The Thousand Emperors

by Gary Gibson

  ‘Ambassador,’ said Luc with a slight bow. ‘Councillor de Almeida said you might be able to help in the investigation into Sevgeny Vasili’s death.’

  The Ambassador dipped his head slightly in acknowledgement. ‘Mr Gabion. We are familiar with your recent exploits at Aeschere. We’re more than happy to provide whatever assistance we can.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ said Luc, ‘but why meet here?’

  ‘It’s peaceful,’ the Ambassador replied. ‘And it feels like home, given that many of our lives back in the Coalition are spent far from planetary surfaces. We . . . must confess to some confusion over Miss de Almeida’s request. We were under the impression the investigation into Councillor Vasili’s murder had recently been closed?’

  We? ‘Yes, but we’re far from clear on how the killer managed to circumvent security and reach Vanaheim,’ said Luc, thinking again of the ease with which de Almeida had just done precisely that to bring him here. ‘Naturally, we want to reduce the chances of something like this happening ever again.’

  The Ambassador nodded. ‘We can understand why the Council would want to carry out a review of its own security measures, but don’t see how we could possibly be of any help. Surely it’s an internal matter for the Council?’

  ‘Miss de Almeida wants to carry out interviews with anyone who met with or spoke with Vasili in the last few days before he died. You did say you were willing to help?’

  For a second he thought the Ambassador might object. Even with the mask hiding his face, Luc could clearly sense his reluctance.

  ‘Very well, then,’ said the Ambassador, with a touch of weariness. ‘We wouldn’t want to be seen as uncooperative.’

  ‘If I may ask, Ambassador Sachs – why do you wear that mask?’

  The Ambassador let out an audible sigh. ‘Must we really go over this again?’

  Luc hesitated, guessing he’d be far from the first person to have asked that very question. ‘Consider it a necessary formality, Ambassador, with my apologies.’

  ‘Very well, then.’ Sachs replied, with the tone of one repeating a familiar litany. ‘In the Coalition, we believe faces born of nature have little reflection on an individual’s true spirit. We don’t place limits on ourselves in the way that your own civilization does, and we prefer to be judged by what we do, rather than how we appear. Besides, there are those amongst us who engage in forms of mind and body modification that some within the Tian Di might find . . . intimidating.’

  ‘So do you keep the mask on to avoid frightening people?’

  The Ambassador hesitated a moment. ‘To avoid confusing them would be the more accurate statement. Is this relevant to your investigation?’

  No, but it’s relevant to me. ‘You met with Vasili just shortly before he died?’

  ‘That is a matter of record.’

  ‘Where were you at the time he died?’

  ‘At a function, held in my honour, and attended by Councillors who had participated in the preparations for Reunification. Vasili’s absence, it should be said, was noted by all present.’

  ‘And when you last spoke with Vasili, what did you talk about?’

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. We had regular meetings to go over whatever details or issues might come about on the run-up to Reunification. He seemed alert but tired that last time.’

  ‘He didn’t seem anxious, or worried about anything?’

  ‘If he had,’ the Ambassador replied, ‘we would have been sure to mention it upon hearing of his death.’

  Luc could see he wasn’t getting anywhere. ‘Vasili was central to Reunification, but would you agree that the Temur Council is far from unified in their support for it?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ the Ambassador replied, with just a hint of evasiveness.

  ‘The fact is,’ Luc continued, ‘Reunification remains a deeply contentious issue, even now. You’ve spent a lot of time dealing with members of the Council yourself, so you must have some idea who might have the necessary motivation to want to kill the one man seen as the architect of that entire process.’

  ‘We are far from being experts regarding divisions within the Council,’ the Ambassador replied. ‘And besides, there are limits to what we can discuss with a non-Council member.’

  ‘I speak for Zelia de Almeida. You can assume that when you’re speaking to me, you’re also speaking to her.’

  ‘Mr Gabion, we were at Vasili’s funeral service – and saw you there, as a virtual presence. You had conspired to hide yourself from the eyes of everyone else present, but not from us. You heard Councillor Borges as well as we did: he openly accused her of orchestrating Councillor Vasili’s murder. Are you sure it’s not her your questions should be directed at?’

  Luc couldn’t hide his shock. ‘You saw me there?’

  ‘Indeed we did. It’s also our understanding,’ the Ambassador continued, ‘that Borges is not alone in believing your employer is guilty of perpetrating a murder.’

  ‘That’s still to be proven,’ Luc countered, wondering how he had so quickly gone from interrogator to the interrogated.

  ‘Then doesn’t it seem strange that the person regarded as a primary suspect would herself carry out an investigation into Vasili’s death?’

  ‘You knew this when she asked you to meet me here.’ He realized he was fast losing control of the situation. ‘Why did you agree to this meeting, if you had nothing to say on the matter?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said the Ambassador. ‘We agreed to this meeting because we wanted to meet you.’

  Luc’s own astonished face stared back at him from the Ambassador’s mask.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Perhaps, Mr Gabion, you have something to hide. When we saw you there at Vasili’s service, we knew immediately that you possessed a lattice unlike any other in the worlds of the Tian Di except, perhaps, our own.’

  Luc felt as if time had slowed to a standstill. The sound of his own heart beating seemed to fill the arboretum, like a pulse reverberating through the dense moist air.

  ‘At first,’ the Ambassador continued, ‘we thought it was Winchell Antonov himself standing there, but when we looked more closely we saw that we were mistaken – at least in part. We later made cautious enquiries and discovered your identity, as well as your involvement in Antonov’s downfall.’

  Luc’s hands had started to tremble at his sides. ‘What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense,’ he said. ‘Antonov is dead.’

  ‘Is he?’ asked the Ambassador. ‘And has he communicated with you since he “died”?’

  Luc didn’t answer, and the Ambassador inclined his head. ‘We know that within the Tian Di only members of the Council and Sandoz Clans are permitted the use of instantiation lattices. Your lattice is therefore illegal. We saw Antonov’s shade within you when you entered this station,’ he continued, ‘and I can see that your lattice is new, but growing wildly out of control. Please don’t deny this is the truth.’

  ‘At the most there’s a – a ghost, an artefact, some remnant of Antonov’s conscious mind inside of me,’ Luc stammered. ‘That, and some random memories.’

  ‘We cannot help but wonder how you came to possess the memories of the man you were sent to capture.’

  Luc fought the urge to reach out and rip the Ambassador’s mask away, but things had already gone badly wrong enough without compounding them with further errors.

  ‘If we’re going to be frank with each other,’ said Luc, ‘I know you met with Winchell Antonov. That’s a dangerous association to have, for a representative of what’s still technically an enemy civilization.’

  ‘How do you know we met with him?’

  ‘You said it yourself, Ambassador Sachs. I have some of Antonov’s memories, even if they are fragmentary. He seemed to be angry with you for some reason.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him about it yourself, Mr Gabion? It appears the two of you are on far more intimate terms than he and I ever were. Otherwise, the details
of that encounter must remain private.’ The Ambassador made to turn away, then hesitated. ‘Tell Zelia I’m sorry we couldn’t help more, but there’s nothing useful we could possibly tell her regarding Vasili.’

  It appeared their interview was over. Luc watched as the Ambassador turned and stepped along a path leading deeper amongst the moist-leaved ferns crowding the dome; and then he remembered Antonov’s words, spoken in a dream: With the Ambassador’s help, we will both be reborn, and a terrible calamity prevented.

  ‘Antonov told me you could help me!’ Luc yelled after him. ‘He said you could prevent a calamity, but I don’t know what he meant.’

  The Ambassador came to a halt but did not turn around. ‘He said that?’

  ‘Yes. No, not exactly. It was . . .’ Luc swallowed. ‘It was in a dream.’

  He half expected the Ambassador to laugh.

  Instead, the masked figure turned to face him once more. ‘In the Coalition, the distinction between dreams and waking are as fluid and meaningless as that which separates life and death. We make equally little distinction between that which you would not regard as objectively real, and what you would consider tangible and solid. The difference, from our perspective, is sufficiently negligible to be meaningless. Like yourself, each one of us speaks with the dead as a matter of course. In fact, the dead could be said to constitute the majority of the Coalition’s population.’

  ‘And the calamity? What did he mean by that?’

  ‘Something that is not of your concern,’ the Ambassador replied. ‘The knowledge would place you in a considerably greater degree of danger than we suspect you are already in.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Luc grated, ‘or I go to the Council and tell them everything I know, including that you met with Antonov.’

  ‘And if you do,’ the Ambassador pointed out, ‘they will surely pick your brain apart, neurone by neurone, once they discover that you have a lattice.’

  ‘I’m prepared to take that chance.’

  The Ambassador paused for a moment, then said: ‘We simply don’t believe you, Mr Gabion. You would not, we think, make a good poker player.’

  Luc stepped towards him. ‘Please, wait. De Almeida – Zelia – told me the lattice in my head is killing me.’ He stopped, putting one hand against the mossy branch of a tree reaching over the path. ‘I keep seeing and hearing things, and sometimes I don’t know which are real and which aren’t.’

  ‘Then tell me how you came to acquire the lattice.’

  ‘On Aeschere,’ Luc replied miserably. ‘Antonov put it inside me while I was out cold.’

  ‘Who else knows of this?’

  He couldn’t see the use of keeping anything more back. ‘Only Zelia,’ he replied. ‘She’s the one who detected it inside me. She told me I can’t be backed-up from it before it kills me. Antonov seemed sure you would help me.’

  ‘Is this why Zelia sent you here? To ask for our help?’

  ‘No. This is . . . just me.’

  ‘Yours is a single life,’ said the Ambassador, ‘measured against countless billions here in the Tian Di and also in the Coalition. As much as you have our sympathy, you must understand that we have greater concerns at the moment. But Antonov would not have done what he did to you without a reason, and whichever of his memories are surfacing in your mind were clearly of importance to him. He’s trying to tell you something, and we suspect you’re not doing a very good job of listening. Ask yourself, why would he plant a partial copy of himself inside the mind of one of his most dedicated enemies, unless it was for some overwhelming purpose?’

  ‘I know it has something to do with Vasili,’ said Luc.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I have reason to believe Antonov may have met with him some time not long before his death. He knew who his killer was. Who it was, I don’t know, except I’m certain it wasn’t Antonov, and I can’t believe it was de Almeida, either.’ He stared into his own reflection, seeing the haunted look in his eyes. ‘But it has to have something to do with Reunification, and I think you know what it is.’

  ‘We truly wish we could help you,’ said the Ambassador with what sounded like genuine regret, ‘but there are things taking place which you can scarcely comprehend. We suggest, however, that you listen more closely to whatever Antonov is trying to tell you. It may be that he is trying to give you the answers you seek.’ The Ambassador paused. ‘May we offer a final word of advice?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Luc, feeling defeated.

  ‘Zelia de Almeida may value you more for what you carry inside your head than for your investigative skills. You should be careful.’

  The Ambassador turned once more and began to walk away, passing beneath the shade of a banyan tree’s broad plate-like leaves. When Luc made to follow, a mechant of a type he’d never seen before dropped from out of the greenery overhead, blocking his way.

  ‘Careful of what?’ he yelled after the retreating figure. ‘Give me a straight answer, damn you!’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Gabion,’ said the Ambassador, before disappearing into the undergrowth. ‘We hope you find your answers before it’s too late.’

  ‘I have discovered inconsistencies,’ said de Almeida, ‘in the Ambassador’s alibi.’

  Mechants moved here and there around her laboratory, specialized models studded with multiple limbs that hovered around Luc’s supine form as she gave them barely vocalized orders. The slab he lay on had been adjusted until he was staring straight up at the ceiling. Images of the interior of his skull rippled whenever de Almeida or one of the mechants passed through them, meat and blood furiously splintering before miraculously reforming into dizzyingly complex three-dimensional structures.

  ‘He told me himself he was at a meeting when Vasili died,’ Luc replied. He had decided to exercise caution and not tell her everything the Ambassador had said to him.

  De Almeida nodded. ‘A gathering of members of a coordination committee, tasked with hammering out the details of various trade agreements. Oh, he was there all right – but only in virtual form.’

  Luc felt his eyes widen, and turned to regard her. ‘He was only there as a data-ghost? He never mentioned that.’

  ‘No, he certainly didn’t,’ she agreed. ‘That means we need to find out where he really was at the time.’

  He sat up, mechants bobbing away from him. ‘What about your security systems? Can’t they tell you?’

  She spread a roll of gleaming silver instruments out on a wheeled table next to the slab and selected one, studying it beneath the overhead light. ‘Unfortunately, no, they can’t. My systems appear to have suffered a curiously well-timed and convenient glitch that I failed to notice until I happened to make specific enquiries regarding the Ambassador.’

  ‘Something like the glitch in Vasili’s home security when he died?’

  ‘A thought that had indeed crossed my mind, Mr Gabion.’

  She adjusted the stool on which she sat, then leaned in towards him. He saw the curve of her neck just centimetres from his nose, the flesh silky and smooth. She pressed fingertips against his skull, and he noticed she was wearing a scent that made him think of flowers.

  She murmured something he didn’t catch, and a mechant drifted closer, its multi-tipped blades hovering uncomfortably close to the skin of his neck.

  Luc swallowed sour phlegm. ‘Is all this really necessary?’

  ‘If you want a shot at retaining your core personality, yes,’ she replied, sounding distracted. ‘Now stop talking while I get on with this. Ah!’ she exclaimed a moment later, ‘this is interesting.’

  Luc felt a pressure against the side of his skull, followed by the sensation of something warm and liquid running down the back of his head. His hands held tightly onto the sides of the slab, muscles locked rigid.

  Something whined mechanically and he felt a similar pressure on the other side of his head. Moments later a barbiturate calm flooded his senses and he relaxed.

  ‘Your lattice barely re
sponded to the inhibitors I put in place,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It circumvented every countermeasure, and its growth is barely retarded. I’d almost think . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll just have to try something a little different this time. Try and stay still for now.’

  Like I’m going to get up and run around.

  ‘You need to put the Ambassador under surveillance,’ he said, as de Almeida moved out of direct view. He was finding himself becoming uncomfortably aroused by the smell of her skin, and the visible curve of her breasts beneath the thin tunic she wore.

  De Almeida stepped back into view and made a sour face as she tapped at a lit panel on the side of one of the mechants hovering over him. ‘That won’t be easy,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t do it?’

  ‘Of course I can do it,’ she snapped. ‘But I have to be careful to avoid detection. Let’s see . . .’ she glanced over at one of the hovering projections of the interior of Luc’s head. ‘You’re not sleeping well, are you?’

  ‘Not for some time, no,’ he admitted.

  She nodded. ‘Your brain is struggling to assimilate information coming from two different sources: your own mind, and Antonov’s instantiation. I can try and retard the rate of growth again, but unless I can figure out some new strategy . . .’

  Luc shuddered inwardly. ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘Impossible to say. Remember, this was fast, sloppy work – Antonov was improvising when he did this.’

  ‘So it’s not like I’m carrying the whole of his thoughts and memories inside me. He can’t . . . take me over, or anything like that?’ He had to force the words out.

  She laughed. ‘Hardly. You can’t just dump a copy of someone’s mind into a living, breathing human body with pre-existing cognitive structures.’