Gary Gibson - The Thousand Emperors

‘I’m prepared to take that chance.’

The Ambassador paused for a moment, then said: ‘We simply don’t believe you, Mr Gabion. You would not, we think, make a good poker player.’

Luc stepped towards him. ‘Please, wait. De Almeida – Zelia – told me the lattice in my head is killing me.’ He stopped, putting one hand against the mossy branch of a tree reaching over the path. ‘I keep seeing and hearing things, and sometimes I don’t know which are real and which aren’t.’

‘Then tell me how you came to acquire the lattice.’

‘On Aeschere,’ Luc replied miserably. ‘Antonov put it inside me while I was out cold.’

‘Who else knows of this?’

He couldn’t see the use of keeping anything more back. ‘Only Zelia,’ he replied. ‘She’s the one who detected it inside me. She told me I can’t be backed-up from it before it kills me. Antonov seemed sure you would help me.’

‘Is this why Zelia sent you here? To ask for our help?’

‘No. This is . . . just me.’

‘Yours is a single life,’ said the Ambassador, ‘measured against countless billions here in the Tian Di and also in the Coalition. As much as you have our sympathy, you must understand that we have greater concerns at the moment. But Antonov would not have done what he did to you without a reason, and whichever of his memories are surfacing in your mind were clearly of importance to him. He’s trying to tell you something, and we suspect you’re not doing a very good job of listening. Ask yourself, why would he plant a partial copy of himself inside the mind of one of his most dedicated enemies, unless it was for some overwhelming purpose?’

‘I know it has something to do with Vasili,’ said Luc.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I have reason to believe Antonov may have met with him some time not long before his death. He knew who his killer was. Who it was, I don’t know, except I’m certain it wasn’t Antonov, and I can’t believe it was de Almeida, either.’ He stared into his own reflection, seeing the haunted look in his eyes. ‘But it has to have something to do with Reunification, and I think you know what it is.’

‘We truly wish we could help you,’ said the Ambassador with what sounded like genuine regret, ‘but there are things taking place which you can scarcely comprehend. We suggest, however, that you listen more closely to whatever Antonov is trying to tell you. It may be that he is trying to give you the answers you seek.’ The Ambassador paused. ‘May we offer a final word of advice?’

‘Of course,’ said Luc, feeling defeated.

‘Zelia de Almeida may value you more for what you carry inside your head than for your investigative skills. You should be careful.’

The Ambassador turned once more and began to walk away, passing beneath the shade of a banyan tree’s broad plate-like leaves. When Luc made to follow, a mechant of a type he’d never seen before dropped from out of the greenery overhead, blocking his way.

‘Careful of what?’ he yelled after the retreating figure. ‘Give me a straight answer, damn you!’

‘Goodbye, Mr Gabion,’ said the Ambassador, before disappearing into the undergrowth. ‘We hope you find your answers before it’s too late.’

‘I have discovered inconsistencies,’ said de Almeida, ‘in the Ambassador’s alibi.’

Mechants moved here and there around her laboratory, specialized models studded with multiple limbs that hovered around Luc’s supine form as she gave them barely vocalized orders. The slab he lay on had been adjusted until he was staring straight up at the ceiling. Images of the interior of his skull rippled whenever de Almeida or one of the mechants passed through them, meat and blood furiously splintering before miraculously reforming into dizzyingly complex three-dimensional structures.

‘He told me himself he was at a meeting when Vasili died,’ Luc replied. He had decided to exercise caution and not tell her everything the Ambassador had said to him.

De Almeida nodded. ‘A gathering of members of a coordination committee, tasked with hammering out the details of various trade agreements. Oh, he was there all right – but only in virtual form.’

Luc felt his eyes widen, and turned to regard her. ‘He was only there as a data-ghost? He never mentioned that.’

‘No, he certainly didn’t,’ she agreed. ‘That means we need to find out where he really was at the time.’

He sat up, mechants bobbing away from him. ‘What about your security systems? Can’t they tell you?’

She spread a roll of gleaming silver instruments out on a wheeled table next to the slab and selected one, studying it beneath the overhead light. ‘Unfortunately, no, they can’t. My systems appear to have suffered a curiously well-timed and convenient glitch that I failed to notice until I happened to make specific enquiries regarding the Ambassador.’

‘Something like the glitch in Vasili’s home security when he died?’

‘A thought that had indeed crossed my mind, Mr Gabion.’

She adjusted the stool on which she sat, then leaned in towards him. He saw the curve of her neck just centimetres from his nose, the flesh silky and smooth. She pressed fingertips against his skull, and he noticed she was wearing a scent that made him think of flowers.

She murmured something he didn’t catch, and a mechant drifted closer, its multi-tipped blades hovering uncomfortably close to the skin of his neck.

Luc swallowed sour phlegm. ‘Is all this really necessary?’

‘If you want a shot at retaining your core personality, yes,’ she replied, sounding distracted. ‘Now stop talking while I get on with this. Ah!’ she exclaimed a moment later, ‘this is interesting.’

Luc felt a pressure against the side of his skull, followed by the sensation of something warm and liquid running down the back of his head. His hands held tightly onto the sides of the slab, muscles locked rigid.

Something whined mechanically and he felt a similar pressure on the other side of his head. Moments later a barbiturate calm flooded his senses and he relaxed.

‘Your lattice barely responded to the inhibitors I put in place,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It circumvented every countermeasure, and its growth is barely retarded. I’d almost think . . .’

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll just have to try something a little different this time. Try and stay still for now.’

Like I’m going to get up and run around.

‘You need to put the Ambassador under surveillance,’ he said, as de Almeida moved out of direct view. He was finding himself becoming uncomfortably aroused by the smell of her skin, and the visible curve of her breasts beneath the thin tunic she wore.

De Almeida stepped back into view and made a sour face as she tapped at a lit panel on the side of one of the mechants hovering over him. ‘That won’t be easy,’ she said.

‘You can’t do it?’

‘Of course I can do it,’ she snapped. ‘But I have to be careful to avoid detection. Let’s see . . .’ she glanced over at one of the hovering projections of the interior of Luc’s head. ‘You’re not sleeping well, are you?’

‘Not for some time, no,’ he admitted.

She nodded. ‘Your brain is struggling to assimilate information coming from two different sources: your own mind, and Antonov’s instantiation. I can try and retard the rate of growth again, but unless I can figure out some new strategy . . .’