"We just want the original."
Thrace's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "The what?"
"The artwork itself," said Venera. "The item that your, ah, copies are based on."
"That's why we asked to meet you here," added Mahallan, "at the storage depot."
"You just want the original? Nothing more?" Thrace looked tremendously amused. "You could have just sent us a… what do you call them? A letter. We'd have mailed it back to you!" He turned and gestured, and the door in the wall opened by itself. Chaison jumped at this, but nobody seemed to notice.
As Maximilian Thrace drifted into the dark hallway revealed by the open door, he said, "Space is expensive here. It would have cost us less to send it back to you than to continue to store it. We could even have hired escorts if you wanted."
Chaison stopped walking. Thrace's ghost continued on; Venera had given him her arm, so apparently he had some solidity although his tiny feet waved impotently some inches above the floor. Chaison shook his head and looked away. There was nothing else in this long narrow corridor to look at, except Aubri Mahallan, who had paused to look back at him.
"Did you know this?" he asked her. She looked apologetic.
"I doubt he's telling the truth about the escort," she said, falling back to walk beside him. "I knew they would ship it to us if we asked. But we'd have had to send a courier ship here to do mat, and then wait… time was tight. It didn't seem practical."
"In the future," he said tightly, "please allow me to make such judgments."
"Sorry."
Civilians! He hated them as a species. Chaison trudged along, thinking about the lives lost in getting here. They were all ultimately his responsibility. But it was an awful thing to make choices in ignorance of potential alternatives.
Mahallan seemed to just be realizing her mistake. "Listen, if I had known—"
"What is he?" Chaison gestured at the wraith who was walking and laughing with his wife. "Is he a real person?"
"Ah." Mahallan shrugged awkwardly. "Define 'real.' Max is a Chinese Room persona, which makes him as real as you or I." She saw his uncomprehending stare, and said, "There are many game-churches where the members of the congregation each take on the role of one component of a theoretical person's nervous system—I might be the vagus nerve, or some tiny neuron buried in the amygdala. My responsibility during my shift is to tap out my assigned rhythm on a networked finger-drum, depending on what rhythms and sounds are transmitted to me by my neural neighbors, who could be on the other side of the planet for all I—" She saw that his expression hadn't changed. "Anyway, all of the actions of all the congregation make a one-to-one model of a complete nervous system… a human brain, usually, though there are dog and cat churches, and even attempts at constructing trans-human godly beings. The signals all converge and are integrated in an artificial body. Max's body looks odd to you because his church is a manga church, not a human one, but there's people walking around on the street you'd never know were church-made."
Chaison shook his head. "So this Thrace is… a fake person?"
Aubri looked horrified. "Listen, Admiral, you must never say such a thing! He's real. Of course he's real. And you have to understand, the game-churches are an incredibly important part of our culture. They're an attempt to answer the ultimate questions: what is a person? Where does the soul lie? What is our responsibility to other people? You're not just tapping on a drum, you're helping to give rise to the moment-by-moment consciousness of a real person… To let down that responsibility could literally be murder."
He looked at her sidelong. "You seem awfully passionate about this for a voluntary exile. Did you belong to one of these churches before you came here?"
"Oh!" She looked like someone who had just realized that she'd said too much. "No, it's just that—"
"They told me you were here!" said a voice behind them.
Chaison turned quickly, hand going to his waist where his sword should be—but wasn't. An ordinary-looking man of medium height and age had come up behind them as they talked. His accent had not been like Aubri's, Chaison realized. He had sounded like he was from Virga.
"Aubri Mahallan," he said now, arching one eyebrow. "What could you possibly be doing back at the station?" She shrank back.
Stepping between them, Chaison said, "And you are…?"
"Aston Shen," he said, holding out his hand for Chaison to shake. "Virgan home guard."
"Home guard?"
"You've never heard of us? Good! Then we're doing our job." Shen smiled at Chaison's expression. "There are always some people of every generation who become curious about the outside world, you know. A few hundred find their way here every year. Some emigrate and never return. But some of us… find a higher calling. The home guard exists to protect Virga from outside influences. We try to ensure that no bad elements enter our world." Deliberately, he looked past Chaison at Mahallan. "And when they do…" He eased past Chaison. "So, Aubri, what have you been up to?" he asked. She shrugged.
"Just living my life, Aston. As best I can, now that I'm here."
"So? And the purpose of your business in the station?"
Chaison interposed himself again. "She is here on my business. We needed a native guide. I'd kindly ask you not to interfere."
Shen held his hands up solicitously. "Wouldn't think of it, old man. As long as you know to be careful with this one. She's not to, be trusted."
"Oh really? I—"They were interrupted again as Venera returned carrying something. She held it up triumphantly and beamed at Chaison.
"We got it!" The thing appeared to be an intricate branch with extremely tiny leaves, if those finest bifurcations were leaves at all. Jewels glinted here and there inside its tangles.
"I'll expect delivery of the paintings tonight, then?" Thrace was saying to her. Venera nodded vigorously. "Come dear, we should get back." She noticed Shen. "Well, hello."
"Ma'am." Shen turned back to Mahallan. "We'll do a full-pass sweep of you and your companions before you're allowed to leave. I thought it polite to let you know." Seeing Chaison's expression, he smiled and bowed. "You won't even know it's happening. Just remember," he said to Mahallan, "we're watching you." He walked away.
Venera watched him go. "What an unpleasant person," she said. She had that appraising look that Chaison had learned meant that her instincts for paranoid intrigue had been triggered. "Let's get out of this place," she said to him as she smiled again at Thrace.
As they walked back to the ship Chaison tried to sort out every-thing he'd just seen and experienced. But he was tired, and Venera's excitement just too infectious. By the time they reached the Rook, he had forgotten Mahallan's explanation of her people's churches, and couldn't bring himself to speculate about the Virga home guard or Shen's cryptic warnings.
None of it mattered anyway. They had the map they had come to find.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE SCENE WAS an eery repeat of Dentius's call to execution, only now it was Chaison Fanning who perched atop the T-bar and addressed all six of the ships. The vessels were temporarily lashed together into a loose star formation. Their crews sat or stood on their hulls, dark silhouettes casting long shadows from the spotlights that lit Fanning.
The admiral gestured with his bullhorn. "We are a long way from home. We have gone through the trials and tribulations of a minor war, and yet I have not told you why.
"Now, I will tell you why."
A murmur went through the assembly. Hayden Griffin, who sat astride his bike comfortably invisible in the dark air, strained to hear what the crewmen were saying. Resentment battled respect among them, he knew. Fanning was known to have fought gallantly against the pirates, but then he had also let Dentius and his men escape. There were airmen listening now who would always bear the scars of Dentius's torturer.