our heads.’
‘Gods will be gods,’ Baudry said.
‘But that doesn’t mean I’m finished with this case,’ Dreyfus continued. ‘With the permission of the acting supreme prefect, I’d like authorisation to dig into the murder of Philip Lascaille. If there’s still a body, I want it exhumed for analysis. I want to see if there’s any evidence that his brain was subjected to alpha-level scanning.’
‘You have my permission, of course,’ Clearmountain said. ‘I don’t doubt that Jane would give it to you. But you should realise what you’re getting yourself into, digging into ancient history like that. You’ll be going up against the legal apparatus of House Sylveste. That’s an organisation that protects its secrets even more zealously than we do. It isn’t to be trifled with.’
‘With respect,’ Dreyfus said, standing up, ‘neither is Panoply.’
A little while later he called upon Demikhov. The man resembled a spectral shadow of his former self, spent beyond exhaustion.
‘I heard that there were complications,’ Dreyfus said.
‘Nothing medical, you’ll be glad to hear. The cut was as clean as a guillotine. Nerve reconnection could not have been less problematic. The only difficulty was occasioned by the intervention of your former colleague.’ Demikhov shrugged philosophically, bony shoulders moving under the green fabric of his surgical gown. ‘It was undignified, what he did to her. But at least she was unconscious throughout the whole sorry escapade.’
Dreyfus had no idea what he was talking about. He assumed he would learn all about it later.
‘And now?’
‘I completed partial reattachment, then brought her round to talk to the Ultras. She was lucid and comfortable. I then put her under again to complete the procedure.’
‘How did it go?’
‘She’s whole again. It would take a better doctor than me to tell that Zulu ever happened.’
‘Then she’ll be fine?’
‘Yes, but it’s not going to happen overnight. At the moment she can breathe for herself and make some limited body movements, but it’ll be a while before she can walk. Having the wiring back in place doesn’t mean her brain’s ready to use it again.’
‘I’d like to see her,’ Dreyfus said.
‘She’s sleeping. I’d like to keep her that way until there’s another emergency.’
‘I’d still like to see her.’
‘Then you’d better follow me,’ Demikhov answered with a heavy sigh, standing up to lead the way.
He brought Dreyfus to the quiet green room where the supreme prefect was recuperating. Jane Aumonier lay under bedsheets, sleeping normally. Aside from her thinness, the baldness of her skull and the grey pallor of her skin, there was nothing to hint at what she had endured, either in the last day or the last eleven years. She looked peaceful, serenely restful.
Dreyfus moved to her bedside. ‘I won’t wake her,’ he whispered.
‘You wouldn’t be able to. I’ve put her under for her own good. It’s quite safe to talk normally.’
Dreyfus touched the back of his hand against the side of Jane Aumonier’s face. Despite all the time they had known each other, this was the first moment of physical contact between them.
‘I’m going now,’ Dreyfus said. ‘There’s something I need to attend to, before I put it off any longer. I have to go to Hospice Idlewild. There’s someone there I need to see, someone I haven’t seen in a very long while. I probably won’t be in Panoply when you come around, but I want you to know that I’m going to be with you every step you take. If you need a hand to hold, you can count on mine.’
‘I’ll tell her what you said,’ Demikhov said.
‘I mean it. I don’t break my promises.’
Demikhov was about to usher Dreyfus from the room when he paused. ‘Prefect… there’s something I should show you. I think it’s rather wonderful.’
Dreyfus nodded at the sleeping figure. ‘This is enough for me, Doctor.’
‘I’ll show it to you anyway. Look at the wall.’
Demikhov conjured a pane into existence, filled with trembling neon-blue lines whose meaning Dreyfus couldn’t fathom.
‘What am I looking at?’ he asked.
‘Dreams,’ Demikhov said. ‘Beautiful human dreams.’
Praise for Alastair Reynolds:
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‘Intensely compelling; darkly intelligent; hugely ambitious.’
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‘Reynolds is currently the best exponent of this “Sense of Wonder” school.’
‘Alastair Reynolds occupies the same frenzied imaginative space as Philip K. Dick or A. E. Van Vogt.’
‘He is taking the stuff of space opera and making it into something new… the most exciting space opera writer working today.’
