‘And Alile wanted to give them to us so that we could continue the Task ourselves, without the need for your mutalibun,’ Sumanguru says. ‘Anyone who disagrees with that is a suspect.’
‘You will find many who disagree. The Seals are all we have left of our ancestors. A symbol of the Cry of Wrath,’ Tawaddud says. ‘To give them to you directly, to disrupt our gogol trade and economy, to allow Sobornost machines to go to the desert instead of our mutalibun and mercenaries – many feel strongly about that.’
Sumanguru’s pale eyes do not blink. ‘So how does Tawaddud of the House Gomelez feel?’
Tawaddud looks down. ‘That justice should be done.’
‘Interesting notion.’ Sumanguru squeezes the bridge of his nose, then blinks and lowers his hand. ‘Is it possible that whoever killed Alile did not care about the Accords but wanted this Name you saw? Do you know what it does?’
Tawaddud shakes her head. ‘Some of them can only be spoken in certain places, at certain times. I think this is one of them.’
Sumanguru gives her a sharp look. ‘The only two possible reasons for the killer to steal the qarin – or to prevent us from having it – are this Name and the possibility that the bird knew the killer’s identity. Think carefully: is there anything else you saw in the qarin’s mind?’
Tawaddud swallows.
‘I think you are protecting someone, Tawaddud of House Gomelez,’ Sumanguru says gently. ‘If you are, consider this: whoever they are, they want to fight a war with the Sobornost. And at war, you often find yourself becoming a twin of the enemy, just as bad as the thing you fear.’ He leans back and looks up at the Gourd, wispy lines now obscured by fluffy afternoon clouds, the Shards like a curtain in the horizon.
‘How much do you know about Sobornost history?’
‘I’ve only ever met hsien-kus.’
‘Hsien-kus are a small clan obsessed with the past. They would love nothing more than creating another Earth, a simulated Earth, for everyone who ever existed. They like to look back. But most of us look forward. Even when it comes with a price.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tawaddud asks.
‘After the first war, we realised that this,’ he taps on his temple, ‘was not enough. Human cognitive architecture only gets you so far with the Great Common Task. Sure, there are some fundamentals that the chitraguptas say are universal. Recursion, thoughts within thoughts. The basis of language, self-reflection, consciousness perhaps. But a lot of it is modules, inefficiently strung together by evolution. A kind of Frankenstein.’
‘A what?’
‘I keep forgetting, no fiction. Never mind. The point is, we started experimenting. And we ended up with Dragons. Beings with no consciousness, no modules, just an engine, a self-modifying, evolving optimiser. We could never destroy them: we could only put them inside virtual machines, box them off. What do you think the guberniyas are for? They are cages for monsters. Everything else is just surface.’
‘Are you sure you should be telling me this?’ Tawaddud thinks about the young man in orange, the political astronomer. She is sure no one in Sirr has ever heard anything about this.
‘Are you sure I shouldn’t be?’ Sumanguru’s mouth twitches.
‘And then what happened?’
‘We fought them. A war that lasted thousands of years, in guberniya Deep Time. They had no eudaimon, no inner voice. Intelligence without meaning. And we were losing. Until we started cutting things out from ourselves as well. Body language. Theory of mind. Empathy. To fight Dragons, we made gogols that were mirror images of the bastards.
‘Gogols like me.’
Tawaddud looks at Sumanguru. His smile is cold. ‘Oh, I can fake social niceties perfectly well, but it is just slave gogols moving my face, you understand. My emotions are outsourced. My private utility functions and pleasures are . . . quite different from yours.
‘So when you keep your secrets, Tawaddud Gomelez, think about two things. Is whoever you are protecting worth protecting or have they crossed a line?’ He leans closer and the machine oil smell in his breath is so strong that the food moves in Tawaddud’s stomach and bile rises into her mouth. ‘And do you really want to lie to someone who kills dragons?’
He picks up Tawaddud’s unfinished tajini bowl and spoons the remaining food with gusto.
They wait in silence until the shadow of a carpet appears: it descends slowly into the square, carrying Dunyazad and a tall, spiky Repentant thought-form. Tawaddud’s sister is clad in formal Council robes, Gomelez colours, black fabric and a gold chain in her hair.
She curtsies to Sumanguru, clasping her hands together, a look of horror on her face. ‘Lord Sumanguru,’ she says. ‘Are you badly hurt? We will take to my Father’s house immediately and tend to your injuries.’
Sumanguru shrugs. ‘Flesh will heal,’ he says. ‘If not, it will be cut off.’
Duny curtsies again and turns to Tawaddud.
‘Dear sister,’ she says, giving her a tight, quick embrace. ‘The Aun be praised that you are alive!’ But when she holds Tawaddud close, she hisses in her ear, ‘Father wants to see you. It might have been better to run away again.’
Duny pulls away and gives them both a radiant smile. ‘Please follow me: we have so many things to talk about.’
15
THE THIEF AND THE SAUNA
The day before the thief leaves for Earth Mieli prepares an Oortian meal. He is in a good mood, lecturing, flashing smiles. But every now and then, from the corner of her eye, she sees something different on his face. Something savage.
See? the pellegrini whispers. She has been there all the way through her preparations, watching them. Have faith and it all works out in the end.
She ignores the goddess and continues setting up the table. Spider eggs in small food nets. Peeled pumptree fruit. Drinking bulbs. She has already started warming up the sauna.
‘This all seems somewhat elaborate,’ the thief says. ‘Should we not spend the time getting ready, for, I don’t know, sneaking into the most well-guarded planet in the System?’
‘We are getting ready,’ Mieli says. ‘Earth is a dark place, a place of pain. We have to purify ourselves.’
‘I can certainly get behind that. In fact, I’m going to purify myself internally.’ He swallows some of the contents of a drinking bulb and makes a face. Mieli snatches it back from his hand.
‘It tastes like tar,’ the thief says.
‘The taste is not important. It is to honour the dead. And the meal is only for after the sauna, so control your instincts.’
The thief looks at her. ‘I don’t know about the dead, but I’m kind of looking forward to this. I’m glad we finally see eye to eye.’
Mieli says nothing. She sees the pellegrini smiling and closes her eyes. The face of the goddess does not go away.
‘Let’s go to the sauna,’ she says.
The sauna is housed in one of Perhonen’s storage modules. In her years of service to the pellegrini, Mieli has only used it a few times: it makes her too homesick. But if you really want to cleanse yourself, it is the only way to do it, and the ship has reassembled it for the occasion.
It is a tiny, spherical room of wood, with a large bubble of water in the centre, held in place by a semi-permeable membrane and väki threads, like a raindrop in a giant spiderweb. You take hot rocks from small braziers with tongs and throw them into the bubble. It creates a rush of steam. The rocks swirl around in the bubble and make it dance like a living thing.