The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds

Ruskin-Sartorious has been destroyed.’
    Delphine nodded, as if the news was something she’d been quietly dreading. ’I asked your colleague about Vernon. She wouldn’t tell me anything, but I read between the lines. I knew it had to be something bad. Did Vernon—’
    â€˜Vernon died. So did everyone else. I’m sorry. But we managed to recover Vernon’s beta-level.’
    She closed her eyes briefly, reopened them. ‘I want to speak to him.’
    â€˜That isn’t possible.’ Some impulse made Dreyfus add: ‘Not right now, at any rate. Maybe later. But I need to talk to you alone first. What happened to the Bubble doesn’t look like an accident. If it was deliberate, it ranks as one of the worst crimes committed since the Eighty. I want to see justice served. But to do that I need the full cooperation of all surviving witnesses.’
    â€˜You said no one survived.’
    â€˜All we have are three beta-levels. I think I’ve begun to piece together what happened, but your testimony will count just as much as the others.’
    â€˜If I can help, I will.’
    â€˜I need to know what went on right at the end. I understand you were hoping to sell some of your artwork to a third party.’
    â€˜Dravidian, yes.’
    â€˜Tell me everything you know about Dravidian, starting from the beginning. Then tell me about the art.’
    â€˜Why would you care about the art?’
    â€˜It’s connected to the crime. I feel I need to know about it.’
    â€˜Then that’s it? No interest in the art beyond that?’
    â€˜I’m a man of simple tastes.’
    â€˜But you know what you like.’
    Dreyfus smiled slightly. ‘I saw that sculpture you were working on - the big one with the face.’
    â€˜And what did you think of it?’
    â€˜It unsettled me.’
    â€˜It was meant to. Perhaps you’re not a man of such simple tastes as you think.’
    Dreyfus studied her for several moments before speaking. ‘You appear to be taking the matter of your death quite lightly, Delphine.’
    â€˜I’m not dead.’
    â€˜I’m investigating your murder.’
    â€˜As well you should - a version of me has been killed. But the one that counts - the one that matters to me now - is the one talking to you. As difficult as it may be for you to accept, I feel completely alive. Don’t get me wrong: I want justice. But I’m not going to mourn myself.’
    â€˜I admire the strength of your convictions.’
    â€˜It’s not about conviction. It’s about the way I feel. I was raised by a family that regarded beta-level simulation as a perfectly natural state of existence. My mother died in Chasm City, years before I was born from a cloned copy of her womb. I only knew her from her beta-level, but she’s been as real to me as any person I’ve ever known.’
    â€˜I don’t doubt it.’
    â€˜If someone close to you died, would you refuse to acknowledge the authenticity of their beta-level?’
    â€˜The question’s never arisen.’
    She looked sceptical. ‘Then no one close to you - no one with a beta-level back-up - has ever died? In your line of work?’
    â€˜I didn’t say that.’
    â€˜Then someone has died?’
    â€˜We’re not here to talk about abstract matters,’ Dreyfus said.
    â€˜I’m not sure I can think of anything less abstract than life and death.’
    â€˜Let’s get back to Dravidian.’
    â€˜I touched a nerve, didn’t I?’
    â€˜Tell me about the Ultras.’
    But just as Delphine started speaking - the look on her face said she wasn’t going to answer his question directly - the black outline of a door appeared in the passwall behind her. The white surface within the outline flowed open enough to admit the stocky form of Sparver, then resealed behind him.
    â€˜Freeze invocation,’ Dreyfus said,