Adam-Troy Castro: Emissaries from the Dead

That was transparent and familiar nonsense. Subjugated peoples are always subsets of the societies claiming to speak for them. Sometimes they’re even called citizens. It doesn’t mean they’re one iota less subjugated.

Gibb’s shrug prevented me from lecturing him on legal principles he already knew. “You can save your breath, Counselor. I’m just reporting the AIsource line.”

I chewed a thumbnail—another of my many runaway tics that I’d spent years struggling to control. “How did this even have the opportunity to become a diplomatic issue of any kind? This is a sealed station, well hidden from anybody capable of looking for it. The AIsource didn’t have to let anybody in. They didn’t have to show anybody the Habitat. There’s no way anybody from outside could have even known the Brachiators existed, unless the AIsource told them.”

“Which is exactly what happened,” Gibb said. “About three years ago Mercantile, they sent word to all the major governments that they wanted to show us something. Not long after that, a mixed delegation including Riirgaans, Bursteeni, Hom. Saps and Tchi arrived here, and were shown the Brachiators in their, you should only excuse the expression, natural habitat. Once the delegation realized that AIsource had engineered their own sentients, and better still professed to own them, it ignited a diplomatic firestorm.”

“The AIsource must have expected that.”

Gibb rolled his eyes. “Gee, you think?”

I’d been involved in a number of such diplomatic cluster-fucks over the years. They were always nightmares, as you’d expect of sustained arguments between creatures defined not only by their differing cultures but differing psychological models. It’s never erupted into all-out interstellar war, that being such an impractical and expensive prospect that only idiots and madmen see any point in it (and that’s a damned good thing all by itself, since the hundreds of bickering, warring, and self-obsessed governments that make up the Hom. Sap Confederacy have never gotten along well enough to stand up against any concerted war of conquest or annihilation, from a truly determined enemy from outside). But there’s been plenty of petty harassment and high moral dudgeon, plenty of brushfires over small matters of economic sovereignty, and plenty of wrangling over the Interspecies Covenant that allegedly keeps everybody nice to one another.

It’s that very Covenant, with its provisions permitting diplomatic immunity, that both gives me my reputation as war criminal and places me outside the reach of the several races that would like to prosecute me for what I did as a child. And it’s that very Covenant, with its provisions against the breeding of slave races, that the AIsource was so deliberately flouting now. What were they thinking?

My thumbnail clicked against teeth. “So how large is this ‘unofficial’ delegation of yours?”

“About seventy on-site, here under AIsource invitation, at their sufferance and under their designated limitations. We were able to set up this home base about two years ago Mercantile. We can interact with the Brachiators, find out what they’re like, make friends with them, and catalogue their behaviors, but only for the purposes of study. As soon as we cross the line into actual diplomacy, we’re expelled.”

“My own main purpose here,” Lastogne said, “is enforcing those guidelines. Making sure none of our people ever accomplish anything of note.”

I studied the man’s eyes for signs of mockery. “Must be frustrating work.”

His appraisal of me was equally frank. “Diplomats don’t need my help to avoid accomplishing anything.”

Even more interesting. I began to suspect I could actually approve of the man.

But his attitude bothered Gibb. “That’ll be enough of that, Peyrin. You’ll have more than enough time for your facile nihilism. It’s far from a waste, Counselor. We’re here to combat a precedent that would tolerate the use of engineered sentients as slaves. Gathering the ammunition we need may be the most important agenda the Dip Corps ever had.”

“How much longer do you think it’s going to take you?”

“This is a permanent installation,” Gibb said. “Barring a dramatic breakthrough, some of my indentures can expect to stay here for the entire length of their twenty-year contracts.”

I could think of no better definition of hell.

And speaking of hell, Gibb’s knee brushed against mine. Maybe it wasn’t his fault. The soft surface beneath us sagged so much it took vigilance to avoid sliding toward the lowest point of the hammock’s gravity well. On the other hand, Lastogne didn’t seem to have any trouble maintaining his own position higher up the slope. And without being able to point to anything in particular, I could still sense an unwanted sexual charge coming from Gibb.

I attempted a deep breath and tried to focus on the matter at hand: “So what do you make of the Brachiators? Are they slaves?”

“They don’t seem to do any real work, except for whatever niche they fill in One One One’s ecosystem, but they’re still sentient property, with no right of self-determination. There are right now eleven separate spacefaring races, ours included, involved in the legal battle to bring the issues here before an interspecies tribunal.”

Wonderful.With eleven sentient races, from the amicable Riirgaans to the downright unpleasant Tchi, all bringing their special kinds of diplomacy to the fray, the higher math necessary to determine the lifespan of this litigation was beyond me.

Gibb read my expression. “It’ll happen eventually. But the AIsource are tricky. It took a year of heavy negotiation before they even agreed to let one race, which when the dust settled turned out to be us, send a minimal force of observers into this habitat just to make sure the Brachs weren’t in immediate distress.”

That couldn’t have sat well with the other races, considering how many of them have less-than-salutory opinions of humanity. “And nobody complained about that?”

“Oh, they all complained about it. And from what I hear they’re still complaining. We’re fortunate in that we’re locked away in here and don’t have to listen to them. I should mention that one race, the Riirgaans, managed to send along their own rep, in the form of a human being with Riirgaan citizenship, but he’s still, for all intents and purposes, one of us, under my command.”

I grunted. “Which means little without diplomatic status.”

“Right. We have no official standing, no authority, and no immunity.”

“Not the best circumstances for a murder investigation.”

Gibb’s eyes flickered. “No.”

“So tell me about this victim, Christina Santiago. How did she die?”

Gibb excused himself, scrambled up the sloping floor, made his way to a bundle strapped to the hammock spine, and removed a pair of cylinders with built-in straws. Scrambling down was an undignified slide on his rump, which ended only when his knees were once again pressed against mine. “Drink this, please.”

I didn’t often take food or drink in the presence of my fellow human beings, communal meals implying a social connection I preferred to avoid. But I obliged, gasping when the stuff hit my throat.

“Understand this, Counselor: that cloud layer below us is sixteen kilometers straight down; the ocean layer many kilometers below that; the atmosphere is unbreathable for most of that distance and only gets more caustic the farther you fall. There’s nothing between us and a nasty drop but the layer of flexible fabric holding us right now. It’s hard not to spend most of your time here thinking about the dangers of a misstep. I keep intoxicants around for newcomers who need to be pacified while they get used to the idea and while I figure out if they’re going to have a problem with the heights. You’ve been looking dizzy since you got here. So I need to ask you: Are you going to have a problem?”