‘It’s begun,’ Dreyfus said. ‘Aurora’s takeover. We’ve lost control of four habitats. Attempts to land ships on them have been met by hostile action.’
‘I didn’t think it would be so soon.’
‘When Sparver and I found you, she must have realised Panoply were closing in fast. She decided to go with just the four habitats that were already compromised rather than wait for the upgrade software to be installed across the entire ten thousand.’
Clepsydra looked puzzled. ‘What good will that do her? Even if you have lost control of those habitats now, you still have access to the resources of the rest of the Glitter Band, not to mention Panoply’s own capabilities. Aurora will not be able to hold out indefinitely.’
‘I’m guessing she assumes she can.’
‘All the times I sensed Aurora’s mind, I detected an intense strategic cunning; a constantly probing machinelike evaluation of shifting probabilities. This is not a mind capable of pointless gestures, or elementary lapses of judgement.’ Clepsydra paused. ‘Have you had any formal contact with her?’
‘Not a squeak. Other than our theory about the Nerval-Lermontovs, we still don’t really know who she is.’
‘You believe she was one of the Eighty?’
Dreyfus nodded. ‘But everything we know says that all of the Eighty failed. Aurora was one of the most famous cases. How can we have been wrong about that?’
‘What if there was something different about her simulation? Some essential detail that varied from the others? I told you that we were aware of Calvin Sylveste’s procedures. We know that he fine-tuned some of the neural-mapping and simulation parameters from one volunteer to the next. Superficially, it appeared to make no difference to the outcome. But what if it did?’
‘I don’t follow. She either died or she didn’t.’
‘Consider this, Prefect. After her Transmigration, Aurora was truly conscious in her alpha-level embodiment. She was aware of the other seventy-nine volunteers, in close contact with many of them. They’d hoped to form a community of minds, an immortal elite above the rest of corporeal humanity. But then Aurora saw the others failing: their simulations stalling, or locking into endless recursive loops. And she began to fear for herself, even as she suspected that she might be different, immune to whatever deficiency was stalking her comrades. But she was truly fearful for another reason.’
‘Which was?’ Dreyfus asked.
‘By the time the last of the Eighty was scanned, the true nature of what Calvin was attempting had begun to percolate through to the mass consciousness. What he had in mind was not simply a new form of immortality, to improve upon what was already available via drugs and surgery and medichines. Calvin sought the creation of an entirely new and superior stratum of existence. The Eighty wouldn’t just be invulnerable and ageless. They’d be faster, cleverer, almost limitless in their potentiality. They would make the Conjoiners seem almost Neanderthal. Can you guess what happened next, Prefect?’
‘A backlash, perhaps?’
‘Groups began to emerge, petitioning for tighter controls over the Eighty. They wanted Calvin’s subjects to be confined to firewall-shielded computational architectures — minds in cages, if you will. More hardline elements wanted the Eighty to be frozen, so that the implications of what they were could be studied exhaustively before they were allowed to resume simulated consciousness. Even more extreme factions wanted the Eighty to be deleted, as if their very patterns were a threat to civilised society.’
‘But they didn’t get their way.’
‘No, but the tide was growing. Had the Eighty not begun to fail of their own accord, there’s no telling how strong the anti-Transmigration movement might have become. Those of the Eighty who were still functioning must have seen the walls closing in.’
‘Aurora amongst them.’
‘It’s just a theory. But if she suspected that her kind were going to be hounded and persecuted, that her own existence was in danger even if she didn’t succumb to stasis or recursion, might she not have devised a scheme to ensure her own survival?’
‘Fake her own stasis, in other words. Leave a data corpse. But in the meantime the real Aurora was somewhere else. She must have escaped into the wider architecture of the entire Glitter Band, like a rat under the floorboards.’
‘I think there is a very real possibility that this is what happened.’
‘Were there other survivors?’
‘I don’t know. Possibly. But the only mind I ever sensed clearly was Aurora’s. Even if there are more, I think she is the strongest of them. The figurehead. The one with the dreams and plans.’
‘So here comes the big question,’ Dreyfus said. ‘If Aurora’s really behind the loss of those four habitats — and it’s starting to look as if she is — what does she want?’
‘The only thing that has ever mattered to her: her own long-term survival.’ Clepsydra smiled gravely. ‘Where you figure in that is another matter entirely.’
‘Me personally?’
‘I mean baseline humanity, Prefect.’
After a moment Dreyfus asked, ‘Would the Conjoiners help us if we were in trouble?’
‘As you helped us on Mars two hundred and twenty years ago?’
‘I thought we were over all that.’
‘Some of us have long memories. Perhaps we would help you, as you might help an animal caught in a trap. Lately, though, we have our own concerns.’
‘Even after everything Aurora did to you?’
‘Aurora poses no threat to the greater community of the Conjoined. You might as well take revenge on the sea for drowning someone.’
‘Then you’ll do nothing.’
He thought that was the end of it, but after a long silence she said, ‘I admit I would find…
Dreyfus nodded approvingly. ‘Then you do feel something. You’ve notched down those old baseline human emotions, but you haven’t expunged them completely. She did something horrific to you and your crew, and part of you needs to hit back.’
‘Except there is nothing to hit.’
‘But if we could identify her vulnerabilities, find a way to make life difficult for her… would you help us?’
‘I wouldn’t hinder you.’
‘I know you looked deep into our data architecture before I brought you into this room. You told me you’d seen nothing of interest. But now that the damage is done, I want you to sift through that information again. It’s all in your head. Look at it from different angles. If you can find something, anything, no matter how apparently inconsequential, that sheds any light on Aurora’s location or nature, or how we might strike back, I need to know about it.’
‘There may be nothing.’
‘But there’s no harm in looking.’
A tightness appeared in her face. ‘It will take a while. Do not expect me to give you an answer immediately.’
‘That’s all right,’ Dreyfus said. ‘I’ve got another witness I need to speak to.’
Just when he thought they were done, that she had said everything she wanted to say to him, Clepsydra spoke again.
‘Dreyfus.’
‘Yes?’
‘I do not forgive your kind for what they did to us on Mars, or for the years of persecution that followed. It would be a betrayal of Galiana’s memory were I to do that.’ Then she looked him in the eyes, daring him not to reciprocate. ‘But you are not like those men. You have been kind to me.’
Dreyfus called by the Turbine hall and sought out Trajanova, the woman he’d spoken to after the earlier
