Alastair Reynolds: The Prefect

"It's been five years, Sparver. You can give me something now.".

"Have you asked around?".

"I don't do much asking around, in case you hadn't noticed.".

"Fair point. Have you run a query through the Turbines?".

"It didn't seem right, digging around behind his back.".

"Whereas talking about him isn't a problem?".

"It's different," she said, giving him a warning look.

"I'm asking you as a friend to tell me what happened to him.". Sparver felt something in him give way. He'd made a promise to her when she joined the team and he couldn't renege on that now, even though he'd hoped she'd forgotten.

"It's not what happened to Dreyfus. It's what happened to someone he cared about. Her name was Valery Chapelon."

He could tell that the name meant nothing to Thalia.

"Was she his wife?". Sparver nodded slowly, feeling as if he'd committed a grievous betrayal of confidence.

"What happened?" Thalia asked.

"It was eleven years ago. Now ask yourself how long Jane Aumonier's been the way she is, and that should tell you all you need to know.". He waited for the reaction to show itself in her face.

Jane Aumonier floated with her arms folded, her chin lifted, her eyes bright with intense focus.

"You're back sooner than I expected," she said, when the safe-distance tether brought Dreyfus to a stop.

"I made progress.".

"I seem to recall that my recommendation was that you were not to engage.".

"They forced my hand. I didn't enter the Swarm, but I did have a talk with someone claiming to speak for it.".

"I'm guessing you encountered the harbourmaster, in that case.".

"I didn't know you'd met.".

"Once or twice in the past. Never face to face. He's a slippery customer, but all told I'd rather deal with him than most of his predecessors. My impression is that he's open to reasoned debate.". Dreyfus would have shifted awkwardly were he not floating on the end of the tether.

"I hope so.". Aumonier's normally inexpressive face became stern.

"You didn't push him, did you?".

"We don't have time to pussyfoot. Once the story breaks that Ultras are torching habitats, Seraphim and his friends are going to have a lot more to worry about than a few gentle hints from me.". Aumonier's attention flicked back to one of her read-outs. Her eyes glazed: for a moment, she could have been light-seconds away in body and mind.

"Well, you're right that we don't have much time. Our effort to mask the catastrophe is still holding but we're fending off more queries by the hour. Word is beginning to reach the other habitats that something may have happened. It's only a matter of time before someone decides to have a look-see, or sends a query we can't answer in a convincing fashion.".

"Then what?".

"Then life gets interesting," Aumonier said darkly.

"In which case, I'm glad I was forceful. If Seraphim's the reasonable man you say he is, maybe we'll get somewhere.".

"We're playing with fire, Tom.".

"We didn't choose the game," he reminded her.

"This is what they pay us for.". Aumonier was silent. Dreyfus began to think she was done with him, that she had returned her attention to the ever-shifting display wall and forgotten his presence. It had happened before, and he took no slight from it. But when she spoke he knew that she had only been summoning the courage to talk about something painful.

"Tom, there's something you need to know. It's about the scarab.".

"Good news?" he asked, despite the fact that everything in her tone said otherwise.

"Not good news, no. Or at least something we don't understand. As far as I'm concerned, that's bad news by definition.".

"Tell me.".

"You know what sometimes worries me the most? It's not that they won't ever be able to get it off me. I have confidence in their abilities, maybe more than they do. Demikhov's team is the best I could ever hope for."

"So what's worrying you?" asked Dreyfus softly.

"That I won't be able to dream. What happens when you don't dream for eleven years, Tom? Does anyone really know?"

"I'm sure you'll be able to dream.".

"But we don't know for sure. What if the parts of my brain that used to dream have withered away from not being used? What if they've been taken over by some other part? That happens, you know. The brain rewires itself all the time.".

"You'll dream," he said, as if that should be reassurance enough. After a silence, Aumonier said, "They've detected a change inside it. Components have moved. I felt it myself. They don't know what to make of the change.".

"I thought Demikhov said they understood everything inside it.".

"He's never claimed that, just that they know enough to be able to get it off me, one day.". Dreyfus studied the thing attached to the back of Aumonier's neck. It was a fist-sized machine shaped like a red chromed beetle, clamped into place by its legs, a dozen sterile prongs that dug into her skin.

"Why now?" he asked.

"These last few days have been stressful for all of us. I can't get much out of Demikhov, but I can guess what he's thinking. We already know the scarab has a tap into my spine, so that it can read my blood chemistry. We also suspect that it has a field trawl, so that it can tell if I start falling asleep. I've no doubt about that – occasionally I feel the itch as it runs its fingers through my brain. I think it has enough to go on, Tom. It's responding to my stress levels. Something in me has crossed a threshold, and the scarab has responded accordingly."

"But apart from the change, the movement of components, it's done nothing?".

"It may be preparing for something, waiting for my stress levels to notch higher. But no one in the Sleep Lab will tell me anything. I think they're concerned about what might happen were I to become even more stressed."

"I'll talk to Demikhov," Dreyfus said.

"Get the straight story.".

"I'd appreciate that.".

"It's the least I can do.".

"The thing is, I can't let this distract me from the present crisis. But I thought you deserved to know." She swallowed hard.

"In case something happens to me.".

The passwall sealed itself into non-existence behind Senior Prefect Gaffney. He had just returned from Hospice Idlewild, and his sinuses were still blocked after exposure to the furnace-dry air aboard the corvette. He picked at a nostril, then smeared the offending nasal matter against the wall, where it melted away into the absorbing matrix of quickmatter. The room – the heart of Internal Security – was as cold and still and empty as the deepest, clammiest part of a cave system. But as Gaffney moved further into it, the systems responded to his presence and conjured furniture and amenities into being, shaped to his usual ergonomic preferences. Gaffney settled himself before a wraparound console from which rose several membrane-thin display panes. Symbols appeared on the console, outlined in neon blue. Gaffney's fingers skated over them, entering complex chains of richly syntactic security commands, stringing them together like beads on a wire. Text and graphics churned over the display facets, flickering past at high speed. Within Panoply, Gaffney prided himself on having one of the highest speed-reading faculties of any operative. Far away, in the weightless heart of Panoply, the Search Turbines threshed their way through unthinkable quantities of archived knowledge. It was illusory, but Gaffney swore he could feel the subterranean rumble of those questing machines; could almost feel the fire-hose pressure of the data rocketing through them. He slowed the flow as he neared the focus of his search.

"Warning," the system advised him.

"You are entering a high-security data trove. Pangolin clearance is now mandatory. If you do not have Pangolin clearance, desist from further queries.". Gaffney pressed on. He not only had Pangolin clearance, he got to decide who else had it.