The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds

‘Nothing I say or do can change that now.’
    â€˜But you believe I may be telling the truth.’
    â€˜I believe that the investigation has yet to run its course. If the facts confirm your innocence, I’ll make sure that they’re heard.’
    â€˜I hope you’re good at your job.’
    â€˜That’s not for me to say.’
    â€˜Whoever did this was prepared to kill nearly a thousand people. More now that my crew have paid with their lives. They won’t take kindly to a prefect snooping around trying to undermine their good work.’
    â€˜They don’t pay us to be popular.’
    â€˜You strike me as a decent man, Prefect Dreyfus. I can hear it in your voice. We Ultras aren’t such bad judges of character. My crew were decent people, too. Even if you can’t exonerate me, I beg of you this much: do what you can to lift this shame from their heads. They didn’t deserve to die like this. The Accompaniment was a good ship, right to the end. She didn’t deserve to die like this either.’ He hesitated, then added: ‘How are those nukes coming along?’
    Dreyfus glanced at Sparver. Sparver tapped his sleeve, as if there was a wrist-watch there.
    â€˜Twenty minutes, Boss.’
    Dreyfus looked along the prow, in the direction of the dead ship’s flight. He was also looking straight at Yellowstone and the Glitter Band. The planet was still lit up on its dayside. It was not his imagination that the arc of the Band appeared wider than when he had last seen it. He felt as if he could make out the twinkling granularity of individual habitats. With time and patience, and his ingrained knowledge of their orbits, he was sure he could even have begun to pick out the largest structures by eye. There, for instance: wasn’t that silvery glint near the planet’s westward limb Carousel New Venice, moving in the congested real estate of the central orbits? And a little to the right: wasn’t that string of ruby-red sparks the signature of the eight habitats of the Remortal Concatenation? If so, then that blue-tinged glint to the east had to be House Sammartini, or perhaps the Sylveste Institute for Shrouder Studies.
    â€˜I think I’m about done here, Captain.’
    â€˜Just one thing, Prefect. Maybe it’s nothing, or maybe it’ll help you. You’ll have to decide for yourself.’
    â€˜Go on.’
    â€˜Our negotiations with Ruskin-Sartorious were conducted with the usual degree of secrecy. It’s how we do things. Yet someone from outside the Bubble was still able to contact Delphine and promise her a better offer than the one already on the table. That means someone knew what was going on.’
    â€˜Could have been a lucky break. They saw your ship parked near the Bubble; they knew Delphine’s art was on the market, put two and two together.’
    â€˜And outbid us by a calculatedly effective margin? I don’t think so, Prefect. Someone had already gone to great lengths to position the Accompaniment as a murder weapon. All they needed then was to make it look as if we struck back in anger. For that they needed a plausible motive.’
    â€˜So what you’re saying is ... the whole thing about the deal collapsing was just a ruse, to provide a justification for you hitting back?’
    â€˜Exactly so.’
    In his head Dreyfus felt the ominous sliding of mental chess pieces moving into a new and threatening configuration. ‘Then there must have been another reason why someone wanted to destroy the Ruskin-Sartorious Bubble.’
    â€˜Now all you have to do is find out why,’ Dravidian answered.
    Captain Pell let the missiles streak away, sprinting across the gap to the Accompaniment of Shadows. At twenty gees they reached the wreck in slightly more than a minute and a half. In the last instant before impact, the missiles fanned out and then vectored in again from different angles, so that their bright