Adam-Troy Castro - Emissaries from the Dead

Another pause, this one long enough to make me worry about being ejected for my effrontery.

Then, as if grudgingly: Go on.

“Everybody here sees the absurdity of it. You see and hear everything aboard this station. But in order to actually converse with you in return, Gibb’s people need to hop a skimmer and travel all the way back to this one place. This one room. Why would you make everybody do this? What advantage would you find in it?”

It’s our station. We can make any arbitrary rules we like.

They sounded like the words of a spoiled child, caught trying to dominate a playground.

“It is your station, and the ecosystem you’ve set up here has any number of arbitrary rules, but none of them seem pointless. None of them seem designed to cause inconvenience for its own sake. This chamber does. For a while there I assumed you use it just because you wanted to remind us who ran the place, but now that I’ve been around here for a while I think the true explanation’s a little more devious than that. I think you use it to keep us from thinking about all the things you would prefer us not to think about.”

This pause was the longest so far. We’re not certain what you’re referencing there, Counselor.

“Oh,” I said, my anger with them growing, “I’m sure you know exactly what I’m referencing, but since you insist on going through the motions, we can afford to put this issue aside for a moment or two. After I say a little bit more about Cynthia Warmuth… whose murder, whatever I said to Mr. Lastogne today, remains not quite solved.”

Anew tone entered the voice of the AIsource: awed fascination. We thought you were under the impression you were finished with that.

“Not for a heartbeat. Not with the explanation I gave Mr. Lastogne. That was just about getting him off my back, so I could finish my business with you. No, my night on the Uppergrowth wasn’t about confirming my theory: it was about proving my theory wrong.”

As before, we are very interested in hearing your reasoning.

“I shouldn’t have to go through this. I should just tell you I know everything, and move on. But, very well. We can play games if you prefer. Some of what I told Lastogne was true. I did figure out the human place in Brachiator cosmology. I even figured out how they’d likely react to a human being who wanted more of a connection to Life. But I’ve also seen how slow they are… and I know it wouldn’t make any sense for them to be able to overwhelm a human being with the agility of one of Gibb’s people. Were Warmuth awake and aware of everything going on around her, she wouldn’t have needed lightning reflexes to escape the same way I did. Hell, I’m downright clumsy, and a simple tether line placed me beyond Brachiator reach long enough for help to reach me, even when that help was itself under attack. Why would Warmuth have any more trouble than I did?”

You had the advantage of knowing recent history. Perhaps Warmuth didn’t know what they had planned until they took her by surprise.

“That might have made sense if they’d merely mauled her. A mass attack of that kind, coming from all sides, from sentients who approach at the rate of Brachiators, might have been easy to mistake for any other kind of social activity, including ceremonial grooming or even—Juje help me—a group hug. But the Brachiators approached me with claws in hand, giving me the opportunity to fathom their violent intent long minutes before they actually reached me. I even closed my eyes a few times to simulate a distraction capable of preventing me from paying proper attention. But even when I gave them every possible advantage, it was impossible to believe in Warmuth being taken by surprise. Their group assault was interminable, inexorable, even frightening… and obvious. Warmuth would have had more than enough time to see that something was wrong, and summon help.”

She could have been asleep.

The AIsource was now behaving like a human suspect throwing out one idiot evasion after another, in the hopes of derailing the one true path to a solution. But a human suspect did that kind of thing out of panic and self-preservation. The AIsource seemed to be playing a game of catch with logic: pointing out all the holes still remaining in my argument, so I could fill them in as I went. It infuriated me, but I obliged. “Also not a realistic possibility. The Brachiators came after me as soon as I spoke the words that set them off. Warmuth wouldn’t have begged them for Life, watch them unsheathe claws and begin converging on her position, then conveniently fall asleep before they were close enough to act. That’s beyond ridiculous. No, I’m afraid that there are only two real possibilities here. Either she met up with someone who moved faster than she could, or she was already immobilized and helpless when that unknown party gave the Brachiators a very bad idea. Either way, that means another culprit.”

Another hesitation. You are correct.

“And that person is still beyond my reach, correct?”

For the moment.

“Because we’re still talking internal politics, aren’t we? Our saboteur, culprit, Heckler, what have you, is still working for your opposition party, still killing, still doing whatever needs to be done to disrupt whatever you have going on inside the Habitat. You know who it is, but you can’t just give me a name, or even put me in the same room, without breaking whatever rules of engagement you’ve managed to set up among yourselves.”

Again: for the moment.

“Politics.”

Civil War, Counselor. One you currently have no business being any part of.

Currently . “It hasn’t stopped the other side from trying to kill me.”

The other side operates under ethics not our own. The other side will escalate if we do anything to encourage any further involvement from outsiders. The other side will not subject its agents to any attempt at capture by other parties.

“Which means you could respond yourself if you wanted to.”

We could. But we see greater advantage in waiting.

“For what?”

To get what we want.

“From them?”

No.

“From me?”

Yes.

“What do you want from me?”

Something freely given.

I’d expected something like this. But the weight of it was enough to make my chest hurt. It made me think about one of the first things Lastogne had ever said to me, upon my arrival. Not a philosophy as much as a warning.

In that moment of silence, I found myself wondering what Oscin and Skye were doing. Were they wishing me strength? Wondering if the dangerous part had started yet? Expecting me to come out or thinking, sadly, that I wouldn’t?

What would Lastogne do if I never came back?

Hell, what would Bringen? He’d begged me to find any culprit other than the AIsource. If I was reported dead, aboard an AIsource station, with witnesses establishing the AIsource as the last sentient force to see me alive, what lies would he be forced to tell to keep the whole thing buried?

A thousand other questions, unable to answer unless I finished up the ones I had on hand.

So I closed my eyes, brought my breathing under control, and resumed.

“So let’s talk about the way this station works.”