‘But not for Sukhoi,’ Clavain said.
‘No, not for her. She remembered how things had been before. I suppose she was close enough to the focus that her memories were entangled, knotted-up with the prior version of events. When Mercier was erased, she nonetheless retained her memories of him. So she was not mad at all, not remotely delusional. She was merely the witness to an event so horrific that it transcends all understanding. Does it chill you, Mr Clavain, to think that an experiment could have this outcome?’
‘You already told me it was dangerous.’
‘More than we ever realised at the time. I wonder how many world-lines were wrenched out of existence before there was ever a witness close enough to feel the change?’
Clavain said, ‘What exactly was it that these experiments were related to, if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘That’s the interesting part. State transitions, as I have said — exploring the more exotic quantum-vacuum manifolds. We can suck some of the inertia out of matter, and depending on the field state we can keep sucking it out until the matter’s inertial mass becomes asymptotic with zero. According to Einstein, matter with no mass has no choice but to travel at the speed of light. It will have become photonic, light-like.’
‘Is that what happened to Mercier?’
‘No — not quite. In so far as I understood Sukhoi’s work, it appeared that the zero-mass state would be very difficult to realise physically. As it neared the zero-mass state, the vacuum would be inclined to flip to the other side. Sukhoi called it a tunnelling phenomenon.’
Clavain raised an eyebrow. ‘The other side?’
‘The quantum-vacuum state in which matter has imaginary inertial mass. By imaginary I mean in the purely mathematical sense, in the sense that the square root of minus one is an imaginary number. Of course, you immediately see what that would imply.’
‘You’re talking about tachyonic matter,’ Clavain said. ‘Matter travelling faster than light.’
‘Yes.’ Clavain’s host seemed pleased. ‘It appears that Mercier and Sukhoi’s final experiment concerned the transition between tardyonic — the matter we are familiar with — and tachyonic matter states. They were exploring the vacuum states that would allow the construction of a faster-than-light propulsion system.’
‘That’s simply not possible,’ Clavain said.
H put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Actually, I don’t think that is quite the right way to think about it. The grubs knew, of course. This technology had been theirs, and yet they chose to crawl between the stars. That should have told us all we needed to know. It is not that it is impossible, merely that it is very, very inadvisable.’
For a long time they stood in silence, on the threshold of the bleak room where Mercier had been unthreaded from existence.
‘Has anyone attempted those experiments again?’ Clavain asked.
‘No, not after what happened to Mercier. Quite frankly, no one was very keen to do any further work on the grub machinery. We’d learned enough as it was. The basement was evacuated. Almost no one ever comes down here these days. Those who do sometimes say they see ghosts; perhaps they’re the residual shadows of all those who suffered the same fate as Mercier. I’ve never seen the ghosts myself, I have to say, and people’s minds do play tricks on them.’ He forced false cheer into his voice, an effort that had the opposite effect to that intended. ‘One mustn’t credit such things. You don’t believe in ghosts, do you, Mr Clavain?’
‘I never used to,’ he said, wishing devoutly to be somewhere other than in the basement of the Château.
‘These are strange times,’ H said, with no little sympathy. ‘I sense that we live at the end of history, that great scores are soon to be settled. Difficult choices must soon be made. Now, shall we go and see the people I mentioned earlier on?’
Clavain nodded. ‘I can’t wait.’
Antoinette left the rim train at the station closest to the rented repair shop. Something about Xavier’s attitude had struck her as unusual, but it was nothing she could quite put her finger on. With some trepidation she checked out the repair shop’s waiting area and business desk. Nothing doing there, just a ‘closed for business’ sign on the door. She double-checked that the repair bay was pressurised and then pushed through to the interior of the bay itself. She took the nearest connecting catwalk, never looking down. The air in the bay was heady with aerosols. She was sneezing by the time she reached the ship’s own airlock, and her eyes were itching.
‘Xavier…’ she called.
But if he was deep inside Storm Bird he would never hear her. She would either have to find him or wait until he came out. She had told him she would arrive in twenty minutes.
She went through into the main flight deck. Everything looked normal. Xavier had called up some of the less commonly used diagnostic read-outs, some of which were sufficiently obscure that even Antoinette viewed them with mild incomprehension. But that was exactly what she would have expected when Xavier had half the ship’s guts out on the table.
‘I’m really, really sorry.’
She looked around, seeing Xavier standing behind her with an expression on his face that meant he was begging forgiveness for something. Behind him were two people she did not recognise. The taller of the two strangers indicated that she should follow them back into the lounge area aft of the main bridge.
‘Please do as I tell you, Antoinette,’ the man said. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’
Xavier said, ‘I think you’d better do it. I’m sorry I made you come here, but they said they’d start trashing the ship if I didn’t.’
Antoinette nodded, stooping back along the connecting corridor. ‘You did right, Xave. Don’t eat yourself up over it. Well, who are these clowns? Have they introduced themselves?’
‘The tall one’s Mr Clock. The other one, the pig, he’s Mr Pink.’
The two of them nodded in turn as Xavier spoke their names.
‘But who are they?’
‘They haven’t said, but here’s a wild stab in the dark. They’re interested in Clavain. I think they might possibly be spiders, or working for the spiders.’
‘Are you?’ Antoinette asked.
‘Hardly,’ Remontoire said. ‘And as for my friend here…’
Mr Pink shook his gargoylelike head. ‘Not me.’
‘I’d let you examine us if the circumstances were more amenable,’ Remontoire continued. ‘I assure you there are no Conjoiner implants in either of us.’
‘Which doesn’t mean you aren’t spider stooges,’ Antoinette said. ‘Now, what do I need to do in order for you to get the fuck off my ship?’
‘As Mr Liu correctly judged, we’re interested in Nevil Clavain. Have a seat…’ The one called Clock said it with steely emphasis this time. ‘Please, let’s be civil.’
Antoinette folded out a chair from the wall and parked herself in it. ‘I’ve never heard of anyone called Clavain,’ she said.
‘But your partner has.’
‘Yeah. Nice one, Xave.’ She gave him a look. Why couldn’t he have just pleaded ignorance?
‘It’s no good, Antoinette,’ Clock said. ‘We know that you brought him here. We are not in any way angry with you for doing that — it was the human thing to do, after all.’
She folded her arms. ‘And?’
‘All you have to do is tell us what happened next. Where Clavain went once you brought him to Carousel New Copenhagen.’