At least her new teammates play by the rules. Anti-de-Sitter-times-a-Sphere becomes a woman with a small pouty mouth and angular, classical features, wearing a loose rust-coloured gown and flowers and ribbons in her ash-blond hair. Sir Mik increases in size to slightly-smaller-than-baseline proportions, retaining his large eyes, spiky hair, pointy ears and mistrustful expression.
Zinda twirls her naginata experimentally.
‘That’s better! Now, I’m going to qupt you some data in a moment, but let’s cover the basics. The zoku volition has brought you here because you have the right combination of skills for this mission: cryptography’ – she points at Anti-de-Sitter – ‘spatial coordination and navigation, transportation’ – with a nod to Mik – ‘and finally, and most importantly, in-depth knowledge of Sobornost tactics and communications protocols.’ She touches Mieli on the shoulder. ‘We all have a reason to be here.’
She takes a deep breath, and there is a brief flash of uncertainty in her eyes. She is very young, Mieli thinks. Or perhaps it’s just an act, a part of this alter.
‘Does anyone here have a problem with that?’ Zinda says.
There is a deep silence. Mik smiles sarcastically, sits down and folds his hands across his chest. Anti-de-Sitter-times-a-Sphere closes her eyes and rocks back and forth on her feet.
‘No? All right. Then I guess it’s time to go over the plan.’
‘Let me show you what is happening in the Inner System at the moment,’ Zinda says. She qupts a spime at them. A complex diagram in the centre of their small circle: a three-dimensional tangle of coloured regions, flows and vectors.
It takes Mieli a moment to realise that it is a full spime of the Great Game’s estimate of the current power structure in the System, fine-grained detail updated in real time from the Game’s intelligence assets in the zoku router network. Information is easily available in Supra City: like for every imaginable quantifiable resource, there is a zoku devoted to gamifying it. But during the last few weeks, Mieli has deliberately avoided looking into the events in the Inner System, and this is the first time she sees the full extent of the conflict.
The pellegrinis, vasilevs and hsien-kus are at war. Their guberniyas are centres of raion flows, all pumping out vast amounts of waste heat and matter. Major battles and exotic weapon events concentrate around sunlifter mines and Highway hubs. The lines of conflict extend all the way to the Belt and beyond, to Jovian trojans and even the chaotic space near the Spike remnants. The other Founders are biding their time, fortifying their territories and laying low. The chen guberniya is still in the Lagrange point between the Earth and Moon – but the spime is notably patchy on chen oblasts and raions, relying on sensory observations rather than direct intelligence sources.
‘I think you can all see the problem,’ Zinda says. ‘We used to have assets inside all the Founder copyclans. Well, not anymore. We lost everybody inside the chens. And that is a problem: so far, they have stayed neutral, but they are going to decide this thing one way or the other. We expected them to support the pellegrinis, but that did not happen. We are blind to the biggest internal Sobornost conflict since the Dragon Wars. The Spooky-zoku claim that there is something anomalous about the entire conflict, but they are unsure as to exactly what.
‘So we are going to find out. At the moment, our beloved zoku has several thousand intelligence-gathering operations at work, aimed at the chens. But we, dear friends, have a chance to win entanglement and glory for our zoku.’ She turns to Mieli. ‘Mieli, could you tell us what is the power structure on a Sobornost warship?’
Mieli frowns. ‘Most gogols will be branched for whatever mission the ship is fabbed for: warminds and turks. There will be a commanding gogol of an older generation, depending on the importance of a mission. And there will be a—’
‘A chen gogol, as an observer, to protect the interests of the Sobornost as a whole even during Founder conflicts, ever since the Dragon Wars.’ Zinda smiles. ‘If the ship is destroyed, the chen is usually evacuated in a thoughtwisp. So, there we have it: we will monitor a civil war battle – a skirmish between raions, that is all we need – and look for thoughtwisps we can intercept. Mik here will lay out a q-dot net and take care of navigation. Mieli will convince the wisp that we are a Sobornost ship. Anti-de-Sitter-times-a-Sphere will use Mieli’s protocols and Box the chen.’ She looks at their faces eagerly. ‘Any questions?’
Mik gets up slowly. ‘My lady Zinda, I deem this course of action most unwise,’ he says. At normal speed, his voice is a deep baritone, at odds with his boyish face. ‘You yourself are strong in entanglement, and known to us all. But our new companion? I like her not.’ He takes a step forward and looks up at Mieli. ‘She is a member of our zoku, aye; but in level, barely more than a lowly squire. Her will is not yet bound to the Great Game like ours is. I have fought the Sobornost: there is often another will within their will that can hide true intentions. And is it not true that she was the truedeath of many a friend of our lady Anti-de-Sitter-times-a-Sphere, in the War of Protocols?’
Mik shakes his head. ‘Were it not for the zoku’s volition, I would take my leave now, and I have a mind to pluck the Great Game jewel from the hilt of my blade rather than go forth on a dangerous quest with such a dark companion.’
Zinda looks at each of the trio in turn. ‘Mieli is a part of our zoku, like it or not, and the zoku has made up its mind. You are free to disagree. And you always have your freedom to leave. Now, we have heard from Mik. What do you think, Anti-de-Sitter?’
‘Filtered Markov chain state: doom,’ says Anti-de-Sitter-times-a-Sphere in a gentle, singsong voice.
‘Although the law of Hospitality binds me, as all those in my order,’ Mik says, ‘a Sobornost warrior with bloodstained hands will not enter my faithful ship, the Zweihänder. This I swear, by my blade.’
Zinda looks lost. ‘Maybe I made the Circle wrong,’ she says in a small voice. ‘Are you sure you are not just rules-lawyering here, trying to win some verbal points? I always do this with Circles, tend to come up with mechanisms that generate conflict, it’s better for the narrative.’
‘Implication via modus ponens: negative,’ sings Anti-de-Sitter-times-a-Sphere.
She is out of her depth, Mieli thinks. And winning entanglement in the Great Game is her only chance to get closer to the Kaminari jewel.
She takes a step forward.
‘My name is Mieli, daughter of Karhu,’ she says. ‘And you are all right. I do not belong here.’
She looks at them in the eyes, each in turn. ‘But Sir Mik does me injustice as well. I may not truly belong to the Great Game yet, but I am not of Sobornost either. I may have served them for a time, but I have no reason to love them. In my heart, I am of Oort, of ice and darkness and song and void. I, too, was taught that strangers from outside my koto were evil. But I was also taught to put aside my grievances to work together for the Million Tribes, when we needed to, to drive the Dark Man back.’
She pauses. It is not that different from singing a song, watching väki respond to the notes and words.