Prefect Page 9

  "Maybe you're right," Gaffney said. "I know Jane wants closure on the polling anomaly as quickly as possible, but she'll also understand that we have to contain the aggressors until something else comes along to occupy their time."

  "Begging your pardon, sir," Thalia said, "but I'm not counting on anything other than myself and a cutter to get me between habitats. I can handle the upgrades single-handedly."

  Gaffney looked unconvinced. "Quite a responsibility, Ng."

  "It makes sense, sir. I'm intimately familiarly with the software changes and the procedure for installing them. It's been my speciality since I joined the organisation. It's what I live and breathe. I don't think there's anyone else in Panoply who understands the polling mechanism as thoroughly as I do."

  "All the same, it's still a heavy burden for one person."

  "I can do it, sir. In sixty hours, less if things go smoothly, this whole business could be behind us."

  Crissel and Gaffney exchanged glances. "It would be good to get it off the table," Crissel said quietly. "And if Ng thinks she can handle this on her own ... it won't impact on our existing activities."

  "I still say she should wait," Baudry put in.

  "We have no idea how long the crisis with the Ultras is going to last," Crissel said. "We could still be putting out fires a month from now. We can't leave the security hole unplugged until then — there are critical polls coming up and we need the apparatus in a fit state to handle them."

  "If she runs into trouble," Baudry said, "we won't be able to spare a Heavy Technical Squad to help her out."

  "I won't run into trouble," Thalia replied.

  Baudry looked unimpressed. "You sound spectacularly sure of yourself. No update to a polling core is routine, Ng. You take the local abstraction down and then can't get it back up, you'll have a rioting mob on your hands. One whiphound isn't going to make much difference in that situation."

  "I promise there'll be no technical difficulties. Aside from a few habitat seniors, no one else need even know that I'm on the premises."

  "She talks a good talk," Gaffney said, with the tone of a man who had no great stomach for argument. "Part of me says hold off this until we can give it our full attention. Another part says, hell, if she thinks she can do it unassisted — "

  "I can, sir," Thalia said.

  "Maybe we should bounce this one off Jane," Crissel said.

  "The supreme prefect expressly requested not to be troubled with matters of minor procedure," said Baudry. "As she's made abundantly clear, she can only be expected to concentrate on so many matters at once."

  Gaffney pulled a face, racked by indecision. "Sixty hours, you say?"

  "Starting from now, sir. I can leave immediately for New Seattle-Tacoma." Thalia nodded towards the red laser-line trajectory. "The conjunction's favourable. Assign me a cutter and I can be on-site inside Sea-Tac within two hours."

  "All right," Gaffney said. "We'll spare you a cutter. No weps or heavy armour, though."

  "I won't let you down," Thalia said.

  "You'll need one-time pads for core access, I take it?"

  "Just the four, sir. Most of the work shouldn't require deep-level changes, so I ought to be able to manage with six-hundred-second access windows."

  "I'll have Vantrollier issue them." Gaffney looked at her warningly. "You're good, Ng. None of us needs convincing about that. But that doesn't mean we'll cut you an easy ride if things go wrong. This is in your hands now. Don't fuck it up."

  "I won't, sir."

  "Good. Then get out there and update those cores."

  * * *

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  The gallery of clocks covered two long walls, with each timepiece resting in a glass-sealed alcove next to a small black plaque denoting the date and precise location of the object's construction, together with any other salient observations. As usual, Dreyfus had no intention of stopping on his way to the inner sanctum of Dr Demikhov's Sleep Lab. But something always caused him to halt, select one of the clocks and use his Pangolin privilege to open the alcove, remove the evil thing and hold it in his hands. This time he chose a clock he did not believe he had examined before, one that was dark and unornamented enough to have escaped his curiosity on previous occasions.

  He could hear it ticking behind the glass. It would have been wound by one of Demikhov's technicians.

  He read the plaque:

  Clock #115

  Found: LCS, SIAM, 13:54, 17:03:15 YST.

  Finder: Valery Chapelon.

  Duration of construction: unknown.

  Primary base materials: common ferrous alloys.

  Origin of base materials: unknown.

  Movement: double-roller anchor escapement.

  Remarks: electron microscopy reveals atomic-scale fractal patterning in top-right spandrel. Nature of fractal patterning obscure, but may echo visible detail on pendulum hinge of clock #341.

  Status: functional.

  Known booby traps: none.

  Associated fatalities: none.

  Estimated hazard level: low.

  Dreyfus opened the glass panel. The clock's ticking became louder. He reached in and placed his hands on either side of the black metal case and lifted the clock from its base, holding it at eye level. Like all the clocks it was surprisingly heavy, dense with mechanisms, but in this case there was no delicate tracery of gold-leaf ornamentation or razor-sharp edges to watch for. The clock had a crudely fashioned look, at odds with the complexity and accuracy of the mechanism inside it. No glass protected the dial. The hands were withered wisps of beaten metal, the hour marks irregularly soldered stubs.

  Dreyfus hated to hold any of the clocks. But whenever he made the pilgrimage to the Sleep Lab, he found himself unable to resist. The models of the scarab in Demikhov's lab were accurate, but only Jane Aumonier could touch the scarab on her neck. The clocks — all four hundred and nineteen of them — were the only tangible link back to the entity itself.

  Dreyfus had long wondered whether there was a message in the clocks. During the long period of its incarceration in SIAM, the clocks it made had grown in sophistication and ingenuity. It had been presumed by those studying it that the entity was learning with each clock, inventing and innovating as it progressed.

  This view was now considered incorrect. Analysis of microscopic details engraved onto the main gear of clock thirty-five turned out to anticipate refinements — an elegant grasshopper escapement and gridiron pendulum — incorporated as far along the series as clock three hundred and eighty-eight. Since the entity had been denied access to its artefacts as soon as they were discovered, only one conclusion was possible: the Clockmaker had always known what it was doing.

  Which meant that it could easily have been planning its killing spree while the researchers thought they were dealing with something as innocent and guileless as a child, which desired nothing more than to be allowed to make clocks.

  Which meant in turn that, in any given clock, there might be a message that had yet to be deciphered: one that spoke of the Clockmaker's intentions for the woman who had spent the most time with it, the one who thought she knew it best of all. Had it hated her more than any of the others?

  Dreyfus didn't know, but he hoped that one day a clock might reveal something to him.

  Not today, though.

  He replaced clock one hundred and fifteen carefully, then sealed the window. Around him the ticking of the other instruments grew more insistent, the ticks moving in and out of phase with subtle rhythms until the hectoring noise forced him further into the Sleep Lab.

  For eleven years, Demikhov's department had had no other business than the matter of removing the scarab. Every square centimetre of the Sleep Lab beyond the gallery of clocks (which itself offered an insight into the mentality of the Clockmaker) was testament to that effort: walls and partitions aglow with sectional schematics of both the scarab and its host, scribbled over with eleven years' worth of handwritten notes and
commentary. Jane Aumonier's skull and neck had been imaged from every conceivable angle, using scanning devices powerful enough to function from more than seven metres away and yet still resolve nerve and circulatory structure. The metallic probes that the scarab had pushed into her spinal cord were visible in multiple cross sections, at different degrees of structural penetration. The scarab's main body, clamped to her neck, had been subjected to the same variety of analysis modes. Interior details showed in ghostly pastel overlays.

  Dreyfus touched certain panels, causing animations to spring into life. These were simulations of planned rescue attempts, all of which had been deemed unsatisfactory. Dreyfus had heard reliable estimates that the scarab's mechanism would require just under six-tenths of a second to kill Aumonier, meaning that if they could get a machine in there and disarm the scarab in less than half a second they might have a hope of saving her. But he did not envy the person who would have to make the decision as to when to go in. It wouldn't be Aumonier: that was one responsibility she had abdicated long ago.

  Dreyfus paused by one of the benches and picked up a model of the scarab moulded in smoky translucent plastic. There were dozens like it, littering the benches in various dismantled states. They differed in their internal details, depending on the way the scans had been interpreted. Entire rescue strategies hinged on infinitely subtle nuances of analysis. At any one time, Demikhov's squad consisted of several different teams pursuing radically opposed plans. More than once, they'd almost come to blows over the right course of action. Dreyfus thought of monks, arguing over different interpretations of scripture. Only Demikhov's quiet presence kept the whole operation from collapsing into acrimony. He'd been doing that for eleven years, with no visible reward.

  He was at work, leaning over a bench in low, whispered debate with three of his team members. Tools and scarab parts covered the work surface. An anatomical model of a skull — made up of detachable glass parts — sat with the structure of its neck and spine exposed. Luminous markers highlighted vulnerable areas.

  Demikhov must have heard Dreyfus approaching. He pulled goggles from his eyes and used his fingers to comb lank strands of hair away from his brow. The subdued red lighting of the Sleep Lab did nothing to ameliorate Demikhov's sagging lantern-jawed features. Dreyfus had seldom met anyone who looked quite as old.

  "Tom," he said, with a weary smile. "Nice of you to drop by."

  Dreyfus smiled back. "Anything new for me?"

  "No new strategies, although we've shaved another two-hundredths of a second off Plan Tango."

  "Good work."

  "But not good enough for us to go in."

  "You're getting closer."

  "Slowly. Ever so slowly."

  "Jane's patient. She knows how much effort you put in down here."

  Demikhov stared deep into Dreyfus' eyes, as if looking for a clue. "You've spoken to her recently. How is she? How's she holding up?"

  "As well as can be expected."

  "Did she ... "

  "Yes," Dreyfus said. "She told me the news."

  Demikhov picked up a scarab model and unclipped its waxy grey casing. The internal parts glowed blue and violet, highlighting control circuits, power lines and processors. He poked a white stylus into the innards, tapping it against a complicated nexus of violet lines. "This changed. A week ago, there were only three lines running into this node. Now there are five." He moved the stylus to the right. "And this mechanical assembly has shifted by two centimetres. The movement was quite sudden. We don't know what to make of either change."

  Dreyfus glanced at the other lab technicians. He presumed they were fully aware of the situation, or Demikhov wouldn't be talking so openly. "It's getting ready for something," he said.

  "That's my fear."

  "After eleven years: why now?"

  "It's probably reading stress levels."

  "That's what she told me," Dreyfus said, "but this isn't the first crisis we've had in the last eleven years."

  "Maybe it's the first time things have been this bad. It's self-reinforcing, unfortunately. We can only hope that her elevated hormone level won't trigger another change."

  "And if it does?"

  "We may have to rethink that safety margin of which we've always been so protective."

  "You'd make that call?"

  "If I felt that thing was about to kill her."

  "And in the meantime?"

  "The usual. We've altered her therapeutic regime. More drugs. She doesn't like it, says it dulls her consciousness. She still self-administers. We're treading a very fine line: we have to take the edge off her nerves, but we mustn't put her to sleep."

  "I don't envy you."

  "No one envies us, Tom. We've grown used to that by now."

  "There's something you need to know. Things aren't going to get any easier for Jane right now. I'm working a case that might stir up some trouble. Jane's given me the green light to follow my investigation wherever it leads."

  "You've a duty to do so."

  "I'm still worried how Jane'll take things if the crisis worsens."

  "She won't step down, if that's what you're wondering," Demikhov said. "We've been over that a million times."

  "I wouldn't expect her to resign. Right now the only thing keeping her sane is her job."

  * * *

  Dreyfus sat before his low black table, sipping reheated tea. The wall opposite him, where he normally displayed his mosaic of faces, now showed only a single image. It was a picture of the rock sculpture, the one that Sparver and he had found in the incinerated ruin of Ruskin-Sartorious. Forensics had dragged it back to Panoply and scanned it at micron-level resolution. A neon-red contour mesh emphasized the three-dimensional structure that would otherwise have been difficult to make out.

  "I'm missing something here," Sparver said, sitting next to him at the table. "We've got the killers, no matter what Dravidian might have wanted us to think. We've got the motive and the means. Why are we fixating on the art?"

  "Something about it's been bothering me ever since we first saw it," Dreyfus said. "Don't you feel the same way?"

  "I wouldn't hang it on my wall. Beyond that, it's just a face."

  "It's the face of someone in torment. It's the face of someone looking into hell and knowing that's where they're going. More than that, it's a face I feel I know."

  "I'm still just seeing a face. Granted, it's not the happiest face I've ever seen, but — "

  "What bothers me," Dreyfus said, as if Sparver hadn't spoken, "is that we're clearly looking at the work of a powerful artist, someone in complete control of their craft. But why haven't I ever heard of Delphine Ruskin-Sartorious before?"

  "Maybe you just haven't been paying attention."

  "That's what I wondered. But when I searched for priors on Delphine, I only got sparse returns. She's been contributing pieces to exhibitions for more than twenty years, but with no measurable success for most of that time."

  "And lately?"

  "Things have begun to take off for her."

  "Because people caught on to what she was doing, or because she got better at it?"

  "Good question," Dreyfus said. "I've looked at some of her older stuff. There are similarities with the unfinished sculpture, but there's also something missing. She's always been accomplished from a technical standpoint, but I didn't get an emotional connection with the older works. I'd have marked her down as another rich postmortal with too much time on her hands, convinced that the world owes her fame in addition to everything else it's already given her."

  "You said you thought you knew the face."

  "I did. But forensics didn't make any connection, and when I ran the sculpture through the Search Turbines, nothing came up. Hardly surprising, I suppose, given the stylised manner in which she's rendered the face."

  "So you've drawn a blank."

  Dreyfus smiled. "Not quite. There's something Vernon told me."

  "Vernon?" Sparver said.

 
"Delphine's suitor, Vernon Tregent, one of the three stable recoverables. He told me the work had been part of her 'Lascaille' series. The name meant something to me, but I couldn't quite place it."

  "So run it through the Turbines."

  "I don't need to. Just sitting here talking to you, I know where I've heard that name before."

  And it was true. Whenever he voiced the word in his mind, he saw a darkness beyond comprehension, a wall of starless black more profound than space itself. He saw darkness, and something falling into that darkness, like a white petal floating down into an ocean of pure black ink.

  "Are you going to put me out of my misery?" Sparver asked.

  "Lascaille's Shroud," Dreyfus answered, as if that was all that needed to be said.

  * * *

  Thalia was reviewing the summary file on Carousel New Seattle-Tacoma when the call came in. She lifted her eyes from her compad and conjured her master's face into existence before her. Slow-moving habitats, vast and imperious as icebergs, were visible through the slight opacity of the display pane.

  "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Dreyfus asked.

  Thalia tried not to sound flustered. "Not at all, sir."

  "No one told me you were outside."

  "It all came together quite quickly, sir. I have the patch for the polling bug, the one that allowed Caitlin Perigal to bias the results. I'm going to dry-run it before going live across the whole ten thousand."

  "Good. It'll be one less headache to deal with. Who's with you?"

  "No one, sir. I'm handling the initial upgrades on my own."

  Something twitched in the corner of his right eye, the lazy one. "How many are you doing?"

  "Four, sir, ending with House Aubusson. I told the seniors that I can have the upgrades complete inside sixty hours, but I was being deliberately cautious. If all goes well I should be done a lot quicker than that."

  "I don't like the idea of you handling this alone, Thalia."