elegant.” The cube tumbled in Sivaraksa’s hand. He was smiling. “No one could make head or tail of it. Yet when I looked at it for the first time I nearly dropped it in shock. It made perfect sense to me. Not only did I understand the theorem, but I also understood the point of it. It’s a joke, Naqi. A pun. This mathematics is rich enough to embody humour. And understanding that is the gift they left me. It was sitting in my mind for twenty-eight years, like an egg waiting to hatch.”
Abruptly, Sivaraksa placed the cube back on the table.
“Something’s come up,” he said.
From somewhere came the distant, prolonged thunder of a dirigible discharging its cargo of processed ore. It must have been one of the last consignments.
“Something, sir?”
“They’ve asked to see the Moat.”
“They?”
“Crane and her Vahishta mob. They’ve requested an oversight of all major scientific centres on Turquoise, and naturally enough we’re on the list. They’ll be visiting us, spending a couple of days seeing what we’ve achieved.”
“I’m not too surprised that they’ve asked to visit, sir.”
“No, but I was hoping we’d have a few months grace. We don’t. They’ll be here in a week.”
“That’s not necessarily a problem for us, is it?”
“It mustn’t become one,” Sivaraksa said. “I’m putting you in charge of the visit, Naqi. You’ll be the interface between Crane’s group and the Moat. That’s quite a responsibility, you understand. A mistake-the tiniest gaff-could undermine our standing with the Snowflake Council.” He nodded at the compad. “Our budgetary position is tenuous. Frankly, I’m in Tak Thonburi’s lap. We can’t afford any embarrassments.”
“No sir.”
She certainly did understand. The job was a poisoned chalice, or at the least a chalice with a strong potential to become poisoned. If she succeeded-if the visit went smoothly, with no hitches-Sivaraksa could still take much of the credit for it. If it went wrong, on the other hand, the fault would be categorically hers.
“One more thing.” Sivaraksa reached under his desk and produced a brochure that he slid across to her. The brochure was marked with a prominent silver snowflake motif. It was sealed with red foil. “Open it; you have clearance.”
“What is it, sir?”
“A security report on our new friends. One of them has been behaving a bit oddly. You’ll need to keep an eye on him.”
For inscrutable reasons of their own, the liaison committee had decided she would be introduced to Amesha Crane and her associates a day before the official visit, when the party was still in Sukhothai-Sanikiluaq. The journey there took the better part of two days, even allowing for the legs she took by high-speed dirigible or the ageing, unreliable trans-atoll railway line between Narathiwat and Cape Dorset. She arrived at Sukhothai-Sanikiluaq in a velvety purple twilight, catching the tail end of a fireworks display. The two snowflake cities had only been married three weeks, so the arrival of the off-worlders was an excellent pretext for prolonging the celebrations. Naqi watched the fireworks from a civic landing stage perched halfway up Sukhothai’s core, starbursts and cataracts of scarlet, indigo and intense emerald green brightening the sky above the vacuum bladders. The colours reminded her of the organisms that she and Mina had seen in the wake of their airship. The recollection left her suddenly sad and drained, convinced that she had made a terrible mistake by accepting this assignment.
“Naqi?”
It was Tak Thonburi, coming out to meet her on the balcony. They had already exchanged messages during the journey. He was dressed in full civic finery and appeared more than a little drunk.
“Chairman Thonburi.”
“Good of you to come here, Naqi.” She watched his eyes map her contours with scientific rigour, lingering here and there around regions of particular interest. “Enjoying the show?”
“You certainly seem to be, sir.”
“Yes, yes. Always had a thing about fireworks.” He pressed a drink into her hand and together they watched the display come to its mildly disappointing conclusion. There was a lull then, but Naqi noticed that the spectators on the other balconies were reluctant to leave, as if waiting for something. Presently a stunning display of three- dimensional images appeared, generated by powerful projection apparatus in the Voice of Evening’s shuttle. Above Sukhothai-Sanikiluaq, Chinese dragons as large as mountains fought epic battles. Sea monsters convulsed and writhed in the night. Celestial citadels burned. Hosts of purple-winged fiery angels fell from the heavens in tightly knit squadrons, clutching arcane instruments of music or punishment.
A marbled giant rose from the sea, as if woken from some aeonslong slumber.
It was very, very impressive.
“Bastards,” Thonburi muttered.
“Sir?”
“Bastards,” he said, louder this time. “We know they’re better than us. But do they have to keep reminding us?”
He ushered her into the reception chamber where the Vahishta visitors were being entertained. The return indoors had a magical sharpening effect on his senses. Naqi suspected that the ability to turn drunkenness on and off like a switch must be one of the most hallowed of diplomatic skills.
He leaned toward her, confidentially.
“Did Jotah mention any-”
“Security considerations, chairman? Yes, I think I got the message.”
“It’s probably nothing, only…”
“I understand. Better safe than sorry.”
He winked, touching a finger against the side of his nose. “Precisely.”
The interior was bright after the balcony. Twenty Vahishta delegates were standing in a huddle near the middle of the room. The captain was absent-little had been seen of Moreau since the shuttle’s arrival in Umingmaktok-but the delegates were talking to a clutch of local bigwigs, none of whom Naqi recognised. Thonburi steered her into the fray, oblivious to the conversations that were taking place.
“Ladies and gentlemen… Might I introduce Naqi Okpik? Naqi oversees the scientific program on the Moat. She’ll be your host for the visit to our project.”
“Ah, Naqi.” Amesha Crane leaned over and shook her hand. “A pleasure. I just read your papers on information propagation methods in class-three nodes. Erudite.”
“They were collaborative works,” Naqi said. “I really can’t take too much credit.”
“Ah, but you can. All of you can. You achieved those findings with the minimum of resources, and you made very creative use of some extremely simplistic numerical methods.”
“We muddle through,” Naqi said.
Crane nodded enthusiastically. “It must give you a great sense of satisfaction.”
Tak Thonburi said: “It’s a philosophy, that’s all. We conduct our science in isolation, and we enjoy only limited communication with other colonies. As a social model it has its disadvantages, but it means we aren’t forever jealous of what they’re achieving on some other world that happens to be a few decades ahead of us because of an accident of history or location. We think that the benefits outweigh the costs.”
“Well, it seems to work,” Crane said. “You have a remarkably stable society here, Chairman. Verging on the Utopian, some might say.”
Tak Thonburi caressed his cowlick. “We can’t complain.”
“Nor can we,” said the man Naqi recognised as quizzical-faced Simon Matsubara. “If you hadn’t enforced this isolation, your own Juggler research would have been as hopelessly compromised as everywhere else.”
“But the isolation isn’t absolute, is it?”
The voice was quiet, but commanding.
Naqi followed the voice to the speaker. It was Rafael Weir, the man who had been identified as a possible security risk. Of the three who had emerged from Moreau’s shuttle he was the least remarkable looking, possessing the kind of amorphous face that would allow him to blend in with almost any crowd. Had her attention not been drawn to him, he would have been the last one she noticed. He was not unattractive, but there was nothing
