“Tell them to take care,” Dreyfus said.
Baudry said, “I already did. Now I’ll tell them to take even more.”
“The scope of this crisis is now greater than the four lost habitats,” Dreyfus said, directing his words back at Aumonier.
“I’ll run the Orrery immediately, but in the meantime I think we should consider an appropriate statement. We’ve buffered the citizenry so far, but now it may be time to start alerting the wider Glitter Band to the real nature of the crisis.”
Aumonier swallowed hard.
“I don’t want mass panic. What should we tell them?”
Dreyfus looked pragmatic.
“Frankly, mass panic may be the least of our worries.”
“Even so… we still don’t know what we’re dealing with, what Aurora wants, what she’s doing with those habitats when she gains control of them.”
“Tell them something’s trying to take over,” Dreyfus said.
“Tell them that it has nothing to do with the Ultras, and that we’ll phase in mass euthanisation if we even suspect that someone’s trying to settle an old score with the Swarm. Tell them that Panoply is declaring a Bandwide state of emergency, and that this time we really need a vote in favour of utilizing heavy weapons.”
“We don’t have it already?” Aumonier asked.
“I dropped the ball,” Baudry said.
“I went to the polls, stressed that we had a crisis on our hands, but didn’t spell out the true severity of the situation. I didn’t lie, but I let them think I was just talking about the crisis with the Ultras.”
“Because you didn’t want panic?”
“Exactly so,” she said.
“Then you probably did exactly what I’d have done.” Aumonier held Lillian Baudry’s gaze for a long moment, signalling to her that, whatever the other woman had done, her professional conduct in Aumonier’s absence was not in doubt. She needed allies around her now, people who knew they had her confidence and trust.
“But Tom’s right,” she added.
“We need that vote. As a matter of fact, I’ll table a request for every emergency privilege in the book. Up to and including mass lockdowns and the curtailing of Bandwide abstraction and polling services.”
“We haven’t had to do that in—” Baudry began.
Aumonier nodded.
“I know. Eleven years. And doesn’t it feel like yesterday?”
CHAPTER 22
Dreyfus had asked to be alerted the instant Sheridan Gaffney regained consciousness. Mercier—who was now handling the patient following the fraught operation that had been mainly supervised by Demikhov—was predictably reluctant to let Dreyfus anywhere near the recuperating senior prefect.
“If you had any idea of the severity of the procedure he’s just gone through, the extent of the internal damage caused by the whiphound,” Mercier said, waving his hands graphically, his treasured fountain pen clutched like a dagger as he guarded the entrance to the medical centre.
Dreyfus looked at the doctor obligingly. He’d always had a good relationship with Mercier and was reluctant to jeopardise it now.
“I understand your concerns. They’re admirable. All I need to know is, can he talk?”
“He’s suffered severe laceration of the trachea. He has a damaged larynx. About all he can manage right now is a croak, and even that causes him great pain. Please, Tom. No matter what this man did, but he’s still a patient.”
“If we could wait, we would,” Dreyfus said, “but right now we’re in a situation where even an hour is too long. Gaffney has information vital to the security of the Glitter Band. I need to speak to him immediately.”
Mercier wilted, clearly aware that this was not a battle he could hope to win.
“You can force this through, can’t you?”
“I have Jane’s authority. Baudry’s, too, as if Jane’s isn’t enough. Please, Doctor. Minutes are ticking by while you and I debate the health of a man who was quite happy to murder another of your patients.”
Mercier looked disappointed.
“You think I didn’t put two and two together, Tom? I’m not that stupid. I guessed exactly what Gaffney did. But he’s still a sick man, no matter what he did to Clepsydra.”
Dreyfus placed a hand on Mercier’s green-sleeved forearm.
“I need to do this. Please don’t make it any harder.”
Mercier stepped aside.
“Do whatever you have to do. Then get out of my clinic, Tom. The next time you come here, you’d better be the one seeking medical help.”
Dreyfus stepped through into the recovery room. It was a spartan cube lit only by thin blue strips set into the upper walls. Gaffney was in a bed at one end of the cube, attended by a single medical servitor with a swooping white swan’s neck. The transparent passwall sealed itself behind Dreyfus, subtly changing the acoustics of the room. He walked to the bedside, then conjured his usual chair out of the floor. Gaffney’s face was an impassive mask, almost deathlike, but his eyes betrayed alertness. They tracked Dreyfus with reptilian intensity.
“No flowers?” Gaffney said, scratching the words out.
“That’s a surprise.”
“You’re more talkative than Mercier led me to expect.”
“What’s the use in not being talkative? You’re going to make me speak one way or another.” The words emerged dry as charcoal, each one forced out separately. Something horrible rattled down in his lungs.
Dreyfus tucked his hands together in his lap.
“We have a situation, Sheridan. I thought you might be able to shed some more light on it.”
“I told you everything I know.”
“We have a handle on Aurora now, but there’s still a lot more we’d like to know.” He checked his bracelet.
“Thirty minutes ago, House Aubusson and Szlumper Oneill began releasing clouds of manufactured entities into Glitter Band space. We’re still not sure what those entities are yet, but at least now we have some idea of where they’re headed. They’re not expanding in all directions. They’re moving in two directed flows, like wasps following a scent trail. In less than two hours, those flows will come into contact with two other habitats with combined populations exceeding six hundred and fifty thousand citizens. Do you want to speculate about what might happen when those flows touch the habitats?”
Gaffney’s expression hadn’t changed since Dreyfus had entered the room. His mask of a face was still fixated on the ceiling.
“If you’re so worried, why don’t you move the habitats?”
“You know we can’t change the orbit of a fifty-million-tonne structure just by clicking our fingers. We can’t stop the arrival of the flow of entities either: the individual elements might be vulnerable, but there are just too many of them. The best we can do is alert those habitats, get them to prepare their defences and initiate whatever kind of evacuation programme they have in place. We’ve already done that, of course, but given the time available, we’ll be lucky to offload more than ten thousand citizens by the time the flows hit.” Dreyfus leaned closer to the bedside.
“That’s why I’d really like to know what’s going to happen, Sheridan.”
“Then you’re shit out of luck, Tommy-boy.”
“I’m disappointed, Sheridan. You know better than any of us that there’s no sense in withholding information. We’ll get it out of you eventually, by hook or by crook. I have the authorisation to run a deep-cortex trawl, for one. Or I could go with one of those Model Cs so dear to your heart. See how you like a dose of enhanced subject compliance.”
“In my condition, how long do you think I’d last?”
“That’s a fair point,” Dreyfus conceded.
“So perhaps the trawl would be a safer bet. What would you go for, just out of interest?”
“I’m old-fashioned. Never could get on with trawls.”
Dreyfus nodded.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I run a whiphound on you, you die before you spill your guts, end of story.”
“I could think of worse outcomes.”
Dreyfus unlaced his hands and tapped a finger against the side of his brow.