Free Thousandth Night by Alastair Reynolds

the
line.
    Abigail
valued death as much as she valued life. Though we were all technically
immortal, that immortality only extended to our cellular processes. If we
destroyed our bodies, we died. Gentian protocol forbade backups, or last minute
neural scans. She wanted her memories to burn bright with the knowledge that
life—even a life spanning hundreds of thousands of years—was only a sliver of
light between two immensities of darkness.
    Burdock
would die. Nothing in the universe could stop that now.
    “When
you witnessed the crime,” I said, “did you see anything that could tell us who
was responsible?”
    “I’ve
been through my memories of my passage through Grisha’s system thousand times,”
he said. “After I rescued Grisha, I caught a trace of a drive flame exiting the
system in the opposite direction. Presumably whoever deployed the machines was
still around until then, making sure that the job was done.”
    “We
should be able to match the drive signature to one of the ships parked here,” I
said.
    “I’ve
tried, but the detection was too faint. There’s nothing that narrows down my
list of suspects.”
    “Maybe
a fresh pair of eyes might help, though,” Purslane said. “Or even two pairs.”
    “Direct
exchange of memories is forbidden outside of threading,” Burdock said heavily.
    “Add
it to the list of Gentian rules we’ve already broken tonight,” I said.
“Falsification of Purslane’s strand, absence from the island during a
threading, breaking into someone else’s ship . . . why don’t you let me worry about the rules, Burdock? My neck’s already on the line.”
    “I
suppose one more wrong won’t make much difference,” he said, resignedly. “The
sensor records of my passage through Grisha’s system are still in my ship
files—will they be enough?”
    “You
had no other means of witnessing events?”
    “No.
Everything I saw came through the ship’s eyes and ears in one form or another.”
    “That
should be good enough Can you pass those records to my ship?”
    “Mine
as well,” Purslane said.
    Burdock
waited a moment. “It’s done. I’m afraid you’ll still have some compatibility
issues to deal with.”
    A
coded memory flash—a bee landing on a flower—told me that my ship had just
received a transmission from another craft, in an unfamiliar file format. I
sent another command to my ship to tell it to start working on the format
conversion. I had faith that it would get there in the end: I often set it the
task of interpreting Prior languages, just to keep its mental muscles in shape.
    “Thank
you,” I said.
    “Make
what you will of it. I’m afraid there are many gaps in the sensor data. You’ll
just have to fill in the holes.”
    “We’ll
do what we can,” Purslane said. “But if we’re to bring anyone to justice, we
have to know what this is all about. You must tell us what you’ve learned of
the Great Work.”
    “I
only know parts. I’ve guessed most of it.”
    “That’s
still more than Campion and I know.”
    “All
right,” he said, with something like relief. “I’ll tell you. But there isn’t
time to do this the civilised way. Will you give me permission to push imagery
into your heads?”
    Purslane
and I looked at each other uneasily. Rationally, we had nothing to fear: if
Burdock had the means to tamper with our heads, he could have already forced
hallucinations on us by now, or killed us effortlessly. We willingly opened our
memories during each threading, but that was within the solemn parameters of
age-old ceremony, when we were all equally vulnerable. We already knew Burdock
had lied once. What if the rest of his story was a lie as well? We had no
evidence that Grisha was authentic, and not just a figment created by the ship.
    “You
have to trust me,” Burdock pleaded. “There isn’t much time left.”
    “He’s
right,” Purslane said, gripping my hand. “There’s a risk, but there’s also a
risk in doing nothing. We have