The construct permitted itself a smile.
Barely five minutes had passed in base-reality since his death, and he had spent the great majority of that time unconscious, the data-set that was his stored personality being updated with the rigorously cross-checked information from the time and place of his murder before being activated: the wreck of the command car he and the rest of the crew had been killed in was still burning on the fractured floor of the Southern Volcano Room, the convoy had yet to regroup properly after the young lieutenant’s treacherous attack on it, his co-directors at Aerospace had been summoned to an emergency virtual meeting due to take place in a subjective half-hour and a base-reality physical meeting in the Atlantean Tower scheduled in two hours real – two years and three months subjective – time, while his widow had been contacted but had yet to reply.
‘Backtrack on the coded message; how did it find its way into a hardened military narrowcast?’
‘Still investigating. The jurisdictional protocols concerned are complicated.’
Sessine could imagine; the military would not easily be persuaded to open its data corpus to outside investigation.
‘I want to request an audience with Adijine, priority.’
‘Contacting the Palace, royal apartments… monarch’s office… on hold… His Majesty’s private secretary suite… your call-sign going through… private secretary construct on line real time now. Replace?’
‘Replace.’
The woman disappeared, turning in a blink into a small wizened man in a black dress coat and holding a long staff. He looked briefly around the vault, stood and bowed slightly to Sessine, then sat again.
‘Count Sessine,’ he said. ‘The King has already asked me to inform you of the profound shock he experienced at hearing of your murder, and to convey his deepest sympathy to you as well as to those you leave behind. He has also asked me to assure you that everything possible will be done to root out those responsible for this foul crime.’
‘Thank you. I would like to request an audience with His Majesty, as soon as possible.’
‘His Majesty can spare a short while between other appointments in twenty minutes real – approximately four months subjective – time.’
‘I must ask for an emergency meeting before then.’
‘I understand your distress and shock, Count Sessine. However, His Majesty is in an important meeting with representatives of the Chapel usurper forces, discussing peace; informing him of your death and giving him time to express the above-mentioned shock and sympathy has already, perhaps, used up whatever diplomatic slack we have with the Engineer delegation; we cannot possibly incur any further interruption without risking an apparent sleight and the breakdown of negotiations.’
Sessine thought about this. The secretary sat smiling patiently at him. Measuring his words, Sessine spoke again: ‘My concern is that the message which appeared to instigate my murder was embedded within a military signal sent from Army HQ, and that this therefore implies either a serious signal-security breach or a traitor in at least the middle-level military.’ He paused to let the secretary speak, then went on. ‘Has the King authorised a full military investigation?’
‘An investigation has been authorised.’
‘At what level?’
‘A level commensurate with your standing, Count; the highest level.’
‘With full military access immediately?’
‘That is not possible; the Army has operational reasons for not being able to reveal such matters precipitously; there are controls, checks and balances which must be negotiated over a minimum real-time scale if one is not to trip a series of automatic security-violation safeguards. The relevant authorisations are of course being sought, but -‘
‘Thank you, private secretary. Would you put me on to military High Command, level five, and replace?’
The construct had time to look distinctly annoyed before it was replaced with a young soldier in full dress uniform.
‘Count Sessine.’
‘Is this level five?’ Sessine frowned. ‘I thought -‘
The young soldier stood, quickly drew his ceremonial sword and in the same movement brought it scything above the trolley-table and through Sessine’s neck, parting his head from his shoulders.
What? he thought, then everything faded.
He awoke in the tower-bedroom of the ambiently scaled version of Serehfa, alone, on what gave every appearance of being a fine spring morning.
He lay in the bed and looked around. Silk sheets, brocade canopy, oil paintings on the wall, rugs on the floor, wooden panelling, tall windows. He felt washed clean, and distinctly unsettled.
He closed his eyes, said, ‘Speremus igitur,’ and opened his eyes again.
His smile was troubled. ‘Hmm,’ he said quietly.
He got out of bed, dressed in the clothes he had been wearing earlier, and went out onto the balcony.
A dot in the distance, somewhere over the curtain-wall to the west, attracted his attention. A hint of light around it, a thin, hazy trail in the sky behind…
He watched the dot expand, then imagined himself on the fast-tower.
/He stood on the gaily painted wooden platform again; the flag snapped in the air above him. He watched the missile tear across the roof-tops below and disappear into the tower where he had been standing a few seconds earlier. The tower erupted; yellow-white flame burst outwards across the balcony, sundering the stones all around that floor and throwing back the tower’s roof, releasing a cloud of slates like some flock of disturbed birds.
Straight through the balcony windows. Sessine felt both impressed and depressed.
He did not see or hear what hit him from behind, just glimpsed a searing light and felt the concussive blast.
He awoke in bed, alone, on what gave every appearance of being a fine spring morning.
He lay there for a second, then imagined himself to the summit of the fast-tower.
/He saw the first missile, crossing the curtain-wall to the west. He turned and saw the other, approaching from the east, level with him and approaching fast. He remembered the feeling he had had when he’d heard the shots inside the scree-car and ducked back in to see what was happening. He imagined the view from the middle of the inner bailey,
/then from a tower on the curtain-wall to the south,
/then from the north,
/then from the eastern gate complex,
/then from some low hills outside the castle altogether.
The whole edifice detonated, disappearing in a scattering series of explosions, flickering light, throwing stones and timbers high into the air, black amongst fire.
‘Sessine?’ He turned, and the image of his first wife was there, standing on the path behind him, as lovely as on the first day they had met. She never called me –
She was upon him with the strangle-wire before he could move; gripping him, trapping him with a strength no human had ever possessed.
He awoke in the bed, alone. What is this! What is going on? Who is –
Light at the window, something –
Fool!
Then light everywhere.
He awoke in the bed.
‘Alandre,’ the young maid breathed, alongside him, reaching.
/He was on the deck of the clan yacht, at anchor one evening off Istanbul; the Bosporus glittered darkly beneath, the twin bridges arced above. His heart thudded. He looked quickly around. Nobody. He looked up. Something falling from the rail-bridge… he started to imagine – then light again, atomically bright, lighting up all the city…
He awoke.
‘Ala- ‘
/He was in bed, in his apartments in the clan Aerospace’s headquarters in the Atlantean Tower.
The doctor looked down at him, his face somehow familiar, his expression regretful. The young doctor fired the gun straight between Sessine’s eyes.
He awoke.
‘Al- ‘
/He was in the nursery of the clan’s Seattle stronghold. The nurse was above him; the knife came down on his mewls.
And something inside him screamed, Seven!
He awoke.
He was in a hotel room; it was small and tawdry-looking. The curtains drawn, the ceiling light on. He was sitting. His heart was hammering, his body covered with cold sweat. He cancelled the fake physical symptoms of his panic then started to imagine being somewhere else… but he was out of places to run, and as he did not know where he was, he suspected that here was as good a place as any to stay a while.
What had happened? What had been going on?
He stood up and went to the window, carefully lifting one corner of the curtains while staying behind the wall, half expecting the arrival of a hail of bullets or another missile the instant he betrayed his position.
He looked out onto a darkened town; a port within a huge, dim space all speckled with small lights. Dark waters lay in the distance beyond wharves and cranes. Spaced regularly in the shadows across the inky glints of waves he could just make out huge pillars, growing out of that broad, buried sea like impossibly perfect steep-cliffed islands and sprouting, spreading at their summits to meet a jet-black vaulted sky more remembered than seen.