“I sensed some issues there, yes.”
“Do you think he was angry enough to want to kill his own daughter and family?”
“No. Anthony Theobald and I might not have seen eye to eye, but I knew he loved his daughter. He’d have played no part in this.” Vernon Tregent looked intently at Dreyfus.
“Why look for another angle, though, when you already have Dravidian?”
“I’m just making sure I don’t miss anything. If you think of something, you’ll be sure to tell me, won’t you?”
“Certainly.” But then a shadow of suspicion crossed the young man’s face.
“I’d have to know I could trust you, of course.”
“Why wouldn’t you trust me?”
“How do I know that you’re really a prefect, to begin with, or that Ruskin-Sartorious really has been destroyed? For all I know I could have been kidnapped by data-pirates. I don’t have any evidence that this is Panoply.”
“Nothing I can show you or tell you will make any difference to that.”
Vernon pondered that for a long while before responding.
“I know. And right now I’m not sure I’ve seen or heard enough to be able to make a sound judgement.”
“If you know anything that could assist in the investigation, you should tell me now.”
“I want to talk to Delphine.”
“Out of the question. You’re both material witnesses. I can’t have your individual testimonies invalidated by cross-contamination.”
“We’re in love, Prefect.”
“Your human counterparts were in love. There’s a difference.”
“You really don’t believe in us, do you?”
“Nor do you.”
“But Delphine does. She believes, Prefect. That’s all that matters to me.” Vernon’s eyes seemed to shine right through him.
“Crush me, by all means. But don’t crush Delphine.”
“Hold invocation,” Dreyfus said.
When the room was empty, Dreyfus retrieved the compad from between his knees and began to organise his thoughts about Vernon, using the ancient stylus entry mode that he favoured. Yet something stilled his hand, however: some tingle of disquiet that he could not ignore. He’d interviewed beta-level simulations on many previous occasions, and he considered himself well versed in their ways. He had never sensed a soul behind the clockwork, and he would not have said that he sensed one now. But something was different. He had never before felt that he had to earn the trust of a beta-level, nor had he ever considered what the earning of that trust might signify.
One trusted machines. But one never expected machines to return the favour.
“Invoke Delphine Ruskin-Sartorious,” Dreyfus said.
The woman assumed solidity in the interview room. She was taller than Dreyfus, dressed in a simple white smock and trousers, her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the trousers rolled to just below the knee, flat white slippers on her feet, arms crossed. She was leaning to one side, weight on one leg, as if waiting for something to happen. She had silver bracelets on her wrists, but no other ornamentation. Her heart-shaped face was plain without being ugly. She had simple, minimalist features, unadorned with cosmetics. Her eyes were a very pale sea-green. Her hair was scrunched back from her brow, tied with what looked like a dirty rag. A few coiled strands had escaped to frame the side of her face.
“Delphine?” Dreyfus asked.
“Yes. Where am I?”
“You’re in Panoply. I’m afraid I have very bad news. Ruskin-Sartorious has been destroyed.”
Delphine nodded, as if the news was something she’d been quietly dreading.
“I asked your colleague about Vernon. She wouldn’t tell me anything, but I read between the lines. I knew it had to be something bad. Did Vernon—”
“Vernon died. So did everyone else. I’m sorry. But we managed to recover Vernon’s beta-level.”
She closed her eyes briefly, reopened them.
“I want to speak to him.”
“That isn’t possible.” Some impulse made Dreyfus add: “Not right now, at any rate. Maybe later. But I need to talk to you alone first. What happened to the Bubble doesn’t look like an accident. If it was deliberate, it ranks as one of the worst crimes committed since the Eighty. I want to see justice served.
But to do that I need the full cooperation of all surviving witnesses.”
“You said no one survived.”
“All we have are three beta-levels. I think I’ve begun to piece together what happened, but your testimony will count just as much as the others.”
“If I can help, I will.”
“I need to know what went on right at the end. I understand you were hoping to sell some of your artwork to a third party.”
“Dravidian, yes.”
“Tell me everything you know about Dravidian, starting from the beginning. Then tell me about the art.”
“Why would you care about the art?”
“It’s connected to the crime. I feel I need to know about it.”
“Then that’s it? No interest in the art beyond that?”
“I’m a man of simple tastes.”
“But you know what you like.” Dreyfus smiled slightly.
“I saw that sculpture you were working on—the big one with the face.”
“And what did you think of it?”
“It unsettled me.”
“It was meant to. Perhaps you’re not a man of such simple tastes as you think.” Dreyfus studied her for several moments before speaking.
“You appear to be taking the matter of your death quite lightly, Delphine.”
“I’m not dead.”
“I’m investigating your murder.”
“As well you should—a version of me has been killed. But the one that counts—the one that matters to me now—is the one talking to you. As difficult as it may be for you to accept, I feel completely alive.
Don’t get me wrong: I want justice. But I’m not going to mourn myself.”
“I admire the strength of your convictions.”
“It’s not about conviction. It’s about the way I feel. I was raised by a family that regarded beta-level simulation as a perfectly natural state of existence. My mother died in Chasm City, years before I was born from a cloned copy of her womb. I only knew her from her beta-level, but she’s been as real to me as any person I’ve ever known.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“If someone close to you died, would you refuse to acknowledge the authenticity of their beta-level?”
“The question’s never arisen.”
She looked sceptical.
“Then no one close to you—no one with a beta-level back-up—has ever died? In your line of work?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then someone has died?”
“We’re not here to talk about abstract matters,” Dreyfus said.
“I’m not sure I can think of anything less abstract than life and death.”
“Let’s get back to Dravidian.”
“I touched a nerve, didn’t I?”
“Tell me about the Ultras.” But just as Delphine started speaking—the look on her face said she wasn’t going to answer his question directly—the black outline of a door appeared in the passwall behind her. The white surface within the outline flowed open enough to admit the stocky form of Sparver, then re-sealed behind him.
