generation of gamma-level intelligences with the ability to solve problems by intuitive breakthrough, rather than step-by-step analysis. In essence, they wanted to create gamma-levels that were not only capable of passing the standard Turing tests, but which had the potential for intuitive thinking.” Dreyfus touched a finger to his upper lip.
“Valery tried to coax these machines into making art. To one degree or another, she usually got something out of them. But it was more like children daubing paint with their fingers than true creative expression. Valery began to despair of finding anything with an artistic impulse. Then she was introduced to a new machine.”
“Wait a minute,” Delphine said, uncrossing her arms.
“I knew I’d heard of SIAM before. Wasn’t that where the Clockmaker happened?”
Dreyfus nodded.
“That was the machine. Its origin was obscure: there was secrecy and interdepartmental rivalry within SIAM, as in any organisation of that nature. What was clear was this: someone had created an artificial mind unlike anything that had gone before. Not just a brain in a bottle, but an autonomous robotic entity with the ability to move and interact with its surroundings. By the time my wife got to see it, it was already making things. Toys. Puzzles. Little ornaments and objets d’art. Clocks and musical boxes. Soon it started making more clocks than anything else.”
“Did you know about it at the time?”
“Only through what my wife told me. I expressed concern. The Clockmaker’s ability to manipulate its surroundings and alter its own structure suggested a robot embodying advanced replicating technology, the kind of thing Panoply was supposed to police.”
“What did Valery say?”
“She told me not to worry. As far as she was concerned, the Clockmaker was no more dangerous than a child eager to please. I told her I hoped it wouldn’t throw a temper tantrum.”
“You sensed the possibilities.”
“No one knew where the thing had come from, or who was responsible for creating it.”
“You were right to be worried.”
“One day it made something evil. Clock number two hundred and fourteen looked no different from a dozen that had preceded it. Valery wasn’t the one who found it. It was another SIAM researcher, a woman named Krafft. At twelve fifty-eight in the morning she picked up the clock, preparing to carry it back to the analysis area. She was still on her way when the clock struck thirteen. A spring-loaded barb rammed out of the dial, pushing its way into Krafft’s chest. It penetrated her ribs and stabbed her in the heart. She died instantly.”
Delphine shuddered.
“That was when it began.”
“We lost contact with SIAM at thirteen twenty-six, less than half an hour after the discovery of clock number two hundred and fourteen. The last clear message was that something was loose, killing or maiming people wherever it encountered them. Yet all the while it found time to stop and make clocks. It would absorb materials into itself, into the flickering wall of its body, and spew out ticking clocks a few seconds later.”
“I have to ask—what happened to your wife? Did the Clockmaker kill her?”
“No,” Dreyfus said.
“That wasn’t how she died. I know because a team of prefects entered SIAM within an hour of the start of the crisis. They established contact with a group of researchers holed up in a different section of the facility. They’d managed to contain the Clockmaker behind emergency decompression barriers, sealing it into one half of the habitat. My wife was one of the survivors, but the prefects couldn’t reach them, or arrange for their evacuation. Instead they concentrated on neutralising the Clockmaker and gathering its artefacts for further study. Jane Aumonier was the only one of those prefects to make it out alive. She was also the only one to survive a direct encounter with the entity.”
“Jane Aumonier?”
“My boss: the supreme prefect. She was still alive when we got to her, but the Clockmaker had attached something to her neck. It had told her that the device would kill her if anyone attempted to remove it. That wasn’t all, though. The prefects had sixty minutes to get Jane back to Panoply and into a weightless sphere. When that sixty minutes was up, the device would execute her if anyone—and almost anything—came within seven and a half metres of her.”
“That’s horrific.”
“That wasn’t the end of it. The scarab—that’s what we came to call the device—won’t allow her to sleep. It’s not that it’s keeping her awake artificially. Her body’s screaming for sleep. But if the scarab detects unconsciousness, it’ll kill her. Drugs have kept Jane in a state of permanent consciousness for eleven years.”
“There must be something you can do for her. All the resources of this place, of the entire Glitter Band —”
“Count for nothing against the ingenuity of the Clockmaker. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t good men and women spending every waking minute of their lives trying to find a way to relieve Jane of her torment.” Dreyfus offered a pragmatic shrug.
“We’ll get it off her one way or another. But we’ll have to be certain of success before we attempt it. The scarab won’t give us a second chance.”
“I’m sorry about your boss. But you still haven’t told me what happened to your wife. If she was isolated from the Clockmaker—”
“After we got Jane out, we knew there was no point sending in more prefects. They’d have been butchered or worse. And the Clockmaker was beginning to break down the barricades. It was only a matter of time before it had free run of SIAM. From there, given its speed and cleverness, it might have been able to hop to another habitat, somewhere with millions of citizens.”
“You couldn’t take that chance.”
“Albert Dusollier—supreme prefect at the time—took the decision to nuke SIAM. It was the only way to ensure that the Clockmaker didn’t get loose.”
Delphine nodded slowly.
“I remember they destroyed it. I didn’t realise there were still people inside.”
“There was never any cover-up. It’s just that most of the reports dwelled on what had been prevented, not on the costs of the action.”
“Were you there when it happened?”
He shook his head automatically.
“No. I was on the other side of the Glitter Band when the crisis broke. I started making my way there as quickly as possible, hoping that there’d be a way to get a message through to Valery. I didn’t make it in time, though. I saw the flash when they destroyed SIAM.”
“That must have been very difficult for you.”
“At least the Clockmaker didn’t have time to get to Valery.”
“I’m sorry about your wife, Prefect. I’d like to have met her. It sounds as if we’d have found a great deal to talk about.”
“I’m sure you would have.” After a moment, Delphine said, “I remember the name Dusollier now. Didn’t something happen to him after the crisis?”
“Three days later he was found dead in his quarters. He’d used a whiphound on himself, set to sword mode.”
“He couldn’t live with what he’d done?”
“So it would appear.”
“But surely he’d had no choice. He would have needed to poll the citizenry to be able to use those nukes in the first place. He’d have had the will of the people behind him.”
“It obviously wasn’t enough for him.”
“There was no explanation, no suicide note?” Dreyfus hesitated. There had been a note. He’d even read it himself, using Pangolin privilege.
We made a mistake. We shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry for what we did to those people. God help them all.
“There was no note,” he told Delphine. There was no note, just as there was no anomalous six-hour timelag
