accident. He was gladdened to see that two of the four machines were now spinning again, even if they were obviously not operating at normal capacity. The machine nearest the destroyed unit was still stationary, with at least a dozen technicians visible inside the transparent casing. As for the destroyed machine itself, there was now little evidence that it had ever existed. The remains of the casing had been removed, leaving circular apertures in the floor and ceiling. Technicians crowded around both sites, directing heavy servitors to assist them in the slow process of installing a new unit.
‘You’ve obviously been busy,’ Dreyfus told Trajanova.
‘Field prefects aren’t the only ones who work hard in this organisation.’
‘I know. And my remark wasn’t intended as a slight. We’ve all been under pressure and I appreciate the work that’s gone on down here. I’ll make sure the supreme prefect hears about it.’
‘And which supreme prefect would that be?’
‘Jane Aumonier, of course. No disrespect to Lillian Baudry, but Jane’s the only one who matters in the long run.’
Trajanova looked sideways, not quite able to meet Dreyfus’s eyes. ‘For what it’s worth… I don’t agree with what happened. Down here we have a lot of respect for Jane.’
‘She’s earned it from all of us.’
There was an awkward silence. Across the room someone hammered at something.
‘What will happen now?’ Trajanova asked at length.
‘We work for Lillian, just as we worked for Jane. I don’t know what else you’ve heard, but we have a new crisis on our hands.’ Dreyfus chose to volunteer information, hoping it might calm some of the troubled water between them. ‘I need to resume interviews with my beta-level subjects: I’m hoping that they can shed some light on what’s going on and how we can stop it.’
Trajanova looked at the two spinning Search Turbines. ‘Those units are running at half-capacity. I can’t risk spinning them any faster. But I could prioritise your search queries, if that would help. You wouldn’t notice much difference.’
‘I can still run my recoverables?’
‘Yes, there’s more than enough capacity for that.’
‘Good work, Trajanova.’ After a moment, he said, ‘I know things didn’t work out between us when you were my deputy, but I’ve never had the slightest doubt concerning your professional competence down here.’
She considered his remark before answering. ‘Prefect…’ she began.
‘What is it?’
‘What you said before — the last time we spoke. About how you’d had the feeling your own query had triggered the accident?’
Dreyfus waved a dismissive hand. ‘It was foolish of me. These things happen.’
‘Not down here they don’t. I checked the search log and you were right. Of all the queries handled by the Turbines in the final second before the accident, yours was the last one to come in. You searched for priors on the Nerval-Lermontov family, correct?’
‘Yes,’ Dreyfus said cautiously.
‘Just after your query was shuffled into the process stack, the Turbine began to exceed its own maximum authorised spin rate. It spun itself apart in less than one quarter of a second.’
‘It must still have been a coincidence.’
‘Prefect, now I’m the one trying to convince you. Something went wrong, but I don’t believe it was coincidence. The operating logic of one of these things is complex, and much of the instruction core was lost when the Turbine failed. But if I could ever piece it back together, I think I know what I’d find. Your search query was a trigger. Someone had implanted a trap in the operating logic, waiting to be primed by your question.’
Dreyfus mulled over her hypothesis. It dovetailed with his suspicions, but it was another thing entirely to hear it from Trajanova’s lips.
‘You honestly think someone could have done that?’
‘I could have done it, if I’d had the mind to. For anyone else, it would have been a lot more difficult. Frankly, I don’t see how they could have done it without triggering high-level security flags. But somehow they managed.’
‘Thank you,’ Dreyfus said softly. ‘I appreciate your candour. Given what’s happened, are you satisfied that I won’t cause any more damage just by querying the system?’
‘I can’t promise anything, but I’ve installed manual overspeed limits on both operating Turbs. No matter what traps may still be lurking in the logic, I don’t think the Turbs will be able to self-destruct. Go ahead and ask whatever you need to ask.’
‘I will,’ Dreyfus said. ‘But I’ll tread ever so softly.’
Delphine Ruskin-Sartorious appraised him with her sea-green eyes, cool as ice. ‘You look very tired. More so than last time, and you already looked tired back then. Is something the matter?’
Dreyfus pressed a fat finger against the side of his brow, where a vein was throbbing. ‘Things have been busy.’
‘Have you made progress on the case?’
‘Sort of. I’ve an idea who may have been behind the murders but I’m still not seeing a motive. I was hoping you’d be able to join a few dots for me.’
Delphine pushed strands of dirty black hair under the cloth scarf she wore as a hairband. ‘You’ll have to join some for me first. Who is this suspect you’re thinking of?’
Dreyfus sipped from the bulb of coffee he’d conjured just before stepping into the room. ‘My deputy and I followed an evidence chain, trying to find out who called your habitat to put you off making the deal with Dravidian. The lead we followed brought us to the name of another family in the Glitter Band.’
Delphine’s eyes narrowed.
‘Who?’ she asked.
Feeling as if he was treading across a minefield, he said, ‘The Nerval-Lermontovs. Do you know of them?’
Beneath the workstained white smock, her slight shoulders moved in an easy shrug. ‘I know
‘What about a specific connection with your family?’
‘If there is one, I can’t think of it. We didn’t move in the same social orbits.’
‘Then there’s no specific reason you can think of why the Nerval-Lermontovs would want to hurt your family?’
‘None whatsoever. If you have a theory, I’d love to hear it.’
‘I don’t,’ Dreyfus said. ‘But I was hoping you might.’
‘It can’t be the answer,’ she said. ‘The trail you followed must have led you up a blind alley. The Nerval- Lermontovs would never have done something to my family. They’ve had their share of tragedy, but that doesn’t make them murderers.’
‘You mean Aurora?’
‘She was just a girl when it happened to her, Prefect. Calvin Sylveste’s machines ate her mind and spat out a clockwork zombie.’
‘So I heard.’
‘What are you not telling me?’
‘Suppose a member of the Nerval-Lermontov family was planning something.’
‘Such as?’
‘Like, say, a forced takeover of part of the Glitter Band.’
She nodded shrewdly. ‘Hypothetically, of course. If something like that was actually happening, you’d have told me, wouldn’t you?’
Dreyfus smiled tightly. ‘If it was, can you think of a reason why your family might have posed an obstacle to those plans?’
‘What kind of obstacle?’
