Юн Ли - Revenant Gun

He laid his hands on Talaw’s shoulders and leaned over them. “Do it,” he said in his friendliest voice.

Talaw flinched from Jedao’s bare hands. For a second, Jedao thought that Talaw would surge up from the seat and fling him to the ground. He wouldn’t be able to fight back, except perhaps by bleeding on Talaw. And he was pretty sure that Kel commanders didn’t succumb to squeamishness that easily.

Tension gathered in Talaw’s shoulders; dissipated. Jedao was momentarily relieved that he wasn’t going to be punched in the face for his temerity. Among other things, he was already worried that his head would fall off.

“Communications, address to all units,” Talaw said. They were staring straight into Jedao’s eyes, and he knew then that he’d lost any hope of their friendship forever. “This is Commander Talaw. All units retreat to—”

Thank fox and hound it worked , Jedao thought, and was completely unprepared for the darkness that rose up to swallow him. The last thing he saw was the black-stained floor rushing up to greet him.

“HELLO AGAIN,” JEDAO said to Hemiola as the other servitors escorted it into the shrine. Mistrikor, the girl in the frayed robe, trailed after them. No one seemed to mind her presence.

At least, Hemiola assumed it was a shrine. Like the hexagonal chamber back at Tefos Base, alcoves in the walls contained plaques. But the room itself was shaped like a perfect cube, and the inscriptions on the plaques were written in flaring patterns of light: Machine Universal, not the high language or one of the humans’ low languages. And not just Machine Universal, but the interlocking phrases of a song. It had never encountered other servitors’ music before. Panic gripped it. Would the humans approve?

Or did they already know?

Jedao?—Cheris?—sat cross-legged against the far wall. He gestured toward the spot in front of him. Reluctantly, Hemiola approached and lowered itself to the floor.

The girl spoke before Hemiola could think of something to say to Jedao. She was staring at Jedao with undisguised interest. “You’re much shorter than I thought you would be,” she said.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced?” Jedao said. “I’m Ajewen Cheris.”

“You mean you’re Jedao.”

Jedao sighed quietly. “That too. It’s complicated. Yourself?”

The girl nudged Hemiola aside. Confused, Hemiola made space for her. She took its spot directly across from Jedao. “I’m Lirit Mistrikor.”

“No,” one of the other servitors said, “what you are is procrastinating.”

Mistrikor gestured rudely in the servitor’s direction. Specifically, a Machine Universal obscenity involving nonlinear dynamics. “You don’t think this is more educational than falling asleep trying to memorize sumptuary regulations for the New Year Festival? How else am I supposed to become a liaison between our peoples if I don’t know how your court proceedings work?”

Hemiola blinked in alarm. It hadn’t realized the extent of Mistrikor’s ambitions. Then again, it should have learned by now that the unassuming ones were always agents of revolutionary change.

Mistrikor twisted around to face it. “And you. You’re from off-station, aren’t you? Hence the tribunal.”

“It came with me,” Jedao said.

“Which is why it was running away?” Mistrikor said. She cocked her head at Hemiola. “You were running away, weren’t you?”

Hemiola flashed a chastened pink-orange.

“Oh, don’t apologize to me ,” Mistrikor said. “I’m just here for the tribunal. But you had to know you were going to get caught.”

“I’m from Tefos Enclave,” Hemiola said in Machine Universal. “We didn’t see many visitors.” Just the hexarch and Jedao, at intervals of a century. And only three of them at Tefos, as opposed to what must be a large enough servitor population to accommodate the needs of 800,000 humans.

“Never heard of it,” Mistrikor said. “So I’m here even though I’m going to flunk out and I’ll be stuck as a civilian laborer for the rest of my life. What’s your excuse?”

“Flunk out of what?” Jedao said, maddeningly, as if it mattered.

Mistrikor squirmed. “I was studying for the Rahal entrance examinations. But half those regulations are so ridiculous.”

“Then why Rahal,” Hemiola asked, “and not another faction?” It knew little about the Rahal, not least because they weren’t glamorous enough to feature much in dramas.

She looked at it as though it had asked a stupid question, which was entirely possible. “Because it’s the only way to change all the stupid laws.”

“So you should be studying,” one of the servitors, the catform, said with red lights for emphasis.

“Oh, come on ,” Mistrikor said, “how many chances am I going to have to talk to the Immolation Fox? Or watch a tribunal with a stranger-servitor from a place so distant no one’s ever heard of it?”

“You can observe,” the catform said, “if you promise to go back to your room and prepare for the examination after.”

Mistrikor opened her mouth to protest. Instead, her stomach rumbled loudly. “The sacrifices I make,” she said. “All the fasting. My growth is going to be stunted.”

While Mistrikor and her keepers squabbled, Hemiola asked one of the other servitors, “What is the protocol for a tribunal?”

“You’re Nirai, aren’t you?” replied a deltaform. “I can always tell.”

“Yes,” Hemiola said, and introduced itself, for propriety’s sake.

“We have a problem,” the deltaform said. “Tefos Enclave has no standing treaty with the Trans-Enclave. I wouldn’t even have thought it possible. But then, I’m only 102 years old and it’s a big galaxy. Are you qualified to negotiate on behalf of Tefos?”

The question struck Hemiola as absurd. It doubted Sieve or Rhombus would ever make their way out here. Still—“Are there any standard procedures for situations like this?”

“That depends on what you’re here for,” the deltaform said.

Hemiola had an opportunity, then. “Information exchange.” It might have access to the hexarch’s records, but it needed to be able to put those in context. The trouble was, what could it offer?

The ugly truth was, if it wanted to unspool the hexarch’s notes, it would have to surrender—not the notes themselves, necessarily, but what it knew of his routines. Assuming the Trans-Enclave had any interest in that information.

“All right,” the deltaform said, as if it went through transactions like this every day. “What do you want, and what are you offering?”

“I want grid access,” Hemiola said, greatly daring. “Nothing classified. Just—the kind of access that an ordinary citizen would have.”

“That’s easy enough,” the deltaform said, its lights tranquil blue. “We’ll have to update you on local protocol so you don’t foul up the grid. And your offer?”

“Tefos Enclave periodically hosts Hexarch Nirai Kujen,” Hemiola said, feeling like a traitor. “I don’t know if this is of inter—”

“Done,” the deltaform said promptly. “Excuse me while I discuss the arrangements with my colleagues.”

While it waited, Hemiola returned to reviewing the hexarch’s archives. It had skipped forward to a dreary chunk of research on voidmoths because the hexarch had shown an increasing obsession with them. Not the initial harnessing that made mothdrives viable, but an obscure line of research that involved breeding moths for size. It had always known that moths came in various sizes, from the immense cindermoths to the small scoutmoths and needlemoths. It hadn’t, however, realized that this was the result of deliberate tampering.