open along structural fault lines. The air inside wouldn’t have had time to escape through those cracks before it became searingly hot. No one would have had time to suffocate, either. But they’d have had time to see the fire surging towards them, even as that fire burnt the eyes out of their sockets.
If only for an instant, they’d have known what had been done to them.
“Status, Captain Pell,” Aumonier said.
“Initial indications suggest complete destruction of the manufactory. Bellatrix reporting minor damage, but no additional casualties. Likelihood of further survivors is… low.”
“That’s what I expected,” Aumonier said, with almost infinite resignation.
“Destroy the rest of the habitat, Captain. I don’t want those weevils using it as a bridgehead even if they can’t make new copies of themselves.”
Dreyfus felt the weight of what they had just done squeeze in on him like a vice. In the time since he had last blinked, thirty-five thousand people had ceased to exist. He couldn’t focus on that kind of number, any more than he could focus on the nine hundred and sixty who had died in Ruskin-Sartorious. But he had seen the faces of the people in the Spindle’s docking tube; he’d seen their inexpressible terror when they knew that the air was going to suck them out into space and they were going to die, unpleasantly, with their lungs freezing into hard, cold husks before their hearts stopped beating. The face of one middle-aged woman came back to him now, even though she’d just been one of many people squeezed into the boarding tube. She’d been looking directly into the cam, looking—so it seemed to him now—directly at him, her expression one of quiet, dignified pleading, placing her utmost faith in him to do something about her predicament. He knew nothing of that woman, not even her name, but now she came to stand in his imagination for all the good and honest citizens who had just been erased from existence. He didn’t need to imagine her death multiplied by thirty-five thousand. The loss of one decent citizen was shame enough. That it had happened by Panoply’s hand made it all the more repellent.
But that didn’t mean Jane had been wrong to do it.
“I never thought I’d have to do this,” she said.
“Now I’m wondering if I’ve just committed the worst crime in our history.”
“You haven’t. You did the right thing.”
“I killed those people.”
“You did what you were meant to do: think of the majority.”
“I haven’t saved them, Tom. I’ve just given them time.”
“Then we’d better make it count, hadn’t we? If nothing else, we owe it to the citizens of the Spindle.”
“I keep thinking: what if I’m wrong? What if they really will be better off under Aurora’s government?”
“The people gave us the authority to protect them, Jane. That’s what we just did.” Jane Aumonier said nothing. Together they watched as Captain Pell finished off the rest of the habitat.
Now that there was no possibility of sparing survivors, the yields were dialled as high as they could go.
The blasts snipped the remains of the Spindle out of existence. Perhaps it was Dreyfus’ imagination, but he detected an easing in Aumonier’s mood when the evidence of her actions had finally been erased.
“You know the hard part?” she asked. Dreyfus shook his head.
“No.”
“The hard part is we have to do exactly the same thing to the Persistent Vegetative State. By the end of the day I’ll be lucky if I have less than a hundred thousand dead on my hands.”
“They’re not on your hands,” Dreyfus said.
“They’re on Aurora’s. Don’t ever forget that.”
She came to them shortly afterwards. Her transmission rode a secure Panoply-restricted data channel, one that remained active when the public networks were silenced and the citizens roused from the great dream of abstraction. The incoming data signal was subjected to ruthless scrutiny, but it was free of any hint of concealed subliminal influence or embedded weaponry. After consultation with the supreme prefect, it was concluded that nothing would be lost by displaying the image to the seniors gathered in the tactical room.
They found themselves looking at a girl: a child-woman on a throne wearing elaborate brocaded clothes. Her parted hair was reddish-brown, her expression watchful but not hostile.
“It’s high time we spoke,” Aurora said, in a strong, clear voice with excellent elocution.
“State your demands,” Jane Aumonier said, her projection addressing the image from her usual position at the table.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything, Supreme Prefect, except your absolute capitulation.”
“Keep her talking,” Dreyfus mouthed. Panoply’s best network hounds were trying to backtrack the transmission all the way to Aurora herself, wherever she was hiding.
“You must have demands,” Aumonier persisted.
“None,” the child-woman said firmly, as if it was the answer to a parlour game.
“Demands would imply that I need something from you. That is not the case.”
“Then why have you contacted us?” asked Lillian Baudry.
“To make recommendations,” Aurora replied.
“To suggest a way in which this whole matter can be settled with the minimum of inconvenience to all parties, as swiftly and painlessly as possible. But make no mistake: I will succeed, with or without your cooperation. I am merely concerned that the citizenry should be subject to the least amount of disruption.”
“You sound very confident of success,” said Aumonier.
“It is a strategic certainty. You have seen how easily I can take your habitats. Each is a stepping stone to another. You cannot stop the weevils, and you will not fire on your own citizens except as an absolute last resort. Ergo, my success is logically assured.”
“Don’t be so sure of yourself,” Aumonier replied.
“You are still in a position of weakness, and I have no proof that you haven’t murdered all your hostages. Why shouldn’t I assume they’re all dead, and just destroy the habitats you now control?”
“Be my guest, Supreme Prefect. Go ahead. Fire on those habitats.”
“Give me proof that the citizens are still alive.”
“What would be the point? You would rightly distrust anything I showed you. Conversely, even if I showed you a smoking ruin, the corpses of a million dead, you would suspect an ulterior motive, that I was encouraging you to attack for nefarious reasons of my own. You would still not fire.”
“You’re wrong,” Dreyfus said.
“You can convince us that the people are alive in one very easy way. Let us speak to Thalia Ng. We’ll trust her testimony, even if we don’t trust yours.”
Something crossed her face—a moue of irritation, quickly suppressed.
“You can’t,” Aumonier said, “because you’ve either killed her, or she’s out of your control.”
One of the network analysts pushed a compad in Dreyfus’ direction. He glanced at the summary. They had narrowed down Aurora’s location to a locus of thirteen hundred possible habitats.
“My concern is for the absolute welfare of the citizens,” the child-woman said.
“Under my care, no harm will come to any of them. Their future security will be guaranteed, for centuries to come. The transition to this new state of affairs can be as bloodless you wish. By the same token, all casualties incurred during the transition will be upon your conscience, not mine.”
“Why do you care about people at all?” Dreyfus enquired.
“You’re a machine. An alpha-level intelligence.”
Her fingers tightened on the edges of her armrests.
“I used to be alive. Do you think I’ve forgotten what it feels like?”
“But you’ve been a disembodied intelligence for a lot longer than you were a little girl. Call me judgemental, but my instincts tell me your sympathies are far more likely to lie with machines than with flesh-and-blood mortals.”
“Would you stop caring for the citizens if they were slower and weaker, stupider and frailer than yourself?”
“We’d all still be people,” Dreyfus countered.
“Tell me something else, Aurora, now that you’ve confirmed your origin. Are there more of you? Were you the only one of the Eighty who survived?”
