Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space

“You think I brought it to Resurgam?”

“No; the evidence suggests it was already long lost by then. In fact, the last time it was definitely present in the system was more than a century before the Resurgam expedition departed.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Sylveste said. “Check the records more closely and you’ll see that the alpha was moved into an orbital data cache in the late twenty-fourth. The Institute relocated premises thirty years later, so it was certainly moved then. Then in “39 or “40 the Institute was attacked by House Reivich. They wiped the data cores.”

“No,” Pascale said. “I excluded those instances. I’m well aware that in 2390 around ten to the eighteen bytes of something was moved into orbit by the Sylveste Institute, and the same amount relocated thirty-seven years later. But ten to the eighteen bytes of information doesn’t have to be Calvin. It could as easily be ten to the eighteen bytes of metaphysical poetry.”

“Which proves nothing.”

She passed him the compad, her entourage of seahorses and fish scattering like fireflies. “No, but it certainly looks suspicious. Why would the alpha vanish around the time you went to meet the Shrouders, unless the two events were related?”

“You’re saying I had something to do with it?”

“The subsequent data-movements could only have been faked by someone within the Sylveste organisation. You’re the obvious suspect.”

“A motive wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said, returning the compad to her lap. “I’m sure I’ll think of one.”

Three days after the janitor-rat had warned her of the crew’s awakening, Volyova felt sufficiently prepared to meet them. It was never something she particularly looked forward to, for although she did not actively dislike human company, neither had Volyova ever had any difficulty in adjusting to solitude. But things were worse now. Nagorny was dead, and by now the others would be well aware of that fact.

Ignoring the rats, and subtracting Nagorny, the ship now carried six crew members. Five, if one elected not to include the Captain. And why include him, when—as far as the other crew were aware, he was not even capable of consciousness, let alone communication? They carried him only because they hoped to make him well. In all other respects the ship’s real centre of power was vested in the Triumvirate. That was Yuuji Sajaki, Abdul Hegazi and—of course—herself. Below the Triumvirate there were currently two more crew, of equal rank. Their names were Kjarval and Sudjic; chimerics who had only recently joined ship. Finally—the lowest rank of all—was the Gunnery Officer, the role Nagorny had filled. Now that he was dead the role had a certain potentiality, like a vacant throne.

During their periods of activity , the other crew tended to stay within certain well-defined districts of the ship, leaving the rest to Volyova and her machines. It was morning now, by shiptime: here up in the crew levels, the lights still followed a diurnal pattern, slaved to a twenty-four hour clock. She went first to the reefersleep room and found it empty, with all but one of the sleep caskets open. The other one, of course, belonged to Nagorny. After reattaching his head Volyova had placed the body in the casket and cooled it down. Later, she had arranged for the unit to malfunction, allowing Nagorny to warm. He had been dead already, but it would take a skilled pathologist to tell that now. Clearly none of the crew had felt much inclined to examine him closely.

She thought about Sudjic again. Sudjic and Nagorny had been close, for a while. It would not pay to underestimate Sudjic.

Volyova left the reefersleep chamber, explored several other likely places of meeting, and then found herself entering one of the forests, navigating through immense thickets of dead vegetation until she neared a pocket where UV lamps were still burning. She approached a glade, making her way unsteadily down the rustic wooden stairs which led to the floor. The glade was quite idyllic—more so now that the rest of the forest was so bereft of life. Shafts of yellow sunlight knifed through a shifting bower of palm trees overhead. There was a waterfall in the distance, feeding a steep-walled lagoon. Parrots and macaws occasionally kited from tree to tree or made ratcheting calls from their perches.

Volyova gritted her teeth, despising the artificiality of the place.

The four living crew were eating breakfast around a long wooden table, piled high with bread, fruit, slices of meat and cheese, jars of orange juice and flasks of coffee. Across the glade, two holographically projected jousting knights were doing their best to disembowel each other.

“Good morning,” she said, stepping from the staircase onto the authentically dewy grass.

“I don’t suppose there’s any coffee left?”

They looked up, some of them twisting around on their stools to meet her. She registered their reactions as their cutlery clinked discreetly down, three of them murmuring a hushed greeting. Sudjic said nothing at all, while only Sajaki actually raised his voice.

“Glad to see you, Ilia.” He snatched a bowl from the table. “Care for some grapefruit?”

“Thanks. Perhaps I will.”

She walked towards them and took the plate from Sajaki, the fruit glistening with sugar. Deliberately she sat between the two other women: Sudjic and Kjarval. Both were currently black-skinned and bald, apart from fiery tangles of dreadlocks erupting from their crowns. Dreadlocks were important to Ultras: they symbolised the number of reefersleep stints that each had done; the number of times each had almost kissed the speed of light. The two women had joined after their own ship had been pirated by Volyova’s crew. Ultras traded loyalties as easily as the water ice, monopoles and data they used for currency. Both were overt chimerics, although their transformations were modest compared to Hegazi. Sudjic’s arms vanished below her elbows into elaborately engraved bronze gauntlets, inlaid with ormoluwork windows which revealed constantly shifting holographics, diamond nails projecting from the too-slender fingers of her mock hands. Most of Kjarval’s body was organic, but her eyes were feline cross-hatched red ellipses, and her flat nose exhibited no nostrils; merely sleekly rilled apertures, as if she was partially adapted to aquatic living. She wore no clothes, but apart from eyes, nostrils, mouth and ears, her skin was seamless, like an all-enveloping sheath of ebony neoprene. Her breasts lacked nipples; her fingers were dainty but without nails, and her toes were little more than vague suggestions, as if she had been rendered by a sculptor anxious to begin another commission. As Volyova sat down, Kjarval observed her with indifference that was a little too studied to be genuine.

“It’s good to have you with us,” Sajaki said. “You’ve been very busy while we were sleeping. Anything much happen?”

“This and that.”

“Intriguing.” Sajaki smiled. “This and that. I don’t suppose that between ‘this’ and ‘that’ you noticed anything which might shed some light on Nagorny’s death?”

“I wondered where Nagorny was. Now you’ve answered my question.”

“But you haven’t answered mine.”

Volyova dug into her grapefruit. “The last time I saw him he was alive. I have no idea… how did he die, incidentally?”

“His reefersleep unit warmed him prematurely. Various bacteriological processes ensued. I don’t suppose we need to go into the details, do we?”

“Not over breakfast, no.” Evidently they had not examined him closely at all: if they had, they might have noticed the injuries he had sustained during his death, for all that she had tried to disguise them. “I’m sorry,” she said, flashing a glance towards Sudjic. “I meant no disrespect.”