The way Sensia had let her experience it, it was more like watching it all happen to somebody else, on a stage or in a film; she had been spared the outright immediacy of it all in that first run-through, though she could choose to go back and inspect the detail of it if she wanted. She had chosen to do this. She was doing it again now. She winced once more.
Lededje had stood again, the shock of it over. Sensia stood at her side.
“So I’m dead?” she said, still not fully comprehending.
“Well,” Sensia said, “obviously not so dead you can’t ask that question, but, technically; yes.”
“How did I get here? Was it via this entanglement thing?”
“Yes. There must have been a sort of neural lace inside your head, entangled with the legacy system I inherited from the relevant ship.”
“What relevant ship?”
“Let’s come back to that.”
“And what fucking neural lace inside my head?” she demanded. “I didn’t have one!”
“You must have. The only alternative would have been somebody positioning some sort of neural induction device round your head and reading your mind-state that way, as you slipped away. But that’s very doubtful. Not the sort of tech you have yourselves—”
“We have aliens,” Lededje protested. “Especially in Ubruater – it’s the capital of the planet, the whole system, the whole Enablement. Alien embassies; aliens running around all over the place. They’d have the tech.”
“Indeed they might, but why would they code your brain state and transmit it across three and a half thousand light years to a Culture ship, without documentation? Also, just plopping an induction helmet, no matter how sophisticated, onto a dying person in the last few seconds of their life could never record a mind state as detailed and internally consistent as yours. Even in a prime equiv-tech medical environment with plenty of prep time and a stable subject you’d never capture the fine detail you’ve come equipped with. A full back-up-capable neural lace grows with the brain it’s part of, it beds in over the years, gets very adept at mirroring every detail of the mind it interpenetrates and co -exists with. That’s what you pretty much must have had. Plus it had an entanglement facility built into it, obviously.”
She glared at Sensia. “So I’m … complete? A perfect copy?”
“Impossible to be absolutely sure, but I strongly suspect so. There is almost certainly less of a difference between the you that died and the you that you are now than there would be between your selves at one end of a night’s sleep and the other.”
“And that’s thanks to this entanglement thing too?”
“Partly. The copies at either end of the process should be absolutely identical, assuming the non-originating part of the pair collapses at all.”
“What?”
“Entanglement is great when it works but – more than two per cent of the time – it doesn’t work; in fact it fails utterly. That’s why it’s almost never used – hideously risky. You use it in wartime, when it’s better than nothing, and possibly a few SC agents have been subject to the process, but, otherwise, never.”
“Still, the odds were in my favour.”
“Assuredly. And it’s better than being dead.” Sensia paused. “Though this still doesn’t answer the question regarding how you ended up with a full back-up-capable neural lace in your head complete with an entanglement facility targeted to a long passedon legacy sub-system which all concerned had quite thoroughly forgotten about.” Sensia turned, looked at Lededje. “You’re frowning.”
“I just thought of something.”
She had met him – met it, as it turned out – at a reception on the Third Equatower, in the space station port of one of Sichult’s five equatorial space elevators. A Jhlupian cultural and trade mission ship had recently docked, disgorging various notables of the Jhlupe, a high-level civilisation with which Veppers had commercial links. The carousel space where the reception was held was one of a number of giant sliding tori for ever revolving underneath the rotund bulk of the station’s docks, canted windows providing an ever-changing view of the planet beneath.
The Jhlupe, she recalled thinking, gave the impression that they were all elbows. Or maybe knees; they were awkward-looking twelve-limbed creatures like giant soft-shelled land crabs, their skin or carapace a bright, lustrous green. A trio of eyes on short stalks protruded from their main bodies, which were a little larger than a human who had rolled themselves into a ball. Rather than use their many spindly legs, they floated on what looked like metallic cushions. Their translated voices issued from the same source.
This had happened ten years ago. Lededje had been sixteen at the time, just coming to terms with the fact she was a woman and that her now almost fully matured intagliation would make her an object of fascination wherever she went – indeed that this was the whole of her purpose in life, as far as Veppers and the rest of the world were concerned.
She had just started being brought along to events like this, expected to accompany Veppers as part of his retinue. It was, in its full pomp, a sizeable retinue, too. As well as his assorted bag-carriers and various bodyguards – Jasken being the last line of defence – Veppers was the sort of oligarch who seemed to feel slightly naked without his Media Relations Advisor and his Loyaltician around.
She still wasn’t entirely sure what a Loyaltician actually did, but at least they had some sort of purpose and utility. She, she had come to realise, was no more than an ornament; something to be admired, to be stared at and cooed over, an object of fascin ation and astonishment, her duty being to exemplify and magnify the magnificence and sheer wealth of Mr. Joiler Veppers, President and Prime Executive Officer of the Veprine Corporation; the richest man in the world, in the whole Enablement, in charge of the most powerful and profitable company that had ever existed.
The man looking at her appeared terribly old. He was either a much-altered Sichultian or a pan-human alien; the human type had proved to be one of the galaxy’s more repetitively common life-forms. Probably an alien; making yourself look as skeletally, creakingly old as that would just be perverse, weird and creepy. Nowadays even poor people could afford the sort of treatment that let you stay young-looking pretty much until you died. It kind of meant you rotted from the inside, she’d heard, but that was a small price to pay for not having to look decrepit until right at the end. And there wouldn’t be any poor people up here anyway; this was an exclusive little party, for all that there were a couple of hundred people present.
There were only ten of the Jhlupe in attendance; the rest were Sichultian business chiefs, politicians, bureaucrats and media people, plus their various servants, aides and hangers-on. She supposed she counted as a hanger-on.
She was generally expected to hang around near Veppers, impressing all with the fabulousness of the human exotica he could afford, but he and his inner negotiating circle had peeled off to talk with two of the giant crab people in a sort of bay window section of the reception room, perimeter guarded by three of the Zei – Veppers’ massive, highly enhanced clone bodyguards. Lededje had come to understand that often the principal part of her worth lay in providing a distraction; a chattel to be wielded when Veppers required, dazzling and beguiling those he wished dazzled and beguiled, often so that he could slip something past them or just get them in a generally agreeable frame of mind. The Jhlupe might be able to appreciate that she looked significantly different to everybody else around her – darker, and extravagantly tattooed – but the Sichultians were so alien to them anyway it made little extra difference, which meant she was not required to be present when Veppers was talking with them on matters of any great seriousness.
She had hardly been abandoned though, being minded by one of the other Zei and in the company of Dr. Sulbazghi.
“That man is looking at you,” Sulbazghi said, nodding towards the slightly stooped, extremely bald human a few metres away. The man looked wrong: too thin and – even stooped – too tall to be norma
l. His face and head appeared vaguely cadaverous. Even his clothes were strange: too tight, plain and dull to be remotely fashionable.
“Everybody looks at me, Dr. Sulbazghi,” she told him.
Dr. Sulbazghi was a blocky-looking man with dark yellow skin
– quite lined, on his face – and scant, thin brown hair, characteristics that marked him as either coming from or having ancestors who’d come from Keratiy, first amongst Sichult’s sub-continents. He could easily have had himself altered to look more handsome, or at least vaguely acceptable, but had chosen not to. Lededje thought this was very strange, even freaky. The Zei, towering nearby – soberly dressed, eyes always moving, flicking his gaze all around the room as though watching some ball game invisible to everybody else – was quite good-looking in comparison, and even he was kind of scarily muscle-blown, looking like he was about to burst out of both his suit and skin.
“Yes, but he’s looking at you differently to everybody else,” the doctor said. He nodded to a waiter, had his glass replaced, took a drink. “And look; now he’s coming over.”
“Ma’am?” the Zei rumbled, deep dark eyes looking down at her from a face at least half a metre above her own. The Zei made her feel like a child.
She sighed, nodded, and the Zei let the funny-looking man approach her. Veppers would not expect her to be stand-offish with anybody at an event as exclusive as this.
“Good day. I believe you are Lededje Y’breq,” the old man said, smiling at her and nodding briefly at Dr. Sulbazghi. His voice was real, not synthesised by a translation device. Even more surprising was that his voice was so deep. Veppers had had his voice surgically improved over the years, making it deeper, more mellifluous and rich in a series of small operations and other treatments, but this man’s voice eclipsed even Veppers’ succulent tones. Bit of a shock in someone so patently an old geezer and looking like he was on his last legs. Maybe age went differently with aliens, she thought.
“Yes, I am,” she said, smiling suitably and carefully pitching her voice into the middle of the Zone of Elegance that her elocution tutor kept wittering on about. “How do you do. And you are?”
“How do you do. My name is Himerance.” He smiled, swivelled from the waist in a slightly unnatural way and looked over to where Veppers was talking to the two crab-like aliens. “I’m with the Jhlupian delegation – a pan-human cultural translator. Making sure nobody commits some terrible faux pas.”
“How interesting,” she said, happy not to be committing one herself by yawning in the geriatric’s face.
He smiled again, looked down to her feet and then back up to her face. Yes, just you give me a good long inspection, you old perv, she thought. She supposed it was partly the dress, of which it had to be said there was not much. She was destined to spend her life in revealing clothes. She had long since decided to be proud of how she looked – she would have been a beauty even without the intagliation, and if she was to bear the mark of her family’s shame then she would do that too with all the dignity she could – however, she was still growing into this new role and sometimes men looked at her in ways she didn’t appreciate. Even Veppers had begun to gaze at her as though he was somehow seeing her for the first time, and in a way that made her uncomfortable.
“I confess,” Himerance said, “I am quite fascinated by the Intagliate. And you are, if I may say so, remarkable even within that exceptional category.”
“How kind,” she said.
“Oh, I am not kind,” Himerance said.
At that point, the Zei watching over them stiffened fractionally and rumbled something that might have been “Excuse me”, before swinging away into the crowd of people with surprising litheness and grace. At the same time Dr. Sulbazghi swayed a little and, frowning, inspected the contents of his glass. His eyes looked a little odd. “Don’t know what they’re putting in this stuff these days. Think I’ll sit down, if you … excuse me.” He sidled off too, heading for some seats.
“There we are,” Himerance said smoothly. He had kept his eyes focused on her while both the Zei and Dr. S had made their excuses and left. She was alone with him now.
The truth dawned. “You just did that?” she asked, glancing first at the broad, retreating back of the Zei and then in the direction Dr. S had disappeared. She was not trying to keep her voice politely modulated any more. She was aware her eyes had widened.
“Well done,” Himerance said with an appreciative smile. “A concocted semi-urgent message on the bodyguard’s comms and a temporary feeling of dizziness afflicting the good doctor. Neither will detain them for long, however it allows me the chance to beg a favour of you.” Himerance smiled again. “I would like to talk to you privately, Ms. Y’breq. May I?”
“Now?” she asked. She glanced about. It would be a short conversation; you were – well, she was – never left alone for more than a minute or so at gatherings like this.
“Later,” Himerance said. “Tonight. In your chamber at Mr. Veppers’ town house in Ubruater City.”
She almost laughed. “Think you’ll get invited?” She knew there was nothing planned that evening beyond a meal out with the whole entourage somewhere and then – for her – music and deportment lessons. Then to bed, after getting to watch half an hour of screen, if she was lucky. She wasn’t allowed out without bodyguards and escorts and the idea that she’d be allowed to entertain a man in her private bedroom, ancient and alien or not, was frankly hilarious.
Himerance smiled his easy smile. “No,” he said. “I can arrange my own access; however I wouldn’t want you to be alarmed, so I thought it best to ask permission first.”
She regained some control. “What is this about, Mr. Himerance?” she asked, voice polite and measured again.
“I have a modest proposition to make. It will cause you no inconvenience or harm. It would take nothing from you that you’d miss.”
She changed tack again, trying to unsettle this weird old guy, dropping the too-polite tone and asking sharply, “And what’s in it for me?”
“Perhaps some satisfaction, once I’ve explained what it is I am looking for. Though some other payment could certainly be arranged.” Still without taking his gaze away from her eyes, he said, “I’m afraid I must hurry you for an answer; one of Mr. Veppers’ bodyguards is making his way towards us rather smartly, having realised we have been left alone.”
She felt excited, slightly scared. Her life was too controlled. “When’s good for you?” she asked.
She’d fallen asleep. She hadn’t meant to and she would never have thought she’d be able to anyway, just too fired up by the vague, illicit thrill of it all. Then when she awoke she knew he was there.
Her room was on the second-top floor of the tall town house, which was better guarded than most military bases. She had a big room with a dressing room and bathroom en-suite; its two large windows looked out over the gently lit parterres and formal sculp -tings of the garden. By the windows, part illuminated in the spill of cloud-reflected city light the shutters admitted, there was a sitting area with a low table, a couch and two seats.
She levered herself up from her pillows with her elbows.
He was sitting in one of the seats. She saw his head turn.
“Ms. Y’breq,” he said softly. “Hello again.”
She shook her head, put a finger to her lips, pointed round the room.
There was just enough light for her to see him smile. “No,” he said gently. “The various surveillance devices will not trouble us.”
Okay, she thought. So the alarm probably wouldn’t work either. She’d kind of been relying on that as her last line of defence if things got iffy. Well, second-last line of defence; she could always just scream. Though if the guy could interfere with the Zei’s comms, make Dr. S feel suddenly dizzy and somehow get himself into Veppers’ town house without being detected, maybe even screaming wouldn’t be on the agenda if he set his mind against it. She started to get a little frightened again.
; A light came slowly on near the seat he sat in, revealing him to be dressed just as he had been at the reception earlier in the day. “Please,” he said, gesturing to the other seat. “Join me.”
She put a robe over her nightgown, turning away from him so that he wouldn’t see her hands shake. She sat by him. He looked different: still the same man, but not quite so old; less skeletal about the face, body no longer stooped.
“Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to talk with you in private,” he said formally.
“That’s okay,” she said, drawing her feet up beneath her and hugging her knees. “So. What is it all about?”
“I would like to take an image of you.”
“An image?” She felt vaguely disappointed. Was that all? Though probably he meant a full-body image, a photograph of her in the nude. So he was just an old perv after all. Funny how things that started out exciting and maybe even romantic-seeming degenerated into the crude mundanity of lust.
“It would be an image of your entire body, not just both inside and out but of its every single cell, indeed its every atom, and taken, in effect, from outside the three dimensions one normally deals with.”
She stared at him. “Like, from hyper-space?” She asked. Lededje had generally paid attention in science lessons.
Himerance smiled broadly. “Precisely.”
“Why?”