The Thousand Emperors (15 page)

Cripps nodded. ‘Then just do what I tell you, and continue to keep an eye on everything Zelia says and does.’ He reached out to touch something Luc couldn’t see, his hand
blurring as it reached outside of the range of the projector he was using. ‘We’ll speak again.’

The data-ghost winked out. Luc stared at the empty air where it had been for another minute, all thoughts of sleep vanished.

‘Luc?’

He turned to see Eleanor framed in the bedroom door, a look of alarm on her face. ‘Luc, what’s going on?’ she asked. ‘I heard you yelling.’

‘How much did you hear?’

‘Just the last few seconds.’ She glanced back through to the bedroom. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude, I . . .’

‘No, it’s okay.’ He gestured at her to come in. ‘It was just work.’

‘Archives called you in the middle of the night?’

‘And since when did
you
work regular office hours, Miss Jaq?’

She smiled and came to sit beside him, but he could see the strain and worry in her face, and wondered if she’d heard more than she was letting on.

He couldn’t help but admire the smooth, taut muscles of her body, carefully optimized to the physical standards required of SecInt agents. She had skills of endurance and prowess that
remained unavailable – at least legally – to most citizens of the Tian Di, a necessary advantage in her line of work. And yet, in that moment, she looked almost frail as she reached out
and clasped one hand over his.

‘There’s something going on I don’t know about, isn’t there?’ she said. ‘And it’s got something to do with Aeschere. Every time I look at you,
you’re somewhere else.’

He thought of de Almeida, and her revelations about the lattice in his skull. ‘I want to tell you, but . . .’

‘But you can’t,’ she finished for him. ‘I get it. Though I do think you should talk to Director Lethe.’

Luc shook his head at this, and saw a flash of anger in her eyes. ‘Why not?’ she asked.

‘What I’m involved in is at a higher level even than Lethe.’

‘The Temur Council?’

He didn’t reply, and her eyes darted towards where Cripps’ data-ghost had been standing until just a minute ago.

‘You have to be careful when dealing directly with the Temur Council,’ she said, her voice soft. ‘Very,
very
careful.’

‘Believe me,’ he said, reaching out to her, ‘I know.’

By the next evening the walls of Luc’s apartment felt as if they were closing in, and he decided to head into Archives rather than spend any more time on his own.

He could have simply data-ghosted himself there – some of Archives’ employees spent their entire careers working remotely, via transfer gate on other Tian Di colonies – but
there were certain questions that were best asked face-to-face. That meant a trip to the Pioneer Gorge facility, and to Vincent Hetaera, the Archives Division’s Head of Research.

He travelled by overhead tram, watching as the wafer-thin buildings bordering the north-east quadrant of Chandrakant Lu Park gave way to the classical architecture of the Old Quarter. The tram
carried him past the crescent shapes of biomes that preserved the planet’s original flora and fauna, then down into the Gorge itself, before leaving him at the entrance to Archives, a vast,
truncated pyramid of a building more than two centuries old.

He found Vincent Hetaera standing by the window of his office. ‘It’s wonderful to see you whole and well,’ said Hetaera, stepping over to Luc with a wide grin on his face.

He stopped and regarded him with a shocked expression. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said, his tone apologetic.

‘What?’

Hetaera’s grin grew wide once more. ‘I should have addressed you as
Master Archivist
Gabion, shouldn’t I?’

‘Luc will do just fine. And I’ll have the same as you’re having,’ he said, gesturing to the glass in the other man’s hand.

Hetaera glanced down at the glass he held as if he’d forgotten it was there. ‘It’s just kavamilch,’ he said. ‘Sure you don’t want something
stronger?’

‘Kavamilch will be fine.’

Hetaera shrugged and picked up a pot, pouring some of the warm brew into a second glass and handing it to Luc.

‘I got your request,’ said Hetaera as they sat down opposite each other on couches by the window. ‘But there might be a problem,’ he added with a grimace.

‘What kind of problem?’

‘The author of the book you’re looking for,’ Vincent explained. ‘Javier Maxwell. He never wrote a book by that name, at least not that we know of.’

‘
A History of the Tian Di
?’ The book Vasili had taken hold of in the last moments before his death. ‘How sure are you about that?’

Hetaera raised an eyebrow. ‘
Very
sure. Where did you hear about it?’

‘I saw a copy,’ Luc replied, ‘a physical, printed copy, with my own two eyes. Is it possible we just don’t have records of it?’

‘I
suppose
it’s possible, but ever since Father Cheng locked Maxwell away and took control of the Temur Council, his name’s had restricted access flags attached to it
wherever it turns up in our files. Even with your recent promotion, I doubt you’d be able to get permission to find out if it ever did exist without petitioning Father Cheng himself
directly.’

Luc nodded tiredly. He’d come across any number of such restricted access flags during his years of researching Winchell Antonov’s endless tangle of connections with terrorist groups
scattered far and wide across the Tian Di.

‘May I ask,’ said Hetaera, ‘how you came across this book?’

Luc had been dreading the possibility he might be asked precisely this question. ‘It’s a confidential source,’ he replied carefully.

‘Then if the book ever existed, it’s more than likely been wiped from the official records.’ Hetaera spread his hands. ‘If it was a printed book, how old would you say it
was?’

‘I couldn’t begin to guess.’

‘Pre-Schism old?’ Hetaera hazarded.

Luc shrugged. ‘Maybe. I guess it could have been.’ He studied Hetaera, wondering just how much he could get away with telling him. ‘It was part of someone’s personal
collection.’

‘Well, there you go,’ said Vincent. ‘We all know how much turbulence the Tian Di went through following the Schism. A lot of things were lost forever back then, and not just
books.’

‘But I
saw
this book. It
exists
.’

‘Yes, but not as far as Archives is concerned, unfortunately.’ Vincent gave him an apologetic smile. ‘Seems to me that your life hasn’t got any less interesting since you
got back from Aeschere.’

‘Yeah,’ said Luc. ‘That’d be an understatement.’ He’d almost forgotten about the kavamilch in his hand, and swallowed it down. It tasted sweet and warm.

‘And what about Archives?’ asked Hetaera. ‘I know you turned down a promotion to the Security Division before. Now that Antonov’s gone, do you think you’ll change
your mind and move upstairs?’

The corner of Luc’s mouth twitched. ‘We’re on the top floor, Vincent. There
is
no upstairs.’

‘You know what I mean.’

Luc sighed. ‘To be honest, there’s nothing to stop me retiring right now. Never do another damn thing for the rest of my life.’

Hetaera watched him for a moment. ‘Sitting around and doing nothing isn’t your style.’

‘No.’ Luc played with his empty glass. ‘Staying in Archives feels like the best option. I feel at home here, and now at least I can pick and choose what work I do.’ His
eyes flicked towards his superior. ‘Right now, I’ve been asked to consult on something on behalf of a member of the Council.’

‘Ah.’ Hetaera nodded, regarding him shrewdly. ‘That would explain the sudden interest in officially non-existent books, so I’ll ask no more.’ He gestured with his
drink. ‘There are a thousand jobs in Archives needing investigating, once you’re done with this. Tying up the loose ends from Antonov alone could take a lifetime.’

Luc nodded. ‘Is Offenbach in the usual place?’

Hetaera laughed. ‘Where
else
would he be? Good to have you back, Luc.’

Luc smiled. ‘Good to be back, Vincent.’

‘There you go,’ said Jared Offenbach, leaning forward in his chair. ‘Dummy corporations, black market accounts, traceable and currently non-traceable funds,
as much as you could want. A lot of it doesn’t even go anywhere: it’s chaff, designed to lead you far away from where the real money is going. Which is Black Lotus, of
course.’

Cascades of colour-coded financial information filled the office of Senior Archives Librarian Offenbach, swarming around both men. The office itself was only dimly visible with the windows
opaqued, but Luc could just about make out shelves filled with antique reading devices used to recover legacy data from obsolete hardware.

Luc shifted in his own seat, causing nearby strands of information to ripple in the air as they attempted to maintain their integrity. He watched Jared pull yet more data from out of deep
virtual stacks. Flags indicated that some of the information flowing around them hadn’t been accessed, in certain cases, for more than a century, perhaps longer. Offenbach gestured expertly
with his fingers, untwining dense braids of data into finer and finer branches, rapidly surrounding himself in a glowing tapestry of light. His nearly hairless pate gleamed under the constant
assault of visualized data.

For reasons that remained obscure to Luc, Offenbach preferred to maintain an outward physical appearance considerably more advanced than most. Liver spots dotted his hands, while a hawklike nose
that always made Luc think of a half-opened flick-knife jutted from the centre of his face.

‘I’m looking for something very specific,’ said Luc, grasping at a set of brightly coloured filaments just within his reach. Tiny clumps of words, names and reference numbers
pulsed like jellyfish as his fingers brushed against them. He made a claw of his hand, then flung his fingers wide, causing the clumps to suddenly expand, revealing more details, along with the
broad outlines of the financial links that connected the filaments together, almost fractal in their compact density. He performed another deft sleight of hand, and the filaments of data shrank
once more.

To one side of the two men floated several dense clusters, rendered in luminous orange and green, representing the financial concerns of more than a dozen Benarean resistance movements. Dark
nebulae of restricted or missing data weaved in and out of these brightly glowing clouds, but Luc knew that even this vast quantity of interconnected data represented only one very minor sub-branch
of the complete Black Lotus data-set.

‘Something specific?’ Offenbach spluttered. ‘Well, I should
hope
so.’

Luc leaned back. ‘The focus I want is on a medium-broad spectrum of interconnectivity, representing whatever relationship existed between Winchell Antonov and Sevgeny Vasili.’

Offenbach blinked a couple of times, clearly choosing his next words carefully. ‘I can tell you right now that any such records are likely to be heavily flagged and restricted.’

‘That’s hardly news to me, Jared.’ Luc’s work on the Black Lotus data-set had been a constant struggle with restricted-data flags. If Offenbach hadn’t been able to
help him circumnavigate a number of them in the past, he might never have succeeded in tracking Antonov down. Offenbach was, in many ways, Archives’ unsung hero.

Offenbach gave him a look of wry amusement, then reached out, manipulating the data before him with practised ease. The entire set rotated on an invisible axis, bringing clusters representing
the relationships between the Temur Council and Sevgeny Vasili into clearer focus. Luc could see that most of the clusters reached back for centuries, all the way to the pre-Schism days. Many of
the strands were colour-coded brown and grey, to indicate their special restricted status.

‘Strange,’ Offenbach muttered.

‘What?’

The librarian shook his head. ‘Your revised security rating should have gone through now you’ve been promoted to Master of Archives, but these data-sets simply won’t respond to
your new rating. They still appear restricted to your eyes, don’t they?’

Luc glanced again at the brown-and-grey coded links and nodded. Each member of SecInt, depending on their personal security ratings, saw different things even when looking at the same visualized
information. What might appear restricted to Luc might instead show as fully available to Offenbach, and vice versa.

Luc reached out and touched a grey strand, but it vibrated without expanding.

‘You’re right,’ he said, staring at the restricted strands. ‘I can’t access a lot of these.’ He glanced at other, neighbouring strands, which appeared not to
be flagged in the same way. ‘But I can see others that look like I could access them, if I wanted to.’

Offenbach nodded distractedly. ‘But
all
of these should be accessible to you now.’ He tapped one finger against the arm of his chair. ‘Maybe your new rating is taking
time to percolate through the system.’

‘That sounds like bullshit even to me, Jared.’

Offenbach sighed and nodded. ‘A lot of these threads were capped following Antonov’s death. If that much has propagated through the data-sets, then your new rating should have taken
effect, unless . . .’

‘Unless what?’

Offenbach looked suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Usually, when something like this happens, it’s because of orders coming from way,
way
up the food chain.’

A member of the Council, in other words. Luc had a mental flash of Cripps, standing in his apartment.

Offenbach raised one magnificently hairy eyebrow. ‘You mentioned when you came in that you were asked to help in an investigation of some kind. Would that investigation perhaps be
connected to stories I’ve been hearing about your trip up to the White Palace?’

Luc made a face. ‘I see I’m the talk of the town.’

Offenbach let out a half-muffled giggle. ‘Yes. So much
intrigue
.’

Despite his outward appearance, Luc sometimes wondered if Offenbach might actually be a good deal younger than himself. He certainly acted like it at times.