The Thousand Emperors

you shouldn’t. If not for Zelia, they probably would have killed you anyway, on the pretext that you might – just might – have been working for me all along.

You botched up, Luc said wearily. You told me to speak to Ambassador Sachs, but he didn’t seem interested in helping anyone, least of all me.

You need to gain his trust, Antonov replied. He saw me lurking inside you, but can’t be sure yet of your motives, or who you might decide to report to if he tells you too much.

Luc shook his head in disbelief. Gain his trust? Do you even know where I am just now? Or what’s happened to me?

You’re exactly where I wanted you to be.

Waiting to die in the snow?

You’re not dead, Luc. In fact, you’ve already been rescued. Haven’t you worked out yet that I’m the reason you came here in the first place?

Bullshit, Luc snapped. I came out here looking for the Ambassador after he—

Think back, said Antonov, to when you were studying that map of Vanaheim.

Luc recalled the globe Zelia had projected into the air. He had looked towards the range of mountains, and felt a twinge of pain behind his eyes . . .

Luc’s fists tightened under his restraints. Something had drawn him towards those mountains, and to Maxwell’s prison.

You did that to me? he demanded.

I needed you to come here, Antonov replied.

But why?

Because you need to hear the truth about Vasili, and about me – and Cheng, too.

You told me there’d be some terrible calamity without the Ambassador’s help. Are you talking about war with the Coalition?

Antonov was growing visibly weaker. Believe me, he said, there are far, far worse things out there than the Coalition.

The cobalt blues and dark metallic greys surrounding them were beginning to lose definition, as if Luc’s eyes were blurring. He sensed their encounter was coming to an end.

You need to tell me more, he insisted. I know you’re holding something back.

But sometimes there’s so much I can’t remember myself, Antonov replied, his voice weak and pitiful. The air between them seemed to ripple. There’s only a fragment of me inside you, and it’s not enough. Not nearly enough.

The starship bridge faded, and was replaced by a different scene. Luc saw the streets of a biome on some airless world, unwinking stars fixed into the firmament beyond its precious pocket of atmosphere. Men and women, their flesh riddled with terrible pustules, lay scattered around. Other figures in contamination suits, their faces just visible behind wraparound visors, moved from body to body. They were taking measurements of some kind.

He found his attention drawn to one suited figure in particular, and after a moment he recognized the face behind the visor. Zelia.

Luc came awake with a start, to find himself in a room filled with books.

He had been laid out on a couch at the centre of a large hexagonal room, high walls of dark granite supporting recessed shelves crammed with hundreds of bound volumes much like those he had seen in Vasili’s residence. The floor was tiled with dark slate, while soft, pearlescent light shone through translucent ceiling tiles. A single door led out of the room, while his cold-weather gear had been dumped in a pile in one corner.

He looked around, feeling wildly disoriented. From staggering through endless snowy wastes . . . to this.

Sitting up, he winced with pain. The muscles of both legs throbbed, and he massaged his calves with both hands until the cramp lessened. He stood carefully, stretching his legs before reaching out to pull a random volume down from a shelf close at hand.

The book turned out to be filled with what appeared to be proofs of mathematical equations. Before being summoned to Vasili’s residence, Luc – in common with most citizens of the Tian Di – had only rarely encountered actual, physical volumes such as this. They were like the relic of a past and better age. The pages felt cool to the touch, even slightly metallic, indeed much like the one he had pulled out from under Vasili’s half-burned corpse . . .

He froze, remembering what had happened when his fingers had brushed against the pages of that particular volume, and closed the book carefully before placing it back where it had come from.

Taking a step back, he regarded the shelves around him with new eyes. That other book – the one in Vasili’s library, that had transported him into the mind of a dead man – might not officially exist, but if he was, as seemed likely, somewhere inside the prison that had held Javier Maxwell for all these centuries, then maybe that first book had originated from here.

If that was the case, then it might be best not to touch any of the books. That first experience had been traumatic enough.

He tried again to contact de Almeida, but had no more luck than before. It looked like he was still on his own.