The Thousand Emperors

vocal in that regard. Don’t you think it’s strange that one of the primary architects of the Schism wound up being given the job of rebuilding our links with the Coalition?’

‘So giving Vasili that job was a kind of punishment?’ asked Luc. And a very ironic one, if true. ‘That’s genuinely fascinating, but I can’t see the relevance.’

‘Wait,’ said Offenbach, still clearly enjoying the moment, ‘there’s more.’

He waved a hand, and the window behind him opaqued yet again, the room becoming dimmer.

‘What,’ asked Offenbach, peering from out of the shadows, ‘does the name Ariadna Placet mean to you?’

It took Luc a moment to place the name. ‘She was Director of Policy for Thorne at some point, wasn’t she?’ As, he recalled, had been Zelia de Almeida, although Placet had held the post first. ‘I seem to remember something about her suffering permanent death while she was there – an accident of some kind.’

‘But before that,’ Offenbach prompted. ‘What is it that links her to Antonov?’

‘I’m aware that she was in a relationship with him a long time ago,’ Luc replied, wondering just where Offenbach was leading him. ‘Starting from not long after the Abandonment. They were both engineers, and sided with the Tian Di Hui resistance fighters when they fought the Coalition occupying forces here on Temur.’

‘And?’

Luc sighed. He wished Offenbach would get to the point. ‘Their relationship ended long before the Schism. After Cheng took power, she enjoyed a long and fruitful career in the Temur Council until her death.’

Ariadna Placet had been one of the few Council members for whom the instantiation technology had failed. When she had died in a flier accident on Thorne, her backups proved to have been lost or corrupted.

Just like Vasili’s, Luc realized with a start.

‘What if I told you,’ Offenbach continued, ‘that there were accusations of foul play regarding her death?’

‘There was an inquest, wasn’t there?’ asked Luc, feeling a rush of adrenalin. ‘I don’t recall hearing about any such accusations.’

Offenbach grinned. ‘Then you might also be interested to know that not very long after her relationship with Antonov ended, Placet became Sevgeny Vasili’s lover.’

Luc thought of icebergs grinding together in a half-frozen sea, their vast bulks hidden in shadowy waters. ‘Tell me more.’

‘Vasili has a reputation for being a very private man,’ Offenbach continued. ‘Few people outside of the Temur Council knew about the relationship.’

‘Who made the accusation of foul play?’

‘Vasili did. He never accepted the inquest’s findings. He’s always insisted the flier Placet was in when she died must have been sabotaged or shot down on purpose, and her backups deliberately vandalized.’

Luc stared at him in amazement. ‘Why the hell have I never heard about any of this?’

‘Because it’s inner circle gossip,’ said Offenbach. ‘The kind of thing that rarely trickles down from the Eighty- Five to the likes of you and me. From what I gather, Vasili wasn’t the kind to keep quiet about his suspicions. He was absolutely convinced Placet had been murdered, along with a couple of other passengers unlucky enough to be on board the flier with her at the time. That, I think, is the reason Vasili became so isolated from Cheng and the rest of the Eighty-Five.‘

‘But if that were true, what would be the motive for murdering her?’

‘Assuming all this is true, and Vasili isn’t as crazy as the rest of the Council seem to think he is? I have no idea.’

Luc rubbed at his temple. Antonov, Vasili and Placet. ‘You’ve given me even more than you realize, Jared.’

‘That’s the beautiful thing about data,’ said Offenbach. ‘Things that only at first appear to be unconnected frequently prove, at a later date, to be intimately intertwined.’

I couldn’t have put it better, thought Luc, rising to his feet. ‘Thanks, Jared. I’ll get that Aeschere data through to you as soon as I can.’

‘I can only hope I’ve been able to help,’ replied Offenbach.

Luc headed for the door. ‘More than you can possibly imagine,’ he said as he departed.

SEVEN

In the three days since Jacob Moreland’s ship had crash-landed on Darwin, he had taken to hiding in a deep cave a few kilometres away from where that same craft had quickly set about destroying itself. He sustained himself by sucking brackish moisture from the pocket-like leaves of bushes that grew up the side of the hill below the cave, until it began to rain on the second day, an incessant downpour that continued well into the next evening. He passed the time huddled deep within the cave’s recesses, staring out towards the distant flicker of light that betrayed the presence of Coalition mechants still searching the nearby forest and shore.

They were looking for him, of course. His ship had evaded detection on the way down from orbit by disguising itself as random orbital flotsam, but whoever was controlling the mechants must have