"We'll be able to ferry the rest of our men up from the surface in these?" said Leal Maspeth behind him--but she was watching him go. He could see that through his dragonflies.
He wondered what his scry would tell hers if she had it; it was frustrating that she had none. Scry was useful, because it made explicit the implicit. It interpreted your unconscious thoughts and motives, and communicated those to the scry of the people around you. This took the guesswork out of social relations; or at any rate, Keir's tutors said that was its original function. Like anything else that actually survived in the real world, it had evolved.
Scry was said to predate Artificial Nature. If that were the case, then the original scry technology had been thought up and designed, maybe even by human minds. Some idealist, perhaps, had believed that human society would function more efficiently if people's unconscious minds coordinated their efforts.
Feeling isolated and lonely, he went to his ornithopter and knelt next to it. "How are you?" he asked it.
"Ready," it said. Keir sighed in annoyance and stood up again.
"Ahem." He looked around to find the Virgan government minister, Eustace Loll, standing a polite distance away. Maerta's bots had fixed his broken leg, and he'd seemed pathetically grateful, as if he hadn't expected such a basic courtesy from his hosts.
Of all the Virgans, only Loll seemed to sense the scry around him. He couldn't actually see the emoticons and assessment tags that hovered virtually around everybody and everything here--but he somehow acted like he could. Maerta and the others had warmed up to him very quickly, yet Keir's scry told him that Maspeth didn't trust him.
Maspeth, however, wasn't anywhere to be seen. None of the Virgans were in the courtyard anymore, except for Loll.
He bowed. "Keir Chen, may I talk to you for a minute?"
"Certainly, Minister. I'm done here anyway." Keir didn't know what a "minister" was, but the title came attached to Loll, so he used it.
Loll appeared to like being addressed this way. He peered up at the black sky above the courtyard, then smiled and shook his head. "I confess, I find it strange that your people claim not to understand the very flying machine they're building for us."
Keir shrugged. "Nobody understands machines. We just use 'em. And if we're not careful, we get used by 'em."
Loll's laugh was rich and comradely. He reached out to pat the ornithopter's wing. "So who uses who, in this particular relationship?"
"Oh, it's not very bright and it doesn't think for itself," he said.
"Yet it does what you tell it to?"
Keir nodded. "You can command it, yes. Or use the hand controls, but I still haven't got the hang of it."
Loll mused, rubbing his large chin. "Yet, I should think I'd feel guilty, ordering such a creature around. It may only be a beast of burden, but ... perhaps I can sympathize with it on that level."
"How are you a beast of burden, Minister?" he asked after a conspicuous and awkward silence.
"Oh! Well, I've had to carry heavy loads before. Mostly policy, you know." Loll shrugged. "And responsibility. I don't know how it is in your world, Keir Chen, but in mine we have to take individual responsibility for the welfare of people we may never meet. That's what I've done all my life. It's a calling, really. I help care for people who may not have the resources or information to make certain kinds of decisions for themselves. That's what we call 'government.' I gather you don't have that here."
"Government? No. Responsibility? Sure."
"Ah, then maybe you'll understand my ... distress ... at the current situation."
"Your being stranded here? I guess you've got people waiting for you back home," he said, a little enviously. "A family?"
Loll shook his head. "A city--actually, a whole country whose fate may rest on my ability to reach them in time with a warning."
"Is that why you were out here?"
Loll looked uncomfortable. "Yes, though--it pains me to say this--we've been told not to talk about the details to any outsiders. By that creature Professor Maspeth calls the 'emissary.'"
"The morphont?" Keir's scry was trying to read Loll by the man's stance, blood perfusion, eye movements, and so on. It wasn't having any success--no extra emoticons were floating around Loll that weren't already obvious from the tone of his voice and expression. Either he had fabulous self-control, or he was telling the truth. "It looked like a servant," said Keir. "When I saw it on the mountainside, it was just helping you stay on your feet."
"It wouldn't show its other side to you, naturally." Loll looked grieved. "It's a creature we know very little about. You've seen that little rider it has perched on Maspeth's shoulder? It's impossible to talk to her without it listening. Impossible for her to say what she really means without it hearing, as well. It's using her as its mouthpiece and it wants to get that mouthpiece into Virga to deliver an ultimatum to my people." He glanced around. "We can only tell you this now because, for the moment, it's elsewhere."
Keir hid his surprise and sudden curiosity behind a noncommittal "Hmm.
"It's a morphont, though," he added, "so it could hide any sort of mind in its bodies. You can't judge them by how they look, so I guess I can't tell you what to expect, either. If you're asking us to help you in any way regarding it, I'm not sure what we can do."
Loll gestured impatiently at the half-grown aircraft. "You have power! It seems to me that the people of this world can do anything you want." He rubbed his forehead. "Sorry. It's just the strain of this march we've been forced to undertake. --Make no mistake, we all want to get home, and as quickly as possible. We don't even mind the emissary delivering its message. But our people need to be warned in advance. They need to be prepared. And all this time, as we've walked and walked in its company, it seemed impossible that we could send anyone on ahead. Until now."
Keir glanced at a scry summary. "The airship will be ready in a couple of days--"
"And when it is, it'll carry all of us," insisted Loll. "All of us--including the, the morphont. We need someone to go ahead of it."
Keir finally realized what the man was asking. "You want to take my ornithopter!"
Loll looked chagrined. "If there were any way to return it ... And maybe there will be. We have many friends and allies in Abyss--in my nation. If you could see it in your heart to lend it to us--this is our chance to break away from the emissary's watchful eye..."
First Maerta impounded it, and now this outsider wanted to borrow it! And Keir himself was never going to get to use the thing. "No, you can't," he said quickly--and a little loudly. "I made it, I should get to use it!"
"I understand," said Loll in a soothing tone. "But ... will they let you?"
What had he heard? Maerta must have told others about Keir's plans to leave. Suddenly she didn't seem so wise, or nearly as caring as she pretended. Keir pictured her laughing with her friends while she told them about Keir's folly.
He decided. "I get to use it first. But once I'm done, I can send it back here. It's smart enough to find its way."
The Virgan minister nodded. "And where are you going with it, if I may ask?"
Keir shrugged. "It's a ... private matter. But I do intend to start as soon as I can." He thought about the timetable for completing the new airship, and suddenly realized what he was agreeing to. "Maybe even tonight..."
Loll nodded.
Suddenly not at all sure about this, Keir stepped away, looking around at who might be in earshot or scry distance. "You know," he mumbled, "once I go, the others will, um, kick up something of a fuss. About my being gone. It's important that you stay out of their way and say nothing. I can't guarantee that they won't catch and confiscate the 'thopter when it returns, so you'll have to set a watch for it and be ready to jump in the moment it lands."