Gary Gibson - The Thousand Emperors

Looking down at his hands, he flexed them, stunned at how perfectly real they looked. He could feel a breeze touching his cheek, as if he were really, actually physically present. The haptics alone were on a whole order of sophistication beyond anything he’d ever experienced before while data-ghosting. It had to be because of his lattice.

It was like actually being there.

He was sitting on a long stone bench near the middle of an auditorium cut into the side of a hill. The benches formed steps that led down to the foot of the hill, and seated on them at different points around the auditorium were maybe forty or fifty men and women, the majority of whom he did not recognize. Sitting at his side was de Almeida, who glanced towards him out of the corner of her eye, giving him the tiniest nod to let him know she could see him.

The auditorium was large enough that it looked almost empty. Clearly, few amongst the Temur Council had felt inclined to come and pay their respects to their dead compatriot. Most of those present were clustered together near the base of the auditorium, but a few, including de Almeida, sat conspicuously apart from the rest. Mechants sporting a variety of liveries hummed through the air.

Before the steps stood a low, wide platform, and beyond that a sloping grassy plain. Luc could see a meandering river a few kilometres away. Tall columns were arranged haphazardly around the edges of the auditorium, a few bearing broken-limbed statues, as if the auditorium were the remnant of some long dead civilization. Close by a bend in the river stood an imposing-looking ruin, moss growing up its sides, a partly caved-in roof open to the elements.

Luc held his breath, half-convinced someone would see his electronic phantasm despite de Almeida’s reassurances.

he asked her.

she confirmed.

he scripted, nodding towards the river. They looked old, which made no sense unless Vanaheim had been occupied for far longer than anyone knew.

replied Zelia. There was a note of disgust in her voice, as if she didn’t approve.

He spotted Surendra Finch, Overseer for Temur’s security services, and the man to whom Lethe reported directly; Rosabella Dose, who had fired the fatal shot that killed Lewis Finney when Coalition forces stormed the judicial headquarters on Darwin mere months after the Abandonment; Alexander Maksimov, famous for negotiating the surrender of Yue Shijie’s transfer gates to the Sandoz; and many less familiar faces that nonetheless had in their own ways influenced the course of the Tian Di over the centuries.

It was intimidating company, to say the least.

He saw Father Cheng stand up from a gathering at the front of the auditorium, and step towards the platform, trailed by several mechants and a small entourage that included Cripps. A projector had been set up on the platform, and as Luc watched, this device unfolded broad panels made of thin metal wafers.

After a moment, the air above the panels shimmered, then darkened to reveal a sprinkling of stars, in defiance of the afternoon light. A grey, cylindrical shape floated in the foreground, occluding many of the stars. The curved surface of a world was clearly visible, revealing that the cylindrical object was in orbit.

As Luc watched, brilliant light flared at the rear of the grey cylinder, and it began to recede from the fixed viewpoint above the planet, dwindling within seconds to a tiny point of slightly flickering light almost indistinguishable from the steady brilliance of the stars. Before very long it had vanished entirely. Luc guessed it was Sevgeny Vasili’s coffin.

‘Sevgeny would have liked it this way,’ said Father Cheng, his voice carrying clear and sharp across the hillside. ‘He used to wonder what might lie at the heart of our galaxy; well, in a way, he’ll get to find out now. That ship we placed him on board – the last one he’ll ever travel on – is a modified version of the same craft that carry the seeds of transfer gates to new worlds. I can’t think of a better farewell for a man who worked so hard towards reuniting the two disparate halves of the human race.’

Luc watched with interest as Cheng pointedly cast his gaze around those gathered, and recalled what Offenbach had told him: Vasili had been given the job of Reunification not as a perk, but as a kind of punishment duty.

‘We all know how hard Sevgeny worked towards that goal,’ Cheng continued. ‘He may not have lived to see it fulfilled, but his body, if not his soul, will journey where his heart and his mind often did, to the mystery at the heart of our island universe. God speed, Sevgeny,’ he said, glancing towards the dark projection hovering in the air. ‘We’ll miss you, but you’ll always be with us, in spirit at least.’

Cheng stepped down from the platform, and someone new stepped up to say their piece. Luc meanwhile found his attention drawn to a figure that stood alone on the far side of the auditorium, and felt his skin prickle as if he had just been doused in ice-water.

Whoever they were, their face was entirely invisible beneath a mirrored mask. The mask formed part of a suit of cloth and metal that was covered in turn by a loose, flowing coat that billowed gently in the light breeze flowing down the slope of the hill.

The same figure he’d seen in his dreams, with Antonov’s angry face reflected in it.

he demanded, pointing.

De Almeida glanced towards the masked figure, then regarded him with an expression of amusement before turning her attention back to the man delivering his eulogy on the stage.

Luc insisted.

< Coalition Ambassador?>

She gave him a sidewise glance full of irritation.

Luc felt a shiver run through him at the sight of the masked figure.

she replied.

he replied, feeling dazed.

he sent back.

‘Zelia.’

Luc realized with a start that Ruy Borges had come over to join them. He stiffened with apprehension before remembering Borges could neither see nor hear him.

De Almeida’s response was filled with bored exasperation. ‘Whatever it is, can’t it wait, Ruy?’

‘I was just thinking,’ said Borges with a lopsided grin, ‘of what Javier might say if he was here. He’d have a few words to say about Sevgeny, wouldn’t he?’

Javier. He could only be talking about Javier Maxwell.

De Almeida scowled. ‘This really isn’t the time or the place.’

‘I almost forget sometimes how much those two men hated each other,’ Borges continued, his grin growing wider. ‘If it wasn’t for Javier being locked up in that prison of his, I’d have thought he was behind Sevgeny’s murder.’

‘I’m serious, Ruy,’ de Almeida growled. ‘Go away.’

‘Now if Javier were the next to be assassinated . . . well, it’s not like there’s a lack of volunteers when it comes to pulling the trigger.’

De Almeida stared at him with baleful contempt. ‘What, exactly, are you saying?’

Borges shrugged. ‘Just that if the security systems around that prison of his were to fail and something were to happen to him as a result, well . . . we’d be free of a serious thorn in our side, don’t you think?’

Luc saw some heads towards the front of the auditorium had turned away from the latest eulogy, and were keenly watching Borges’s confrontation with de Almeida instead.

She stood. ‘You’re suggesting I killed Vasili, and I should do the same to Javier. Is that it?’