‘No, he simply decided he preferred life in the Coalition to the rule of the Council, some time before the Schism. If he’s still alive, he’s to be found there now.’
Luc recalled his history. Before escaping on board a starship carrying a new transfer gate to Galileo, Dumont had shut down the entire wormhole network to ensure the survival of the colonies. By the time the ship arrived at Galileo, the Earth had been sterilized by some unknown, alien force.
‘Dumont said something about Cheng – that it wasn’t always his name.’
Maxwell nodded. ‘His name back in those days was Shih Hsiu-Chuan.’
‘So why the change of identity?’
‘Because he’s a man with many secrets,’ Maxwell muttered, taking his seat at the table once more and pouring himself a new glass of wine. ‘Assuming a new identity makes it easier to ensure that those secrets stay secret; he picked Cheng because it’s a common name, as is Joe.’ He made a circle with one hand. ‘A man of the people, you see. Father Cheng, because a father always takes care of his children.’
‘But . . . why would Cheng allow you to keep those memories stored here, in this prison? Surely they’d be dangerous to him, if they were found out?’
Maxwell didn’t reply, and Luc glanced at the book where it still lay on the floor, its pages half-folded.
He came to a realization. ‘Cheng doesn’t know these recordings exist, does he? Does anyone else know about them?’
Maxwell regarded him balefully. ‘You know, I could still order these mechants to kill you. It might save me a lot of unnecessary bother.’
Luc glanced towards the mechants and saw that they had still not retracted their weapons. ‘You could,’ he replied slowly, ‘but I think if you were going to, you already would have.’
‘Please don’t make the mistake of making too many assumptions about me,’ Maxwell snapped. ‘For all Zelia knows, you’re lying dead out there in the snow. She might never know you were here.’
‘Then why the hell did you even bother to rescue me at all?’
‘I looked you up while the mechant was escorting you here,’ Maxwell replied. ‘You’re the one who killed Winchell Antonov, my former colleague and, dare I say it, brother-in-arms.’
‘So it’s revenge you want?’
Maxwell laughed. ‘I have no intention of harming you, Mr Gabion. Revenge is for the young, and killing you wouldn’t bring Winchell back. If I’m guilty of anything, it’s simple curiosity.’
‘You said that apart from me, no one outside of the Council or Sandoz has a lattice,’ said Luc, ‘but then you said
Maxwell didn’t answer.
‘You were going to say Ambassador Sachs, weren’t you?’ Luc hazarded. ‘He’s the only other one outside of either of them with an instantiation lattice.’
Maxwell sighed and took another sip of wine. ‘Nobody should be able to access those memories without my permission,’ he agreed. ‘Not you, not Sachs, not anyone without the appropriate encryption key. And yet the Ambassador’s lattice somehow unlocked the memories automatically, and without effort – as did yours.’
‘Who else has a copy of that key?’
‘Only me,’ Maxwell replied.
Luc glanced around the ranks of books surrounding them, thinking about all those people, Cheng and the members of the Eighty-Five, coming here and browsing their pages, entirely unaware of the sophisticated circuitry contained within them. Surely they must handle these books all the time . . .
‘You’ve been stealing their memories,’ Luc guessed, regarding Maxwell with new eyes. ‘Every time one of the Eighty-Five picks up one of your books, it sieves information out of their lattices without them ever knowing. Am I right?’
Maxwell’s expression became strangely sad. ‘The circuitry in the books is meant to push extra embedded information the other way – from the pages to the reader’s lattice. It took me a while, but I worked out how to reverse the flow of data and keep it hidden.’
‘Why do it?’
‘Because one day, the people of the Tian Di will need to know the truth about their leaders, and they’ll find all the evidence they need right here in this library. Tell me, just how much contact have you had with the members of the Temur Council, apart from Zelia?’
‘More than enough, for this lifetime.’
‘Dreadful people, aren’t they?’ Maxwell said dryly. ‘If I had the means, I would destroy the Council, and Vanaheim along with them.’
Luc stared at him. ‘Why?’
Maxwell put his glass back down, and Luc tried not to flinch when one of the mechants drifted forward to refill it. ‘Because they’re a travesty of what they once were, long sunk into the introspection of old age, and dark perversions you would scarcely believe.’
‘What kind of perversions?’
Maxwell looked at him in disbelief. ‘You’re Zelia’s puppet. Surely you’ve encountered the “experiments” I’ve
