It was a public transmission, distributed by expensive if entirely legal means, broadcast across a thousand media fronts.  Within a few seconds - the maximum light-travel time for even the most knotted signal routing within the Glitter Band - it would have been seen and heard in a thousand habitats, maybe more.

The face loomed large - in interior mental visualisations, on private screens and private walls, in the gene-tweaked flesh of hands, on the backs of lovers, on the soaring display surfaces of civic plazas and recreation spaces, in the curtaining spray of fountains and waterfalls, lasered onto individual droplets of water.  Every channel that was available, and not blocked from displaying this paid transmission, now showed the face.

From the head of curls to the unlined, cherubic features, to the neat vertical nick of a scar under the right eye, it was the face Dreyfus had seen first hand.

"Good people, good citizens," the face said.  "I won't take your time - we all have lives to be getting on with.  Most of us do, at any rate.  You know me by now, and if you don't yet know me, then I trust we'll consider ourselves friends before very long.  I'm Devon Garlin, and there are things they would rather I didn't tell you."  The face flashed a smile, vertical lines bracketing either side of Garlin's mouth.  "They don't trust us, you see.  They don't trust us to trust them and after the mess they made of things two years ago it's not hard to see why.  They've been praying they won't be tested again, knowing full well how lucky they were the first time.  But something's in the air, friends."  He lowered his voice confidingly.  "Nothing official yet - and nothing you'll have seen or heard on any of the public nets.  But rumours slip through the mesh.  Have you heard anything, lately?  That there's something building, something they can't stop?"

Dreyfus watched the transmission as it played across one of the walls near the refectory, displayed as a matter of routine simply because it had been identified as a high-reach broadcast, of natural interest to Panoply.

He bristled, sweat prickling under his collar.  It was hard not to read a mocking glint in the arctic blue of Garlin's eyes, as if he knew Dreyfus would be listening.

"People are dying," Garlin said.  "A few dozen so far - a few drops in the ocean.  But the numbers are going up and they don't know what's causing it.  They're trying very hard not to let this become public knowledge.  But word is spreading.  Concerned citizens, witnesses, medical personnel; these people won't be silenced just to suit Panoply.  And nor should you.  As I said, it's all just rumour - for now.  Perhaps there's nothing in it, and we can all sleep safely in our beds.  But if you hear of a death that happened suddenly, or if you see prefects behaving oddly - going about their business more furtively than usual, if such a thing is possible - then take a moment to ask yourselves this: what's the point of a security organisation that cannot give us protection when we most have need of it?"

Dreyfus became aware of a presence at his side.  He glanced away from the transmission.  It was Jane Aumonier, hands behind her back, chin lifted, absorbing the words with a look of stoic acceptance.  The light from Garlin's face brushed a delicate edge onto her profile.  Dreyfus watched her for a few seconds then turned back to the wall.  Neither of them spoke as the statement continued.

"Whatever becomes of this worry they'd rather we didn't know about, there is another way.  Spurn the false assurances of the prefects, shun the promises they can't keep, the trust they can't uphold, and find a common security outside the hidebound framework of Panoply.  Eight habitats have already thrown aside their shackles and discovered that there is life - and security - beyond the old, moribund institutions.  More are poised to follow.  Soon it will be a flood.  The prefects will tell you we're damaging the glorious integrity of the Glitter Band, but that isn't true at all.  What the Glitter Band is, and what it could be, are two different things - but to make a better world we first have to take back control of what was always ours."  Garlin extended an open, beckoning hand, and that smile creased his face again.  "Good people, good citizens - join us, and turn your faces to the light."

The transmission finished, the wall darkening.  But Dreyfus could still feel the lingering presence of that face, as if it had imprinted itself on Panoply's very fabric.

"Good people, good citizens," he said, sneering out the words.  "I'd like to ram those sentiments down -"

"It's an act of provocation," Aumonier said levelly.  "And we won't allow ourselves to be provoked, will we?  We might not like it, but he's broken no rules by issuing this statement."

"What about inciting public unrest?"