Sylveste turned to his wife. ‘The first thing he does, on being woken, is sniff the local cybernetic environment — allows him to get his bearings, establish the time frame, and so on. Trouble is, right now there isn’t a local cybernetic environment, so he’s a bit disorientated.’
‘Stop talking about me like I’m not here. Wherever the hell here is!’
‘You’re in a plane,’ Sylveste said.
‘A plane? That’s novel,’ Cal nodded, regaining some of his composure. ‘Very novel indeed. Don’t think I’ve ever been in one of those before. I don’t suppose you’d mind filling your old dad in on a few key facts?’
‘That’s exactly why I’ve woken you.’ Sylveste paused to cancel the windows; there was no view now and the unchanging pall of dust served only to remind him of what lay ahead once the plane had deposited them. ‘Don’t for one moment imagine it was because I felt in need of a fireside chat, Cal.’
‘You look older, son.’
‘Yes, well, some of us have to get on with the business of being alive in the entropic universe.’
‘Ouch. That hurts, you know.’
Pascale said, ‘Stop it, will you? There isn’t time for this bickering.’
‘I don’t know,’ Sylveste said. ‘Five hours — seems like more than enough to me. What do you think, Cal?’
‘Too right. What does she know anyway?’ Cal glared at her. ‘It’s traditional, dearie. It’s how we — how shall I put it? Touch base. If he showed even the remotest hint of cordiality towards me, then I’d really start worrying. It would mean he wanted some excruciatingly difficult favour.’
‘No,’ Sylveste said. ‘For merely excruciatingly difficult favours, I’d just threaten you with erasure. I haven’t needed anything big enough from you to justify being pleasant, and I doubt I ever will.’
Calvin winked at Pascale. ‘He’s right, of course. Silly me.’
He was manifesting in a high-collared ash-coloured frockcoat, its sleeves patterned with interlocked gold chevrons. One booted foot was resting on the knee of his other leg, and the frock’s tail draped over the raised leg in a long curtain of gently rippling fabric. His beard and moustache had attained some realm beyond the merely fussy, sculpted into a whole of such complexity that it could only have been maintained by the fastidious attention of an army of dedicated grooming-servitors. An amber data-monocle rested in one socket (an affectation, since Calvin had been implanted for direct interfacing since birth), and his hair (long now) extended beyond the back of his skull in an oiled handle, reconnecting with his scalp somewhere above his nape. Sylveste attempted to date the ensemble, but failed. It was possible that the look referred to a particular era from Calvin’s days on Yellowstone. It was equally possible that the simulation had invented it entirely from scratch, to kill the time while all his routines booted.
‘So, anyway…’
‘The plane’s taking me to meet Volyova,’ Sylveste said. ‘You remember her, of course?’
‘How could we forget?’ Calvin removed the monocle, polishing it absently against his sleeve. ‘And just how did all this come about?’
‘It’s a long story. She’s put the squeeze on the colony. They had little choice but to hand me over. You too, in fact.’
‘She wanted me?’
‘Don’t look all surprised about it.’
‘I’m not; just disappointed. And of course this is rather a lot to take in all of a sudden.’ Calvin popped the monocle back in, one eye glaring magnified behind the amber. ‘Do you think she wanted us together as a safeguard, or because she has something specific in mind?’
‘Probably the latter. Not that she’s been exactly open about her intentions.’
Calvin nodded thoughtfully. ‘So you’ve been dealing only with Volyova, is that it?’
‘Does that strike you as odd?’
‘I would have expected our friend Sajaki to show his face at some point.’
‘Me too, but she hasn’t made any reference to his absence.’ Sylveste shrugged. ‘Does it really matter? They’re all as bad as each other.’
‘Granted, but at least with Sajaki we knew where we were.’
‘Shafted, you mean?’
Calvin rocked his head equivocally. ‘Say what you like about the man, at least he kept his word. And he — or whoever is running things — has at least had the decency not to bother you again until now. How long has it been since we were last aboard that Gothic monstrosity they call Nostalgia for Infinity?’
‘About a hundred and thirty years. A lot less for them, of course — only a few decades as far as they were concerned.’
‘I suppose we’d better assume the worst.’
‘The worst what?’ Pascale said.
‘That,’ Calvin began, with laboured patience, ‘we have a certain task to perform, in connection with a certain gentleman.’ He squinted at Sylveste. ‘How much does she know, anyway?’
‘Rather less than I imagined, I suspect.’ Pascale did not look amused.
‘I told her the minimum,’ Sylveste said, glancing between his wife and the beta-level simulation. ‘For her own good.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
‘Of course, I had some doubts of my own…’
‘Dan, just what is it these people want with you and your father?’
‘Ah, well, that’s another very long story, I’m afraid.’
‘You’ve got five hours — you just said so yourself. Assuming, of course, you two can bear to break off from your mutual admiration session.’
Calvin raised one eyebrow. ‘Never heard it called that before. But maybe she’s got something, eh, son?’
‘Yes,’ Sylveste said. ‘What she’s got is a severe misapprehension of the situation.’
‘Nonetheless, maybe you should tell her a bit more — keep her in the picture and all that.’
The aircraft executed a particularly abrupt turn, Calvin the only one amongst them impervious to the motion. ‘All right,’ Sylveste said. ‘Though I still say she’d be better off knowing less rather than more.’
‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’ Pascale said.
Calvin smiled. ‘Start by telling her about dear Captain Brannigan, that’s my advice.’
So Sylveste told her the rest of it. Until then, he had deliberately skirted the issue of what exactly it was that Sajaki’s crew wanted of him. Pascale had always had every right to know, of course… but the subject itself was so unpalatable to Sylveste that he had done his best to avoid it at all times. It was not that he had anything personal against Captain Brannigan, or even any lack of sympathy for what had become of the man. The Captain was a unique individual with a uniquely horrifying affliction. Even if he was not in any sense aware now (to the best of Sylveste’s knowledge), he had been in the past, and could be again in the future, in the admittedly unlikely event that he could be cured. So what if the Captain’s murky past quite possibly contained crimes? Surely the man had atoned for prior sins a thousand times over in his present state. No; anyone would have wished the Captain well, and most people would have been willing to expend some energy in helping him, provided they ran no risk to themselves. Even some small risk might have been accepted.
But what the crew were asking of Sylveste was much more than just the acceptance of personal risk. They would require him to submit to Calvin; to allow Cal to invade his mind and take command of his motor functions. The thought alone was repulsive. It was bad enough dealing with Cal as a beta-level simulation; as bad as being haunted by his father’s ghost. He would have destroyed the beta-level years ago if it had not proven so intermittently useful, but just knowing it existed made him uncomfortable. Cal was too perceptive; too shrewd in his… in its judgements. It knew what he had done with the alpha-level simulation, even if it had never come out and said it. But every time he allowed it into his head, it seemed to sink deeper tendrils into him. It seemed to know him better each time; seemed able to predict his own responses more closely. What did that make him, if what seemed like his own free will was so easily mimicked by a piece of software which had no theoretical consciousness of its own? It was worse than simply the dehumanising aspect of the channelling process, of course. The physical procedure was itself far from pleasant, for his own voluntary motor signals had to be blocked at source, obstructed by a stew of neuro-inhibitory chemicals. He would be paralysed, yet moving — as close to demonic possession as anyone ever came. It had always been a nightmarish experience; never one he was in a hurry to repeat.