Alastair Reynolds: The Prefect

"Category: weapon systems, archival, interdicted," said the system. Gaffney refined his query parameters one final time.

"Specific retrieval item," the system said.

"War robot. Weevil class.".

"Show me," Gaffney breathed as his hands echoed the verbal command. Line diagrams and cutaway illustrations crammed the display panes. Gaffney narrowed his eyes and peered closer. In some of the views, the weevils were accompanied by human figures to lend scale. The robots were smaller than he'd been expecting, until he remembered that one of their prime uses had been infiltration. By all accounts they were fast, with a high degree of tactical autonomy. Not that anyone alive had clear memories of weevils. The datestamps on the annotations were all at least a century old. Gaffney's hands moved again. Now the panes filled with scrolling lines of text and symbols in MAL, the human-readable Manufactory Assembler Language. The instructions became a whizzing blur. The blur began to dance and squirm in subtle rhythms, betraying large-scale structure in the sequencing code. Here were the commands that, if fed into a sufficiently equipped manufactory, would result in the production of a fully operational weevil.

Or more than one.

Having verified that the MAL script was complete and error-free, Gaffney encysted the code in a private partition of his own security management area. In the unlikely event of anyone stumbling on it, all they would see would be routine entry/exit schedules for pressure-tight passwalls inside Panoply.

He backed-up the top level of the query stack. His hands dithered over the keys. He switched to voice-only.

"Retrieve priors on search-term Firebrand."

"Repeat search term, please."

"Firebrand," Gaffney said, with exaggerated slowness.

He'd been expecting some hits, but nothing like the multitude of priors that filled the panes. He applied filters and whittled down the stack. Yet when he was finished it was still hopelessly large, and he wasn't seeing anything remotely connected with Panoply, or the thing that so interested Aurora.

Firebrand.

What the hell did it mean? Anthony Theobald had given him the word, and he'd allowed himself to believe it was something useful, enough to stop trawling the man before he became an unwilling recruit for the Persistent Vegetative State. But now that he had let the man go, now that he was alone with the Search Turbines, Gaffney wondered whether he should not have gone deeper.

"You sold me a dud, Tony," Gaffney said aloud.

"You naughty, naughty boy."

But even as he spoke, he remembered something else Anthony Theobald had told him. The men who'd let slip that codeword had once told him that their operations were superblack. Untraceable, unaccountable and officially deniable at all levels of Panoply command and control, right up to the Queen of the Scarab herself.

In other words, it was hardly surprising that he hadn't found anything significant in a two-minute search. Firebrand might still mean something. But it was going to take more than sitting at a console to get any closer to the truth.

Gaffney spent the next five minutes covering his tracks, erasing any trace of his rummaging from the query logs of the Search Turbines. Then another five minutes covering traces of that By the time he was done, Gaffney was confident that even he wouldn't have been able to follow his own trail.

He stood from the console and conjured it back into the room, together with the seat he had been using. Then he wiped the sleeve of his tunic across his brow, ran fingers through his wiry red hair and headed for the passwall.

He knew that what he had just done was 'wrong', just as it had been 'wrong' to intercept, trawl and discard the hapless Anthony Theobald. But everything, as Aurora liked to remind him, depended on viewpoint. There was nothing wrong with protecting the citizenry, even if what they most needed protection from was their own worst natures.

And Aurora was always right. The beta-level regarded Dreyfus with cold indifference. Dreyfus stared at him obligingly, as if waiting for the punch line to a joke. It was an old interview technique that usually obtained a result. The imaged figure was male, taller than Dreyfus, thin of face, his body hidden under the voluminous folds of a purple robe or gown. His right shoulder and arm were clothed in quilted black leather, his visible hand gloved and ringed. His cropped greying hair, the aquiline curve of his nose, the solemnity of his expression, his general stance, brought to mind a statue of a powerful Roman senator. Only a slight translucence made the figure appear less than totally solid. After the silence had stretched almost to snapping point, Anthony Theobald said, "If you didn't want to ask me questions, perhaps you shouldn't have brought me back to life, Prefect.".

"I've got a lot of questions," Dreyfus said easily.

"I just wanted to give you the chance to have your say first.".

"I suppose you'd be the man your colleague mentioned during my last invocation.". Thalia had already activated the beta-level to test its readiness for interviewing. Of the twelve beta-levels saved from Ruskin-Sartorious, only three had been deemed sufficiently functional to offer useful testimony, despite the best efforts of Thalia and Sparver to mend the remaining nine.

"I'm Dreyfus," he said pleasantly.

"Welcome to Panoply, Citizen.".

"Perhaps it's me, but 'welcome' doesn't have quite the necessary degree of solemnity.".

"I was just being polite," Dreyfus replied.

"My personal belief is that beta-levels have no claim on consciousness. As far as I'm concerned, you're just an item of forensic evidence. The fact that I can talk to you – the fact that you might claim to feel alive – is entirely irrelevant.".

"How reassuring to meet someone with such an enlightened viewpoint. What's your opinion on women? Do you consider them capable of full sentience, or do you have lingering reservations about them as well?".

"I don't have a problem with women. I do have a problem with software entities that pretend to be alive and then expect to be accorded the rights and privileges of the living.".

"If I'm not alive, how can I 'expect' anything?".

"I'm not saying you can't be persuasive. But the instant I sense evasion or concealment I'll send you back to the deepfreeze. Once you're there, I can't vouch for your safety. Things go astray. Files get deleted by mistake.".

"A policeman of the old school," Anthony Theobald said, nodding approvingly.

"Skip the appetiser and straight on to the main course of threats and bullying. Actually, I welcome it. It's a refreshingly direct approach.".

"Just so we understand each other.".

"Now are you ready to tell me what happened?". Dreyfus scratched at the bulge of neck fat lapping against the back of his collar.

"My background files say that you were the head of the family in the Bubble. According to the last census, you were lording it over more than nine hundred subjects.".

"Free family members and citizens. Again: what happened?".

"How much did my deputy tell you?".

"Nothing useful.".

"Good for her. I'll begin by telling you that Ruskin-Sartorious no longer exists. Your habitat was gutted by the drive exhaust from a lighthugger space vehicle, the Accompaniment of Shadows. It appears to have been a deliberate act. Do you remember this event?". Anthony Theobald lost some of his composure, the set of his jaw slackening.

"I have no recollection of it."

"What's the last thing you do remember? Does the name of the ship ring any bells?"

"It rings more than bells, Prefect. We were in negotiations with the Accompaniment of Shadows. The ship was parked near Ruskin-Sartorious.".

"Why wasn't she using the Swarm, like all the other ships?".