Mullein laughed good-naturedly, and, for a moment, he was the star of the show again. The gentle mocking of one of our number was also part of tradition. Of all us, Mullein could relax now.
“In a little while, we will return to our ships,” I continued. “We will travel back out into the Galaxy and seek new experiences; new strands to be woven into the greater tapestry of the Gentian collective memory. None of us will leave here the same person he or she was a thousand days ago, and when we return, we will have changed again. That is part of the wonder of what Abigail made of herself. Other Lines favour rigid regimentation: a thousand identical clones, each programmed to respond to the same stimulus in exactly the same way. You might as well send out robots. That wasn’t how Abigail wanted to do things. She wanted to gorge on reality. She wanted to feed her face with it, drunk on curiosity. In our bickering diversity, we honour that impulse.” I paused and laced my hands, nodding at the nearest faces. “And now the time has come. The system has informed me of the winner… the name I am about to reveal.” I pulled a face that suggested amused surprise. “The name is…”
And then I paused again, and frowned. The crowd tensed.
“Wait a moment,” I said. “I’m sorry, but… something’s wrong. I’m receiving an emergency message from my ship.” I raised my voice over the people who had started talking. “This is… unfortunate. My ship has a technical problem with drive containment. There’s a small but non-negligible risk of detonation.” I tried to sound panicked, but still in some kind of control. “Please, remain calm. I’m ordering my ship to move to a safe distance…” I looked over the heads, beyond the island to the forest of parked ships, and counted to five in my head. “No response… I’m trying again, but…” The heads started moving, their voices threatening to drown me out. “Still no response,” I said, tightening my face to a grimace. “I don’t seem to be able to get a command through.” I raised my voice, until I was almost shouting. “We’re safe here: in a few seconds, I’ll screen the island. Before I do that, I recommend that you order your ships to protect themselves.”
Some of them already had. Their ships trembled within the vague, wobbling shapes of anti-collision screens, like insects in spit. After a few seconds, the screens locked into stable forms and became harder to see. I allowed myself a glance in Purslane’s direction. She responded with the tiniest encouraging nod.
It was working.
“Please,” I urged. “Hurry. I’ll raise the island’s own screen in ten seconds. You may not be able to get a message through once that happens.”
More and more ships wobbled as their screens flicked on. Peals of thunder, distant and low, signalled the activations. Doubtless many of the people were wondering what was going on: how it just happened that it was my ship that was threatening to blow up, when I was already the centre of attention. I just hoped that they would have the sense to put up their screens first and worry about the coincidence later.
But some of the largest ships were still not screened. I could not delay the screening of the island any longer. I would just have to hope that the necessary commands had already been sent, and that those ships were just a bit slow to respond.
But even as the island’s own screen flickered on—blurring the view all around us, as if smeared glass had dropped into place—I knew that my plan was coming adrift.
Fescue spoke, his deep voice commanding instant attention. “The danger is passed,” he said. “My own ship has projected a secondary screen around yours, Campion. You may lower the island’s shield.”
My answer caught in my throat. “My ship may blow at any moment. Are you sure that secondary screen is going to be good enough?”
“Yes,” Fescue said, with withering authority. “I’m more than sure.”
The gathered revellers looked out to my ship, which remained stubbornly intact within the envelope Fescue had projected around it.
“Lower the island screen, Campion.” And even as he spoke, Fescue’s ship pushed mine up and away, into the high atmosphere, until it was lost among the stars.
The meteor shower was over, I noticed.
“The screen,” Fescue said.
I gave the necessary commands, lowering the screen. “Thank you,” I said, breathless and distraught. “That was… quick thinking, Fescue.”
“It must have been a false alarm after all,” he said, his unmasked eyes piercing mine. “Or a mistake.”
“I thought my ship was going to blow up.”
“Of course you did. Why else would you have told us?” He made a growl-like sound. “You were about to announce the winner, Campion. Perhaps you ought to continue.”
There was a murmur of approval. If I’d had the sympathy of the crowd five minutes ago, I had lost it completely now. My throat was dry. I saw Purslane, the fox mask tugged down, and something like horror on her face.
“Campion,” Fescue pushed. “The winner… if it isn’t too much trouble.”
But I didn’t know the winner. The system wasn’t due to inform me for another hour. I had delayed my receipt of the announcement, not wishing to be distracted from the main business.
“I… the winner. Yes. The winner of the strand… the best strand winner… is… the winner. And the winner is…” I fell silent for ten or twenty seconds, frozen in the gaze of nearly a thousand mortified onlookers. Then my thoughts suddenly quietened, as if I’d found an epicentre of mental calm. I seemed to stand outside myself.
“There is no winner,” I said softly. “Not yet.”
“Perhaps you ought to stand down,” Fescue said. “You’ve arranged a fine Reunion; we all agree on that. It would be a shame to ruin it now.”
Fescue took a step toward me, presumably intending to help me from the plinth.
“Wait,” I said, with all the dignity I could muster. “Wait and hear me out. All of you.”
“You have an explanation for this travesty?” Fescue asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
He stopped in his tracks and folded his arms. “Then let’s hear it. Part of me would love to think that this is all part of your Thousandth Night plans, Campion.”
“Something awful has happened,” I said. “There has been a conspiracy… a murder. One of us has been killed.”
Fescue cocked his head. “One of us?”
I scanned the crowd and pointed to Burdock’s duplicate. “That’s not Burdock,” I said. “That’s an impostor. The real Burdock is dead.”
The duplicate Burdock pulled a startled face. He looked at the people surrounding him, and then back at me, aghast. He said something and the onlookers laughed.
“The real Burdock is dead?” Fescue asked. “Are you quite sure of this, Campion?”
“Yes. I know because I’ve seen his body. When we broke into his ship…”
“When ‘we’ broke into his ship,” Fescue repeated, silencing me. “You mean there was someone else involved?”
Purslane’s voice rang out clear and true. “It was me. Campion and I broke into the ship. Everything he’s told you is the truth. Burdock was murdered by proponents of the Great Work, because Burdock knew what they had done.”
Fescue looked intrigued. “Which was?”
“They destroyed an entire culture… Grisha’s people… a culture that had uncovered Prior data damaging to the Great Work. Wiped them out with Homunculus weapons. Burdock tried to cover up his discovery, for fear of what the Advocates would do to him. There was a discrepancy in Burdock’s dreams… an error.” Purslane’s control began to falter. “He said he’d been somewhere he hadn’t… somewhere Campion had been.”