Elizabeth Bear - Worldwired

Wainwright squared her interface plate on her desk.

“I will go to the prime minister if I have to.” Elspeth folded her hands over her biceps in a position Richard translated to trouble for somebody . “I hope I don't need to remind you that the Montreal is detailed primarily to the first contact project.”

If Richard were a real boy, he'd steal Ellie from Castaign in a minute, Gabe's charm notwithstanding.

“She's also my ship, and you are my crew.” Wainwright kept her voice level. “I won't risk either unnecessarily—”

“—specifically,” Gabe continued, “the circuits aren't just fused or fried, the way I'd expect if there were a malfunction or a power surge or what have you. Remember what we tried to do to the Benefactor vectors to get back Les and Charlie?”

“Of course. Flash them. That's what I did to Min-xue, more or less, to get him on our network.”

“The programming hasn't been changed. Which is reassuring, since we couldn't manage that with the birdcage nanites.”

Richard considered, relaying. Charlie got there amazingly fast, for a carbon-based intelligence, and Dick decided to let him have it. It did make them happy to beat the machine. Could we do it to a Chinese-programmed network? Charlie asked.

“If we knew their security codes, we could.”

“Change all the codes,” Richard said.

Gabe stood. “I'm on it, Dick, but it will take awhile—”

“—and what if I said it was a necessary risk, Captain?” Elspeth met Wainwright's irritated gaze and did not look down.

“Over my protest,” Wainwright started, but Charlie cleared his throat, and she stopped, and looked at him.

Silently, he held out his hand. “Captain, it did work.”

The captain's mouth compressed. She stared at Charlie, putting her back to the bulkhead, braced as if the deck were pitching under her feet. “At what cost? You tell me—”

“No cost,” he said, “if you'd let us go get Leslie back.”

Richard knew what Leslie wanted, as surely as if Richard were Leslie's hand, his finger, his thumb. It took no effort at all for Dick to reach out and flip the image on the screen behind Elspeth and Charlie to a panoramic shot of the Montreal, the Huang Di, and the birdcage ship hanging in fixed geometry above a cloud-swirled crescent Earth. The picture was from Piper Orbital Platform; another view from Forward showed the shiptree, in higher orbit, sliding past. Richard plastered that one on the second largest monitor. On the one that normally held Wainwright's refrigerator-drawing view of the Montreal, he offered the present view from Clarke; a very nearly full and sunlit Earth.

“Captain,” Elspeth said calmly, unfolding her arms. “Have you thought about the potential costs if we fail?”

And Wainwright swallowed and looked down. “I'm not authorizing anything unless the prime minister says so,” she said. And then she looked up, fixed Elspeth with a cool, crinkled stare, and smiled coldly. “And don't presume you understand my personal leanings in this matter, Dr. Dunsany. Or in the matter of Dr. Tjakamarra. Some of us do draw a line around our personal feelings when we pull our pants on in the morning.”

“Ma'am,” Elspeth said, after a few moments. “I'll message the prime minister at once.”

By the fourth day of testimony, there's a small child in the back of my head whining over and over again I wish I wish I wish I wish Gabe and Ellie were here I wanna go home I don't want to answer any more questions waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah . Goddamn.

Can't you shut that kid up, Jenny?

I mean, I'm good at this. I know I'm good at this. It's not even exactly testimony, although everybody calls it that. And it's not speechifying either; mostly, I stand up there behind the podium and field questions for hour after hour after hour. They seem to have some sort of a protocol worked out, too, where it's the big dogs — the permanent security council members — who get to ask things when they want, and the representatives of other nations pass notes or tap shoulders or send e-mail and get whoever they're tributary to or sending aid to or receiving aid from to ask their questions. It's an elegant demonstration of patronage, if you squint at it right. My Grandpa Zeke would have approved.

But sweet Mary Mother of God I am so goddamned tired. Would it kill them, you think, to give me a chair?

Besides, this is the day when I'm going to have to talk about the things I'd rather pretend never happened. So standing up there, facing that enormous seashell room packed with delegates from 213 nations and five supranations, is something more than just an exercise in stage fright. It's like exhuming Leah's grave.

It's the only grave she's going to get, because her body never made it down. She's part of the planet now. Part of the atmosphere. I push her in and out with every breath, since I came home. Her, and Trevor Koske, too.

At least Koske had the decency to do what I couldn't, and die with her. I wouldn't have thought he had it in him.

It's a little disconcerting to think about, nonetheless.

Especially when I'm in the middle of explaining to a room full of politicians why she had to die, and how her death — her sacrifice — resulted in the worldwide contamination of the oceans with Benefactor nanotech. And how it's spreading to people and plants and topsoil and little terrier dogs all over the world.

And how, no, really, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I was smart enough to bring a handkerchief.

A thin Asian man in a narrow mahogany-colored suit leans forward on his elbows as I reach for a drink, waiting for the next question. I've lost track, but he's somebody in the PanChinese delegation. A shark, I think. Not an interpreter, because the UN handles that itself; there are a few dozen people in the glass-walled booths over our heads providing simultaneous translation on multiple-language channels, and I can access any one of them on my ear clip with a glance at a menu. I'm listening in French, because the interpreter has a sexy dark-chocolate voice and I like his Parisian accent better than the harsh midwestern drawl of the Chinese-to-English translator — who is getting a workout today.

Anyway. The shark says, in Chinese — whatever dialect they're using — and the interpreter says in French: “And you expect us to believe that the government of Canada has no intentions of using this tech as a weapon, when it's already responsible for the infection of millions, and the death or injury of thousands?”

He catches me with my water glass in my metal hand, just tilted to my lips. I couldn't have planned the snarf better; titters and at least one guffaw from my stodgy audience of diplomats attest to the perfection of my comedic timing.

At least it goes in the glass, and not all over my uniform. “The infection of, and the death or injury of, Canadians, sir. Canadians who were in desperate need of medical assistance in the wake of the attack upon Toronto.” Valens spent hours drilling me not to say Chinese attack . Or terrorist attack, for that matter. Apparently the official explanation of who kicked whom in the balls is still a matter for high-level negotiation.

Which is why I'm surprised. I'd thought these particular questions would be reserved for Fred. Or Riel. But what the hell.

“American citizens were affected as well.”

“Because American cities were affected by the attack. No one who was not ill or injured has been subjected to the treatment, sir, to the best of my knowledge.” I switch to English to answer this question, because it's the American shark talking, or maybe the American shark's diplomat boss. There's too damned many of them to keep track of. Or did I say that already?