Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

distracted.
His casual banter fooled me for not a second; this was a man who
wanted power, Possession indeed, and his current scheme with the
AI would not be his last. He was a man I would have to watch, and
might one day have to kill.
    ‘Oh, well,’ he said. ‘Our day will come, and
you’ll see it’
    I was about to contest this when I felt a hand on my
shoulder.
    ‘Oh, hello, Catherine.’
    My former landlady smiled down at me; like everyone here, she
was already a bit drunk. She nodded at Fergal and looked back at
me.
    ‘Hi, Clovis. I hope you like your new
accommodation.’
    ‘Oh, aye.’
    She reached into a pouch on her hip. ‘I’ve got
something for you,’ she said. ‘A letter that arrived
a few days ago, I didn’t get round to – ’
    ‘That’s all right,’ I said, taking the bulky
envelope. ‘Thanks.’
    Fergal, perhaps subdued by his rebuff, was moodily studying
his drink, or tactfully respecting my privacy, as I opened the
package. From the handwriting of the address, I knew it was from
Gantry. It contained a letter and a thick booklet. The letter was
neatlytyped. I glanced down the predictable hand-wringing about
my expulsion from the University (the trial had been a farce, not
that I cared any more) and about my choice of tinkering as a
career; then turned over to the next sheet.
     
    However, Clovis, and just as a little reminder of the joys of
historical research – you may remember I looked a little
puzzled when you introduced your girlfriend, Merrial? The reason
was that I thought I recognised her from somewhere. Actually, of
course, I hadn’t – but I’d come across a
picture of what may be an ancestor of hers by the same name, in
one of the Institute’s old yearbooks – 2058, in fact.
You may even have glanced through this once yourself. Have a look
at page 35 – the resemblance is quite striking.
    (Needless to say, I expect you to return…
     
    I almost dropped the papers as I fumbled open the booklet and
turned to the page. It showed – in much sharper detail and
better colour than in modern photographs – some kind of
social occasion. People were sitting, smartly dressed, at long
tables, clapping their hands as others in their company danced.
In the immediate foreground was a girl, caught in mid-twirl, her
thick black hair swaying around behind her head, one hand
swinging her long, layered skirt out to the side, her bare feet
lightly, precisely placed. A fine dancer. Merrial.
    She was even named, in the small print of the caption.
    It could be an ancestor, I tried to tell myself, as Gantry
thought. But I knew it was not so. If anyone could be identified
from a photograph, Merrial could. She looked, in the picture, no
different from how she looked this day.
    I had, from the first moment I’d seen her, thought her
younger, fierier, fresher than myself, and attributed her
occasional ironies and unreasonably intelligent remarks to her
native wit, which I was quite unenviously happy to regard as
greater than my own. It was a shock to realise that they were the
wisdom of age. Dear God, how old was she? She had lived since the
Deliverer’s time! The thought was enough to make me feel
dizzy.
    Gantry was right about one thing - I had seen this picture
before, on an idle trawl through the Institute’s
public-relations archive. And, as I had anticipated, the memory
of seeing it did come back. It had only been a few seconds’
pause as I’d turned the pages, a couple of years earlier,
my attention momentarily caught by this pretty image from the
past.
    Fergal’s voice broke into my appalled reflections.
    ‘Bad news from home?’
    I shook my head, folding the letter around the booklet again,
inserting the sheets in the envelope and slipping it into my
pocket.
    ‘No, no,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘Nothing
like that. It’s just - I feel faint, I think I’ve had
too much to drink, on an empty stomach, you know?’
    I clapped my hand to my mouth.
    ‘Oh God.’ I swallowed. The tinker’s
sardonic, sceptical eyes regarded me. I realised that I had still
to decide what to do about another shock, delivered only minutes
earlier: that he – apparently with Mer-rial’s
expectation – had put the AI on the ship. All it would take
to expose him, and blast whatever schemes either or both of them
had hatched, would be a word to Druin…
    ‘You sure you’re all right?’
    ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. I just need some fresh