I asked Ehrsul if she was concerned, if she’d felt the tickling of virtual germs. She dismissed the other automa as mental weaklings and told me that yes, though she’d felt it, she’d hardly been in danger herself. Of course Valdik and his radical similes were suspected, but no one could prove who had programmed it, and though it was a nuisance that was all it ultimately was.
I knew Scile didn’t have the expertise to program, or I’d have thought it his doing.
WHEN I WENT back to The Cravat, now, I did so for socially diagnostic reasons. Many previous regulars no longer drank there: alienated by Valdik’s vatic pronouncements, they set up refusenik simile salons. Others had taken their place. I went to hear Valdik speak, out of what I told myself was a pornography of doomed causes, and maybe to listen for grounds to demand some intervention. He hymned the Ambassadors (in his model, interceding hierophants); expressed gratitude at being simile, truths, Language in flesh.
was there, with Spanish Dancer and others, at the last of Valdik’s gatherings I went to. The Host had amassed more followers, too, so I thought it must be improving its technique, a better and better liar. They watched each other. Valdik glowered. I didn’t know if the Hosts felt his hostility. Hasser was there—one of the few who retained friends on both sides of the emergent simile split. He acknowledged me, his face displaying an emotion for which I’ve no name; it reminded me of my own. An unease, is as close as I can get to it.
“Aren’t you worried?” I asked Ehrsul.
“I told you,” she said, “I’m immune.”
“No I mean... what do you reckon? Do you ever think about it? I mean, does it ever make you feel anything one way or the other, that some of the Hosts are learning... well, can talk their way around truth, now?” She said nothing, so I said: “Can lie.”
We were in a bar in one of Embassytown’s shopping streets. Ehrsul in her minor notoriety was being glanced at by slightly moneyed youth. We spoke quietly under music and the clatter of glasses. Ehrsul did not answer me. “Something’s changing. Which may or may not be a good thing,” I said finally.
She looked at me with a projected face that, by design or a coincidence of ambiguous stimuli-responses in her ’ware, was inscrutable. She said nothing. I grew more and more uncomfortable in that enigmatic silence, until I talked about something else, to which she responded as normal, with all the exaggerated intimacies of our friendship.
It never meant that much to me one way or the other that I was simile; I didn’t care what Valdik preached. It’s Scile, I said to myself: but no, though I was worried for him that wasn’t all. I never really knew what else it was.
“SO WHAT’S being done?” I asked CalVin. Even the Ambassadors were concerned, now, I gathered. The new philosophy couldn’t have had more than a score or two of serious devotees, but fervour unnerved us in Embassytown. The Hosts must surely have picked up some atmosphere: I’d seen more Ariekei than usual in the aeolian breath of our quarter.
“We’re talking to the Hosts,” CalVin said. “We’re going to organise...” “... a festival.” “Here, in Embassytown.” “To stress that it’s theirs too, to speak in.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. I’d never heard of an Ariekene event in Embassytown. “But is that supposed to... What are you doing about Valdik?”
One of CalVin stared at me, the other looked away. I was angry and I tried to work out with whom. Scile was ensconced somewhere, with radical similes or the Staff, and would never respond to me now, and that seemed to concern no one. There I was, between cliques and secrets. I couldn’t tell if I was perspicacious or paranoid.
“It’s the doldrums, Avvy,” Ehrsul said to me later. “This is what happens. You’re talking as if it’s end-time. I think...” She paused. “You’re upset because of Scile. You care about him, and he’s gone from you.” She stumbled exactly like someone who thought would.
ARIEKEI REPRESENTATIVES came in flyers, to plan this hybrid festival. I was often in the Embassy, floaking, and I came to know them all. One tall and thickset Ariekes had a mark on its fanwing like a bird in a canopy of leaf, so I called it Pear Tree.
“This is what we need,” CalVin said. “We’re all too tense.” “There’ll be a parade, and stalls and games for Terre...” “... and a Festival of Lies for the Hosts.”
“What about Valdik?” I said again. “And what about Scile?”
“Valdik’s nothing.” “Scile we’ve not seen for a couple of weeks.”
“So where is he... ?”
“Don’t worry.” “It’ll be okay.” “Honestly, this event’ll put paid to a lot of these problems.”
I thought it was absolutely absurd. No one agreed with me. In all my life I’ve never felt so alone.
The festival was to take place in a piazza near the southern edge of Embassytown. It was christened the Licence Party: a pun on Lies and Sense, I was told. I never got what the “sense” referred to. Signs went up displaying that idiot name, and a necessary explanation.
VALDIK LIVED in Embassytown’s east. There was a balcony in front of his door overlooking a leisure canal, and a garden full of flowers and birds, altbirds, local fauna.
“Avice,” he said, slowly, when he opened the door to me. If he was surprised he hid it.
“Valdik,” I said. “Can you help me? I need to find Scile.”
His relief was visible. “Is everything alright... ?” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “No. I just... I haven’t seen him for days...” My hesitation was real, though my main reason for being there was not Scile, but to assess Valdik and his theology. He let me in and I saw the trappings of his new beliefs. Papers everywhere, all the crazy cabbala and misplaced rigour of a sect.
“Me neither,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. I think he’s still with CalVin and the others.”
“They haven’t seen him for weeks,” I said.
“No, they were with him a few days ago.” That silenced me. “He was at The Cravat and they came for him,” Valdik said.
“When?” I said. “Who?”
“CalVin and some Staff.”
“CalVin?” I said. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Valdik didn’t sound like a prophet. I had to leave: I could hardly focus on his beliefs at that moment.
WHEN FINALLY CalVin next said they had time to see me, I was careful to be good company. We ate together. They spoke mostly about the Licence Party. One day, one night, half another day. CalVin emerged from their ablutions equalised. Their accrued blemishes were gone or replicated. I said nothing.
I watched them sleep, watched their skins take on differential marks from cotton and the unconscious motion of their hands. When one or other would half-wake, I would be waiting. I would try to murmur-talk to them: gauge what Cal or Vin said. It was strange, trying to do something I’d not known could even occur to me.
He on my left, I decided, at last, murmured my name with a care I recognised, smiled with something really warm. It was desperately hard to tell with only these night-fuddled moments. But he on my left, I decided at last, Cal or Vin, was the one who liked me more. I put my fingers to his lips, made him wake without sound. He opened his eyes.
“Cal,” I whispered. “Or Vin. Tell me. I know he won’t.” I indicated the sleeping other. “I know you’ve seen Scile. I know. Where is he? What’s happening?”