“They say that your presence here, with the Consensus, is further proof that the Consensus is preparing to fight. The quans too – the mainframes may have differing operational standards, different ethics, if you will, but ever since the Slow,” a tilt of her head towards the watching black square, the silent emissary standing over us, “sent qis message all those years ago, the quans have been… restless. They say that if the Slow thinks these times are worth witnessing, worthspeakingto, then perhaps there is a test, of sentience, of something – the quans disagree on what – that should not be met with passivity. The Shine has blackships pointed at the mainframes too, of course. Even the hidden ones, the ones in the asteroid belts or on the edge of a star’s coronal field – would you really take the risk? How many billions must die to stand up to the Shine’s bullying? How many lives is it worth? I would not want to make that call. I would not want to see what history would say of me if I did not.”
“You seem to think war is inevitable.”
“Some sort of conflict, yes. I doubt the Accord has the will to actually call it war. I don’t even know why the Shine is here, though they’ve certainly made an impression.”
“Yes,” I murmured, eyes drifting to the obvious height of Theodosius Rhode. “They have, haven’t they?”
In the middle of the room, laughing as if hé had not a care in the world: the Executor.
I watch from a distance, and feel a little embarrassed at how easily hé holds my attention. Very good Shine, the ability to seemingly do nothing while being the centre of the world. I had tried to explain this to Gebre – Shine was never just money. Status, prestige, privilege, charisma, the ability to get people to do things for you and say how happy they were to get it done – that was Shinier than any Glint.
Around hím, hís retinue. A couple of Board members I did not know, the marks of their Venture on their collar – the CEO of Blue Land, the COO of Phonh-Ten, two of the most significant Ventures in the Shine, holding between them nearly half of the votes on the current Executorium. They smiled and laughed too, though the COO of Phonh-Ten looked old, too old perhaps for even Glint to buy a younger face, and hís eyes kept flickering to Theodosius Rhode like a moth drawn to flame.
Security, of course. They did not wear exoskeletons or carry overt weapons. Such things would not have been permissible on the Spindle. But beneath their stiff black suits and tight black pants, muscles moved with more than just organic strength. There was always a pay-off to be made in bio-muscular enhancement – stronger bones required heavier muscles to move them, heavier muscles required stronger bones and so on. Even with the best bio-engineering, few who undertook such radical procedures lived much past sixty, though there was always a parade of the desperate willing who imagined that somehow they would be the exception to the rule.
Debtors too.
Golden collars, golden rings.
I wondered what they’d done to lose everything. I wondered if any ambassadors would dare to call them slaves.
Probably not.
Slavery was forbidden within the Accord, and discovery of its perpetration legally bound all Accord members to immediate, forceful action. Thus: “Low-waged debt-forgiveness labour” was how the debtor’s collar tended to be written up in Accord reports, as scholars and diplomats swallowed their ethics in the face of a cruelty they dared not admit they were powerless to oppose.
So much for honesty. So much for the deeds of prideful, learned men.
Two more figures of note, who I could not place.
They stand awkwardly on the edge of the throng that surrounds the Executor, an ageing man and a younger woman. Some work had been done to delay age in the male – none of the expensive genetic work that was reserved for the wealthiest of the Executorium, but marks of surgical and cybernetic intervention were apparent on his jaw, his neck. He stood tall enough to be noted, to be considered a paragon of strong Shine, with a golden beard that was in fashion for the current generations ofhím, the paragons of their sex – but he would never be in that elite camp, no matter how hard he tried. The surgical scars marked his status immediately – Shiny enough to afford the work, not quite Shiny enough to afford to disguise it, a perpetual upper-middle-class kind of Manager, desperate to be more, never quite achieving it.
The woman: eyes of green, her skull entirely shaved, not a single scar on her hands or neck, but rather, a complex weave, almost a circuit board of pale silver tissue marked across the top of her head, a declaration of vaunted intellect. Unlike the man and his middling medical work, whoever had burned the scars into this creature had been an artist. There was strong Shine in those markings, an understanding of the difference between covering yourself in crude diamonds, tasteless declarations of your power, and covering yourself in molten lead, a thing that no one else has seen before, something unique. The Shine has always loved the unique, even – sometimes especially – when it is grotesque.
“Who are they?” I asked Agran, Adjumiri feeling like a language of conspiracy, safer than Normspeak.
She followed my gaze – did not point, absolutely never would – then clicked her tongue three times in her mouth. “Valans Clonas Rengabe and Riv Fexri. Their diplomatic documentations listed them as ‘technical advisers’, which usually means spies.”
“Did their documents say anything else?”
“I did not receive an in-depth briefing on them. My task was to welcome you and Ambassador Cuxil; my more experienced colleagues were assigned to hospitality for the Shine. I can ask around of course. We Spindlers are never indiscreet, but neither do we refuse the reasonable enquiries of our guests.”
“That sounds complicated.”
“It is and it is not,” she replied, eyes shining as she gazed across the room. “I think the word you might use is… delicious.”
“Delicious” in Adjumiri – it relates to taste, but it also implies an artistic appreciation of something crafted, something that stimulates the senses. Normspeak does not have an equivalent word – in Normspeak, “delicious” can only relate to an appreciation of a flavour in the mouth. Spindlers understood this; they learned Normspeak as a universal tool of communication, but as some of the finest masters of it, they also treated it with the most contempt.
I liked Agran then, and thought Gebre would have too.
After drinks: food.
Feeding so many different stomachs with so many different definitions of “normal” was a challenge only the Spindle could really rise to. Their dedication to the well-being of their guests had extended to the delicacies of Godt, much to Cuxil’s delight, and an unfortunate Spindler on the catering staff was set to finding out which of the various treats on her plate I might be able to eat without getting hives.
“The sapphireworm at least? At least that?” Cuxil blurted. “It’s not an actual worm, you ninny,” she added, seeing my face. “It isa delicious sugary treat of pure mhahgaagh.” A sound and gesture as if she were trying to caress her own tongue. “I promise, many of us who are not of Godt have eaten it and adored it, although now I think about it, maybe it was just I who ate it and adored it, and the impression my experience made was so potent that it has seeped into our consciousness and now many of us believe we have enjoyed the treat. That is possible. We are as prone to making blurry memories as any other organic – more so, really, given how many of us there are – but that should just give you an idea howwonderfulit is!”
The ambassador from Nitashi ate surrounded by a tight, tense knot of delegates. At one point in the evening, his eyes seemed to meet those of Theodosius Rhode, who saluted him with a little tip of hís cup, and smiled as if hé had not a care in the world.
There were speeches.
