Luc’s hands had started to tremble at his sides. ‘What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense,’ he said. ‘Antonov is dead.’
‘Is he?’ asked the Ambassador. ‘And has he communicated with you since he “died”?’
Luc didn’t answer, and the Ambassador inclined his head. ‘We know that within the Tian Di only members of the Council and Sandoz Clans are permitted the use of instantiation lattices. Your lattice is therefore illegal. We saw Antonov’s shade within you when you entered this station,’ he continued, ‘and I can see that your lattice is new, but growing wildly out of control. Please don’t deny this is the truth.’
‘At the most there’s a – a ghost, an artefact, some remnant of Antonov’s conscious mind inside of me,’ Luc stammered. ‘That, and some random memories.’
‘We cannot help but wonder how you came to possess the memories of the man you were sent to capture.’
Luc fought the urge to reach out and rip the Ambassador’s mask away, but things had already gone badly wrong enough without compounding them with further errors.
‘If we’re going to be frank with each other,’ said Luc, ‘I know you met with Winchell Antonov. That’s a dangerous association to have, for a representative of what’s still technically an enemy civilization.’
‘How do you know we met with him?’
‘You said it yourself, Ambassador Sachs. I have some of Antonov’s memories, even if they are fragmentary. He seemed to be angry with you for some reason.’
‘Why don’t you ask him about it yourself, Mr Gabion? It appears the two of you are on far more intimate terms than he and I ever were. Otherwise, the details of that encounter must remain private.’ The Ambassador made to turn away, then hesitated. ‘Tell Zelia I’m sorry we couldn’t help more, but there’s nothing useful we could possibly tell her regarding Vasili.’
It appeared their interview was over. Luc watched as the Ambassador turned and stepped along a path leading deeper amongst the moist-leaved ferns crowding the dome; and then he remembered Antonov’s words, spoken in a dream: With the Ambassador’s help, we will both be reborn, and a terrible calamity prevented.
‘Antonov told me you could help me!’ Luc yelled after him. ‘He said you could prevent a calamity, but I don’t know what he meant.’
The Ambassador came to a halt but did not turn around. ‘He said that?’
‘Yes. No, not exactly. It was . . .’ Luc swallowed. ‘It was in a dream.’
He half expected the Ambassador to laugh.
Instead, the masked figure turned to face him once more. ‘In the Coalition, the distinction between dreams and waking are as fluid and meaningless as that which separates life and death. We make equally little distinction between that which you would not regard as objectively real, and what you would consider tangible and solid. The difference, from our perspective, is sufficiently negligible to be meaningless. Like yourself, each one of us speaks with the dead as a matter of course. In fact, the dead could be said to constitute the majority of the Coalition’s population.’
‘And the calamity? What did he mean by that?’
‘Something that is not of your concern,’ the Ambassador replied. ‘The knowledge would place you in a considerably greater degree of danger than we suspect you are already in.’
‘Tell me,’ Luc grated, ‘or I go to the Council and tell them everything I know, including that you met with Antonov.’
‘And if you do,’ the Ambassador pointed out, ‘they will surely pick your brain apart, neurone by neurone, once they discover that you have a lattice.’
‘I’m prepared to take that chance.’
The Ambassador paused for a moment, then said: ‘We simply don’t believe you, Mr Gabion. You would not, we think, make a good poker player.’
Luc stepped towards him. ‘Please, wait. De Almeida – Zelia – told me the lattice in my head is killing me.’ He stopped, putting one hand against the mossy branch of a tree reaching over the path. ‘I keep seeing and hearing things, and sometimes I don’t know which are real and which aren’t.’
‘Then tell me how you came to acquire the lattice.’
‘On Aeschere,’ Luc replied miserably. ‘Antonov put it inside me while I was out cold.’
‘Who else knows of this?’
He couldn’t see the use of keeping anything more back. ‘Only Zelia,’ he replied. ‘She’s the one who detected it inside me. She told me I can’t be backed-up from it before it kills me. Antonov seemed sure you would help me.’
‘Is this why Zelia sent you here? To ask for our help?’
‘No. This is . . . just me.’
‘Yours is a single life,’ said the Ambassador, ‘measured against countless billions here in the Tian Di and also in the Coalition. As much as you have our sympathy, you must understand that we have greater concerns at the moment. But Antonov would not have done what he did to you without a reason, and whichever of his memories are surfacing in your mind were clearly of importance to him. He’s trying to tell you something, and we suspect you’re not doing a very good job of listening. Ask yourself, why would he plant a partial copy of himself inside the mind of one of his most dedicated enemies, unless it was for some overwhelming purpose?’
‘I know it has something to do with Vasili,’ said Luc.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I have reason to believe Antonov may have met with him some time not long before his death. He knew who his killer was. Who it was, I don’t know, except I’m certain it wasn’t Antonov, and I can’t believe it was de Almeida, either.’ He stared into his own reflection, seeing the haunted look in his eyes. ‘But it has to have something to do with Reunification, and I think you know what it is.’
‘We truly wish we could help you,’ said the Ambassador with what sounded like genuine regret, ‘but there are things taking place which you can scarcely comprehend. We suggest, however, that you listen more closely to whatever Antonov is trying to tell you. It may be that he is trying to give you the answers you seek.’ The Ambassador paused. ‘May we offer a final word of advice?’
‘Of course,’ said Luc, feeling defeated.
‘Zelia de Almeida may value you more for what you carry inside your head than for your investigative skills. You should be careful.’
The Ambassador turned once more and began to walk away, passing beneath the shade of a banyan tree’s broad plate-like leaves. When Luc made to follow, a mechant of a type he’d never seen before dropped from out of the greenery overhead, blocking his way.
‘Careful of what?’ he yelled after the retreating figure. ‘Give me a straight answer, damn you!’
‘Goodbye, Mr Gabion,’ said the Ambassador, before disappearing into the undergrowth. ‘We hope you find your answers before it’s too late.’
‘I have discovered inconsistencies,’ said de Almeida, ‘in the Ambassador’s alibi.’
Mechants moved here and there around her laboratory, specialized models studded with multiple limbs that hovered around Luc’s supine form as she gave them barely vocalized orders. The slab he lay on had been adjusted until he was staring straight up at the ceiling. Images of the interior of his skull rippled whenever de Almeida or one of the mechants passed through them, meat and blood furiously splintering before miraculously reforming into dizzyingly complex three-dimensional structures.
‘He told me himself he was at a meeting when Vasili died,’ Luc replied. He had decided to exercise caution and not tell her everything the Ambassador had said to him.
De Almeida nodded. ‘A gathering of members of a coordination committee, tasked with hammering out the details of various trade agreements. Oh, he was there all right – but only in virtual form.’