Elysium Fire

by Alastair Reynolds

  “You delayed a vote, and you say you could have stopped it registering at all. I believe you. But a vote here and there never makes enough of a difference to matter.”

  “He’s a smart one,” Mother commented.

  “Julius is correct,” Father said, nodding at both of his sons. “What I just showed you was only the simplest demonstration of our capabilities. But if that were all we could do, we would still be powerless. When the worlds poll, even the most closely contested results often hinge on majorities of many millions.”

  “You can’t affect that many votes,” Julius said.

  “Not the way I’ve shown you,” Father agreed. “Not by picking at a packet here, a data-bundle there. But we still have influence on the scale necessary to effect change. If the shimmer is the weather, then we can shape the way the weather varies.” He returned his attention to the Solid Orrery, but instead of dipping his fingers into it, this time he held his hands before him and made a sort of conjuring gesture, the way one might persuade a chair to assume one form rather than another. Julius and Caleb studied the results, watching as an invisible breeze seemed to play across the web of data-threads, buckling and trembling them. “Now there’s a delay across multiple core returns,” Father commented, concentration tensing his facial muscles. “But again the error-correction routines see nothing out of the ordinary. No word of a problem begins to reach the ordinary monitoring systems, let alone Panoply.” He relaxed his hands, letting out a sigh. “And the vote proceeds as it would have done, except for a barely detectable delay in processing the returns. But I could easily just have cast a portion of those votes into oblivion, or transformed a million returns from one type to another. Enough to swing the result, had I so chosen.”

  “I want to know how to do it,” Caleb said.

  Julius felt obliged to go along with his brother’s enthusiasm, even though he had decided misgivings. “Yes. Me too. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? You wouldn’t show us these things if you didn’t mean for us to be able to do them. And I know we can.”

  “You have the talent,” Mother said. “Both of you are very good at shaping. But there’s more to this than technical ability. It’s about judgement, responsibility—restraint. Knowing when not to act, as much as knowing when. Sandra Voi did not mean for this gift to be used for our convenience. It was always a tool of last resort, to safeguard that which she held most precious: democracy, freedom, the universal will of the people.”

  “We’re ready to take on this responsibility,” Caleb said solemnly. “Aren’t we, brother?”

  “We can be,” Julius said. But the truth was that he felt as cowed by the idea of that burden as he was stirred by it. It was one thing to carry this name; another to be told he was now expected to save society from itself. He felt as if was being made to grow up between one morning and the next, denied all the carefree years he had counted on.

  “Julius has caution,” Mother said, giving her son an admiring nod.

  “Caution is good,” Father said. “Laudable. But the boys have been readied for this responsibility, and they must rise to it.” He was addressing Julius and Caleb now. “The transition need only be gradual. Your mother and I have many years ahead of us, many good decades in which we hope to be of service. If the contingency must be invoked, then it will be our decision. But you will learn from us, and under our close supervision you will be entrusted with certain obligations.” He spread his hands grandly. “This will be your classroom from now on, the Solid Orrery your only subject worthy of study. You will immerse yourselves in the shimmer, learn to feel its moods, its tides, its great and silent heartbeat. You will sense the coming and going of votes, but that will only be the start of it. The entire flow of information through the abstraction is yours to sample, yours to swim in—yours to shape. You will see more, and know more, than anyone alive. And through that seeing and knowing you will become wise beyond your years, understanding more than anyone what is at stake—what glories would be lost, if this were to fail. The bounty of contentment that would slip from our grasp, where once our hold on it seemed unassailable.”

  Julius had the sense that his father was repeating words that must have been said to him at a similar age. But he straightened his back, listened hard, and tried to measure up to the job expected of him.

  “How will we know?” he asked. “When it’s right to intervene, and when it’s wrong? How are we meant to know?”

  “You are a Voi,” Father told him. “That is all you need to remember, Julius.”

  Caleb took his arm, not ungently—it was more brotherly affection than he had shown in quite some time. “It’s all right. I know we’ll be all right. It’s hard, but we’ll never let anyone down.”

  “Don’t give us cause to be disappointed,” Mother said.

  Caleb raised his chin; it was on the calculated edge of defiance. “We won’t, Mother. Julius and I are good on our own, but we’re much stronger together. Aren’t we, brother?”

  Julius nodded. But he did not meet his mother’s eyes while he did so. He was thinking of blood, and of knives.

  By the time Dreyfus docked, four days had passed since Brig’s death, but from the agitated mood of the other workers it might as well have been a matter of hours. Dreyfus found it hard to blame them for their belligerent mood, with Brig’s death coming so soon after the demise of Terzet Friller. They were fed up with being fobbed off with non-answers, and they had his sympathy.

  “I’ll be straight with you,” he told the restless, aggrieved assembly, raising his voice over their questions and half-muttered insults. “Brig was the victim of deliberate sabotage, and I don’t believe that Terzet Friller’s death was any sort of an accident either.”

  “You’re blaming us now?” asked a huge, muscular individual with an overhanging brow ridge.

  “I wish I could. It would make my job a lot simpler.” Dreyfus stared him down, even as he sensed that the man was on the verge of snapping. “But none of you were responsible. I’m as sure of that as I am of anything. One of the reasons for my conviction is that the death of Terzet Friller is only one of a larger pattern under investigation. Brig died because someone wanted to hamper our enquiry into that death. You’ll have spoken to Prefects Ng and Bancal since the incident, of course. They’re operating under extreme restrictions of secrecy, limiting what they can say to you. You may have found that frustrating—I know I would. But I know those two operatives as well as any people alive. They’ll be burning with fury about the death of your friend. It will have touched them very deeply, and they won’t rest until the matter is resolved.”

  “But you still won’t tell us anything,” the big man said.

  “I’m sorry. What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Mallion Ross. And we’re not fools, Prefect. We know the rumours. We’ve picked up on what people are talking about, all over the Glitter Band. People dying, and you not knowing why. More and more each week. That is what this is about, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry,” Dreyfus repeated. “I realise how difficult this is. All I’m asking for is that you trust …”

  “Trust cuts both ways,” Ross said sharply, looking around to the others for tacit support. “We’re citizens as well. We have our votes. We’ve put our trust in Panoply, just like all the others. What’s the word they use?”

  “Vested,” someone else said.

  “That’s it—vested our trust in Panoply. Given them the power of life and death over us. And we know they’ll use those powers, when it comes down to it.”

  Dreyfus shifted uneasily, but let Ross continue.

  “But Panoply doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to give any of that trust back to us. We know there’s something bad building up, Prefect—we’d have to have our heads in the sand not to. So reach out to us. Tell us what the big, bad secret is. We’re not children. We can cope with a little fear.”

  “Perhaps you can,” Dreyfus said. “You’re used to danger, after all. Your lives aren�
��t easy. That’s the path you’ve chosen, and I respect it. But there are a hundred million other citizens out there. You’re right that their trust has been vested in us. But part of that trust lies in our commitment to spare the citizenry any undue anxiety concerning their present and future security. We conduct much of our work in secret because that is also part of the social contract between Panoply and the Glitter Band. We have the bad dreams so the rest of you don’t need to.”

  “I was there when we opened up Terzet’s spacesuit,” Ross said. “I’ve got my share of bad dreams.”

  Dreyfus sat in silence for a few pensive moments, his head lowered. He thought about the things that had been said to him and the equally persuasive arguments he had tried to muster.

  Something in him gave way. It felt like a slippage, the easing of a strained fault line. He nodded slowly, meeting Ross’s eyes. “All right. Let’s take trust seriously. Do you speak for the people in this room?”

  Ross looked around at the assembled workers. “I don’t speak for anyone. But if you feel you can trust me, you can trust any one of us.”

  “Then I’ll tell you what we’re facing. Not all of it—I’d be in severe violation of several professional oaths were I to share everything—but more than you’ve been told, and more than anyone outside Panoply knows.”

  Ross seemed momentarily unsure of himself, as if he had leaned against a door that suddenly swung open too easily. Perhaps he now feared what he had been asking for.

  Dreyfus eyed him, waiting for his assent to continue.

  “Go ahead, Prefect,” Ross said.

  The news from House Fuxin-Nymburk was not the sort to give Jane Aumonier cause to cheer. Their indignation suitably stoked, Garlin’s audience had split off a small but determined mob, set on taking ownership of the habitat’s polling core. The mob was on the move, gathering numbers as it travelled. Garlin was at the front of it, protected by a small cordon of guards, two of whom she recognised as the thugs Dreyfus had dealt with in Hospice Idlewild. There was a bow-legged, chimp-like swagger to Garlin now; he was opening his arms wide as if daring someone to jam a blade into his chest.

  Numbering more than a hundred citizens, the mob was already larger than anything the local constables were routinely equipped to handle. They were retreating before it, voicing urgent requests into their cuff microphones, calling for additional support from elsewhere in the habitat. They could handle brawls and unruly crowds, but an organised, purposeful citizen uprising was far outside their usual experience.

  For that, they would normally turn to Panoply.

  The thought had no sooner formed itself in Aumonier’s mind than the first formal request came in. Emergent civil unrest in House Fuxin-Nymburk—please dispatch priority assistance via all channels.

  They were right. Sending in a squad of prefects was absolutely the correct response to this disturbance. Twenty of her operatives, with full whiphound backup, would send an unambiguous signal.

  But that was surely the response that Devon Garlin was counting on.

  She opened a direct line to the chief of the constables.

  “This is Supreme Prefect Jane Aumonier,” she said, her tone firm but conciliatory. “You have a developing situation and it was right and proper to bring it to my attention. Panoply stands ready to offer your constables advice and situational intelligence. Our ships and operatives are nearby, and we will maintain a close watch on your emergency. But for the moment I have every confidence in your ability to contain and neutralise this disturbance.”

  The chief, a woman named Glenda Malkmus—they had never spoken before this day—could not hide her sense of betrayal. “Supreme Prefect—we have a crisis on our hands. That mob is one hundred and twenty strong and growing. My constables have shields and electric stun-guns. They’re going to be overwhelmed.”

  “No,” Aumonier said firmly. “They won’t be, once the mob realises that its objectives are futile. You have the authority to secure the polling core. Raise the emergency barricades, initiate a local lockdown, then declare a binding curfew on the surrounding plaza. Tell everyone to go home. Close your inbound transit terminals, and only allow passengers to board outbound services—you have that means.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “But Supreme—”

  “My word is final, Chief Constable Malkmus. The whole point of the local constabulary is to provide a buffer between the citizens and the full might of Panoply. I have my responsibilities, but so do you.”

  “You’re letting us down.”

  “No, I am counting on you to fulfil your civic obligations. As I am sure you will.”

  Aumonier closed the link before Malkmus had a chance to respond. The exchange had done nothing for her conscience. The woman was right: she was being let down, and so were her constables and the wider citizenry. But Aumonier had to think not in terms of this one habitat, but of all the others. Some would view this non-intervention in a poor light, and that was to be expected. But at least Garlin would not get what he so obviously craved: a direct confrontation between the people and their protectors.

  For now, anyway.

  The facet remained enlarged, but with a gesture Aumonier reduced its significance a fraction, careful not to let one problem eclipse all the others. Then she resumed her watchful floating posture, a woman at the middle of all things, the restless light of several thousand worlds flickering in her eyes.

  Dreyfus checked his environmental indicators then decided it was safe to remove his helmet. He inhaled cautiously. The air reeked. It was like taking a deep breath from a hopper full of week-old kitchen waste. Mud, rubble and shattered buildings stretched away from the elevator terminal into gloomy distance. With most of the ceiling lights inactive, the landscape was defined in deceptive blotches of light and shadow. He made out the curvature of the rim, but not the endcap bulkheads separating one partition from the next. Brightness flooded the path leading from the terminal, making him squint.

  A figure waddled out of the glare.

  “I know, it smells terrible. You should try being a pig for a day and then you’d really know how bad it is.”

  “Sparver,” Dreyfus said, smiling. “Prefect Bancal. Are you all right?”

  “A bit battered and bruised, boss, but we got off lightly compared to Brig.”

  “Have you found anything in the building?”

  “You’d better see for yourself.” Sparver glanced at the worker who had accompanied Dreyfus to the rim. “Is Mister Ross coming as well?”

  “No, I’ll get back to the hub now that you’re here,” Ross said, placing a hand on Dreyfus’s forearm. “Good luck, Prefect. Thank you for … trusting us.”

  “I’ll do my best not to let you down,” Dreyfus said.

  “I believe you,” Ross said, letting go.

  “Follow me, boss,” Sparver said, beckoning. “It’s not too far. Still pretty damp in here, even after three solid days of pumping, but we can walk the rest of the way without getting our feet wet.”

  The Heavy Technical Squad had been busy, Dreyfus saw. They had helped restart the pumps so some of the excess water could be moved back into the eighth partition, and they had cut through and rewired the control linkages for the bulkhead locks so there was no danger of another surprise like the one that caught Thalia’s party out. They had also repaired or replaced sections of elevated walkway, and—with the help of some of the other reclamation workers—were in the process of rounding up the monitoring robots that were still running wild.

  It was half a kilometre’s walk to the bulkhead that led to the second partition, a semicircular wall looming out of the murk as they approached. Dreyfus stared up at it, searching for the primary lock that had allowed the flood to drain out of the first chamber. There it was, about thirty metres above—an iris only just large enough for a small ship to squeeze through. With the water level now much reduced, it seemed impossible that anyone could ever have gone through it, much less in a raft. He looked at Sparver, leading them on
with a confident swagger, and gave silent thanks that both of his deputies had survived.

  “What was all that about?” Sparver asked. “Ross saying you trusted them?”

  “We established some common ground,” Dreyfus said, feeling no further need to elaborate.

  “I guess it won’t hurt to make friends where we can. Have you heard the news from Panoply?”

  “No, I was off-line while talking to Ross.”

  “Cases fifty-eight and fifty-nine have dropped. Unrelated incidents, but only a few hours apart and for the first time, both deaths took place in the same habitat. Tang’s run the numbers. That steepening of the death curve isn’t going away.”

  “I didn’t think it would. Was there any more good news?”

  “Lady Jane wants as many prefects as possible dispersed through the Glitter Band, even if that means breaking up some teams.”

  “I can see why,” Dreyfus said. “Maximum dispersion means a greater chance of someone being close to enough to harvest a head before there’s too much damage. But it isn’t ideal.”

  “Especially not with the trouble kicking off in Fuxin-Nymburk.”

  “Let me guess. Something to do with Devon Garlin?”

  “Your new best friend’s on a bit of a roll. It’s more than the usual rabble-rousing this time. He’s got a mob and it’s on the move.”

  “Then contain it.”

  “The constables are struggling. They’ve asked for assistance, but Jane doesn’t want to go in heavy-handed, especially when she wants to concentrate on the Wildfire investigation. She feels that an enforcement action would only work to Garlin’s advantage, and we’ve already given him enough ammunition as it is …” Sparver sucked air through his teeth. “Sore subject, I know. Move on.”

  “How about some good news. I bet you’re about to tell me you’ve made excellent progress in tracing the ownership of Elysium Heights.”