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  Another sound rose then, pouring out through the hacked speakers, drowning the shambling, off-key chorus of the remaining UCs with shocking ease: the song as it was meant to be sung, clear and pure and in perfect time, a gloriously rich tone that washed over and silenced them. The extemporaneous preacher’s face was slack with amazement. Gwen raised her hands palm up, half placation, half shrug, as if to say, Isn’t this what you wanted? and then raised them higher as she turned to the stage, a questioning What now? directed there as she kept on singing.

  Lyriam took one hand off the guitharp long enough to give her a thumbs-up and signal to the musicians. They gathered themselves, recapturing the wavering melody, mirroring their leader’s laughing face as he watched the ruby-headed girl down in the crowd. She stood in the vidcam’s glow, facing the stunned and speechless UCs now gathered into an embarrassed little knot with the crowd pressing in behind them. Gwen sent an answering thumbs-up to Lyriam, put her hands on her hips and sang it to the end.

  Aryel sank back onto the grass, shaking with mirth. Sharon had already patted her husband’s shoulder and sauntered off down the slope, her warrant tab now clipped to her own shoulder and blinking blue. Gwen met her at the edge of the UC bivouac, dropped the deactivated amp and the preacher’s earset into her hands and strolled back up towards her family through thunderous applause and a pointing, curious crowd.

  ‘Well,’ said Rhys, ‘I suppose she could have just asked them to sing properly or shut the hell up. But Gwennie likes to lead by example.’

  *

  Zavcka Klist was not present at the concert. She would have freely confessed that there was much in Lyriam’s music she could appreciate, but really, there were limits. She had gone to a sponsor’s reception after the infotech announcement, waded into the scrum of business editors wolfing down free canapés, and skilfully turned the encounter into an impromptu press conference.

  When it broke up she drifted casually from one departing group to another as they all made their way to the riverwalk, finally dropping back to stroll alongside her own assistant as others began to make the turn that led towards the park. The two of them did the same, only pausing as Zavcka issued instructions for the next day. When she began to move again, this time heading for the bridge that led to the far side of the river, the assistant hesitated.

  ‘You … um … you’re not going to the show?’ he said. He was still making rapid notes on the tablet in his hand, but he threw a plaintive glance in the direction of the throngs moving up the riverwalk.

  Zavcka took in the look, bit back a rebuke and instead waved a manicured hand in dismissal. ‘No. I have other plans tonight. You go if you like, just make sure everything’s taken care of.’

  It was an unnecessary instruction, and she knew it. This one was diligent, and talented enough to be worth trying to hold on to. He delivered a compact volley of reassurances, thanks and wishes for a pleasant evening as she strode towards the bridge. She glanced back as she reached the top and saw him hurrying away upriver, already speaking into his earset, tablet still in hand. She thought he would likely try to get everything done by remote in the next half hour or so, the better to relax by the time the performances began.

  She sighed. These days it was the best you could hope for.

  Her own plans involved going home, wrapping herself in an ancient robe made from real pre-Syndrome silk, and settling down to review the latest progress report from the most sensitive of her projects while the live concert streamed softly in the background. She glanced at the large screen inset in her sitting-room wall every now and then, her gaze pausing there longest when the feed lingered over a close-up of Aryel Morningstar, sitting like some sentimental vision of nirvana with the last rays of the setting sun glinting bronze and gold off her half-open wings.

  After that the music and applause and between-tune patter was a half-heard backdrop to her own concerns, until the bizarre interruption by what looked to be an even more ludicrous band of zealots than usual. The shift from the stage to a crowd-cam feed caught her attention, and she watched keenly and with grudging admiration as the young gem woman sang them out of countenance. The girl looked disturbingly familiar, but it was not until the song ended and the camera tracked her as she returned to her seat that Zavcka understood why.

  Aryel Morningstar was staring straight at her, for the second time today. At least now she was only onscreen, at the far end of a newstream feed.

  Zavcka frowned at the image as the girl sat down to laughter and wryly shaken heads, and what looked like a compliment from Eli Walker. As the feed cut back to the musicians onstage, she called up her messages. She had added Herran to the list of senders who would trigger an automatic alert, but now it occurred to her that this had been short-sighted.

  Sure enough there was her own subject line, dangling retransmission tags like accessories. As Eli had expected, her nostrils flared with irritation at Herran’s curt directive, but she wasted little time on this. Leaving the message thread attached to the response was no doubt intended to have just such an effect.

  Of far greater interest was its result. She read the note carefully, and with a growing sense of satisfaction. It was too early to feel that anything had been accomplished yet, much less grow complacent. But at least things were, so far, going to plan.

  6

  ‘Reversionists,’ Sharon was saying. ‘Not the most hardline I’ve ever met, but still. It was all about the importance of religious heritage, preservation of traditional values, maintenance of cultural integrity. The usual.’

  ‘In that case, what have they got against Lyriam playing a threehundred-year-old piece of music?’ asked Gwen indignantly. ‘They should have been glad.’

  ‘They said what they objected to was it being taken out of its original context. Apparently Lyriam should have made a speech explaining its origins and giving thanks, before inviting the audience to pray while he played.’

  Sharon greeted the howls of derision with a don’t-shoot-the-messenger shrug. She had arrived late to the after-party, and walked into a storm of questions about the hymn-singing hackers. A quick search onstream while they were being taken into custody had confirmed that the explanation the UC fringe group gave for their actions was backed up by a fairly comprehensive campaign, one which was already being sensationalised by the newstreams. Given that publicity – plus the fact that they’d mostly used their communications privileges to post their statements to public streams – there was little point being tight-lipped about it.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Mikal thoughtfully, ‘if we shouldn’t extend that philosophy to all aspects of life. A lecture on the cultural significance of weaving prior to buying new clothes. An acknowledgement of civilisation’s debt to the cultivation of wheat, to be made each time one eats bread.’

  He eyed a tiny sample of that item, topped by an even tinier cube of meat and slice of olive, the entire confection held delicately between the double thumbs which had swooped down unnoticed to liberate it from the tray of a passing waiter. Laughter erupted around him as he popped it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. ‘Imagine the level of appreciation that would generate.’

  ‘Careful, Mik.’ Eli grinned up at him. ‘Someone might take you seriously. You’re in government now, you know.’

  ‘Oh, is that what happens when you get into government? Someone should have warned me.’

  Mikal rolled his eyes, to more laughter. The little group from the grassy bank was now just a slightly denser cluster amid a busy swirl of guests in the largest of the backstage marquees. Lyriam and Bethany had joined them, separately and in both cases momentarily, before being pulled away; in Lyriam’s case with a backward glance and many-fingered hands raised in mock despair at the collective groan as he disappeared into the crowd.

  Looking around, mapping the movements and mood of the party, letting multiple conversations lap against him as he often did when he wanted to gauge a general disposition rather than plumb a specific exchange, Eli coul
d see that the young musician was, as expected, one of its focal points. Folded unselfconsciously down onto his knees, he was chatting with several chair-bound gems while a standing cordon of mostly norms awkwardly waited their turn to be noticed. The other convergence centred on the twin nuclei of Mikal and Aryel; the one issuing a regular stream of witticisms from two feet above everyone else’s head while the other, diminutive in height but clothed in the immense bronze-and-gold glory of her wings, radiated grace, charm, and blue-eyed serenity. Around them the gathering coalesced, passers-by lingering to overhear what others were laughing at, or angling through a sea of bodies in the unspoken hope of catching Aryel Morningstar’s eye.

  He remembered another gathering years ago, a rare case of interaction in a world where gems and norms were still separate and unequal. Even though she had been shrouded then, her wings unguessed at, he had seen how the centre of gravity tipped towards her; an unexplained attraction that pulled people in, unwittingly and sometimes unwillingly. Once, there would have been sniggers at the notion of gem glamour. Now Eli noted not only the attention focused on Aryel, Lyriam and Mikal, but the knot of music insiders and press that surrounded Gwen, the easy way the gem girl talked and laughed and tossed her glowing, dark red curls away from her face.

  It’s all about them now, he thought. There are people, norms, who would kill to be in this room. In these presences. He felt a vague disquiet at the thought, and Reginald’s remark flitted through his mind once again, like the wings of a butterfly brushing against his subconscious. There was something there, he could sense the vibrations of a connection waiting to be made; but his empty glass had just been refilled, and Mikal was winding up the tale of his first day at City Hall to a delightful, devastating punch-line, and Aryel had just caught his eye and smiled as she drifted close to him on the eddies and currents of the gathering. The notion, whatever it was, came and went as he let his attention be captured.

  *

  ‘They asked about you,’ Sharon was saying quietly to Aryel, under cover of the general hilarity. ‘It seems their biggest worry about the operation was what your reaction would be, whether you would get involved, what impact it would have if you did. But of course what happened wasn’t anything they expected, and they were desperate to know who Gwen was. Someone found an onstream reference to her as Reginald’s foster-daughter, which by their lights makes you sort of her older sister, or at any rate a figure of authority. So they’re reading her as some sort of proxy for you.’

  Aryel was nodding, her smile now a little grim. ‘Positive or negative?’

  ‘They’ve decided it’s positive, on the whole.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Eli. ‘Their plan failed, and they were humiliated. By a gem.’

  ‘This lot say they don’t have any problem with gems as such, and given their reaction I’m inclined to believe them. What they wanted was for the song to be recognised – appreciated – as a hymn, and that’s what Gwen’s intervention did. Far better than they could have, so they’ve decided she must have been sent, or inspired, or something, by the Lord.’ Sharon glanced over to where the young woman stood chatting, very much the centre of her own group now. Her crowd of admirers had grown, Eli noticed. ‘She’s got a hell of a voice.’

  ‘She has.’ Aryel’s eyes rested on Gwen, her face pensive. ‘And she loves to show it off. She knows all the old hymns, along with folk songs, opera, pop music. They’ll be deeply disappointed, I’m afraid – she sings anything and everything, for the pure pleasure of it. And she’s no one’s proxy, believe me.’

  ‘Well, she’ll want to watch it that the wrong idea doesn’t take root. You know what the streams are like.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with her, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s ahead of both of us. And I don’t think she’ll have any trouble getting the right idea out there. Not with that lot clamouring for her comcode.’ Rhys bit back a sigh as he watched Gwen hold court out of the corner of his eye. He felt unanchored, listening at the edges of other people’s conversations, meandering around the fringes of the various clumps that were forming as those who had gathered to listen to Sharon and laugh with Mikal now broke into smaller pockets. He covered his aimlessness by wandering over to the bar to refresh his drink, and found himself well within earshot of the cluster where Bethany held forth.

  ‘They should have been arrested much more quickly. Before it became such a spectacle.’ Her back was to the rest of the room but she made no particular effort to keep her voice down. Her coterie of four norms and two gems, all painfully chic in razor-sharp haircuts and the latest artfully tailored fashions, were hanging on her every word.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Lyriam, back on his feet now, a few paces away and surrounded by the band, turned to interject without moving across to join her. His tone was light, but Rhys’ situational sense picked up the edge in it. ‘We just heard the streamcast is getting way more hits even than the Beijing show. And Gwen sounded great. I knew she could sing, but wow.’

  Bethany stared at him. ‘It was your show. No one should have inserted themselves into your show.’

  ‘True, but since they did I’m glad the story is how they got shut down by a better singer before the cops had to get involved.’ He ignored her outraged face, waved past her to where Sharon was slipping back to Mikal’s side, and raised his voice to bridge the gap. ‘Hey, Shar? Thanks for playing it so cool out there.’

  She sent him back a thumbs-up, along with a slightly puzzled look. Rhys, who had been standing next to Mikal when she joined them in the tent, knew that Lyriam and Sharon had already spoken privately outside. This public show of appreciation could only be to make clear to the assembly of friends, fans, favoured journalists and hangers-on that he had no objection to how the matter had been handled, no matter what anyone else might think. Bethany’s face was burning, and her group had gone quiet. Rhys winced and hastily moved away, looking for his sister.

  *

  He hovered at her shoulder, knowing that her own amplified awareness would have told her he was there long before he came within touching distance. She waited until the man who was talking – one of Lyriam’s producers, Rhys recalled – finished a monologue about summer festivals and studio time, and then turned to pull him into the circle, slipping a hand through his arm.

  ‘There you are. Come and help me work out what all these people are trying to talk me into.’

  ‘Like you need help. I should be looking out for them.’

  She chortled along with the rest, and introduced him to those he had not yet met. The producer said, ‘Do you sing too, Rhys?’

  ‘No,’ Rhys replied firmly, as Gwen said, ‘Yes.’

  The group burst into laughter. Rhys sighed and shook his head disapprovingly at her.

  ‘I can carry a tune if I have to,’ he told the others. ‘But I’m much happier listening. Gwen’s the talent.’

  ‘She certainly is,’ said a narrow woman with severely cut, dyed blue hair. An agent, this one. She frowned, pencil-thin eyebrows drawn into a deep V. ‘Umm … it hadn’t occurred to me to ask … but when you say “talent”.’ She looked at Gwen. ‘It is a gem thing, isn’t it? I mean your voice, it is enhanced?’

  Gwen’s smile stayed fixed for a fraction of a heartbeat, then went back to warm and natural so quickly that Rhys knew only he could have spotted the surge of annoyance.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ she said sweetly. ‘My range and pitch are within norm limits. I can get quite loud without losing tone, but I don’t think I’d break any records.’

  The woman seemed at a loss. The others in the circle fidgeted and glanced at each other. Rhys felt the firm pressure of Gwen’s hand and kept his face still.

  ‘That’s fine,’ said the producer, slowly. ‘It’s funny, how we assume— But it doesn’t matter. It might even be a better story. So much engineering, but in the end it’s an old-fashioned talent. A natural gift. Shining through. Hey, that’s great.’ He grinned at them. ‘You mind if I take a minute to pos
t that? Streams’ll love it.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Gwen, as the rest of the group scrambled to concur. He flicked at his earset and began muttering, eyes down and unfocused. Subvocal dictation, state of the art. The others ostentatiously did the same, or pulled out tablets. The skinny, bluehaired norm was tapping away almost frantically.

  They are all bloody sheep, Rhys thought. If he’d said it was a problem, they’d have gone with that too. He judged them too absorbed for the moment to notice anything in the general hubbub and slid a halfstep back, disengaging his arm and grunting softly at his sister.

  ‘Guh. R’gu om.’ Gwen. Think I’m going to go.

  She turned, holding her place in the circle, frowning as she whispered back at him. ‘Ah? R’ki?’ Why? I thought you were okay?

  ‘Ki. Ta. R’nuloh.’ I’m fine, just tired. It’s not my thing.

  ‘R’ki’tay.’ You might feel better if you stayed.

  Rhys shook his head. ‘Nhh. R’nff.’ No, I’ve had enough. The producer was finishing, eyes up now and looking at them quizzically. Gwen shot Rhys a last, fleeting scowl, eyebrow quirked in her if-that’s-really-what-you-want-to-do look, and then her brow smoothed back to perfect and the smile slid onto her face as she turned back into the conversation. Rhys’ own proximity sense flared and he turned too, finding Callan behind him, paused in mid-stride and looking at him in surprise.

  Rhys opened his mouth, and found he had no idea what to say. He shut it again, and felt his cheeks go hot.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Callan, ‘I couldn’t help overhearing.’ His eyes slipped over the back of Gwen’s head, and lingered on Rhys’ face. ‘Twinspeak? I know about it, of course, but I’ve never heard it used.’

  Rhys stared. ‘You knew what that was? Oh, of course – your language ability. Most people just hear baby-talk.’

  ‘Not me. What’s the matter, are you not feeling well?’ He nodded at the drink still clutched in Rhys’ hand. ‘That stuff’s lethal.’