Angel Stations by Gary Gibson Page A

sitting at the far end of the bar, ‘are no better. Information gets bought and sold out here, same as anywhere else. So, I get to hear things: like they think the raw distillate they discovered might be the real thing, real Angel memories. Not animals, or dinosaurs or whatever, but actual Angel memories. Think about it, Kim. I heard they found this stuff frozen in a block, like amber, still viable after God knows how many millions of years. Maybe including memories of the things that built this place – maybe. That’s the kind of Books I’m talking about. There are always people from the . . .’ Bill scratched his cheek, apparently looking for the right words. ‘. . . the private sector who want to know what’s in them.’
    ‘You mean criminals,’ Kim said carefully.
    Bill leaned back, studied her. ‘That I can get my hands on right now. The other kind, you’re going to have to wait for.’ He smiled, shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

Four
    Roke
    There was a tower Roke liked to visit on mornings like this. It stood at the eastern limit of the high-walled valley in which the city of Tibe stood. The walls of the valley fell away to the north, spreading wider and lower to provide space for a network of wide-bodied rivers that led to the Great Northern Sea. As you approached by ship from the north, you saw the city of Tibe spread before you, between wide, rounded hills that rose gradually behind the city to the mountainous terrain of Southern Tisane. But first you saw the mass of the Emperor’s Rock, rising from near the centre of the city: a great lump of basalt on which the palace stood, home to kings and despots and lunatics since the beginning of time. It was impossible to walk through the streets of the city below, and not crane your neck up to see the Emperor’s home, balanced there as if by magic.
    Where Roke now stood, in a tall whitestone tower on one of the high hills that embraced the metropolis like great encircling arms, the Emperor’s Rock rose slightly to the right of his vantage point. This far up the valley wall, you were almost – but not quite – level with the palace itself. To Roke’s left were ships coming into port or sailing out to sea. Most of them were warships; even the merchant ships mostly carried military supplies these days. This was a sight that had stunned Roke the first time he had seen it, when he had been brought here as a captive more than half a lifetime ago. He had believed he would die, horribly, for resisting the armies of Xan. And now, here he was, one of the Emperor’s most trusted advisors.
    However.
    Bright sunlight fell through the clouds that tumbled down from the high mountains to the south, bathing Roke in sudden warmth. It was not enough to lift his mood, though. The meeting was scheduled for that evening, after most of the city’s inhabitants had retired for the night. Always, after nightfall, the Shai came, and Xan consorted with devils out of a child’s fairytale or some story taken from the great Book of some flea-bitten city’s history. Even so, the Shai frightened Roke, frightened him to the core, for although it was like nothing else in the world, strange and alien, it seemed to Roke that behind its words hid other intents.
    Roke had attempted to speak to the Emperor about his concerns, but Xan had only seemed to half-listen. The Emperor Xan, after all, was the conqueror of the known world, the reincarnation of the Fidhe. Roke, for all his respected status within the court, was still at heart a refugee from a captured city. There were many in Tibe who would be reluctant to let him forget this.
    – Master Roke.
    Roke stiffened, but did not turn. He did not wish to see the figure that had appeared behind him. He did not know the creature’s name, but it seemed apt to think of it simply as the Monster. He felt, rather than saw, its ravaged face staring out at him from the shadows by the stairwell.
    – I can see why you like it up here, it said. – It reminds me