While Jasken was watching the flier approach, Veppers looked over the side of the boat and saw the shining lozenge of the gold ingot, surfaced again at last. He prodded Jasken on the shoulder and he retrieved it.
The flier set down by the side of the paper boat. It looked like a fat bullet made of chrome and coloured glass. It split, opened and revealed a glistening mass within. Just about discernible inside was a dark elliptical shape, fringed or tentacled at either end.
“Welcome, friend from Flekke,” Xingre said.
“Good day,” said an obviously synthesised voice from the opened bullet of the flier. “Chruw Slude Zsor, Functionary-General.”
“An honour,” Xingre said, dipping on its floating cushion.
“We were expecting you to arrive with the Nauptrian negotiator,” Veppers said, talking through the mask.
“That is me, I am here,” said the flier containing the Flekke in what was — somewhat counter-intuitively, Veppers thought — a more organic-sounding voice. “Though I am not Nauptrian. I am of the Nauptre Reliquaria. Were you expecting a sample of our feeder species, or making a mistake?”
“Humble apologies,” Xingre said, extending the limb nearest Veppers towards the man by just enough for the movement to be interpreted as a gesture at all. Veppers had seen, and — reluctantly — kept quiet. “We biological species,” Xingre said, putting a laugh into its voice, “in such niceties’ matterings err, with sporadic effect.”
Veppers had to suppress a smile. He had noticed before that Xingre’s grasp of language ebbed and flowed quite usefully on such occasions, allowing the Jhlupian to present itself as any where between razor smart and hopelessly bumbling, as desired.
The Reliquarian might have been nonplussed by this. It said nothing for a moment, then, “To introduce: I am 200.59 Risytcin, Nauptre Reliquaria Extra-Jurisdictional Service, rank Full Mediary.”
“Please,” Xingre said, gesturing. “On-boarding.”
The opened bullet shape slid forward, up and over the shallow gunwale of the boat, coming to rest just above the flat interior surface of the vessel’s hull. “Most splendid,” Xingre said, and, reaching up with half of its dozen limbs, drew a compressed paper cover right over the whole of the boat’s open surface, enclosing them. Gentle glows from the Jhlupian’s floating pillow and the interior of the Reliquarian’s bullet-shaped casing kept them all visible to each other. It was almost romantic, Veppers thought, if your taste ran to weird, inhuman aliens and fanatical machines with a taste for torment.
“Well, hello to you both,” Veppers said to the Flekkian and the Reliquarian. “Thank you for coming, and for agreeing to conduct our meeting in Sichultian.”
“It is easier for us to talk down to you than it is for you to aspire to our far more sophisticated language,” the Reliquarian said.
Veppers smiled. “Well, I have to hope that lost something in the translation. Now, however, I understand we have to do this ridiculous thing with the masks.”
The ridiculous thing with the masks meant them wearing a sort of helmet — or similar — each, from which a hose led to a central junction chamber. This way they could all talk and listen to each other without anybody else hearing. It all seemed madly contrived to Veppers but apparently in this age of summed-state super quantum phase-parsed encryptography it was the last thing anybody would be looking for. The Nauptre Reliquaria especially thought it was just the greatest thing imaginable and had insisted on it.
It took a while to get everything and everybody set up and adjusted. 200.59 Risytcin insisted on inspecting both the ingot of gold in Jasken’s pocket and his Oculenses, taking some time over the latter — turning them over and over in a maniple field and at one point seemingly trying to twist them apart — but eventually pronounced them safe and handing them back. Jasken looked unhappy, and carefully cleaned and readjusted them before putting them back on.
“To business,” Xingre said, once they were all technically happy and the pleasantries had been dealt with. Its voice sounded at once muffled and echoey, coming through the inter-linked set of tubes. All linked up together, barely lit, hunkered down in this crude approximation of a boat, they looked, Veppers thought, like some bizarrely motley set of desperate survivors from some strange and terrible shipwreck.
The Reliquarian said, “Introductory statement and opening position of the NR, with superposition of same relevant to Flekke: We have good reason to believe that the anti-Hell faction in the relevant confliction — concerning proposed unwarranted intrusions in certain virtual realities — grows desperate. They may attempt to intrude within the Real. A possible source of intrusion might conceivably come via the Tsungarial Disk. We will seek to prevent this happening and expect our allies and friends to cooperate in this. The cooperation of the Veprine Corporation falls within this definition. To Mr. Veppers of the Veprine Corporation: kindly state your position and intentions.”
Veppers nodded. “All very interesting,” he said. “So, we are to take it that the NR representative speaks for the Flekke as well?”
“Indeed,” the ellipsoid shape within the Reliquarian said. “As stated.” Its voice sounded appropriately watery through the linking tubes.
“And do you also talk on the behalf of the GFCF?” Veppers asked.
“The Geseptian-Fardesile Cultural Federacy need not be present,” the Reliquarian informed them. “Their acquiescence is assured and assumed.”
Veppers smiled broadly. “Splendid!”
“To repeat: your position and intentions, Mr. Veppers, speaking on behalf of yourself, the Veprine Corporation and the Sichultian Enablement to the extent that you are able to answer for it,” the Reliquarian said.
“Well then, subject to a satisfactory negotiationary outcome here,” Veppers said, “my position is that I fully support the stance and values of our good friends and allies the NR and the Flekke and will do whatever is within my modest means to facilitate their strategic goals.” He smiled, opened his arms wide. “I am on your side, of course.” He smiled again. “Providing the price is right, naturally.”
“What is this price?” Chruw Slude Zsor, Functionary-General for the Flekke said.
“I recently lost something very precious to me,” Veppers said. “And discovered that I had gained something at the same time, something I might not have wished on myself.”
“Would this be linked to the remains of the Culture neural lace which is in one of your servant’s pockets?” 200.59 Risytcin asked.
“How well spotted,” Veppers said. “Yes. I would like to investigate the possibility of replacing the thing that I lost with an identical item, and I would like to have the assistance, even protection, of both the NR and the Flekke, should somebody — anybody — wish to harm me due to any circumstances which might be linked with the neural lace being in my possession.”
“This sounds a little vague,” Chruw Slude Zsor said.
“I intend to be much less vague when we discuss financial remuneration and technology transfer,” Veppers said. “What I’m looking for right now is a declaration of goodwill more than anything else.”
“The Flekke are happy to give this,” Chruw Slude Zsor said.
There was another inscrutable pause before the Reliquarian said, “Similarly.”
“Subject to contract,” the Flekkian added.
“Also similarly,” 200.59 Risytcin confirmed.
Veppers nodded slowly. “Good,” he said. “We can do details later, but for now I’d like to approach the monetary strand of these talks. Mr. Jasken here will record our deliberations using his Oculenses from this point on until further notice, each of us having a veto. Is that agreed?”
“Agreed,” 200.59 Risytcin said.