passwall. ‘Tom?’
‘In the flesh. Minus shoes, unfortunately.’
The feeds were popping on all around her, gradually filling the interior surface of the sphere. The configuration, the preference given to views of certain habitats over others, was recognisable as one of her usual settings. The Glitter Band, she realised, was still out there. She felt an odd flicker of resentment that her empire had continued running itself while she had been ousted from her throne.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked as the dark figure fastened on a safe-distance tether and crossed the airspace towards her.
‘How much did anyone tell you?’ Dreyfus asked as the mounting illumination cast shifting blue highlights on his face. He looked puffy and somehow dishevelled.
‘They told me nothing.’
‘You’re back in command,’ Dreyfus said. ‘If you want it, of course.’
In the absence of visitors, she’d had little recent practice speaking. The words came out with mushy edges, as if she had just woken. ‘What about Crissel, Gaffney, Clearmountain? What about Baudry? They can’t have agreed to this.’
‘Let’s just say the command landscape has changed. The chances are very good that Michael Crissel is dead. Gaffney — who turned out to be a traitor — is being operated on as we speak. I’ve just had to talk Baudry out of handing in her resignation. I think she’s realised the serious mistake she made in ousting you.’
‘Wait,’ Aumonier said. ‘What happened to Crissel?’
‘We lost contact with him as he was attempting to enter House Aubusson along with a squad of field prefects. We’ve also lost contact with that entire habitat, along with three others.’
‘No one told me,’ she said.
‘We’re talking about the same four habitats that Thalia was visiting to upgrade their polling cores. Looks as if we were set up, Jane. Thalia’s installation may have closed one security hole, but it blew open a much wider one. Wide enough to let a militant faction seize control of those habitats.’
‘Do you think Thalia was part of this conspiracy?’
‘No, she was set up like the rest of us. I wanted to be on the ship that Crissel took to Aubusson but Gaffney had other ideas.’ Dreyfus’s expression was one of gloomy resignation. ‘Not that it would have made much difference.’
‘What about Gaffney?’
‘He was working for the enemy faction, from within Panoply. Chances are it was Gaffney who manipulated Thalia’s upgrade to make it work the way it did.’
Aumonier shook her head in amazement. ‘I never had Sheridan down as a traitor.’
‘My guess is he feels he was doing the right and necessary thing, even if that meant going against his own organisation. From his point of view we’re the traitors, letting down the Glitter Band by not taking our duties as seriously as he deems necessary.’
‘If you’re right then we’re at least partially culpable.’
‘How so?’
‘The organisation moulds men like Gaffney. An effective prefect is only one degree from being a monster in the first place. Most of us stay the right side of the line. But we can hardly blame one of us when he strays across it.’
‘He’s still got some explaining to do,’ Dreyfus said.
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ Aumonier breathed in, composing herself. ‘Now tell me who we’re up against. Do you have a name?’
‘The figure behind the takeovers is Aurora Nerval-Lermontov. She was one of the Eighty, Jane. That means she’s dead; that she doesn’t exist any more except as a set of disembodied patterns stored in the memory of a machine. Patterns that are supposedly frozen, as if they were written down in ink.’
Aumonier digested that, sifting her memories to verify that the Nerval-Lermontovs had indeed been one of the families sponsoring Calvin Sylveste’s experiments in mind-uploading.
‘Even if I accept this… how do we know Aurora’s behind it all?’
‘A witness told me. She was being held hostage inside a rock owned by Aurora’s family. My witness reported coming into contact with an entity called Aurora.’
‘This witness—’
‘Was a Conjoiner woman named Clepsydra. This is where it gets complicated.’
‘Go for it.’
‘Clepsydra was one of the survivors aboard an entire ship that was being held captive inside that rock, deep enough underground that there was no chance of them contacting other Conjoiners.’
‘With you so far.’
Dreyfus smiled. ‘There was advanced technology aboard that ship — a Conjoiner device called Exordium that lets them see into the future.’
‘If I was hearing this from anyone other than Tom Dreyfus, I’d get Mercier up here with a full psychiatric renormalisation kit.’
‘The Conjoiners have to be in a kind of dream-state just to interpret what it shows them. It’s imprecise, but a hell of an improvement on not being able to see into the future at all.’
‘I’d buy one like a shot.’
‘Not for sale, apparently. Which is why Aurora needed to kidnap the Conjoiners and get them to run Exordium for her. That’s what they’ve been doing in that rock all the while: looking into the future on Aurora’s behalf. Seeing things she can’t see.’
‘And what did they see, Tom?’
‘The end of the world. A time of plagues, Clepsydra said. Beyond that, the dreamers couldn’t see anything. Aurora kept trying to persuade them to interpret the dreams differently. When they didn’t show her what she wanted, she turned the screws on them.’
‘I need to speak to this Clepsydra,’ Aumonier said. ‘The scarab may not like her being in this room, but she doesn’t have to be physically present — I only need a voice and a face.’
‘I wish you could speak to her,’ Dreyfus answered heavily. ‘Gaffney killed her, then tried to pin it on me. Given the knowledge she’d already sucked out of our records, there was a very real threat of her being able to pin down Aurora’s location, maybe even isolate some weakness we could use against her. That’s why she had to go. But it turns out Clepsydra had the last laugh after all.’
‘Then what about Gaffney? If he’s working for Aurora, we must be able to get something useful out of him?’
‘I sincerely hope so. I’m going to find out everything he knows. Then we can start formulating a response. I want those habitats back. I particularly want my deputy field back.’
‘You realise Thalia may already be dead, Tom? I’m sorry, but someone has to say it. Better that you start dealing with the possibility now rather than later.’
‘She’s dead when we recover her body,’ Dreyfus said. ‘Until then she’s behind enemy lines.’
‘I fully approve of that sentiment, but don’t raise your hopes, that’s all I’m saying.’ Aumonier closed her eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath before reopening them. ‘Now let’s talk about me, shall we? You said I am being reinstated to full status.’
‘If you want it.’
‘Of course I damned well want it. This is what keeps me alive.’
‘It could be what kills you. Things aren’t going to get any less tense around here any time soon. Are you sure you’re ready for that? There isn’t anyone I’d sooner see running the organisation in a time of crisis, but you’ve given Panoply more than enough in the last eleven years. No one would hold it against you if you decided to sit this one out.’
‘I’m in command.’
‘Good,’ called another voice from the still-open passwall. Aumonier recognised the hovering form of Baudry.
