The curious reader might wonder why I failed to return to the RS universe for another seven years after the publication of ‘Dilation Sleep’. It wasn’t for want of trying. I did write other stories, but they were never good enough to get published, even when I was selling other material. The strongest ideas from these dead stories were eventually salvaged and incorporated into later pieces, not all of them within the RS universe. In any case, ‘Dilation Sleep’ was part of a batch of stories I wrote before moving to the Netherlands and getting my first paid job. Settling into a new country inevitably placed constraints on my writing activities, and when I did manage to free up some time, I decided I’d be better off investing my energies in a novel.
By the time I came to write ‘A Spy in Europa’ and ‘Galactic North’, both of which were written in parallel with work on both Revelation Space and Chasm City, I was beginning to get a feel for the large-scale architecture of the future history. Here’s a shocking confession: I stole a lot of good ideas from other writers.I’ve already mentioned Niven and Varley, but I owe an equally obvious debt to Bruce Sterling, whose ‘Shaper/Mechanist’ sequence blew my mind on several levels. Sterling’s future history, even though it consists of only a single novel and a handful of stories, still feels utterly plausible to me twenty years after I first encountered it. Part of me wishes Sterling would write more ‘Shaper/ Mechanist’ stories; another part of me admires him precisely for not doing so. Read Schismatrix if you haven’t already done so: it will melt your face.
Much of the hard SF furniture of my universe — slower-than-light travel, coldsleep, machine intelligences — draws from ideas and motifs in the work of Gregory Benford, especially his ‘Galactic Centre’ sequence, beginning with In the Ocean of Night and Across the Sea of Suns. My fascination with cyborg spacers (and the baroque trappings of space opera in general) stems from early exposure to Samuel R. Delaney’s seminal Nova.
The Demarchists, the faction that plays a central role in much of the history, is not my invention. Joan D. Vinge wrote about a demarchist society in her enjoyable pacey novel The Outcasts of Heaven Belt. It’s a real political term, derived from democratic anarchy, but I hadn’t encountered it before reading Vinge’s book. Vinge’s demarchists used computer networks to facilitate their real-time democratic processes; mine use neural implants, enabling the decision-making process to become rapid and subliminal.
Nor is one of my other factions, the Conjoiners, an entirely new conception. I suspect I was thinking a little of the Comprise, the human hive-mind culture from Michael Swanwick’s Vacuum Flowers. I tried to get inside the heads of my Conjoiners in the early Clavain stories featured here, and to suggest the inner workings of a realistic hive mind. Most of the Conjoiner characters I’ve sketched in any detail are, like Clavain himself, tainted by some residual connection back to baseline humanity. The Conjoiners are my attempt to portray a hive mind as not necessarily an evil thing.
The Ultras, the cyborg crews who control most of the starships featured in the sequence, are, I suppose, what Star Trek’s Borg would be like if the Borg took an unhealthy interest in Goth subculture. I got the idea of sleek, streamlined starships from Marshall T. Savage’s book The Millennial Project, which is a non-fiction treatise on galactic colonisation. I don’t know whether Savage’s arguments really stack up (I suspect not), but I did like the idea of inverting that classic SF trope of the ‘ship designed only for the forgiving environment of vacuum’. In any case, even if streamlining doesn’t make much sense (even if it would look wicked cool), you’d still want to make your collision cross-section as small as possible, methinks, which suggests that any future starship will tend to be considerably longer than it’s wide. Savage’s wonderful and frightening vision of far-future solar systems transformed into countless sun-englobing asteroid habitats, each of which would be filled with sun-filtering foliage (thereby rendering starlight green), also crops up in ‘Galactic North’ and Absolution Gap. As for ship names, I bow to no one in my admiration of Iain M. Banks. But let the record show that the unwieldy names of my ships were a direct pinch from M. John Harrison’s The Centauri Device, not the Culture.
Okay: I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I stole everything. But debts must be acknowledged, and there are too many to mention here. I cannot omit Paul McAuley and Stephen Baxter, two writers who have both perpetrated future histories of their own, and who both showed great generosity to me when I was starting out. It was their short stories in the British SF magazine Interzone (stories with spaceships in: very much against the grain of what Interzone was generally publishing at the time) that encouraged me to try submitting my own material. But it was David Pringle who actually bought my earliest stories — including ‘Dilation Sleep’ and two of the other stories included here (‘A Spy in Europa’ and ‘Galactic North’) — and it’s to him that I dedicate this book. Without those early sales, I’m not at all sure that I would have persevered in my efforts to become an SF writer, so in that sense I owe David and the rest of the Interzone team for everything that’s followed. Interzone, incidentally, is still going strong: if you like short fiction (and if you don’t, what are you doing reading this?) then you could do worse than take out a subscription.
To finish, all I can say is that if you have enjoyed my stories, and you like the form of the future history, there is a mountain of good stuff out there by other writers. I hope you have as much fun discovering it as I’ve had.
Enjoy your futures.
THE PREFECT
To my Mum and Dad,
for forty years of love and encouragement.
CHAPTER 1
Thalia Ng felt her weight increasing as the elevator sped down the spoke from the habitat’s docking hub. She allowed herself to drift to the floor, trying to judge the point at which the apparent force reached one standard gee. Thalia hoped this was not one of those habitats that insisted on puritanically high gravity, as if it was somehow morally improving to stagger around under two gees. Her belt, with her whiphound and polling-core-analysis tools, already weighed heavily on her hips.
‘Thalia,’ Dreyfus said quietly as the elevator slowed to a halt, ‘try not to look so nervous.’
She tugged down the hem of her tunic. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘You’re going to do fine.’
‘I wish there’d been more time, sir. To read up on House Perigal, I mean.’
‘You were informed of our destination as soon as we left Panoply.’
‘That was only an hour ago, sir.’
He looked at her, his lazy right eye nearly closed. ‘What’s your speed-reading index?’
‘Three, sir. Nothing exceptional.’
Dreyfus took a sip from the bulb of coffee he’d carried with him from the ship. Thalia had conjured it for him: black as tar, the way her boss liked it. ‘I suppose it was quite a long summary file.’
‘More than a thousand paragraphs, sir.’
‘Well, there’s nothing you need to know that wasn’t covered in training.’
‘I hope so. All the same, I couldn’t help noticing…’
‘What?’ Dreyfus asked mildly.
‘Your name’s all over the summary file, sir.’
‘Caitlin Perigal and I’ve had our fair share of run-ins.’ He smiled tightly. ‘As I’m sure she’ll be at pains to remind me.’
‘Count on it,’ said Sparver, the other deputy field on the lockdown party.
Dreyfus laid a thick-fingered hand on Thalia’s shoulder. ‘Just remember you’re here to do one thing — to secure evidence. Sparver and I’ll take care of any other distractions.’
When the elevator doors puckered open, a wave of heat and humidity hit like a hard, wet slap. Steam billowed in the air as far as Thalia could see. They were standing at the entrance to an enormous cavern hewn into the rocky torus of the wheel’s rim. Much of the visible surface consisted of pools of water arranged on subtly different levels, connected by an artful system of sluices and channels. Peopl
e were bathing or swimming, or playing games in the water. Most of them were naked. There were baseline humans and people very far from human. There were sleek, purposeful shapes that might not have been people at all.
Dreyfus pulled a pair of bulbous glasses from his tunic pocket and rubbed the condensation from the dark lenses onto his sleeve. Thalia followed his cue and slipped on her own glasses, taking note of the changes she saw. Many of the apparently naked people were now masked or clothed, or at least partly hidden behind shifting blocks of colour or mirage-like plumage. Some of them had changed size and shape. A few had even become invisible, although the shades provided a blinking outline to indicate their true presence. Luminous branching structures — Thalia couldn’t tell if they were sculptures or some form of data visualisation related to an ongoing mindgame — loomed over the complex of pools.
‘Here comes the welcome,’ Dreyfus said.
Something strode towards them, following a dry path that wound between the bathing pools. A pair of shapely, stockinged female legs rose to support a flat tray arrayed with drinks. High heels clicked as the legs approached, placing one foot before the other with neurotic precision. The fluid in the glasses remained rock steady.
Thalia’s hand moved to her belt.
‘Steady,’ Dreyfus breathed.
The servitor halted before them. ‘Welcome to House Perigal, Prefects,’ it said in a squeaky voice. ‘Would you care for a drink?’
‘Thanks,’ Thalia said, ‘but we should—’
Dreyfus put down the coffee bulb and dithered his hand over the tray. ‘What do you recommend?’
‘The red’s acceptable.’
‘Red it is, then.’ He took a glass and lifted it towards his lips, just close enough to sniff the aroma. Thalia took a glass for herself. Only Sparver abstained: his metabolism couldn’t cope with alcohol.
‘Follow me, please. I’ll take you to the matriarch.’
They followed the legs through the cavern, winding between the pools. If their arrival had gone apparently unnoticed, that luxury had passed. Thalia could feel the back of her neck prickling from the uneasy attention they were now warranting.
They climbed to one of the highest pools, where four ornamental iron fish vomited water from their gaping mouths. Three adults were floating in the water, up to their chests in perfumed froth. Two were men. The third was Caitlin Perigal, her face recognisable from the summary file. Her muscular shoulders and arms tapered to elegant webbed hands with acid-green fingernails. A peacock’s feather adorned her hair. Green nymphs and satyrs buzzed around her head.
‘Prefects,’ she said, with all the warmth of superfluid helium.
‘Matriarch Perigal,’ Dreyfus said, standing with his feet a few centimetres from the edge of the pool. ‘My companions are Deputy Field Prefects Sparver Bancal and Thalia Ng. We’ve met, of course.’
Perigal turned languidly to her two companions. ‘The sleepy-looking fat one is Tom Dreyfus,’ she explained.
One of them — an aristocratic man with long, white hair — examined Dreyfus through clinical grey eyes. His plumage rendered him in impressionist brushstrokes. ‘Your paths have crossed before, Caitlin?’
Perigal stirred, breaking the water with the muscular fluked tail that had been grafted on in place of her legs. Thalia touched the stud on the side of her shades to verify that the tail was real, not a hallucination.
‘Dreyfus’s function in life seems to be finding obscure legal channels through which to harass me,’ Perigal said.
Dreyfus looked unimpressed. ‘I just do my job. It’s not my fault that you keep being a part of it.’
‘And I do, don’t I?’
‘So it seems. Nice tail, by the way. What happened to the legs?’
Perigal nodded at the walking tray. ‘I keep them around as a conversation piece.’
‘Each to their own.’
‘Yes, that’s the general principle.’ Perigal leaned forward in the pool, her voice hardening. ‘Well, pleasantries over with. Make your inspection, do whatever you have to do, then get the hell off my habitat.’
‘I haven’t come to inspect the habitat,’ Dreyfus said.
Thalia tensed despite herself. This was the moment she had been both dreading and quietly anticipating.
‘What, then?’ Perigal asked.
Dreyfus removed a card from his tunic pocket and held it up to his face, squinting slightly. He glanced briefly at Thalia and Sparver before reading, ‘Caitlin Perigal, as matriarch of this habitat, you are hereby charged with a category-five infringement of the democratic process. It is alleged that you tampered with the polling apparatus, to the intended benefit of your house.’
Perigal stuttered something, her cheeks flushing with indignation, but Dreyfus held up a silencing hand and continued with his statement.
‘While the investigative process is in operation, your habitat is to be placed under lockdown. All physical traffic between House Perigal and the rest of the system, including Chasm City, is now suspended. No incoming or outgoing transmissions will be permitted. Any attempts to break these sanctions will be countered with destructive force. This is final and binding.’ Dreyfus paused, then lowered the card. ‘The state of lockdown is now in effect.’
There was an uneasy silence, broken only by the gentle lapping of water against the side of the pool.
‘This is a joke, isn’t it?’ the grey-eyed man said eventually, looking encouragingly at Perigal. ‘Please tell me it’s a joke.’
‘So it’s come to this,’ the matriarch said. ‘I always knew you were dirty, Dreyfus, but I never thought you’d stoop quite this low.’
Dreyfus placed the card beside the pool. ‘This is a summary of the case against you. Looks watertight to me, but then I’m only a lowly field prefect.’ He touched a finger to his chin, as if he’d just remembered an errand. ‘Now I need a small favour.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘Kindly issue a priority interrupt to all your citizens and guests. Tell them that a lockdown is in force, and that they’re about to lose contact with the external universe. Remind them that this state of affairs could last for anything up to one century. Tell them that if they have thoughts or messages to convey to loved ones beyond House Perigal, they have six hundred seconds in which to do so.’
He turned to Thalia and Sparver and lowered his voice, but not so low that Perigal wouldn’t have been able to hear him. ‘You know what to do, Deputies. If anyone obstructs you, or refuses to cooperate, you have clearance to euthanise.’
The rim transit moved quickly, its motion counteracting the centrifugal gravity of the slow-turning wheel. Thalia sat next to Sparver, brooding.
‘It isn’t fair,’ she said.
‘What isn’t?’
‘All those people stuck here by accident, the people who just happened to be visiting.’
‘Sometimes the only workable solution isn’t a fair one.’
‘But cut off from the Glitter Band, from Yellowstone, from friends and family, from abstraction, from their medical programmes… some of them could actually die in here before the lockdown’s over.’
‘Then they should have thought about that before. If you don’t like the idea of being caught in a lockdown, do the homework on your habitat.’
‘That’s a very callous outlook.’
‘They screwed with democracy. I’m not going to lose much sleep when democracy screws them back.’
Thalia felt her weight returning as they neared their destination and the transit slowed. The two prefects disembarked into another cavern, smaller and brighter than the first. This time the floor was an expanse of interlocking black and white tiles, polished to a luxurious gleam. A cylindrical structure rose from a hole in the centre of the floor, wide as a tree trunk, its spired tip almost touching the ceiling. The cylinder’s black surface flickered with schematic representations of data flows: rapidly changing red and blue traceries. A railingless spiral staircase wrapped around the pillar, offer
ing access to the stump-like branches of interface ports.
A man in beige uniform — some kind of technician or functionary, Thalia decided — stood by the base of the trunk, his face a study in suspicion.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ he said.
Sparver answered him. ‘Didn’t Perigal make it clear we were on our way, and that we weren’t to be hindered?’
‘It’s a trick. You’re agents of House Cantarini.’
Sparver looked at him sceptically. ‘Do I look like an agent of House Cantarini?’
‘An agent could look like anyone.’
‘I’m a pig. How likely is it that they’d send an ugly specimen like me when there was an alternative?’
‘I can’t take the risk. You touch this core, I lose my job, my standing, everything.’
‘Step aside, sir,’ Thalia said.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t let you any nearer.’ The man opened his hand to reveal a matt-silver device cuffed to his palm, inset with a red firing stud. ‘There are weapons already trained on you. Please don’t make me use them.’
‘You kill us, Panoply will just send more prefects,’ Sparver said.
Thalia’s skin prickled. She could feel the scrutiny of those hidden weapons, ready to wipe her out of existence at the twitch of the man’s thumb.
‘I won’t kill you if you turn and leave.’
The Revelation Space Collection (revelation space) Page 372