Originator

by Joel Shepherd

  “I took Kiril scuba diving last week in VR,” Sandy told the Ambassador. “There’s a terrific sim program of the Outer Luzian Shelf, it’s got some of the best diving anywhere in the Federation. I’d love to go there for real, but I’ve never had the time. But the sensory input for underwater swimming in VR is very different from anything Kiril’s had before, and he was fine, all the parameters were good, the doctors were very pleased.”

  Rupa took interest in the Ambassador’s tie. Sandy broke all protocol and gave it to her. Quan was at pains to look amused. “I’m very pleased to hear that. He’s a very special boy for all humanity.”

  “Oh, you’ve got millions of test cases now,” Sandy said dismissively. “He’s only a year ahead, it’s not so much.”

  “Yes, but League are only upgrading adults, not children. Kiril remains the only child in human space with next-generation uplinks, and that makes him special.”

  “Well, that’s not actually what makes him special,” said his mother. “Besides, with the new stuff that’s coming out now in the underground, Kiril’s tech will be obsolete pretty soon.”

  That was the stuff that had leaked as a result of the Talee attack. Predictably some supposedly secret data on Talee-GI uplink tech had leaked to the Tanushan underground, who were now releasing unstable and dangerous versions on the black market to anyone crazy enough to volunteer as a guinea pig. And so began the new disruptive phase of human uplink technology, and Sandy had few hopes that this one wouldn’t have all the challenges of the last, and more. Just hopefully it wouldn’t promise mass annihilation.

  They were interrupted by a slight commotion in the surrounding crowd, a lot of people pointing and looking, which resolved itself into none other than Shejali Myalinamani herself—better known to the people of the Federation as Mya, and as of last month the newly elected Chair of the Federation Grand Council. From that election she was the holder of by far the largest electoral mandate in human history—somewhere approaching nineteen billion people. Her term would be six years, calamities not forthcoming, and she was by all accounts a big fan of Vijay Kulkarni, who had travelled all the way to Earth to make two movies in India, which had gone on to become Federation-wide hits.

  “Commander,” she said with a broad smile, taking Sandy’s free hand past the baby in a well-practised two-handed clasp. “Good to see you. And this gorgeous little girl . . . hello!” Rupa grinned at the leader of the Federation and grasped her finger. “Are you minding her for someone, or did you succumb to the new adoption drive and take another for yourself?”

  “Oh, no,” said Sandy. “This is FSA Commander Rice’s daughter. Babies are fun, but who am I kidding, I’ve got the most responsible fifteen-year-old son ever, and if I took a really little kid, poor Danya would end up looking after her all the time, my hours being what they are. I couldn’t do that to him.” And as she’d initially feared, being her child could be very dangerous. She still felt awfully guilty when she thought about it and had to remind herself that she’d had no other choice, and that her kids’ lives would have been much worse, and possibly ended by now, if she hadn’t adopted them. But if she’d had a baby to care for during the last episode with the Talee . . . it made her shudder to think of it.

  “And Ambassador Quan,” said Maya, “nice to see the Commander and yourself on speaking terms.”

  “We have a deep common interest in the Commander’s youngest boy,” said Quan. “I’ve assured her many times that his safety and well-being is now a top League strategic priority. If he needs anything from us at all, we will grant it as a matter of state importance.”

  “Gratifying,” said Sandy, with restrained enthusiasm. Mya was a handsome, strong-featured woman who’d been first a successful businesswoman, then an Indian politician, and had somehow emerged as the choice of the largest centrist faction to the new, democratically elected Grand Council. She had a preference for “neutral” fashion, rather than the saris of many Indian politicians, and struck most people as a sensible if slightly bland candidate. Inoffensive and easy to manipulate, some cynics suggested—just how the factions liked them. Sandy wasn’t so sure. “Nice to see you’ve got time for a wedding.”

  “Well, I could hardly miss this one,” said Mya, “they’re calling this the wedding of the decade.”

  “I used to fear that politics in Tanusha was becoming too much like show business,” Sandy conceded. “Now I’m convinced of it.”

  Mya laughed. “I read Ibrahim’s little internal memo about the dangers of a directly elected Grand Council. Word in the corridors is that a lot of it came from you.”

  Sandy raised her eyebrows, neither admitting nor denying. “And what did you think?”

  “I admit it has its dangers. And he, or you, are obviously right about the problems of strategic lag, trying to get institutional feedback from outer worlds in time to make coordinated decisions, without risking long-term alienation. But after all that’s happened, don’t you think that having a council full of people elected only by politicians, not by the public at large, is even more dangerous? Given how unaccountable and self-interested those people have proven to be in times of crisis?”

  “Probably,” Sandy admitted. “But politics has this nasty habit of dividing the issue, then polarizing each side. Just because the old system was bad doesn’t mean the new one will be good. I saw a lot of irrational exuberance in the election, and I guess that’s understandable given the sheer scale of it . . . but irrational exuberance in politics usually comes back to bite you. Especially here.”

  “There’s a lot of truth in that,” the Grand Council Chair conceded. “But as you’ll appreciate, it’s my job to make this thing work, so I’ll keep my cup half full for the time being.”

  “And plenty of others will be trying to take that cup and drink it for you.”

  The three of them talked until Svetlana dashed up and tugged on her arm. “Sandy Sandy! The Director’s telling stories!”

  “Yeah, um, Svet? This is the leader of the entire Federation, Chairwoman Myalinamani.”

  “Oh, hi,” Svetlana amended.

  “Hello, Svetlana,” said Mya. “I’ve heard so much about you. How is your leg?”

  “Oh . . . it’s fine, not even a scar. But Sandy!” as Svetlana returned her attention to her mother. “You love the Director’s stories, come and listen to one with me! Please?”

  “Director Ibrahim tells children’s stories?” asked Mya, astonished.

  “It’s one of his less advertised talents,” said Sandy, trying to keep a dignified posture as Svetlana dragged on one arm. “I’m sorry, it’s a rare highlight for them. . . .”

  “No, of course! I’d join you if I could, but I told my advisors I’m here to work, so I’d better work.”

  “I gave up trying to separate work and family when Kiril became a League strategic asset,” said Sandy in retreat. “I’ll see you again before you leave, I’m sure.”

  They returned to the girl-zone first and took Kiril from Vanessa’s care by swapping him for Rupa, bringing a new round of cooing from all the women. Then Sandy and Svetlana sat on the grass in the huge garden beneath a lovely old tree, with the music and laughter pounding the background as Director Ibrahim took off his shoes, sat cross-legged on a low garden wall, and told about thirty kids and a handful of adults a story. It was about three brothers who journeyed across Persia and India in old and enchanted times, full of wizards and monsters and flying carpets, on their way to rescue their sister who had been kidnapped by an evil Khan. He told it well, and Sandy thought she had never seen him looking quite so much at home—before a bunch of mesmerised children in the garden nightlight, a man of authority and power, but kind and wise. Sandy sat with Kiril and Svetlana leaning on each arm, and Danya alongside, and lost herself for the better part of an hour, until good had triumphed and family had been reunited.

  And then the children left, chasing rumours of cake, with Sandy calling after them, “Kids, say thank you to Uncle Shan!” Whic
h they dutifully did before rushing off, and Sandy sat at his side on the wall.

  “Thank you,” she said. “That was lovely.”

  “An old author,” he said, “centuries dead. Passed down through our family, I know that tale backward. It is a part of the reason I sought this profession.”

  “To fight evil Khans for justice?”

  Her boss smiled. “Exactly.”

  “How we doing on that score?”

  “Not so bad, I think. If only the enemy had more evil and less pathos. That would be easier.”

  “Wouldn’t it always.” He could have been talking about the Talee or the League, it applied to both. “But I think the pathetic have begun to accept that they are pathetic. That’s the first step.”

  Ibrahim nodded. “Jane is not here?”

  Sandy shook her head. “She’s free, but . . .” She sighed. “She’s not much for company at the moment.”

  “I hear good things,” said Ibrahim with measured confidence. “Of her chances, from people who should know.”

  “You mean Radha.” Ibrahim’s wife was not defending Jane; that might have looked improper given Jane’s links to Sandy, and thus to the Ibrahims. But Radha was as respected as any lawyer in Tanusha and knew all the inside gossip.

  “Good things,” Ibrahim repeated. “And as a legal precedent, much needed.”

  “That means League will be held responsible for a lot. They won’t like it.”

  “Good,” said Ibrahim with an edge of dark satisfaction. “You told me once that if you weren’t upsetting the League, you weren’t doing it right. In this case I agree.” He put his hand on hers. “Jane will be well. You worry too much.”

  Sandy hung her head. “I’m still not even sure how much I like her. She’s aggravating.”

  Ibrahim shrugged. “Same in any family.”

  Sandy looked at him and smiled. “Kiril still won’t accept that the dog’s not actually a dog.”

  “Dodger?”

  She nodded. “He tries to teach Dodger to fetch, and Dodger just looks at him like he’s nuts. Asura don’t fetch, they stalk.”

  “But he’s safe?”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s safe enough. They’re hierarchical, he knows I’m boss. I just keep an eye on him with visitors.”

  “You know wild asura have killed people on Emerald?”

  “Like I said,” said Sandy. “A close eye. But we have an understanding. He’s safe when he knows where he stands in the group.”

  “Still a wild animal though, however FedInt trained him.”

  “I know. Oh, and you should smell the poo!”

  “I should not smell the poo,” Ibrahim corrected.

  “Unbelievable. The kids have to clean it. I tell them I’ll soak up high explosive for them, but I won’t touch the poo.”

  Ibrahim looked amused. “I believe you’re becoming finicky.”

  “Finicky, huh.” She thought about it. “I can live with that.”

  “I have it on good authority,” said Ibrahim, as a new din of drums and trumpets started out the front of the house, “that we have a Talee guest here tonight.”

  Sandy nodded. “I hear that too. We’re keeping an eye on him as well.”

  “You know who it is?”

  “We think so. Someone sympathetic, as Cai said . . . or Cai’s implant program, anyway. We’re fairly sure the synth-Talee don’t want him here, but he came anyway.”

  Ibrahim nodded slowly. “Work carefully with that. Now I hear the org-Talee are working on human-infiltration GIs of similar type—thinkers, not drones. Like Cai. So soon enough we might have Talee-made GIs from both factions fighting it out in Tanusha.”

  Sandy sighed. “Great. But inevitable, I suppose. We’re not vulnerable to them now, or not anywhere near as vulnerable, and we get stronger every year. I’m more worried about internal upheavals from all this new tech than I am about Talee, it’s going to shake up a lot.”

  “Inevitable, as you say,” said Ibrahim. A faint smile. “It’s Tanusha.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is. Keep us all employed, I guess.”

  “You’ve read the proposals to make our own synthetic Talee and spy on them like they spy on us?”

  “Over my dead body,” Sandy said grimly.

  Ibrahim nodded. “Mine too,” he said. The racket out the front grew even louder, and people in the garden and at the back of the house began leaving to check on it.

  “It’s a great, great thing you did,” said Ibrahim. Sandy looked at him in surprise. “You were presented with a vision of ideological purity. A world where GIs would be respected and feared. Where you would become masters of your own destiny. You’ve fought for such a thing all your life, and yet you threw it away, out of concern for us. Your oppressors.”

  Sandy smiled. “You’re not my oppressor. My kids aren’t. Vanessa isn’t. People are individuals, not groups. We either live together as such, or we abandon any hope of civilisation.”

  “You could have used synth-tee cooperation to force synthetic emancipation in the League.”

  “And League would have resisted even more strongly and fought back, and a lot more people would be dead, synthetic and organic. Look at it now—the battle’s a long way from won, but League owe me. They owe all us synthetics, big time. We’ll translate that into political power, you watch, and when all the new GIs keeping the peace over there in the next ten years begin to come of age psychologically . . . it’ll change. One way or the other, it’ll change. I think the League leaders are starting to know it, too. We’ll make it come faster if we can convince them that emancipation can be peaceful and not another bloody war.”

  A blare of trumpets out the front, and some fireworks popping and echoing off towers near and far. “I think this means the groom has arrived,” said Ibrahim, getting slowly to his feet. He gave Sandy a hand up, despite the silliness of expecting she’d need it. Sandy smiled and accepted.

  “I suppose we must,” she sighed. “I’m not sure I see the attraction, to be honest. But Ami’s an odd girl and she deserves to be happy.”

  “I give it five years at most,” Ibrahim said drily, and Sandy laughed. “Vijay is a very egotistical man and Ami will tire of him eventually. But Radha disagrees. He is very good to her and the children, I must admit.”

  “Grumpy grandpa doesn’t want to see his little girl get hitched,” said Sandy, taking his arm. “Shall we?”

  “Oh, and Cassandra,” Ibrahim added as they walked arm in arm toward the house, “speaking of grumpy grandpas, I don’t want to be the one to put limits on the new freedoms our female GIs are discovering so joyously . . . but do you think at future events you might encourage them to put on just a few more clothes? It’s a wedding, not a brothel.”

  Out the front, crowds of guests had gathered at the end of the big driveway through the gardens and trees. The groom’s procession wound its way in from the road, leaving behind swarms of media and cameras that had followed it this far. Guards kept them out while admitting proper guests, with some confusion as to who was what, while the rest danced and beat drums and blew trumpets, an entire marching band keeping up a hammering rhythm, while others shot firecrackers skywards and hover drones recorded the whole thing for posterity.

  Vijay Kulkarni rode a white horse above them all, decked in gold and red, with a gold turban. Word was he’d wanted an elephant, but Tanushan officials had only grudgingly allowed them to close down several streets for the procession and were not in a mood to grant permissions for an elephant, even if the zoo could spare a trained one. He rode proudly, waving to everyone above a sea of dancing, garland presenting, and petal throwing. . . . Sandy supposed there was a lot of custom to it all, but it just looked like confusion to her. But a fun confusion, the kind she’d always enjoyed.

  She found the kids, Kiril on Danya’s back so he could see over the crowds, and Svetlana jumped on hers, and they watched the arrival together, manoeuvring onto the grass at one side for more space and a better view. Amidst the trees so
mething made her turn her head . . . and she saw a dark figure nearby, alone and watching. Familiar.

  Sandy put Svetlana down and walked across. The woman wore sensible salwar kameez, nothing fancy, with a fashionable little hat with a veil that came down across her eyes. But before she reached her, Sandy knew who it was.

  “Jane?”

  “Hey, sis,” said Jane. “Nice party?” She looked awkward in these civvie clothes. Feminine clothes, for the first time since Sandy had known her. It wasn’t her style. To be loud, to be seen. To be companionable. She had the weight of a new, legal morality hanging above her head like an axe prepared to drop and didn’t feel like company at the best of times . . . yet here she was. God knew how she’d gotten in.

  “It is what you make of it,” said Sandy with a smile. “The groom’s an ass, and there’s too much work and politics . . . but my friends and family are here. All of them, now.”

  Jane smiled back, a little awkwardly. “The food any good?”

  “You see what this costs? It’s amazing.”