existed.’
‘I thought our comms were supposed to be secure,’ Jitendra said.
‘Ish,’ the man answered after a moment, his smile disclosing a toothless, tongueless emptiness instead of a mouth.
‘It’s the Pans,’ Geoffrey said, directing his statement at Gleb. ‘Isn’t it? You already told me the Pans have the ability to manipulate quangle traffic under everyone’s noses.’
‘It’s possible,’ Gleb said, as if it was the answer he feared the most.
‘I call myself Truro,’ the man said. ‘And yes, in a capacity that would be too tedious to presently explain, I do speak for the Panspermian Initiative.’
‘He’s lagged,’ Sunday said quietly. ‘I’ve been watching his reactions. He’s trying to get the jump on what we say, but he’s not quite good enough to hide it completely. Must be chinging in from Earth, or near-Earth space.’
‘My present whereabouts needn’t detain us,’ Truro said. ‘But I congratulate you on your perspicacity.’
‘What do you want with us?’ Sunday asked. If Gleb knew this man, he wasn’t saying.
‘Nothing. Precisely that. Which is to say, I want you to do nothing and say nothing. I can’t stress enough the importance of that. I am aware of your predicament – how could I not be, when Chama Akbulut is one of us? – and steps are already being taken to ameliorate the situation.’
‘I think we’ve got things covered, thanks,’ Geoffrey said.
‘And I think you misunderstand the degree to which you are already embroiled. Chama has taken this action at considerable risk to himself, in terms of both physical harm and incarceration. Surely you understood that his selflessness places you in a position of indebtedness?’
‘Chama didn’t ask us first,’ Geoffrey said.
‘He’s right,’ Gleb put in. ‘Chama did this off his own back. None of us would have agreed to it. Me included.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Truro said, clearly unfazed by this line of argument, ‘you could hardly have expected Chama to behave otherwise when presented with the facts as they stood.’
‘You mean by sharing a secret with him, we encouraged him to do this?’ Sunday asked.
‘Knowing his character, you must have understood there was an excellent chance of it. Besides, when the opportunity arose, you all endorsed his actions by accompanying him to the Ghost Wall.’
‘We weren’t endorsing anything!’ Jitendra spluttered. ‘We were trying to talk him out of it!’
‘Until the very end?’
‘We were concerned for his welfare,’ Sunday said. ‘We tried to observe him for as long as we could.’
‘Still, a debt has been incurred. Chama and Gleb don’t speak for the entire Initiative, but they were right to recognise the importance of Geoffrey’s work, in regard to their own.’ Truro scanned the room, still wearing his black gash of a smile. ‘We have . . . leverage. The Chinese have been feeling history’s cold breath down their necks for decades. They’ve had their century and a half in the sun, the capstone to three thousand years of uninterrupted statehood. They did wonderful and glorious things. But now what? India has risen, and now it’s Africa’s turn. The wheel rolls on. The problem is, a state like that doesn’t turn on a dime. The Chinese need a new direction. So what they’re doing is returning to what they were always best at: thinking long-term, devising grand imperial ambitions. Needless to say, the Panspermian Initiative hasn’t escaped their attention. The Green Efflorescence is exactly the kind of life-swallowing enterprise they can really sink their teeth into. Of all the Dry and Sky member states, China has always had the most cordial relations with the United Aquatic Nations.’
‘How does this help us?’ Geoffrey asked.
‘Simply put, we are very anxious not to offend the Chinese, and they are very anxious not to offend us. You never know, we might be working together for an
‘You said we should do nothing,’ Sunday said.
‘Very soon, like clockwork, word will reach the relevant border authorities that Chama is to be shown unusual clemency. He will be released, and the whole sorry business put behind us.’ He leaned forward with particular urgency. ‘But the machinery of negotiation is delicate. The wrong intervention from Akinya Space or Plexus could derail the whole process. Perhaps catastrophically You do want to see your friend again, don’t you? With his memories still more or less intact? Then do nothing.’
‘You’d better be right about this,’ Geoffrey said.
‘I’m never wrong,’ Truro replied. And now he was looking at Geoffrey, and only Geoffrey. ‘I’ll be in touch, Mister Akinya. About the elephants. I’m sure we have a long and fruitful relationship ahead of us.’
The golem wilted. It slumped for a moment, until invisible strings jerked it back into life. The face danced through preloaded permutations, the clothes and hair shimmering and squirming with a slurping rustle. Then June Wing was back in the room.
‘Something outrageous just happened,’ she said.
June Wing, it was clear, was not a woman accustomed to being hijacked.
The robot proctors of the African Lunar Administration had the grey and steel sheen of expensive Swedish cutlery. Their helmets were chromed, their faces blank black fencing masks. They would not kill, but they packed myriad nonlethal modes of enforcement. Many of these were exquisitely unpleasant, quite liable to cause long- lasting damage to the central nervous system.
‘Which one of you is Gleb Ozerov?’ asked the first, the synthesised voice booming out of its meshwork face.
