Revelation Space 1 - Revelation Space - Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

Author:Alastair Reynolds [Reynolds, Alastair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Read, Alastair Reynolds, Scifi
ISBN: 9780441009428
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2011-04-06T11:57:29+00:00

FOURTEEN

Mantell, North Nekhebet, Resurgam, 2566

On the day that the newcomers announced their presence, Sylveste was woken by a stab of unforgiving white light. He held his arm up in supplication while he waited for his eyes to cycle through their initialisation routines. It was almost useless speaking to him in those moments; Sluka evidently realised this. With so many of their original functions gone, the eyes took longer than ever now to reach functionality. Sylveste experienced a slow rote of errors and warnings, little spectral prickles of pain as the eyes investigated critically impaired modes.

He was half aware of Pascale sitting up in bed next to him, lifting the sheets around her chest. 'You'd better wake up,' Sluka said. 'Both of you. I'll wait outside while you dress.' The two of them struggled into clothes. Beyond the room, Sluka stood patiently with two guards, neither conspicuously armed. Sylveste and his wife were escorted towards Mantell's commons, where the morning shift of True Path Inundationists were gathered around an oblong wallscreen. Flasks of coffee and breakfast rations lay undisturbed on the commons table. Whatever was going on, Sylveste surmised, was enough to kill any normal appetite. And the screen evidently held the key. He could hear a voice speaking, amplified and harsh, as if from a loudspeaker. There was so much background conversation taking place that he could do no more than snatch the odd word from the narrative. Unfortunately, that odd word tended to be his own name, spoken at too-frequent intervals by whoever was booming from the screen.

He pushed to the front, aware that the watchers deferred to him with more respect than he'd felt for several decades. But was it possibly only pity being afforded to a condemned man?

Pascale joined him at his side. 'Do you recognise that woman?' she asked.

'What woman?'

'On the screen. The one you're standing in front of.'

What Sylveste saw was only an oblong of pointillist silver-grey pixels.

'My eyes don't read video too well,' he said, addressing Sluka as much as Pascale. 'And I can't hear a damned thing. Maybe you'd better tell me what I'm missing.'

Falkender had appeared out of the crowd. 'I'll patch you in neurally, if you wish. It'll only take a moment.' He shunted Sylveste away from the watchers, towards a private alcove in one corner of the commons, Pascale and Sluka following. There, he opened his toolkit and removed a few glistening instruments.

'Now you're going to tell me this won't hurt at all,' Sylveste said.

'I wouldn't dream of it,' Falkender said. 'After all, it wouldn't be the complete truth, would it?' Then he clicked his fingers, either at an aide or Pascale; Sylveste was unsure, and his visual field was now too restricted to discriminate. 'Get the man a mug of coffee; that'll take his mind off it. In any case, when he's able to read that screen, I think he'll need something stronger.'

'That bad?'

'I'm afraid Falkender isn't joking,' Sluka said.

'My, aren't you all enjoying yourselves.' Sylveste bit his lip

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