sites to turn against us. I doubt that we’d retain a single habitat by the end of the thirteenth day.’ She swallowed heavily. ‘That includes Panoply.’
‘And that assumption of twenty-six hours—’ Dreyfus began.
‘It’s guesswork, a number I pulled out of the air. Perhaps it’ll take longer than that. But even if it takes four days to leapfrog from one habitat to the next, she’ll still have beaten us within two months. It’s anyone’s guess how long Chasm City will be able to hold out, but I wouldn’t put odds on it lasting much longer than the Glitter Band.’
‘We can do something, though, surely,’ Aumonier said.
Baudry’s expression was that of someone burdened with terrible news. She reminded Dreyfus of a doctor about to deliver the most devastating of verdicts. ‘We can do something, yes. Now, while Aurora is still gaining a foothold, and before her efforts touch us. Let’s rewind the simulation back to day zero, today.’
Now there were just four habitats highlighted in red. ‘The weevil flows have reached Brazilia, and will make contact with Flammarion any minute now.’ Baudry glanced uneasily at her bracelet. ‘But for the next few hours — maybe even as long as a day — we’re only looking at four points of potential spread, if we assume the new habitats can be geared up to weevil production.’ Baudry tightened her fingers against each other. ‘Aurora is at her most vulnerable now. She has revealed herself, and therefore already played the element of surprise. But she has not yet consolidated enough territory to truly overwhelm us.’
‘I thought you said we were already overwhelmed by the weevils,’ said Senior Prefect Clearmountain.
‘I’m not talking about dealing with the weevils,’ Baudry answered. ‘I’m talking about taking out the production centres.’
Clearmountain looked unimpressed. ‘This isn’t surgery,’ he said, looking around the table at the others. ‘You can’t just take out a manufactory and somehow leave the rest of the habitat intact.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ Baudry said, with icy control.
He blinked. ‘Then you’re talking about—’
‘Mass euthanisation, yes. We nuke the infected habitats. If this was the easy option, do you honestly think I’d have waited until now before raising it?’
‘It’s murder.’
‘We’d be sacrificing a certain number of lives to ensure the survival of vastly more. You saw that simulation I just ran, Senior. Within two months we’ll have lost everything. She could be all over us in as little as thirteen days if my earlier assessment was correct. Maybe we don’t even have that long. That’s one hundred million lives. If we target both Brazilia and Flammarion now, we’ll only be losing six hundred and fifty thousand people. Include Szlumper Oneill and House Aubusson and we’re still talking about less than two per cent of the total number of citizens in our care.’
‘You’re talking as if two per cent is a blip,’ said Clearmountain incredulously.
‘With all due respect,’ Baudry answered, ‘this is war. There isn’t a general in history who wouldn’t snatch at the possibility of victory if it could be guaranteed with less than one casualty for every fifty combatants.’
‘But they’re not combatants,’ Dreyfus said testily. ‘They’re citizens, and they didn’t sign up to be part of anyone’s war.’
‘The balance of numbers still holds,’ Baudry said. ‘Strike now and we’ll be saving many tens of millions of lives. We have to consider this, ladies and gentlemen. We’re in dereliction of duty if we don’t.’
‘It’s monstrous,’ Clearmountain said.
‘So is the prospect of losing the ten thousand,’ Baudry replied.
‘But would we necessarily be losing one hundred million lives?’ asked Aumonier. ‘Gaffney told Dreyfus that Aurora was interested in a benign takeover. The life-support systems in Aubusson and the three other habitats are still running: we’d have seen the evidence otherwise. That suggests to me that Aurora has at least the intention of keeping her subjects alive and healthy.’
‘Human shields aren’t much use unless they’re alive,’ Baudry said.
‘But we still have to consider the possibility that she intends to keep her subjects alive for ever. If her stated goal is to ensure the long-term survival of the Glitter Band, she’s not going to start murdering people.’ Aumonier’s eyes became glazed, as if she was looking at something far beyond the room. ‘Oh, wait,’ said her floating head. ‘Something’s coming in from Flammarion. They’ve made contact.’
Bracelets started chiming. The prefects silenced them and studied the Solid Orrery as it enlarged a thimble- shaped representation of House Flammarion.
‘Status on Brazilia?’ Dreyfus asked.
Aumonier glanced away, then back at him. ‘The anti-collision guns have been picking off one weevil in ten. The rest are getting through more or less undamaged. They’ve established six bridge-heads on the outer skin of the wheel. Our assets have been concentrating fire, but some weevils appear to be making it through into the underlying structure.’
‘Pressure containment?’
‘Still holding. It looks as if the machines are at least programmed to break inside without compromising biosphere integrity.’
It would go the same way with Flammarion, Dreyfus knew. The concentration of weevils might not be exactly the same, the anti-collision systems might prove more or less successful at intercepting the arriving forces, but it would make no practical difference in the long run. It would only take a handful of those war robots to storm their way through the citizenry, scything a bloody path to the polling core. And then they would open a door and Aurora, or some facet of Aurora, could pass through.
‘How many did we get off Brazilia?’
‘Eleven thousand on the commercial shuttles that were already docked. Three from Flammarion.’
‘Aurora’s reliant on data networks to hop into those habitats,’ Dreyfus said. ‘Before we start nuking our own citizens, can we block her progress by taking down part of the network?’
Baudry grimaced. ‘It’s all or nothing, Tom.’
‘Then we take the whole damned thing down.’
‘We don’t know for sure that that would stop Aurora, but it would definitely hurt us. We need the apparatus to track Aurora’s spread, to coordinate evacuation operations and the deployment of our own assets.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Aumonier said, ‘Tom is right. Taking down Bandwide abstraction is something we have to consider. In fact, I’ve been considering it ever since I became aware of the crisis. We shouldn’t underestimate the risks, though. We may slow Aurora, but we’ll more than likely blind ourselves in the process.’
‘Use the nukes and we end this now,’ Baudry said. ‘Aurora may not be intending to kill people, but she definitely intends to take their freedom from them.’
Dreyfus clutched his stylus so tightly that the nib pushed into his palm and drew blood. ‘There’s another option, while we still have the apparatus. A given habitat may not be able to fight off the weevils, but at the moment we still have the resources of the entire Glitter Band to call upon.’
‘I’m not with you, Tom,’ Baudry said.
‘I say we table an emergency poll with the people. We request permission to draft and mobilise a temporary militia from across the entire Glitter Band.’
‘Define “militia”.’
‘I mean millions of citizens, armed and equipped with whatever weapons their manufactories can produce in the next thirteen hours. They already have the ships, so moving them around won’t be a problem. If we can supply them with weapons blueprints, then place enough of them into the compromised habitats, and into the habitats we think Aurora will go for next, together with military-grade servitors under our control, we may be able to break her back without using nukes.’
Baudry looked regretful. ‘You’re talking about citizens, Tom, not soldiers.’
‘You were the one calling them combatants, not me.’
‘They have no training, no equipment—’
‘The manufactories’ll give them equipment. Eidetics will give them training. Prefects can lead small units of drafted citizens.’
‘There are a hundred million citizens out there, Tom, ninety-eight per cent of whom face no immediate threat from Aurora. Do you honestly think many of them are going to race to throw themselves against those weevils?’