There was a reptilian quality to Cripps’ gaze, something in the way the skin wrinkled around the corners of his eyes that made Luc think of a predator half-submerged in some watering-hole beneath a baking sun.
‘Two reasons,’ Cripps responded. ‘For one, a couple of years ago you were given the chance at a promotion to SecInt’s security division, but you didn’t take it. Why?’
‘Because it would have taken me out of the Archives division, and away from my intelligence work,’ Luc replied immediately. ‘The job was mostly bureaucratic. If I’d accepted it, I might never have tracked Antonov down. I told Director Lethe that at the time, and he had no problem with my reasoning.’
‘Except that promotion would also have given you the authority to influence Archives’ lines of investigation,’ Cripps countered. ‘That could have made a lot of difference – maybe enough so that we wouldn’t be forced to re-instantiate an entire Sandoz Clan.’
‘You said there was a second point?’ Luc snapped, barely able to contain himself any longer.
‘I don’t think you have any more love for the Temur Council and Father Cheng than Winchell Antonov ever did,’ Cripps replied, a glint in his eyes. He nodded past Luc, towards the White Palace hovering in the air beyond the window. ‘Who’s to say you aren’t a sleeper agent, placed deep inside Archives, and who’s to say Antonov’s death wasn’t faked in some way? No body was recovered, and all we have is your unlikely testimony, delivered to a Sandoz investigator, which can’t possibly be corroborated since no CogNet records of your encounter with Antonov exists!’
‘With all due respect, sir,’ Luc spat back, ‘you don’t know shit.’
Cripps’ shoulders jerked briefly in a laugh. ‘Things are going to be very different from now on, Mr Gabion. I’m going to be keeping a very close eye on you. Remember that, when you start your investigation.’
Luc stared at him, baffled. ‘My what?’
‘We’ll meet again shortly. Just remember, in the coming days, that you are as much a suspect as anyone else.’
‘Suspect in what?’ Luc shook his head in befuddlement. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking ab—’
Cripps’ data-ghost vanished while he was still mid-sentence, leaving him staring at an empty room.
An investigation, Cripps had said. What kind of investigation?
He pushed both hands across his head, wondering if he hadn’t just imagined the whole thing. After everything he’d been through, he couldn’t even be sure how much he could trust his own senses. Maybe he was losing his mind. Maybe it was really that simple.
‘House,’ he asked, ‘was anyone else just here?’
‘Senator Bailey Cripps, by remote data-presence,’ the house replied.
He closed his eyes in silent relief and sank back into the chair, but soon found himself staring back out at the Palace, feeling nothing but a premonitory chill.
The next morning a mechant guided Luc from the metro station at the edge of the park and along a pathway that skirted the bronzed statue of Chandrakant Lu. The White Palace’s architect had been depicted with one hand reaching upwards, as if to catch the vast edifice floating half a kilometre above the city. He saw innumerable fliers arriving to decant yet more people to join the hundreds already milling about, a considerable number of whom wore the formal work clothes of Council bureaucrats, while the rest sported the uniforms of either SecInt or Sandoz.
Mechants, most of them conspicuously armed and bearing Sandoz markings, darted through the air, almost outnumbering the crowds. Their carapaces glittered under the bright arc lights that substituted for sunlight beneath the Palace’s vast bulk.
The mechant guided him towards an open plaza near the park’s centre. He felt a rush of pleasure when he sighted Eleanor standing amidst a gaggle of several other SecInt agents. The agents were gathered around an olive-skinned man wearing a long formal jacket; Luc immediately recognized him as Mehmood Garda, Director of Policy for Benares, and himself a member of the Eighty-Five.
The crowds moved and shifted, and a moment later Luc also caught sight of Vincent Hetaera, his immediate superior in Archives, engaged in what looked like an in-depth discussion with several of his junior research staff.
‘Mr Gabion!’ Garda exclaimed as Luc approached, stepping forward to clap him on the shoulder and pump his hand at the same time. ‘Congratulations on your success at Aeschere. I believe we all owe you a debt of gratitude.’
His voice boomed over even the noise of the crowded plaza. Several security-mechants clearly tasked with guarding Director Garda aimed their machine-gaze at Luc.
‘I appreciate that.’ Luc almost had to shout the words over the cacophony. He’d heard rumours Garda had participated in the torture and execution of Black Lotus agents, particularly when those agents had been female.
Garda lifted his chin towards the Palace. ‘You must be full of anticipation. This is the first time you’ve been invited into the Palace?’
‘It is,’ Luc shouted back. ‘To be honest, I think I’ll be glad just to get this over with,’ he added.
Garda drew himself up to his full six-foot-plus height, this time placing both hands on Luc’s shoulders and clapping one of them hard. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I can’t think of anyone who could possibly deserve what’s coming to you any more than you do.’
Luc caught sight of Eleanor from out of the corner of his eye. ‘It’s certainly an honour,’ he replied.
‘And after this?’ asked Garda. ‘Black Lotus aren’t finished just because Antonov is dead. Are you going to help us wipe the rest of them out?’
‘I think that remains to be—’
To Luc’s considerable relief, one of Garda’s entourage approached, whispering in the Director’s ear.
‘I look forward to seeing you receive your honours in the Palace,’ said Garda, briefly turning back to Luc, but it was clear his mind was already somewhere else. ‘Affairs of state, I’m afraid.’
Luc nodded, and watched the Director step away and greet someone else.
‘Feel like washing your hands?’ asked Eleanor, moving up next to him.
Luc suppressed a grimace. ‘I guess I should have expected him to be here.’
‘You had a look on your face like you’d just drunk your own piss. To be honest, I think he noticed.’
‘If he did, I don’t think it bothered him a great deal.’
‘First Lethe, now Garda. Just when you thought you’d be able to relax a little.’
Luc shook his head wearily. ‘Fuck assholes like Garda. There’ll always be people like him.’ He reached out and took her hand. ‘I need to see you. Soon.’
She nodded. ‘Look, I’m sorry about last night, it’s just—’
‘It’s okay,’ he said, stopping her. ‘I seem to be about the only person in all of SecInt who isn’t on active duty right now.’ He shrugged. ‘And maybe it’s not such a bad thing that you weren’t there.’
‘Why not?’
He hesitated, wondering how she’d react to what he was about to tell her.
They had become lovers the year before, on a joint trip to Yue Shijie in the 94 Aquarii system to try and track down one of Black Lotus’s many sources of funding.
Like Aeschere, Yue Shijie orbited a gas giant, but unlike that desolate moon, Yue Shijie was well within its system’s habitable zone, and large enough to support a habitable biosphere. He remembered standing with Eleanor on the balcony of a ziggurat-like building that, like much of the rest of that world’s capital city, rose out of dense jungle stretching to the horizon in all directions. He remembered looking up to see the gas giant’s streaked atmosphere, marked here and there by outpourings from Helium 3 factories ploughing through its upper reaches.