The Thousand Emperors (11 page)

‘Any sign of them having been compromised?’

Zelia nodded. ‘Someone figured out how to erase the house records going back for some days. The mechants’ memories are linked into those records, so any data that might have told us
who’s responsible for this was also wiped.’

‘Why haven’t you just gone ahead and re-instantiated Vasili from his backups?’ asked Luc. ‘Surely you could just
ask
him who did this?’

Zelia’s lips tightened. ‘All his backups were erased remotely, presumably by whoever was responsible for his murder.’

Luc stared back at her, shocked. ‘Would that have been easy to do?’ he asked carefully.

‘No,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Not easy at all.’

Luc glanced at the Councillors clustered by the entrance. All of them, except for Cheng and Cripps, the latter regarding him with an openly malevolent expression, looked scared. Instantiation
technology had kept them all alive for centuries, but when Vasili had died, he had died forever, and none of them wanted to share in his fate.

‘Are the backups centrally located?’ he asked.

‘No, they’re widely distributed,’ Zelia replied. ‘Their locations are a carefully kept secret, for obvious reasons.’

‘But
somebody
must know where they’re all located.’

Zelia sighed and shook her head again. ‘No, I’m afraid not. We programmed AIs to take care of placing them in secure but unknown locations. Nobody has the right to know where anyone
else’s instantiation backups are located. The only thing I
can
tell you is that as far as I know, they’re all located somewhere in this star system, but not necessarily on
Vanaheim itself.’

‘Whoever did this, then,’ said Luc, ‘must have had an unprecedented level of access to your security systems.’

‘I think,’ muttered Cripps, ‘that’s what I’d call stating the fucking obvious.’

Borges sniggered. ‘Any
other
incisive observations you’d like to make, Mr Gabion?’

Luc felt heat rise in his face, but knew the danger of responding directly to such an insult. ‘Vasili was running away from something when he died,’ he said, turning his attention
back towards the corpse and pointing towards the glass doors. ‘He was running from someone standing at the entrance to the library. As for the murder weapon, it’s pretty obvious it was
a plasma beam of some type, set to tight focus.’

Borges scripted.

Cheng threw a fierce look at Borges, who fell immediately silent.

‘Please continue,’ said Cheng, turning back to Luc.

‘If the weapon used to kill Vasili had been set to wide-focus, or aimed at him while he was standing, it would have shattered the rest of the glass in those doors,’ he said, nodding
towards the patio. ‘The angle of the scorch-marks shows the weapon was aimed downwards. Vasili was already on the ground when he died, although it’s anyone’s guess whether he fell
or was pushed down.’ He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Did anyone find a weapon?’

‘No, but the radiation levels in here are sky-high,’ said the second, unnamed woman in the group. ‘We’re all going to need immediate cell-regeneration therapy. I can
arrange for you to receive medical attention before you return to Temur.’

‘An excellent suggestion, Alicia,’ said Cheng. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ he asked Luc.

Luc tried not to think about the deadly radiation already seeping into his bones and muscles. ‘Has anything been touched or moved since he was found here?’

Victor Begum spoke up. ‘Not a thing. Zelia can vouch for that.’

‘Who actually found him?’

‘No one,’ said Zelia. ‘His home security network alerted us, but only once it rebooted itself a little over two days ago.’

Two days ago?
‘And that’s how long he’s been lying here? Two days?’

‘Criminal investigations are not our area of expertise,’ said the woman named Alicia. ‘Given the sensitive nature of things, it took us . . . some time to reach a collective
agreement on a way forward.’

Luc stared at her. In other words, they’d spent the past forty-eight hours squabbling about what to do before bringing him here.

‘So far I’d say he’s making a better initial assessment than your own, Bailey,’ said Cheng, with an air of joviality that seemed misplaced given the surroundings.
‘Maybe we should give Mr
Gabion
your job?’

Nothing like making a very dangerous enemy
, thought Luc, as Cripps’ hawk-like glare settled on him once again. The sweat had dried on his skin, coating him in a chill
clamminess.

Luc glanced towards the nearest bookshelf, as much to avoid looking at Cripps as anything else. Many of the volumes there had become spotted with ash. He reached out and touched the spine of
one, his fingertips black when he studied them.

‘Did the house put the blaze out?’ he asked.

‘Obviously,’ snapped Cripps.

Cheng scripted.

‘How could it do that, if the house’s AI systems had been shut down?’ asked Luc.

‘Only the house’s higher cognitive functions were affected,’ Zelia explained. ‘Something like the sprinkler system wouldn’t have been affected by the
sabotage.’

‘Would the killer have known that?’ he asked.

‘Why do you ask?’ Cripps demanded, his voice taut.

‘Maybe whoever did this meant for the library to burn down,’ said Luc. ‘Maybe they thought that when they disabled the house’s systems, that would stop it putting the
fire out.’ Luc’s eyes darted nervously towards Cheng, then away again.

‘Why would they want to do that?’ asked Cheng.

‘If it looked like Vasili had just died of an accident, it might have taken you a lot longer to work out he’d been murdered.’

‘This is idle speculation,’ Cripps protested.

‘But very
interesting
idle speculation,’ said Cheng, eyeing Cripps carefully. ‘Surely,’ he said, turning back to Luc, ‘there would be no point to covering up
Sevgeny’s murder, since we would inevitably have discovered both the sabotage to the house AI and to his instantiation backups?’

‘There’s no point,’ Luc agreed, ‘unless the killer was operating under a time restriction. For some reason, he or she wanted to delay the discovery that Sevgeny had been
murdered.’

‘And why in God’s name would they do that?’ Cripps protested.

Luc forced himself to meet the man’s eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But it’s worth thinking about.’

It occurred to Luc that Cheng and his cronies could decide to blame
him
for Vasili’s murder, and no one would ever dare challenge it or demand supporting evidence of any kind. The
idea squeezed his lungs like a steel vice, making it hard to breathe.

‘Before I go any further,’ he said, ‘I need to know who you think could have done this, whether or not you think you can prove it?’

It was almost comical, the way they regarded each other furtively.

‘That’s a very nearly endless list,’ said Zelia, her voice impatient. ‘Enmities can run pretty deep here.’

‘Zelia,’ said Karlmann Sandoz, a note of warning in his voice. ‘He’s a stranger here.’

‘He needs to know these things if he’s to do his job properly,’ Zelia snapped.

Borges scripted. knows about what he’s seen here. Perhaps then you could make him into one of your little
projects
.>

<
Enough
.> This again from Cheng.

Luc tried not to think about what would happen if she and the rest of them realized he was entirely aware of everything they were scripting to each other. ‘Councilman Begum suggested
Vasili might have been killed by someone outside of the Council,’ said Luc. ‘Is there any way someone could sneak through the Hall of Gates without being detected?’

‘To say that would be impossible is not an exaggeration,’ de Almeida replied firmly.

‘Who’s in charge of security?’

‘Planetary security is the responsibility of Miss de Almeida,’ Cheng informed him.

‘Which is why,’ Zelia added, ‘I’m qualified to know what I’m talking about. Anyone invited to Vanaheim who
isn’t
a member of the Council gets assigned
their own dedicated mechant, all of which report directly to me – including the one that brought you here.’

‘But who else is involved in the security operation?’

‘Only me,’ Zelia replied, one of her cheek muscles twitching. ‘Everything runs on dedicated AI systems coordinated through my lattice.’

‘Surely that’s a lot of responsibility for just one person?’

‘Mr Gabion,’ Alicia interjected, ‘Vanaheim is our model for the future – the way every world in the Tian Di will be, one day. Maintaining surveillance on a whole world
isn’t so hard for even just one person, if you have access to Council-approved levels of technology, and the systems Zelia controls are sufficiently transparent they only rarely require
direct or even conscious intervention.’

‘But it’s clearly not infallible,’ Luc pointed out.

Alicia’s smile faltered slightly, and she glanced towards Father Cheng. ‘Perhaps not entirely, no,’ she admitted after a moment’s hesitation.

‘Let’s not discount the possibility,’ grated Cripps, ‘that there’s nothing wrong with the surveillance systems whatsoever.’

Luc saw de Almeida’s nostrils flare. ‘This is why I wanted someone outside of the Council here,’ she said, her voice strained. ‘We’re already descending into making
accusations against each other without proof, and this close to Reunification we have better things to do than use Sevgeny’s murder as an excuse to settle old grudges. I’ll tell you one
thing – whoever is responsible for this had a solid working knowledge of the planet-wide security networks. And they spent a
lot
of time in preparation – video loops and false
data were fed into this house’s memory, making it appear as if everything were normal.’

Luc studied de Almeida’s features, seeing the mask-like tightness of her face as she spoke. She surely must have realized her high-level access to Vanaheim’s security networks made
her a strikingly obvious suspect.

‘If I may,’ asked Luc, speaking up as de Almeida fell silent, ‘did no one notice that Vasili was missing?’

‘They had noticed,’ said Alicia. ‘But Sevgeny had become something of a loner over the past several decades. He was closely involved in preparations for Reunification, so when
he failed to turn up for a few meetings, it didn’t really seem all that unusual.’ She swallowed. ‘I know this must seem strange to you, that no one thought to fly out here and see
if he was all right, but you must understand that all of us within the Council have lived very, very long lives, and one thing you learn to do over such long periods of time is to leave each other
alone. With his mechants, his own security and Zelia’s networks to protect him as well as the rest of us, there was no reason to be alarmed . . . until now.’

A short silence fell, finally broken by Father Cheng. ‘Is there anything else you would like to ask us, Mr Gabion?’

‘Not at the moment, thank you, Father Cheng,’ Luc replied. ‘But perhaps if I could take a look around, if that’s all right by you . . . ?’

‘Of course,’ said Cheng, nodding. ‘But do remember,’ he added, ‘that I would be far from happy if you were to discuss what you’ve learned today outside of our
present company.’

‘Of course,’ Luc nodded.

Cheng turned to the rest. ‘As badly as I feel for poor Sevgeny,’ he said, ‘I think we might also consider this a test for our collective wills, so close to our Reunification
with the Coalition. One day, when Black Lotus are finally vanquished and our society reaches a state of true social harmony, everyone in the Tian Di will live the way all of us here do.’

He glanced first at Cripps, and then Luc, before continuing. ‘Please don’t allow me, or anyone else, to unduly influence your opinion when it comes to identifying the responsible
party, but I must confess that I find it less than credible that one member of the Temur Council would willingly take the life of another. Despite Zelia’s certainty to the contrary, that
leads us to an apparent impossibility – that someone from outside our closed ranks perpetuated the crime. At the very least, this implies a serious flaw in our security arrangements –
one that must be taken care of immediately.’

Cheng never once glanced towards de Almeida as he made this final remark, but Luc did not fail to notice the way her cheek once again spasmed as the Permanent Chairman of the Temur Council
effectively accused her of sleeping on the job.

‘We’re eventually going to have to tell the rest of the Council what happened to Sevgeny,’ said Borges. ‘That’s going to cause an almighty ruckus.’

‘Not to mention we have only a couple of weeks before the official opening of the Darwin–Temur gate,’ added Begum.

‘That’s where you come in, Mr Gabion,’ said de Almeida, clearly fighting to maintain her composure. ‘Father Cheng has agreed to allow you limited access to
Vanaheim’s resources, under my custodianship, until we’ve completed this investigation. We can start immediately.’

‘
Your
custodianship?’ scoffed Borges, who stepped forward until he was facing Cheng. ‘Surely, with so much access to our security networks, Zelia had the most
opportunity to kill Sevgeny!’

‘That assumes,’ Zelia spat back, ‘you can identify a motive on my part. I’m sure when it comes to
motives
, Ruy, nobody here would lack for recognizing a serious
fucking desire on
your
part to see Sevgeny dead.’

Cheng scripted, and the flow of words fell away.

‘Without wanting to distract you from your purpose here, Mr Gabion,’ said Cheng, ‘I understand you’re something of an expert on Black Lotus. Perhaps I could ask you for
your opinion concerning them?’

‘Of course, Father Cheng.’

‘How much, if at all, have Black Lotus been harmed by Winchell Antonov’s death?’