“So what you’re saying is… the whole thing about the deal collapsing was just a ruse, to provide a justification for you hitting back?”
“Exactly so.”
In his head Dreyfus felt the ominous sliding of mental chess pieces moving into a new and threatening configuration.
“Then there must have been another reason why someone wanted to destroy the Ruskin-Sartorious Bubble.”
“Now all you have to do is find out why,” Dravidian answered.
Captain Pell let the missiles streak away, sprinting across the gap to the Accompaniment of Shadows. At twenty gees they reached the wreck in slightly more than a minute and a half. In the last instant before impact, the missiles fanned out and then vectored in again from different angles, so that their bright fusion exhausts formed the talons of a gripping three-clawed hand, closing around Dravidian’s ship with swift predatory eagerness.
The three nuclear explosions blurred together into a single inseparable flash. When the radiation and debris had dissipated, nothing remained of the killing ship, nor of its captain.
Dreyfus turned from the hull window with a cold, hard feeling that he still had work to do.
CHAPTER 7
In the cloistered cool of his private security annexe, Senior Prefect Sheridan Gaffney found himself looking at the face of Aurora. She was coming through on an untraceable channel, their mutual communication disguised as an exchange of routine housekeeping data. He’d been expecting her; he’d composed his thoughts and marshalled a set of likely questions and responses, and yet still she made him feel flustered and ill-prepared, simply by the withering force of her regard. This, he thought, and not for the first time, was how it must feel to be interrogated by a goddess.
“It’s been a while, Sheridan,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he replied, wiping a sleeve across his brow.
“Things have been complicated around here. But everything’s under control.”
“Everything, Sheridan? Then you’re confident that there’ll be no untoward ramifications concerning the Ruskin-Sartorious incident?”
“I don’t think so.”
He was looking at a child-woman, a girl of indeterminate age, sitting on a simple wooden throne. She wore a gold-trimmed brocaded gown of dark green over a brocaded dress of fiery red, patterned again in gold. Her fingers curled around the edges of the armrests, toying with them in a manner that suggested mild restlessness more than actual boredom or impatience. Her auburn hair was parted in the middle and fell to her shoulders in perfect symmetry, framing a face of startling, ravishing serenity. Behind her head, suggesting a halo, was a shining gold motif worked into bas-relief panelling. Her eyes were liquid blue, brimming with puzzled intelligence. He knew he would do anything for those eyes, that face.
“You don’t think so?” she asked.
“Dreyfus is on the case, unfortunately. I could do without him nosing around in the whole business, but there was no way I could get him off the investigation without drawing attention to myself.”
“You’re head of security, Sheridan. Couldn’t you have been more creative?”
“I’ve had my hands full preparing the ground for Thalia Ng. That’s required more than enough creativity, I assure you.”
“Nonetheless, this man—this Dreyfus—is a rogue element. He must be brought under control.”
“Not that easy,” Gaffney said, feeling as if they’d had this discussion a thousand times already.
“He’s Jane Aumonier’s pet field prefect. She’s even given him Pangolin clearance, despite my protestations. If I interfere too much, I’ll have Jane on my back, metaphorically speaking.” He tested Aurora with a smile.
“Right now that would not be a good idea.”
“Jane is a problem,” Aurora said, signally failing to acknowledge his smile.
“We can’t put off dealing with her for ever, either. Once the Thalia situation is stable, I’d like you to direct some energy into removing Aumonier.”
Gaffney dredged up some outrage.
“I hope you’re not asking me to kill her.”
“We’re not murderers,” Aurora said, looking suitably shocked at the suggestion.
“We just took out nine hundred and sixty people. If that’s not murder, it’s a hell of a way to make friends.”
“They were the unavoidable victims of a war that has already begun, Sheridan. I grieve for those people.
If I could have spared one of them, I would have. But we must think of the millions we shall save, not the hundreds we must sacrifice.”
“Not that you’d blink an eyelid at killing Jane, if she got in our way.”
“She doesn’t have to die, Sheridan. She’s a brave woman and a good prefect. But she has principles.
They’re admirable, in their own way, but they’d compel her to obstruct our arrangements. She would commit the error of placing loyalty to Panoply above the greater good of the people.” Gaffney ruminated over the possibilities.
“Aumonier’s been under a lot of pressure lately, that’s for sure.”
“Enough to concern Doctor Demikhov?”
“So I gather.”
“Well, things are certainly not going to get any less stressful for the supreme prefect any time soon. Perhaps you could arrange her removal from power on compassionate grounds?”
“The other seniors won’t go for it if they think I’m after her job.”
“We don’t need you in the hot seat, Sheridan, we just need Jane out of it. The other key players—Crissel, Baudry, Clearmountain… which one would be her natural successor?”
“Baudry has automatic seniority.”
“How will she perform?”
“Baudry’s competent, but she’s detail-focused, not someone with Jane’s strategic overview. There are going to be a lot of balls in the air when we go live. I think Baudry could end up dropping a few.”
“In other words, she’d suit our requirements very well.” Aurora looked pleased with him, or with herself: he wasn’t usually able to tell.
“Start making arrangements, Sheridan.”
“I’m still concerned about Dreyfus. You can bet he’ll fight Jane’s corner. Baudry and the other seniors have a lot of respect for him, so it’ll be difficult to squeeze Jane out while he’s around.”
“Then I see only one possibility, Sheridan. You’d better remove Dreyfus from the picture. He’s a field prefect, correct?”
“Long in the tooth, but still one of the best.”
“It can be dangerous work, being a field prefect.” For a moment she seemed absent, as if the face had pulled away from the mask. Gaffney drummed his fingers against the pedestal of his chair until she returned, feeling like a little schoolboy left alone in a big office.
“Perhaps I can help,” she continued.
“I’ll need to know his movements when he’s outside Panoply. I presume you can feed them to me?”
“It’ll be risky, but—”
“You’ll do your best. See to it, Sheridan,” she urged.
“And don’t worry. I know that you are a good man and that deception does not come easily to you. Your natural instincts are to duty and loyalty, to the service of the people. I’ve known that since Hell-Five. You stared into the moral abyss of that horror, saw what freedom can lead to when freedom is unchecked, and you said no more. You knew that something must be done, even if it meant good men doing unpleasant things.”
“I know. It’s just that occasionally I have doubts.”
“Purge them. Purge them utterly. Have I not vouchsafed unto you the consequences of our inaction, Sheridan? Have I not shown you glimpses of the world to come, if we do not act now?”
She had, too, and he knew that everything boiled down to a choice between two contending futures. One was a Glitter Band under the kindly rule of a benevolent tyrant, where the lives of the hundred million citizens continued essentially as they did now, albeit with some minor restrictions on civil liberty. The other was a Glitter Band in ruins, its population decimated, its fallen glories stalked by ghosts, revenants and monsters, some of which had once been people.