The Prefect

  Dreyfus nodded. ‘That was the machine. Its origin was obscure: there was secrecy and interdepartmental rivalry within SIAM, as in any organisation of that nature. What was clear was this: someone had created an artificial mind unlike anything that had gone before. Not just a brain in a bottle, but an autonomous robotic entity with the ability to move and interact with its surroundings. By the time my wife got to see it, it was already making things. Toys. Puzzles. Little ornaments and objets d’art. Clocks and musical boxes. Soon it started making more clocks than anything else.’

  ‘Did you know about it at the time?’

  ‘Only through what my wife told me. I expressed concern. The Clockmaker’s ability to manipulate its surroundings and alter its own structure suggested a robot embodying advanced replicating technology, the kind of thing Panoply was supposed to police.’

  ‘What did Valery say?’

  ‘She told me not to worry. As far as she was concerned, the Clockmaker was no more dangerous than a child eager to please. I told her I hoped it wouldn’t throw a temper tantrum.’

  ‘You sensed the possibilities.’

  ‘No one knew where the thing had come from, or who was responsible for creating it.’

  ‘You were right to be worried.’

  ‘One day it made something evil. Clock number two hundred and fourteen looked no different from a dozen that had preceded it. Valery wasn’t the one who found it. It was another SIAM researcher, a woman named Krafft. At twelve fifty-eight in the morning she picked up the clock, preparing to carry it back to the analysis area. She was still on her way when the clock struck thirteen. A spring-loaded barb rammed out of the dial, pushing its way into Krafft’s chest. It penetrated her ribs and stabbed her in the heart. She died instantly.’

  Delphine shuddered. ‘That was when it began.’

  ‘We lost contact with SIAM at thirteen twenty-six, less than half an hour after the discovery of clock number two hundred and fourteen. The last clear message was that something was loose, killing or maiming people wherever it encountered them. Yet all the while it found time to stop and make clocks. It would absorb materials into itself, into the flickering wall of its body, and spew out ticking clocks a few seconds later.’

  ‘I have to ask - what happened to your wife? Did the Clockmaker kill her?’

  ‘No,’ Dreyfus said. ‘That wasn’t how she died. I know because a team of prefects entered SIAM within an hour of the start of the crisis. They established contact with a group of researchers holed up in a different section of the facility. They’d managed to contain the Clockmaker behind emergency decompression barriers, sealing it into one half of the habitat. My wife was one of the survivors, but the prefects couldn’t reach them, or arrange for their evacuation. Instead they concentrated on neutralising the Clockmaker and gathering its artefacts for further study. Jane Aumonier was the only one of those prefects to make it out alive. She was also the only one to survive a direct encounter with the entity.’

  ‘Jane Aumonier?’

  ‘My boss: the supreme prefect. She was still alive when we got to her, but the Clockmaker had attached something to her neck. It had told her that the device would kill her if anyone attempted to remove it. That wasn’t all, though. The prefects had sixty minutes to get Jane back to Panoply and into a weightless sphere. When that sixty minutes was up, the device would execute her if anyone - and almost anything - came within seven and a half metres of her.’

  ‘That’s horrific.’

  ‘That wasn’t the end of it. The scarab - that’s what we came to call the device - won’ t allow her to sleep. It’s not that it’s keeping her awake artificially. Her body’s screaming for sleep. But if the scarab detects unconsciousness, it’ll kill her. Drugs have kept Jane in a state of permanent consciousness for eleven years.’

  ‘There must be something you can do for her. All the resources of this place, of the entire Glitter Band—’

  ‘Count for nothing against the ingenuity of the Clockmaker. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t good men and women spending every waking minute of their lives trying to find a way to relieve Jane of her torment.’ Dreyfus offered a pragmatic shrug. ‘We’ll get it off her one way or another. But we’ll have to be certain of success before we attempt it. The scarab won’t give us a second chance.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your boss. But you still haven’t told me what happened to your wife. If she was isolated from the Clockmaker—’

  ‘After we got Jane out, we knew there was no point sending in more prefects. They’d have been butchered or worse. And the Clockmaker was beginning to break down the barricades. It was only a matter of time before it had free run of SIAM. From there, given its speed and cleverness, it might have been able to hop to another habitat, somewhere with millions of citizens.’

  ‘You couldn’t take that chance.’

  ‘Albert Dusollier - supreme prefect at the time - took the decision to nuke SIAM. It was the only way to ensure that the Clockmaker didn’t get loose.’

  Delphine nodded slowly. ‘I remember they destroyed it. I didn’t realise there were still people inside.’

  ‘There was never any cover-up. It’s just that most of the reports dwelled on what had been prevented, not on the costs of the action.’

  ‘Were you there when it happened?’

  He shook his head automatically. ‘No. I was on the other side of the Glitter Band when the crisis broke. I started making my way there as quickly as possible, hoping that there’d be a way to get a message through to Valery. I didn’t make it in time, though. I saw the flash when they destroyed SIAM.’

  ‘That must have been very difficult for you.’

  ‘At least the Clockmaker didn’t have time to get to Valery.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your wife, Prefect. I’d like to have met her. It sounds as if we’d have found a great deal to talk about.’

  ‘I’m sure you would have.’

  After a moment, Delphine said, ‘I remember the name Dusollier now. Didn’t something happen to him after the crisis?’

  ‘Three days later he was found dead in his quarters. He’d used a whiphound on himself, set to sword mode.’

  ‘He couldn’t live with what he’d done?’

  ‘So it would appear.’

  ‘But surely he’d had no choice. He would have needed to poll the citizenry to be able to use those nukes in the first place. He’d have had the will of the people behind him.’

  ‘It obviously wasn’t enough for him.’

  ‘There was no explanation, no suicide note?’

  Dreyfus hesitated. There had been a note. He’d even read it himself, using Pangolin privilege.

  We made a mistake. We shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry for what we did to those people. God help them all.

  ‘There was no note,’ he told Delphine. There was no note, just as there was no anomalous six-hour timelag between the rescue of Jane Aumonier and the destruction of SIAM. There was no timelag, just as there was no inexplicable connection with the mothballed spacecraft Atalanta, moved from its prior orbit to a position very near SIAM at exactly the time of the crisis.

  There were no mysteries. Everything was accounted for.

  ‘I still don’t understand why the man killed himself,’ Delphine said.

  Dreyfus shrugged. ‘He couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d done.’

  ‘Even though it was absolutely the only right thing to do?’

  ‘Even though.’

  Delphine appeared to reflect on his words before speaking again. ‘Was there a beta-level copy of your wife?’

  ‘No,’ Dreyfus said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Valery didn’t believe in them. She refused to accept that a beta-level simulation could be anything other than a walking, talking shell. It might look and sound like her, it might mimic her responses to a high degree of accuracy, but it wouldn’t be her on the inside. It wouldn’t have an interior life.’

  ‘And you believ
e the same thing, because it’s what your wife believed.’

  Dreyfus offered his palms in surrender. ‘I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is.’

  ‘Did your wife ever consider alpha-level simulation?’

  ‘She’d have had no philosophical objection to it. But my wife and I grew up in the shadow of the Eighty. I know the methods have improved since then, but there are still risks and uncertainties.’

  ‘I understand now why you have a problem with the likes of me.’ Delphine blunted the harshness of the remark with a sympathetic smile. ‘And I’m not angry. You lost someone dear to you. To admit that I have some claim on consciousness would be to repudiate Valery’s beliefs.’

  Dreyfus made a self-deprecatory gesture. ‘Trust me, I’m not that complicated.’

  ‘But you’re human. It’s not a crime, Prefect. I’m sorry I prejudged you.’

  ‘You weren’t to know.’

  Delphine took a deep breath, as if she was preparing to submerge herself underwater. ‘I made a promise. You’ve told me something personal, and now you want to know about my reasons for working on the Lascaille series. I’ll do my best to explain, but I think you’re going to be disappointed. There was no blinding flash when I woke up one day and realised I had to devote myself to his story.’

  ‘But something happened.’

  ‘I just felt this thing building up inside me, like a kind of pressure trying to force its way out. It was like an itch I couldn’t scratch, until I’d told Philip’s side of events.’

  ‘How familiar were you with the story?’

  Delphine looked equivocal, as if this was a question she’d never really asked herself. ‘As familiar as anyone, I suppose. I’d heard of him, I knew something of what had happened—’

  ‘But was there a defining moment when you realised you had to tackle him? Did you see a reference to him, hear something about the Sylveste family or the Shrouds?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ She paused and something flashed in her eyes. ‘But there was that day. I was working in the habitat, cutting rock in my vacuum atelier. I was suited, of course - the heat from the plasma torches would have killed me even if there’d been air to breathe. I was directing the cutting servitors, working on a completely unrelated composition. Imagine a conductor standing before an orchestra. Then think of the musicians shaping solid rock with plasma-fire and atomic-scale cutting tools instead of making music with traditional instruments. That was what it felt like: I only had to imagine a shape or texture and my implants would steer the machines to do my bidding. It became a near unconscious process, dreaming rock into art.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I pulled back from the piece I was working on and realised that I’d been taking it in a direction I hadn’t intended. The face wasn’t supposed to be anyone in particular, but now it reminded me of someone. Once I’d made that connection, I knew my subconscious was pushing me towards Philip Lascaille as subject matter.’

  ‘Beyond that, though, you can’t explain why you focused on him?’

  Delphine looked apologetic. ‘I wish I could rationalise it. But as I’m sure your wife would have agreed, art doesn’t work that way. Some days we just tap into something inexplicable.’

  ‘I appreciate your honesty.’

  ‘Does this invalidate your theory that someone took offence at my art?’

  ‘Not necessarily. You might have provoked something without meaning to. But I admit it’s difficult to see how merely referencing Philip Lascaille would have been enough to push someone to mass murder.’ Dreyfus straightened - he’ d been getting stiff in the back. ‘All the same, the crime happened. I think I have enough to be going on with for now, Delphine. Thank you for your time.’

  ‘What’s your next move?’

  ‘One of my deputies - you met her - is working on backtracking the incoming call to your habitat. When I have a result from her, I’ll see where it leads.’

  ‘I’m curious to know the outcome.’

  ‘I’ll make sure you hear about it.’

  ‘Prefect, before you turn me off again - would you reconsider my earlier request? I’d like to be able to talk to Vernon.’

  ‘I can’t risk cross-contamination.’

  ‘Neither of us has anything to hide from you. I’ve told you everything I know.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t take the risk.’

  ‘Prefect, there’s something you need to understand about us. When you turn me off, I don’t have any existence.’

  ‘That’s because your simulation undergoes no state changes between episodes of invocation.’

  ‘I know - when you switch me back on again, I remember nothing except our last meeting. But I can tell you this: I still feel as if I’ve been somewhere else.’ She looked him hard in the eyes, daring him to look away. ‘And wherever it is, it’s a cold and lonely place.’

  A message from Thalia awaited him when he turned his bracelet on again. He called her back.

  ‘I see you’re en route. How are things going?’

  Her response returned with no detectable timelag. ‘Well enough, sir. I’ve finished the first installation.’

  ‘All went smoothly?’

  ‘Couple of hiccups, but they’re up and running now.’

  ‘In other words, one hole closed, three to go. You’re ahead of schedule, I see.’

  ‘In all honesty, sir, I don’t expect any of these upgrades to need all the time I allocated. But I thought it was better to be safe than sorry.’

  ‘Very wise of you.’

  After a pause, Thalia said, ‘I guess you’re wondering about the network analysis, sir?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve made any progress?’ he asked, his tone hopeful.

  ‘The snapshots you sent through were all I needed. I might even have a lead for you. Assuming that the stated time for the incoming transmission to the Ruskin-Sartorious Bubble was correct to within twenty minutes, I see only one likely candidate for the network router that would have handled that data traffic.’

  ‘Which would be?’

  ‘It’s nowhere you’re likely to have heard of, sir. Just a free-floating network router named Vanguard Six. Basically it’s nothing more than a boulder floating in the Glitter Band, with an automated signal-forwarding station built into it.’

  He made a mental note of the name. ‘And you think this router will have kept a record of traffic it handled?’

  ‘Enough to tell you where the message originated, sir. Even if that point of origin turns out to be another router, you should still be able to keep backtracking it until you reach the original sender. It would be unusual for a message to pass through more than two or three relay stages.’

  ‘Sparver should be able to handle the technical issues. It can’t be done remotely, can it?’

  ‘No, sir. Someone needs to be physically present. But you’re right - Sparver will know exactly what to do.’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ Dreyfus said.

  Without another word he closed the connection and prepared to rouse his other deputy.

  CHAPTER 10

  They did not look like people at all, but rather luminous pink branching coral formations, vast, dendritic and mysteriously chambered. For many seconds, Gaffney stared in mesmerised fascination at the three-dimensional patterns, awed at what he was seeing. If human souls could be frozen and captured in light, they would look something like this. Now that the flesh-and-blood individuals were deceased, and since none of the three had subjected themselves to alpha-level scanning, these beta-levels represented the last link with the living as far as Vernon Tregent, Anthony Theobald and Delphine Ruskin-Sartorious were concerned.

  Panoply might not regard beta-levels as anything other than forensic information, akin to photographs or bloodstains, but Gaffney was more open-minded. He didn’t hold with the orthodox view that only alpha-level simulations were to be accorded full human rights. The exterior effect was the only thing that mattered, not what was
going on behind the mask. That was why it did not unduly concern him that he did not know exactly what Aurora was. So she might be a machine, rather than a living person. So what? What mattered was her compassion, her evident concern for the well-being of the hundred million souls orbiting Yellowstone.

  He’d had his doubts at first, of course.

  She had come to him five years earlier, four years after he’d been promoted to head of Panoply’s Internal Security division. He’d been a senior for years before that, and an outstanding field for as long again. He’d given his life to Panoply, and asked for nothing in return except the assurance that his colleagues cared about their duties as much as he did. He had invested his own identity in the idea of service, eschewing marriage and social relationships in preference to a life of disciplinary self-control. He lived and breathed the ideals of Panoply, the martial life of a career prefect. He didn’t just accept the sacrifices of his profession, he welcomed them.

  But then something had happened that caused Gaffney to question the worth of Panoply, and by inference his own fitness as a human being. He had been sent to investigate possible voting anomalies in a habitat known as Hell-Five. It was a strange world, built around a perfect hemisphere of rock, as if a round asteroid had been sliced in two. Airtight structures rose up from both the flat face and the underlying pole, densely packed skyscrapers wrapped in coiling pressurised passageways. Once, Hell-Five had been a gambler’s paradise, before the fashion for such things waned. It had moved through several social models after that, each less remunerative than the last, before settling on the one Gaffney had witnessed during his visit. Within months of assuming its new identity, Hell-Five had become a dazzling success, with other habitats paying handsomely to access its lucrative new export.

  That export was human misery.

  Once a month, one of the habitat’s extremely wealthy citizens was selected at random. That unfortunate individual would be tortured, their excruciation prolonged via medical intervention until they eventually succumbed to death. Money flowed into Hell-Five’s coffers via the sale of viewing rights and the fact that the citizens of other habitats could sponsor a particular mode of torture, often after a series of escalating auctions.