“Because you’re mean,” he said.
“And spiteful,” she added. “And suspicious. And easily angered. And just as quick to act on that anger, I’ll warn you…!”
She looked and sounded like a certain female Sanchex, but the name drawing itself on her uniform, in a thousand languages, was never Ravleen.
An old childhood friend.
“To answer your extremely rude question,” she continued. “That ‘ugly’ object belongs to our defense network, and it’s beautiful. It’s a wonder, and I love it, and I don’t know what it does, and neither of us will ever know anyone who will know what it does. Do you understand that, young man?”
“Yes, Miss Sanchex.”
The woman recoiled, then took a long suck of air before warning, “We don’t use that name anvmore. The Sanchexes are extinct.”
“Yes—”
“Madam Voracious.”
“Yes, Madam Voracious.”
She showed everyone a grim Sanchex smile, then thundered, “Now let’s discuss your names…?”
The boy answered first, in a low voice.
“Excuse me?” said Madam Voracious.
He repeated himself, almost smiling, and for a slippery, mischievous instant, it sounded as if he had said, “Ord.”
3
Small tours will serve us this way:
They will feed public curiosity. They will project a sense of openness on the part of the surviving Families. They will educate. They will mollify. They will give our youngest children valuable practice in the art of addressing audiences. And most important, they will continue the humiliation of the vanquished Families… in particular, the Chamberlains…
The immigrants took up unassuming, generally unhappy lives.
Their fortune had been exhausted. They could barely afford an apartment less than a tenth the size of their starship’s small cabins, and the parents spent their days trying to ignore the new world. In their district, the crowding and noise were relentless. Millions lived next door, and everyone was tailored in a different way, with different physiologies and languages and customs. On the Earth, even basic goods were depressingly expensive. Work was easy to find, but menial. Over time, finances were sure to grow tighter. Looking at one another, the parents asked: Why did we think we could live here?
For them, the Earth was a prison.
On their worst days, they could barely speak or even leave their bed, forcing their son to patiently watch over them, voicing encouragement and sometimes taking charge of the family’s day-to-day responsibilities.
It was a standard procedure to shadow every refugee with paranoid AIs. For many reasons, including the recommendation of the immigration officer, their family was given extra attention. Yet nothing incriminating was observed, and after six months, all but one of the AIs were given new, more lucrative assignments.
It was the boy who offered their names to the Family lottery, which was perfectly normal. Most of the citizens routinely did it every day, competing for the chance to tour the abandoned estates. The chances of winning were minimal. Even impossible. Only a few dozen slots opened each day, and most were filled through bribes and political favors. But on his twenty-third attempt, the impossible happened:
Three slots were granted to the immigrants.
Alarms sounded in a thousand high offices. Quantumware and various officials were interrogated at length. A brigade of AIs as well as human officers began to follow the winners, studying their composition, and to the best of ability, their thoughts. Then as a final precaution, an adult Nuyen dressed up like an unmodified youngster, and he took the role of the smiling, charming tour guide.
“Hello,” the Nuyen began, examining his audience with many senses. “It is a lovely morning, isn’t it?”
Happy souls agreed. Yes, it was delightful.
The rest of the Earth existed in a perpetual summer—a consequence of so many machines and warm bodies. But on the Families’ estates, climate obeyed the angle of the sun. Summer was a few months of intense growth sandwiched between the cold dead winters. Seasons meant wealth and waste, but their guide mentioned neither. Focusing every sense on the mysterious boy, he asked himself, Are you Ord?
Nothing tasted unusual, much less remarkable.
Their guide introduced himself, saying simply, “I am Xo.”
The boy didn’t blink, and his heart didn’t quicken, and no portion of his visible mind showed surprised or more than usual curiosity.
If anything, it was the Nuyen who was anxious. For as long as Xo could remember, this was his job. He was a scent hound testing the wind. This was a common situation: What if the lottery system had been manipulated, giving him access to the estates? At first glance, it seemed like a ludicrous possibility. Someone with Alice’s powers wouldn’t bother with this kind of subterfuge. But Xo grew up with Ord, and he knew him, and he could almost believe that the boy would find this route to his home alluring—camouflaging himself inside the Families’ own contrived game.
“Xo,” he repeated, using a thousand channels reserved for the Families. Then in the next nanoseconds, he told anyone with the proper ears, “It’s me, yes. Your dear friend. Welcome home, Ord.”
There was no response.
But the boy raised his tail, then both of his hands. “Sir,” he said with a soft respect. “Will we visit your home too, sir?”
Xo shook his head, saying, “We won’t have enough time today. I’m sorry.”
The boy looked saddened.
“Why would you want to see my house?” Xo inquired.
A quick, guileless voice said, “The Nuyens are my favorite Family, sir.”
“Are we?”
“One of your brothers helped my world during our stupid wars.” Emotions played across his face. “I’ve always wanted to step inside your house, sir!”
When Xo last saw Ord, he was standing at the mansion’s door, holding a crude atomic weapon in both hands. Its detonator had been rendered useless, but Ord didn’t care. He was driving it into the stone walkway, threatening to keep pounding and pounding until simple random motions caused the uranium to detonate.
In a sense, nothing in Xo’s life had changed since that moment.
He was still a worried, immature boy cowering behind the door, watching out for his bomb-wielding friend.
The guests were ushered through several of the abandoned estates, each one held in trust by the Nuyens. Lunch was a modest feast served inside the Sanchex pyramid. Xo explained that once everyone had their fill, the tour would culminate with a studious, scornful walk through the Chamberlains’ mansion. “We’re climbing a ladder of guilt,” he remarked, pretending that the cliche was profound. “Sanchexes did the most dangerous assignments in the Core. Which was why they were the second Family to be disbanded wholesale… two moments after the Chamberlains were ordered to surrender their wealth, and their selves…”
The Sanchexes once served humanity as warriors. But when the Great Peace was established, every enemy vanquished, they turned themselves into marvelous, almost fearless engineers. Manipulating mayhem, they used to tame old suns and build new ones. They learned how to rob energy from pulsars and black holes, enriching themselves along the way. More than any other Family, the Sanchexes poured their wealth and reputation into the Core, making it habitable. And after all that good work, a few Sanchexes helped destroy everything, which made all of them guilty. Beyond redemption.