“That’s correct. And I will resign, too, if you wish it.” Aumonier let the other woman wait, until the silence had become as electrically potent as the air before a thunderstorm.
“I don’t approve of what you did, Lillian. Gaffney may have played a part in the decision to remove me from power, but you should still have resisted him. It’s to your discredit that you failed to do so.”
“I’m sorry,” Baudry mouthed.
“You should be. Crissel as well, were he still with us.”
“We thought we were doing the right thing.”
“And the fact that I expressly requested to be allowed to stay in power—that didn’t mean anything to you?”
“Gaffney said we should ignore your pleas, that secretly you would be craving permission to step down.” A little defiance returned to Baudry now.
“We were doing our best. I’ve told you already that I’m ashamed of what happened. But at the time I did not have the luxury of hindsight, of knowing what we now do about Sheridan.”
“Enough,” Aumonier said, raising a calming hand. She thought about all the testing years that Lillian Baudry, a good, loyal senior prefect, had spent in her shadow. Never once being able to demonstrate true effectiveness, true leadership, never once having the temerity to question or undermine a single one of Aumonier’s decisions.
“What’s done is done. At least now we both know where we stand. Don’t we?”
“I have apologised. I am ready and waiting for either a resignation order or new commands.”
“Both of you might want to take a look at that feed,” Dreyfus said.
“Before you make any rash decisions, that is.”
“What feed?” Baudry asked.
“He means the long-range surveillance of House Aubusson, I think,” Aumonier said.
“Something’s happening there, isn’t it?”
Dreyfus nodded.
“It started while we were speaking.”
“We’ve been monitoring the thermal output from the four habitats for a number of hours,” Baudry said, shifting effortlessly back into the detached tones of neutral professionalism.
“Two of them, Aubusson and Szlumper Oneill, show evidence of activity in their manufactories. It’s as if the assembler plants have been cranked back up to full operating strength since Aurora’s takeover. So far, we’ve only been able to speculate as to what that means. What we do know is that Crissel’s ship was hit by more weapons than we can account for based on the Aubusson blueprints filed with Panoply. One theory, therefore, is that the factories are producing new defence systems, to further consolidate Aurora’s hold on the habitats.”
“How long would it take to create and install new weapons if those manufactories were running at standard capacity?” Aumonier asked.
“Allowing for ready provision of raw materials and blueprints, no more than six to eight hours,” Baudry answered.
“It’s entirely feasible, given the timescales we’re looking at.”
“But now it looks as if they’re not just making weapons,” Dreyfus said.
The image of House Aubusson was a three-quarters view captured at long-range by a surveillance cam well outside the attack volume of the habitat’s anti-collision weapons. It showed the factory end of the cylinder, not the docking hub where Crissel had presumably met his demise. Vast petal-like structures, curved doors many kilometres long, were opening in the domed endcap, revealing through a star-shaped aperture the blue-gold luminance of intense, frenzied industry.
“Those doors… are they part of the habitat’s original design?” Aumonier asked.
Baudry nodded.
“Back when the habitat had the capacity and the client base to grow entire ships, they needed those doors to launch them into space. But our records say they haven’t opened in over a century.”
“Then why are they opening now?”
“That’s why,” Dreyfus said.
Something was spilling through the gaps between the fingerlike doors, billowing out in a gauzy black mass, like an eruption of wasps. It was a cloud composed of thousands of individual elements.
Simultaneously, Dreyfus and Baudry’s bracelets started chiming.
“Someone else has noticed,” Baudry said.
“What are we looking at?” asked Aumonier, a queasy feeling in her stomach. Up to this point, her crisis parameters had consisted of a hostage scenario in which Panoply might lose control of four habitats. Four was inexcusable, the worst disaster in eleven years, but it was still negligible compared to the mind-numbing immensity of the ten thousand. Containable, she thought. And yet that emerging black cloud said otherwise. She did not yet know what it was, but she knew with piercing certainty that it was not good news, and that the crisis she had imagined Panoply to be facing was as nothing compared to the one that was now blossoming.
“We need to know what that… froth is,” she said, fighting to keep her voice from faltering.
“We need numbers and tech assessments. We need to know what it’s for and where it’s headed.”
“Doors are opening in Szlumper Oneill,” Baudry said, reading a text summary on her bracelet. As she spoke, a window enlarged itself, squeezing others aside as it filled with a long-range view of the other habitat. A black cloud was boiling out of elongated slots near one of the polar docking complexes, smothering detail as it expanded.
“I think it’s the same stuff,” Aumonier said.
“Has to be,” Dreyfus said.
“Question is, what about the other two habitats?”
“No excess thermal activity in either Carousel New Seattle-Tacoma or the Chevelure-Sambuke Hourglass,” Baudry said.
“But according to our data, neither of those habitats has any kind of manufacturing capacity.”
Dreyfus scratched at the back of his collar.
“Thalia’s upgrade may have been contaminated, but I’m pretty sure she chose those four habitats herself, based on her own selection criteria.”
“Meaning what?” Aumonier asked.
“Meaning Aurora may not have had any influence over which habitats she got control of. Given four, the chances were good that at least one of them was going to have some kind of manufacturing capability. But it wasn’t guaranteed. Looks like two of the four were duds, in any case. She’s captured them, but right now she can’t make them work for her.”
“I’m not taking my eye off any of these habitats.”
“I agree. But it shows us that Aurora isn’t pulling all the strings here. She had to work with the hand Thalia dealt her.” Dreyfus flashed a bleak smile.
“I won’t say it gladdens my heart, but—”
“Problem is we may already have done the work she needs.”
“I’m hoping that isn’t the case.” But Dreyfus still nodded, letting Aumonier know that he shared her fears.
“You’re right, though. We need a closer look at whatever those factories are spewing out. How fast would you say that stuff is emerging?”
“I don’t know. Judging by the scale… hundreds of metres a second, maybe faster.”
“I concur,” Baudry said.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Dreyfus said.
“Pretty damned fast, anyway. I’ll need to look at the Solid Orrery, but given the mean spacing between habitats, it isn’t going to take very long before the swarm reaches another one. Let’s assume the closest neighbour to Aubusson is sixty or seventy kilometres away, in the same orbit. Even if that stuff is only moving at ten metres a second, we’re not looking at much more than two hours. Of course, I hope I’m wrong.”
“You’re hardly ever wrong,” Aumonier said.
“That’s what worries me.”
Dreyfus glanced at Baudry.
“We need to task ships for a close fly-by of one of those clouds. Automated, if possible, but manned if that’s all we can manage in the time available.”
“I’ll get on it. We have a deep-system cruiser—the Democratic Circus—inbound from the Parking Swarm. I’ve already asked Captain Pell to swing by Aubusson, to see if he can image the remains of the Universal Suffrage, sweep for survivors and get a better look at those weapons emplacements.”