Perhaps he could do more than just sleep. Perhaps he could analyse the captured Pilot’s dilemma.

  Corduven ...

  Or he might just dream of his dead friend. Either way, as Tom slipped from consciousness, he tried to keep a rational part of his mind in control, directing his dream state. It was a dangerous thing to do, for a trained logosopher. ‘Consciousness,’ Tom remembered Lord Velond saying at the Sorites School, ‘emerges from neural groups observing neural groups. When I talk to myself, when I control my thoughts, who is controlling whom? For I am my thoughts, nothing more.’

  But even as the dream of death took hold of Tom, it slipped beyond his control, and neither the Pilot nor Corduven featured in the images that came next.

  He is on his bed, in the open air. A small amber neko-kitten lies curled on his lap, atop the rich orange blanket in which chocolate-brown patterns weave visual paradoxes. Tom’s hand, wrinkled and brown-spotted and frail, lies upon the blanket.

  He cannot lift it.

  Winds blow beneath brown clouds becoming silver as peach-and-yellow dawn brightens the sky. The blanket’s patterns almost vibrate in the clear light.

  Elva ... All she meant to him ... Now it is his time to go. His breathing is shallow, and growing shallower, but there is no pain.

  It has been a fine life.

  Tom’s bed, at his own request, is upon the flat top of a tall glass tower, revealing the final dawn. Remember, he tells himself, how miraculous life is. Our molecules are born in the heart of stars. We are emergent properties of a vast cellular collective ... These are his dying thoughts.

  ‘Grandfather.’ On his left, an athletic-looking youth stands straight-backed and true, and his clear grey gaze is Elva’s reborn. ‘Do we have things right?’

  Tom cannot speak. With a great effort, he raises his finger, lets it fall.

  ‘He means yes. It is as it should be.’ The young woman to Tom’s right is slender. Her hair is blonde and her eyes are obsidian without surrounding whites. ‘This is his moment.’

  She takes up his fragile hand in her youthful, warm grasp.

  ‘I love you, grandfather.’

  The young man’s hand is upon Tom’s left shoulder.

  ‘I love you, grandfather.’

  Beyond them, the sky is vast.

  Tom’s breath comes intermittently now.

  And then the sun is full above the horizon and three huge delta shapes of gleaming bronze and silver spring into being in the sky overhead. They make a slow circle and turn to face the east and hover, waiting.

  You came. Thank you. It is time to ... to ...

  Feel the clear soft air and drink in the scent of rustling grass and heathland paragorse. A small bird flies overhead as sunlight drapes liquid fire on the great vessels and one more breath as the grandchildren call out their love once more, I know that and thank you for it, everything and always thanks to Elva oh I miss you and I love you with all the darkness and blood on my hand and here is the sunrise, look at it Elva, feel the breeze and who would have believed the miracle of our time together, my sweet.

  The need for breath but none to be had.

  Fading and the shadows edging in ... Elva oh Elva I miss you and I join you now at last... In darkness, as the world narrows to a point.

  Hanging on ...

  It beckons.

  Let go ...

  Beckoning, the shining gold.

  Falling.

  Ending.

  Black.

  As he came awake, just for a moment, Tom thought he saw a tracery of sapphire fire across his skin. Immediately, it faded, and in a second he was no longer sure it had been real.

  Part of the dream ...

  He rolled to the edge of the bed, stood up, and ordered the house system to make some daistral. He wanted no more sleep tonight.

  Alone, Tom walked through a maze whose corridors must have recently morphed into this configuration. As he neared the centre of the puzzle, he realized that they suggested the tricon for Sorrow, one of the few tricons that was always rendered as static rather than a moving ideogram. The beige corridors contained alcoves of artwork, crystal statues and mag-dust paintings and other works that Tom could not focus on. He stopped. Before him stood a stellate diamond structure that might have represented a star in mu-space, as closely as it could be rendered in the real world.

  The quick route out of the maze took him to a broad, deserted lounge overlooking a grand cavern he had not seen before. A scarlet transport tube bore a solitary capsule along its length. Below, a wide expanse of mossgardens, decorated in black and indigo, surrounded an oval quicksilver lake. In the distance, he could hear the Palace’s funereal moan, still mourning Corduven’s death.

  Then a whisper of sound caused him to turn just as three men entered the chamber and fanned out. Each wore a thumb-ring proclaiming noble rank.

  ‘My Lord Corcorigan.’ It was the shortest of the trio who spoke: shaven-headed, with three burgundy glassine strips embedded beneath each cheekbone. ‘My name is Surtalvan. Forgive the discourtesy, sir, but I prefer not to introduce my companions.’

  One of those companions was big and wide-shouldered, looking more like a pitfighter than a scion of some noble house. The third Lord was lean and scarred.

  ‘We’ve all got something to hide,’ Tom said.

  With a shift in stance, he allowed his cape to fall open, revealing the whitemetal poignard tagged at his hip. (Its twin was out of sight, at the small of his back.)

  ‘Openness can be a virtue.’ Surtalvan glanced at the dagger, then appeared to focus on Tom’s throat. ‘So here I am, being open. We’ve all noticed the sorry state of Nulapeiron right now, and I mean every sector. I do not hide my concern for our home.’

  ‘Our home?’ Tom noticed a tiny curved holopin, projecting white revolving rings, half-concealed by Surtalvan’s cape. It might have been the symbol of the Circulus Fidus, save that it was pierced by a tiny scimitar. ‘But you don’t live in this realm, do you?’

  ‘It’s not just one realm that’s threatened with Chaos now.’

  ‘But I’m surprised’ - Tom allowed his face to display a smile - ‘to find Action League representatives in this place, and at this time.’

  Surtalvan’s eyes widened. He had not expected Tom to recognize (or deduce the meaning of) the holopin. But Brino, in the weapons shop, had told of Tom of the militant organizations which supported Circulus Fidus reactionary ideas; obviously Brino had not lied.

  ‘We’re paying our respects. The Brigadier-General will be sorely missed.’

  Tom felt anger rise, but held it tight inside him.

  ‘You’re early. The funeral will follow the lying-in-state.’

  ‘Well, we’d also hoped to talk to you, Lord Corcorigan. We don’t seem like natural allies’ - he paused as if waiting for Tom to laugh, then continued - ‘but the world needs consolidation and recovery, you’ll surely agree.’

  ‘You forgot the need to restore order and discipline. Obedience in the commoners.’

  ‘Just so.’ Surtalvan was not fazed. ‘That’s how they achieve prosperity.’

  Tom drew his cloak around himself.

  ‘I don’t think so, gentlemen.’

  Surtalvan’s eyes narrowed. His lean companion took a half-step forward, and the big man clenched his fists.

  Tom moved to one side. Their positions covered the corridor’s width, blocking him from the only exit.

  ‘There’ll be a Convocation soon,’ said Surtalvan. ‘Sponsors and allies might come in handy, when you’re looking for a new position.’

  Tom stared at him.

  Allies. People like you ...

  But Surtalvan was operating under several false premises, and one of them was that Nulapeiron was no longer in danger.

  ‘There is a thing,’ said Tom, ‘that you and I have in common. A desire to keep the world human.’

  Surtalvan exchanged a glance with the lean man, who stepped back. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I believe that the Blight contacted its parent Anomaly, in the final moments before it perished. You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Legends ...’ Surtalvan attempted a sneer, but there was doubt in his tone. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Tom stared at him for a long moment.

  Then, ‘I’ve told you what I know. Deal with it, or ignore it,’ he said, and walked forward, brushing past the three men - none tried to hold him back - and strode away.

  ~ * ~

  13

  TERRA AD 2162

  <>

  [3]

  Hot dry air; the babble of vendors - ¿Le gustan? Los màs baratos ... - and holo ads; spicy scents of onions and seared meat cooked on kerbside stoves; the confusion of bright colours. Headmasks and ponchos. Polished guitars. Cheap statuettes of the Blessed Virgin reciting the Hail Mary in overlapping Anglic, Español and Russki.

  The dense slam of Mexican poverty.

  A coffee-skinned couple, faces webbed with sun-blasted lines, smiled up from their squatting position, revealing stumps of teeth. They offered tortillas from a tiny solar pan, while a metre away thermoacoustic-drive vehicles slid past.

  Ro looked back through the border shimmerfield. On the other side, the wavering image of the ground-cab which had brought her here moved farther away, into visual chaos.

  Jesus Christ, Ed. Why are we meeting here?

  Someone clutched at her sleeve but she twisted and walked away.

  Further into Nogales proper, there were few gringos from the Arizona side. A clean-skinned Mexican girl looked up from the corner of a whitewashed building, saw Ro approaching, and turned away with a sassiness already tinged with disillusion.

  Behind a church called Santa Teresa stood an open courtyard, and Ro walked inside. A half-door swung inwards at her touch, and then she was in a bare, clean storage room.

  Nothing alerted her senses. No detectable surveillance.

  ‘Shit. I don’t like this.’

  Ro let out a slow breath. Then, without using her hands, she sank to the ground in a corkscrew motion, finished sitting cross-legged on dark-grey stone.

  And closed her eyes.

  Calm now.

  Time to wait.

  Yesterday morning she had been in the Zurich Pilots’ School, sitting in an easy chair in the anteroom to the Mother Superior’s office, one leg thrown over the chair-arm, reading a two-century-old novel in hi-res flatscript projected from her infostrand.

  Every time Ro chuckled, Sister Olivia, sitting at the anteroom’s desk, looked up and frowned. But the story was funny, with surprisingly modern touches. It began with a Latin aphorism and an extended Goethe quotation, though most of the original readership would have been monolingual, in Anglic.

  Even the strange-looking Ich sah reflected a topical concern, as the current movement to remove the literary Past Historic tense from Français, following the Deutsch tradition, had resulted in controversy and even one death as two academics pummelled each other with leather-bound books in a Sorbonne courtyard.

  ‘The Reverend Mother won’t be long.’

  ‘Good. Excellent.’

  Ro read a bit more. For all the absurdism, the short tale had relevant points to make about the nature of time and of human conflict, encapsulating a tragedy which the inhabitants of Dresden recalled to this day.

  The pinched-faced nun let out a sigh.

  ‘She’ll see you now.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  The Reverend Mother Mary Sebastian, aka Jill, sat with her feet up on the glass-covered desk. Opposite her, Ro did the same.

  ‘You didn’t get on with my predecessor, did you, Ro?’

  ‘Before she attained Motherhood, she was in charge of facilities management, and I was living here and in my teens.’ Back when Pilots-to-be came here to be trained by Mother, learning aikido and Feldenkrais body awareness - skills which would stand them in good stead when their eyes were removed during surgery: in those days Pilots traded their realspace senses for those which were virally induced. Back then, only Ro possessed the natural ability to perceive another universe. ‘I used to take the piss.’

  Jill smiled at the antique idiom. ‘I hope you gave Sister Olivia more respect—’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘—though she is a prissy little bitch, I’ll grant you that. And I will be confessing that lapse.’

  ‘Tsk, tsk, Jill.’

  ‘I’ll tell you this. Old Misery out there won’t hear anything said about the kids. Even the ones who are pains in the ass.’

  ‘Like me.’

  ‘Just as you no doubt were. But listen’ - Jill dropped her feet from the desk, growing serious - ‘there are people in the Order who want the kids out of here. And since that means losing income from UNSA, we’re talking serious dislike.’

  ‘Is that anything new?’

  ‘You know they’re talking about you as the link between two species? You personally.’

  ‘The kids aren’t actually my offspring. Besides Dirk and Kian.’

  ‘But there’s something of you in all of them. The general public doesn’t know much more than this: that the difference between Homo sapiens and Pan panicus is one per cent of DNA. So it doesn’t take much to form a new species.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Jill. It’s one-point-six per cent, and the differences are spread throughout the whole goddamn genome, including control loci, not just one or two isolated genes. Chimps are close relatives, but not that close.’ Ro shook her head. ‘And the general fuckin’ public doesn’t know the difference between algorithm and data, because DNA is both and what matters is exactly which—’

  ‘Whoa.’ Jill held up both hands. ‘Peace. I’m just telling you that the bishop is wavering, all right? If the Pope made an announcement either way, the uncertainty would be over ... but she’s keeping quiet on the issue.’

  Ro shook her head.

  ‘I don’t believe the kids have souls. But I don’t think you or anyone else has one, either. Shit. Can the Vatican even spell “emergent properties”?’

  ‘Only the Jesuits. But, “falling revenue from church collections”? Or “rising dissatisfaction among congregations”? They can spell those just fine.’

  That was yesterday, in the cool, rational surroundings of her Alpine home, far removed from the hard air and stifling heat of Mexican noon. Even meditating in the shadow-painted storage room, eyes shut against the hammering white light reflected from the courtyard outside, Ro was aware of a harsh edge to reality, the faintest hum as a beetle flew to the nearest wall.

  Then she was standing, though her eyes remained shut.

  Three aircars. Drawing close.

  Ed was supposed to come alone.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  Ro opened her eyes and popped out her contacts, then flicked the lenses aside. If there was to be any kind of action, she wanted no mistakes.

  Two flyers circled low, out of sight behind the rooftops, their sound muffled by the quotidian cacophony of the town. They settled down. Ro imagined armed men spilling forth, running to surround this courtyard.

  Wait.

  Finally, the smallest of the flyers was overhead, a white speck in a baking azure sky. It hung for a moment, then descended in a puff of hot dust. A pale unhealthy figure stumbled out.

  ‘Ed. God damn it.’

  Monsignor Edwin Grayling winced at every step, and Ro wondered at the state of his feet. Beating the soles was unsophisticated but effective. They had been careful to leave no cuts or bruises on his face.

  Why? You think I wouldn‘t notice something was up?

  Ed walked towards the storage room.

  Ro could slide out and get away, sneak through the tiny window at the rear ... maybe. Abandoning Ed.

  She could not do that.

  Instead, Ro stepped into the sunlight with a cheery wave, skin prickling as she sensed targeting beams reflecting from her face and body, and called out: ‘Ed! You made it!’

  He moved his mouth, but only a croak came out.

  Anaesthetic spray to the vocal cords. Bastards got that right, at least.

  Ro gestured back at the building.