“She understands,” Lastogne said.
The Brachiator turned and embarked upon its long and laborious journey back to its previous feeding place. At the rate it traveled, the trip would cost it many minutes, but the Brachiator seemed undisturbed by the inconvenience, a genetic aversion to haste being a clear evolutionary advantage in any species that could do nothing in a hurry.
Not that evolution, as it usually worked, had been a factor on One One One.
Why would the AIsource, a species with a computation speed that qualified as instantaneous by human standards, create a species this slow of thought and deed? The Brachs could have been acrobats. Instead, they were sloths.
I looked at Lastogne. “That’s some hierarchy they have. New Ghosts. Half-Ghosts. Life. What do you make of it?”
“Pretty much what I see you’ve started to get already. They refuse to believe in human beings as actual living creatures. The New Ghost designation they gave you is simple enough to figure. It’s what they call people like yourself who are newly arrived and have not yet been initiated into their circle. We have yet to figure out why we’re dead to them, unless it’s pure, garden-variety species chauvinism, but they’re pretty serious about it. They won’t talk to any of us for long unless they first declare us Half-Ghost, with one foot in the living world. And that requires us to prove we can spend hours hanging from the Uppergrowth as they do. Cynthia Warmuth was undergoing that very rite of passage, with a tribe about an hour’s flight from here, the night we lost her.”
“Is there any reason a Brachiator couldn’t have killed her?”
“They might have. They had the opportunity, and of course the means. They even have the temperment, to some extent; you can talk to Mo Lassiter about that. But every human being at this outpost, you excepted, has undergone the same rite, and Warmuth was our first bad experience. If a Brach killed her, it was a behavior we haven’t encountered before, and it’s difficult to separate it from what happened to Santiago.”
“Which doesn’t mean it was linked in fact. They could be unrelated incidents.”
“True,” Lastogne said. “That’s another thing you’re here to figure out.”
ne of the camp’s hammocks had been cleared for my personal use while I was on-site. It was a space exactly like Gibb’s, complete with hytex link, blankets, spare clothing, and enough emergency provisions to keep me alive for weeks. Lastogne gave me a quick orientation, concluding, “The lights and the hytex are voice activated; you can work here, reading the files, familiarizing yourself with the rest of the background, for as long as it takes. If you want to talk to any of our people, call me and I’ll make sure they come to you. If you need escort anywhere else, link to me and I’ll be over right away. If you need anything to make you comfortable…”
“Well…”
He anticipated my next question. “We have a latrine structure at the center of the camp. No need to flush, the waste just drops out the bottom, with the environment below us functioning as the most elaborate chemical toilet in this solar system. Some of us don’t bother to make the trip, as we can accomplish the same trick by unzipping the access flaps in the bottom of our hammocks.”
I frowned. You normally don’t want to introduce untreated waste into a habitat not evolved to break it down. “I’m surprised the AIsource even allow that sort of thing.”
“You shouldn’t be. The most sensitive part of the ecosystem, the Uppergrowth, is above us, and shit, once released, doesn’t gain altitude. Not even a trained diplomat’s. As for everything below us, well, there isn’t a single compound in the human body capable of surviving the lower atmosphere intact. The ocean layer won’t even feel the ker-plop.”
I thought again of a human being falling that distance, and shuddered. “Anything else?”
“For bathing, you’ll have a sonic kit in that pack over there.” He indicated one of the many bundles hanging from the O-shaped spine on hooks. “If, on the other hand, you’re one of those people who absolutely can’t do without running water, our ship in the station hub has full recycling systems. Our exiles there have nothing better to do than take care of you. It’ll take you the better part of an hour to fly there and back, but it can be done, and it’ll even save you some time, since you have to be at the hub for your interface with the AIsource first thing tomorrow morning anyway. Do you want a ride?”
It sounded like a test, one that made perfect sense: stationed in this place, I might have been equally unwilling to trust anybody who couldn’t stand local conditions. “No. I can wait for the morning.”
Lastogne didn’t bother to show even conditional approval. “Then, if you need nothing else, I’ll let you rest, so you’ll be fresh when the suns switch on.”
He didn’t wait for my response but instead scrambled up the flexible floor to the exit. There was no haste in that wordless retreat, no rudeness, just the swift and assured efficiency of a man who believed he’d already provided every answer I could want. As my long list of hates includes having my needs anticipated, I waited for him to reach the threshold before calling him back. “I’m not done.”
The bastard didn’t even turn. “Oh?”
“A few final questions.”
When he slid back down the slope to my side, his grin was so insolent I knew that he’d expected the summons. “I doubt very much that they’re ‘final,’ Counselor. You strike me as the thorough type.”
“I try to be. But for now: Who sent for help from the Judge Advocate? Was it you or Gibb?”
“Gibb had me take care of it.”
“Did he ask for me in particular?”
“No. I don’t think he ever heard of you, before today.”
I’d suspected that when he greeted me with actual human warmth. I don’t often get that from people who already know my background. “Did you request me?”
“I would have if I’d thought of it, but I had no way of knowing you were available. No. I just sent word to New London and let them decide who to send.”
Bringen had told me I’d been specifically requested. “Did the message pass through any hands other than Gibb’s, or your own?”
“No. We currently approve all out-station traffic. Why?”
Somebody here was lying, though I didn’t have enough information to determine whether that liar was here or back home. “You called Warmuth an idealist.”
“She was.”
“You also make it pretty clear that you did not consider that a compliment.”
“I didn’t and I don’t.”
“You didn’t like her?”
He hesitated. “It wasn’t a matter of personal like or dislike.”
“Did you or didn’t you?”
“I enjoyed her company.”
“But you don’t think she was as wonderful as Gibb says?”
He hesitated a second time, just long enough to establish that he didn’t want to speak ill of the dead. “I suppose you could say she had an excessive hunger for novelty. She kept saying that she left her homeworld because she wanted exotic experiences, and that being open to such things was part of being alive, but there was a self-serving element to the way she went about it. It gave the impression she saw people and strange places as entertainments the universe programmed for her specific amusement. Talk to the Porrinyards; they’ll tell you.”