“Release it,” she said.
The whiphound uncoiled itself and pulled back from the robot, while still keeping its eye locked on the machine. Laboriously, the robot extended telescopic limbs to right itself. A slender pillar rose from the wheeled base, with limbs and sensors sprouting at odd, asymmetric angles from the pillar.
“I am Deputy Field Prefect Thalia Ng, of Panoply,” she said.
“Identify your origin.”
The robot’s voice was disconcertingly deep and emphatic.
“Welcome to Carousel New Seattle-Tacoma, Deputy Field Prefect Ng. I trust your journey was pleasant. I apologise for my lateness. I have been tasked to escort you to the participatory core.”
“I was hoping to talk to Citizen Orson Newkirk.”
“Orson Newkirk is in the participatory core. Shall I assist you with your luggage?”
“I can manage,” Thalia said, shaking her head.
“Very well, Deputy Field Prefect Ng. Please follow me.”
“Where is everyone? I was expecting a population of one point three million people.”
“The current population is one million, two hundred and seventy-four thousand, six hundred and eighteen people. All are accounted for in the participatory core.”
“You keep saying that—what’s a ’participatory core’?”
“Please follow me.” The robot spun around, tyres hissing against the wet flooring, and began to amble down the corridor, trailing an electrical burning smell in its wake. From seven and a half metres away Jane Aumonier smiled tightly.
“You’re like a dog with a bone, Tom. Not everything in life is a conspiracy. People do sometimes get mad and do stupid and irrational things.”
“Dravidian sounded neither mad nor irrational to me.”
“One of his crew, then.”
“Acting according to plan. Following a script to make the whole attack look like a heat-of-the-moment thing, when in fact it was set up long before Dravidian ever met Delphine.”
“You really think so?” Dreyfus had just run the Solid Orrery in his room. He’d backtracked the configuration of the Glitter Band to the time when Delphine Ruskin-Sartorious said the call had come in. The data was now sitting in Thalia’s cutter, waiting for her to get to it when she completed her current upgrade.
“You’ve always trusted my instincts in the past,” Dreyfus said.
“Now they’re telling me that there’s something going on here that we’re supposed to overlook.”
“You’ve spoken to the betas?”
“They can’t think of anyone who’d do this to the family.”
“So you’ve no hint as to what the motive might have been?”
“No, not yet. But I’ll tell you this. If you just wanted to hurt a family, there are any number of assassination weapons capable of doing the job without leaving a forensic trail.”
“Agreed…” Aumonier said, her tone non-committal, letting him know that she was going along with him for the sake of argument alone.
“But whoever did this wanted to take out more than just the family. They killed all the people in that habitat and then they killed the habitat itself.”
“Maybe they didn’t have access to assassination weapons.”
Dreyfus pulled a sceptical expression.
“Yet they did have the means to infiltrate an Ultra ship and manipulate its Conjoiner drive?”
“I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Tom.”
“I’m saying that it would have been harder for them to use Dravidian than to get their hands on any number of assassination tools. Which means they really needed that ship. They used it for a reason. Killing the family wasn’t enough. They had to incinerate them, wipe every trace of them out of existence. Short of a foam-phase bomb or a nuke, how else do you do that, except with a Conjoiner drive?”
“It still doesn’t add up to much,” Aumonier said.
“At least the ship gave them a chance to pin it on the Ultras, rather than making it look like the work of another habitat. But I think Dravidian and his crew were innocent.” Aumonier looked wearily at the wall of displays jostling for her attention. Even at a glance, Dreyfus could see that almost all of them referred to her efforts to contain the escalating crisis between the Glitter Band and the Ultras. The screens wrapped the room from pole to pole, the combined pressure of them pushing in from all directions like the impaling spikes of an iron maiden.
“If I did have proof,” she said, “if I could demonstrate that the Ultras were innocent, that would certainly ease matters.”
“I’ve got Thalia Ng helping me to trace the caller who set up Dravidian.” She looked at Dreyfus questioningly.
“I thought Ng was outside on field duty. The update to the polling cores, wasn’t it? Vantrollier asked me to sign off on the pad release.”
“Thalia’s outside,” Dreyfus confirmed.
“And she’s helping me as well, between upgrades.” Aumonier nodded approvingly.
“A good deputy.”
“I don’t employ any other kind.”
“And I don’t employ any other kind of field prefect. I want you to understand that you are appreciated, no matter how… frustrating you must occasionally find your position.”
“I’m perfectly happy with my role in the organisation.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.” There was a lull.
“Tell me something, Jane. Now that we’re having this conversation.”
“Go ahead, Tom.”
“I want you to answer truthfully. I’m going to be poking around under some stones. There may be things under them that bite back. I need to be certain that I have your complete confidence when I go out there to do my job.”
“You have it. Unconditionally.”
“Then there’s no reason for me to think that I might have disappointed you, or underperformed, in my line of work?”
“Why would you feel that way?”
“I sense that I have your confidence. You’ve given me Pangolin clearance, which I appreciate. I’m entitled to sit in with the senior prefects. But I’m still a field, after all these years.”
“There’s no shame in that.”
“I know.”
“If it wasn’t for this… thing on my neck, maybe I’d still be out there as well.”
“Not very likely, Jane. You’d have been promoted out of fieldwork whether you liked it or not. They’d have kept you inside Panoply anyway, where you can be of most benefit to the organisation.”
“And if I’d said no?”
“They’d have thanked you for your opinion and ignored you anyway. People get promoted out of field while they’re still at the top of their game. That’s the way it works.”
“And if I told you I thought the best way for you to serve Panoply was to remain a field prefect?”
“I’m getting old and tired, Jane. I’ve started making mistakes.”
“None that have reached my attention.” She addressed him with sudden urgency, as if she’d been indulging him until then but now it was time to lay down the law.
“Tom, listen to me. I don’t want to hear any more of this. You’re the best we have. I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it.”
“Then I have your confidence?”
“I’ve said it once already. Go and look under as many stones as you want. I’ll be right behind you.”
CHAPTER 9
Ahead, the whiphound was a nervous black squiggle against a brightening red glow. The escort servitor had broken down, but it had given Thalia clear instructions about where she should go. Now she quickened her pace, the cylinder weighing heavily on her wrist, until she emerged into a huge arena-like space. She appeared to be standing on a railed balcony, the opposite wall an easy hundred metres away. The wall was divided into endless boxlike partitions, stacked on many levels, but the blood-red light was too dim for Thalia to see more than that. Above was only inky darkness, with no suggestion of how high the ceiling was. Next to her, the whiphound snapped around agitatedly, sizing up the new space in which it found itself.