“It’s just Turingware,” Scile said when she wasn’t there, though he allowed that it was better such than he’d seen before. He was amused by how we related to her. I didn’t like his attitude, but he was as polite to her as if he did think her a person, so I didn’t pick a fight with him about it. The only real interest he ever showed in Ehrsul was when it occurred to him that, because she did not breathe, she would be able to go into the city. I told him the truth: that she said to me when I asked her about it that she never did or would, that I could not say why, and, given how she’d said it, I wasn’t minded to ask.
She was sometimes asked to tinker with Embassytown’s artminds and automa, which would bring her into close contact with Staff: we were often at the same official soirées. I was there because I had uses, too. I’d been out more recently than any of my superiors: only a few Staff had ever left for official business to Bremen and returned. I was a source, could tell them about the recent politics and culture in Charo City.
When I’d first left Embassytown, Dad Renshaw had taken me to one side—literally, he’d steered me to the edge of the room in which I was having a farewell party. I’d waited for fatherly homilies, spurious rumours about life in the out, but what he had told me was that if I ever came back, Embassytown would be very interested in information on the state of things in Bremen. It was so polite and matter-of-fact it took me a while to assure myself I’d been asked to spy. I was only amused, was all, at the unlikeliness. Then I was ruefully amused again when, thousands of hours later, back in Embassytown, I realised I was making myself useful just as I’d been asked to.
Scile and I would have been objects of interest whatever we did—he, an intense and fascinated outsider, was a curio; I, part of Language, and a returned immerser, a minor celebrity. But purveying facts about Bremen as I did, I, a commoner, and my commoner husband were welcomed into Staff circles even more smoothly than we would otherwise have been. Our invitations continued after Embassytown’s little media stopped running interviews with and stories about the prodigal immerser.
They approached me very soon after I returned. Not Ambassadors, of course, but some viziers and high-level muck-a-mucks, requesting my presence at a meeting where they said things so vague I didn’t parse their purpose for a minute, until abruptly I remembered Dad Renshaw’s intercession, and understood that the muted questions about some of the trends in Bremen and associated powers and possible attitudes to dependencies and their aspirations were requests for political intelligence. And that they were offering payment.
That last seemed silly. I took no money for telling them what little I could. I waved into silence someone’s diplomatic explanations of their political concerns: it didn’t matter. I showed them newspipes, downloads, gave them perhaps a tiny sense of the balance of power in Bremen’s ruling Cosmopolitan Democratic party. Bremen’s wars, interventions and exigencies had never fascinated me, but perhaps to those more focused on them, what I told them might give insights into recent vicissitudes. Honestly I doubt any of it was stuff their artminds and analysts wouldn’t have predicted or guessed.
It was hardly high espionage drama. A few days later I was introduced to Wyatt, then Bremen’s new man in Embassytown, whom my Staff interlocutors had mentioned to me in obliquely warning fashion. He immediately teased me about that earlier meeting. He asked if I had a camera in his bedroom, or something like that. I laughed. I liked it when we crossed paths. He gave me a personal number.
It was in circles such as this, Embassytown society, that I met Ambassador CalVin and became their lover. One of the things they did for me was give Scile an opportunity to meet the Hosts.
CalVin were tall, grey-skinned men, a little older than me, with a certain playfulness, and the charming arrogance of the best Ambassadors. They invited me, and, at my request, Scile, to functions, and would come in turn into the town with us, where an Ambassador walking the streets without a Staff retinue was uncommon enough to attract attention.
“Ambassador,” Scile worked up courage to ask them, at first cautiously, “I have a question about your... exchanges with the Hosts.” And then into some minutely specific, arcane enquiry. CalVin, earning at that time my gratitude, were patient, though their answers were doubtless disappointing.
In CalVin’s company I saw, heard and intuited details about aspects of Embassytown life I never otherwise would have. I picked up on my lovers’ momentary references, hints and asides. They wouldn’t always answer me when I pressed them—they might say something about colleagues gone astray, or Ariekene factions, and then refuse to elaborate—but I learnt even just from overhearing.
I asked them about Bren. “I don’t see him often,” I said. “He doesn’t seem to come to gatherings.”
“I’d forgotten you’ve a connection with him,” CalVin said, both eyeing me, though in slightly different ways. “No, Bren’s rather self-exiled. Not that he’d ever leave, you understand.” “That wouldn’t fit with what he thinks he is, to the rest of us.” “And he had the chance. He could have left.” “After he was cleaved.” “Instead...” They laughed. “He’s sort of our licensed misery.” “He knows most of what goes on. And further afield, too—he knows things he really shouldn’t.” “You couldn’t call him loyal. But he’s useful.” “But you really couldn’t call him loyal, anymore, if he ever was.” Scile listened avidly to them.
“What’s it like?” Scile asked me. “I mean, I’ve been with two people before and I’m sure you have too, but I don’t think that’s—”
“No, Pharoi, no. Lord, you’re terrible. It’s not the same at all.” I was adamant at the time: now I have doubts.
“Do they both concentrate on you?” he said. We giggled, he at the silly prurience, me at what felt almost like blasphemy.
“No, it’s all very egalitarian. Cal, me and Vin, all in it together. Honestly, Scile, it’s not like I’m the only person an Ambassador’s ever—”
“You’re the only one I’ve got access to, though.” By then I wasn’t sure that was true. “I thought homosex isn’t approved of,” he said.
“Now you’re just showing off,” I said. “That’s not what they do together. Them or any of the Ambassadors. You know that. It’s... masturbation.” That was the common if scandalous description, and it made me feel like a kid to say it. “Imagine what it’s like when two Ambassadors get together.”
Scile spent hours, many hours, listening to recordings of Ariekei speaking, watching trids and flats of encounters between them and the Ambassadors. I watched him mouth things to himself and write illegible notes, one-handedly input into his datspace. He learnt fast. That was no surprise to me. When at last CalVin invited us to an event at which the Hosts would be present, Scile understood Language pretty much perfectly.
It was to be one of the discussions Ambassadors held with Hosts every few weeks. Interworld trade might come only every few thousand hours, but it was backed by and built on exhaustive, careful negotiation. With the arrival of each immership, terms agreed between Staff and Hosts (with the imprimatur of Bremen’s representative) were communicated, the vessel would leave with those details and Ariekene goods and tech, returning on its next round with whatever we had promised the Ariekei in return. They were patient.