The Revelation Space Collection

But that couldn’t be the answer. This ship had probably been here for decades, and yet the injuries looked fresh. Some form of turquoise salve had been spread over the wounds, but beneath the salve the stumps were still raw. The sleepers hadn’t even received basic field care, let alone the emergency regenerative medicine that the Conjoiners should have been able to utilize.

‘I don’t understand—’ he began.

‘I did it,’ the woman said. ‘I cut them. I cut them all.’

‘Why?’ Dreyfus asked.

‘To eat them,’ she said, sounding amazed at his question. ‘What other reason would there have been?’

CHAPTER 13

Thalia found herself once again confronting a waiting polling core. She was somewhere in the sphere: most likely on a floor about halfway up its hundred-metre diameter, judging by the spacious dimensions of the room housing the machinery. Large porthole-shaped windows ringed the enormous space. The beige walls were covered in mazelike white patterns derived from the designs of early integrated circuits. A number of chairs and tables had been provided for the comfort of the visitors. The furniture was all safely inert; no quickmatter was permitted near a polling core, save that essential for the functioning of the core itself. The core was a pearl-coloured cylinder rising from the middle of the floor and piercing the ceiling, surrounded by a low metal railing. Resting on a heavy-looking plinth just outside the railinged area was a glass-cased architectural model of the Museum of Cybernetics, rendered with sterile precision.

Thalia had already explained what she would have to do; that if everything went to plan she would be on her way within less than twenty minutes; that at most her guests could expect a subliminal interruption in their access to abstraction. She had already examined the core and satisfied herself that there would be no surprises once she had opened the access window. ‘Really,’ she said, in her best self-deprecating tone, ‘it’s not all that interesting. If it was serious, they wouldn’t entrust it to just one field prefect.’

‘I’m sure you’re understating your abilities,’ said Caillebot, lounging in a blocky blue chair, one leg hooked over the other.

‘All I’m saying is, if you don’t want to hang around and see me mutter a few boring incantations, I won’t be offended. I know my way down now. If you want to wait by those goldfish ponds, I can find you when I’m done.’

‘If it doesn’t inconvenience you, I think we’d all like to stay,’ Paula Thory said, looking to the others for support. ‘It’s not often we see the beating heart of the voting apparatus laid open for examination.’

Thalia scratched at her damp collar. ‘If you want to stick around, I have no problem with that. I’m about ready to begin.’

‘Do what you must, Prefect,’ Thory said.

She opened the cylinder, conscious of the eyes on her, and retrieved the last of the four one-time pads. ‘I’m going to read out three magic words here. They’ll give me access to the core for six hundred seconds. There’s no going back once I’ve initiated that window, so it’d be best if I’m not interrupted unless absolutely necessary. Of course, I’ll keep you informed about what’s happening.’

‘We appreciate the gesture. Please, continue your work and don’t pay any heed to us,’ Caillebot said.

Thalia stepped through a gap in the surrounding railing, placed her cylinder on the ground and faced the flickering pillar of the core. She cleared her throat. ‘This is Deputy Field Prefect Thalia Ng. Acknowledge security access override Hickory Crepuscule Ivory.’

‘Override confirmed,’ answered the core. ‘You now have six hundred seconds of clearance, Deputy Field Prefect Ng.’

Thalia removed the final upgrade diskette from her cylinder. ‘I’m going to insert this into the core,’ she said. ‘It contains new software instructions to cover a minor security loophole identified by Panoply.’

She had the core present a data-entry slot for her use. She pushed the thick diskette into the pillar, then stood back while the machine digested its contents. Thalia was anxious, but not nervous. She had run into difficulties in Carousel New Seattle-Tacoma, but all her instincts assured her that nothing like that would happen here.

‘The diskette contains a data fragment,’ the core said. ‘What do you wish me to do with this data fragment?’

Thalia started to answer, but at that moment her bracelet began chiming. She lifted her cuff and glared at it in irritation. What was Prefect Muang trying to reach her about, now of all times? Muang was not one of the bastards who gave her grief about her father, but he wasn’t Dreyfus or Sparver, or one of the senior prefects she was doing her best to impress. Whatever he was calling about, it could not possibly be that urgent. Certainly not urgent enough to interrupt a sensitive field upgrade, especially now that she’d actually opened the six-hundred- second access window.

She would call him back when she was done. The world wasn’t going to end because she kept Muang waiting for a few minutes.

‘I’m sorry,’ Thalia said, squeezing the suppress button.

The core repeated its enquiry. ‘The diskette contains a data fragment. What do you wish me to do with this data fragment?’

Thalia pulled down her cuff. ‘Use it to overwrite the contents of executable data segment alpha alpha five one six, please.’

‘Just a moment.’ Lights flashed while the pillar cogitated. ‘I am ready to execute the overwrite order. I anticipate that the operation will entail a brief loss of abstraction, not exceeding three microseconds. Please confirm that the overwrite order is to be executed.’

‘Confirm,’ Thalia said.

‘The executable data segment has now been overwritten. Abstraction was down for two point six eight microseconds. All affected transactions were buffered and have now been successfully reinstated. A level-one audit indicates no software conflicts have arisen as a result of this installation. Do you have further instructions for me?’

‘No,’ Thalia said. ‘That will be all.’

‘There are four hundred and eleven seconds remaining on your access window. Do you wish the window to remain open until its scheduled termination, or shall I invoke immediate closure?’

‘You can close. We’re done here.’

‘Access is now terminated. Thank you for your visit, Deputy Field Prefect Thalia Ng.’

‘It’s been a pleasure.’ After retrieving the upgrade diskette from the pillar, Thalia snapped it back into the cylinder and then sealed the cylinder itself. She tried to keep her composure, but now that she was done, she could not help but feel a giddy elation. It was a little like being drunk on an empty stomach. I did it! she thought. She had completed all four installations. All on her own, without Dreyfus looking over her shoulder, without even the benefit of another field agent to help her with the technical workload. If anyone had ever doubted her abilities, or wondered how well she would function outside a team context, this would silence them. I, Thalia Ng, not only designed the security plug, I field-installed it myself, by hand, with just a cutter for company.

Four habitats completed. The plan had been executed. And now that she had satisfied herself that the upgrade was robust by installing it in four worst-case examples, there was nothing to stop her going live across the entire Glitter Band, all ten thousand habitats.

Bring them on, Thalia thought, and then worked very hard to wipe the look of self-satisfaction from her face as she turned to her audience again, because it would be neither seemly nor dignified in a prefect.

‘Is there a problem?’ Jules Caillebot asked, still sitting in the blue armchair but no longer in the relaxed pose of a few minutes earlier.

‘Not from my end,’ Thalia said. ‘It all went like a dream. Thanks for your cooperation.’ Maybe Muang had been calling her to inform her of a temporary comms blackout, she thought. It happened sometimes. Nothing to