“Possible,” said Caillebot doubtfully, “but the marina wasn’t built on the remains of an older community. They’d have needed to landscape soil, but I can’t imagine there’d have been much in the way of actual debris to clear.”
Thalia snapped her focus to the head of the column.
“The procession’s stopping,” she said. The machines had reached the base of one of the stalks that formed the ring surrounding the Museum of Cybernetics, close to the point where Thalia’s party had emerged from the underground train station.
“I don’t like this, Citizen Caillebot,” she said, temporarily forgetting her promise to Cyrus Parnasse that she would look and act at all times as if she was confident both in her abilities and of shepherding the citizens to safety.
She’d lied when she said an escape plan was being hatched. In truth, they had progressed no further than working out their options for barricading the machines. Parnasse had tried to put an optimistic face on it, but they both knew those barricades wouldn’t hold for ever against determined brute force.
“I don’t like it either,” the landscape gardener said.
The procession broke up, with various machines moving slowly into position around the base of the stalk. Thalia had the eerie impression that she was watching some kind of abstract ballet. It all happened silently, for the windows of the polling sphere were both airtight and thoroughly soundproofed. The debris-carriers were standing back from the stalk, while what were clearly specialised demolition and earthmoving servitors brought their brutal- looking tools into play. The machines commenced their labours almost immediately. Shovels and claws began to dig into the flared base of the stalk, chipping away boulder-sized scabs of pale cladding. At the same time, a little further around the curve of the stalk, Thalia saw the sun-bright strobe of a high-energy cutting tool.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” she said, as much for her own benefit as Caillebot’s.
“They’re attacking the wrong stalk. They know we’re not at the top of that one.”
“Maybe attacking it isn’t the idea.”
She nodded. Caillebot had been on her case after the upgrade had failed, but now his tone of voice and body language suggested he was prepared to bury the hatchet, at least for now.
“I think you’re right,” she said. Then she tracked her glasses onto one of the other processions, at least a kilometre away, tilted gently towards her on the footslopes of the habitat’s curving wall.
“Those machines are dismantling something as well. Can’t tell what it is.”
“Mind if I take a look?” Caillebot asked.
She passed him the glasses. He pressed them cautiously to his eyes. Prefects weren’t meant to share
equipment like that, but she supposed if there was ever a time when the rules were meant to be bent, this was it.
“That’s the open-air amphitheatre at Praxis Junction,” the gardener said.
“They’re tearing into that as well.”
“Then it isn’t just us. Something’s going on here, Citizen Caillebot.” He returned her glasses.
“You notice anything about those lines of machines?”
“Like what?”
“They’re all moving in more or less the same direction. Maybe they didn’t come from the marina after all, but they’ve still come from the direction of the docking endcap, where you came in. It looks to me as if they’ve been working their way along the habitat, stopping to demolish anything that takes their fancy.”
“How would machines cross the window panels?”
“There’re roads and bridges for that kind of thing. Even if there weren’t, the glass could easily take the weight of one of those machines, even fully loaded. The panels wouldn’t have been an obstacle to them.”
“Okay, then. If they’re headed away from the docking endcap, where are they likely to end up?”
“After they’ve swept through the whole habitat? Only one place to go—the trailing endcap. No major docking facilities there, so it’s a dead end.”
“But they can’t be carrying all that stuff for nothing. They must be gathering it for a reason.”
“Well, there’s the manufactory complex, of course,” he said offhandedly.
“But that doesn’t make any sense either.” Thalia experienced a premonitory chill.
“Tell me about the manufactory complex, Citizen Caillebot.”
“It’s practically dead, like I already told you. Hasn’t run at normal capacity for years. Decades. Longer than I can remember.” Thalia nodded patiently.
“But it’s still there. It hasn’t been removed, gutted, replaced or whatever?”
“You think they’re going to crank it up again. Start making stuff on a big scale, feeding it with the junk the machines are collecting.”
“It’s just an idea, Citizen Caillebot.”
“Ships?” he asked.
“Not necessarily. If you can make single-molecule hulls, there’s nothing you can’t make.” As an afterthought, she added: “Provided you have the construction blueprint, of course. The manufactory won’t be able to make anything unless it’s given the right instructions.”
“You sound relieved.”
“I probably shouldn’t be. It’s just that I was thinking of all the unpleasant things you could make with a manufactory if you had the right blueprints. But the point is the only blueprints in the public domain are for things you can’t hurt anyone with.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
“Try locating the construction blueprint for a space-to-space weapon, Citizen Caillebot, or an attack ship, or a military servitor. See how far you get before a prefect comes knocking.”
“Panoply keeps tabs on that kind of thing?”
“We don’t just keep tabs. We make sure that data isn’t out there. On the rare occasions when someone needs to make something nasty, they come to us for permission. We retrieve and unlock the files from our archives. We issue them and make damned sure they’re deleted afterwards.”
“Then you’re certain nothing nasty can come out of that manufactory?”
“Not without Panoply’s help,” Thalia said bluntly. Caillebot responded with a knowing nod.
“A day ago, Prefect, I’d have found that statement almost entirely reassuring.”
Thalia turned back to the window, ruminating on what the gardener had just said. The machines were working with the manic industry of insects. They had chewed deep into the lowest part of the stalk, exposing the geodesic struts that formed the structure’s scaffolding. Judging by the rubble and remains being shovelled into a waiting hopper, the cutting tools were making short work of that as well.
“It’s not going to last long,” Thalia said. Then she turned around and looked at the polling core, hoping that she was right about the machines needing to keep it intact, and therefore being unable to launch an all-out attack on the stalk supporting the sphere in which they were sheltering.
She’d been wrong about several things already today. She hoped this wasn’t another.
Dreyfus knew something was amiss as soon as he approached the passwall into Jane Aumonier’s sphere and saw the two internal prefects waiting on either side of it, whiphounds drawn, tethered by quick-release lines that ran from their belts to eyelets in the doorframe. The passwall itself was set to obstruct.
“Is there a problem?” Dreyfus asked mildly. He’d occasionally been barred from talking to Aumonier when she was engaged in some activity that exceeded his Pangolin clearance. But it had never required the presence of security guards, and Aumonier had generally given him fair warning.
“Sorry, sir,” said the younger of the two guards, “but no one’s allowed to speak to Prefect Aumonier at the moment.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
“Not without authorisation from the supreme prefect, sir.” Dreyfus looked at the kid as if he was being asked to answer a deceptively simple riddle.
“She is the supreme prefect.”
The young guard looked embarrassed.
“Not presently, sir. Prefect Baudry is now acting supreme.”
“On what grounds was Prefect Aumonier removed from her position?” Dreyfus asked disbelievingly.
“I’m authorised to tell you that the decision was taken on the basis of medical fitness, sir. I thought you’d
