They reached the end of the corridor. They had arrived on a low-walled ledge that circumnavigated an enormous slope-floored room many storeys deep. Clavain peered over the edge, noting what appeared to be pipes and drainage vents set into the sheer black walls.
‘I’ll ask again,’ Clavain said. ‘Where did the technology come from in the first place?’
‘A donor,’ H answered. ‘Around a century ago I learned an astonishing truth. I gained knowledge of the whereabouts of an individual, an alien individual, who had been waiting undisturbed on this planet for many millions of years, shipwrecked and yet essentially unharmed.’ He paused, evidently watching Clavain’s reaction.
‘Continue,’ Clavain said, determined not to be fazed.
‘Unfortunately, I was not the first to learn of this hapless creature. Other people had discovered that he could give them something of considerable value provided that they held him prisoner and administered regular jolts of pain. This would have been abhorrent under any circumstances, but the creature in question was a highly social animal. Intelligent, too — his was a starfaring culture of great extent and antiquity. In fact, the wreck of his ship still contained functioning technologies. Do you see where this is heading?’
They had walked along one length of the vaultlike chamber. Clavain had still not deduced its function.
‘Those technologies,’ Clavain asked, ‘did they include the inertia-modifying process?’
‘So it would appear. I must confess that I had something of a head start in this matter. Some considerable amount of time ago I met another of these creatures, so I already knew a little of what to expect from this one.’
‘A less open-minded man than myself might find all this a tiny bit difficult to accept,’ Clavain said.
H paused at the corner, placing both hands on the top of the low marble walling. ‘Then I will tell you more, and perhaps you will begin to believe me. It cannot have escaped your attention that the universe is a hazardous place. I’m certain that the Conjoiners have learned this for themselves. What is the current toll — thirteen known extinct intelligent cultures, or is it fourteen now? And one or two possibly extant alien intelligences that unfortunately are so alien that they don’t do anything that might enable us to say for certain how intelligent they really are. The point being that the universe seems to have a way of stamping out intelligence before it gets too big for its boots.’
‘That’s one theory.’ Clavain did not reveal how well it chimed with what he already knew; how it was perfectly consistent with Galiana’s message about a cosmos stalked by wolves that slavered and howled at the scent of sapience.
‘More than a theory. The grubs — that’s the race-name of the species of which the unfortunate individual was a member — had been harried to the point of extinction themselves. They lived only between the stars, shying away from warmth and light. Even there they were nervous. They knew how little it would take to bring the killers down upon them again. In the end they evolved a rather desperate protective strategy. They were not naturally hostile, but they learned that other noisier species sometimes had to be silenced to protect themselves.’ H resumed his stroll, brushing one hand along the wall. It was his right hand, Clavain noticed, and it left behind a thin red smear.
‘How did you learn about the alien?’
‘It’s a long story, Mr Clavain, and one I don’t intend to detain you with. Suffice it only to say the following. I vowed to save the creature from his tormentors — part of my plan for personal atonement, you might say. But I could not do it immediately. It took planning, a vast amount of forethought. I amassed a team of trusted helpers and made elaborate preparations. Years passed but the moment was never right. Then a decade went by. Two decades. Every night I dreamed of that thing suffering, and every night I renewed my vow to help him.’
‘And?’
‘It’s possible that someone betrayed me. Or else her intelligence was better than my own. The Mademoiselle reached the creature before I did. She brought him here, to this room. How, I don’t know; that alone must have taken enormous planning.’
Clavain looked down again, struggling to comprehend what kind of animal had needed a room this large as a prison. ‘She kept the creature here, in the Château?’
H nodded. ‘For many years. It was no simple matter to keep him alive, but the people who had imprisoned him before her had worked out exactly what needed to be done. The Mademoiselle had no particular interest in torturing him, I think; she was not cruel in that sense. But every instant of the creature’s continued existence was a kind of torture, even when his nervous system was not being poked and prodded with high-voltage electrodes. But she refused to let him die. Not until she had learned all that she could from him.’
H went on to tell Clavain that the Mademoiselle had found a way to communicate with the creature. As clever as the Mademoiselle had been, it was the creature that had expended the greater effort.
‘I gather there was an accident,’ H said. ‘A man fell into the creature’s pen, from all the way up here. He died instantly, but before they could get him out the creature, which was unrestrained, ate what remained of him. They had been feeding him morsels, you see, and until that moment he did not have very much idea of what his captors actually looked like.’
H’s voice grew quietly enthusiastic. ‘Anyway, a strange thing happened. A day later a wound appeared in the creature’s skin. The wound enlarged, forming a hole. There was no bleeding, and the wound looked very symmetrical and well formed. Structures lurked behind it, moving muscles. The wound was becoming a mouth. Later, it began to make humanlike vowel sounds. Another day or so passed and the creature was attempting recognisable words. Another day, and he was stringing those words together into simple sentences. The chilling part, from what I have gathered, was that the creature had inherited more than just the means to make language from the man he had eaten. He had absorbed his memories and personality, fusing them with his own.’
‘Horrible,’ Clavain said.
‘Perhaps.’ H appeared unconvinced. ‘Certainly, it might be a useful strategy for an interstellar trading species that expected to encounter many other cultures. Instead of puzzling over translation algorithms, why not simply decode language at the level of biochemical representation? Eat your trading partner and become more like him. It would require some co-operation from the other party, but perhaps this was an accepted form of business millions of years ago.’
‘How did you learn all this?’
‘Ways and means, Mr Clavain. Even before the Mademoiselle beat me to the alien, I had become dimly aware of her existence. I had my own webs of influence in Chasm City, and she had hers. For the most part we were discrete, but now and then our activities would brush against each other. I was curious, so I tried to learn more. But she resisted my attempts to infiltrate the Château for many years. It was only when she had the creature that I think she became distracted by him, consumed by his alien puzzle. Then I was able to get agents into the building. You’ve met Zebra? She was one of them. Zebra learned what she could and put in place the conditions I needed for the takeover. But that was long after Skade had come here.’
Clavain thought things through. ‘So Skade must have known something about the alien?’
‘Evidently. You’re the Conjoiner, Mr Clavain — shouldn’t you know?’
‘I’ve learned too much already. That’s why I chose to defect.’