The Revelation Space Collection

‘Now let’s not get carried away,’ Gaffney said, smiling at the others. ‘We have enough of a mess to deal with without indulging in apocalyptic fantasies.’

‘It isn’t a fantasy,’ Dreyfus said. ‘Someone wanted this to happen.’

‘Why, though?’ Crissel asked. ‘What group of people could possibly organise themselves to seize control of the entire Band? It’s one thing to take habitats off abstraction. But the citizens inside won’t just roll over and accept that. You’d need an armed militia to actually subjugate them. Thousands of people for each habitat, at the very least. We’d be looking at an invisible army ten million strong just to have a chance of making this work. If there was a movement that powerful, that coordinated, we’d have seen it coming years ago.’

‘Maybe it’s a different kind of takeover,’ Dreyfus said.

‘What did the Conjoiner say about the people behind this?’ asked Baudry.

‘Not much.’ Dreyfus hesitated, conscious that every divulgence carried a measurable risk. ‘I got a name. A figure called Aurora. She may have some connection to the Nerval-Lermontov family.’

Baudry peered at him. ‘They lost a daughter in the Eighty. Her name was Aurora, I believe. You’re not seriously suggesting—’

‘I’m not making any inferences. Maybe I can get more out of Clepsydra when she’s feeling stronger, and she’s certain she can trust us.’

‘You’re worried about her trusting us?’ Baudry said.

A knock at the door signalled the return of the operator. She entered the room with a trace less diffidence than before.

‘And?’ Gaffney asked.

‘The drones have been requisitioned, sirs. First is scheduled to dock at Szlumper Oneill in eleven minutes. Within twenty-two minutes, the remaining three will have completed approaches to their respective habitats.’

‘Very good,’ Gaffney allowed.

‘I’ve secured high-res visual feeds of all four habitats, sirs. I can pipe the observations through to the Solid Orrery, with your permission.’

Gaffney nodded. ‘Do it.’

The Solid Orrery reconfigured itself, allocating much of its quickmatter resources to providing scaled-up representations of the four silent communities. They swelled to the size of fruit, while the rest of the Glitter Band shrank down to a third of its former size. Tiny moving jewels signified the requisitioned drones, steered onto docking approaches. The prefects watched the spectacle wordlessly as the minutes oozed by.

Make me wrong, Dreyfus thought. Make all this turn out to be the deluded fabulation of a worn-out field prefect, resentful at the shabby treatment accorded his boss. Make Clepsydra’s testimony turn out to be the burblings of a mad woman, driven insane by years of isolation. Show us that Thalia Ng really did make mistakes, despite everything I know to the contrary. Show us that the first two attacks were accidents caused by hair-trigger defence systems twitching like headless snakes when abstraction went down.

But it wasn’t to be. Eleven minutes after the girl had spoken, the anti-collision systems of Szlumper Oneill opened fire on the approaching drone, destroying it utterly. If anything the fire was more concentrated, more purposeful, than on the previous two occasions. The jewel-like representation of the drone swelled to a thumb-sized smear of twinkling light, then reformed into the pulsing tetrahedral icon that symbolised an object of unknown status.

Three minutes later a second drone attempted to dock at House Aubusson, and met with precisely the same fate. Five minutes after that, a third drone was annihilated as it braked to engage with Carousel New Seattle- Tacoma. Three minutes after that, twenty-two minutes since the girl had spoken, the guns of the Chevelure- Sambuke Hourglass directed savage fire on the final drone.

The Solid Orrery reformed itself into its usual configuration. A brittle silence ensued.

‘So maybe it’s war after all,’ Baudry said eventually.

CHAPTER 17

The isolation chamber was clad in a honeycomb of identical interlocking grey panels, one of which functioned as a passwall. A handful of the panels were illuminated at any one time, but the pattern changed slowly and randomly, robbing the weightless prisoner of any fixed frame of reference. Clepsydra was floating, knees raised to her chest, arms linked around her shins. The patterns of lights erased all shadow, lending her the two-dimensional appearance of a cut-out. She appeared to be unconscious, but it was common knowledge that Conjoiners did not partake of anything resembling normal mammalian sleep.

Since his emergence through the passwall didn’t appear to have alerted her to his presence, Dreyfus cleared his throat gently. ‘Clepsydra, ’ he announced, ‘it’s me.’

She turned her crested skull in his direction, her eyes gleaming dully in the subdued light of the bubble. ‘How long has it been?’

The question took Dreyfus aback. ‘Since you were transferred from Mercier’s clinic? Only a few hours.’

‘I’m losing track of time again. If you had said “months” I might have believed you.’ She pulled a face. ‘I don’t like this room. It feels haunted.’

‘You must feel very cut off in here.’

‘I just don’t like this room. It’s so dead that I’m starting to imagine phantom presences. I keep seeing something out of the corner of my eye, then when I look it isn’t there. Even the inside of the rock wasn’t like this.’

‘I apologise,’ Dreyfus said. ‘I committed a procedural mistake in allowing you into Panoply without considering our operational secrets.’

Clepsydra unfolded herself with catlike slowness. In the sound-absorbing space, the acoustics of her voice had acquired a metallic timbre. ‘Will you get into trouble for that?’

He smiled at her concern. ‘Not likely. I’ve weathered worse storms than a procedural slip-up. Especially as no damage was done.’ He cocked his head. ‘No damage was done, I take it?’

‘I saw many things.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘Many things that were of no interest to me,’ she added. ‘It may reassure you to know that I’ve buried those secrets far below conscious recall. I can’t simply forget them: forgetting isn’t a capacity we possess. But you may consider them as good as forgotten.’

‘Thank you, Clepsydra.’

‘But that won’t be the end of it, will it? You might believe me. The others won’t.’

‘I’ll see to it that they do. You’re a protected witness, not a prisoner.’

‘Except I’m not free to leave.’

‘We’re worried someone wants to kill you.’

‘That would be my problem, wouldn’t it?’

‘Not when we still think you can tell us something useful.’ Dreyfus had come to a halt a couple of metres from Clepsydra’s floating form, oriented the same way up. Before entering the bubble, he’d divested himself of all weapons and communications devices, including his whiphound. It occurred to him, in a way it had not before, that he was alone in a surveillance blind spot with an agile humanoid-machine hybrid that could easily kill him. Autopsies of dead Conjoiners had revealed muscle fibres derived from chimpanzee physiology, giving them five or six times normal human strength. Clepsydra might have been weakened, but he doubted that she’d have much trouble overpowering him, if she wished.

Some flicker of that unease must have showed on his face.

‘I still frighten you,’ she said, very quietly. ‘But you came unarmed, with not even a knife for protection.’

‘I’ve still got my acid wit.’

‘Now tell me exactly what it is I have to fear. Something’s happened, hasn’t it? Something very, very bad.’