“They no longer serve you in that capacity,” she said. “They have lied and murdered to protect their positions. You, Arbiter Salvadorian, are as much a victim as anyone else.”
Salvadorian’s face remained implacable. “We ask you to reverse your course and leave the Noospace.”
“Prime Arbiter Venzano was murdered on their orders,” Elydia said. “The Augmenter assassin was merely their tool. A renegade. We reject his actions utterly.”
“That is a lie.”
“Is it? What if I tell you I can present you with proof that they, the Advocates, actually initiated the Dementia and have been using it to manipulate public opinion in their favour?”
Salvadorian waved a dismissive hand. “Do you imagine I would countenance such a slur for even a nanosecond? If you continue on your present course, we will be obliged to defend Jove-space with all the force we can muster.”
Elydia shook her head. “It’s not necessary for you to believe me. Others in whom you might have greater trust can confirm that what I say is true.”
She turned away from the optic and motioned to one of the crew who was standing near a corridor valve. The valve opened, and through it stepped High Arbiter Yuang.
Like Salvadorian he wore his robes of office, and he was accompanied by several of his retinue. He strode across to the optic, letting Salvadorian see him.
“It’s true what she says,” he began without preamble. “We are now convinced that Orela and Julius are the originators of the Dementia.”
Salvadorian didn’t hide his incredulity. “We? What is this heresy? Are you a prisoner?”
“I’m here of my own free will,” Yuang told him. “I believe that the Noosphere is best served by the truth, no matter how unpalatable. I could no longer give the Advocates my support after the travesty of the council on Mercury. Both are dangerously out of control, without scruples. They used you—unless, of course, you were also party to their plot.”
The suggestion clearly outraged Salvadorian. It was only with great restraint that he managed to control himself.
“I suggest you explain that insinuation,” he said. “To me, you’re the one that’s acting like a traitor.”
Yuang remained calm. “Venzano was not carrying evidence of Augmenter involvement in the Dementia. If anything, his researchers had reached the same conclusion as ours on Titan, and that was doubtless why the Advocates had him killed.”
“These are just words.”
“Consider,” said Yuang. “Only adults or those who have reached majority succumb to the sickness—”
“Not so,” interrupted one of Salvadorian’s group. “We’ve had victims as young as six.”
“As have we. And it was these cases we investigated most thoroughly. The minors concerned had had access to a shrine, either illicitly or through parental collusion, in the immediate period before their affliction.”
It was clear that this was news to Salvadorian and the others around him. There was a brief discussion among them, nothing clearly carrying across the optic.
Yuang turned to a woman in his retinue, introducing her to Salvadorian: “This is Rowenna Nyari, the chief coordinator of our research efforts. Perhaps she can explain better than I.”
Nyari was tall, dark hair chain-coiled in the Titanian style. She had strong features, a forthright air.
“Everyone who has succumbed to the Dementia has had recent previous access to a shrine,” she said. “In every single case we’ve investigated in sufficient detail this has proved to be true, and there’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll find the same on your own worlds should you choose to check. The shrine is plainly the vector for the Dementia. Victims are ‘infected’ during communion. The pattern is more or less random, and it may be days or simply hours before the condition manifests itself. Nevertheless, we believe that actual shrines are specifically targeted.”
“This is preposterous!” another of Salvadorian’s group blurted. “Everyone uses shrines. If this were true, we’d all be mad.”
“It may only be a matter of time,” Nyari said. “A matter of time, or of chance. We believe that the infections are directed and localized to spread panic, but not to the extent that the entire fabric of communities or worlds is destroyed.”
Salvadorian consulted further with his colleagues. I watched through Imrani’s eyes, trying to gauge their reactions. No one had expected this. The shrines were the most sacred and private of places. If Nyari was right, then it was monstrous.
Finally Salvadorian turned back to the optic.
“I still consider this dubious,” he announced. “If the Dementia is targeted as you claim, then why have there been no cases on the Inner Planets? Shrines are even more commonplace on Venus or Mars than on Miranda or Nereid.”
“There are no Augmenters on the Inner Planets,” said Yuang. “Or at least so few that inflicting the Dementia there would merely muddy the issue. The Outer Worlds were targeted precisely because the Advocates intended to make the people believe that Augmenters were behind it.”
Further consultations. Salvadorian had cloaked the sound, but this time the debate seemed more heated.
“I never thought,” Elydia remarked, intent on the optic, “that the ability to lip-read would ever prove so useful.”
The boast was redundant since it was obvious that Salvadorian’s associates were now divided between those who accepted Yuang’s evidence and those who did not.
At length Salvadorian addressed the optic again: “Nothing you’ve said presents proof that the Advocates engineered this crisis. You’re asking us to accept a heresy on the basis of circumstantial evidence.”
“The onset of the Dementia coincided with the opening of the Advocates’ new palace at Icarus,” Yuang said. “Rumours are rife that Orela and Julius have had a new Shrine of Shrines created there. Outbreaks of the Dementia can be matched either to the Advocates’ known presence on Mercury or to periods when their whereabouts was unrecorded.”
This time the hubbub from Salvadorian’s ship carried across the optic. Among his group were arbiters from Callisto and Europa as well as senior commanders of the Gallilean politia. I knew this, I realized, because Chloe and Lucian had conveyed it to me. I tried to communicate with them, but already they were retreating, leaving me with the sense that they wanted Nina and me to witness the drama as it unfolded without any interference from them.
Salvadorian spoke to Yuang again: “If what you say is true, then what exactly is the Dementia? Exactly how is it contracted?”
It was Nyari who answered.
“We can only speculate on that,” she said. “We know two things—one, there is no infective agent in any physical sense; two, the Advocates are deranged. Just as they receive the communion of others, so they may have used some means of transmitting their own presence—their own madness—back.”
“The Advocates aren’t allowed reciprocal contact through communion!” someone—I recognized him as Lasantha from the Icarus council—shouted.
Nyari actually smiled, though it was a smile full of fatalism. “I think we are dealing with representatives who have long ceased to be bound by such scruples,” she replied calmly. “Imagine it. Imagine yourself as an ordinary communicant. Imagine having your mind suddenly filled with the freight of the Advocates’ lives, the full tenor of their madness. That would surely be enough to induce an overwhelming mental derangement of the type so classically exhibited by Dementia victims.”
There was a long silence. Then once again Salvadorian began conferring with his colleagues. Now the debate was sober, grave, voices lowered, faces sombre. I saw Addomatis apparently watching through half-open eyes, breaths like slow snores, her odour filling the entire bridgehead; I saw Jagdavido apparently oblivious, digits twitching at the nodes and polyps of the control ridge. It was impossible to imagine what thoughts were passing through their minds. Imrani stared at the motionless pilot, still immobile, enveloped by the hood, hands deep in armrest sockets, brain at on
e with the ship. Did she imagine she was the phoenix itself, I wondered, leading the Augmenter armada out of deep interplanetary space—they had arrived here direct from Charon—into their first contact with the peoples of the Noospace? Or was her consciousness entirely subsumed to the workings of the ship?
There was no answer to this from Chloe or Lucian, no sense of their presence whatsoever.
Salvadorian spoke to Yuang again: “If the facts are as you suggest, then why wasn’t this revealed at the Icarus council?”
Yuang looked rueful. “Because I hadn’t even contemplated it until then. We had arrived at the conclusion that the shrines were the source of the Dementia—something which I intended to announce during my deliverance—but it never occurred to me that the Advocates were actively involved—not until I saw how shamelessly they manipulated all of us. I am a representative of the Noosphere as much as you, Arbiter Salvadorian. There are times when dutifulness and loyalty blinds us to the patent facts. But no longer. It is time we had new Advocates. Whatever else the cost.”
Everyone on the ship waited. Elydia began to drum her fingers on the arm of her seat. The ammoniacal odour grew stronger, and I saw that Addomatis was leaking fluid from flaps behind her ears. It coursed down the silvery garment she wore and began to pool on the floor. Most of Yuang’s retinue reacted with outright distaste. Felix and one of the crew led her away while another arrived with a scroungedog which promptly slavered up the spillage. Imrani kept glancing at the pilot, and it was only Nina’s gentle persuasion that kept him focused on the wider picture.
Meanwhile Salvadorian and his colleagues were conferring. When he finally addressed the optic again, his face was no less grave than it had been at the start.
“What do you want of us?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Elydia told him. “We simply wish for unhindered passage to the Noosphere.”
“That could have been achieved without the necessity for entering Jove-space.”
“We wanted to convince you of the justice of our cause. To enlist your sympathy if not your cooperation. We wanted to show you our faces, to show you that they are not evil.”
Salvadorian seemed unimpressed by this. “You intend to deliver new Advocates to the Noosphere?”
“Indeed.”
It was plain he didn’t believe this. “And then what?”
“We intend to ask only that we be allowed back into the commonality of the human race. We would like to live in peace with others—apart, if necessary, but without conflict. We have no desire to usurp the governance of those who are not like us. Like any other human being, we merely ask for a place in the sun.”
Again it had the flavour of a rehearsed speech. Salvadorian sighed. “Are you expecting us to join you?”
“Only you can decide that.”
He shook his head slowly. “We will take no direct action against the present Advocates until matters are clearer. However, we are prepared to disperse our fleet if you immediately vacate Jove-space.”
“Done!” Elydia agreed, in a clear note of triumph.
The optic blanked. Straight away, Elydia gave instructions for the armada to make full speed for the Noosphere. Jagdavido responded instantly, fingers writhing across the sensitories.
Elydia rose and turned to Yuang. “We value your assistance,” she said.
“I merely spoke the truth,” he replied stiffly.
“Will you accompany us?”
“I have duties in my own Arbitration. The people are restive, frightened. Don’t forget your presence will terrify most of them, whether you wish it or not. I must go where I can do best.”
“So you shall. We readied your carrier, just in case.”
“Don’t think,” he said, “because I spoke in your favour I share your cause.”
Then he turned and led his retinue away.
As soon as he was gone, Elydia came smiling towards Imrani. He had not moved throughout the entire negotiations. I had scarcely paid him any attention myself, simply using his senses for my own purposes. But now Elydia, in her triumph, was solicitude itself.
“This has been a terrible shock to you,” she said, leading him by the arm towards a seat. “We have no wish to harm you, I assure you, especially since without you we would never have acquired the womb.”
“What if the Inner Planets decide to resist you?”
Imrani was still somewhat dazed, and I knew it was Nina speaking through him. Elydia said, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, shall we? Surely they would want their new Advocates delivered safely.”
I could see that inside the womb the chests of the man and woman were gently rising and falling: they were breathing. But Imrani’s attention was drawn again to the pilot. Uncertainly he pointed a finger.
“Who is that?”
Elydia gave a sympathetic smile. “I think you know already.”
Imrani pushed past her and walked right up to the pilot so that he had a full view of her face. Under her hood, her skin was bone-white, her eyes glassy, staring straight ahead. Seeing nothing.
“Hello, Imrani,” she said. “I hope you are well.”
She spoke rapidly, without expression. Though it was Shivaun’s vocal cords, the three of us knew that it was Jagdavido speaking through her.
“I’m afraid she’s quite dead,” Elydia was saying. “There was nothing we could do about that. But we are few in number, and short of good pilots. Her autonomic nervous system and some cerebral functions have been directly wired into the ship. Jagdavido is linked to her so that he can immediately access—”
Imrani flung himself on her, screaming with rage and attempting to throttle her. She swiped him away, sending him reeling to the deck. Then Felix was hauling him up, pinioning his arms, holding him effortlessly despite his rage and writhing.
Elydia composed herself. “I understand your anger. It’s painful to have to relive our grief over again. I’m sorry it was necessary. Shivaun isn’t the only one of the dead we were compelled to use as crew for our fleet. I didn’t intend you to see her, but it was your choice to steal aboard this ship. Consider it this way: she’s continuing to serve the human race.”
Imrani spat in her face.
Elydia stepped back, and I could feel Felix’s hands tightening on Imrani’s arms, squeezing hard.
“It’s all right,” Elydia told him. “It’s to be expected. I think perhaps you’d better take him back to his quarters.”
Imrani did not resist as Felix led him away. His tears came freely, out of a chaotic mixture of grief, anger and memories of Shivaun in her prime, of the two of them together sharing intimate moments, Imrani forever enthralled by her forbidding beauty, by his sheer good fortune in finding her. The memories washed through me, too, so powerfully it was almost as if I had lived them myself; and because I had none of my own, I took them to myself, swallowed them whole.
Felix was hurrying him up the spiralway to the skulldeck. As soon as we were inside, he pushed Imrani roughly down into one of the seats.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “There was no need.”
He spoke with the chilling evenness of contained anger. Imrani was scarcely listening, but Nina suddenly said through him:
“I loved Shivaun as much as you love Elydia. How would you have felt if it had been her?”
Felix had already activated the webbing on the seat. He wasn’t even listening.
“We’ve tried to treat you decently,” he said, making sure the webbing was as tight as possible. “You defiled her, spat in her face.”
He loomed over Imrani, taking hold of his hands.
“I can’t forgive you for that,” he said, and then he squeezed and twisted.
There was a cracking sound as Imrani’s fingers erupted with white-hot pain.
Fourteen
“… services are no longer required,” the woman was saying. “You may resume your authorized journey.”
I was back in Tunde, watching Vargo at the controls.
Tunde, Marea and Cori came out of hiding. Marea was preoccupied, distant. I caught Cori’s eye, mouthed the word “Nina?”. She winked at me.
On the longsight we could see the Augmenter armada already beginning to bypass Callisto. It was relatively close, an absurd array of improbable craft; yet its sheer numbers would have been sufficient to scatter Salvadorian’s fleet. I was full of Imrani’s pain, but I couldn’t afford to dwell on it.
“Marea,” I said, directing her attention to the leading craft in the armada. “Remember the womb?”
She gave me a scathing look. “The one you sold to free yourself from Yolande?”
“It’s fully grown now. And it’s on board that ship.”
She was dubious. “Fully grown? It’s only been a year.”
“You knew it was no ordinary womb. It contains the new Advocates.”
Marea obviously realized that I was inhabiting Tunde again. Tunde himself seemed more subdued than ever, drawn in on himself. I scarcely gave it a thought; I was more concerned with telling them what I knew.
Marea took a seat beside Vargo. From the longsight perspective, it seemed as if the phoenix was heading straight towards us, though Vargo was already peeling away from Salvadorian’s fleet, intent on using Callisto’s gravity as a slingshot for resuming course to Europa. Even so, the Augmenter armada would pass by at relatively close range.
Once again the transition from Imrani to Tunde had been instant. Chloe and Lucian were in the background, but they would not answer my questions. Instead they began urging a new course of action on me. I felt as though we had abandoned Imrani to Felix, but they insisted that, in order to help him, I would need to act through Tunde.
There was nothing else I could do. Chloe and Lucian were obviously able to switch me effortlessly from one host to another, and I didn’t want to take the risk that they might withdraw me altogether, return me to the dark limbo or the white room. I wanted to play my part in whatever way I could.
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