The Thousand Emperors

ELEVEN

The flier soon docked with a space station, and Luc disembarked into an echoing grey and silver passageway that dwindled into the distance. It had a distinct air of disuse, as if it had been abandoned long ago. He made his way to an observation blister from where he could see the cloud-streaked surface of Vanaheim far below.

It also gave him a view of part of the station’s exterior. He could see half a dozen or so transparent domes arranged at different angles along a central hub that, by the looks of it, was at least a couple of kilometres in length. Green shadows filled several of the nearest domes, while those further away looked dark and empty.

Moving away from the blister, he let the same mechant that had sealed him inside the crate guide him further down the passageway. Navigating in zero gee had never been his strong point, and it took a constant effort of will to remind himself that the station’s hub was not a bottomless well, and he was not about to go tumbling down its length.

It became rapidly clear the station was badly in need of repair. Access panels had been pulled open, exposing wiring and circuitry, and he saw at least a dozen dog-sized multi-limbed mechants standing still and silent, plugged into juice terminals that were clearly no longer capable of supplying them with power.

‘Who does this station belong to?’ he asked the mechant, more to distract himself than anything else.

‘The Sequoia is the property of Councillor Długok cki, Chief Administrator for the Lubjek mining colony in Acamar’s outer system,’ the mechant replied from up ahead. Its voice echoed slightly in the still air.

He followed the mechant towards a pair of secondary passageways branching out at right angles from the central hub, then followed the machine down the passageway on the right. They passed through a pressure-field, and immediately the air became warmer and denser and more humid, the walls of the passageway thick with moss and vines. After another few metres, Luc found himself drifting up through the floor of one of the domes he had earlier sighted.

The air within the dome was even more humid, filled with wide-leaved palms and trees that pushed against the curved transparent ceiling of the dome. The floor was hidden beneath lush grasses and ferns. Tiny, lemur-like primates with feathery blue fur and broad, fleshy flaps joining their arms to their bodies soared through the warm, soupy air, scattering brightly coloured insects that sported wide translucent wings.

Luc spotted Ambassador Sachs waiting for him at a point where several pathways, nearly hidden beneath the dense flora, converged close to the dome’s centre.

‘You are Master Archivist Gabion?’ asked the Ambassador as Luc came to a halt before him. His face was still hidden behind a mirror mask, and it was more than a little strange for Luc to find himself staring into that mirror, given his dream-memories of Antonov’s face reflected in it.

The Ambassador’s voice proved to be soft, almost contralto. He wore the same long coat as at Vasili’s service, while dark gloves concealed his hands. Luc felt a slight prickling on the back of his neck as he wondered if the Ambassador might in fact be some kind of machine, but then noticed pale flesh hidden in the shadows within the Ambassador’s hood, where the edge of the mask came into contact with all too human skin.

‘Ambassador,’ said Luc with a slight bow. ‘Councillor de Almeida said you might be able to help in the investigation into Sevgeny Vasili’s death.’

The Ambassador dipped his head slightly in acknowledgement. ‘Mr Gabion. We are familiar with your recent exploits at Aeschere. We’re more than happy to provide whatever assistance we can.’

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ said Luc, ‘but why meet here?’

‘It’s peaceful,’ the Ambassador replied. ‘And it feels like home, given that many of our lives back in the Coalition are spent far from planetary surfaces. We . . . must confess to some confusion over Miss de Almeida’s request. We were under the impression the investigation into Councillor Vasili’s murder had recently been closed?’

We? ‘Yes, but we’re far from clear on how the killer managed to circumvent security and reach Vanaheim,’ said Luc, thinking again of the ease with which de Almeida had just done precisely that to bring him here. ‘Naturally, we want to reduce the chances of something like this happening ever again.’

The Ambassador nodded. ‘We can understand why the Council would want to carry out a review of its own security measures, but don’t see how we could possibly be of any help. Surely it’s an internal matter for the Council?’

‘Miss de Almeida wants to carry out interviews with anyone who met with or spoke with Vasili in the last few days before he died. You did say you were willing to help?’

For a second he thought the Ambassador might object. Even with the mask hiding his face, Luc could clearly sense his reluctance.

‘Very well, then,’ said the Ambassador, with a touch of weariness. ‘We wouldn’t want to be seen as uncooperative.’

‘If I may ask, Ambassador Sachs – why do you wear that mask?’

The Ambassador let out an audible sigh. ‘Must we really go over this again?’

Luc hesitated, guessing he’d be far from the first person to have asked that very question. ‘Consider it a necessary formality, Ambassador, with my apologies.’

‘Very well, then.’ Sachs replied, with the tone of one repeating a familiar litany. ‘In the Coalition, we believe faces born of nature have little reflection on an individual’s true spirit. We don’t place limits on ourselves in the way that your own civilization does, and we prefer to be judged by what we do, rather than how we appear. Besides, there are those amongst us who engage in forms of mind and body modification that some within the Tian Di might find . . . intimidating.’

‘So do you keep the mask on to avoid frightening people?’

The Ambassador hesitated a moment. ‘To avoid confusing them would be the more accurate statement. Is this relevant to your investigation?’

No, but it’s relevant to me. ‘You met with Vasili just shortly before he died?’

‘That is a matter of record.’

‘Where were you at the time he died?’

‘At a function, held in my honour, and attended by Councillors who had participated in the preparations for Reunification. Vasili’s absence, it should be said, was noted by all present.’

‘And when you last spoke with Vasili, what did you talk about?’

‘Nothing out of the ordinary. We had regular meetings to go over whatever details or issues might come about on the run-up to Reunification. He seemed alert but tired that last time.’

‘He didn’t seem anxious, or worried about anything?’

‘If he had,’ the Ambassador replied, ‘we would have been sure to mention it upon hearing of his death.’

Luc could see he wasn’t getting anywhere. ‘Vasili was central to Reunification, but would you agree that the Temur Council is far from unified in their support for it?’

‘Perhaps not,’ the Ambassador replied, with just a hint of evasiveness.

‘The fact is,’ Luc continued, ‘Reunification remains a deeply contentious issue, even now. You’ve spent a lot of time dealing with members of the Council yourself, so you must have some idea who might have the necessary motivation to want to kill the one man seen as the architect of that entire process.’

‘We are far from being experts regarding divisions within the Council,’ the Ambassador replied. ‘And besides, there are limits to what we can discuss with a non-Council member.’

‘I speak for Zelia de Almeida. You can assume that when you’re speaking to me, you’re also speaking to her.’

‘Mr Gabion, we were at Vasili’s funeral service – and saw you there, as a virtual presence. You had conspired to hide yourself from the eyes of everyone else present, but not from us. You heard Councillor Borges as well as we did: he openly accused her of orchestrating Councillor Vasili’s murder. Are you sure it’s not her your questions should be directed at?’

Luc couldn’t hide his shock. ‘You saw me there?’

‘Indeed we did. It’s also our understanding,’ the Ambassador continued, ‘that Borges is not alone in believing your employer is guilty of perpetrating a murder.’

‘That’s still to be proven,’ Luc countered, wondering how he had so quickly gone from interrogator to the interrogated.

‘Then doesn’t it seem strange that the person regarded as a primary suspect would herself carry out an investigation into Vasili’s death?’

‘You knew this when she asked you to meet me here.’ He realized he was fast losing control of the situation. ‘Why did you agree to this meeting, if you had nothing to say on the matter?’

‘On the contrary,’ said the Ambassador. ‘We agreed to this meeting because we wanted to meet you.’

Luc’s own astonished face stared back at him from the Ambassador’s mask.

‘Why?’

‘Perhaps, Mr Gabion, you have something to hide. When we saw you there at Vasili’s service, we knew immediately that you possessed a lattice unlike any other in the worlds of the Tian Di except, perhaps, our own.’

Luc felt as if time had slowed to a standstill. The sound of his own heart beating seemed to fill the arboretum, like a pulse reverberating through the dense moist air.

‘At first,’ the Ambassador continued, ‘we thought it was Winchell Antonov himself standing there, but when we looked more closely we saw that we were mistaken – at least in part. We later made cautious enquiries and discovered your identity, as well as your involvement in Antonov’s downfall.’

Luc’s hands had started to tremble at his sides. ‘What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense,’ he said. ‘Antonov is dead.’

‘Is he?’ asked the Ambassador. ‘And has he communicated with you since he “died”?’

Luc didn’t answer, and the Ambassador inclined his head. ‘We know that within the Tian Di only members of the Council and Sandoz Clans are permitted the use of instantiation lattices. Your lattice is therefore illegal. We saw Antonov’s shade within you when you entered this station,’ he continued, ‘and I can see that your lattice is new, but growing wildly out of control. Please don’t deny this is the truth.’

‘At the most there’s a – a ghost, an artefact, some remnant of Antonov’s conscious mind inside of me,’ Luc stammered. ‘That, and some random memories.’

‘We cannot help but wonder how you came to possess the memories of the man you were sent to capture.’

Luc fought the urge to reach out and rip the Ambassador’s mask away, but things had already gone badly wrong enough without compounding them with further errors.

‘If we’re going to be frank with each other,’ said Luc, ‘I know you met with Winchell Antonov. That’s a dangerous association to have, for a representative of what’s still technically an enemy civilization.’

‘How do you know we met with him?’

‘You said it yourself, Ambassador Sachs. I have some of Antonov’s memories, even if they are fragmentary. He seemed to be angry with you for some reason.’

‘Why don’t you ask him about it yourself, Mr Gabion? It appears the two of you are on far more intimate terms than he and I ever were. Otherwise, the details of that encounter must remain private.’ The Ambassador made to turn away, then hesitated. ‘Tell Zelia I’m sorry we couldn’t help more, but there’s nothing useful we could possibly tell her regarding Vasili.’

It appeared their interview was over. Luc watched as the Ambassador turned and stepped along a path leading deeper amongst the moist-leaved ferns crowding the dome; and then he remembered Antonov’s words, spoken in a dream: With the Ambassador’s help, we will both be reborn, and a terrible calamity prevented.

‘Antonov told me you could help me!’ Luc yelled after him. ‘He said you could prevent a calamity, but I don’t know what he meant.’

The Ambassador came to a halt but did not turn around. ‘He said that?’

‘Yes. No, not exactly. It was . . .’ Luc swallowed. ‘It was in a dream.’

He half expected the Ambassador to laugh.

Instead, the masked figure turned to face him once more. ‘In the Coalition, the distinction between dreams and waking are as fluid and meaningless as that which separates life and death. We make equally little distinction between that which you would not regard as objectively real, and what you would consider tangible and solid. The difference, from our perspective, is sufficiently negligible to be meaningless. Like yourself, each one of us speaks with the dead as a matter of course. In fact, the dead could be said to constitute the majority of the Coalition’s population.’

‘And the calamity? What did he mean by that?’

‘Something that is not of your concern,’ the Ambassador replied. ‘The knowledge would place you in a considerably greater degree of danger than we suspect you are already in.’

‘Tell me,’ Luc grated, ‘or I go to the Council and tell them everything I know, including that you met with Antonov.’

‘And if you do,’ the Ambassador pointed out, ‘they will surely pick your brain apart, neurone by neurone, once they discover that you have a lattice.’

‘I’m prepared to take that chance.’

The Ambassador paused for a moment, then said: ‘We simply don’t believe you, Mr Gabion. You would not, we think, make a good poker player.’

Luc stepped towards him. ‘Please, wait. De Almeida – Zelia – told me the lattice in my head is killing me.’ He stopped, putting one hand against the mossy branch of a tree reaching over the path. ‘I keep seeing and hearing things, and sometimes I don’t know which are real and which aren’t.’

‘Then tell me how you came to acquire the lattice.’

‘On Aeschere,’ Luc replied miserably. ‘Antonov put it inside me while I was out cold.’

‘Who else knows of this?’

He couldn’t see the use of keeping anything more back. ‘Only Zelia,’ he replied. ‘She’s the one who detected it inside me. She told me I can’t be backed-up from it before it kills me. Antonov seemed sure you would help me.’

‘Is this why Zelia sent you here? To ask for our help?’

‘No. This is . . . just me.’

‘Yours is a single life,’ said the Ambassador, ‘measured against countless billions here in the Tian Di and also in the Coalition. As much as you have our sympathy, you must understand that we have greater concerns at the moment. But Antonov would not have done what he did to you without a reason, and whichever of his memories are surfacing in your mind were clearly of importance to him. He’s trying to tell you something, and we suspect you’re not doing a very good job of listening. Ask yourself, why would he plant a partial copy of himself inside the mind of one of his most dedicated enemies, unless it was for some overwhelming purpose?’

‘I know it has something to do with Vasili,’ said Luc.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I have reason to believe Antonov may have met with him some time not long before his death. He knew who his killer was. Who it was, I don’t know, except I’m certain it wasn’t Antonov, and I can’t believe it was de Almeida, either.’ He stared into his own reflection, seeing the haunted look in his eyes. ‘But it has to have something to do with Reunification, and I think you know what it is.’

‘We truly wish we could help you,’ said the Ambassador with what sounded like genuine regret, ‘but there are things taking place which you can scarcely comprehend. We suggest, however, that you listen more closely to whatever Antonov is trying to tell you. It may be that he is trying to give you the answers you seek.’ The Ambassador paused. ‘May we offer a final word of advice?’

‘Of course,’ said Luc, feeling defeated.

‘Zelia de Almeida may value you more for what you carry inside your head than for your investigative skills. You should be careful.’

The Ambassador turned once more and began to walk away, passing beneath the shade of a banyan tree’s broad plate-like leaves. When Luc made to follow, a mechant of a type he’d never seen before dropped from out of the greenery overhead, blocking his way.

‘Careful of what?’ he yelled after the retreating figure. ‘Give me a straight answer, damn you!’

‘Goodbye, Mr Gabion,’ said the Ambassador, before disappearing into the undergrowth. ‘We hope you find your answers before it’s too late.’

‘I have discovered inconsistencies,’ said de Almeida, ‘in the Ambassador’s alibi.’

Mechants moved here and there around her laboratory, specialized models studded with multiple limbs that hovered around Luc’s supine form as she gave them barely vocalized orders. The slab he lay on had been adjusted until he was staring straight up at the ceiling. Images of the interior of his skull rippled whenever de Almeida or one of the mechants passed through them, meat and blood furiously splintering before miraculously reforming into dizzyingly complex three-dimensional structures.

‘He told me himself he was at a meeting when Vasili died,’ Luc replied. He had decided to exercise caution and not tell her everything the Ambassador had said to him.

De Almeida nodded. ‘A gathering of members of a coordination committee, tasked with hammering out the details of various trade agreements. Oh, he was there all right – but only in virtual form.’

Luc felt his eyes widen, and turned to regard her. ‘He was only there as a data-ghost? He never mentioned that.’

‘No, he certainly didn’t,’ she agreed. ‘That means we need to find out where he really was at the time.’

He sat up, mechants bobbing away from him. ‘What about your security systems? Can’t they tell you?’

She spread a roll of gleaming silver instruments out on a wheeled table next to the slab and selected one, studying it beneath the overhead light. ‘Unfortunately, no, they can’t. My systems appear to have suffered a curiously well-timed and convenient glitch that I failed to notice until I happened to make specific enquiries regarding the Ambassador.’

‘Something like the glitch in Vasili’s home security when he died?’

‘A thought that had indeed crossed my mind, Mr Gabion.’

She adjusted the stool on which she sat, then leaned in towards him. He saw the curve of her neck just centimetres from his nose, the flesh silky and smooth. She pressed fingertips against his skull, and he noticed she was wearing a scent that made him think of flowers.

She murmured something he didn’t catch, and a mechant drifted closer, its multi-tipped blades hovering uncomfortably close to the skin of his neck.

Luc swallowed sour phlegm. ‘Is all this really necessary?’

‘If you want a shot at retaining your core personality, yes,’ she replied, sounding distracted. ‘Now stop talking while I get on with this. Ah!’ she exclaimed a moment later, ‘this is interesting.’

Luc felt a pressure against the side of his skull, followed by the sensation of something warm and liquid running down the back of his head. His hands held tightly onto the sides of the slab, muscles locked rigid.

Something whined mechanically and he felt a similar pressure on the other side of his head. Moments later a barbiturate calm flooded his senses and he relaxed.

‘Your lattice barely responded to the inhibitors I put in place,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It circumvented every countermeasure, and its growth is barely retarded. I’d almost think . . .’

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll just have to try something a little different this time. Try and stay still for now.’

Like I’m going to get up and run around.

‘You need to put the Ambassador under surveillance,’ he said, as de Almeida moved out of direct view. He was finding himself becoming uncomfortably aroused by the smell of her skin, and the visible curve of her breasts beneath the thin tunic she wore.

De Almeida stepped back into view and made a sour face as she tapped at a lit panel on the side of one of the mechants hovering over him. ‘That won’t be easy,’ she said.

‘You can’t do it?’

‘Of course I can do it,’ she snapped. ‘But I have to be careful to avoid detection. Let’s see . . .’ she glanced over at one of the hovering projections of the interior of Luc’s head. ‘You’re not sleeping well, are you?’

‘Not for some time, no,’ he admitted.

She nodded. ‘Your brain is struggling to assimilate information coming from two different sources: your own mind, and Antonov’s instantiation. I can try and retard the rate of growth again, but unless I can figure out some new strategy . . .’

Luc shuddered inwardly. ‘How bad is it?’

‘Impossible to say. Remember, this was fast, sloppy work – Antonov was improvising when he did this.’

‘So it’s not like I’m carrying the whole of his thoughts and memories inside me. He can’t . . . take me over, or anything like that?’ He had to force the words out.

She laughed. ‘Hardly. You can’t just dump a copy of someone’s mind into a living, breathing human body with pre-existing cognitive structures.’

‘But that’s what he did, isn’t it?’

‘True, but the outcome is proving far from beneficial for either party.’

‘The Sandoz Clans do it, don’t they? And you. You’re a Councillor. If you die, you can be reborn in a clone body.’

‘Yes, a clone body, heavily modified with an in situ lattice of its own from the moment of its inception in a growth tank. The clone body must be created from your own DNA as well.’

‘And I don’t have a clone-body ready to jump into.’

‘Precisely. And unless I can find a way to retard this thing’s growth, all you have to look forward to, I’m afraid, is madness followed by death.’

Luc stared at her, a sick feeling building inside him. ‘Isn’t there anyone else in the Council you could talk to in confidence about this? Someone who understands how lattices work?’

‘Well, there’s Rowena Engberg, and also Cutler Suszynski. They developed the lattice technology together. Engberg still runs the clinic that engineers all of the Council’s lattices. Unfortunately, they’re both loyal Eighty-Fivers. They’d hand both our heads to Cheng on a plate in a flat instant if we approached them.’

‘The Ambassador knew I was there, at Vasili’s service. He could see me. He said my lattice is far in advance of anything the Tian Di can make.’

De Almeida nodded distractedly. ‘Yes, you told me already.’

‘So where the hell could Antonov have got this thing inside me from?’

She said nothing, and he guessed she had no more idea than he did.

‘I asked you before for access to Vanaheim’s global security network. I think maybe it’s time you finally gave it to me.’

To Luc’s astonishment, she didn’t even argue or scoff at the request this time. Instead, she held a hand up towards him, palm out, and after a moment he saw a single bright flash of light, centred on her palm.

Suddenly he was aware of things he had never been aware of until that moment, and yet which felt as if they had always been known to him. The feeling was extraordinary – like stumbling across a part of his mind he had never noticed before.

‘Done,’ she said. ‘You now have limited access to Vanaheim’s global security, but that access is funnelled through me. I’ll be aware of everything you do.’

‘Limited in what way?’

‘It’s restricted to the Ambassador’s movements only. You’ll be able to see where he goes, and when. Give it a try.’

‘How?’

‘Picture him. The lattice will pinpoint his location and filter the appropriate A/V data to you.’

Luc closed his eyes and pictured Ambassador Sachs, as he had been on board the Sequoia. Within moments he found himself looking at a low, one-storey building spread across a few acres in the centre of a forest clearing.

‘I can see a building, but not the Ambassador.’

‘You’re seeing through the eyes of one of my micro-mechants currently in his vicinity. Just tell it to move in closer.’

He nodded and tried again.

The view jumped as the tiny machine lifted from its perch and swooped in low towards the building. Luc caught sight of a ground-to-orbit flier in the process of dropping onto a landing area to one side of the building, halfway between it and the trees. The sunlight passing through the craft’s AG field shimmered with rainbow colours.

The Ambassador emerged from the spacecraft as Luc watched, making his way towards a second flier parked at the other end of the landing area. He still wore his mirror mask and hood, even though he was alone – something which made him seem even more otherworldly than he already did.

‘Just how many of these micro-mechants do you have scattered all across Vanaheim?’ asked Luc.

‘A lot,’ de Almeida replied.

The viewpoint shifted again as the tiny mechant buzzed several metres closer. Luc saw the Ambassador board the second flier. It lifted up almost immediately, sending dead leaves spinning into the air as it ascended.

He’s in a hurry, thought Luc. Ambassador Sachs must have departed the Sequoia only shortly after he himself had. And now he was on his way somewhere else.

‘You’re telling me the Council seriously don’t mind you being able to see every damn thing they’re up to like this?’ he asked, keeping his eyes closed.

‘Apart from the Eighty-Five, you mean?’ She laughed dryly. ‘The system is set up so they’re aware if I’m watching, or can find out easily enough. That way I’m accountable for everything I do.’

So you say, thought Luc. The micro-mechant had lifted its lens to follow the flier as it dwindled into a deepening blue sky.

‘So what do you do if you need to know what they’re up to, but you don’t want them to know?’

‘I spy on them regardless.’

Luc opened his eyes and looked up at her. ‘And they’re seriously all right with that?’

‘If I can prove at a later date that it was necessary to do so, of course,’ she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Privacy is always respected, but there are times when such things do prove necessary. You can get up now,’ she added, standing back.

Luc swayed a little as he stood upright. He reached up to touch the side of his head, and when he brought his hand back down found it speckled with blood.

‘Somewhere I can wash up?’

She nodded towards a sink and tap a few metres away. ‘Over there.’

Luc ran lukewarm water across his stubbled scalp and down the back of his neck. He glanced up at a mirror over the sink and saw de Almeida putting her roll of instruments away, but started when he realized the exact same hunched figure still stood in the same corner he had seen it days before. He froze, chilled by the sight.

‘Zelia,’ he said, without taking his eyes off the creature, ‘I really want to know just what that thing is.’

De Almeida looked around, confused, then walked across the laboratory until she could see the same pathetic hunched figure.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘does that bother you?’

Luc turned from the sink to stare at her, appalled beyond belief. ‘Doesn’t it bother you?’

She shrugged. ‘He’s nothing. A criminal, a malcontent.’

Luc studied her features, entirely free of guilt or empathy. These are the people you chose to serve, he reminded himself.

‘Just tell me who he is,’ he demanded, his voice ragged. ‘He’s been standing there for . . . for days. What the hell could he have done, to deserve winding up like that?’

Her mouth pinched up. ‘Damn it, Gabion, these are people who’ve been sentenced to death. I can make good use of them this way.’

‘Make use of them?’ Luc laughed, but it was a dismal, half-choked sound by the time it emerged from his throat.

‘You don’t approve?’

‘Look at him! Doesn’t it bother you, to reduce a human being to something like that?’

‘Have you ever thought,’ she asked, her voice cold, ‘about the struggle the Tian Di faced in order to achieve as much as it did, over the centuries? Things like the CogNet, instantiation lattices, data-ghosting, or any of the hundreds of other networked symbiotic technologies that make our lives easier?’ She nodded towards the huddled figure. ‘This laboratory isn’t here just for show. The Council still supports original research into new ways to integrate flesh and machinery.’

‘There must be other ways to—’

‘Other ways?’ she barked. ‘It’s precisely that lack of insight, that refusal to commit to necessary sacrifices that tells me you could never be a member of the Council yourself. You’ve seen Ambassador Sachs, haven’t you? Whatever’s under that mask of his, it’s evident the Coalition has become a fully post-human society. We need to understand them and what they’ve become before their culture overwhelms our own because, let me assure you, their technology is far in advance of ours. That, right now, is the central focus of my research.’

She gestured towards the hunched figure. Luc looked on as, very slowly and carefully, it turned on the spot, its feet shuffling and scraping on the bare floor. He watched it lumber towards a curved balustrade set against a far wall, then slowly make its way down some steps and out of sight. Luc found it hard to contain his horror; it was difficult to believe that pathetic, shambling form had once been a person with a name and a history.

‘Where is the Ambassador now?’

Luc forced himself to turn back to de Almeida. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Ambassador Sachs,’ she repeated with obvious impatience. ‘You are still keeping tabs on him, aren’t you?’

Luc switched his attention back to the Ambassador. Instead of a visual feed, this time his lattice supplied a geo-locational tag attached to a virtual map of Vanaheim.

‘His flier’s headed north-west,’ he informed her.

‘Fine. Just keep an eye on him. Otherwise, I think we’re done here for now.’

‘The lattice,’ said Luc. ‘What’s the latest prognosis?’

She bit her lip, clearly mulling over an appropriate response. ‘It’s hard to be sure. But I’m feeling pretty hopeful I can delay its growth long enough to find some longer-term solution.’

Luc nodded tightly, unwilling to let her see how distressed her words really made him.

A mechant floated down next to her, a tunic jacket gripped in its manipulators. It laid the jacket across her shoulders.

‘I’ll call on you as soon as I have anything more of value,’ she said, stepping towards the spiral staircase that led to the upper floor. ‘A flier is waiting outside for you, one I’ve reserved for your sole use. You’ll be pleased to know you won’t need to hide inside any more crates in future.’

She quickly ascended the steps, disappearing into a shaft of light slanting down from the next floor up. Luc stepped towards the exit, but then paused, thinking of the eyeless ruin de Almeida had just sent downstairs.

It only took a few moments to descend the steps to the basement level below de Almeida’s laboratory.

He pushed open a door at the bottom of the steps, finding himself at one end of a long stone corridor with an arched ceiling. The air tasted damp and slightly mouldy, while junk and what looked like pieces of discarded laboratory equipment were piled untidily in deep alcoves set into the passageway on either side. He could hear the muffled thud of machinery from somewhere up ahead, the slate tiles beneath his feet vibrating faintly in time with the thuds.

The air grew rapidly warmer as he made his way along the passageway. After twenty metres or so it widened to accommodate several steel trestle tables, a few of which were covered over with blood-spattered sheets, almost as if Luc had stumbled across a battlefield hospital.

He came to a stop, seeing two mechants hovering over the naked body of a man that had been laid out on one of the tables. Another eyeless horror – not the same one, he sensed, that de Almeida had just sent down here – stood next to the unconscious man. This creature had needle-tipped machinery in place of fingers; its movements were slow and measured and, as Luc approached, it turned slowly to regard him with its uncanny blank gaze.

Dry-mouthed, Luc forced himself closer to the table. He now saw that the man lying there was being operated on. His skull had been cut open, black pits gaped where his eyes had once been, and much of his lower jaw had been removed. One of the mechants was engaged in manoeuvring a chunk of grey-blue machinery into place where his jawbone had been.

Luc staggered away and threw up in a corner.

He coughed, wiped his mouth, then pressed his forehead against the cool damp stone, breathing harshly. In that moment he heard a sudden, brief burst of static coming from behind him.

He turned to hear a second burst of static issuing from the machinery-clogged throat of the needle-fingered creature. After another moment it appeared to lose interest in him, turning its attention back to its comatose patient. Luc wondered if it had been trying to say something, assuming any kind of human consciousness was still trapped behind that savagely disfigured face.

Luc became aware of a slow, dragging shuffle, echoing from some way further down the corridor. Peering ahead, he saw the very creature he’d come looking for disappear into a shadowed alcove, not far from where the corridor came to an end.

Part of him wanted to turn back, to the world of daylight and air that didn’t smell of mould and disinfectant and death. His heart thundered inside his chest at the thought of going any farther. Worse, he had no idea how de Almeida might react if she discovered he had come down here.

But he had to know.

Making his way quickly to the same alcove into which the stooped figure had disappeared, Luc found himself at the entrance to a wide, low-ceilinged room. Instantly he was bathed in a blast of heat emanating from an open furnace at the opposite end of the room from him, the air shimmering violently from the heat. Rubbish was piled up on either side of the furnace door, while several more of de Almeida’s eyeless monstrosities worked steadily at shovelling it all into the flames.

He saw the stooped creature he had followed, outlined by the flames dancing in the heart of the furnace. At first he thought it would pick up a shovel and join its companions, but instead, to his unending horror, it climbed in through the open furnace door, burning like a torch as the flames caught at its ragged clothes. Apparently impervious to pain, it continued to move deeper into the furnace before slowly pitching forward.

The roar of the furnace grew incrementally louder for a second or two.

Luc heard a sound like the cry of an animal caught in a trap, then realized it had come from his own throat.

He took several steps backwards and stumbled against the wall of the passageway. His lungs felt like they had turned to ice despite the intensity of the heat.

The next thing he knew, he was back upstairs and halfway through the greenhouse attached to de Almeida’s laboratory. He kept going until he was outside, then collapsed against a low wall bordering a garden before again throwing up over some artfully arranged flowers.

As de Almeida had promised, a flier stood waiting for him, a blunt-nosed affair with a more utilitarian appearance than most, meaning it was probably used primarily as a goods vehicle. He staggered towards it as if drunk, climbing on board and barely noticing when it lifted up into clear blue skies.

He closed his eyes, but all he could see was that same stooped figure pitching forward into an inferno.

And maybe one day de Almeida will get tired of trying to help you, and turn you into another one of her monsters.

As he hugged himself, and the flier boosted high into the atmosphere, it came to him that he was going to have to try and save himself, although how he might do that remained beyond him. De Almeida was quite possibly psychotic, and the rest of the Council – those same people he’d given a lifetime of service to – were, judging by what he’d seen and heard, even worse.

But that didn’t mean he had any choice but to play along for the moment. He thought again of those terrible bright flames, and felt as if strips of gauze had been lifted from his eyes. The world seemed different now, had taken on a new and sinister edge.

Between that – and the long, painful quest to find out what purpose might lie behind Antonov’s surgery on him – all he could do was wait.