The Prefect

CHAPTER 18

Dreyfus pinched the skin at the corners of his eyes until the gemmed lights of the Solid Orrery moved into sluggish focus. For a long while he had been fighting exhaustion, slipping into instants of treacherous microsleep where his thoughts spun off into daydreams and wish-fulfilment fantasy. Seniors, field prefects and supernumerary operatives were coming and going from the tactical room, murmuring intelligence and rumour, pausing to consult compads or run enlargements and simulations on the Solid Orrery itself. Occasionally Dreyfus was allowed to be party to what was discussed, even to add his thoughts, but the other seniors made it abundantly clear that he was there on their terms, not his. Exasperatedly, he’d listened while the next response was formulated. After much debate, the seniors had decided to send four cutters, one to each silent habitat, each of which would be carrying three Panoply operatives equipped at the same level as a lockdown party.

“That’s not enough,” Dreyfus said.

“All you’ll have to show for it is four wrecked ships and twelve dead prefects. We can’t afford to lose the ships and we damned well can’t afford to lose the prefects.”

“It’s the logical next step in an escalating response,” Crissel pointed out.

Dreyfus shook his head in dismay.

“This isn’t about logical next steps. They’ve already shown us that any approaching ships will be treated as hostile.”

“So what do you propose?”

“We need four deep-system cruisers, more if we can spare them. They can carry hundreds of prefects. They’ll also stand a chance of fighting all the way into the four habitats and making a forced hard dock.”

“To me,” Crissel said, looking pleased with himself, “that sounds very much like putting all our eggs in one basket.”

“Whereas you’d prefer to keep throwing the eggs one a time, until we run out?”

“That isn’t it at all. I’m talking about an appropriate reaction, rather than a sledgehammer strike with all our resources—” Dreyfus cut him off.

“If you want to recover those habitats, the time to act is now. Whoever’s inside them is probably struggling to control the citizenry, enough that they may still be vulnerable to an assault by a small but coordinated squad of prefects. We have a window here, one that’s closing on us fast.”

Gaffney had returned to the room—he’d been off on some errand elsewhere. Dreyfus noticed an uncharacteristic sheen of sweat on his forehead, and the fact that he was wearing the heavy black glove and sleeve of whiphound training armour.

“At the risk of endorsing melodrama,” Gaffney said, looking only at the other seniors, “Dreyfus may have a point. We can’t commit four cruisers, or even two. But we do have one on launch standby. We can put fifty field prefects inside it within ten minutes, more if we move some shifts around.”

“They’ll need tactical armour and extreme-contingency weapons,” Crissel said.

“The armour isn’t a problem. But the weapons are still under wraps.” Gaffney looked apologetic.

“This crisis has caught up with us so quickly that we haven’t polled for permission to use them.”

“Jane would have polled already,” Dreyfus said.

“I’m sure she was planning it when I left.”

“It’s not too late,” Baudry said.

“I’ll force through an emergency poll using the statutory process. We can get a return on it inside twenty minutes. That’ll still give us time to equip the cruiser.”

“If they don’t turn us down,” Dreyfus said.

“They won’t. I’ll make it abundantly clear that we need those weapons.”

“And spark off even more unrest into the bargain?” Gaffney asked, head tilted at a sceptical angle.

“Be very careful how you play this one. If the citizenry get even a whiff that we’re dealing with something worse than a squabble with the Ultras, we’ll have our hands tied just containing the panic.”

“I’ll be sure to exercise due discretion,” Baudry said, speaking with fierce self-control.

“I hope the vote goes our way,” Dreyfus said.

“But even if it does, one cruiser won’t be anywhere near enough.”

“It’s all we can spare at the moment,” Gaffney said.

“You’ll just have to take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” Dreyfus said.

“Provided I’m allowed to lead the assault team.”

For a moment no one said anything. Dreyfus sensed the conflicted impulses of the other prefects. None of them would have wanted to be on that ship when it got close to House Aubusson.

“It’ll be dangerous,” Gaffney said.

“I know.”

Baudry studied Dreyfus with knowing concentration.

“And I presume House Aubusson will be your first port of call?”

He didn’t even blink.

“It’s the softest target. The one we have the best chance of taking.”

“And if Thalia Ng were elsewhere?”

“She isn’t,” Dreyfus said.

Across the Glitter Band, a singular event was taking place, one that had not happened for eleven years, and for more than thirty before that. With the exception of the four that had already been lost, it was happening in all ten thousand habitats, irrespective of their status or social organisation. Where citizens were wired into a high degree of abstraction, whether it was inside the Bezile Solipsist State, Dreamhaven, Carousel New Jakarta or one of a hundred similar habitats, they simply found their local reality—however baroque, however impenetrably bizarre—being rudely interrupted to make way for an unscheduled announcement from the mundane depths of baseline reality. In the many mainstream Demarchist states, citizens felt the intrusion of a new presence into their minds, one that momentarily suppressed the usual nervous chatter of endless polling. In more moderate states, where abstraction was not adopted to the same degree, citizens received warning chimes from bracelets, or found windows appearing in the visual fields provided by optic implants, lenses, monocles or glasses. They paused to pay heed. In states where extreme biomodifications were in vogue, citizens were alerted by changes in their own physiology, or the physiologies of those around them. Skin patterns shifted to accommodate two-dimensional video displays. Entire bodily structures morphed to form living sculptures capable of delivering a message. In the Voluntary Tyrannies, citizens paused to look up at murals on the sides of the buildings that had suddenly flicked over to show the face of an unfamiliar woman rather than the locally designated tyrant.

“This,” said the woman, “is Senior Prefect Baudry, speaking for Panoply. I am invoking statutory process to table an emergency poll. Please be assured that normal polling will resume after this interruption.” Baudry paused, cleared her throat and proceeded to speak with the slow and solemn gravity of the practised orator.

“As is well known, it is the democratic wish of the peoples of the Glitter Band that

Panoply operatives be denied the day-to-day right to carry weapons, beyond those specified in the operational mandate. Panoply has always respected this decision, even when it has meant placing its own prefects at risk. During the last year alone, eleven field prefects have died in the line of duty because they carried no weapon more effective than a simple autonomous whip. And yet each and every one of them walked into danger knowing only that they had a duty to perform.” Having made her point, Baudry paused again before continuing.

“But it is part of the mandate that, when circumstances dictate, Panoply has the means to return to the citizenry and request the temporary right—a period specified as exactly one hundred and thirty hours, not a minute longer—to arm its agents with those weapons that remain in our arsenal, designated for use under extreme circumstances. I need hardly add that such a request is not issued lightly, nor in any expectation of automatic affirmation. It is, nonetheless, my unfortunate duty to issue such a request now. For matters of operational security, I regret that I cannot specify the exact nature of the crisis, other than to say that it is of a severity we have very rarely encountered, and that the future safety of the entire Glitter Band may depend on our actions. As you are doubtless aware, tensions between the Glitter Band and the Ultras have reached an unacceptable level in the last few days. Because of this situation, Panoply operatives are already facing heightened risks to their personal safety. In addition, Panoply’s usual resources—people and machines both—are overworked and overstretched. I would therefore respectfully issue two requests at this point. The first is to urge calm, for—despite what some of you may have heard—all the information presently in Panoply’s possession indicates that there has been no act of hostile intention from the Ultras. The second request is to grant my agents the right to carry those weapons that they now need to perform their duties. Polling on this issue will commence immediately. Please give this matter your utmost attention. This is Senior Prefect Baudry, speaking for Panoply, asking for your help.”

The deep-system cruiser Universal Suffrage sat in its berthing cradle, ready to be pushed out of the hangar into space. Final preparations were under way, with just the latter phases of fuelling and armament still to be completed. The midnight-black wedge of the ninety-metre-long vehicle was offset by the luminous markings delineating general instructions and warnings, power and fuel umbilical sockets, sensor panels, airlocks and weapons and thruster vents. Only when the cruiser was under way would these lines and inscriptions fade back into the absolute blackness of the rest of the hull. Conferring with the pilot, Dreyfus had already worked out an approach strategy. They would come in fast, tail-first, and execute a last-minute high-burn deceleration. It would be bone-crushingly hard, but the cruiser was built to tolerate it and the prefects would be protected by quickmatter cocoons. A slower approach would give Aubusson’s anti-collision weapons too great a chance of achieving a target lock.

Satisfied with the status of the ship, Dreyfus pushed his way out of the observation gallery into the armoury, where the other prefects were being issued with Model B whiphounds. He checked the time. Any minute now, the polling results should be in. He’d listened to Baudry’s speech and didn’t think anyone could have made a better case without galvanising the entire Glitter Band into mass panic. She’d walked a delicate line with commendable skill.

But sometimes the best case wasn’t good enough.

Set into one wall was a wide glass panel, oval in shape, with burnished silver pads on either side of it. Behind the panel, set into padded recesses and arranged like museum pieces, was a small selection of the weapons Panoply agents were no longer permitted to carry. There were vastly more weapons hidden from view, waiting to be rolled into place. All were matt-black and angular, devoid of ornamentation or aesthetic fripperies. Some of them were handguns scarcely more lethal than whiphounds. The heaviest weapons, Dreyfus knew, were fully capable of cutting through the skin of a typical habitat.

Baudry and Crissel had just arrived, stationing themselves at either side of the oval window. They each carried one of a pair of heavy keys that needed to be inserted into the pads on either side of the window and then turned simultaneously. Only seniors carried the keys, and it took two seniors to unlock the extreme-contingencies weapons.

“The vote’s in?” Dreyfus asked.

“Just a few seconds,” Baudry told him. Most of the field prefects had filed out of the room now, to take their positions aboard the Universal Suffrage. Only a handful were still dealing with their armour, or waiting to receive weapons.

“Here it comes,” she said, the set of her jaw tensing in anticipation.

Dreyfus glanced down at the summary data spilling across his bracelet readout, but it wasn’t necessary to see the result for himself. Baudry’s expression told him all he needed to know.

“Voi,” Crissel said, shaking his head in dismay.

“I can’t believe this!”

“There’s got to be a mistake,” Baudry said, mumbling the words as if in a trance.

“There isn’t. Forty-one per cent against, forty per cent for, nineteen per cent abstentions. We lost by one per cent!”

Dreyfus checked the numbers on his bracelet. There had been no error. Panoply had been refused the right to bear arms.

“There was always a chance,” he said.

“If House Aubusson hadn’t dropped off the network, they might even have swung it for us.”

“I’ll go back to the people,” Baudry said.

“The statutes say I can table another poll.”

“It won’t make any difference. You made your point excellently the first time. No one could have argued our case more effectively without inciting system-wide panic.”

“I say we just dispense them,” Crissel said.

“There’s no technical reason why we need a majority vote.

The keys will still work.”

Dreyfus saw the tendons on the back of Crissel’s hand standing proud as he readied himself to twist the key.

“Maybe you’re right,” Baudry said. There was a kind of awestruck horror in her voice, as if she was contemplating the execution of a glamorous crime.

“These are exceptional circumstances, after all. We’ve lost four habitats. We can’t rule out wider polling anomalies, either. We’d be within our rights to disregard that poll.”

“Then why did you bother tabling it?” Dreyfus asked.

“Because I had to,” Baudry said.

“Then you have to do what the people say, too. And the people say no guns.” Crissel was almost pleading now.

“But these are exceptional times. Rules can be waived.” Dreyfus shook his head at the senior.

“No, they can’t. The reason this organisation exists in the first place is to make sure the democratic apparatus functions smoothly, without error, bias or fraud. Those are the rules we hold everyone else accountable to. We’d better make damn sure we hold ourselves to the same standards.”

Baudry tilted her head in the direction of the Universal Suffrage.

“Even if it means going out there with nothing but whiphounds?”

Dreyfus nodded solemnly.

“Even that.”

“Now I understand why Jane never promoted you above field,” Baudry said, before shooting a conspiratorial glance at Crissel.

“But you’re outranked here, Tom. Michael and I have the keys, not you. On three.”

“On three,” Crissel said.

“One… two… and turn.”

Their hands twisted in unison. A mechanism clunked behind the wall and the oval window slid ponderously aside. The visible weapons emerged from their recessed partitions, pushed out on chromed metal rods. Crissel retrieved a medium-size rifle, sighted along its slab-sided, vent-perforated flanks and then propelled it through the air to Dreyfus.

Dreyfus caught it easily. The weapon felt both reassuring and totally wrong.

“I can’t do this,” he said.

“It isn’t your call. Senior prefects have just issued you with appropriate ordnance.”

“But the vote—”

“The vote went our way,” Crissel said.

“That’s what I’m telling you now. I’m expressly instructing you to disregard any information you might have received to the contrary.”

“This is wrong.”

“And you’ve said your piece,” Baudry said, “stated your fine and noble principles. Now take the damned weapons. Even if you won’t carry one, Tom, you can at least equip those other prefects. We’ll take the fall for this when the dust settles. Not you.”

The weapon felt snug in his hands, solid and trustworthy. Take it, a small voice implored. For the sake of the other prefects, and the hostages in House Aubusson. How likely is it that the eight hundred thousand people in House Aubusson give a damn about democratic principles now?

“I’ll—” Dreyfus began.

But he was cut off by the arrival of a new voice.

“Let go of the weapon, please. Let it float away from you.” It was Gaffney, accompanied by a phalanx of Internal Security prefects, all of whom were wearing an unusual amount of body armour, with whiphounds unclipped and partially deployed.

“What’s this about?”

“Easy, Tom. Just let the weapon go. Then we can talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“The weapon, Tom. Nice and easy.” Dreyfus had no use for the rifle. Even if there had been an ammo-cell clipped into it, he was hardly going to open fire so close to the docking bay. But it still took a measure of self-control to let it drift out of his fingers.

“What’s going on?” Baudry asked. Gaffney clicked his gloved fingers at the pair of field prefects still waiting to clear the armoury.

“Get aboard the ship,” he said.

“She asked a civil question,” Dreyfus said.

“Field Prefect Tom Dreyfus,” Gaffney said, before the stragglers had cleared the room, “you are under arrest. Please surrender your whiphound.” Dreyfus didn’t move.

“State the terms of my arrest,” he said.

“Your whiphound, Tom. Then we can talk.”

“My name’s Dreyfus, you sonofabitch.” But he still unclipped the whiphound and let it drift after the rifle.

“I think you’d better explain,” Crissel said. Gaffney appeared to have trouble clearing his throat. His eyes were wide, pugnacious, brimming with an almost religious rage.

“He’s let the prisoner escape.” Baudry’s look sharpened.

“You mean Clepsydra, the Conjoiner woman?”

“Prefect Bancal visited her cell about ten minutes ago and found the cell empty. Mercier was called immediately: Bancal assumed that the doctor had moved her back to the clinic for medical reasons. Mercier hadn’t, though. She’s gone.”

“I want her found, and fast,” Crissel said.

“But I don’t see why Dreyfus is automatically assumed—”

“I checked the access logs,” Gaffney said.

“Dreyfus was the last one to see her before she vanished.”

“I didn’t release her,” Dreyfus said, directing his answer at the other two seniors, not Gaffney.

“And how could I have got her out of that room even if I’d wanted to?”

“We’ll figure that out in due course,” Gaffney said.

“What matters is that you weren’t happy about her being locked up in there, were you?”

“She’s a witness, not a prisoner.”

“A witness who can see through walls. That makes a difference, don’t you think?”

“Where could she be?” Baudry asked.

“She has to be still inside Panoply. No ships have come or gone since Dreyfus’ return. Needless to say, I’ve initiated a level-one search. We’ll find her soon enough.” Gaffney touched a hand to his sweat-tangled hair.

“She may be a Conjoiner, but she sure as hell isn’t invisible.”

“You’re wrong about this,” Dreyfus said.

“Clepsydra was there when I left her. I sent Sparver to check on her. Why would I do that if I’d set her free?”

“We can worry about the how and why of it later,” Gaffney answered.

“The access logs leave no doubt that Dreyfus was the last one in her cell before she disappeared.”

“I want a forensic search of that room.”

“I insist on it,” Gaffney said.

“Now, are you going to make a scene, or can we do this like responsible adults?”

“It’s you,” Dreyfus said, with the feeling that he’d just got the punchline to a long, drawn-out joke, hours after everyone else.

“Me?” Gaffney asked, looking perplexed.

“The mole. The traitor. The man Clepsydra spoke about. You’re working for Aurora, aren’t you? You sabotaged the Search Turbines. You corrupted my beta-level witness.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Talk to Trajanova. See what she says.”

“Oh dear,” Gaffney said, biting his lower lip.

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Haven’t I heard what?”

“Trajanova’s dead,” Baudry said.

“I’m sorry, Tom. I thought you knew.” Dreyfus stared at her in numb disbelief.

“What do you mean, she’s dead?”

“It was a dreadful accident,” Baudry said.

“Trajanova was working inside the casing of one of the Search Turbines when it began to spin up. It appears that some safety interlock had been disabled… we can only imagine that Trajanova herself must have done it, because she was in a hurry to get the Turbs back up—”

“It wasn’t an accident.” Dreyfus was looking at Gaffney now.

“You made this happen, didn’t you?”

“Wait,” Gaffney said, unfazed.

“Isn’t this the same Trajanova you used to have issues with? The deputy you fired, the one you could barely speak to without the two of you shooting daggers at each other?”

“We got over that.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient.” Gaffney looked quickly to the others.

“Does this make any sense to anyone? Quite apart from these slanderous accusations of murder, I don’t recall Dreyfus mentioning a mole until now. Maybe if he had it would lend this outburst a bit more credibility.” He gave Dreyfus a pitying look.

“I can’t begin to tell you how undignified this all sounds. I expected better of you, frankly.”

“He mentioned the mole to me.” They turned as one to see Sparver hovering at the threshold of the chamber.

“This is no business of yours, Deputy Field,” said Gaffney.

“The moment you shot off your mouth about Dreyfus it became my business. Let him go.”

“Escort the deputy out of here,” Gaffney instructed two of his internals.

“Pacify him if he makes trouble.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Sparver said.

“Tell you what,” Gaffney said.

“Why don’t you dump him in an interrogation bubble until he cools off? Got to keep a lid on that temper, son. I know it’s hard, not having a fully developed frontal cortex, but you could make an effort.”

“There’s a line,” Sparver said quietly.

“You just crossed it.”

“Not before you did.” Gaffney’s hand hovered over his whiphound, a tacit warning.

“Now get out of here before one of us does something he might have cause to regret.”

“Go,” Dreyfus mouthed to Sparver. Then, louder: “Find Clepsydra. Before Gaffney’s people do. She’s in danger.” Sparver touched his hand to the side of his head, enough of a salute to let Dreyfus know he still had an ally.

“Well,” Gaffney said, “looks like you got an exemption from the rescue mission, at least. Or were you counting on that?” Dreyfus just looked at him, not even dignifying the statement with a response.

“I’ll take his place,” Crissel said. It fell to Baudry to break the silence that fell after his words.

“No, Michael,” she said.

“You don’t have to do this. You’re a senior, not a field. This is where we need you.”

Crissel plucked the rifle from the air where it had come to rest. His hands closed around it with probing unfamiliarity, as if he wasn’t quite sure which end was which.

“I’ll get suited-up and have the rest of the weapons issued,” he said, with a confidence that sounded ice-thin.

“We can launch inside five minutes.”

“You’re not ready for this,” Baudry said.

“Dreyfus was prepared to put his neck on the line. Regardless of what’s just happened, we can’t simply abandon those kids aboard the Universal Suffrage.”

“When was the last time you left Panoply on field duty, as opposed to pleasure?” Dreyfus asked.

“Only a few months ago,” Crissel said quickly.

“Six at the most. Definitely within the last year.”

“Did you carry a whiphound?” Crissel blinked as he retrieved the memories of the trip. Dreyfus wondered how far back he was digging.

“We didn’t need them. The risk assessment was low.”

“So hardly comparable to what we’re facing now.”

“No one’s ever faced anything like this, Tom. It’s new to all of us.”

“I’ll give you that,” Dreyfus said.

“And I’ll give you the fact that you were once an outstanding field. But that was a long time ago, Michael. You’ve been staring into the Solid Orrery too long.”

“I’m still field-certified.”

“I can still go,” Dreyfus said.

“Overrule Gaffney. You have my word that I’ll submit to his arrest order as soon as I return from House Aubusson.”

“That would suit you just fine, wouldn’t it?” Gaffney said.

“Dying in the line of duty. Going out in a blaze of glory, never having to face an internal tribunal. Not gonna happen, I’m afraid.”

“He’s right,” Baudry said.

“Until this is resolved, you can’t leave Panoply. That’s the way we do things.

I’m sorry, Tom.”

“Take him down,” Gaffney said.

It was the middle of the night in House Aubusson. Thalia already felt as if she had spent half a lifetime in the place, when in fact it was still less than fifteen hours since she had docked her cutter at the hub. But she had not rested in all that time, and now she was pacing back and forth determinedly, fiercely intent on staying both awake and alert, knowing that it would be fatal to sit down with the other citizens and succumb to her tiredness.

“No sign of that rescue of yours, I take it,” Paula Thory said, for about the twentieth time.

“We’ve only been cut off for half a day,” Thalia replied, pausing to lean against the transparent casing covering the architectural model of the Museum of Cybernetics.

“I didn’t promise they’d arrive bang on schedule.”

“You said we might be isolated for a few hours. It’s been considerably longer than that.”

“Yes,” Thalia said.

“But thanks to the good citizens of the Glitter Band, a civil emergency was in force when I left. My organisation was doing everything it could to prevent all-out war between the habitats and the Ultras.”

“You think they’re still dealing with that, is that it?” asked Caillebot, reasonably enough.

She nodded at the landscape gardener, glad that he had given up some of his earlier outrage.

“That’s my best guess. I’m long overdue by now, and they’ll be able to see that my ship’s still docked with Aubusson. If they could spare the resources to get here, they would.” She swallowed hard, striving to find some of that confidence Parnasse had told her she needed to assert.

“But you can bet we’re getting near the top of their list. They’ll be here before sunrise.”

“Sunrise is still a long way off,” Thory observed.

“And those machines aren’t slowing down.”

“But they’re not touching the main stalk,” Thalia replied.

“Whoever’s operating them needs to send instructions through this structure, which means they can’t risk damaging it just to get rid of us.”

By now it was clear that the construction servitors were engaged in nothing less than the systematic dismantling of the habitat’s human buildings and infrastructure. Throughout the night, Thalia had watched—sometimes alone, sometimes with Parnasse, Redon or one of the other citizens—as the robots bulldozed and ripped their way through the outlying structures of the Museum of Cybernetics. They had already torn down the ring of secondary stalks, shovelling the pulverised remains onto the backs of massive debris-carriers. Kilometres away, in illuminated clusters of huddled activity, other groups of machines were engaged in similar demolition work. The machines tackling the museum must already have gathered tens of thousands of tonnes of rubble. Across the entire interior of House Aubusson, they must have gathered dozens or hundreds of times as much. And all that raw material—millions of tonnes of it, in Thalia’s estimation—was being conveyed in one direction, toward the great manufactory complex at the habitat’s far end. It was feedstock, so that those mighty mills could turn again. In fact, they were already turning. Though no sound reached Thalia and her cadre of citizens through the airtight windows of the polling core, they had all felt the tremor of distant industrial processes starting up. Near the endcap that rumble must have been thunderous. The manufactories were making something. Whatever it was, they were being cranked up to full capacity.

“Thalia,” called Parnasse, poking his head above the top of the spiral staircase that led to the lower level.

“I need your help with something, when you’ve got a moment.”

Thalia tensed. That was Parnasse’s way of telling her they had a problem without alarming the others unduly. She crossed to the staircase and followed him down to the administrative level, with its unlit offices and storage rooms. Three of the citizens were still working on the barricade detail, collecting

equipment and junk from wherever they could find it and then toppling it down the stairs and lift shaft.

“What is it, Cyrus?” she asked quietly, the two of them standing far enough away from the work gang that their conversation would not be overhead.

“They’re getting tired, and they’ve only been on this shift for forty-five minutes. They may be able to last until the end of it, but I’m not sure if they’re going to be much use to us by the time they’re up for duty again. We’re getting worn out down here.”

“Maybe it’s time Thory weighed in.”

“She’d be more hindrance than help, with all her moaning. The team getting tired isn’t the main problem, though. We’re going to start running out of barricade material pretty soon. If not before the end of this shift, then definitely before the end of the next one. Things ain’t looking too good. Just thought you should know.”

“Maybe the existing barricade will hold.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t think so.”

“When it’s quiet up here, I can hear activity below. The machines are working at the far end of it, clearing it as fast as we can pour new stuff down from our end. That’s why the barricade keeps settling down. They’re removing the debris at the base.”

“And if we don’t keep topping it up—”

“They’ll be breaking through before you know it.”

“We need options,” Thalia said.

“I’ve told the other citizens that we’re working on a contingency plan. It’s about time we had one, before someone calls me on it.”

“I wish I had an idea.”

“Let’s focus on the barricade, since that’s all we have right now. If we’re running out of material, we’ll need to find another supply.”

“We’ve already cleaned out all the rooms along this corridor. Anything that we can move, and that isn’t too large to fit down the holes, we’ve already thrown.”

“But we’ve still got the building itself,” Thalia said.

“The walls, the partitions between the rooms… it’s all ours, if we want it.”

“Unfortunately, none of us thought to bring demolition tools to the civic reception,” Parnasse said. Thalia unclipped the buzzing handle of her whiphound.

“Then it’s a good job I did. This thing might be damaged, but it can still just about function in sword mode. If I can start cutting away material—”. Parnasse looked at the whiphound dubiously.

“What will that thing cut through?” It was almost too hot to hold now.

“Just about any material that isn’t actively reinforced, like hyperdiamond.”

“There’s nothing like that in this building. I know, I saw the blueprints before she went up. But you’d better not cut the first thing you see. There are structural spars running right through this thing.”

“Then we’ll start with something that clearly isn’t structural,” Thalia said, remembering the item she had been resting against before Parnasse summoned her below.

“Like what?”

“Right above me, on the next level. That architectural model.”

“We’ll need more than that for barricade material, girl. That model’s about as substantial as a soap bubble.”

“I was thinking of the plinth—it looked like granite to me. If we could cut that into manageable chunks… there’s got to be three or four tonnes of rock there. That would make a difference, surely?”

“Maybe not enough to save us,” he said, scratching his chin, “but beggars can’t be choosers, can they? Let’s see if that little toy of yours will hold up for us.”

Thalia clipped the whiphound back to her belt, then rubbed her sore palm against her trousers. Leaving the work gang to their duty, she ascended the staircase to the main level, Parnasse following immediately behind her.

“People,” she called, “I need some help here. It’ll only take a couple of minutes, then you can go back and rest.”

“What do you want?” asked the young man in the electric-blue suit, rubbing a stiff forearm.

Thalia strode to the side of the architectural model and patted the transparent casing.

“We need to remove this thing so I can get at the plinth. I could use my whiphound to cut it up, but I’d rather save it for stuff we can’t break apart with our hands.”

The transparent casing was a boxlike shell resting in place by virtue of its weight alone. Thalia squeezed her fingers under one end of it, wincing as she caught a broken nail. The young man worked his fingers under the far end, and between them they heaved the casing into the air, exposing the delicate model underneath. They shuffled sideways until they’d reached a clear spot of floor and were able to lower the casing. They would work out what to do with it later.

“Now this part,” Thalia said, getting a grip under the heavy, flat sheet on which the model had been constructed. This time it took three of them before the model even budged, with Caillebot taking one of the corners. The delicately formed representation of the museum might have been insubstantial, but that could not be said for its foundations.

“Harder,” Thalia grunted, as Parnasse added to the effort.

The sheet budged again, tilting upwards from the underlying plinth.

“Steady,” Thalia said, gritting her teeth with the effort.

“Let’s put it down over there, on top of the casing.”

She had already participated in the destruction of several tonnes of museum property, including items that might well have been priceless relics from the history of computing. But there was something about the model that made her unwilling to see it damaged. Perhaps it was because of her suspicion that it had been made by hand, laboriously, over many hundreds of hours.

“Easy,” she said as they reached the casing.

They’d almost made it when the young man yelped and let go as some nerve or muscle in his already strained forearm gave way. The remaining three of them might have been able to take the weight, but they were in the wrong positions. The model crashed to one side, one corner smashing its way through the casing. The impact was enough to dislodge the sphere of the polling core, sending it toppling from the tip

of the stalk. The silver-white ball bounced off the tilted landscape and went trundling across the room, until it was lost in the darkness.

Thalia fell to the floor, landing hard on her knees.

“Sorry,” the young man said.

She bit back tears of pain.

“It’s just a model. The plinth is what matters.”

“Let’s see how that granite holds up,” Parnasse said, helping Thalia to her feet.

Hobbling back towards the plinth, Thalia touched her whiphound and almost flinched from the contact. It felt white-hot now, as if it had just been spat out of a furnace.

“If anyone has one,” she said, “I could use a glove.”

Sparver knew he had been lucky not to find himself in a detention cell, but that did not mean he was going to avoid confrontation with Gaffney just to stay out of trouble. The last thing Dreyfus had told him to do was to find Clepsydra, and like Dreyfus he believed that she must still be somewhere inside Panoply. He reasoned that the place to begin his search was the interrogation bubble where Dreyfus had last spoken to the Conjoiner. No matter how cunning or stealthy she might have been, he did not think it likely that she could have travelled a very great distance from the bubble; certainly not as far as one of the centrifuge rings. It might have been in Clepsydra’s gift to blind and confuse surveillance systems, but classes were in session now and Sparver doubted that she would find it easy to pass through a bottleneck of prefects and cadets waiting to transition between the weightless and standard-gee sections. In his mind’s eye he could see several possible places she might have hidden; his intention was to search them before Internal Security and attempt to reassure Clepsydra so that he could protect her from any rogue elements within the organisation.

But when he reached the passwall into the now empty interrogation bubble, his way was blocked by a couple of Gaffney’s goons. Sparver tried to reason with them, without effect. He was certain that the Internal Security operatives were acting sincerely, in the genuine belief that Gaffney was to be trusted, but that did not make them any easier to persuade. He was still trying when Gaffney himself showed up.

“I thought we came to an agreement, Prefect Bancal. You keep your snout out of my business, I’ll keep my nose out of yours, and we’ll get along famously.”

“When your business becomes mine, I stick my snout wherever I like. It’s a nice snout, too, don’t you think?”

Gaffney lowered his voice to a dangerous purr.

“Don’t push your luck, Bancal. You’re only here on sufferance. Dreyfus may like to keep a pet pig around for show, but Dreyfus isn’t going to be part of this organisation for much longer. If you want to find a role for yourself, I’d start making new friends.”

“Friends like you, you mean?”

“Just saying, times are changing. We’ve all got to adapt. Even those of us not exactly equipped for mental agility. How’s that frontal cortex working out for you, anyway?”

“Dreyfus didn’t have anything to do with Clepsydra disappearing,” Sparver said levelly.

“Either you made her disappear, or she’s hiding because she knows you’d rather she was dead.”

“Beginning to flail around a bit there, son. Are you accusing me of something or not?”

“If you did something to her, you’ll pay for it.”

“I’m looking for her. Do you think I’d go to all this trouble if I had anything to hide? Come on. It’s not that much of a conundrum, even for the likes of you.”

“We’re not done, Gaffney, you and me. Not by a long stretch.”

“Go and count your fingers,” Gaffney said.

“Call me when you reach double figures.”