The Revelation Space Collection

I ever was.’

‘What happened in Cerberus?’

‘That’s a very long story, Khouri.’

But he told her anyway. How he had travelled into the world; how Sajaki’s suit had turned out to be an empty shell; how that realisation had done nothing but strengthen his resolve to push on further, and what, finally, he had found, in the final chamber. How he had passed into the matrix — at which point, his memories diverged from his other self. But when he told her he was sure that his other self was dead, he did so with such conviction that Khouri wondered if there was not another way of knowing; if some other, less tangible bond had linked them, right until the end.

There were things even Sylveste did not really understand; that much she sensed. He had not achieved godhead — or at least, not for more than an instant, when he bathed in the portal. Had that been a choice he had made subsequently? she wondered. If the matrix was simulating him; and if the matrix was essentially infinite in its computational capacity… what limits had been imposed on him, other than those he had consciously selected?

What she learnt was this: Carine Lefevre had been kept alive by part of the Shroud, but there had been nothing accidental about it.

‘It’s as if there were two factions,’ Sylveste said, toying with one of the brass microscopes on his desk, angling its little mirror this way and that, as if trying to catch the last rays of the setting sun. ‘One that wanted to use me to find out if the Inhibitors were still around, still capable of posing a threat to the Shrouders. And the other faction, which I don’t think cared for humanity any more than the first. But they were more cautious. They thought there had to be a better way, other than goading the Inhibitor device to see if it still generated a response.’

‘But what happens to us now? Who actually won? Was it Sun Stealer or the Mademoiselle?’

‘Neither,’ Sylveste said, placing the microscope back down again, its velvet base softly bumping against the desk. ‘At least, that’s my instinctual feeling. I think we — I — came close to triggering the device, close to giving it the stimulus it needed to alert the remaining devices and begin the war against humanity.’ He laughed. ‘Calling it a war implied it might have been a two-sided thing. But I don’t think it would have been like that at all.’

‘But you don’t think it got that far?’

‘I hope and I pray, that’s all.’ He shrugged. ‘Of course, I could be wrong. I used to say I was never wrong about anything, but that’s one lesson I have learnt.’

‘And what about the Amarantin, the Shrouders?’

‘Only time will tell.’

‘That’s all?’

‘I don’t have all the answers, Khouri.’ He looked around the room, as if appraising the volumes on the shelves, reassuring himself that they were still present. ‘Not even here.’

‘It’s time to go,’ Pascale said, suddenly. She had appeared at her husband’s side with a glass of something clear; vodka, maybe. She placed it on the desk, next to a polished skull the colour of parchment.

‘Where?’

‘Back into space, Khouri. Isn’t that what you want? You surely don’t want to spend the rest of eternity here.’

‘There’s nowhere to go,’ Khouri said. ‘You should know that, Pascale. The ship was against us; the spider- room destroyed; Ilia killed—’

‘She made it, Khouri. She wasn’t killed when the shuttle was destroyed.’

So she had managed to get into a suit — but what good did that do her? Khouri was about to question Pascale further, when she realised that whatever the woman told her was very likely to be true, no matter how unbelievable it seemed — and no matter how useless the truth, no matter how little difference it could possibly make.

‘What are you two going to do?’

Sylveste reached for the vodka glass and took a discreet sip. ‘Haven’t you guessed yet? This room isn’t just for your benefit. We inhabit it as well, except that we inhabit a simulated version in the matrix. And not just this room, but the rest of the base; just as it always was — except now we have it all to ourselves.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No… not quite.’

And then Pascale moved to his side and he put an arm around her waist and the two of them turned towards the slatted window; towards the red-drenched alien sunset, the arid landscape of Resurgam stretching away, lifeless.

And then it changed.

It began at the horizon; a sweeping wave of transformation which raced towards them with the speed of an oncoming day. Clouds burst into the sky, vast as empires; now the sky was bluer, even though the sun was still sinking towards dusk. And the landscape was no longer arid, but erupting into tumultuous greenery, a verdant tidal wave. She could see lakes, and trees, alien trees, and now roads, winding between egglike houses, clustered into hamlets and, on the horizon, a larger community, rising towards a single slender spire. She stared into the distance, and stared, struck dumb by the immensity of what she was seeing, which was an entire world returned to life, and — perhaps it was a trick of the eye; she would never know — she thought she saw them moving between the houses, moving with the speed of birds, but never leaving the ground; never reaching the air.

‘Everything that they ever were,’ Pascale said, ‘or most of it, at any rate, is stored in the matrix. This isn’t some archaeological reconstruction, Khouri. This is Resurgam, as they inhabit it now. Brought into being by sheer force of will, by those who survived. It’s a whole world, down to the smallest detail.’

Khouri looked around the room, and now she understood. ‘And you’re going to study it, aren’t you?’

‘Not just study it,’ Sylveste said, draining a little more of his vodka. ‘But live in it. Until it bores us, which — I suspect — won’t be any time now.’

And then she left them, in their study, to resume whatever deep and meaningful conversation they had put in abeyance while they entertained her.

She finished climbing the stairwell, stepping once more onto the surface of Hades. The crust was still aglow with red fire, still alive with computation. Now that she had been here for long enough to attune her senses, she realised that, all along, the crust had been drumming beneath her feet, as if a titanic engine were roaring in a basement. That, she supposed, was not far from the truth. It was an engine of simulation.

She thought of Sylveste and Pascale, commencing another day’s exploration of their fabulous new world. In the time since she had left them, years might have passed for them. That seemed to matter very little. She had the suspicion that they would only choose death when all else had ceased to hold their fascination. Which, as Sylveste had said, was not going to happen any time soon.

She turned on the suit communicator.

‘Ilia… can you hear me? Shit; this is stupid, but they said you might still be alive.’

There was nothing but static. Hopes crushed, she looked around at the searing plain and wondered what she was meant to do next.

Then: ‘Khouri, is that you? What business have you got still being alive?’

There was something very odd about her voice. It kept speeding up and slowing down, like she was drunk, but too ominously regular for that.

‘I could ask you the same thing. Last thing I remember is the shuttle going belly-up. You telling me you’re still out there, drifting?’

‘Better than that,’ Volyova said, voice whooshing up and down the spectrum. ‘I’m aboard a shuttle; do you hear that? I’m aboard a shuttle.’

‘How the—’

‘The ship sent it. The Infinity.’ For once, Volyova sounded breathless with excitement; as if this was something she had been desperately anxious to tell someone. ‘I thought it was going to kill me. That’s all I was waiting for; that final attack. But it didn’t come. Instead, the ship sent out a shuttle for me.’

‘This doesn’t make any sense. Sun Stealer should still be running it; should still be trying to finish us off…’