The Thousand Emperors

remembered standing with Eleanor on the balcony of a ziggurat-like building that, like much of the rest of that world’s capital city, rose out of dense jungle stretching to the horizon in all directions. He remembered looking up to see the gas giant’s streaked atmosphere, marked here and there by outpourings from Helium 3 factories ploughing through its upper reaches.

They had been stuck there for the better part of a month, chasing after lines of enquiry that led nowhere. Demonstrations and riots stirred up by Black Lotus had made the city streets too dangerous to venture onto. Boredom and alcohol had combined with inevitable effect.

He recalled in vivid detail the curve of her small, high breasts beneath the thin blouse she wore that evening, the curve of her spine when she leaned against the railing beside him. Falling into bed had seemed the obvious thing to do on such a long and lonely night, but neither of them had anticipated how quickly and how deeply their feelings for each other would develop. He wanted to keep her at a safe distance from anything that involved Cripps, yet at the same time, he knew there was no one he could trust more than Eleanor.

‘I had a visitor yesterday evening,’ he told her. ‘Bailey Cripps. He spent the whole time quizzing me about my loyalties.’

Her eyes became round and she stepped back a little. ‘Bailey Cripps? Visited you where, here?’

‘He turned up in my home.’

She had a look in her eyes like she wasn’t quite sure she could believe him.

‘Listen, I swear on Cheng’s teeth he was there,’ Luc insisted.

‘He doesn’t strike me as the type to make impromptu house calls.’

‘There was nothing impromptu about it. He data-ghosted into my apartment without any warning. I guess Council privileges extend to home security overrides.’

‘He questioned your loyalties?’ Her eyes darted to the side and then back again, and he guessed what she was about to ask. ‘Are you sure it was really him?’

‘I checked. It was him, all right. He seemed to think I couldn’t be trusted because I’m from Benares. He also mentioned something about an investigation, but I have no idea what investigation he was talking about.’

Her expression became more alarmed. ‘Investigation? Into what? Aeschere?’

‘No, he seemed to mean something else, but he didn’t seem interested in telling me precisely what.’

‘We need to tell someone about this.’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘For God’s sake, why not?’

‘This is Bailey Cripps we’re talking about. There has to be a reason he approached me directly, instead of going through Lethe or Hetaera. If I tell them or anyone else, I might not get to find out what that reason is.’

She sighed, tilting her head back to stare up at the Palace’s illuminated underside. ‘I don’t like this,’ she said, bringing her gaze back down. ‘You should tell someone.’

‘I’m telling you, aren’t I?’

She shook her head in exasperation. ‘Don’t you think you’ve been through enough already?’

‘Look, maybe Cripps came to me in the way he did because he knows something about Black Lotus. Besides . . . he’s one of the Eighty-Five. What they want, they get.’

‘There are some members of the Council,’ she said, speaking to him as if he were dim-witted, ‘you don’t want to get tangled up with.’ Her eyes slid to one side, and he followed the direction of her gaze until he alighted on Garda, still working the crowd.

‘I just want to find out what Cripps wants. Then I’ll go talk to Lethe.’

He could sense the anger brewing behind her thinned lips. ‘Is that a promise?’

He nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ she replied, ‘because this is starting to feel like Aeschere all over again.’

Garda mounted a stage set up at the centre of the plaza and began to speak, while mechants from half a dozen different news agencies buzzed through the air, jostling for the best vantage point.

Luc’s attention soon drifted back to the Palace floating overhead. Something about the sight of all those millions of tons of metal floating unsupported in the air always felt like a test of one’s faith in technology. He wondered, not for the first time, just how many seconds he’d have left to live should the AG pods holding it in place suddenly fail to function.

Glancing at Eleanor beside him, he saw she had an expression like she’d swallowed something nasty. She hadn’t taken the news about Cripps well. But during his recovery, left with little to do but think, it had come to Luc that so much of his life had been devoted to finding Antonov that there hadn’t been room left for much else. He’d sometimes wondered what kind of life he might have led if the Battle of Sunderland hadn’t brought everything to a crashing halt at such a young age.

Maybe now was the time to find out. And as much as he hated to admit it even to himself, Cripps’ vague allusion to an unspecified investigation had awoken within him a sense of purpose he had not felt since his departure for Aeschere.

Garda’s speech finally came to an end, and Luc realized he hadn’t taken in a single word. Two massive doors in the Palace’s underside, positioned directly above the plaza, slowly swung apart on cue. All around the park, fliers thrummed into life while low, sonorous music flowed out of