolation. Show us that Thalia Ng really did make mistakes, despite everything I know to the contrary. Show us that the first two attacks were accidents caused by hair-trigger defence systems twitching like headless snakes when abstraction went down.

  But it wasn't to be. Eleven minutes after the girl had spoken, the anti-collision systems of Szlumper Oneill opened fire on the approaching drone, destroying it utterly. If anything the fire was more concentrated, more purposeful, than on the previous two occasions. The jewel-like representation of the drone swelled to a thumb-sized smear of twinkling light, then reformed into the pulsing tetrahedral icon that symbolised an object of unknown status.

  Three minutes later a second drone attempted to dock at House Aubusson, and met with precisely the same fate. Five minutes after that, a third drone was annihilated as it braked to engage with Carousel New Seattle-Tacoma. Three minutes after that, twenty-two minutes since the girl had spoken, the guns of the Chevelure-Sambuke Hourglass directed savage fire on the final drone.

  The Solid Orrery reformed itself into its usual configuration. A brittle silence ensued.

  "So maybe it's war after all," Baudry said eventually.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 17

  * * *

  The isolation chamber was clad in a honeycomb of identical interlocking grey panels, one of which functioned as a passwall. A handful of the panels were illuminated at any one time, but the pattern changed slowly and randomly, robbing the weightless prisoner of any fixed frame of reference. Clepsydra was floating, knees raised to her chest, arms linked around her shins. The patterns of lights erased all shadow, lending her the two-dimensional appearance of a cut-out. She appeared to be unconscious, but it was common knowledge that Conjoiners did not partake of anything resembling normal mammalian sleep.