Gary Gibson - The Thousand Emperors

Borges’s grin grew wider, his voice slightly louder, easily carrying across the auditorium. ‘It’s not like everybody doesn’t already think you did it. But if something were to happen to Javier, then it might help tip the balance in your favour a little.’

De Almeida stared at him with undisguised loathing. ‘Am I on trial?’ she demanded.

‘All I’m saying,’ Borges continued, ‘is that were you to allow the security on Javier’s prison to slip at the right time and place, there are a few people who might be prepared to take care of Javier the way you took care of Sevgeny.’

‘Would you be the one who pulled the trigger, Ruy?’ A cold smile twitched the corners of her mouth. ‘No, of course not. You just like to make speeches and threaten people. And let’s be clear on this: the one thing I don’t control is the security cordon around Javier’s prison. You know that just as well as I do. The Sandoz handle it under Joe’s direct supervision.’

Ruy’s hands twisted at his sides. ‘You know I’m not the only one who wants nothing to do with that thing masquerading as a human being,’ he spat, stabbing one finger in the direction of the masked Ambassador. ‘Joe’s hand is being forced when it comes to Reunification. He doesn’t say it, at least not to anyone outside of the Eighty-Five – but we all know it. Something’s going on that we aren’t being told about.’

Zelia’s expression became incredulous. ‘What the hell does Javier have to do with any of that?’

‘Because that’s what Javier’s always wanted, isn’t it?’ Borges’s voice was rising again, and even the woman delivering her eulogy had paused to listen. ‘To expose us to those . . . those monsters in the Coalition.’

Luc glanced towards the Ambassador, wondering how he felt about being described in such terms.

De Almeida waved one hand in dismissal. ‘You’re a fantasist, Ruy. Show some respect for Sevgeny’s memory and sit the hell back down.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Luc saw Cripps moving rapidly up the steps towards them.

‘ Somebody has to say it,’ Borges spat. ‘Those people in the Coalition have all been changed by the Founder Network. For God’s sake, Zelia,’ he continued, a pleading tone creeping into his voice now, ‘how can we possibly know there’s anybody left alive on Darwin who’s truly human anymore, even in all of the Coalition? How do we know they weren’t compromised, even replaced by whatever it is that’s lurking in the Network?’

‘Stop this now.’

Borges turned to stare at Cripps, his nostrils flaring. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head adamantly. ‘There are things that have to be said.’

‘This is a difficult enough time as it is,’ Cripps growled. ‘You’re making a scene, Ruy.’

‘Everyone knows she—’

‘ Ruy .’

Borges’s lips quivered, but he went silent and walked back down the steps without another glance at de Almeida. Luc followed him with his eyes as Borges stalked past the platform, giving Horst Sachs a wide berth as he made towards a group of fliers parked a short walk away.

‘Thank you,’ de Almeida said to Cripps.

‘Don’t thank me,’ Cripps replied curtly. ‘It wasn’t for your benefit; he was disrupting the proceedings.’

De Almeida nodded wordlessly as Cripps turned on his heel and headed back down to rejoin Father Cheng, who hadn’t so much as turned around throughout the altercation. Luc had little doubt he was nonetheless aware of everything that had just taken place.

Luc said as de Almeida took her seat next to him once more.

She allowed herself a brief sideways glance at him.

She nodded, very gently.

On the stage, the final eulogy came to an end. People were already sharing muttered conversations as they began to move out of the auditorium and towards the parked fliers.

De Almeida stepped away to speak to one or two people, but it was clear from their uneasy expressions that they were disinclined to spend too much time speaking with her.

He glanced towards Ambassador Sachs, who was now in conversation with Cripps. Something about that perfectly reflective mask made his skin crawl. When he followed de Almeida down to the front of the auditorium, he had the uncanny sense the Ambassador was watching him, but with that mask it was impossible to tell exactly where his gaze fell at any moment.

He glanced back over at de Almeida.

she replied, leading his data-ghost across the grasslands towards her flier.

She sighed.

She stopped and looked around. Luc did the same; they were amongst the last to leave, and even if someone had seen her speaking to someone who wasn’t there, they might simply have assumed it was a private conversation and left it at that.

‘We’re free to talk out loud now,’ she said, switching away from script-speak. ‘No one’s going to overhear us.’

She glanced around with a furtive expression. ‘I never feel comfortable using script-speak, even if I have to.’

Luc activated his data-ghost’s audio circuits, but kept the volume dialled down to not much more than a whisper. ‘Go on, then.’

‘There are rumours,’ she explained, ‘of secret negotiations between the Coalition and some members of the Eighty-Five. Negotiations that none of the rest of the Council were ever told about.’

‘And that’s what Borges was referring to just now?’

She nodded helplessly. ‘For all I know it’s just a rumour and nothing more, but once you put an idea like that in the head of a man like Borges, no matter how tenuous, it becomes dangerous.’

‘But what kind of negotiations?’

She shrugged. ‘I have no idea, assuming the story is even true.’

‘All right, then what about Javier Maxwell? Why would Borges want him dead so badly?’

She scowled. ‘It doesn’t really have to do with Maxwell at all, it’s more to do with what he represents. Borges is scared because Cheng’s hand is being forced over Reunification.’

‘Forced? How?’

‘By the same tide of popular opinion that originally made it possible for him to seize control of the Temur Council – a tide that has now turned the other way, in favour of Reunification.’ She kept her voice low as she spoke. ‘Even without access to instantiation technology, people throughout the Tian Di are living better and longer lives than at any time since the Abandonment. The days when the colonies had to struggle to survive, when desperately stringent measures were needed – those days are long gone, and everyone in the Tian Di knows it. Now they want the same things we in the Council have – and Father Cheng hasn’t given them any adequate reasons why they shouldn’t have the same things sooner rather than later.’

‘Then why doesn’t he just give them to us?’

‘Cheng is old. We all are. The mistake was believing that as long as things stayed the same, we’d have stability. Instead, we have stagnation, but Cheng doesn’t seem to understand that. He had to be forced into agreeing to Reunification.’

‘What forced his hand?’

‘There are plenty of indicators showing that without radical social change, the Tian Di might break up. There might even be civil war. The evidence was convincing enough to persuade the majority of Councillors to agitate in favour of Reunification. And for all his power, Cheng can’t do anything without the vast majority of us backing him.’