“Why the sudden megalomaniacal intentions if she’s lived happily enough under our noses all this time?”
“Because she thinks we’re going to do something bad to the Glitter Band, something that will make it impossible for even an evolved alpha-level intelligence to remain safe.” Again that lip-twitch.
“Something bad?”
“The point is, she’s convinced herself that we can’t be trusted with the safekeeping of the infrastructure she needs to stay alive, so we have to be removed from the equation. It isn’t a takeover, since there isn’t going to be anyone left alive under her regime—unless you count the handful of human slaves she’ll need to fix the servitors when they break down. It’s mass genocide, Paula.”
“And why does she fear the Clockmaker?”
“I think it’s because the Clockmaker’s the only thing in the system with an intelligence even approaching her own. It may even be cleverer. That means it’s a threat to her sovereignty. That means she has to remove it.”
“That’s what she was trying to do when she took out Ruskin-Sartorious,” Sparver put in.
“Gaffney set that up, but it was Aurora pulling the strings all the time. Only problem was, she was too late. You’d sensed her interest and moved the Clockmaker here.”
“Which is a pity, given that nine hundred and sixty people died because of false data,” Dreyfus said.
“Those people—the inhabitants of the Ruskin-Sartorious Bubble—were not meant to die,” Saavedra said.
“Then you regret their deaths?” Dreyfus asked.
“Of course.” She snarled her answer back at him.
“Don’t you think we’d rather it hadn’t happened? We assumed that whoever had shown interest had backed away. The relocation was a precaution. We didn’t think there’d be consequences.”
“I’m prepared to believe that,” Dreyfus said.
“Believe what you like.”
“I also believe that a portion of the blame must be placed on Anthony Theobald’s doorstep. He must have known he was endangering the lives of his family, even if he didn’t know exactly what he was giving houseroom to.”
“He didn’t need to know. None of them needed to know. None of them did know, right until the end.”
“One of them came close, though.” She looked at him with sharp eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“Delphine Ruskin-Sartorious. The daughter. The artist of the family. Or didn’t you realise?”
“Realise what?”
“She was in contact with the Clockmaker. It was something of a one-way dialogue, but it was contact all
the same.” She looked at him for a moment, then shook her head in flat dismissal.
“No, that wouldn’t have been possible. Delphine was never allowed anywhere near it. Nor were any of the family members, including Anthony Theobald. It was kept inside an armoured cell, locked away unless we wanted to communicate with it. Not only could it not escape from the cell, it couldn’t send a signal beyond it, either.”
“It still found a way to reach her.”
“Impossible.”
“Like it or not, it happened. My guess is that the cell wasn’t as data-secure as you thought it was. Or maybe the Clockmaker slipped a signal through when you were talking to it, or whatever it was you did during your visits.”
“A signal needs a receiver,” Saavedra pointed out.
“Delphine had one. It was in her head. Like any good Demarchist citizen, she had a skull full of implants. She used them to direct the machines that helped her with her art. The Clockmaker found out how to manipulate one or more of those implants to place imagery in Delphine’s mind and shape her artwork.”
Now Saavedra tilted her head sceptically. Dreyfus knew that he had some way to go before she was convinced, but he had certainly succeeded in intriguing her.
“Imagery?”
“The Clockmaker used her as medium, expressing itself through her work. She thought she’d tapped a seam of miraculous self-inspiration, but in truth she’d just become a conduit for the Clockmaker.”
“Ridiculous,” she said, but not with quite enough conviction.
“Maybe that’s what attracted Aurora in the first place,” Dreyfus said, the idea occurring to him more or less at that moment.
“Of course, for the threat of the Clockmaker to have impinged on her consciousness, she must have a good idea of what the Clockmaker actually is.”
“And what is it? Seeing as you appear to have all the answers.” Dreyfus couldn’t help smiling.
“You mean you really don’t know? After all this time?”
“And you, presumably, do?”
“I’ve got an inkling.”
“Nice try, Dreyfus, but if you think you’re going to bluff your way out of this one—”.
“A crime was committed,” he said.
“It all goes back to a single, simple deed: the murder of an innocent man. The Clockmaker is a direct consequence of that.”
“Who was murdered?”
“Point that gun elsewhere and I might tell you. Better yet, why don’t you show me the Clockmaker?”
“Remove your suits,” she said.
“I want to check that you’re not carrying any other weapons. If I even think you’re about to trick me, I’ll kill you.” Dreyfus glanced at Sparver.
“Better do as she says.”
They removed their armour and suits, laying them out in neat piles before them. Under the suits, they both wore standard-issue Panoply uniforms.
“Turn around,” Saavedra instructed.
They turned their backs to her.
“Now turn to face me. Remove your whiphounds. Do not activate them.”
Dreyfus and Sparver unclipped their whiphounds and tossed the handles to the ground.
“Kick them to me.”
They did as they were told. Still training the rifle on them, Saavedra knelt down and clipped the whiphounds to her own belt. Then she single-handedly unclipped her own unit, a Model C, and deployed the filament. It hissed against the floor, its sharp edge a coiling scratch of bright silver. Deftly flipping the haft in her hand to turn the laser eye towards Dreyfus and Sparver, she marked them both then released the handle.
“Confirm target acquisition,” she said; the whiphound nodded its handle in reply.
“Maintain target surveillance. If targets approach within five metres of me, or move more than ten metres from me, intercept and detain both subjects with maximum lethal force. Indicate compliance.”
The whiphound nodded.
“I think we’re clear on the ground rules,” Dreyfus said.
Saavedra moved to the rifles she had told them to discard, put down her own weapon and removed the ammo cells from the other two guns. She clipped the cells to her belt, next to the two captured whiphounds. Then she collected her own rifle and shrugged it back over her shoulder, the muzzle aimed at the ceiling.
“This is called a gesture of trust. Don’t abuse it.”
“We’re cool with not abusing it,” Sparver said.
“Follow me, and remember what I just told the whiphound. I’ll show you the Clockmaker, if you really want to see it.”
CHAPTER 31
Saavedra led them deeper into Ops Nine, down one of the sloping ramps that Dreyfus had already noticed leading away from the atrium. Her whiphound slinked along behind the party, constantly triangulating the distance between Saavedra and her guests, waiting for one of them to transgress the parameters she had laid down. Dreyfus was relieved not to have a gun aimed at him, but the whiphound was only a marginal improvement. If he had been concerned about dying because of a twitch from Saavedra’s finger, now he had to worry about the inflexible thought processes of a machine that really wasn’t much brighter than a guard dog. Not that he had any intention of deliberately violating the rules, but what if he tripped, or accidentally crossed the five-metre line?
“I will show it to you,” she said, “but you can forget any idea of negotiating with it. It is not a rational intellect.”
“It doesn’t have to be rational to understand that Aurora wants it dead,” Dreyfus replied.