It was not quite his own. Prior to leaving the ship, Sajaki’s features had been subtly remoulded, according to an averaged ideal derived from the genetic profiles of the original expedition members who had travelled to Resurgam from Yellowstone, in turn reflecting the Franco-Sino genes of the Yellowstone settlers. Sajaki would arouse nothing more than a curious glance if he chose to walk through the capital’s streets at midday. There was nothing to betray him as a newcomer, not even his accent. Linguistic software had analysed the dozen or so Stoner dialects carried by the expedition members, applying complex lexicostatistic models to merge these modes of speech into a new, planetwide dialect for Resurgam as a whole. If Sajaki chose to communicate with any of the settlers, his look, cover-story and manner of speaking would convince them that he was merely from one of the remoter planetary settlements, not an offworlder.
That at least was the idea.
Sajaki carried no technological implements which would give him away, save the implants beneath his skin. A conventional surface-to-orbit communication system would have been too susceptible to detection, and far too difficult to explain had he been captured for some reason or other. Yet now he was speaking; reciting a phrase repeatedly, while the ship’s infrared sensors examined the bloodflow around Sajaki’s mouth region, assembling a model of his underlying muscular and jaw movements. By correlating these movements against the extensive archives of actual conversation already recorded, the ship could begin to guess the sounds he was making. The final step was to include grammatical, syntactical and semantic models for the words Sajaki was likely to be saying. It sounded complex—it was—but to Volyova’s ears there was no perceptible timelag between his lip movements and the simulated voice she was hearing, eerily clear and precise.
“I must presume you can now hear me,” he said. “For the record, let this be my first report from the surface of Resurgam after landing. You will forgive me if I occasionally digress from the point, or express myself with a certain inelegance. I did not write this report down beforehand; it would have constituted too great a security risk if I were found with it while leaving the capital. Things are very different than we expected.”
True enough, Volyova thought. The colonists—or at least a faction of them—certainly knew that a ship had arrived around Resurgam. They had bounced a radar beam off it, surreptitiously. But they had made no attempt to contact Infinity—no more so than the ship had attempted to contact anyone on the ground. As much as the neutrino source, that worried her. It spoke of paranoia, and hidden intentions—and not just her own. But she forced herself not to think about that now, for Sajaki was still speaking, and she did not want to miss any of what he had to report.
“I have much to tell concerning the colony,” he said, “and this window is short. So I will begin with the news you are undoubtedly waiting for. We have located Sylveste; now it is simply a matter of bringing him into our custody.”
Sluka was pushing coffee down her throat, sitting across from Sylveste with a black oblong table positioned between them. Early morning Resurgam sun was filtering into the room via half-closed jalousies, casting fiery contours across her skin.
“I need your opinion on something.”
“Visitors?”
“How astute.” She poured him a cup, offered the palm of her hand towards the chair. Sylveste sank down into the seat, until he was the lower of the two. “Indulge my curiosity, Doctor Sylveste, and tell me exactly what you’ve heard.”
“I’ve heard nothing.”
“Then it won’t take much of your time.”
He smiled through the fog of tiredness. For the second time in a day he had been awakened by her guards, dragged in a state of semi-consciousness and disorientation from his room. He still smelt Pascale, her scent cloaking him, and wondered if she was still sleeping in her own cell somewhere across Mantell. As lonely as he now felt, the feeling was tempered by the gladdening news that she was alive and unharmed. They had told him as much in the days before their meeting, but he had had no reason to believe Sluka’s people were telling the truth. What use, after all, was Pascale to the True Pathers? Even less than he—and it was already clear enough that Sluka had been debating the value of retaining him alive.
Yet now, perceptibly, things were changing. He had been allowed time with Pascale, and he believed that this would not be the only occasion. Did this development stem from some basic humanity on Sluka’s behalf, or did it imply something entirely different—perhaps that she might have need of one of them in the near future, and that now was the time when she had to begin winning favour?
Sylveste swigged the coffee, blasting away his residual tiredness. “All I’ve heard is that there may be visitors. From then on I drew my own conclusions.”
“Which I presume you’d care to share with me.”
“Perhaps we could discuss Pascale for a moment?”
She peered at him over the rim of her cup, before nodding with the delicacy of a clockwork marionette. “You’re venturing an exchange of knowledge in return for—what? Certain relaxations in the regime under which you’re held?”
“That wouldn’t be unreasonable, I feel.”
“It would all depend on the quality of your speculations.”
“Speculations?”
“As to who these visitors might be.” Sluka glanced towards the slatted rising sun, eyes narrowed against the ruby-red glare. “I value your point of view, though heaven knows why.”
“First you’d have to tell me what it is you know.”
“We’ll come to that.” Sluka bit on a smile. “First I should admit that I have you at something of a disadvantage.”
“In what way?”
“Who are these people, if they aren’t Remilliod’s crew?”
Her remark meant that his conversations with Pascale—and by implication everything that had gone on between them—had been monitored. The knowledge shocked him less than he would have expected. He had obviously suspected it must be so the whole time, but perhaps he had preferred to ignore his own qualms.
“Very good, Sluka. You ordered Falkender to mention the visitors, didn’t you? That was quite clever of you.”
“Falkender was just doing his job. Who are they, then? Remilliod already has experience trading with Resurgam. Wouldn’t it make sense for him to return here for a second bite?”
“Much too soon. He’ll have barely had time to reach another system, let alone anything with trading prospects.” Sylveste freed himself of the chair’s embrace, strolling to the slatted window. Through the iron jalousies he watched the northerly faces of the nearest mesas radiate cool orange, like stacked books on the point of bursting into flame. The thing he noticed now was the bluer tone of the sky; no longer crimson. That was because megatonnes of dust had been removed from the winds; replaced with water vapour. Or maybe it was a trick of his impaired colour perception.
Fingering the glass, he said, “Remilliod would never return so quickly. He’s among the shrewdest of traders, with very few exceptions.”
“Then who is it?”
“It’s the exceptions I’m bothered about.”
Sluka called an aide to remove the coffee. With the table bare, she invited Sylveste back to his seat. Then she printed a document from the table and offered it to him.
“The information you’re about to see reached us three weeks ago, from a contact in the East Nekhebet flare-watch station.”
Sylveste nodded. He knew about the flare-watches. He had pushed to set them up himself; small observatories dotted around Resurgam, monitoring the star for evidence of abnormal emission.
Reading was too much like trying to decipher Amarantin script: creeping letter by letter along a word until the meaning snapped into his mind. Cal had known that much of reading boiled down to mechanics—the physiology of eye movement along the line. He had built routines into Sylveste’s eyes to accommodate this need, but it had not been within Falkender’s gift to restore everything.