The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [64]
‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘The resemblance is very close.’
‘Not close, exact,’ the sim replied. ‘The Construct went to a lot of trouble building the physical-traits range, not to mention the vocal-spectrum match.’
‘And Velazquez? He was there when I vanished after being framed for the Brolt ambassador’s assassination – how did you get him on your side when you turned up down here?’
‘He never believed the accusation or the reports,’ the sim said. ‘Also, shortly before the Spiral armada attack, he received a recording of the assassination from an American reporter called Macrae, which proved that it was Kuros’s Ezgara commandos who were behind it. Of course, I still had to work on him a bit, especially when it came to explaining how I was spirited away by the Construct, which was keen to make an alliance with Earthsphere. He was impressed when I told him that my personal AI had been surgically removed – well, yours! In the end the most persuasive card in my hand was the holdful of repair bots with which he was able to save his dying ship. Although it helps that there’s no way he can contact any Earthsphere bases up through the levels of hyperspace. Now, however, I would like to lead this conversation onto more pressing matters and in a less public venue.’
The ambassador sim’s room was on the officer quarters deck. On the way there, the sim informed Robert that he did in fact have a grand-nephew called Rudy Bauer, who was the grandson of his younger brother, Werther. Robert found himself struggling to recall Werther’s face. A niggling suspicion rose and would not subside.
The room was spacious and shadowy, broken by pools of subdued light from wall-niche downlights or small table lamps. After a vapour shower and a change of clothing into a casual grey-blue two-piece, Robert settled into a low-backed easy chair, sipping a glass of some brandy analogue as he gathered his thoughts. From across a nearby lamp-illuminated decorative table, the ambassador sim regarded him.
‘When you last saw the Construct,’ Robert said, ‘did you encounter my daughter, Rosa?’
‘There are several versions of Rosa working for the Construct in a range of capacities,’ the sim said. ‘I did speak with one or two.’
‘I’ve found myself wondering if she still reads her favourite book, Butterfly Wave.’
The older sim smiled. ‘I think you meant Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Was that a test?’
‘The consequence of habitual caution,’ Robert said. ‘My apologies.’
‘I take no offence,’ said the sim. ‘I saw the report you gave to the Construct. Your account of the Tanenth virtual planet was fascinating.’
There was a pause. Robert smiled.
‘But you deduced that I wasn’t being entirely forthcoming.’ He shrugged. ‘I was uncertain about some of the things the Tanenth machine told me … well, not so much uncertain as overwhelmed. I couldn’t help but see it all, that defiance of colossal power, that mass suicide, in the context of my daughter Rosa’s death.’
He downed the rest of the brandy in a single, pleasurably sharp gulp.
‘The Tanenth wanted to live,’ he went on. ‘I’m sure of it, but the Godhead was all of their world, alpha and omega, mother and father. And Rosa wanted to live, with all the life that was in her, but she knew that there were principles that she had to live up to. Risks that she had to take in the hope of forcing the Hegemony to alter or delay its war deployments. In both cases, the risks went against them.’
‘So the Tanenth machine told you something else before sending you on your way.’
‘Something incredible and bizarre,’ Robert said, cradling the empty glass in his hands. ‘The machine said that the Godhead has an immense physical presence yet its location has been hidden for millions of years, deep in the abyss levels of hyperspace, shielded by mazes of psi-traps and altered physical laws. Over great spans of time, the Godhead’s mind has developed meta-quantal abilities that now allow it to extend beyond the boundaries of its hyperspace lair. Its consciousness, and parts of its subconscious, now literally stretch across several neighbouring