“Is it not true,” said Orela, “that the Prime Arbiter had discovered the origin of the Dementia? Had he not discovered the fact that it was an Augmenter plot to destabilize the Noosphere?”
The Augmenter folded his spindly arms together. He remained defiantly silent.
“Is this not why you were sent to kill him?” Orela persisted. “So that the peoples of the Settled Worlds would not know of your kind’s treachery?”
Bettwys and a few of the others were already exclaiming their outrage. The Augmenter refused to speak.
“It’s true,” Salvadorian said. “We found among the Prime Arbiter’s files an intercepted message from an unidentified source which is nevertheless of obvious Augmenter origin. The Dementia is a genetic trigger, activated at random by their agents.”
Now half the assembly was on its feet. Bezile saw that Yuang was shaking his head vigorously, attempting to protest. But his words were drowned by the increasingly heated cries of others.
The Augmenter was led away, and the Advocates brought a measure of calm to bear simply by standing still and waiting.
“You see the danger we ordinary humans now face,” Julius said at last. “On the one hand a descent into degeneracy, and on the other a war with a species who wish to transform us into beings repellent to the vast majority of those we serve.”
To emphasize and dramatize the point, the optic behind them had come to life again, showing both the manimals and the Augmenter assassin in close-up.
“It is hard to believe,” said Orela, “that they would stoop to the killing of the Prime Arbiter. Perhaps it’s a measure of their desperation. Or perhaps it’s merely a prelude to a far more serious onslaught. Our evidence suggests the latter.”
“That is why,” said Julius, “it is essential we respond swiftly and with the utmost fortitude. We must immediately appoint a new Prime Arbiter.”
More reaction: initial surprise, earnest discussions, then overtones of assent.
Bezile urged herself to remain calm, to maintain a clear head. Of course it made perfect sense: the arbiters were assembled in one place so that votes could be cast and the result announced without delay. Normally a new Prime Arbiter was only appointed after extensive private communion with the Noosphere, but the circumstances were exceptional. It would be a prudent and emphatic demonstration of their unity. Yet she disliked the blatant stage-managing of the whole affair. It was crude in the extreme, and dismaying to see how easily those who should have known better had been carried along.
Consoles appeared at each table, with privacy hoods so that the arbiters could make their choice free from prying eyes. Apart from the Advocates, only High Arbiters, those with bailiwicks of ten million souls or more, could participate in the vote. There were forty-three of them, covering every major world in the Noospace from Mercury to Pluto. Their selection would ultimately have to be ratified by the people in a compulsory vote, but that was a mere formality.
Luis had stirred somewhat from his soft-boned daze, but not sufficiently that he was capable of saying anything coherent. She turned her back on him, letting the hood envelop her. As soon as it had done so, she cast her vote without hesitation for Modramistra, who in her opinion should have been appointed to the position over the unfortunate Venzano in the first place.
She was among the first to complete her vote, and she sat back and waited, refusing to meet Luis’s swampy eyes. There was muted excitement at the tables, much private speculation on the outcome. Bezile took a mouthful of wine. She was certain Modramistra would carry the day.
The Advocates stood before their own console, placidly awaiting the result. The consoles retracted their hoods, indicating that the votes had been cast. Then the results were displayed, firstly a list of those with no votes, then one name at a time with the number of votes cast.
Bezile was gratified to note that her name was not among the majority of zeros and she could not resist a glance at Bettwys, whose was. There was one vote for Faustine of Europa, one for Depton, three each for Geordano and Lasantha. Yuang had garnered six. And there was Modramistra—but with only a dozen votes. Bezile stared with amazement. Her own name was last, and against it was the number nineteen.
No one was more surprised than she. She had never remotely imagined she would be a frontrunner, let alone win. Usually someone from the Outer Worlds was appointed to the position, if only because they had the majority of votes and tended to resent the Inner Planets’ closer physical links with the Noosphere. She hadn’t even considered herself especially popular with her peers: there were some, she knew, who considered her arrogant.
Everyone had risen and was applauding politely—everyone, that is, except for Yuang and his retinue, who were walking out. No one else appeared to notice.
Luis and the rest of her table were urging her up while the Advocates beckoned her forward on to the oratory.
“By a clear majority,” she heard one of them saying, “Her Graciousness Bezile Reeta Miushme-Adewoyin of Melisande and the continent of Aphrodite is appointed the new Prime Arbiter of the Noosphere.”
• • •
Darkness again. The transition had been smooth, instantaneous. I felt Nina close at hand.
“Were you there?” I asked.
“Right to the end,” she replied.
Lucian and Chloe manifested their presences.
“That’s merely a part of it,” Lucian said. “There’s more.”
I rounded on him. “What next? More manoeuvrings? More revelations? Everything we see only brings more unanswered questions.”
“We’re merely showing you what’s been happening,” said Chloe. “With all its uncertainties and ambiguities. If we had simply told you, would you have believed us?”
I didn’t answer.
“Was it the Advocates who ordered Venzano’s killing?” Nina asked.
“You must make up your own minds,” said Chloe. “When you’ve seen everything.”
“Bezile doesn’t trust them,” I pointed out.
“To us,” said Lucian, “that means she’s finally come to her senses.”
“Why did Orela and Julius appoint her to succeed Venzano?”
“We have no proof that the voting was anything but fair.”
“It was a fix. Even Bezile didn’t expect it.”
“That may be true,” Chloe agreed, “but nothing is certain. We can tell you little about the Advocates’ motives. Or their private activities. They’re secretive. They keep their own counsel.”
“But can’t you access their minds through the Noosphere?”
“The Advocates have not partaken of communion in the past year.”
I was incredulous at this, but both Chloe and Lucian insisted it was true.
“They neglect their proper duties,” Lucian said. “Of course, they would claim they’re concentrating their energies on combating the Dementia. We think otherwise.”
“And the Augmenters?” said Nina. “Are the Advocates using them as a cover?”
“It’s better to show than tell,” Chloe said.
We both knew what she meant. Nina said, “You want us to dream again.”
“To experience. In that way, you can make your own judgements without our bias.”
“Imrani?”
“You must have been wondering what happened to him.”
Ten
Imrani was restless. He sat at the organ in the navel of the cathedral, trying to coax a suitable dirge from the reluctant creature. Its fluted tubes pulsed at his command, but only whispery sighs issued. The status displays indicated that the organ was slightly feverish, the diagnostic window suggesting the possibility of a mild viral infection. But Imrani knew better: the organ was constipated, and the problem was probably emotional rather than physical. The creature had lain unused for several years before his arrival, and then he had played it regularly for congregations of visiting pilgrims; but in recent months there had been few pilgrim ships and the ribbed aisles of the cathedral lay e
mpty. He was sure the organ was sulking as a result.
Once again he tried to clear the blockage by sending pulses of compressed air through the pipes. The resulting cannonade of farts would have raised chuckles in even the most solemn of congregations, but there was no one here but himself and Felix. Felix of the automatic smile and relentless companionship. Imrani could see him in the organ mirror, sitting directly behind in the front aisle, patient and pleasant. His ever-present shadow.
Imrani stared at his own face, looking at a stranger. After he had been rescued from the ice, he’d awoken to find that his facial features had been remodelled. It was nothing too drastic—a slight flattening of the nose, lowering of cheekbones, smoothing of jaw line—yet the overall effect, with lightened restyled hair, was to make him look quite unlike his old self. But it was the eyes that bothered him most: they were now blue rather than brown. Elydia had told him that his originals were frost-damaged and that it was in any case an essential precaution as part of his new disguise. He was a hunted man. He still hadn’t got used to the idea that he might be perceiving the world with someone else’s visual apparatus. He’d never had the courage to ask where the eyes had come from; he liked to think that they’d been grown from his own tissue, but this was unlikely given the prevalence of corpses on Charon.
As always, it was chilly in the navel, the arching vaulted spaces rising high and silent above him, galleries, pews and corridors hewn from the ice, ghostly in the flickering light of candlemasses. The cathedral was an extensive complex, most of it lying underground, with only the spired towers and central dome jutting above the surface, dominating the settlement of Acheron. He had spent most of the past year here, only being allowed out in the company of Felix and Elydia to sightsee or visit Shivaun’s corpse. They daren’t take risks, Elydia always insisted; if he fell into the hands of the politia or some minion of the Noosphere they would whisk him away and suck his brain dry in order to find out what he knew.
His fingers were growing numb with cold. He sighed and got up from the organ, abandoning his attempt to ventilate it. What was the point when he had no one to play for anyway?
Felix also stirred. He was a large, leonine type with shoulder-length brown hair. Well-muscled, upright, always sporting that bright-eyed look Imrani had often observed in fitness zealots. He rose early each morning and spent an hour exercising and weight-training. It was practically the only time Imrani was free of him.
“I want to do something,” Imrani announced. “Something active. How about a walk outside?”
Felix’s smile remained fixed. “I don’t think that would be prudent at the moment.”
It was the answer he had expected. “Why not? It’s quiet.”
“That is when we have to be most careful. There’s safety in crowds.”
“I remember you telling me I had to beware of large groups.”
The smile did not relent. “You’ve been very patient in accepting these restrictions on your movement. Believe me, Elydia and I appreciate your cooperation. It will not be for much longer.”
Felix’s tone was always one of perfect reasonableness, but Imrani had begun to think of him as a warden rather than a companion.
“How much longer?” he asked.
Felix put an arm around his shoulder. Imrani felt constricted rather than comforted.
“Soon,” Felix said. “Soon you’ll have complete freedom of movement, I promise you.”
“It’s been over a month since I was allowed outside. I’m getting claustrophobia stuck in here!”
At present, they were even denying him access to Shivaun’s tomb. Until recently he had visited her twice a month, standing before her ice-locked body on one of the nearby ridges, always with tears in his eyes. He missed her beyond expression. She had been entombed in her expediter’s uniform on a ridge where the ice itself shone rather than the corpses. She stood alone, hands on hips, head held high, gazing out along the Valley of the Dead with her sightless eyes. Imrani had given her the simple valediction: WE LOVED YOU. There were no attending holos or mementoes; she was alone on the ridge, alone in her severe beauty and fortitude, even in death. They had been too late to save her, though Elydia assured him they had tried. He’d often wondered whether they might have been able to revive her if he hadn’t opened her up to rescue the womb. Maybe it was he who was ultimately responsible for her death.
No. The suit light had been red, she was already gone.
On an impulse, Imrani strode briskly away, heading towards the rear of the navel then climbing the spiralway which coiled around the inside of the dome. Previously he was at least able to peer out through the cathedral’s crystalline windows over Acheron and the valley beyond, but even this was no longer allowed; for days the windows had been blinded, their orbs white as milk. According to Felix, there was an as yet untraced leakage of air from the cathedral, and every orifice was to remain sealed until its source was discovered.
He heard Felix’s footsteps behind him. He increased his pace, climbing higher until he reached the upper balcony, his breaths pluming in the chill air. On the curving ceiling above were moving holograms that showed an idealized vision of the afterlife, naked humans walking through verdant meadows, lying on golden beaches, swimming in turquoise seas. There were children, tame animals, a benign sun in an azure sky.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Felix had come up beside him, as silent and swift as death itself.
“It was done by Rodric, Elydia’s husband.”
Imrani watched a man and woman pick a greenish fruit from a tree. He knew the story: how Rodric the famous artist had met Elydia the famous biotec and how they had been together for forty years of monogamous marriage before Rodric died in a freak accident when a faulty warmsuit electrocuted him while skiing Pluto’s methane snows. He had heard it many times before. Everything had begun to pall, despite his attempts to keep himself occupied by visiting different parts of the subterranean complex. He had spent hours as a spectator in the disembowelling and demortification rooms; he had sat with congregations listening to sermons on the evanescence of human life and the calamity of truedeath; he had been given a tour of the fabricatory that manufactured miniature replics of the dead for grieving relatives; he had browsed through the dispensaries that sold souvenirs of the valley; negotiated the map room with its colour-coded zonal displays; attended the nerve centre where up to five hundred pilgrims could call home on their own console at standard rates. He was bored, bored, bored.
“Perhaps you’d like to wrestle?” Felix said. “Or something more cerebral, like tesseract?”
Imrani stared at him. The one and only time he’d agreed to wrestle with Felix he’d had the feeling the big man was holding back, and even then he was hopelessly outclassed and had retired with limbs that ached like knotted rope for days afterwards, despite the attentions of the massager.
“I hate tesseract,” he told Felix. “I’m going to my chamber.”
For once, he did not attempt to hide his irritability. He stumped off, heading down the spiralway then taking branch arteries towards his quarters.
There was no one about, either on the stairways or in the cavernous rooms that gave off them. This was unusual. Even without attending pilgrims, the cathedral was usually busy; if its dark-apparelled mediators and solicitors were not engaged in processing corpses or counselling the bereaved, they would be occupied in dusting its ornate surfaces or feeding candle-masses so that it remained atmospherically lit and tolerably warm.
Imrani paused, silencing his own footsteps. Nothing. No sound or movement. Then, in the distance, he heard Felix’s familiar tread. He hastened on again, calling to his doormouth to open, hurrying inside and closing it after him.
His chamber was windowless but well-appointed, with a large console and a private shrine. Bright Martian spotterfish swam in a ceiling globe, splashing the walls with spectral washes of colour. He waited a little while, heard Felix’s footsteps approach, pause, then move on. Feli
x’s own quarters—and those of Elydia—were next door, and Imrani heard him go inside. He was Elydia’s partner—lover, presumably. Well, it took all sorts.
Something about Felix’s remarks on the balcony had pricked his curiosity. He wasn’t normally inquisitive, but he activated the console and asked for a resume on Rodric—he couldn’t remember his surname.
“The artist,” he told the console. “The one that was married to Elydia Chan-Vetterlein.”
The optic winked into action with a picture of the man.
Imrani immediately told it to halt.
It was as he had somehow suspected. Felix was the living image of Rodric.
“I hope you don’t mind.”
Imrani spun around. Without him hearing, Elydia had come into the room.
“Your doorvalve wasn’t sealed, so I thought I’d look in on you. Felix told me you were a little out of sorts.”
She was a tall, handsome woman, her dark hair liberally streaked with grey, her face lined—physical features which he continued to find slightly shocking. Of course arbiters and other high officials often sported cosmetic wrinkles as signs of their status, but this was extreme, the real thing. She had once told him that she had deliberately let herself be elderized so that she looked as a late middle-aged woman might have done in the days when humans were subject to ongoing physical decay. It was hard to imagine such times, and he preferred not to.
Elydia’s gaze had gone to the optic. She gave a slow smile.
“Rodric,” she said. It sounded like a sigh. “Even now I miss him, you know.”
Imrani was embarrassed; he didn’t know what to say.
“I always felt responsible for his death. You see, it was I who grew the suit. The suit that killed him. The malfunction was a result of faulty design, too high a potential in the neural network. Purely my fault.” Her gaze moved from the optic to his face. “You’re shocked.”
“It isn’t that.” He had to come out with it. “Felix …”
Realization dawned on her face, and she practically laughed. “Oh, that. Yes, he’s the very picture of him, isn’t he?”
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