Gary Gibson - The Thousand Emperors

Shit . ‘Can you do something?’ he pleaded, feeling a surge of panic.

‘I can only do my best,’ she muttered, and after a moment the pain slowly faded once more to a distant numbness. The relief was overwhelming.

‘What did you do?’

‘I made some temporary adjustments,’ she said, taking her hand from his scalp and stepping back. ‘Better?’

He nodded.

‘Now you have another reason to come back to Vanaheim. While you’re there, I can do more to help you.’

‘Not if I’m only there as a data-ghost.’

‘That’s only a temporary measure,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll bring you there in person soon enough.’

Even if you didn’t kill Vasili, I can’t think of anyone in a better position to do it , he thought.

He glanced up at a faint hum from above, and watched as a flier dropped down from out of the gloom, settling onto the road nearby.

‘I’ll send a flier for you tomorrow, just before the service,’ she said. ‘It’ll take you to a private office on the White Palace. Once there, you’ll be able to data-ghost to Vanaheim.’

‘Fine,’ said Luc, and watched as de Almeida walked away, her long, dark coat swaying with the movement of her hips as she boarded the flier. His eyes followed the craft as it lifted on AG fields that bowed the rain around its hull before finally speeding upwards and into the sky.

NINE

Luc dreamed he was back on Aeschere, lost in claustrophobic passageways crowded with mandalas and leering statues.

This isn’t real , he gasped as Antonov leaned over him, playing with the wriggling worm-like mechant.

Very astute , Antonov replied, grinning down at him. You’ve met Zelia by now, haven’t you? Be careful of that one.

Luc struggled to free himself from the chair he had been bound to. Don’t do this to me , he cried. I can’t go through this again.

I wish I could stop this, Mr Gabion , said Antonov, shaking his head sadly, I really do. But this isn’t the kind of dream where you can pinch yourself and wake up; you know that already. You’re reliving all this because there’s a war inside your skull, and I’m winning.

No. Zelia de Almeida is helping me. She’ll undo whatever damage you’ve done to me.

The neuro-suppressants she put inside you? They only suppress your conscious awareness of a process that can’t be stopped. Didn’t she tell you that?

She told me she could save me!

Antonov laughed a rich, hearty laugh, leaning back and raising his face to the ceiling. She’s bluffing , he said, bringing his gaze back down. Or maybe she thinks she really can retard the lattice’s growth, but I seriously doubt it. What I put inside your head is far in advance of the kind of technology even the Temur Council allow themselves. No, my dear boy, she’s more interested in saving her own skin than anything else. At best, you’re a puzzle to be unlocked, so she can find out what I’m really up to.

Then why not just tell me why you put this thing inside me, damn it! Luc screamed.

Because we are engaged in a game, Luc – and a very dangerous one , Antonov replied. And it is never a good idea to show one’s hand too soon.

You’re killing me because I found a way to stop you.

Antonov looked confused for a moment. You think this is about revenge? He shook his head. I’m saving your life, and mine as well.

How in hell do you figure that out?

When you found me, I had no access to my backups, no other way to preserve at least some of my thoughts and memories. What you see before you is all that’s left of me.

Luc listened, thunderstruck.

You did a better job than you realized , the dead man continued. I had cached backups, of course, but SecInt, thanks to its temporary truce with Sandoz, managed to locate nearly all of them – and every last one of them auto-destructed before it could be interrogated. He clasped one hand to his injured chest. But this part of me, mere shadow of my former self that it is that now resides inside you, is enough to finish the task ahead.

He leaned in close to Luc. Speak to the Ambassador, Luc. With his help, we will both be reborn, and a terrible calamity will be prevented.

What Ambassador? What—

Luc woke with a start and jerked upright, lungs heavy and aching in his chest. He was back home again.

For all he knew, the dream he had just experienced was at best an elaborate fantasy formed from his own fears and desires – at worst, a sign of incipient madness, triggered by the lattice as it grew in complexity and reach.

But he knew better. Whatever Antonov had done to him, it had been done for a reason. Some part of the dead man, some shadow-aspect, was alive and well inside his skull, drawing out the agony and drip-feeding him whatever tantalizing scraps of information it could use to make him dance to any tune but his own.

Speak to the Ambassador. Luc had no idea which Ambassador Antonov might have been referring to.

Every world of the Tian Di but Vanaheim had embassies, but they meant little in this age of instantaneous travel across the light-years. Mostly, the title ‘Ambassador’ was an honorary role given to those who’d served the Temur Council with distinction. They could have told Luc he was an Ambassador as his reward for Aeschere, and it wouldn’t have meant a damn thing.

He searched the public and secure databases for information on planetary ambassadors currently resident on Temur while he dressed and breakfasted. He vaguely recognized some of the names, but could find no immediately obvious link to Vasili or to de Almeida or anyone else – nothing that might make sense of what the dream-Antonov had said to him.

Glancing in a mirror, he frowned, then stepped closer. His CogNet earpiece had turned dark, an indicator that it had failed in some way and needed to be replaced.

He carefully removed it and looked down at it in the palm of his hand. It was tiny, the kind of thing that was easily lost, but as easily replaced at virtually no cost. The technology was entirely ubiquitous, the kind of thing you grew up around without ever really being aware of how badly you needed it until it was gone.

Except there had been no break in service during his search of several different databases, despite his CogNet earpiece’s terminal failure. Antonov’s lattice, he realized with a chill, had seamlessly taken over from it without his even noticing.

He stared down at the tiny darkened bead, a mixture of dread and excitement churning inside him.

Then he thought back to his meeting with Offenbach, when he had been unable to bypass the security settings on a number of files. Would his lattice, unwelcome as it was, now enable him to access those same files should he try again?

Luc dropped the darkened bead in the recycling, then headed out.

One of de Almeida’s mechants guided him to a tiny private cubicle in a walk-in office complex close by Chandrakant Lu Park. He didn’t have long to wait before de Almeida’s invitation arrived in the form of a tiny point of light that hovered in the air before him.

He reached out. The star-like point puffed into mist the moment his fingertips brushed it, and –

– he was on Vanaheim.