The Revelation Space Collection Read online

  At that moment the escritoire popped up a status fairy to tell him there was an incoming call from Mantell. Sylveste held a hand up to Calvin while he debated whether or not to accept the call. The person trying to reach him was Henry Janequin, a specialist in avian biology and one of Sylveste’s few outright allies. But while Janequin had known the real Calvin, Sylveste was fairly sure he had never seen Calvin’s beta-level . . . and most certainly not in the process of being solicited for advice by his son. The admission that he needed Cal’s help - that he had even considered invoking the sim for this purpose - could be a crucial sign of weakness.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Cal said. ‘Put him on.’

  ‘He doesn’t know about you . . . about us.’

  Calvin shook his head, then - shockingly - Janequin appeared in the room. Sylveste fought to maintain his composure, but it was obvious what had just happened. Calvin must have found a way to send commands to the escritoire’s private-level functions.

  Calvin was and always had been a devious bastard, Sylveste thought. Ultimately that was why he remained of use.

  Janequin’s full-body projection was slightly less sharp than Calvin’s, for Janequin’s image was coming over the satellite network - patchy at best - from Mantell. And the cameras imaging him had probably seen better days, Sylveste thought - like much else on Resurgam.

  ‘There you are,’ Janequin said, noticing only Sylveste at first. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you for the last hour. Don’t you have a way of being alerted to incoming calls when you’re down in the pit?’

  ‘I do,’ Sylveste said. ‘But I turned it off. It was too distracting.’

  ‘Oh,’ Janequin said, with only the tiniest hint of annoyance. ‘Very shrewd indeed. Especially for a man in your position. You realise what I’m talking about, of course. There’s trouble afoot, Dan, perhaps more than you . . .’ Then Janequin must have noticed Cal for the first time. He studied the figure in the chair for a moment before speaking. ‘My word. It is you, isn’t it?’

  Cal nodded without saying a word.

  ‘This is his beta-level simulation,’ Sylveste said. It was important to clear that up before the conversation proceeded any further; alphas and betas were fundamentally different things and Stoner etiquette was very punctilious indeed about distinguishing between the two. Sylveste would have been guilty of an extreme social gaffe had he allowed Janequin to think that this was the long-lost alpha-level recording.

  ‘I was consulting with him . . . with it,’ Sylveste said.

  Calvin pulled a face.

  ‘About what?’ Janequin said. He was an old man - the oldest person on Resurgam, in fact - and with each passing year his appearance seemed to approach fractionally closer to some simian ideal. His white hair, moustache and beard framed a small pink face in the manner of some rare marmoset. On Yellowstone, there had been no more talented expert in genetics outside of the Mixmasters, and there were some who rated Janequin a good deal cleverer than any in that sect, for all that his genius was of the undemonstrative sort, accumulating not in any flash of brilliance, but through years and years of quietly excellent work. He was well into his fourth century now, and layer upon layer of longevity treatment was beginning to crumble visibly. Sylveste supposed that before very long Janequin would be the first person on Resurgam to die of old age. The thought filled him with sadness. Though there was much upon which Janequin and he disagreed, they had always seen eye to eye on all the important things.

  ‘He’s found something,’ Cal said.

  Janequin’s eyes brightened, years lifting off him in the joy of scientific discovery. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, I . . .’ Then something else odd happened. The room was gone now. The three of them were standing on a balcony, high above what Sylveste instantly recognised as Chasm City. Calvin’s doing again. The escritoire had followed them like an obedient dog. If Cal could access its private-level functions, Sylveste thought, he could also do this kind of trick, running one of the escritoire’s standard environments. It was a good simulation, too: down to the slap of wind against Sylveste’s cheek and the city’s almost intangible smell, never easy to define but always obvious by its absence in more cheaply done environments.

  It was the city from his childhood: the high Belle Epoque. Awesome gold structures marched into the distance like sculpted clouds, buzzing with aerial traffic. Below, tiered parks and gardens stepped down in a series of dizzying vistas towards a verdant haze of greenery and light, kilometres beneath their feet.

  ‘Isn’t it great to see the old place?’ Cal said. ‘And to think that it was almost ours for the taking; so much within reach of our clan . . . who knows how we might have changed things, if we’d held the city’s reins?’

  Janequin steadied himself on the railing. ‘Very nice, but I didn’t come to sight-see, Calvin. Dan, what were you about to tell me before we were so . . .’

  ‘Rudely interrupted?’ Sylveste said. ‘I was going to tell Cal to pull the gravitometer data from the escritoire, as he obviously has the means to read my private files.’

  ‘There’s really nothing to it for a man in my position,’ Cal said. There was a moment while he accessed the smoky imagery of the buried thing, the obelisk hanging in front of them beyond the railing, apparently life-size.

  ‘Oh, very interesting,’ Janequin said. ‘Very interesting indeed!’

  ‘Not bad,’ Cal said.

  ‘Not bad?’ Sylveste said. ‘It’s bigger and better preserved than anything we’ve found to date by an order of magnitude. It’s clear evidence of a more advanced phase of Amarantin technology . . . perhaps even a precursor phase to a full industrial revolution.’

  ‘I suppose it could be quite a significant find,’ Cal said, grudgingly. ‘You - um - are planning to unearth it, I assume?’

  ‘Until a moment ago, yes.’ Sylveste paused. ‘But something’s just come up. I’ve just been . . . I’ve just found out for myself that Girardieau may be planning to move against me a lot sooner than I had feared.’

  ‘He can’t touch you without a majority in the expeditionary council,’ Cal said.

  ‘No, he couldn’t,’ Janequin said. ‘If that was how he was going to do it. But Dan’s information is right. It looks as if Girardieau may be planning on more direct action.’

  ‘That would be tantamount to some kind of . . . coup, I suppose.’

  ‘I think that would be the technical term,’ Janequin said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Then Calvin did the concentration thing again, dark lines etching his brow. ‘Yes . . . you could be right. A lot of media speculation in the last day concerning Girardieau’s next move, and the fact that Dan’s off on some dig while the colony stumbles through a crisis of leadership . . . and a definite increase in encrypted comms among Girardieau’s known sympathisers. I can’t break those encryptions, of course, but I can certainly speculate on the reason for the increase in traffic.’

  ‘Something’s being planned, isn’t it?’ Sluka was right, he thought to himself. In which case she had done him a favour, even as she had threatened to abandon the dig. Without her warning he would never have invoked Cal.

  ‘It does look that way,’ Janequin said. ‘That’s why I was trying to reach you. My fears have only been confirmed by what Cal says about Girardieau’s sympathisers.’ His grip tightened on the railing. The cuff of his jacket - hanging thinly over his skeletal frame - was patterned with peacocks’ eyes. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point my staying here, Dan. I’ve tried to keep my contact with you below suspicious levels, but there’s every reason to think this conversation is being tapped. I shouldn’t really say any more.’ He turned away from the cityscape and the hanging obelisk, then addressed the seated man. ‘Calvin . . . it’s been a pleasure to meet you again, after such a long time.’

  ‘Look after yourself,’ Cal said, elevating a hand in Janequin’s direction. ‘And good luck with the peacocks.’

  Janequin’s surprise was evident. ‘You kn
ow about my little project?’

  Calvin smiled without answering; Janequin’s question had been superfluous after all, Sylveste thought.

  The old man shook his hand - the environment ran to full tactile interaction - and then stepped out of range of his imaging suite.

  The two of them were left alone on the balcony.

  ‘Well?’ Cal asked.

  ‘I can’t afford to lose control of the colony.’ Sylveste had still been in nominal command of the entire Resurgam expedition, even after Alicia’s defection. Technically, those who had chosen to stay behind on the planet rather than return home with her should have been his allies, meaning that his position should have been strengthened. But it had not worked like that. Not everyone who was sympathetic to Alicia’s side of the argument had managed to get aboard the Lorean before it left orbit. And amongst those who had stayed behind, many previously sympathetic to Sylveste felt he had handled the crisis badly, or even criminally. His enemies said that the things the Pattern Jugglers had done to his head before he met the Shrouders were only now emerging into the light; pathologies that bordered on madness. Research into the Amarantin had carried on, but with slowly lessening momentum, while political differences and enmities widened beyond repair. Those with residual loyalty to Alicia - chief among them Girardieau - had amalgamated into the Inundationists. Sylveste’s archaeologists had become steadily embittered, a siege-mentality setting in. There had been deaths on both sides which were not easily explained as accidents. Now things had reached a head, and Sylveste was in nowhere like the right place to resolve the crisis. ‘But I can’t let go of that, either,’ he said, indicating the obelisk. ‘I need your advice, Cal. I’ll get it because you depend on me absolutely. You’re fragile; remember that.’

  Calvin stirred uneasily in the chair. ‘So basically you’re putting the squeeze on your old dad. Charming.’

  ‘No,’ Sylveste said, through clenched teeth. ‘What I’m saying is that you could fall into the wrong hands unless you give me guidance. In mob terms you’re just another member of our illustrious clan.’

  ‘Although you wouldn’t necessarily agree, would you? By your reckoning I’m just a program, just evocation. When are you going to let me take over your body again?’

  ‘I wouldn’t hold your breath.’

  Calvin raised an admonishing finger. ‘Don’t get stroppy, son. It was you who invoked me, not the other way around. Put me back in the lantern if you want. I’m happy enough.’

  ‘I will. After you’ve advised me.’

  Calvin leaned forward in the seat. ‘Tell me what you did with my alpha-level simulation and I might consider it.’ He grinned, impishly. ‘Hell, I might even tell you a few things about the Eighty you don’t know.’

  ‘What happened,’ Sylveste said, ‘is seventy-nine innocent people died. There’s no mystery to it. But I don’t hold you responsible. It would be like accusing a tyrant’s photograph of war crimes.’

  ‘I gave you sight, you ungrateful little sod.’ The seat swivelled so that its high solid back was facing Sylveste. ‘I admit your eyes are hardly state of the art, but what could you expect?’ The seat spun round. Calvin was dressed like Sylveste now, his hair similarly styled and his face possessing the same smooth cast. ‘Tell me about the Shrouders,’ he said. ‘Tell me about your guilty secrets, son. Tell me what really happened around Lascaille’s Shroud, and not the pack of lies you’ve been spinning since you got back.’

  Sylveste moved to the escritoire, ready to flip out the cartridge. ‘Wait,’ Calvin said, holding up his hands suddenly. ‘You want my advice?’

  ‘Finally, we’re getting somewhere.’

  ‘You can’t let Girardieau win. If a coup’s imminent, you need to be back in Cuvier. There you can muster what little support you may have left.’

  Sylveste looked through the crawler’s window, towards the box grid. Shadows were crossing the baulks - workers deserting the dig, moving silently towards the sanctuary of the other crawler. ‘This could be the most important find since we arrived.’

  ‘And you may have to sacrifice it. If you keep Girardieau at bay, you’ll at least have the luxury of returning here and looking for it again. But if Girardieau wins, nothing you’ve found here will matter a damn.’

  ‘I know,’ Sylveste said. For a moment there was no animosity between them. Calvin’s reasoning was flawless, and it would have been churlish to pretend otherwise.

  ‘Then will you be following my advice?’

  He moved his hand to the escritoire, ready to eject the cartridge. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  TWO

  Aboard a lighthugger, interstellar space, 2543

  The trouble with the dead, Triumvir Ilia Volyova thought, was that they had no real idea when to shut up.

  She had just boarded the elevator from the bridge, weary after eighteen hours in consultation with various simulations of once-living figures from the ship’s distant past. She had been trying to catch them out, hoping one or more of them would disclose some revealing fact about the origins of the cache. It had been gruelling work, not least because some of the older beta-level personae could not even speak modern Norte, and for some reason the software which ran them was unwilling to do any translating. Volyova had been chain-smoking for the entire session, trying to get her head around the grammatical peculiarities of middle Norte, and she was not about to stop filling her lungs now. In fact, back stiff from the nervous tension of the exchanges, she needed it more than ever. The elevator’s air-conditioning was functioning imperfectly, so it took only a few seconds for her to veil the interior with smoke.

  Volyova hoisted the cuff of her fleece-lined leather jacket and spoke into the bracelet which wrapped around her bony wrist. ‘The Captain’s level,’ she said, addressing the Nostalgia for Infinity, which would in turn assign a microscopic aspect of itself to the primitive task of controlling the elevator. A moment later, the floor plunged away.

  ‘Do you wish musical accompaniment for this transit?’

  ‘No, and as I’ve had to remind you on approximately one thousand previous occasions, what I wish is silence. Shut up and let me think.’

  She rode the spinal trunk, the four-kilometre-long shaft which threaded the entire length of the ship. She had boarded somewhere near the nominal top of the shaft (there were only 1050 levels that she knew of) and was now descending at ten decks a second. The elevator was a glass-walled, field-suspended box, and occasionally the lining of the trackless shaft turned transparent, allowing her to judge her location without reference to the elevator’s internal map. She was descending through forests now: tiered gardens of planetary vegetation grown wild with neglect, and dying, for the UV lamps which had once supplied the forest with sunlight were mostly broken now, and no one could be bothered repairing them. Below the forests, she ghosted through the high eight hundreds; vast realms of the ship which had once been at the disposal of the crew, when the crew numbered thousands. Below 800 the elevator passed through the vast and now immobile armature which spaced the ship’s rotatable habitat and nonrotatable utility sections, and then dropped through two hundred levels of cryogenic storage bays; sufficient capacity for one hundred thousand sleepers - had there been any.

  Volyova was now more than a kilometre below her starting point, but the ship’s ambient pressure remained constant, life-support one of the rare systems which still functioned as intended. Nonetheless some residual instinct told her that ears should be popping with the rush of descent.

  ‘Atrium levels,’ said the elevator, accessing a long-redundant record of the ship’s prior layout. ‘For your enjoyment and recreation needs.’

  ‘Very droll.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I mean, you’d need a pretty odd definition of recreation. Unless your idea of relaxation happened to be suiting-up in full vacuum-rated armour and dosing on a bowel-loosening regimen of anti-radiation therapies. Which doesn’t strike me as being particularly pleasurable.’

>   ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Forget it,’ Volyova said, sighing.

  For another kilometre she passed through only sparsely pressurised districts. Volyova felt her weight lessen and knew she was passing the engines - braced beyond the hull on elegant, swept-back spars. Gape-mouthed, they sucked in tiny amounts of interstellar hydrogen and subjected the harvest to some frankly unimaginable physics. No one, not even Volyova, pretended to know how the Conjoiner engines worked. What mattered was that they functioned. What also mattered was that they gave off a steady warm glow of exotic particle radiation, and while most would have been mopped up by the ship’s hull shielding, some of it would get through. That was why the elevator sped up momentarily as it dropped past the engines, and then slowed down to its normal descent speed once it had passed out of danger.

  Now she was two-thirds of the way down the ship. She knew this district better than any of the other crew members: Sajaki, Hegazi and the others seldom came down this far unless they had excellent reason. And who could blame them? The further down they went, the closer they got to the Captain. She was the only one who was not terrified by the very idea of his proximity.

  No; far from fearing this realm of the ship, she had made an empire of it. At level 612 she could have disembarked, navigated to the spider-room and taken it outside the hull, where she could listen to the ghosts which haunted the spaces between the stars. Tempting - always so. But she had work to do - she was on a specific errand - and the ghosts would still be there another time. At level 500, she passed the floor which contained the gunnery, and thought of all the problems which it represented, and had to resist stopping to carry out a few new investigations. Then the gunnery was gone and she was falling through the cache chamber - one of several huge, non-pressurised inclusions within the ship.