‘I’m just worried that he thinks I’m underperforming.’
‘Has he said anything to that effect?’
Thalia frowned. ‘Not exactly, no.’
‘Well, then.’
‘I still can’t help wondering why he didn’t ask me along to the Bubble.’
‘Because it was a potentially dangerous operation.’
‘More so than a lockdown?’
‘Potentially. If someone wanted to destroy the Bubble that badly, they could easily have come back for another go if they saw prefects crawling all over it.’
‘But they didn’t.’
‘Point still stands. Reason Dreyfus didn’t ask you to join the team — apart from the fact that he was trying not to exhaust you — was that he didn’t want to place one of his best deputies in a high-risk environment. Lockdown’s different — you had to be on the squad. But this time? I think the boss made the right call. And it has nothing to do with your abilities not measuring up.’
Thalia looked sheepish. ‘I guess all this sounds silly to you.’
‘Not at all. When I first started working with him, I spent months wondering what the hell I was doing wrong. Not a word of praise ever escaped his lips. Then slowly it dawned on me: if Dreyfus keeps you on the team, that’s the praise.’
‘But now… it’s different, right?’
‘Not really. Once in a blue moon he throws me a crumb of encouragement, but other than that I get exactly the same treatment as you.’
‘It doesn’t look that way.’
‘That’s because you’re still the new addition to the team. When I make full field, I’ll get promoted to another section and you’ll fill my slot. Then Dreyfus’ll bring in someone new, someone who’ll feel exactly the way you do now.’
Thalia glanced over his shoulder at the waiting passwall. ‘Do you like him, Sparver?’
‘There’s no one in Panoply I’d rather work for.’
‘Not what I asked.’
‘I know, but that’s the answer you’re getting.’ He spread his hands. ‘I’m a pig, Thalia. There are prefects who won’t look me in the eye because of that. Dreyfus specifically requested I be assigned to his team. He can be as cold-hearted and uncommunicative as he wants, and I’ll still owe him for that.’
‘There are prefects who won’t look me in the eye either,’ Thalia said.
‘There you go. We both owe the boss man. Now why don’t you pipe some of that workload over to me and I’ll see what I can do to take the burden off you?’
‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘And I’m not claiming to know as much about beta-levels as you. But I thought there might be some routine tests I can run while you’re getting on with the clever stuff.’
‘Actually, now that you mention it…’ Thalia’s hands moved over the console again. ‘I’ve run standard recovery algorithms on all twelve recoverables, using the Tianjun protocols. Five or six of them look hopelessly corrupted, but I need to run a second set of tests to make absolutely sure.’
Sparver nodded. ‘Using the Lisichansk protocols, I’m guessing?’
‘It probably won’t make any difference — if you can’t get a clean resurrection with Tianjun, Lisichansk isn’t likely to do any better. But for the sake of completeness, it has to be done.’
‘I’ll get on it.’
‘Appreciated, Sparver.’
‘Anything else I can do for you?’
Thalia looked down at her hands, still poised above the console. ‘There is something. But it isn’t that kind of favour.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘When I joined the team, I asked you what had happened to Dreyfus, why he is the way he is.’
‘I vaguely remember.’
‘You said you didn’t have all the answers, but one day you’d tell me what you knew.’
‘I did,’ he admitted.
‘It’s been five years, Sparver. You can give me something now.’
‘Have you asked around?’
‘I don’t do much asking around, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘Fair point. Have you run a query through the Turbines?’
‘It didn’t seem right, digging around behind his back.’
‘Whereas talking about him isn’t a problem?’
‘It’s different,’ she said, giving him a warning look. ‘I’m asking you as a friend to tell me what happened to him.’
Sparver felt something in him give way. He’d made a promise to her when she joined the team and he couldn’t renege on that now, even though he’d hoped she’d forgotten. ‘It’s not what happened to Dreyfus. It’s what happened to someone he cared about. Her name was Valery Chapelon.’
He could tell that the name meant nothing to Thalia.
‘Was she his wife?’
Sparver nodded slowly, feeling as if he’d committed a grievous betrayal of confidence.
‘What happened?’ Thalia asked.
‘It was eleven years ago. Now ask yourself how long Jane Aumonier’s been the way she is, and that should tell you all you need to know.’
He waited for the reaction to show itself in her face.
Jane Aumonier floated with her arms folded, her chin lifted, her eyes bright with intense focus.
‘You’re back sooner than I expected,’ she said, when the safe-distance tether brought Dreyfus to a stop.
‘I made progress.’
‘I seem to recall that my recommendation was that you were not to engage.’
‘They forced my hand. I didn’t enter the Swarm, but I did have a talk with someone claiming to speak for it.’
‘I’m guessing you encountered the harbourmaster, in that case.’
‘I didn’t know you’d met.’
‘Once or twice in the past. Never face to face. He’s a slippery customer, but all told I’d rather deal with him than most of his predecessors. My impression is that he’s open to reasoned debate.’
Dreyfus would have shifted awkwardly were he not floating on the end of the tether. ‘I hope so.’
Aumonier’s normally inexpressive face became stern. ‘You didn’t push him, did you?’
‘We don’t have time to pussyfoot. Once the story breaks that Ultras are torching habitats, Seraphim and his friends are going to have a lot more to worry about than a few gentle hints from me.’
Aumonier’s attention flicked back to one of her read-outs. Her eyes glazed: for a moment, she could have been light-seconds away in body and mind. ‘Well, you’re right that we don’t have much time. Our effort to mask the catastrophe is still holding but we’re fending off more queries by the hour. Word is beginning to reach the other habitats that something may have happened. It’s only a matter of time before someone decides to have a look-see, or sends a query we can’t answer in a convincing fashion.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then life gets interesting,’ Aumonier said darkly.
‘In which case, I’m glad I was forceful. If Seraphim’s the reasonable man you say he is, maybe we’ll get somewhere.’
‘We’re playing with fire, Tom.’
‘We didn’t choose the game,’ he reminded her. ‘This is what they pay us for.’
Aumonier was silent. Dreyfus began to think she was done with him, that she had returned her attention to the ever-shifting display wall and forgotten his presence. It had happened before, and he took no slight from it. But when she spoke he knew that she had only been summoning the courage to talk about something painful.
‘Tom, there’s something you need to know. It’s about the scarab.’
‘Good news?’ he asked, despite the fact that everything in her tone said otherwise.
‘Not good news, no. Or at least something we don’t understand. As far as I’m concerned, that’s bad news by definition.’