Embassytown Part 17

"At first they were thinking about totally other stuff, under-covers for id-readers, get agents out of scans - mimic brainwaves and whatnot. Then something occurred to them. You know," he continued slowly, "supposedly they once tried growing their own doppels? Back in Charo City? When the colony started." He shook his head. "Didn't go so well. Story goes they sink years into it, without any Ariekei to listen to to keep the skills up, with no sense of Emba.s.sytown on the ground - miabs being even less frequent then - and end up with . . . well, pairs of people who are dysfunctional in Bremen." He indicated twoness with his hands. "And everywhere. Hardly reliable.

"But then here's Rukowsi. The thinking was it might be a way to solve an old problem."

The mystery of what it was the Hosts discerned in our Amba.s.sadors' voices remained unsolved: all that Charo City had ascertained was that after implants, augmens, chemicals and hundreds of hours of training, Joel Rukowsi and his fellow agent, linguist Coley Wren, codename Ra, had been able to score astonishingly on the Stadt scale.

No one had known whether it would sound like Language to the Ariekei - but Stadt was the only test anyone had for that, and the operatives looked, at least, to have pa.s.sed. If in fact it hadn't worked, if it had failed in the ways the paymasters had imagined it might possibly fail, if EzRa had spoken and elicited polite incomprehension, then nothing would have been lost. Two career agents would have a long and dull a.s.signment, until the next Bremen-bound ship. But what if they succeeded?

"None of you lot are fools," Wyatt said. "Why would you think we are? You think we didn't get all your provocations, your fake meetings, your secret agendas, your disobedience, your tax-skimming, your doctoring of biorigging, keeping the best, or making it so no one but Emba.s.sytowners can make it work? You think that's been invisible? For Christ's sake, we've known for hundreds of thousands of hours that you've been building to independence."

The silence after he said that would have meant a declaration of war, shortly before. In these new times it was only a silence. What he said felt not like a revelation but like something impolite. Wyatt rubbed his eyes.

"It's just history," he said. "It's adolescence. All colonies do it. We can set our f.u.c.king clocks by you. This is my fifth stationing. Before this, I was in Chao Polis, on Dracosi, on Berit Blue. Does that mean anything to you? Christ, do you people not read? Don't you upload the dat that comes in the miabs? I'm a specialist. They send me in where outposts are spoiling for a fight."

"You quash secession," said Bren.

"G.o.d, no," Wyatt said. "You may be the mysterious old man here, but I'm from the out, and you can't hide your ignorance from me. Berit Blue did did secede, with only the tiniest war." He held thumb and forefinger minutely apart to show how small the war had been. "Dracosi's independence was totally peaceful. Chao Polis is midway through thrashing out a plan with us for regional autonomy. How crude do you think we are, Bren? They are free . . . and they're secede, with only the tiniest war." He held thumb and forefinger minutely apart to show how small the war had been. "Dracosi's independence was totally peaceful. Chao Polis is midway through thrashing out a plan with us for regional autonomy. How crude do you think we are, Bren? They are free . . . and they're ours ours." He let that sit.

"But there are exceptions. You're too far from Bremen, too hard to reach, for easy management. And you're not ready. You weren't going to be getting independence soon. It's the fault of Language: that's what's confused you. You think you're aristocracy. You thought thought, I should say. And that this colony was your estate estate. And you had a kind of point: unlike every other aristocracy I've ever seen you really are indispensable. Were. So you've been choosing your successors since forever. Congratulations: you invented hereditary power.

"But every one of you, every Amba.s.sador and every vizier, every member of Staff in Emba.s.sytown, is a Bremen employee. 'Amba.s.sadors': get it? Who do you think you speak for? We can hire, and we can fire. And we can replace."

EZRA HAD BEEN a test. An operation to strip our Amba.s.sadors of power and hobble self-government. Their success would have changed everything. In two, three ship-shifts, the social system of this outpost would have been overthrown. If those other than our Amba.s.sadors could speak Language, apparatchiks, career diplomats and loyalists could be sent to Emba.s.sytown for a few local years, and soon we'd rely on Bremen for survival. Our Amba.s.sadors would die slowly half by half, doppel by doppel, and be mourned but not replaced. The cre'che would close. The infirmary would empty as death took the failed, and there would be no others. a test. An operation to strip our Amba.s.sadors of power and hobble self-government. Their success would have changed everything. In two, three ship-shifts, the social system of this outpost would have been overthrown. If those other than our Amba.s.sadors could speak Language, apparatchiks, career diplomats and loyalists could be sent to Emba.s.sytown for a few local years, and soon we'd rely on Bremen for survival. Our Amba.s.sadors would die slowly half by half, doppel by doppel, and be mourned but not replaced. The cre'che would close. The infirmary would empty as death took the failed, and there would be no others.

It would have been a bloodless, elegant, slow a.s.sertion of Bremen control. How could we have asked for independence when our contact with the Hosts who sustained us relied on Bremen staff? All Emba.s.sytown had had was its monopoly on Language, and with EzRa, Bremen had tried to break that.

A world-destroying mistake. Not a stupid one: only the very worst luck. A quirk of psyche and phonetics. It made sense that they would try. It would have been an elegant imperial manoeuvre. Counter-revolution through language pedagogy and bureaucracy.

"Biorigging's . . . good," MagDa said. "It's invaluable." "And, minerals and stuff from here's useful too. And a few other things." "But still." "Come on." "Why all this?" We're a backwater We're a backwater, they were saying. There was no false pride or denial. Most of us had wondered at some time why Emba.s.sytown wasn't just allowed to die.

"I'd have thought it would make sense to some of you," Wyatt said. "That you'd realise exactly what's going on." And he looked up, straight at me.

I stood and folded my arms. I looked down my face at him. Everyone turned their gaze to me. At last I said, "Immer."

I'd been to towns in hollowed rocks and a planet threaded with linear cities like a filigree net, to dry places with unbreathable air, ports, and places about which I could say nothing. Some were independent. Many belonged, free or not, to Bremen. "They never let a colony collapse," I said. We'd all heard it. "Never." No matter if the cost of transportation outweighed the prices of trinkets and expertise shipped back, they wouldn't let this town go, so long as we were theirs.

My companions were nodding slowly. Wyatt was not.

"Jesus, Avice," he said. "What do you sound like? 'It is a foundation of our government . . .'" There was a strange glee in him, a functionary's dissidence, giving the lie to lines he'd spoken many times. "You know how many colonies have have been cut off? You've seen the charts, the gravestone symbols in the immer." I knew the stories of planets studded with human and human/exot ruins, where high-rises sank into alien muck. Found landscapes deserted by design, failure, and in one or two instances, mystery. They were an immerser cliche. I felt reproached by all that empty architecture: that, knowing of it, I could still have repeated my government's lines. been cut off? You've seen the charts, the gravestone symbols in the immer." I knew the stories of planets studded with human and human/exot ruins, where high-rises sank into alien muck. Found landscapes deserted by design, failure, and in one or two instances, mystery. They were an immerser cliche. I felt reproached by all that empty architecture: that, knowing of it, I could still have repeated my government's lines.

"If it were in Bremen's interests," Wyatt said, "we'd let you go, and send me to oversee it. We didn't go to this effort because we 'leave no colony behind.'" He looked at me expectantly again. Have another go. Have another go.

I thought of the charts. I looked up, as if through the ceiling, at Wreck. I knew more about the immer than anyone else there, including him. I remembered conversations, the shy enthusiasms of a helmsman unaware he hinted at any secrets.

"We're on the edge," I said to my colleagues. "Of the immer. They're exploring. Emba.s.sytown was going to be a way station."

"All the biorigging and so on," Wyatt said. "It's nice." He shrugged. "Nice to have. But Avice Benner Cho's right. You've had more attention than a little place like this deserves."

None of us looked at Mag or Da. We all knew now what several of us had suspected before, that their lover Ra had been an agent, had betrayed them, and us. It was no surprise he'd had an agenda, but that it was something so inimical to Emba.s.sytown shocked me. And that Ra, in the days of crisis when everything had changed, had not said. Though, I didn't know what MagDa knew.

I missed the immer. The way the mess and ma.s.s of it gushed by ships on their way to impossibly far parts of the everyday universe, immersed in that infinitely older unplace. I imagined being an explorer on pioneering ships built for ruggedness, buffeted by currents through dangerous parts, through schools of immer-stuff sharks, repelling random or deliberate attack. I didn't believe in the n.o.bility of the explorer, but the thought, the project, compelled me.

"They'd have to build fuelling stations," I said. "And it's a hard place to emerge: they'd have to put more markers in place." Buoys that jutted half in immer, half in the quotidian void, with lights and immer-a.n.a.logues of lights to guide incomers. The night over Emba.s.sytown was to have glimmered with more than just Wreck. It would have been strung with little colours. And while ships stored up on fuel, supplies, chemicals for life systems, and uploaded the newest dat and immerware, Emba.s.sytown would be where crews waited and played. "They want to make us a port town," I said.

Wyatt said, "Last port before the dark."

Emba.s.sytown might come to be a kilometres-wide sprawl of bordellos, drink, and all the other vices of travellers. I'd been to many such places in the out. Then we might have had our own street children, harvesting food and mutating the rubbish on town dumps. It wouldn't be inevitable. There are ways of providing port services without the collapse of all the civic. I had been to more salubrious stopover cities. But it would have been a struggle.

To control a source of beautiful half-living technology, of curios, of precious metals in near-unique molecular configurations might have been desirable. To control the last outpost, a jumping-off to an expanding frontier, was non-negotiable.

"What's out there?" I said. Wyatt shook his head.

"I don't know. You'd know better than me, immerser, and you don't know at all. But something. There's always something." There was always something in the immer. "Why's there a pharos here?" he said. "You don't put a lighthouse where no one's going to go. You put it somewhere dangerous where they have have to go. There are reasons to be careful in this quadrant, but there are reasons to come - to pa.s.s through, en route somewhere else." to go. There are reasons to be careful in this quadrant, but there are reasons to come - to pa.s.s through, en route somewhere else."

"They'll come," MagDa said. "Bremen." "To see how they're doing." "Ez and Ra, I mean. To check on them." They looked at each other. "We might not have so long to wait." "As we'd thought."

"More than five b.l.o.o.d.y days is too long, now," someone said. "We're at the end."

"Yes but . . ."

"What if we-"

Wyatt was a clever man who had misplayed his hand, and was trying to salvage something: his life, at least. He'd told us everything, and not out of despair as it might seem, but as a gamble, a strategy. We looked at the gla.s.s that separated us from Ez. Ez raised his eyes to ours, to all of ours, as if he knew we stared.

18.

GROUPS OF A ARIEKEI were on their rooftops, between dead buildings, roaming in armed gangs: all strategies to protect themselves from the mutilated rampagers. Ariekei dead were everywhere, and here and there the remnants of Kedis, and Shur'asi, and Terre, dragged by Ariekene murderers for reasons beyond our reason. Packs of zelles wandered, hungry for food and EzRa's speech, deserted by their erstwhile owners and gone incompetently feral. were on their rooftops, between dead buildings, roaming in armed gangs: all strategies to protect themselves from the mutilated rampagers. Ariekei dead were everywhere, and here and there the remnants of Kedis, and Shur'asi, and Terre, dragged by Ariekene murderers for reasons beyond our reason. Packs of zelles wandered, hungry for food and EzRa's speech, deserted by their erstwhile owners and gone incompetently feral.

It wasn't a city anymore, it was a collection of broken places separated by war without politics or acquisition, so not war at all really but something more pathological. In each holdout, a few Ariekei tried to be the things they remembered. But they could concentrate only for hours at a time, before the equivalents of delirium tremens overtook them. Their companions would whisper words they'd heard EzRa say to whichever of their company was succ.u.mbing, trying to imitate the Amba.s.sador's timbre. They were just words, just clauses. Sometimes those convulsing would return to half-mindfulness: enough to remember that something needed rebuilding.

Between those remnant settlements were the truly mindless that didn't even know that they shook when they did, and only hunted for food and for the voice of EzRa, and were hunted by each other. The self-mutilated, though, were suddenly rarer. I wondered if they were dying.

In places we had to haul our barriers back, abandon sections of Emba.s.sytown to the oratees. At the same time, there was an unexpected exodus of Hosts - we still called them that, sometimes, in unpleasant humour - from the city. Ariekei in small but growing numbers found the mouths and orifices where industrial guts linked the city to the meadows of biorigging and wild country. They followed them out.

"Do they think they'll find EzRa out there?" We didn't know where they were going, or why. I thought perhaps they simply couldn't bear to live any more in a slaughterhouse of architecture, amid what had been their compatriots. Perhaps their need for quiet deaths was stronger than their need for EzRa's voice. I tried not to experience too much relief, or even hope, at that notion, at the possibility that more would leave; but, cautiously, I felt some.

WE EXHUMED Ra. I didn't see it. Ra. I didn't see it.

We thanked Christ that he'd not been cremated or rendered bioma.s.s. It was MagDa who'd saved his body: he'd had no faith, but his family's listed tradition was Unitarian Shalomic, which abjured those usual local methods, and in an effort at respect MagDa had had him interred in a small graveyard for those of such heresies.

We waited like parents-to-be while doctors worked with the schematics Wyatt provided. They removed from Ra's dead head the implant, the hidden booster of his ordinary-seeming link. It was the size of my thumb, sheathed in organics, though it was all Terretech. It made me wonder if, had the Bremeni designers used Ariekene biorigging, the implants themselves would have become infected like the Hosts, and the thing that let Ez and Ra be EzRa would have become hooked on their voice. What theology that would have been, a G.o.d self-worshipping, a drug addicted to itself.

THE COMMITTEE dragooned scientists from wherever they still worked: the stumps of hospitals; rogue-ministering in the streets; of course from the infirmary. We begged and forced others to start work again. Southel, our scientific overseer, organised the researches. They moved fast. dragooned scientists from wherever they still worked: the stumps of hospitals; rogue-ministering in the streets; of course from the infirmary. We begged and forced others to start work again. Southel, our scientific overseer, organised the researches. They moved fast.

I believe Joel Rukowsi, Ez, thought himself a consummate game-player. He thought how broken he looked was a front, I think. We asked him why he'd said nothing about his hidden, embedded technology, why he'd have gone to his death with the rest of us rather than do something that might keep us all alive. He implied some hidden agenda but I don't think he had an answer. He was just eaten by his own secrets.

He didn't understand the mechanisms, could only truculently describe how it had worked for him. He looked at the insert we had dug out of Ra, warm in my hand.

"I don't feel anything," he said. "I just knew . . . how he was feeling, what to say. I don't know if it was that thing made it easier, or what."

The researchers had teased apart the filigrees that enmeshed it into Ra's mind with disentangler techzymes. Its nanotendrils dangled from it like thin hair, twitched in my hand in vain search for neuro-matter. It mimicked the theta, beta, alpha, delta and other waves detected from its companion piece in Joel Rukowsi, coordinated the two feeds into impossible phase. Whatever the brain-states, the output would seem shared.

"It's an amp, too," Southel told us. "A stimulant. Pumps the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex. Emp centres." She took the thing away and learnt it, tried to uncover what it was and did, to take it apart and build another. MagDa spent hours with her, focused her energies on the project.

"They're up to something," Bren said to me. "MagDa. You can see they've had an idea."

Ez never said he'd help us, but we didn't give him any choice, and his only resistance lay in sulking. He would obey us.

"Will you do it?" I said to Bren that night. I spoke quietly. He looked away. It was at these times that I felt we could speak, when he was naked and I watched the night lights of the city now made carnival with biofires glaze him through his windows, his aging athlete's body.

"No," he said. "I don't want to. I'm too old, too stuck. I don't even think I could. I know there aren't many choices. I wouldn't be any good at it: I'd say the wrong thing the wrong way. Whoever does this needs very very much to want to live, and I don't, enough. Don't be offended. I've no death wish but nor do I have the necessary . . . verve.

"Yes, I know. Ez is Cut, it has to be a Turn-speaker. Well, we can always go to the Amba.s.sadors and find someone desperate enough to cut themselves off from their doppel. That might not be so hard now. I'll lay you money . . ." He laughed at that, at how silly money had become. "I'll bet there are some new cleaved for us to pick from. And some'll be Turn. But you know, anyway, who we're going to choose." He turned to me. "It has to be Cal."

Neither of us spoke. I didn't even look at him.

"What do we know about Ez and Ra? They weren't doppels. But maybe what they did share was important. Hate. We're not training a new Amba.s.sador, we're distilling a drug. We have to replicate every ingredient we know about. We need the Turn to hate hate the Cut. A voice tearing itself apart. Alright, Ez came and ruined the world. So, sure, why wouldn't the Amba.s.sadors hate him? Why wouldn't I?" He smiled at me, beautifully. "But I'm tired of this place and I don't hate Joel Rukowsi enough, Avice. We need someone who does. Cal hasn't just lost his world, he lost his doppel. He hates Ez enough. Me, I'd be weak tea. My question is, do you think Cal knows he'll do it, yet?" the Cut. A voice tearing itself apart. Alright, Ez came and ruined the world. So, sure, why wouldn't the Amba.s.sadors hate him? Why wouldn't I?" He smiled at me, beautifully. "But I'm tired of this place and I don't hate Joel Rukowsi enough, Avice. We need someone who does. Cal hasn't just lost his world, he lost his doppel. He hates Ez enough. Me, I'd be weak tea. My question is, do you think Cal knows he'll do it, yet?"

Probably, I thought. He must know what his duty would be: to become symbiont with the man who had destroyed his history, future and brother.

BEFORE HE WENT into surgery the committee gathered for what we all knew was a valedictory-in-case. Cal was like some foul-tempered birthday boy. He sought me out. into surgery the committee gathered for what we all knew was a valedictory-in-case. Cal was like some foul-tempered birthday boy. He sought me out.

"Here," he said. He was right up in my face, and I stepped back and tried to say something neutral, but he was shoving something at me. "You should . . . have this," he said. Sometimes you could hear him pause like that, waiting for Vin to finish a clause. He gave me the letter Vin had left. "You've read it," he said. "You know what you meant to him. This is yours, not mine." Sort of to punish him for various things I didn't shrink back but actually took it.

"What the h.e.l.l were you doing with Scile, all that time?" I said.

"You're asking about this now now?"

"Not back then then," I said, coldly. Folded my arms. "Not at the Festival of Lies. I know perfectly well what you did then, Cal."

"You . . . have no idea . . ." he said slowly, "why we did what we . . . had to-"

"Oh Pharotekton spare me," I interrupted in a rush. "Because I think I have in fact a pretty solid f.u.c.king idea why-if you don't know what's happening to Language how do you know what'll happen to Amba.s.sadors, Amba.s.sadors, huh?-But in point of fact even if that's not your whole story I do not care. I don't mean then, I mean now. Since all this started. Surl Tesh-echer's long gone, but you were spending time with Scile since EzRa arrived. And everything went . . . What've you been doing? You and, and Vin?" huh?-But in point of fact even if that's not your whole story I do not care. I don't mean then, I mean now. Since all this started. Surl Tesh-echer's long gone, but you were spending time with Scile since EzRa arrived. And everything went . . . What've you been doing? You and, and Vin?"

"Scile's always full of plans," he said. "We did a lot of planning. He and I. Vin . . . got something else out of it, I think." He regarded me. It was when he'd read Scile's note that Vin had taken his own life. Irrespective of what Scile was in himself, what he wanted, Vin had found a community with him-of some grief or loss or something. A fraternity of those who'd once loved me, or still did? My stomach pitched.

WHILE C CAL was under anaesthetic, Ez began to panic and insist that he wouldn't do anything, that he wouldn't help us, that he couldn't, that it wouldn't work. I heard from one of the guards how MagDa had arrived in the middle of his little meltdown. Mag had stood by the door while Da walked over to where Ez was sitting, and leaned over and punched him in the face. Her knuckles split. was under anaesthetic, Ez began to panic and insist that he wouldn't do anything, that he wouldn't help us, that he couldn't, that it wouldn't work. I heard from one of the guards how MagDa had arrived in the middle of his little meltdown. Mag had stood by the door while Da walked over to where Ez was sitting, and leaned over and punched him in the face. Her knuckles split.

She'd said "Hold him," to the guards, and brought her bust-up fist down on him again. He'd shouted and wriggled, his head cracking side to side. Joel had stared up at Mag and Da in the utterest astonishment, bloodily whooping with pain. Mag had said to him in a quite flat and calm voice, "In fact you will will speak Language with Cal. You'll learn how, and you'll do it fast. And you won't disobey me or any other Staff or committee members again." speak Language with Cal. You'll learn how, and you'll do it fast. And you won't disobey me or any other Staff or committee members again."

I wasn't there but that's how I was told it happened.

19.

THE STRATEGYLESS onslaughts on our barricades continued. Our new town edges smelled bad, of Ariekene death. Our bricks rubbled around Host corpses. Our biorigged weapons were hungry and dying. Our Terretech ones were failing. Within days we'd be fighting hand-to-giftwing. onslaughts on our barricades continued. Our new town edges smelled bad, of Ariekene death. Our bricks rubbled around Host corpses. Our biorigged weapons were hungry and dying. Our Terretech ones were failing. Within days we'd be fighting hand-to-giftwing.

It was the usual siege-stuff that would finish us: the ending of resources. No food came through the dedicated loops of colon that linked Emba.s.sytown to our subcontracted farms, now, and our stores were hardly infinite. We had no power from the Ariekene plants, and our own backups would fail.

I'd never been able to convince myself that there was no harm to it, but I couldn't stop nostalgia. Just then, looking down streets with angles not as we'd have built them, which terminated or twisted in ways that still seemed almost playfully alien, toying with our teleologies, there was no way I couldn't remember when I'd stared down them in my early life and systematically populated that out-of-sight city with every kind of child's impossibility and story. From there followed a quick run-through of everything. Learning, s.e.x, friends, work. I'd never understood the injunction not to regret anything, couldn't see how that wasn't cowardice, but not only did I not regret the out, but nor, suddenly, did I the return. Nor even Scile. When I unhitched my attention and let it wander down out-of-reach streets-which have been clocked before as yantras for reminiscence-it wasn't that I thought well of my husband; it was that in those moments I remembered what of him I'd loved.

I was spare with all that, rationed it. We tended our aeoli. The poor things had been relocated, their fleshly tethers cut and cauterised, with as little trauma as possible, but they were suffering. We had no Terretech that could replace them, and our air-gardeners frantically protected the biomes of them and their companion things, which shaped currents, sustained our rough air dome. They strived to keep them safe, unhearing, charged by unaddictable technologies, as protected as possible from cross-contamination, but despite all efforts we knew we might not be able to keep our breath-machines from addiction or sickness, and no Host savants would help us now.

As the aeoli wheezed, so would we, and the Ariekei would breach our defences and walk in. When they'd finished with us we would lie with the dead's traditional la.s.situde, and the Ariekei would prod us and ask us forlornly to speak like EzRa. Either they would all die, then, or new generations would be born and start their culture again. They would perhaps construct rituals around our and their parents' bones.

These were the bad dreams we were having. It was into this landscape that G.o.d-drug EzCal arrived.

I'D LEFT B BREN and MagDa and others to the task of bullying and nurturing our last hope. I'd preferred to oversee other duties, the movement of supplies and weaponry. Despite knowing that Cal was waking, that he was being reintroduced to Ez, that they were making their first attempts, that they were sitting the Stadt test, that the results were being calculated, I didn't ask what was happening. I even avoided Bren. and MagDa and others to the task of bullying and nurturing our last hope. I'd preferred to oversee other duties, the movement of supplies and weaponry. Despite knowing that Cal was waking, that he was being reintroduced to Ez, that they were making their first attempts, that they were sitting the Stadt test, that the results were being calculated, I didn't ask what was happening. I even avoided Bren.

Rumours spread that something was being made, that an autom had been perfected that could speak Language, that the Amba.s.sadors and their friends were preparing a miab, would risk immer, to escape. We didn't leak the truth because it seemed too tentative. When EzCal did emerge into our newly nightmared town, I realised another reason we had said nothing: for the performance of it. A promise fulfilled may be a cla.s.sic moment, but prophecies mean anticlimax. How much more awesome was an unexpected salvation?

I couldn't avoid picking up information: when Cal was woken, when he was healed. Though I avoided what details I could, I knew before he and Ez emerged into the Emba.s.sy square that they would do so, and I was there ready. Everyone in Emba.s.sytown seemed to be there, in fact. There were even Kedis and Shur'asi. I saw Wyatt, flanked by security, to both guard and secure him. There were automa too, Turingware struggling, so some of them expressed inappropriate bonhomie. I couldn't see Ehrsul. It was only with disappointment that I realised I'd been looking.

We were close enough to the borders of our shrunken town to hear the gusting of Ariekene attacks on the barriers, and the missiles and energies of repulses. Officers kept Emba.s.sytowners back from the Emba.s.sy's entrance. It struck me that I must have chosen to cut myself off from what had been happening in the hospital so that I could experience this as nearly as possible a member of the crowd. I looked up at the other committee members, who were parting, and stepping forward was Cal, with Ez behind him.

"EzCal," one of the official escort shouted, and Christ help me someone in the crowd took it up and it became, briefly, a chant.

Cal looked like something horrific, made worse in the moving glare of lights. His head was shaved, his scalp the palest part of his pale skin, the link on his neck shining. I think he was kept alert by some concoction of drugs: he moved in little insect bursts. His skull was crossed with dark sutures: big physical st.i.tches, a crude technique, supposedly dictated by dwindling supplies of nanzymatic healers, but one that so exaggerated the spectacle I wondered how medically necessary it had really been. He stared into the crowd. He stared right at me, though I'm certain he didn't see me.

Joel Rukowsi was Ez again. Physically he was unmarked, but of the two he seemed the less alive. Cal spoke to him harshly. I couldn't hear the words. It was Ez who was the empathic, the receiver, who had to make this work.

"So I lost everything," Cal said into the crowd at last. Amplifiers carried his voice and everyone was quiet. "I lost it all and I went down, into that lost place, and then when I realised that Emba.s.sytown needed me, I came back. When I realised it needed us . . ." And he paused and I didn't breathe, but Ez stepped forward and said in a voice that was, unlike his face, strong, ". . . we came back."

Applause. Ez looked down again. Cal licked his lips. Even the local birds all seemed to be in the plaza, watching.

"We came," Cal said, "and let me show you . . ." and after another heart-stopping pause Ez muttered, ". . . what we'll do."

They looked at each other, and I could suddenly see an echo of what must have been hours of preparation. They watched each other's eyes and something happened. I imagined the pulses of the implants, hot-synching them, pumping out into the universe the lie that they were the same.

Ez the Cut-speaker and Cal the Turn counted each other in and opened their mouths and spoke Language.

When we heard them, even we, humans, let out gasps.

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