‘No, and as time goes by his chances of ever finding out get smaller and smaller. Beyond Calvin’s Ultra allies, almost no one knew, and Calvin set up incentives to keep those that did quiet. There were a few unavoidable weak links — Calvin had no choice but to recruit one of Yellowstone’s top geneticists — and Sylveste picked the same man for the Resurgam expedition, not realising the intimate connection they shared. But I doubt that he’s learnt the truth since, or even come close to guessing it.’
‘But every time he looks in a mirror…’
‘He sees himself, not Calvin.’ Volyova smiled, evidently enjoying the way their revelation was upsetting some of Khouri’s basic certainties. ‘He was a clone, but that didn’t mean he had to resemble Cal down to the last skin pore. The geneticist — Janequin — knew how to induce cosmetic differences between Cal and Dan’s makeup, enough so that people would see only the expected familial traits. Obviously, he also incorporated traits from the woman who was supposed to be Dan’s mother, Rosalyn Soutaine.’
‘The rest was simple,’ Sajaki said. ‘Cal raised his clone in an environment carefully structured to emulate the surroundings he had known as a boy — even down to the same stimuli at certain periods in the boy’s development, because Cal couldn’t be sure which of his own personality traits were due to nature or nurture.’
‘All right,’ Khouri said. ‘Accepting for the moment that all of this is true — what was the point? Cal must have known Dan wouldn’t follow the same developmental path, no matter how closely he manipulated the boy’s life. What about all those decisions that take place in the womb?’ Khouri shook her head. ‘It’s insane. At the very best, all he’d end up with would be a crude approximation to himself.’
‘I think,’ Sajaki said, ‘that that was all that Cal hoped for. Cal cloned himself as a precaution. He knew the scanning process that he and the other members of the Eighty would have to endure would destroy his material body, so he wanted a body to which he could return if life in the machine turned out not to be to his liking.’
‘And did it?’
‘Maybe, but that was beside the point. At the time of the Eighty, the retransfer operation was still beyond the technology of the day. There was no real hurry: Cal could always have the clone put in reefersleep until he needed it, or simply reclone another one from the boy’s cells. He was thinking well ahead.’
‘Assuming the retransfer ever became possible.’
‘Well, Calvin knew it was a long shot. The important thing was that there was a second fall-back option apart from retransfer.’
‘Which was?’
‘The beta-level simulation.’ Sajaki’s voice had become as slow, cold and icy as the breezes in the Captain’s chamber. ‘Although not formally capable of consciousness, it was still an incredibly detailed facsimile of Calvin. Its relative simplicity meant it would be easier to encode its rules into the wetware of Dan’s mind. Much easier than imprinting something as volatile as the alpha.’
‘I know the primary recording — the alpha — disappeared,’ she said. ‘There was no Calvin left to run the show. And I guess Dan began to act a little more independently than Calvin might have wished.’
‘To put it mildly,’ Sajaki said, nodding. ‘The Eighty marked the beginning of the decline of the Sylveste Institute. Dan soon escaped its shackles, more interested in the Shrouder enigma than cybernetic immortality. He kept possession of the beta-level sim, though he never realised its exact significance. He thought of it more as an heirloom than anything else.’ The Triumvir smiled. ‘I think he would have destroyed it had he realised what it represented, which was his own annihilation.’
Understandable, Khouri thought. The beta-level simulation was like a trapped demon waiting to inhabit a new host body. Not properly conscious, but still dangerously potent, by virtue of the subtle ingenuity with which it mimicked true intelligence.
‘Cal’s precautionary measure was still useful to us,’ Sajaki said. ‘There was enough of Cal’s expertise encoded in the beta to mend the Captain. All we had to do was persuade Dan to let Calvin temporarily inhabit his mind and body.’
‘Dan must have suspected something when it worked so easily.’
‘It was never easy,’ Sajaki admonished. ‘Far from it. The periods when Cal took over were more akin to some kind of violent possession. Motor control was a problem: in order to suppress Dan’s own personality, we had to give him a cocktail of neuro-inhibitors. Which meant that when Cal finally got through, the body he found himself in was already half-paralysed by our drugs. It was like a brilliant surgeon performing an operation by giving orders to a drunk. And — by all accounts — it wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences for Dan. Quite painful, he said.’
‘But it worked.’
‘Just. But that was a century ago, and now it’s time for another visit to the doctor.’
‘Your vials,’ said the Ordinator.
One of the wimpled aides from Pascale’s party stepped forward, brandishing a vial identical in size and shape to the one which Sylveste removed from his pocket. They were not the same colour: the fluid in Pascale’s vial had been tinted red, against the yellow hue of Sylveste’s. Similar darkish fronds of material orbited within. The Ordinator took both vials and held them aloft for a few moments before placing them side by side on the table, in clear view of the audience.
‘We are ready to begin the marriage,’ she said. She then performed the customary duty of asking if there were anyone present who had any bioethical reasons as to why the marriage should not take place.
There was, of course, no objection.
But in that odd, loaded moment of branching possibilities, Sylveste noted a veiled woman in the audience reach into a purse and uncap a dainty, jewel-topped amber perfume jar.
‘Daniel Sylveste,’ said the Ordinator. ‘Do you take this woman to be your wife, under Resurgam law, until such time as this marriage is annulled under this or any prevailing legal system?’
‘I do,’ Sylveste said.
She repeated the question to Pascale.
‘I do,’ Pascale said.
‘Then let the bonding be done.’
Ordinator Massinger took the wedding gun from the mahogany box and snapped it open. She loaded the reddish vial — the one Pascale’s party had delivered — into the breech, then reclosed the instrument. Status entoptics briefly haloed it. Girardieau placed his hand on Sylveste’s upper arm, steadying him as the Ordinator pressed the conic end of the instrument against his temple, just above his eye-level. Sylveste had been right when he told Girardieau that the ceremony was not painful, but neither was it entirely pleasant. What it was was a sudden flowering of intense cold, as if liquid helium were being blasted into his cortex. The discomfort was brief, however, and the thumb-sized bruise on his skin would not last more than a few days. The brain’s immune system was weak by comparison with the body as a whole, and Pascale’s cells — floating as they did in a stew of helper medichines — would soon bond with Sylveste’s own. The volume was tiny — no more than a tenth of one per cent of the brain’s mass — but the transplanted cells carried the indelible impression of their last host: ghost threads of holographically distributed memory and personality.
The Ordinator removed the spent red vial and slotted the yellow one in its place. It was Pascale’s first wedding under the Stoner custom, and her trepidation was not well disguised. Girardieau held her hands as the Ordinator delivered the neural material, Pascale visibly flinching as it happened.
Sylveste had let Girardieau think the implant was permanent, but this was never the case. The neural tissue was tagged with harmless radioisotope trace elements, enabling it to be routed out and destroyed, if necessary, by divorce viruses. So far, Sylveste had never taken that option, and imagined he never would, no matter how many marriages down the line he was. He carried the smoky essences of all his wives — as they carried him — as he would carry Pascale. Indeed, on the faintest level, Pascale herself now carried traces of his previous wives.