Feersum Endjinn

1

'Face.'

She stared at her reflection in the pool, then drank some more, then waited for the water to settle and looked at her face, then drank some more.

'No more thirst. Stand up. Look around. Blue. White. Green. More green. Red white yellow blue brown pink. Sky clouds trees grass flowers bark. The sky is blue. The water is not colour, is clear. Water shows thing on other side. Of angle. This is. Reflect. Shone. Reflection. Redflection. Blueflection. Hmm. No.

'Time to walk again.'

She followed the path along the floor of the little valley, the sound of the water in the stream never far away.

'Fly-thing! Oh. Pretty. Is called bird. Birds.'

She walked through a small copse of trees. A warm wind rustled the leaves over her head. She stopped to look at a flower on a bush by the stream bank. 'More prettiness.' She put her hand over the flower, then bowed her head, sucking in its scent. 'Smell of sweet.'

She smiled, then gripped the flower at the top of the stem and appeared to be about to tear it from its stem. Then she frowned, hesitated, looked around and finally let her hands fall back to her sides. She patted the blossom gently before resuming her walk. 'Bye-bye.'

The stream disappeared into a hole in the side of a grassy slope; steps carried the path winding upwards. She looked into the darkness of the tunnel. 'Black. Smell of… damp.' Then she took the steps to the top of the slope and found a broader path leading between tall bushes and small trees.

'Crunch crunch. Ow. Gravel. Feet. Ow ow ow. Walk on green. Walk on grass. Not pain… Better.'

In the distance, beyond a tall hedge, there was a tower.

'Building.' Then she came to something that made her stop and stare for some time; a huge square hedge in the shape of a castle, with four square towers, crenellations cut into its parapets, a raised drawbridge of exposed, intertwined tree-trunks and a moat of sunken, silver-leaved plants.

She stood at the side of the pretend moat, looking down at the ruffled silver surface, then up at the castle walls, rustling quietly in the breeze. She shook her head. 'Not water. Building? Not building.'

She shrugged, turned on her heel and walked on, still shaking her head. Another minute along the grassy margin of the long avenue took her to where a series of huge heads faced each other across the gravel.

Each head was two or three times her own height and made up of several different bushes and other types of plants, producing dark or light complexions, smooth or lined skin and varying hair colours. The lips were formed by leaves of a dusty-pink colour, the whites of the eyes by a plant similar to those impersonating the waters of the moat surrounding the castle-topiary further down the avenue, while the irises took their colour from clusters of tiny flowers of the appropriate shade.

She stood and looked at the first face for some time, and eventually smiled. She walked on in the direction of the distant tower, and only stopped again when one of the heads started to talk.

'… says there is no need to worry, and I think he is right. We are not primitives, after all. I mean, in the end it's just dust. Just a big dust cloud. And another ice age is not the end of the world. We shall have power. There are already whole cities underground, each full of light and heat, and more are being built all the time. They have parks, lakes, architecture of merit, and no shortage of facilities. The world might be different for the duration of the Encroachment, and doubtless altered considerably after it has passed, as it surely will; many species and artifacts will have to be artificially preserved, and the glaciers will affect the planet's geography, but we will survive. Why, if the worst came to the worst, we might enter suspended animation and wake to a newly scrubbed-clean planet and a bright fresh spring! Would that be so terrible?'

She stood, only half-understanding the words. Her mouth hung open. She had been sure the heads were not real. They were pretend, like the hedge-castle. But this one had a voice; a voice deeper than hers. She wondered if she ought to say something in return. Somehow she did not think it had actually been talking to her. Then the head used another voice, more like her own:

'If it is as you say, then no. But I've heard it may be much worse than that; people have talked of the world freezing, of every ocean becoming solid, of the sunlight reduced to the strength of moonlight, of this lasting for a thousand years, while others have said the sun will dim and then brighten; the dust will cause it to explode and all life on Earth will end.'

'You see,' said the first, deeper voice. 'Some say we shall freeze, while others maintain that we shall roast. As ever, the truth will lie between the extremes and so the result must be that nothing much will change and things will remain largely as they are, which is exactly what tends to happen most of the time anyway. I rest my case.'

She thought she ought to say something. 'I rest my case too,' she told the head.

'What?'

'Who — ?'

'Crisis! There's somebody —'

There were some noises from within the head, then a face appeared within the hedge-face, sticking out from the middle of one cheek. The face looked altogether heavier and thicker than her own; thin hair covered its top lip.

'Man,' she said to herself. 'Hello.'

'Grief,' the man said, his eyes wide. He looked her up and down. She looked down at her feet, frowning.

'Who is it?' said the other voice from within the head.

'A girl,' the man said, speaking over his shoulder. He grinned and looked her up and down again. 'A girl with no clothes on.' He laughed, looking back again. 'Bit like you.' There was a slap and he said, 'Ow!', then he disappeared.

She leant forward, wondering if she ought to look inside the head, while whispers and rustles came from within.

'Who is she?'

'No idea.'

The man and woman came out of the head. They wore clothes. The man held a light brown jacket.

'Trousers,' she said, pointing at the woman's brightly coloured pantaloons as she tucked her blouse in.

'Don't gape, Gil,' the woman told the man, who was standing smiling at her. 'Give her your jacket.'

'My pleasure,' the man said, and handed her the jacket. He brushed some leaves off his shirt and out of his hair.

She looked at his shirt, then put the jacket on, awkwardly but correctly. She stood there, her hands covered by the cuffs of the light jacket, which smelled musky.

'Hello,' she said again.

'Hello yourself,' the woman said. Her skin was pale and her hair was gold-coloured. The man was tall. He bowed, still grinning.

'My name is Gil,' he said. 'Gil Velteseri.' He indicated the woman. 'This is Lucia Chimbers.'

She nodded and smiled at the woman, who smiled back briefly.

'What is my name?' she asked the man.

'Ah… I beg your pardon?'

'My name,' she repeated. 'You are Gil Velteseri, this is Lucia Chimbers. I am who?'

They both stood looking at her for a moment. The woman looked down and tried to brush a smudge from her blouse. In a quiet, sing-song voice she said, 'Sim-ple-ton.'

The man laughed lightly. 'Ah-ha,' he said.

2

The wind was a never-ending edge within the air, a knife-wire sawing back and forth in Gadfium's throat and lungs with each laboured, wheezing breath. The plain was a dead flat, almost featureless expanse of dazzling, eye-watering whiteness four kilometres across, splayed beneath a darkened purple sky. A thin, desiccated wind cut out of the bruise-coloured vault and keened across the sterile salt-flats, picking up a thin dry spray of particles which turned the air into a chill shot-blast for exposed skin.

I am a fish, Gadfium thought, and might have laughed had she been able to breathe. A fish, dredged from the fluid-thick depths of warmth beneath us and dumped upon this high salt-crust of shore; landed here to suck in vain at the parched air and die drowning beneath a thin membrane of atmosphere where the stars shine clear and unwavering in daylight, in half the sky.

She motioned to the assistant observer, and the woman brought over the small oxygen cylinder. Gadfium gulped in the mask's cold cargo of gas, filling her lungs to their depths.

This morning at the oxygen works, this afternoon sampling their future product, she thought. She nodded gratefully to the assistant observer as she handed the cylinder back.

'Perhaps we ought to return inside now, Chief Scientist,' the woman said.

'In a moment.' Gadfium lifted the visor from her eyes and squinted through the binoculars again. Salt dust and sand swirled in twisted veils in front of her and the cold wind made her eyes water. The grey-black stones nearest the observatory looked like nothing more than giant pucks from some huge game of ice hockey. Each stone was about two metres in diameter, half a metre high and supposedly made of pure granite. They had been sliding about this plain for millennia, riding the sporadically slicked surface of the salt-bowl whenever snow had fallen and a wind subsequently blew. Any snow and ice the plain collected was turned to water by a combination of the pipework buried beneath the plain itself and by the reflected sunlight of mirrors shining from the twentieth level of the fast-tower, rearing bright and solid to the north, three kilometres away.

The Plain of Sliding Stones formed the flat roof of a complex of giant rooms on the eighth level of the fastness; these huge, almost empty, barely habitable spaces were arranged in a wheel-like formation, the exposed flank of which formed a great nave of kilometre-tall windows facing from south-south-east to west. It had always been assumed that the redundant systems of both buried pipework and tower-mirrors were there to ensure that no roof-destroying thickness of ice could ever accrue on the plain, though the reason the roof had been left flat in the first place had never been determined. Also unknown was exactly what the stones were there for, or how they contrived to move in ways that were subtly but undeniably at variance with the ways they should have moved according to both highly accurate computer models and carefully calibrated physical re-creations of their environment.

The mobile observatory — a three-storey sphere supported by eight long legs each tipped with a motor and tyre and resembling nothing more than an enormous spider — had been following the mysterious stones across the plain for hundreds of years, gathering vast amounts of data in the process but without really contributing anything of great note to the anyway rather exhausted debate concerning the origin and purpose of the stones. More had been learnt when one of the stones had been partially analysed centuries earlier, though as the crux of what had been learnt was that to start chipping bits off one of the stones was to draw down some highly focused and scientist-evaporating sunlight from the fast-tower's twentieth level (whether it was day or night), such a lesson was arguably something of a dead end.

Gadfium looked back out across the Plain of Sliding Stones, to the edge of the darkly livid sky. A chill gust of razor-wind stung her face and made her close her eyes, the salt like grit between orb and lid. She could taste the salt; her nose stung.

'Very well,' she said, dry-gasping in the meagre air. She turned from the balustrade and had to be half-led to the lock by the assistant observer.

'The circle began forming at six-thirteen this morning,' the chief observer told them. 'It was complete by six forty-two. All thirty-two stones are present. The distance between the stones is a uniform two metres — the same as their diameter. They have arranged themselves in a perfect circle with an accuracy of better than a tenth of a millimetre. The predicted-motion discrepancy factor for certain of the stones during the period they were forming the current pattern was as high as sixty per cent. It has never in the past exceeded twelve point three per cent and over the last decade has averaged below five per cent.'

Gadfium, her aide Rasfline and assistant Goscil, the mobile observatory's chief observer Clispeir and three out of the four junior observers — one was still on duty in the vehicle's control room — sat in the observatory mess.

'We are in the exact centre of the plain?' Gadfium asked.

'Yes, again to an accuracy of less than a tenth of a millimetre,' Clispeir replied. She was fragile-looking and prematurely aged, with wispily white hair. Gadfium had known her at university forty years earlier. Nevertheless, like the other observers she was able to operate without extra oxygen and pressurisation, which was much more than Gadfium felt able to do. That she, Rasfline and Goscil were able to breathe easily now was only because the observatory had been lightly pressurised for their comfort. Still, she told herself, they had travelled from barely a thousand metres above sea level to over eight kilometres higher in less than two hours, and a human-basic individual would already be suffering from altitude sickness to which she was genetically resistant, which was some con­solation.

'However the circle did not actually form around the obser­vatory.'

'No, ma'am. We were stationary a quarter kilometre from here, almost due north, waiting on the wind to rise following the precipitation and melt last night. The stones began to move at four forty-one, holding pattern T-8 with drift-factor one. They veered —'

'Perhaps a visual display would be more… graphic,' Goscil interrupted.

Embarrassed looks were exchanged around the mess-room table. 'Unfortunately,' Clispeir said, clearing her throat, 'the pattern formed during an observation-system down-time event.' She looked apologetically at Gadfium. 'We are, of course, only a very small and perhaps insignificant research station and I don't know if the chief scientist is aware of my reports detailing the increased incidence of maintenance-level-related breakdowns and our requests for increased funding over the last few years, but —'

'I see,' Rasfline said impatiently. 'Obviously you lack implants, ma'am, but I assume one or more of your juniors recorded the events in their habitua.'

'Well,' Clispeir said, looking uncomfortable. 'Actually, no; as it has turned out, the team here consists entirely of persons from Privileged backgrounds.'

Rasfline looked shocked. Goscil's mouth hung slightly open.

Clispeir smiled apologetically and spread her hands. 'It's just the way it's happened.'

'So you don't have anything on visual,' Rasfline said, contriving to sound at once bored and exasperated. Goscil blew some hair away from her face and looked crestfallen.

'Not of an acceptable standard,' Clispeir admitted. 'Observer Koir —' the elderly scientist nodded to one of the two young male observers, who smiled sheepishly '— took some footage on his own camera, but —'

'May we see it?' Rasfline asked, tapping his fingers on the table surface.

'Of course, though —'

'Ma'am, are you all right?' Goscil asked Gadfium.

'I'm — actually… no, not —' Gadfium slumped forward over the table, head on forearms, mumbling and then going quiet.

'Oh dear.'

'I think some oxygen —'

'I'm sorry; the observatory cannot be pressurised beyond this level, and we are so used to… we forget. Oh dear.'

'Thank you. Ma'am; oxygen.'

'Perhaps we should leave…'

'Let her lie down a moment first.'

'My cabin is at your disposal, of course.'

'I'm fine, really,' Gadfium mumbled. 'Bit of a headache.'

'Come; if you'd take her… that's it.'

'I'll bring the oxygen.'

'We should leave…'

'… always has to see things for herself.'

'All right really…'

'Down here.'

'Please don't fuss… How embarrassing… Terribly sorry.'

'Ma'am, please; save your breath.'

'Oh yes, sorry; how embarrassing…'

'Mind the steps.'

'Careful.'

'In here. Sorry, it is a little small; let me…'

Gadfium heard the voices of the others sounding loud in the small cabin, and felt herself lowered into a narrow bed. The oxygen mask was put to her face again.

'Let me stay with her. You take a look at observer Koir's recordings; I'm sure the others can answer any questions…'

'Are you sure? I could —'

'There now, dear; let one old lady look after another.'

'If you're certain…'

'Of course.'

When she heard the door close with a clunk and a wheezy hiss, Gadfium opened her eyes.

Clispeir's face was above her, smiling hesitantly. Gadfium looked warily round the small cabin. 'It is safe,' Clispeir whispered, 'providing we don't shout.'

'Clisp…' Gadfium said, sitting up and holding out her arms; they hugged for a moment.

'It is good to see you again, Gad.'

'And you,' Gadfium whispered. Then she took the other woman's hands in hers and gazed urgently into her eyes. 'Now; old friend, has it happened? Have we made contact with the tower?'

Clispeir could not contain her smile, though there was a hint of worry within it. 'Of a sort,' she said.

'Tell me.'

3

The Count Sessine had died many times. Once in an aircraft crash, once in a bathyscape accident, once at the hand of an assassin, once in a duel, once at the hand of a jealous lover, once at the hand of a lover's jealous husband and once of old age. Now, it was twice at the hand of an assassin; a male one this time, for a reason he was unable to determine, and — most distressingly — for the last time. Finally physically dead, for ever more.

The venue for Sessine's first in-crypt resuscitation had been a virtual version of his apartments in the clan Aerospace's headquarters in the Atlantean Tower, it being normal for primimortis' rebirths to be conducted in familiar and comforting surroundings and closely attended by images of friends and family.

For his subsequent revivals he had stipulated an unpopulated, ambiently scaled version of Serehfa, and it was there he awoke in bed, alone, on what gave every appearance of being a fine spring morning.

He lay in the bed and looked around. Silk sheets, brocade canopy, oil paintings on the wall, rugs on the floor, wooden panelling, tall windows. He felt oddly neutral, washed clean.

He smoothed his hand over a fold of pinkly silk sheet, then closed his eyes and murmured, 'Speremus igitur,' and opened his eyes again.

His smile was sad. 'Ah well,' he said quietly.

It had been a statutory requirement almost from the dawn of what had then been called Virtual Reality that even the deepest and most radically altered and enhanced virtual environment (indeed, most especially those) must include periods of sleep — however truncated — and that towards the end of each sleep event a dream ought to intrude upon the sleeper in which they were offered the option of returning to reality. Sessine, of course; had been aware of no such opportunity just prior to waking up here, and the repetition of his private code to instigate a complete wake-up merely confirmed that this was not part of some voluntary virtual scenario; this was already as real as he could get, and it was a simulation; he was incrypted, now, for good, as well as for good or ill.

Sessine got out of bed, went to the tall windows and stepped out onto the balcony. The air felt fresh and chilly; a strong wind blew. He shivered, raised his right arm to his face, watched goose-bumps rise under the hairs there, then imagined that the wind dropped. It did.

He imagined that it blew again, but that he felt no cold; in a moment the wind was sharp and clean in his nostrils and cool on his naked skin, but it did not make him shiver.

He went to the parapet. The balcony was situated in one of the higher reaches of the humanly-scaled fortress, with a view to the west. The shadow of the castle lay across the western inner bailey, the umbrous image of the fast-tower just touching the foot of the curtain-walls. As Sessine had ordered, there was nobody to be seen, and not even any wildlife visible. The sky, distant hills and the castle itself looked perfectly convincing.

He imagined himself on the fast-tower

/and was there, suddenly standing on a gaily painted wooden platform at the summit of the castle's tallest tower, with only a flagpole and a snapping flag — his clan's — above him. The view was better from here; he could see the ocean, far to the west. Just beyond the handrail the slates sloped away to the circular battlements.

He gripped the wooden rail of the platform, squeezing it until his fingers ached, then squatted and inspected the underside of the rail's inverted U near where it met a stanchion. The red paint under the flat surface was convincingly bumpy, with little bubbles of smooth, solidified paint near the angle the rail described with the post. He put his thumbnail against one of the bubbles and pressed hard. When he took his thumb away again there was a little groove impressed on the hemisphere of paint.

He ducked quickly under the rail and launched himself into the air. He bounced once off the steeply raked tiles, winding himself and hurting his shoulder, cleared the crenellations of the tower's battlements and hurtled towards the steeply pitched roof far below. The wind-roar screamed in his ears as the slates rose to meet him.

'Oh, this is silly,' he said, gasping against the storm of air.

He cancelled the injury in his shoulder and decided… to fly; the roof below slid to one side and he glided away, sweeping through the air above the castle.

Had he plummeted to his death upon that slated roof, it would have been also to another — almost immediate — rebirth in the same bed he had not long departed; just as in base-reality one had eight lives, so one had eight here. Choosing to end them meant that one would remain unconscious for the duration of the mourning period, and only be woken for a slowed-down real and subjective hour to converse with one's bereaved relations and friends immediately before disposal. This was not a common option, but remained available for those whose depression or ennui extended beyond their deaths.

Flying was exactly as he remembered it from his childhood dreams; it required some sort of willed effort in the mind, like pedalling a cycle even though one's legs did not move. If one ceased this dream-virtual effort, one sank slowly to earth. The harder one pedalled, the higher one flew. There was no fatigue and no fear, just wonder and exhilaration.

Sessine flew round the castle for some time, at first naked, then clothing himself with trousers, shirt and frock coat. He landed on the balcony outside the bedroom where he had awoken.

A light breakfast was waiting, on a table by the bed. At this point — in every other rebirth since that first one — he had eaten, then indulged in a full morning's dalliance with a maid he remembered from his late childhood who had been the first woman he had lusted after, as well as one of the few with whom he had been unable to requite such regard. On this occasion, however, he cancelled the breakfast, his growing hunger, and the maid's appearance. Nor would he spend the next few subjective months in the castle's library, re-reading books, listening to music, watching films and recorded plays and operas and watching or taking part in discussions with recreated ancients, recreated historical incidents or virtual fictions.

He imagined an antique phone by the bedside. He lifted the receiver.

'Hello?' The voice was pleasant and sexless.

'Enough,' he said.

The castle vanished before he could replace the handset.

There was ample time before his funeral.

At that point — like all the dead, whether they were high or low, and Privileged or not — he would face the final proof of the crypt's ferociously impartial judgment. As the saying had it: the crypt was deep and the human soul was shallow. And the shallower the soul, the less of it survived as any sort of independent entity within the data corpus; somebody whose only opinions were received opinions and whose origi­nality quotient was effectively zero would dissolve almost entirely within the oceanic depths of the crypt's precedent-saturated data streams and leave only a thin froth of memories and a brief description of the exact shape of their hollowness behind, the redundancy of their beings annihilated by the crypt's abhorrence of over-duplication.

Should that personality ever be called back into existence in the base-level world, it could be recreated exactly from the crypt's already existing database of sentience types.

It was believed that the certainty of such a verdict provided the incentive for people to improve themselves in a society which gave every appearance of being able to function quite adequately with almost no human input whatsoever.

Sessine, if not as one of the Privileged then as a man who had over the course of several lifetimes assiduously cultivated his own cultivation, was in practice if not in theory guaranteed a continued existence within the corpus as an individual.

Even had he been due solely for the compulsory incorporation that was the fate of lesser mortals when the moment came, there would still have been time for what he had in mind. The three days in physical reality before his funeral equated to over eighty years in the quickened medium of crypt-time; time enough for another life to be lived after death, and easily sufficient to encompass the investigation a dead man might wish to mount into the reason for his murder.

'The data-set from the time of your death was recorded as a matter of course by your bioware and transmitted to the command car's event-recorder as well as its own computer; the latter was destroyed along with the car when your murderer turned the car's gun on the convoy and drew retaliatory fire. The event-recorder survived; it also squirted its primary function-suite state to the nearest convoy units when it realised the car was under attack and these read-cuts square with the data in the recorder itself, so we may comfortably assume your final memories are accurate.'

The construct of the clan Aerospace's chief crypt-lawyer was configured to respond to its clients' personalities; for Sessine this meant that it appeared as a tall, highly attractive woman in early middle-age who wore her long black hair tied back, used little make-up, dressed in late-twentieth-century corporate-male clothes and talked with quiet authority; Sessine found it almost amusing how perfectly such an image demanded and received his attention. No bullshit, no unnecessary gestures or expressions, no false buddiness, no flimflam and no attempts either to impress or ingratiate. Even his short attention span and low boredom threshold had been catered for; she spoke fast. And in the pauses, he could imagine her unclothed (though, as she was a separate entity within the crypt, such imagining no more made itself immediately actual than it would have had they both been real people in base-reality).

He supposed that a male construct might have worked almost as well, but he liked smart, quick-witted, self-assured women, and he despised the off-the-peg models of such constructs just because convention demanded they must exhibit some hint of vulnerability, some girlishness that was supposed to make him feel that despite such obvious capability and presence, this woman was some kind of sexual pushover, or not really his equal.

They were sitting in a vault room of the Bank of England, in Edwardian times. Their seats were constructed of gold ingots and cushioned with layers of big white five-pound notes; their table was a trolley normally used to transport bullion. Primitive electric lights flickered on the metal walls and reflected off further piles and stacks of gold bars. Sessine had salvaged the image from an early twenty-first-century VR fiction.

'What do we have on the man who murdered me?'

'He was called John Ilsdrun IV, second-lieutenant. Nothing anomalous in his background or recent behaviour. His implants had been doctored and, if he survives in usable form anywhere, it is not in the general body of the crypt. We're running deeper checks on all his lives and contacts so far, but they'll take subjective days to complete.'

'And the message he received?'

'A code within the gistics burst: "Veritas odium par it." '

'"Truth begets hatred." How cryptic.'

The construct permitted itself a smile.

Barely five minutes had passed in base-reality since his death, and he had spent the great majority of that time unconscious, the data-set that was his stored personality being updated with the rigorously cross-checked information from the time and place of his murder before being activated: the wreck of the command car he and the rest of the crew had been killed in was still burning on the fractured floor of the Southern Volcano Room, the convoy had yet to regroup properly after the young lieutenant's treacherous attack on it, his co-directors at Aerospace had been summoned to an emergency virtual meeting due to take place in a subjective half-hour and a base-reality physical meeting in the Atlantean Tower scheduled in two hours real — two years and three months subjective — time, while his widow had been contacted but had yet to reply.

'Backtrack on the coded message; how did it find its way into a hardened military narrowcast?'

'Still investigating. The jurisdictional protocols concerned are complicated.'

Sessine could imagine; the military would not easily be persuaded to open its data corpus to outside investigation.

'I want to request an audience with Adijine, priority.'

'Contacting the Palace, royal apartments… monarch's office… on hold… His Majesty's private secretary suite… your call-sign going through… private secretary construct on line real time now. Replace?'

'Replace.'

The woman disappeared, turning in a blink into a small wizened man in a black dress coat and holding a long staff. He looked briefly around the vault, stood and bowed slightly to Sessine, then sat again.

'Count Sessine,' he said. 'The King has already asked me to inform you of the profound shock he experienced at hearing of your murder, and to convey his deepest sympathy to you as well as to those you leave behind. He has also asked me to assure you that everything possible will be done to root out those responsible for this foul crime.'

'Thank you. I would like to request an audience with His Majesty, as soon as possible.'

'His Majesty can spare a short while between other appoint­ments in twenty minutes real — approximately four months subjective — time.'

'I must ask for an emergency meeting before then.'

'I understand your distress and shock, Count Sessine. How­ever, His Majesty is in an important meeting with representatives of the Chapel usurper forces, discussing peace; informing him of your death and giving him time to express the above-mentioned shock and sympathy has already, perhaps, used up whatever diplomatic slack we have with the Engineer delegation; we cannot possibly incur any further interruption without risking an apparent sleight and the breakdown of negotiations.'

Sessine thought about this. The secretary sat smiling patiently at him. Measuring his words, Sessine spoke again: 'My concern is that the message which appeared to instigate my murder was embedded within a military signal sent from Army HQ, and that this therefore implies either a serious signal-security breach or a traitor in at least the middle-level military.' He paused to let the secretary speak, then went on. 'Has the King authorised a full military investigation?'

'An investigation has been authorised.'

'At what level?'

'A level commensurate with your standing, Count; the high­est level.'

'With full military access immediately?'

'That is not possible; the Army has operational reasons for not being able to reveal such matters precipitously; there are controls, checks and balances which must be negotiated over a minimum real-time scale if one is not to trip a series of automatic security-violation safeguards. The relevant authorisations are of course being sought, but —'

'Thank you, private secretary. Would you put me on to military High Command, level five, and replace?'

The construct had time to look distinctly annoyed before it was replaced with a young soldier in full dress uniform.

'Count Sessine.'

'Is this level five?' Sessine frowned. 'I thought —'

The young soldier stood, quickly drew his ceremonial sword and in the same movement brought it scything above the trolley-table and through Sessine's neck, parting his head from his shoulders.

What? he thought, then everything faded.

He awoke in the tower-bedroom of the ambiently scaled version of Serehfa, alone, on what gave every appearance of being a fine spring morning.

He lay in the bed and looked around. Silk sheets, brocade canopy, oil paintings on the wall, rugs on the floor, wooden panelling, tall windows. He felt washed clean, and distinctly unsettled.

He closed his eyes, said, 'Speremus igitur,' and opened his eyes again.

His smile was troubled. 'Hmm,' he said quietly.

He got out of bed, dressed in the clothes he had been wearing earlier, and went out onto the balcony.

A dot in the distance, somewhere over the curtain-wall to the west, attracted his attention. A hint of light around it, a thin, hazy trail in the sky behind…

He watched the dot expand, then imagined himself on the fast-tower.

/He stood on the gaily painted wooden platform again; the flag snapped in the air above him. He watched the missile tear across the roof-tops below and disappear into the tower where he had been standing a few seconds earlier. The tower erupted; yellow-white flame burst outwards across the balcony, sundering the stones all around that floor and throwing back the tower's roof, releasing a cloud of slates like some flock of disturbed birds.

Straight through the balcony windows. Sessine felt both impressed and depressed.

He did not see or hear what hit him from behind, just glimpsed a searing light and felt the concussive blast.

He awoke in bed, alone, on what gave every appearance of being a fine spring morning.

He lay there for a second, then imagined himself to the summit of the fast-tower.

/He saw the first missile, crossing the curtain-wall to the west. He turned and saw the other, approaching from the east, level with him and approaching fast. He remembered the feeling he had had when he'd heard the shots inside the scree-car and ducked back in to see what was happening. He imagined the view from the middle of the inner bailey,

/then from a tower on the curtain-wall to the south,

/then from the north,

/then from the eastern gate complex,

/then from some low hills outside the castle altogether.

The whole edifice detonated, disappearing in a scattering series of explosions, flickering light, throwing stones and timbers high into the air, black amongst fire.

'Sessine?' He turned, and the image of his first wife was there, standing on the path behind him, as lovely as on the first day they had met. She never called me —

She was upon him with the strangle-wire before he could move; gripping him, trapping him with a strength no human had ever possessed.

He awoke in the bed, alone. What is this! What is going on? Who is —

Light at the window, something —

Fool!

Then light everywhere.

He awoke in the bed.

'Alandre,' the young maid breathed, alongside him, reaching.

/He was on the deck of the clan yacht, at anchor one evening off Istanbul; the Bosporus glittered darkly beneath, the twin bridges arced above. His heart thudded. He looked quickly around. Nobody. He looked up. Something falling from the rail-bridge… he started to imagine — then light again, atomically bright, lighting up all the city…

He awoke.

'Ala —'

/He was in bed, in his apartments in the clan Aerospace's headquarters in the Atlantean Tower.

The doctor looked down at him, his face somehow familiar, his expression regretful. The young doctor fired the gun straight between Sessine's eyes.

He awoke.

'Al —'

/He was in the nursery of the clan's Seattle stronghold. The nurse was above him; the knife came down on his mewls.

And something inside him screamed, Seven!

He awoke.

He was in a hotel room; it was small and tawdry-looking. The curtains drawn, the ceiling light on. He was sitting. His heart was hammering, his body covered with cold sweat. He cancelled the fake physical symptoms of his panic then started to imagine being somewhere else… but he was out of places to run, and as he did not know where he was, he suspected that here was as good a place as any to stay a while.

What had happened? What had been going on?

He stood up and went to the window, carefully lifting one corner of the curtains while staying behind the wall, half expecting the arrival of a hail of bullets or another missile the instant he betrayed his position.

He looked out onto a darkened town; a port within a huge, dim space all speckled with small lights. Dark waters lay in the distance beyond wharves and cranes. Spaced regularly in the shadows across the inky glints of waves he could just make out huge pillars, growing out of that broad, buried sea like impossibly perfect steep-cliffed islands and sprouting, spreading at their summits to meet a jet-black vaulted sky more remembered than seen.

He was still in Serehfa, then, underneath it, within the cistern level. The port was called Oubliette. The narrow street outside looked quiet. A few lights showed behind shades on the tall, narrow buildings opposite, and down in the port he could see ships tied against the piers, container cranes swinging slowly to and fro above them, and hints of movement within pools of dim yellow light on the wharves themselves.

He let the curtain fall back, then looked around the room. There was little to search; a small bed, a seat, a table, a screen, a bedside cabinet. A notice on the back of the door said that the room was room 7, floor 7, in the Salvation Hotel.

In the cabinet's drawer, he found a paper envelope.

On it was written, Alandre Jeovanx.

It had been his name before promotion. He tore open the envelope.

There was a single sheet of paper folded inside. Read Me, it said.

He read it.

4

Bascule, ah no dis hard 4 u, but goodness sakes bey it only a dam ant.

It woz a most special & uneek ant Mr Zoliparia I tel him & I feel responsybil 4 what hapind 2 hir.

Weer inside thi Iball ov thi septentrynal gargoil Rosbrith, in Mr Zoliparia's study. Mr Zoliparia has a fing calld a telifone in his study u can speek in2 (didn evin no he had it — fink heez a bit embrased about it 2 tel thi troof). Nway, he juss got in tuch wif thi gard 2 report whot happind aftir Id insistid, tho heed only report that thi bird had stole a valubil anteik box, not a ant. (Actule, thi box isnt a anteik @ ol but that isn what matters.) Id ½ tryd callin thi gard myself soon as it happind but I no from past xpeeryins they wooden lissen 2 me cos Im yung.

Weed been hopin that maibe thi bird whot had stolen Ergates woz 1 ov them ringed 1s wif cameraz & stuf, or 1 ov them bein followed roun by little buzzir-bugs 4 a wildlife screen program or thi purpisses ov cyantific reserch but I gess it woz a bit ov a long shot & shurenuf thi ansir woz no 2 both. Thi gard took sum detales but Mr Zoliparia duzent hold out much hope ov them doing anythin.

U mussnt blame yoself, it woz a accident, Bascule.

I no that, Mr Zoliparia, but it woz a accident I cood ½ priventd if Id been moar observint & watchful & juss plain diligint in jeneril. What woz I thinkin ov lettin hir eat that bred on thi balstraid like that? Speshily when I seen them birdz in thi distins. I meen; bred! Evrbidy no birds luv bred! (I slap ma hand off ma 4head, finkin what a idiot Ive been.)

O Bascule, ahm sorry 2 on account ov me being di hoast & all; dis happin in ma hoam & ah shood ½ taken moar care 2, but wot's dun is dun.

Is it tho, Mr Zoliparia? U reely think so?

What u mean, yung Bascule?

Am a tellir, Mr Zoliparia, u mussnt 4get that. (I screws up ma Is @ this point, 2 sho him I meen bizniss.) Them birdz —

Bascule, no! U cant go doin dat sorta ting! U crazi or sumtin chile? U onli go & scrambil yor brainz u try any ov dat sorta nonsins.

I juss smile.

I doan no whot u no ov whot a tellir duz but now mite b as good a time as eny 2 tell u if u doan no (them that duz can haply skip thi next 5 or 6 paragrafs & get bak 2 thi storey).

Basikly, a tellir fishiz in2 thi kript & pools out sum ole boy or girl & asks them qwestyins & ansirs there qwestyins. Iss kinda ½ archilojikil reserch & ½ soshil wurk if u want 2 look @ it coldly & r happy 2 ignoar whot peepil col thi spiritul side ov it.

Coarse its all a bit murki & weerd down thare in thi kript & moast bags (thas Boys & Girls remembir) get a bit spooked — even thinkin about contactin thi ded let alone actuly welcomin them in2 ther heds & ½in a natter wif them. 2 us tellirs tho iss juss sumthin we do as a mattir ov coarse & no bothir… well, providin u r carefil, naturily (admitidly ther arnt a lot ov old tellirs aroun, tho thas moastly coz ov whot they col naturil waistidje).

Nway, thi point is that tellirs yooz their natcheril skills 2 delv in2 thi kript, partly 2 find out things from thi past & partly 2 fulfill pledjes & bqwests whot thi relivint ordir has taken on. Mi order is calld thi Little Big Brothers ov thi Rich & we orijnaly jus lookd aftir thi inkripted soles ov peepil whot were very well off indeed thang-u-veri-mutch but our remit has brodind a bit sins then & now parrently weel tok 2 eny ole rif raf if they got sumfink inarestin 2 say.

Now, thi thing iz this; juss as thi deeper u go in2 thi kript thi hazier & more corosiv doun thare things get, so thi longir it is since u died thi moar kinda disoshiated u get from realty, &, evntule, evin if u want 2 stay in sum kinda hoomin form, u juss cant support that sort ov complexity, & 1 ov thi things that mite hapin after that is that u get shunted in2 thi animal kingdum; your personality, such as it is by then, is transferd in2 a panfir or a roc or cat or a simurg or a shark or eegil or whotevir. Iss aktuly considered sumfink ov a priviledge; loadsa bags fink thers nuffink betir than bein a bird or sumfink simla.

Ov coarse, theez animalz iz stil linkd in2 thi kript by ther own inplants, & thusly ther brains is potenshily availabil 2 a tellir, tho this is a pritti irregulir — not 2 say kinda daingerous — oakurinse. Irregulir bcoz nobody evir duz it. Dainjerous bcoz whot u r basikly tryin 2 do as a tellir in such a sircumstanse is try 2 fit yoor hoomin size mind inside a bird size 1. Takes sum finessin, but Ive always had this theery that bcoz my thots cum out wif a spin on them, so 2 speek, Im speshily good @ coapin wif 2 diffrint thot modes @ 1nce, & so moar than capabil ov takin on thi task ov becomin a bird & flyin in2 ther airea ov thi kript.

Thiss, u may have gatherd, is xactly whot I am proposin 2 do, & Mr Zoliparia is not 2 enamerd ov thi idea.

Bascule, pleeze, he sez, attempt 2 retain a sens ov proportshin. Iss onli a ant & u r onli a junior tellir.

4shore, Mr Zoliparia, I sez. But am a tellir whot haznt evin bgun 2 b stretchd yet. Am a grate tellir. Am a tottil blinkin hot-shot tellir & I juss no I can fynd that bird.

& do whot? Mr Zoliparia shouts. De dam ant is probly ded! Dat birdz probly 8 it by now! Y u want 2 torture youself by findin dat out?

If so, I want 2 no, but nway I dont fink that's rite; Im bankin on her ½in been dropt by that big bird & am hopin it mite remember whare, or —

Bascule u r upset. Y doan u juss go bak 2 di ordir & try 2 cam down & tink dis —

Mr Zoliparia, I sez qwietly, I thank u 4 your consern but I intend 2 do this no mattir whot u say. Cheerz oil thi saim.

Mr Zoliparia lukes @ me diffrint than he has in thi past. Ive always liked him & Ive always luked up 2 him evir sins he woz 1 ov thi peepil they sent me 2 when they reelized I tolkd farely normil but I thot a bit funy, + I tend 2 do whot he sez — it woz him sed Perhaps u wood make a good tellir, & him whot sujjestid I keep a jurnil, witch this is whot u r readin — but this time I doan mutch care whot he finks, or @ least I do but I doan mutch care how bad it makes me feel goan agenst his advice bcoz I juss no I ½ 2 do this.

O deer Bascule, he sez & shakes his hed. I do bleev u do intend 2 do this & iss a sorry ting 4 eny persin 2 do 4 sumtin as insignifcant as a ant.

Iss not thi ant, Mr Zoliparia, I sez feelin ded grownup, itz me.

Mr Zoliparia shakes his hed. Iss u & no godam sens ov proporshin, dats wot it is.

Ol thi saim, I sez. It woz mi frend; she woz relyin on me 2 keep hir safe. Juss 1 try, Mr Zoliparia. I feel I O hir that.

Bascule, pleese, juss tink —

Mind if I juss hunkir down heer, Mr Zoliparia?

Givn u detrminded, Bascule, heer is probly bettir than lswhare but am not happi about dis.

Doan wury, Mr Zoliparia. Woant take a second, litterly.

Der anytin I can do?

Yep; let me boro that pen ov yoors. Ta. Now am goanta sit up here — I sqwatted on a chair, ma chin on ma nees, & put thi pen in ma mouf.

'en 'i 'en 'all ou' 'a 'ouf, I start 2 tel him…

Whot u sayin, Bascule?

I take thi pen out ma mouf. I woz juss sayin, when thi pen falls out ov ma mouf, let it hit thi carpet then shaik me & shout Bascule, fast awake!

Bascule, fast asleep, Mr Zoliparia sez.

Awake! I yelz. Not wide asleep; fast awake!

Fast awake, Mr Zoliparia repeats. Bascule, fast awake. He shakes his hed & heez shakin. O deer Bascule, o deer.

If yor that wurried, Mr Zoliparia, catch thi pen b4 it hits & then wake me. Now, just giv me a minit heer… I settil in2 place, gettin comfterbil; thisil onli take a sekind but u ½ 2 feel settld & redy & @ peece.

Rite. Am prepaird.

Thisl all hapin very qwickli, Mr Zoliparia; u redi? I put thi pen bak in ma mouf.

O deer Bascule.

Here we go.

O deer.

& so its off 2 thi land ov thi ded 4 yoors truli 4 thi sekind time 2day, onli this time iss a bit moar serieus.

Iss like sinkin in2 thi sky on thi other side ov thi Erf wifout goin thru thi whole fing furst. Iss like flotin in2 thi erf & thi sky @ thi time, becomin a line not a point, plumin thi depths & assendin thi hites & then branchin out like a tree, like a plane tree, like a hooj bush interminglin wif every bit ov thi erf & thi sky, & then iss like every 1 ov those bits isnt juss a bit ov erf or a molicule ov air eny more, iss like ol ov them is suddenly a littl system ov ther own; a book, a library, a persin; a world… & yoor connectid wif ol ov it, ignorin barryers, like u r a brain sell deep in thi grainy grey mush ov thi brain all closed in but joined up 2 loadsa uthir sells, awash in ther communicashin-song & set free by that trapt meshin.

Boompf-badoom; slapadowndoodie thru thi topmost obvyis layers whot corrisponds 2 thi upper levils ov thi brain — thi rashinil, sensibil, easily understood layers — in2 thi furst ov thi deepdown floors, thi bit under thi cerebral, under thi crust, under thi fotosphere, under thi obvyis.

Iss heer u ½ 2 b a littl bit careful; iss like bein in a not-so-saloobrius neyborhood ov a big dark city @ nite — only more complicaitd than that; mutch moar so.

In here, thi trik is thinkin rite. Thas all u ½ 2 do. U ½ 2 think rite. U ½ 2 b dairing & koshis, u ½ b ver sensibil & totily mad. Moast ov ol u ½ 2 b cluvir, u ½ 2 b ingenius. U ½ 2 b abil 2 use whotevir is aroun u, & thass whot it reely cums doun 2; thi kript is whot they col self-referenshil, which meens that — up 2 a poynt — it meens whot u want it 2 meen, & displays itself 2 u as ur best abil 2 understand it, so iss up 2 u reely whot yoos u make ov it aftir that; iss ol about injinooty & thass y itz a yung persins meedyum, frangly.

Nway, I new whot I wantid so I thot bird.

& suddinly I woz up in sum dark bildin abuv thi wee twinkly lites ov thi city, up thare wif big metajic skulptyirs ov feersum lookin birds & ther woz lots ov screetches & skwaks about thi place but u coudnt c no birds jus heer thi noyse they made & it woz sort ov crusty-soft under foot & smeld asidic (or alkline; 1 ov thi 2).

I snifd about, walkin qwietly, then hopt up on2 1 ov thi big metallic birds & sqwatted there, wings by mi sides, stairin out ovir thi lite-spekd blak grid ov thi citi & not blinkin juss lookin 4 movemint, & lowrin ma hed now & agen & pokin in under mi wings wif thi twig whot I held in ma beak, juss like I woz preenin or sumfin.

Noticd ma wake-up code in thi form ov a ring roun ma lef leg. Handy 2 no it woz thare, juss in case fings go rong an/or Mr Zoliparia flufs his line.

… Staid ther a while, payshint as u like, juss watchin.

Wot u wan then? sed a voice from abuv & behind.

Nufink mutch, I sed, not lookin. I woz aware ov thi twig in ma beak but it din seem 2 make speakin eny hardir.

U muss want somthen, u woodin b heer otherwyse.

U got me thare, I sed. Am here lookin 4 sumbodi.

O?

Loss a frend ov mine. Roost-mate. Like 2 trace her.

We all got frenz we like 2 find.

This 1 very recent; ½ hour ago. Taken from thi septentrynil gargoil Rosbrith.

Sep whort?

Meens — (this is complicated, referin 2 thi uppir data levil whyle am down here in thi furst circle ov thi basement, but I do it) — meens northern, I sed (blimey). Rosbrith. Norf-west on thi grate hol.

Taken by whort?

Lammergeier, I sed. (Didn no that neevir til now.)

Reely. Whot u given in return?

Am heer amn I? Im a tellir. U got ma eer now. Il not forget u if u help. Luke in me if u want; c whot I say is tru.

Not blynd.

Didn fink u wer.

This bird; u catch eny distingushin marx on it?

It woz a lammergeir, thas oll I no, but ther cant b oil that meny ov them aroun thi norf-west cornir ov thi grate hol ½ a our ago.

Lammergeiers r a bit funy theez days, but Il ask aroun.

Fanks.

(flutr ov wings, then:)

Well, u mite b in luk —

– then ther waz a mega-sqwak & a screem & I had 2 turn roun & luke & ther woz a huge grate bird beetin in thi air behind & abuv mi, holdin anuthir torn bird in 1 ov itz talons; thi big bird woz red-black on black & feerse as deth & I cood feel thi wind ov its flappin snappin wings on ma fayce. It hung in thi air, wingz spread beetin like somethin feersly crucified, shaken thi ded bird in its talons so that itz blud spatterd in my Is.

Y u askin qwestions, child? it screemd.

Tryin 2 find a frend ov mine I sed, keepin cam. I clumpd aroun on mi perch 2 fayce thi big red-black bird. Twig stil in ma beak.

It held up one foot; 3 talons up, one down. C these three clawz? it sed.

Yup. (Mite as well play along 4 now, but Im checkin thi exits, finkin ov ma leg-ring wif thi wake-up code on it.)

U got 2 thi count ov 3 2 moov yoor beak bak 2 realty u skin job, thi red burd sez. U heer me? Am startin countin now: 3.

I juss lookin 4 ma frend.

2.

Iss juss a ant. Am only lookin 4 a litil ant who woz my frend.

1.

Wass thi fukin problim heer? Doan a creetch get no respect 4 — (& am shoutin now angry & I drop thi twig from ma beak).

Then thi big red birdz foot cums out like itz bleedin leg is telescopic & zaps itself 2wards ma hed & raps round it & sqwishes me down b4 I can do anythin & I feel maself trapt & sqwelched down thru thi fabric ov thi metalic bird am perched upon & down thru thi bildin its part ov & down thru thi city & down thru thi grid & down thru thi erf beneaf & down & down & down & whots wurse I can feel that thi ring roun ma leg that had my wake-up code on it has gon like that big red bird swiped it when it hit me an shurenuf I cant fink whot thi hel thi wake-up coad is meenwhile am stil goin down an down an down an am finkin,

O shit…