Gary Gibson - The Thousand Emperors

something must have been the containment accident. And the first thing that happened after I’d altered that record was you first bringing me to Vanaheim, then sneaking me off to your own lab the instant I collapsed.>

she scoffed.

were the one responsible for that biotech accident, but after you covered it up, Antonov found out the truth and held you to ransom against the day he needed something from you. I also know there’s no way I would have been able to alter that record without revealing my identity, and that’s why you brought me into the investigation – not just because you were desperate to avoid being exposed, but so you could try and figure out how I fit into the scheme of things.>

Luc replied,

she hissed. was an accident, but one that involved secret research carried out on behalf of an internal committee of the Eighty-Five. They made me take a bullet when they removed me from my post, not that it would have made a difference to Antonov. He thought I was little better than a butcher, same as you clearly do.>

working together?>

You were collaborating with Antonov, whether you liked it or not. But Vasili found much more than he’d anticipated in that data-cache, enough to exonerate you and get me out of Vanaheim alive if I can find it. Which brings me to my next question – I need you to tell me how to find Vasili’s island.>

Luc’s fingers reached out and touched the edge of the book he’d taken from Maxwell’s prison, still tucked inside his jacket. He’d save the revelations about the Founder Network for the moment.

she replied,

he responded, feeling his temper slip,

He waited a long time before her response came. So long, in fact, he was starting to think she had cut the connection.

she said, when she finally came back.

Luc let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

He waited in silence.

She paused.

he said, and cut the connection. Despite his misgivings, he knew she was almost certainly right.

Luc reached Vasili’s island a little under two hours later, having travelled more than a third of the way around Vanaheim’s circumference. The flier dipped back down through the cloud cover and dropped towards storm-tossed cliffs he had first set his eyes on just days before.

Words materialized in the air before him, floating against the dim light of the cockpit. UNAUTHORIZED APPROACH. PLEASE TURN BACK OR SEEK CLEARANCE.

Ignoring the warning, he guided the flier to a landing on a rocky beach by a cliff on one side of Vasili’s island before disembarking. He squinted into bright sunlight, then looked around until he saw the steps cut into the cliff that he’d spotted on the way down.

Just before Luc reached the top of the cliff, something dark passed overhead. Immediately he froze, afraid he might have triggered the house security systems.

The dark shape resolved into a large craft, nearly twenty metres in length. It came to a halt over the roof of one of the buildings comprising Vasili’s home, turning through one-third of its circumference before drifting a few metres to one side and settling down on a flat grassy area at the top of the cliff. The craft, he saw, had Zelia’s livery painted on its hull.

Luc pulled himself up the last of the steps and found himself standing at one end of a gentle, boulder-strewn slope, leading upwards from the cliff towards the nearest of the buildings. As he watched, the rear of Zelia’s ship slid open, and over a dozen of her walking dead experiments emerged unblinking into the sunlight, shambling down a ramp.

Luc’s skin crawled at the sight of so many of them. He found he could make out subtle differences between each of them, although they all followed the same basic pattern: most of their primary sense organs had been replaced; all had pin-studded structures where their eyes should have been; all wore loose, filthy clothing little better than rags. But they were also, Luc noted with a mixture of alarm and relief, heavily armed.

He turned towards Vasili’s home in time to see one of the house mechants come rocketing over a rooftop. Before he could so much as react, one of Zelia’s monsters had fired off a shot. The mechant wobbled in the air, then span hard as a second shot hit home.

Zelia was creating a diversion.

He ran upslope towards a narrow alleyway separating two buildings and ducked down it, emerging a moment later into a smaller version of the courtyard Zelia’s flier had brought him to on his first visit. He glanced behind himself to see Zelia’s creations were now following him down the alleyway.

Two more mechants hovered into view above the courtyard, their weapons swivelling in different directions. Luc saw an open door to his left and threw himself through it, into a gloomy, unlit hallway thick with dust, its walls damp and streaked with mould.

Explosive fire flared through the doorway behind him, and he made his way deeper into the building with considerable haste. He passed through room after room, each more desolate and ruined than the last, making it obvious that outside of the library and perhaps a few other rooms, Vasili had let most of the island’s buildings fall into a state of considerable disrepair.

Luc came to a dirt-streaked window and peered out. A narrow strip of beach to his left was partly obscured by wild-growing bushes, but almost directly below his vantage point was a walled garden in far better condition than anything else he had seen so far, and a set of patio doors that were immediately familiar. By the look of it, the drop to the ground was no more than a couple of metres.

He looked around, then jogged into the next room to the left, finding a chair lying on its side. Carrying it back through, he slammed it against the window. The glass fractured and bowed outwards, but it took several more attempts before it finally shattered.

Salty air flowed in through the window, stirring up dust and dirt. Something hummed from one of the other rooms, sounding like it was coming nearer. Luc used his elbow to knock out a couple of shards of broken glass still sticking out of the frame, then scrambled over the window ledge, dropping down to land in the walled garden.

The landing knocked the wind out of him. Shots echoed over the rooftops, followed by the hum of another kind of weapon; light flashed in the air above a rooftop, and a thin trail of greasy dark smoke rose up, only to be rapidly dispersed by the wind. He pushed himself to his feet and staggered towards the patio doors leading into Vasili’s library.

Vasili’s body was long gone, as was the carpet his body had lain on, but the floor where he had fallen was still charred. Luc stared around the towering bookcases receding into the library’s dim recesses with a feeling of hopelessness. The bookcases were arranged in orderly ranks, a dozen or so on each side of the library, with couches and low tables arranged in the empty space between.

There must have been thousands of books there – even more than Luc remembered from his previous visit. It hit him how little time he really had to try and find the book Maxwell had given to Vasili, assuming it hadn’t simply been thrown out by the mechants charged with removing his corpse.

He heard the hum of an AG field through the closed door, beyond which lay the hall where he’d first met Zelia. Something then bumped against the door, and Luc instinctively ducked between two bookcases, making his way to a corner of the library that was hidden in deep shadow. His fingers itched for lack of a weapon of some kind.