Earth.
‘This isn’t going to be a social call, is it?’ Sunday said.
The claybot adjusted its skirt as it sat down. ‘Things have come to a pretty pass, if you don’t mind my saying so. Precisely what was Chama Akbulut doing behind the Ghost Wall?’
‘The less you know about that, the better,’ Jitendra said.
‘I’ll ask again, in that case.’
Sunday looked at Jitendra, at Gleb and her brother, then back to the golem. The knot in her stomach was now so tangled that it could have supplied a topologist with an entire thesis. She was astonished word had got around as quickly as it had, but then she supposed she shouldn’t have been. Just as there were commercial interests between Akinya Space and China, so Plexus had its affiliations, its insider contacts.
‘Digging for something that belongs to us,’ she said. ‘To my family. No one else’s business.’
‘And this was a spur-of-the-moment thing, was it? And why was Chama doing the digging, not you?’
‘Chama took unilateral—’ Gleb began.
‘Because he seeks to put you in debt to him?’ June Wing snapped. ‘Yes, I know Chama’s methods. Brazen and . . . what’s the opposite of risk-averse? Foolhardy to the point of suicidal?’
‘The Chinese won’t want a diplomatic storm on their hands,’Jitendra said.
‘No,’ June Wing agreed. ‘And that’s presently about the only thing you’ve got in your favour.’
Sunday said, ‘My family will intervene.’
‘Only if there’s a direct threat to your liberty, and perhaps not even then,’ June Wing said, with icy plausibility. ‘As for Chama, why should they lift a finger to help him?’
‘If it’s a matter of keeping a family secret buried, maybe they’ll do just that,’ Gleb said.
The golem nodded keenly. ‘Yes, and optimism is a fine and wonderful thing and should be strenuously encouraged in the young. But my understanding is that Chama’s actions haven’t brought anything useful to light.’
‘You know a lot,’ Geoffrey said.
‘I’m June Wing,’ she answered, as if this was all the explanation any reasonable person could require.
‘Then they’ll have to let Chama go,’ Gleb said. ‘They can’t hold him for just digging up some soil.’
‘There was something in that box,’ Sunday pointed out. ‘I saw it myself. Junk, most likely, but not nothing. And who knows what it meant to Eunice, or what the Chinese might think it means?’
‘This is what will happen,’ June Wing said, in a firm, taking-charge tone that brooked no dissension. ‘We will allow the Chinese time to respond. A day, at the very least. Perhaps three. If there are no encouraging overtures from the Ghost Wall, then we will explore avenues of subtle commercial persuasion.’
‘That’ll work?’ Geoffrey asked.
‘Only if they don’t feel cornered. They use Plexus machines, billions of them, supplied and maintained under very competitive terms. They won’t be in a hurry to jeopardise that arrangement.’
‘And I doubt very much that Plexus would throw away a lucrative contract just to save a friend of a friend,’ said Geoffrey, drawing a glare from Sunday, who didn’t think he was helping matters.
‘It wouldn’t come to that,’ June Wing replied evenly. ‘But both parties have a vested interest in maintaining cordial relations.’
‘What worries me,’ Sunday said, ‘is what we’re going to owe you for getting Chama out of trouble.’
‘All you need worry about is keeping your family in check, Sunday. Leave this to me and there will be a satisfactory outcome. But if Akinya Space barge in with threats and sanctions, don’t expect Plexus to dig you out of the hole.’
Sunday shook her head. ‘I have no say over the cousins, I’m afraid. We’ll just have to hope that Hector bought my story, and doesn’t think there’s a connection between Chama and the glove.’
‘About which you’ve told me nothing.’
‘One thing at a time, June,’ Sunday answered.
June Wing made to reply, or at least looked on the cusp of answering. But then her face froze, paralysing into stiffness. The golem sat before them, posture waxwork rigid. All sense of life had deserted the claybot.
‘June?’ Jitendra asked.
‘Ching bind must have snapped,’ Sunday said. ‘June’s outside the Zone. Could the Chinese be blocking the quangle?’
‘Nothing that crude, but you’ve already seen what they’re capable of,’ Gleb answered.
The face shifted, regained animus. The claybot’s clothes morphed and recoloured. Now they were looking at a man of indeterminate age and ethnicity dressed in a sea-green satin suit. His face was strikingly bland and unmemorable, like some mathematical average of all human male faces. His skin pallor was an unrealistic pearl- grey, unlike any actual flesh tone seen outside of a mortuary. The pupil-less voids of his large dark eyes were thumb-holes punched through a mask.
‘You don’t know me,’ he said, smiling benignly, ‘but I think we’re about to get better acquainted.’
‘Who are you,’ Sunday said, ‘and what the fuck are you doing interrupting my conversation?’
‘Expediency,’ the man said, offering the palms of his hands. ‘A ching bind was open, a quangled path allocated. Rather than go through the frankly tiresome rigmarole of opening a second, I decided to make use of what already
