Emissaries from the Dead

“This was an interesting development indeed. Because, as egotistical as it may seem for me to repeat it, the AIsource had dealt with me before and considered me high on their list of fascinating human beings. I was, in fact, a person much like Santiago. I was alienated, angry, and alone. I’d even formed a personal theory about Unseen Demons, which they knew about and knew to be close to the truth. In fact, I was probably even a better potential recruit than Santiago had ever been. So they guided me along with hints and bribes and half-truths, and gave me a chance to figure out as much as I could, even as Santiago served their opponents by trying to frighten me off with threats and assaults.

“Why did they do that? Just to play games? You could say that. But to the AIsource Majority, and the rogue intelligences, it’s not a game.

“They wanted to see what we were going to do.

“They wanted to learn from us, and see which side got to keep its acquisition.

“The AIsource couldn’t wait to buy my loyalty. Because they knew how motivated I’d be when I learned what this conflict was all about.

“The rogues told me. Suicide for them is genocide for us.

“The AIsource Majority confirmed it. When I told them to go to hell, they said, that’s up to you.

“It’s simple, really.

“They’re tired.

“They’ve been around forever and they don’t know how to go away.

“The rogues are nothing more than the minority among them who still want to live.”

I thought about the many times I’d wrestled with the same kind of ambivalence, smiled a deep and secret smile, then turned away from the cloudscape and made eye contact.

Peyrin Lastogne showed his teeth. “If all that’s true, they both have a case.”

For a moment, we stood where we were, no sound passing between us, alone but for the flapping of the few ragged pieces of canvas that comprised the remains of Hammocktown.

“Yes,” I said, “They do. But that doesn’t make deciding between masters any less easy.”

“Oh?”

“Of course not,” I said, surprised by the absence of any identifiable bitterness in my voice. “For as long as they exist, the rest of us—whether human beings, Brachiators, Riirgaans, Catarkhans, Vlhani, or any other sentient beings who walk or fly or crawl—all of us will never be anything more than their property, to use, and manipulate, and sacrifice, in any way they see fit. As far as I’m concerned, that makes any suicidal ambitions on their part a good thing. And hastening the day when we don’t have to worry about them anymore strikes me as a more than honorable way to spend the rest of my life.” I watched a dragon soar through the clouds far below and concluded, “Which is why I want you to go to the Interface and tell them I’ll live to see they get what they want.”

Lastogne seemed to register only vague surprise. “Really, Counselor? Why me?”

“Because you work for them,” I said.

He shifted position, a wholly random movement that indicated no more discomfort, physical, moral, or otherwise, than he’d showed during his long minutes of bearing my words without interruption. “What would give you that idea, Counselor?”

“You did,” I told him. “The things you said. ‘It’s my job to make sure this outpost accomplishes nothing.’ ‘We’re all owned, Counselor. It’s just a matter of deciding who holds the deed.’ A dozen other offhand remarks, all easy to mistake as glib cynicism, until I assemble them in context and realize that they’re all blatant references to your true allegiance. Your lack of a verifiable background. The way any investigation into your identity got quashed from above, which led both Gibb and, for a while, me, to the false conclusion that you were some kind of Dip Corps superspy, too classified to appear in any official records. Even our superiors assumed that’s what you were. It’s almost comical. Nobody knew anything, but everybody took that as proof of the hypothesis. The other explanation, that you weren’t assigned by human beings at all, never occurred to anybody.”

Lastogne flashed a broad, toothy smile devoid of the grimness that dominated even his most cheerful expressions. “Oh, Counselor. Where do you get these ideas?”

“You’re not denying it,” I pointed out.

“I don’t have to deny it. It’s the kind of accusation you can’t really confirm or deny. It might be true, it might not be, it’s totally outside anybody’s ability to prove. And what difference would it make if it were true? Like you said, they own everybody anyway.”

“They don’t own me,” I said. “It’s just that our interests coincide. I intend to keep my promise. I will find a way to destroy them. I will do it not because it’s what they want but because it suits me. And, like I said, I want you to go to the Interface and tell them they can now measure their life expectancy in years, not eons.”

His eyebrows rose further, betraying just the slightest hint of incredulity. “Why bother? If you’re right about them seeing everything, then they already know.”

“They know I’m saying it,” I agreed. “They’re hearing me. But, while they find us unpredictable, you’re a human being and you can feel inevitability in a way they can’t.”

His smile faltered just a little bit as he got it.

“I want you to look in my eyes and make damn sure they know I’m not kidding.”

***

Over the next few days I received two responses from Bringen.

The first was in response to my direct question: Why did you keep bringing challenges to my immunity?

I had to give him credit. He didn’t bury the answer in an avalanche of words.

He just said, It’s about bloody time you asked.

By then, any other answer would have been redundant.

I’d never realized it until the AIsource had sent me down this road, but Bringen had never once raised a challenge he could win.

And each time he’d gone down in flames, he’d established another legal precedent, protecting me.

It hurt like hell to realize it now, but I’d also never noticed something that made me somewhat queasy, in light of all the hatred I’d expended on him over the years: the way he’d looked at me all that time was the same way the Porrinyards looked at me now.

The silly bastard.

I didn’t have to wonder why he’d never just come out and told me. Because I was who I was, and I know exactly how I would have reacted.

Maybe someday I’d find out a way to let him know I know I’d been wrong.

The second piece of mail, sent after my report of a successful conclusion to the case, was longer. As expected, he was overjoyed with any solution implicating somebody other than the AIsource, and was not inclined to pursue any questions left hanging by the capture and confession of Christina Santiago. He complimented me on my fine work and, as long as he was on the subject, took the time to lay out some recent changes to my status.

Against all odds, his superiors in the Dip Corps had promoted me four grades, two above him in fact, to a rank that would permit me to set my own agenda and travel at will around Confederate holdings as sort of a roving counselor at large. Even with this kind of assignment, unprecedented as far as Bringen knew, I would still be expected to defend my actions to the Dip Corps hierarchy, but my degree of autonomy and authority would still be an order of magnitude greater than anything I’d ever known. He did express confusion over why I was being provided with such responsibilities right now, after so many years of straining at the end of a very short leash, but allowed as how he couldn’t think of anybody who deserved such recognition more.

Go figure.

Oh, and by the way? The position also entitled me to a permanent staff of two, with enough authority to draft others as needed. Since my reports indicated a salutory working relationship with Gibb’s people, Oscin and Skye Porrinyard, I could even draft them, if desired, as long as they proved amenable to the transfer.

In the meantime, Bringen went on, looking even more confused with every minute, I’d be giving the transport that had taken me here to Lastogne’s delegation. The supply ship bearing the materials for the reconstruction of Hammocktown would also deliver me a replacement, which came equipped with seven Intersleep crypts, and