I looked at the view myself for a few moments. We could see part of the ship’s hull, strobed now and again in stuttering flashes of bright violet. Even though we were under way, the Strelnikov had a squad of workers outside the whole time welding things back together.
‘Well, let’s not spend any longer here than strictly necessary. I’ll search this end; you start at yours, and we’ll see if we turn up anything useful.’
‘Good idea,’ Quirrenbach said.
I began my search; the room — panelled wall-to-wall with recessed lockers — must once have been a storage compartment. There was too much to go through methodically, but I filled my briefcase and the deep pockets of Vadim’s coat with anything that looked even remotely valuable. I scooped up handfuls of jewellery, data-monocles, miniature holo-cameras and translator brooches; exactly the kinds of thing I’d have expected Vadim to steal from the Strelnikov’s slightly more wealthy passengers. I had to hunt to find a watch — space travellers tended not to take them when they were crossing between systems. In the end I found one that had been calibrated for Yellowstone time, its face a series of concentric dials, around which tiny emerald planets ticked to mark the time.
I slipped it on my wrist, the watch pleasantly hefty.
‘You can’t just steal his possessions,’ Quirrenbach said meekly.
‘Vadim’s welcome to file a complaint.’
‘That’s not the point. What you’re doing isn’t any better than…’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘do you seriously imagine he bought any of this stuff? It’s all stolen; probably from passengers who aren’t aboard any more.’
‘Nonetheless, some of it might have been stolen recently. We should be making every effort to return these goods to their rightful owners. Don’t you agree with me?’
‘On some distant theoretical level, just possibly.’ I continued my search. ‘But there’s no way we’ll ever know who those owners were. I didn’t notice anybody coming forward in the commons. Anyway — what does it matter to you?’
‘It’s called retaining the vestigial trace of a conscience, Tanner.’
‘After that thug nearly killed you?’
‘The principle still applies.’
‘Well — if you think it’ll help you sleep at night — you’re very welcome to leave me alone while I search his belongings. Come to think of it, did I actually ask you to follow me here?’
‘Not as such, no…’ His face contorted in an agony of indecision as he glanced through the contents of one opened drawer, pulling out a sock which he studied sadly for some moments. ‘Damn you, Tanner. I hope you’re right about his lack of influence. ’
‘Oh, I don’t think we need worry ourselves about that.’
‘You’re quite certain?’
‘I’ve a reasonable grasp of lowlife, believe me.’
‘Yes, well… I suppose you could be right. For the sake of argument.’ Slowly at first, but with increasing enthusiasm, Quirrenbach started trousering Vadim’s booty indiscriminately, wads of Stoner currency, mainly. I reached over and pocketed two bundles of cash before Quirrenbach made it all vanish.
‘Thanks. They’ll do nicely.’
‘I was about to pass some to you.’
‘Of course you were.’ I flicked through the notes. ‘Is this stuff still worth anything?’
‘Yes,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘In the Canopy, anyway. I’ve no idea what passes for currency in the Mulch, but I doubt that it can hurt, can it?’
I helped myself to some more. ‘Better safe than sorry, that’s my philosophy.’
I continued searching — digging through more of the same junk and jewellery — until I found what looked like an experiential playback device. It was slimmer and sleeker than anything I’d ever seen on Sky’s Edge, cleverly engineered so that in its collapsed form it was no larger than a Bible.
I found a vacant pocket and slipped the unit home, along with a cache of experientials which I assumed might have some value in their own right.
‘This plague we were talking about…’ I said.
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t understand how it did so much damage.’
‘That’s because it wasn’t a biological one — I mean, not in the way we’d usually understand such things.’ He paused and stopped what he was doing. ‘Machines, that’s what it went for. Made almost all machines above a certain complexity level stop working, or start working in ways they were never meant to.’
I shrugged. ‘That doesn’t sound that bad.’
‘Not if the machines are merely robots and environmental systems, like the ones in this ship. But this was Yellowstone. Most of the machines were microscopic devices inside human beings, already intimately linked to mind and flesh. What happened to the Glitter Band was just symptomatic of something far more horrific happening on the human scale, in the same way that — say — the lights going out all over Europe in the late fourteenth century was indicative of the arrival of the Black Death.’
‘I’ll need to know more.’
‘Then query the system in your room. Or Vadim’s, for that matter.’
‘Or you could just tell me now.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Tanner. Because I know very little more than you. Remember, we both came in at the same time. On different ships, yes — but we were both crossing interstellar space when this happened. I’ve had little more time to adjust to it than you’ve had.’
Quietly and calmly, I said, ‘Where was it you came from?’
‘Grand Teton.’
His world was another of the original Amerikano colonies, like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier and two or three others I couldn’t remember. They’d all been settled by robots four centuries ago; self-replicating machines carrying the templates necessary to construct living humans upon their arrival. None of those colonies had been successful, all of them failing after one or two subsequent generations. A few rare lineages might still be able to trace themselves back to the original Amerikano settlers, but the majority of people living on those worlds were descended from later colonisation waves, arriving by lighthugger. Most were Demarchist states, like Yellowstone.
Sky’s Edge, of course, was another case entirely. It was the only world that had ever been settled by generation ship.
There were some mistakes you didn’t make twice.
‘I hear Grand Teton’s one of the nicer places to live,’ I said.
‘Yes. And I suppose you’re wondering what brought me here.’
‘No, actually. Not really my business.’
He slowed in his rummaging through Vadim’s loot. I could see that my lack of curiosity was not something to which he was accustomed. I continued my investigations, silently counting the seconds before he broke his silence.
‘I’m an artist,’ Quirrenbach said. ‘Actually, a composer. I’m working on a symphony cycle; my life’s work. That’s what brings me here.’
‘Music?’
‘Yes, music — though that contemptible little word barely encapsulates what I have in mind. My next symphony will be a work inspired by nothing less than Chasm City.’ He smiled. ‘It was going to be a glorious, uplifting piece, celebrating the city in all its Belle Epoque splendour; a composition teeming with vitality and energy. Now, I think, it will have to be a darker piece entirely; Shostakovichian in its solemnity; a work weighed down by the crushing realisation that history’s wheel has finally turned and crushed our mortal dreams to dust. A plague symphony.’
‘And that’s what you’ve come all this way for? To scribble down a few notes?’
‘To scribble down a few notes, yes. And why not? Someone, after all, has to do it.’
‘But it’ll take you decades to get back home.’