The Revelation Space Collection

‘For your purposes I will call myself Clepsydra. If this is problematic for you, you may call me Waterclock, or simply Clock.’

‘You sound as if that isn’t your real name.’

‘My real name would split your mind open like wood under an axe.’

‘Clepsydra it is, then. What exactly are you doing here, assuming you’re ready to tell me?’

‘Surviving. That has been enough, lately.’

‘Tell me about this ship. What’s it doing here? What use is it to Aurora?’

‘Our ship returned to this system nearly fifty years ago. We were experiencing difficulties. We’d encountered something in deep interstellar space: a machinelike entity of hostile nature. The ship had survived by sloughing part of itself, in the manner of a lizard shedding its tail. On the long return journey it had reorganised itself as best as it could, but it was still damaged. We were attempting to make contact with the Mother Nest, but our communications systems were not functioning properly.’ Clepsydra swallowed, a gesture that all of a sudden made her look helplessly human. ‘Aurora found us first. She lured us in with promises of help and then swallowed us inside this place. We have been inside it ever since: unable to escape, unable to contact the Nest.’

‘That still doesn’t tell me what Aurora wanted of you.’

‘That is more difficult to explain.’

‘Try me.’

‘Aurora wanted us to dream, Prefect. That is why she — why it — kept us here. Aurora made us dream the future. She desired our intelligence concerning future events. We prognosticated. And when we saw something in our prognostications that she didn’t like, Aurora punished us.’

‘No one can dream the future.’

‘We can,’ Clepsydra said blithely. ‘We have a machine that lets us. We call it Exordium.’

CHAPTER 14

Thalia’s walking party made their way to the elevator shaft that pierced the middle of the sphere from pole to pole. The high-capacity car was still waiting for them, exactly as they had left it, down to the pale-yellow watercolour panels of scenes from Yellowstone.

‘It’s powered up,’ Parnasse said. ‘That’s good. Shouldn’t be any problem getting down now.’

Thalia, the last of the five to enter, cleared the trelliswork doors. They scissored shut behind her.

‘It’s not moving. I’m asking it and it isn’t moving,’ Caillebot said.

‘That’s because it isn’t hearing you. Abstraction’s two-way,’ Parnasse said, with the weary air of a man who shouldn’t have to explain such things.

‘Then how do we get it to move? Are there manual controls?’

‘We don’t need them just yet. Do we, Thalia?’

‘He’s right,’ she said. ‘Panoply operatives need to be free to move wherever and whenever we want, even without abstraction. We distribute the voiceprint patterns of authorised personnel to all habitats as a matter of routine.’ She spoke up. ‘This is Deputy Field Prefect Thalia Ng. Recognise my voiceprint.’

‘Voiceprint recognised, Deputy Field Prefect Ng.’

Thalia breathed a little easier. ‘Please descend to ground level.’

There was an uncomfortable moment when nothing happened, and then the elevator began to descend.

‘Glad that worked,’ Thalia said under her breath. Parnasse glanced at her with a sly smile as if he’d overheard.

‘That’s good,’ Caillebot said. ‘I was beginning to wonder what would happen if we’d been stuck up there.’

‘We’d have taken the stairs,’ Parnasse said witheringly. ‘You’re familiar with the concept of stairs, right?’

Caillebot shot him a warning look but didn’t reply.

The elevator continued its smooth descent, passing through the neck connecting the sphere to the stalk. They were in the hollow atrium now. Far below, visible through the trellised glass windows on the outside of the car, the lobby lay completely deserted. Thalia had half-expected that at least some citizens would be converging on the polling core, demanding to know what was wrong and exactly when it would be fixed, but there was no sign of them. She couldn’t exactly say why, but something made her touch the whiphound again.

The car completed its descent, coming to a smooth halt at the lobby level, and the trelliswork doors clattered open. Again, Thalia was struck by the emptiness of the lobby. It felt even more still than when they had first passed through it, their footsteps echoing loudly.

‘Okay, people,’ she said, ‘let’s stick together. Like the man said, there could be some angry citizens out there, and we may be the ones they decide to take it out on.’

They walked into blue-hazed sunlight, shining down from the arc of the window band eight kilometres above. Around them stood ornamental ponds and lawns, crisscrossed by neatly tended gravel and marble pathways. Fountains were still burbling somewhere nearby. Everything looked utterly normal, exactly as Thalia had expected save for the absence of a rampaging mob. Perhaps she was doing the citizens of Aubusson a disservice. But then she recalled how quickly the reception committee had turned against her. If they were truly representative of the citizenry, then there was every reason to expect a similarly unpleasant reaction from the other eight hundred thousand of them.

‘I hear voices,’ Caillebot said suddenly. ‘I think they’re coming from the other side of the stalk.’

‘I hear them, too,’ Parnasse said, ‘but we’re not going that way. Straightest path is right ahead, though those trees, directly towards the endcap.’

‘Maybe I should speak to them,’ Thalia said. ‘Tell them what’s happened, how it won’t be long before things are sorted out.’

‘We had a plan, girl,’ Parnasse said. ‘The idea was to walk and stay out of trouble. Those voices don’t sound too happy, the way I’m hearing ’em.’

‘I agree,’ said Meriel Redon.

Thalia bit her lip. She could hear the voices as well, just above the burble of fountains. A lot of people, sounding agitated and angry. Shouts that were threatening to become screams.

Her hand tightened on the whiphound again. Something was wrong, she knew. That wasn’t the sound of a crowd high on its own fury and indignation, wanting the blood of whoever had taken down their precious abstraction.

That was the sound of frightened people.

‘Listen to me,’ Thalia said, fighting to keep the fear out of her own voice. ‘I need to see what’s happening. That’s my duty as a prefect. You four keep going, heading towards the endcap. I’ll catch you up.’

‘That’s not a pretty sound,’ Parnasse said.

‘I know. That’s why I need to check it out.’

‘It isn’t your problem,’ Caillebot said. ‘Our constables will take care of any civil unrest. That’s what they’re for.’

‘You have a standing police force?’

The gardener shook his head. ‘No, but the system will have called up a constabulary from the citizenry, the same way we were called up to form the reception party.’

‘There is no system,’ Parnasse said.

‘Then the people who were called up last time will resume their duties.’

‘When exactly was last time?’ Thalia asked. The agitated noise was growing louder. It sounded more like the whooping of excited wildfowl than any sound produced by people.

‘I don’t remember. A couple of years ago.’

‘It was more like ten,’ Meriel Redon said. ‘And even if the constables self-activate, how are they all going to get where they’re needed if the trains are down?’

‘We don’t have time to talk this over.’ Thalia unclipped her whiphound, tightening her hand around the heavy