The green light of the glade was a sensual feast after the unremitting cold and gloom of the Captain’s corridor. The air was warm and bouquet-fresh, and the painted birds which owned the aerial spaces of the chamber were almost too gaudy for Khouri’s dark-adapted eyes. For a moment she was too overwhelmed to notice that Volyova and she were not alone. Then she saw the three other people who were present. The trio sat facing each other around a stump of wood, kneeling in the dew-moistened grass. Sajaki was one of them, though he wore his hair in a different style from those Khouri had seen before: he was entirely bald apart from a topknot. The second person she recognised was Volyova herself—hair short now, which accentuated the angular form of her skull and made her look older than the version of Volyova which was standing next to Khouri. The third person, Khouri realised, was Sylveste himself.
“Shall we join them?” Volyova said, leading the way down the rickety staircase which descended to the lawn.
Khouri followed. “This dates from…” She paused and recalled the date when Sylveste had gone missing from Chasm City. “Around 2460, right?”
“Spot on,” Volyova said, turning to fix Khouri with a look of mild amazement. “What are you, an expert on Sylveste’s life and times? Oh, never mind. The point is, we recorded his entire visit, and I knew there was one particular remark he made which… well, in the light of what we now know, I find curious.”
“Intriguing.”
Khouri jumped, because it was not she who had spoken, and the voice had appeared to come from behind her. It was then that she became conscious of the Mademoiselle, loitering some distance up the staircase.
“I should have known you’d show your ugly face,” Khouri said, not even bothering to subvocalise, since the constant chatter of the songbirds served to mask her words from Volyova, who had gone on ahead to the others. “You’re like a bad penny, you know.”
“At least you know I’m still around,” she said. “If I weren’t, you’d have real grounds to worry. It would mean Sun Stealer had overwhelmed my countermeasures. Your sanity would be next, and I hate to speculate about what that would do for your employment prospects where Volyova’s concerned.”
“Shut up and let me concentrate on what Sylveste has to say.”
“Be my guest,” the Mademoiselle said curtly, not straying from her vantage point.
Khouri joined Volyova next to the trio.
“Of course,” the standing Volyova said, addressing Khouri, “I could have replayed this conversation from any point in the ship. But it took place here, so this is where I chose to re-enact it.” As she spoke, she reached into her jacket pocket and slipped out a pair of smoke-coloured goggles which she proceeded to place over her eyes. Khouri understood: lacking implants, Volyova could only witness this playback with the aid of direct retinal projection. Until she slipped on the goggles, she would not have seen the figures at all.
“So you see,” Sajaki was saying, “it’s in your best interests to do what we want. You’ve made use of Ultra elements in the past—your trip out to Lascaille’s Shroud, for instance—and it’s highly probable you’ll want to do so in the future.”
Sylveste placed his elbows on the tree stump. Khouri studied the man. She had seen plenty of lifelike evocations of Sylveste before, but this image seemed more real than any she had yet experienced. She guessed it was because Sylveste was in conversation with two people she knew, rather than anonymous figures from Yellowstone’s history. That made a lot of difference. He was handsome; improbably so, in her opinion, but she doubted that the image had been cosmetically doctored. His long hair hung in tangles either side of his magisterial brow; his eyes were acutely green. Even if she had to look him in the eyes before killing him—and the Mademoiselle’s specifications about the killing did not make that unlikely—it would be something to see those eyes for real.
“That sounds awfully like blackmail,” Sylveste said, his voice the lowest of those present. “You talk as if you Ultras have some kind of binding agreement. It might fool some people, Sajaki, but I’m afraid I’m not one of them.”
“Then you may be in for a surprise the next time you attempt to enlist Ultra assistance,” Sajaki answered, toying with a splinter of wood. “Let’s be quite clear on this. If you refuse us—in addition to whatever else that might bring upon yourself—you’d ensure that you never leave your home planet.”
“I doubt that that would greatly inconvenience me.”
Volyova—the seated version—shook her head. “Not what our spies tell us. Rumour has it you’re trying to find funding for an expedition to the Delta Pavonis system, Dr Sylveste.”
“Resurgam?” Sylveste snorted. “I don’t think so. There’s nothing there.”
The real, standing Volyova said, “He’s clearly lying. It’s obvious now, though at the time I just assumed the rumour I had heard was false.”
Sajaki had replied to Sylveste, and now Sylveste was speaking again, defensively. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t care what rumours you’ve heard—you’d better ignore them. There’s not a scrap of a reason to go there. Check the records if you don’t believe me.”
“But that’s the odd thing,” the standing Volyova said. “I did just that, and damned if he wasn’t right. Based on what was known at the time, there was absolutely no reason to consider an expedition to Resurgam.”
“But you just said he was lying…”
“And he was, of course—hindsight proves that much.” She shook her head. “You know, I’ve never really thought about this, but it’s actually very strange—paradoxical, even. Thirty years after this meeting took place the expedition left for Resurgam, which means the rumour was correct after all.” She nodded at Sylveste, embroiled in heated discussion with her seated image. “But back then nobody knew about the Amarantin! So what in hell’s name gave him the idea to go to Resurgam in the first place?”
“He must have known he’d find something there.”
“Yes, but where did that information come from? There were automated surveys of the system prior to his expedition, but none of them were thorough. As far as I know, none of them scanned the planetary surfaces close enough to find evidence that there’d once been intelligent life on Resurgam. Yet Sylveste knew.”
“Which makes no sense.”
“I know,” Volyova said. “Believe me, I know.”
At which point she joined her twin next to the stump and leant so close to the image of Sylveste that Khouri could see the reflection of his unwavering green eyes in the smoky facets of her goggles. “What did you know?” she asked. “More to the point, how did you know?”
“He isn’t going to tell you,” Khouri said.
“Maybe not now,” Volyova said. And then smiled. “But before very long it’ll be the real one sitting there. And then we may get some answers.”
As she was speaking, her bracelet began to emit a sonorous chiming. The sound was unfamiliar, but it obviously connoted alarm. Above, without any fuss, the synthetic daylight turned blood-red and began to pulse in rhythm with the chiming.
“What’s that?” Khouri asked.
“An emergency,” Volyova said, holding the bracelet close to her jaw. She snatched the retinal-projection goggles from her face and studied a little display inset into the bracelet. It was also pulsing red, in perfect time with the sky and the chiming. Khouri could see words trickling onto the display, but not clearly enough to read them.
“What sort of emergency?” Khouri breathed, wary of disturbing the woman’s attention. Though she had not noticed their departure, the trio had vanished quietly back into whatever portion of the ship’s memory had tricked them to life.