Elysium Fire

by Alastair Reynolds

  “You might have overestimated this pig,” Sparver said.

  “Then this is your chance to rise to the occasion.” The man began to step out of the red-lit chamber. “But I wouldn’t take too long about it.”

  At last they broke through the final layer of the jungle and the Shell House stood within view. Dreyfus took a moment to compare it with his memories of the crumbling ruin inside Chasm City, certain that the two structures were identical in all significant respects, but unable to shake the impression that this version was by far the larger of the pair. Perhaps it was the cleanliness of the spiralling architecture, burnished to a hard lustre under the blazing blue of the dome, that made it appear grander, more substantial—more fitting of the family name to which it belonged.

  Garlin paused with his hands on his knees, mentally and physically drained by the effort of resisting the jungle. Dreyfus did not doubt that the task had taken its toll. Equally, he had watched Garlin grow in confidence and fluency as his buried skills reasserted themselves. This was more than just the supple, off-hand faculty with quickmatter that any wealthy son might have had drummed into him since birth, like an aptitude for duelling or cruel put-downs. It went much deeper than that. Garlin was re-learning a virtuoso talent, one that would have been impressive enough even if it had concerned itself with the ordinary, willing quickmatter of the Glitter Band and Chasm City. But this quickmatter was supposedly slaved to the will of Garlin’s brother alone.

  And yet he had learned to shape it—to twist its narrow loyalty from one sibling to the other.

  And he had been getting better at it, Dreyfus knew.

  “I suppose …” Garlin said, pausing between breaths, sweat prickling his brow through the m-suit visor. “I suppose if ever there was a time to admit that Stasov was right …”

  “I don’t blame you for resisting the truth,” Dreyfus said. “You were under the influence of multiple amnesiac treatments. But I think we can both agree that there must have been something in Doctor Stasov’s account.”

  Garlin straightened up. “My brother’s nearby, Dreyfus. I can feel him crawling around in my head.”

  Singh, who was standing next to Garlin, offered an arm while he regained his strength. She had lifted up the visor on her tactical armour, deciding—reasonably, it seemed to Dreyfus—that the breathability or otherwise of the air was the least of her worries. It was the first time he’d had a good look at her face, and he chastised himself for misremembering her name from the induction classes. She looked small in that helmet, far too young to be put through this.

  “Thank you,” Garlin murmured, with what to Dreyfus seemed like genuine gratitude and surprise at her kindness.

  “Sir, it’s Prefect Perec,” Singh said, nodding as she drew his attention to a body on the ground. There was a tremble in her voice. “I can see part of her name, and that’s definitely not Kober. Do you think Prefect Bancal made it this far, sir? He only had an m-suit.”

  “Doesn’t look like that armour helped any of you,” Dreyfus observed.

  “He’s here,” Garlin said, as a well-built man stepped out of the main entrance of the Shell House, walking casually across the raised terrace, dusting one palm against the other as if he had recently finished some manual labour. The man wore a simple black outfit of trousers and tunic, with the tunic low slashed from the collar, emphasising a powerful chest. His forearms were bare, the tunic sleeves rolled to the elbow. His muscles flexed as he worked his palms together.

  “Caleb,” Dreyfus said, recognising the family connection, even though this man looked much older than Garlin, more like a father than a brother.

  The man spread his hands and raised his right by way of greeting. “You’ve got it wrong, Prefect,” he said, a wry, knowing smile crinkling the skin at the corners of his eyes. “Or did my brother not remember which of us is which?”

  “He’s Julius Devon Garlin Voi,” Dreyfus said, but with a steadily draining conviction, thinking of the instances when his witness had indeed seemed confused or indecisive about his identity. “That makes you Caleb, if Caleb isn’t an invention of Doctor Stasov’s.”

  The man stepped down from the terrace, striding towards the party. “Caleb’s real enough, Dreyfus.” His smile intensified. “Yes, I’m aware of you—I’ve been aware of you for a great while. Shall I clarify a few things?”

  “Clarify what you like,” Dreyfus said. “As of this moment you are under Panoply observance.”

  The man touched his lip, frowning. “And the meaning of that is … what, exactly?”

  “You’ll come back with me to Panoply, where we’ll talk about the remaining Wildfire cases, and what you’re going to do to keep those people alive.”

  The man made a show of belated understanding, like someone getting the punchline to a not particularly good joke. “Oh, I see. With you. In your unarmed state, after most of your force has already been depleted.” The man winked. “Between you and me, Dreyfus, you’re not really in a position to make demands.”

  The man came to a halt, standing ten metres from the trio. Garlin watched him with a surprising stillness, saying nothing for the moment. With her visor still lifted up, her eyes wide, Singh looked like a startled baby bird glimpsing the open sky for the first time, in all its limitless splendour and terror.

  “I suppose there’s a point to these deaths?” Dreyfus asked.

  “It’s here,” the man said, nodding and smiling. “It’s happening. Destruction and chaos. That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “There’s more to it than that. You selected those Wildfire cases. Lured them to your clinic … that was yours, wasn’t it?”

  The man started to answer, then made a quick flicking gesture with his hand. “Do you mind, Dreyfus, if we dispense with these needless barriers to effective communication?”

  Dreyfus did not have time to answer. His m-suit peeled away around him, leaving him wearing only the ordinary uniform of his profession. Next to him, Garlin’s m-suit suffered the same ruthless obliteration, blowing off him like sea-foam.

  “There, much better,” the man declared. “My brother has a swollen sense of his own competence, you see. Just because he bettered the cats, and persuaded my jungle to dance to his fingers, does not make him the stronger of us. Although once he liked to think he was.” There came the quick flash of a smile, but now it was loaded with venom. “Tell him, Caleb. Did the crossbow ring any bells?”

  “They were … my idea,” Garlin said. “The crossbows, the animals, the hunting games. He didn’t want to go along with me.”

  “He?” the older man quizzed.

  “Julius,” Garlin said, almost coughing the name, as if it took an effort of will to force it out of his lips. “You. Julius. We were the same age but you were smaller, more timid, more interested in books and stories.”

  “Tell them about the story I used to go on about, Caleb. The one you didn’t like me mentioning.”

  Garlin—the man Dreyfus was now having to adjust to thinking of as Caleb Voi—turned to him with a look of almost desperate hopelessness in his eyes, the last, lingering traces of swagger and disdain sucked out of him by this meeting with his brother, who claimed the name Julius Voi.

  “We’d been born in the Amerikano era,” Caleb said. “In one of their settlements, tended and raised by robots. Until it went wrong, and we murdered the other children.”

  “He’s both right and wrong, Dreyfus,” Julius said, fingering the slashed collar of his tunic. “We shared those dreams, shared those memories. They were real, it turned out. But we were born less than sixty years ago and put into a simulation of the Amerikano colony, so that our father—and his friends—might place wagers on the outcome.”

  Caleb—the man Dreyfus had brought from Panoply—shook his head. “He’s lying, Dreyfus. I’d know, wouldn’t I?”

  “If such a thing happened,” Dreyfus said, “it would explain both your disturbed memories and your genetic connection to Marlon and Aliya Voi.”

&n
bsp; “You see,” Julius said, applauding silently. “Dreyfus sees it instantly. Bravo, Prefect. I like a man who isn’t afraid the embrace the truth, however unpalatable.”

  “Let’s get back to the clinic,” Dreyfus answered.

  “You’re right—that was mine. I set up Elysium Heights using seed money from the Voi estate, as you realised.” Julius’s eyes twinkled in vain amusement at his own ingenuity. “I also wanted you to find it, Dreyfus, knowing the poor light it would place my brother in. That’s why the chain of ownership was cloudy, but not too cloudy, and why you were given a little helping hand with that flood.”

  The flood that had nearly killed Sparver and Thalia, Dreyfus thought, as well as leaving an innocent witness dead. But he fought to keep his voice level, his demeanour detached, as if he were asking routine questions in the interview suite.

  “And the people on the clinical list?”

  “Former members of a consortium. A covert, highly elite gambling ring, with close ties to our father. Not all active participants, but all aware of it, all fully cognisant of the darker aspects of that particular enterprise. They were the ones who wagered on my brother and I, you see, and on the other children. We were there to fend off their boredom.”

  Dreyfus shook his head. “I looked into the backgrounds of the Wildfire victims. There were no prior associations beyond chance encounters, and certainly no membership of gambling syndicates.”

  Julius looked pained, like a music tutor affronted by a sudden sour note. “That’s because it was secret, Dreyfus. When the wager came to an end, such was the danger of disclosure that each and every member of the syndicate submitted to voluntary amnesia.”

  “And the clinic?”

  “A lure, you slow, stupid man. My means of getting back into their heads. I knew their names, because I was a Voi, and they had all come to Lethe. They were ripe for it—desperate for someone to put an end to their darker desires. And they came, all of them. In ones, naturally, never once guessing what connected them to the other patients.”

  “You’re a monster,” Singh said.

  “But a patient one. Surely you’ll allow me that one virtue?”

  “Is it all true?” Caleb said. “Are you really responsible for these deaths?”

  “Crocodile tears,” Julius said scornfully. “Hoping they’ll buy you some late sympathy from Dreyfus? That’s all it is, Caleb. I know you far too well to think anything else, brother. I know exactly how manipulative you can be.” Then to Dreyfus. “Did you wonder about the significance of the crossbow, by any chance?”

  “Should I have done?”

  “Ask Caleb what happened to our mother, Prefect. Then you’ll understand.”

  Sparver watched for a clear sign of animation in the eyes of Marlon Voi. Not sight—he doubted very much that those eyes were capable of seeing anything—but an involuntary attention, a twitching that had not been there a moment before.

  Sparver loosened the breathing mask a little, holding it by one hand while his other held one of the surgical knives that had been provided for him. His shoulder ached where the man had wrenched it, but he still had functionality in both arms.

  “Marlon Voi,” he said softly. “Can you hear me, Marlon? I’m Prefect Bancal. You’re in Lethe. I guess you know that.”

  Marlon made a long, low sucking sound—a sound less like human breathing than the gurgling of ancient plumbing, rattling and wet from decades of neglect.

  He shaped a word. Sparver leaned in closer, loosening the mask by a further degree.

  “Kill …” the word was. Followed, after another laboured inhalation, by “… me.”

  The deed would not have been difficult. Sparver could have killed the man directly, or he could have cut some of the connections between Marlon and the life-support equipment. Either way, he doubted it would need more than a few minutes to arrive at the same terminal conclusion.

  “He wants me to,” Sparver said. “Your son. Says he’s Julius, and that you deserve everything he’s done to you. I don’t know about that, exactly. Was it true, Marlon? Was there a syndicate, a sick game played out across generations of children?”

  He made the words again. This time there was more conviction to them—sounding less like a plea than an order, delivered in the full and certain expectation that it would be obeyed.

  “Kill me.”

  “Old habits, Marlon. That’s what it sounds like to me. Not asking, but telling. As if that’s all the rest of us exist for. Doing what you demand of us.”

  “Julius … right. Kill me.” Marlon Voi clawed another meagre ration of air into the fetid reservoirs of his lungs. “I deserve it. Did a terrible thing. But understand.”

  The last word had been almost too faint to hear. “What?”

  “Aliya … never wanted this.”

  “She’s dead and gone, Marlon. Past all justice. Just as we all thought you were. She is gone, isn’t she?”

  “Julius … killed.” He paused, long enough that, for a moment at least, Sparver wondered if he had in fact died between utterances, sparing him this ethical quandary. “Her.”

  “I believe you,” Sparver said.

  “Then kill me. Now.”

  Sparver looked at the door. He had been presented with an extremely simple choice, and the means of facilitating it lay in his hand, sharp and clean as a spacecraft exhaust. It was a long shot, but if he took the escape capsule he might be able to get word to Panoply, warning them of the imminent explosion. Even if he failed, he would certainly save his own life. But in doing so he would have to kill a living witness.

  There ought to have been no hesitation. Marlon Voi was going to die anyway—and the time left to him was a lot less than thirty minutes.

  The blade weighed heavily in Sparver’s grip. He moved closer to the man, slipping the mask back into place, muffling it with his other hand, so that he did not have to hear Marlon’s distress as he did what needed to be done.

  And he began to cut.

  “Aliya Voi died here,” Dreyfus stated. “The shuttle accident was a ruse to conceal the circumstances and location of her death. Was it murder?”

  “Of a sort,” Julius said. “Ask Caleb. Ask him who fired the fatal shot—assuming he even remembers.”

  “You killed her,” Caleb said, surprised and certain in the same moment, as if a very clear memory had just presented itself.

  “Did I, brother?”

  “Yes. You shot her with the crossbow. I can see it now. The look on your face …” He shook his head, aghast. “I don’t want to remember, but I do. It’s this place, bringing it all back again. She felt we’d come too far, too fast. There was something in us that she didn’t trust …”

  “Something in you,” Julius corrected.

  “Perhaps. But you were the one who shot her. If she revoked my privileges, she’d have revoked yours as well. You were afraid of that, so you killed her before she had a chance. After that, Father didn’t have a chance. He was too horrified to think clearly.” Caleb drew a breath, squaring his shoulders. “There was something bad in both of us, Julius. Nothing can excuse the things they did to us. But you’ve gone too far. Stop this now. Let the other people live.”

  “It’s too late, Caleb,” he said, more in regret than anger. “Were you not listening just now? I steered Dreyfus to the clinic. Once that was done, it was only a matter of time before he fumbled his way to Lethe. I always knew this day, this hour would come. And I’m ready to die rather than leave.”

  “Dreyfus won’t touch you.”

  Julius glared at his brother. “Then why did he come?”

  “To reason with you,” Dreyfus said. “To find out what had driven you to this point. To confirm your brother’s innocence, in so far as the Wildfire cases go. To see if there was any persuasion I could bring to bear, without incurring the use of force.” He offered his hands, empty of any threat. “I’d still like you to come with us. We have an emergency action in progress, to safeguard the remaining victims. We c
an get the implants out of their heads, given time. But you need to help us. The Wildfire incidences have been steepening, and that’s surely been your doing—turning the screw on us. But act now, act swiftly, and if we see a levelling off in the death curve, I’ll note that you cooperated.”

  “And would that earn me a pardon?”

  “I can’t ignore the murders that have already happened—the Wildfire cases, or the deaths incidental to this investigation. But we’ll look into the syndicate’s wager. You were victims of a crime before any of this began, and that has to count in your favour. A demonstrable show of remorse now, a pledge to assist …”

  “You misunderstand me, Dreyfus,” Julius said. “I don’t want your leniency. I don’t want anything from you. You can leave or remain, the choice is yours. But my work is done.”

  “He knows something,” Caleb said. “I can feel it seeping out of him. It doesn’t matter to him what happens now. He doesn’t even care if you try to kill him or not.” His eyes narrowed with a dawning comprehension. “He’s expecting to die. This is all just …”

  Julius made a swatting gesture, as if a fly had just troubled him. Caleb groaned and dropped to his knees, clutching at the sides of his head in obvious agony.

  “I’ve had enough of him again,” Julius said, addressing his audience with an abashed, confiding look. “Funny how it goes, with family. You don’t see them for years and years and you think it will be different—all the old irritations set aside. But he’s the same old Caleb he always was. Thinks he’s the master of me, the one with all the ideas.”

  Caleb rolled onto his side, whimpering.

  “Stop,” Dreyfus said, moving to kneel down next to Caleb. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

  “Doesn’t he?” Julius was holding his arm outstretched, his fingers cradled around an invisible mass, squeezing it gently, almost as if were reaching into Caleb’s skull and applying some unspeakable pressure to his brain. “He was coy about the exact circumstances of Mother’s death. Told you some of the facts, but not all of them. He was right about one thing. It was my hand on that crossbow, my finger on the trigger. I put that dart into her. I killed her. But I didn’t mean to.”