Chapter 39 #4
“But you escaped?”
I blinked in surprise, wondered for a moment if I’d misremembered the word – not “left” or “fled” or “departed” but escaped, as if the Shine were a prison to flee from. “Yes. A long time ago.”
“Uh. How long?”
“By now… over a hundred years.”
“You don’t look that old.”
“No. There have been… alterations.”
“I do not understand what that means.”
“My body does not age in an appropriate manner. Although you could say the same of the Executor, could you not?”
No smile, no frown. She is fascinated – that is all. Simply fascinated. Perhaps that is why she is here, standing before the messenger of the Slow. It is an incredibly dangerous curiosity; I find the effect hypnotic.
“Hé has access to the most expensive, most exclusive medical treatments in the galaxy,” she mused, as if solving a problem out loud. “Are you saying you do too?”
“I am not saying that, no. I am… uncomfortable with my condition.”
“That’s fine,” she replied, with an immediate flicker of her fingers – a thing that resembled hand-speak, but not of Mdo-sa, a dancing of fingers that on Adjumir might have expressed a kind of easy moving-on, a polite acknowledgement of the topic needing to change.
As soon as it was there, it was gone, and I thought perhaps I had imagined it, and she was staring back into the blackness of the Slow.
“We can talk about something else. If you are not a rebel, are you with the Xi? You are dressed like them.”
“No. I am assistant to the ambassador for the Consensus.”
“Within the United Social Venture, the Consensus is a banned trans-humanist organisation.”
“I know.”
“There is nothing valued so much in the Shine as diversity of thought and ability,” she intoned. “The Consensus kill that individuality.”
I could not tell from how she spoke whether she believed what she said; her voice was as flat and level as mine so often was, an experience both strangely comforting and unnerving.
“The Consensus might argue,” I mused, “that most of society is nothing more and nothing less than a distributed consciousness. We rely on other people to do so much thinking for us – to design our ships, farm our food, solve equations or write poetry to help us unravel our feelings – that in many ways to live anything but utterly alone is already to be part of a hive mind anyway. All the Consensus does, they say, is deepen that bond. That is what they claim, at least. I can understand how, given that the only way to experience it is to become it, there is room for interpretation and doubt.”
“That is an interesting perspective I had not considered. I am sure I will find it flawed, in time. If you believe it, why haven’t you joined them?”
“I tried, once. The first stage of bonding is to share your mind with a circle of eight, a temporary connection to see if this is an experience you wish to deepen and create. But the eight I joined looked into me and broke the connection at once, and said I was incompatible with their thoughts.”
“You were rejected?”
“They were very apologetic about it. They wept. They held each other and me and said sorry, sorry, we’re so sorry, oh help us, oh stars, oh hearts, help us! It was very strange.”
“I have never heard of someone being rejected from the Consensus. Even murderers are welcomed, I heard. I heard the Consensus said there was no punishment greater for a killer than to share their mind with those they have wronged.”
“Like I said – everyone was very apologetic.”
“Uh.”
That “uh” – it seemed honest, if nothing else, neither feigning false comfort nor dismissing what I had said. A neutral “uh” of data lacking, of judgement withheld. I wondered then whether I liked Riv Fexri, even though she was, ostensibly, my enemy.
For a moment the two of us stood in silence, and it did not feel awkward.
She did not seem to expect much from me, and I was perfectly happy expecting nothing from her, and it was almost comforting, a kind of safety.
But old habits die hard, and decades of being the quiet one at parties, the one who was doing it wrong, tickled on the tip of my tongue, so I blurted: “What about you? Why are you here?”
“I am here because my boss is here,” she replied, without hesitation or malice. “He is getting old and making mistakes. He should not be here. I am here to make sure he doesn’t do anything bad. He is an engineer, not a diplomat. It is absolute folly for him to have come.”
“Then why is he here?”
Her fingers swirled the stem of her cup back and forth, settling little storms in the remnants of her drink.
“Business,” she replied at last, a delay that meant she was lying, a firmness that implied she was not interested in being questioned on that fact.
“Many people meet on the Spindle. More than just diplomats.”
“Do you… like your boss?” I tried.
“No.”
“But you still work for him.”
“If I left my current employment,” she replied primly, “I would lose all my Shine. I would be useless, worthless, and most likely end up indentured to a Venture with poor working conditions and limited prospects for my old age. This is unacceptable. In my work I am protected. This is enough.”
“Is it?”
“If you are from Tu-mdo, you know that it is.”
I thought about this a moment longer, clicked my tongue once in agreement.
To my surprise, she seemed to understand, a little nod, and then into silence once again we lapsed.
Finally: “Do you fancy defecting?” I blurted, eyes everywhere except on her.
“It’s absolutely fine if you don’t. I just reason, given everything you have said, you probably have intelligence, information, et cetera, and you seem moderately dissatisfied with your position.
Comfort, security, so on and so forth – I’m sure it could all be arranged. ”
For a moment, she seemed to think about it, turning the glass between her fingers. Then: “No thank you,” she replied. “But I understand that it is partially thoughtful of you to ask, regardless of your broader political motivations.”
“Fair enough.”
“Indeed.”
We stood together watching the room. Then she sighed, drained the last drink from the bottom of her glass and, half turning to look at me – or rather, no, a little past me, up and to the left, the same not-quite-eye-contact that was how I didn’t-quite-look at people most of the time – said: “If you are with the Consensus, then Corpsec probably considers you an enemy operative, so I really shouldn’t speak to you any more. ”
“I am sorry to hear that, though you are probably correct.”
“I have enjoyed talking to you.”
“Likewise.”
“Uh-huh.” There it was again – a little “uh” that was neither good nor bad, merely a holding sound where more data was yet to be. “Well then,” she concluded. “Goodbye.”
And Riv Fexri walked away.