"You'll have to excuse me, if I seem a little. . . uncomfortable." The emissary's name was Gleed Otondon; his host couldn't tell from what miserably harsh outlying world he had originated, but it was obviously one that produced impressively bulky and well-equipped residents at the top of its food chain-the emissary was all leather-encased muscles with a horn-spiked skull and proboscis atop. His clawed hands twitched against his knees as he overwhelmed the guest's chair near Kud'ar Mub'at's thronelike nest. He glanced again at the densely intertwined fibers arching over his head." Are you sure this place is airtight?"
"My dear and most precious Gleed-allay your fears." If outright laughter had been in the repertoire of the assembler's emotional responses, Kud'ar Mub'at might not have been able to restrain itself." Reasonable as those apprehensions might be, I assure you that they are most unnecessary." Perhaps even a little insulting, though the assembler kept that reaction to itself. It signaled to one of its corporeal-maintenance subnodes, a miniature version of its own spidery form. The wave of an upraised leg-tip was actually unnecessary; the little node was tethered to the assembler's own central nervous system-as were all the living bits and pieces of the web, the partially differentiated inhabitants that Kud'ar Mub'at had spun from his own inmost being." But I'll check, just to be sure for my most esteemed visitor."
Gleed Otondon shrank back, as though trying to hide inside his own body armor, as the summoned node scuttled past his shoulders, trailing a whitely glistening filament of neural connector tissue behind itself. The node perched alertly on the angle of Kud'ar Mub'at's outstretched leg.
"Yes yes?" The node was all eagerness; it had been one of the assembler's favorite creations, though the bouncy mannerisms were starting to wear thin now." What can I do do do for you you?" And the echoing whole-word stutter in its vocal circuits was definitely annoying. Kud'ar Mub'at made a personal mental note, in the unshared segment of its own cerebral cortex, to eliminate that flaw with the subnode's successor, after this one had been reingested." Anything at all all?"
The curved walls of the web's central chamber seemed to move and shift, all of the gathered subnodes turning the varying levels of their communal consciousness toward the discussion taking place in their midst. A general alert had gone out over the web's neural fibers as to just how important these meetings were. Underneath a few dangling nodes, Gleed Otondon cringed at the sight of the bustling, enveloping activity.
"A status report, please." Kud'ar Mub'at made a show of giving orders to the subnode clinging to its extended leg. That was all for their visitor's benefit as well; there was no real need for courtesies being extended to things that were as much a part of the assembler as its own segmented abdomen and thorax." Regarding our dear little home's atmospheric pressure-is all as it should be, pray tell?"
The subnode was silent for a few seconds as it shifted its minimal nervous system into communication with the rest of the web's bioengineering and homeostasis-maintenance nodes. Their wordless back-and-forth conference evoked a tingling sensation inside the tactile processors of Kud'ar Mub'at's central cortex. For a moment, it could feel the interlaced network of the web's outer sheath, as though its soft-abdomened body had expanded to the limits of its sensory perceptions.
Drifting amid the stars' cold points of light, the web's ropelike strands were studded with functioning scraps of various machines and spacecraft. Those bits and pieces were the only ones that the assembler hadn't spun itself but had incorporated into its extended being, usually as the final payments due from one extortionate scheme or another. The foreclosed-upon debtors were usually expelled through one of the web's annular exit ports, to deal with the vacuum as best they could. Kud'ar Mub'at's interest in them ceased at that point; the assembler thought it morbidly uncouth to collect scraps of corpses as trophies, the way those reptilian Trandoshans did.
"Normal pressure loss experienced-" At Kud'ar Mub'at's direction, one of the skittering voice-box subnodes took over from its exterior-maintenance web-cousin, still sitting on their parents' spider-jointed leg. The stutterless voice box dangled within inches of Gleed Otondon's head; the emissary regarded it with evident dismay." During reception of visitors and transfer from docking vessels, atmospheric generation stepped up two levels over subsequent time period, per standing orders for perimeter breach procedures." The voice-box node fell silent for a few seconds as it received more data from the exterior sensors. The voice-box nodes were little more than articulating mouths and imbedded vocal cords; they didn't possess enough separate memory to hold more than a few sentences at a time." Internal web pressure currently at ninety-five percent of optimum volume; one hundred percent optimum within next hour."
"There. You see?" Kud'ar Mub'at gestured with its extended leg. The assembler spoke rapidly, to keep its visitor from thinking about and commenting upon the one word-" vessels," in the plural-that the voice-box node had let slip. That's the problem, thought Kud'ar Mub'at, when you don't give your underlings enough brains to think with." Nothing at all to worry about."
"If you say so." The emissary from the Bounty Hunters Guild looked only slightly reassured.
The real worries, as always, belonged to Kud'ar Mub'at. Life itself, mused the assembler, is a burden. It was a constant temptation to design and create the web's subnodes with enough cortical matter to render them capable of independent thought and action; that would have taken a great deal of the load off the assembler's multiple shoulders. It might also, Kud'ar Mub'at reminded himself, take my head off those shoulders. The web had come to Kud'ar Mub'at as its inheritance, upon the death-murder, actually-of the arachnoid assembler that had spawned it. That might have been right and proper-Kud'ar Mub'at had never felt any guilt over the matter-but at the same time, it had no intention of making the same mistake itself, as its creator had.
"Ah, but I do say so." Kud'ar Mub'at enacted a semblance of a gracious humanoid bow, spreading wide two of its jointed legs and bending forward, eye-studded head lowered. The shifting of the assembler's weight momentarily lifted its pallid, wobbling abdomen from the living nest beneath; the concave subnode sighed and put its minimal intelligence to the task of reinflating its cushionlike bladder parts. " I make every effort for the comfort of my so highly esteemed guests. Such as yourself. Even if it did not facilitate the flowing conduct of business, I would still feel it incumbent upon me to do so, honored as I am by your presence."
"Don't bother." The emissary's unease shifted to annoyance. With a visible display of will, Gleed Otondon regained control of himself." I've been informed about all your flattering language." His eyes narrowed into a focus of distrust." It won't work on me."
Ah, thought Kud'ar Mub'at to himself, keeping his satisfaction hidden. But it already has. One way or another. . .
"I'm sure," soothed Kud'ar Mub'at," that you don't mean that in a hostile way. But of course, if you wanted to, that would be fine with me as well. I try to be accommodating, as I hope you've seen." The assembler settled himself back down into the nest sub-node's soft embrace." May I prevail upon you for a very small, inconsequential kindness? If you'll excuse me for a moment, I must confer with a few of my tiny minions. Trifles, mere details; such an annoyance."
None of Kud'ar Mub'at's multiple eyes had lids, but a slight opacity filmed over their bright beadlike surfaces as the assembler relaxed their focus. It tucked its legs around itself as a further indication of having withdrawn its attention. One of its tiniest creations, an optical subnode barely bigger than a humanoid thumb, peered out from behind a tangle of the web's structural fibers. An unsheathed neural strand, white as spidersilk, conveyed a sharp image of the Guild emissary to the parent assembler's cortex. Gleed Otondon looked grumpy and uncomfortable, obviously irritated by even the slightest delay in taking care of business.