“That’s horrific.”
“That wasn’t the end of it. The scarab—that’s what we came to call the device—won’t allow her to sleep. It’s not that it’s keeping her awake artificially. Her body’s screaming for sleep. But if the scarab detects unconsciousness, it’ll kill her. Drugs have kept Jane in a state of permanent consciousness for eleven years.”
“There must be something you can do for her. All the resources of this place, of the entire Glitter Band—”
“Count for nothing against the ingenuity of the Clockmaker. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t good men and women spending every waking minute of their lives trying to find a way to relieve Jane of her torment.” Dreyfus offered a pragmatic shrug.
“We’ll get it off her one way or another. But we’ll have to be certain of success before we attempt it. The scarab won’t give us a second chance.”
“I’m sorry about your boss. But you still haven’t told me what happened to your wife. If she was isolated from the Clockmaker—”
“After we got Jane out, we knew there was no point sending in more prefects. They’d have been butchered or worse. And the Clockmaker was beginning to break down the barricades. It was only a matter of time before it had free run of SIAM. From there, given its speed and cleverness, it might have been able to hop to another habitat, somewhere with millions of citizens.”
“You couldn’t take that chance.”
“Albert Dusollier—supreme prefect at the time—took the decision to nuke SIAM. It was the only way to ensure that the Clockmaker didn’t get loose.”
Delphine nodded slowly.
“I remember they destroyed it. I didn’t realise there were still people inside.”
“There was never any cover-up. It’s just that most of the reports dwelled on what had been prevented, not on the costs of the action.”
“Were you there when it happened?”
He shook his head automatically.
“No. I was on the other side of the Glitter Band when the crisis broke. I started making my way there as quickly as possible, hoping that there’d be a way to get a message through to Valery. I didn’t make it in time, though. I saw the flash when they destroyed SIAM.”
“That must have been very difficult for you.”
“At least the Clockmaker didn’t have time to get to Valery.”
“I’m sorry about your wife, Prefect. I’d like to have met her. It sounds as if we’d have found a great deal to talk about.”
“I’m sure you would have.” After a moment, Delphine said, “I remember the name Dusollier now. Didn’t something happen to him after the crisis?”
“Three days later he was found dead in his quarters. He’d used a whiphound on himself, set to sword mode.”
“He couldn’t live with what he’d done?”
“So it would appear.”
“But surely he’d had no choice. He would have needed to poll the citizenry to be able to use those nukes in the first place. He’d have had the will of the people behind him.”
“It obviously wasn’t enough for him.”
“There was no explanation, no suicide note?” Dreyfus hesitated. There had been a note. He’d even read it himself, using Pangolin privilege.
We made a mistake. We shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry for what we did to those people. God help them all.
“There was no note,” he told Delphine. There was no note, just as there was no anomalous six-hour timelag between the rescue of Jane Aumonier and the destruction of SIAM. There was no timelag, just as there was no inexplicable connection with the mothballed spacecraft Atalanta, moved from its prior orbit to a position very near SIAM at exactly the time of the crisis.
There were no mysteries. Everything was accounted for.
“I still don’t understand why the man killed himself,” Delphine said. Dreyfus shrugged.
“He couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d done.”
“Even though it was absolutely the only right thing to do?”
“Even though.” Delphine appeared to reflect on his words before speaking again.
“Was there a beta-level copy of your wife?”
“No,” Dreyfus said.
“Why not?”
“Valery didn’t believe in them. She refused to accept that a beta-level simulation could be anything other than a walking, talking shell. It might look and sound like her, it might mimic her responses to a high degree of accuracy, but it wouldn’t be her on the inside. It wouldn’t have an interior life.”
“And you believe the same thing, because it’s what your wife believed.”
Dreyfus offered his palms in surrender.
“I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is.”
“Did your wife ever consider alpha-level simulation?”
“She’d have had no philosophical objection to it. But my wife and I grew up in the shadow of the Eighty. I know the methods have improved since then, but there are still risks and uncertainties.”
“I understand now why you have a problem with the likes of me.” Delphine blunted the harshness of the remark with a sympathetic smile.
“And I’m not angry. You lost someone dear to you. To admit that I have some claim on consciousness would be to repudiate Valery’s beliefs.”
Dreyfus made a self-deprecatory gesture.
“Trust me, I’m not that complicated.”
“But you’re human. It’s not a crime, Prefect. I’m sorry I prejudged you.”
“You weren’t to know.”
Delphine took a deep breath, as if she was preparing to submerge herself underwater.
“I made a promise. You’ve told me something personal, and now you want to know about my reasons for working on the Lascaille series. I’ll do my best to explain, but I think you’re going to be disappointed. There was no blinding flash when I woke up one day and realised I had to devote myself to his story.”
“But something happened.”
“I just felt this thing building up inside me, like a kind of pressure trying to force its way out. It was like an itch I couldn’t scratch, until I’d told Philip’s side of events.”
“How familiar were you with the story?”
Delphine looked equivocal, as if this was a question she’d never really asked herself.
“As familiar as anyone, I suppose. I’d heard of him, I knew something of what had happened—”
“But was there a defining moment when you realised you had to tackle him? Did you see a reference to him, hear something about the Sylveste family or the Shrouds?”
“No, nothing like that.” She paused and something flashed in her eyes.
“But there was that day. I was working in the habitat, cutting rock in my vacuum atelier. I was suited, of course—the heat from the plasma torches would have killed me even if there’d been air to breathe. I was directing the cutting servitors, working on a completely unrelated composition. Imagine a conductor standing before an orchestra. Then think of the musicians shaping solid rock with plasma-fire and atomic-scale cutting tools instead of making music with traditional instruments. That was what it felt like: I only had to imagine a shape or texture and my implants would steer the machines to do my bidding. It became a near unconscious process, dreaming rock into art.”
“And then?”
“I pulled back from the piece I was working on and realised that I’d been taking it in a direction I hadn’t intended. The face wasn’t supposed to be anyone in particular, but now it reminded me of someone. Once I’d made that connection, I knew my subconscious was pushing me towards Philip Lascaille as subject matter.”
“Beyond that, though, you can’t explain why you focused on him?”
Delphine looked apologetic.
“I wish I could rationalise it. But as I’m sure your wife would have agreed, art doesn’t work that way. Some days we just tap into something inexplicable.”
“I appreciate your honesty.”
“Does this invalidate your theory that someone took offence at my art?”
“Not necessarily. You might have provoked something without meaning to. But I admit it’s difficult to see how merely referencing Philip Lascaille would have been enough to push someone to mass murder.” Dreyfus straightened—he’d been getting stiff in the back.