Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast

by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  When she tries to contact the mothers and the mentor now, she finds exactly what she expected: all three are dead. Her search for more reveals the same—an old lover, a cousin, a childhood friend. Obituaries indicate they passed at various points within the last decade, having outlived their use or else having outlived their roles. By now they could be anywhere, buried or cremated or given new faces and new identities. Agents that have gone fallow or who have spread throughout the universe, acting in small subtle ways against the Amaryllis—against the admiral. Or who have, themselves, infiltrated the Armada. Awaiting the right moment, the right command.

  That gorgeous wedding dress with its diaphanous veil, its silver trims glinting in the ship-light. That young, guileless face. Numadesi touches the red pearls in her hair, touches the absence of what she has given away. Her fingertips are frigid. Her pulse gallops. She should have known—should have divined the truth of Xuejiao’s identity from the lines of the false skull, the geometry of the artificial body, the ceramic patina that she thought so charming.

  A priority request blinks in her overlays. For a second, she does not quite comprehend it. It is a request to board an Amaryllis ship and to meet with her or the Alabaster Admiral. But there is no pending business—Anoushka cleared the slate before she left—and even existing clients would not, at this time, be entertained.

  Then she sees exactly which client it is and the choice to turn them away at once extinguishes. Has, indeed, never been a possibility.

  “A gracious greeting to you, Lady Numadesi of the Amaryllis,” says the speaker on the other end. “I’m Seung Ngo, an AI ambassador from the Mandate. May I board Seven of Divide?”

  Chapter Six

  Another meeting, under a domed roof that looks out to the leviathan’s orbit: the glow of ships like a besieging army and the more distant light of a red dwarf, commingling like a solar storm. Anoushka surveys the tableau of vessels, calculating the possible paths of bombardment and the firepower of each ship. This group of corvettes should be able to damage aegis ring generators if they act in concert. That harrier would be able to intercept five percent of the leviathan’s mobile defenses. Those deceptively small phalanxes could penetrate the aegis rings. No large craft is allowed within orbiting distance of Vishnu’s Leviathan, but combined these small ships could do real damage, if they weren’t commanded by radically differing interests who are far more prone to firing on each other than on the leviathan. Still it is a careless arrangement.

  Almost certainly the queen has secured the protection of one of the bidding parties, if not several. She reexamines the guest list, knowing multiple groups are too secretive to be included on the official roster. There is only a handful she can think of who possess the military might to contest this number of hostiles. And they would have to hide their ships, keep them on standby a relay or two away. Much as she does. Much as, she imagines, half the guests do. The more she thinks about it, the less sense it makes that Nirupa is holding the auction aboard Vishnu’s Leviathan—anywhere else would have been safer for the leviathan itself and less fraught. All this could have been done differently: send Rajathi or Savita to act in Nirupa’s stead, rent a city on some remote planet as neutral ground, keep the leviathan larva itself back home.

  Nirupa emerges from the far end of the hall, dressed in dark silk and a mesh of jewelry that drapes across her shoulders, dripping small platinum flames captured within blue-white shells. Behind her follows a shielded tank ten meters tall, its exterior opaqued, moving on articulated centipede feet.

  “It seems things got out of hand, Your Majesty,” Anoushka says. “Were other guests attacked? I trust that you will enlighten me as to that, and as to the cause of this mayhem.” No need for or else: Savita is in Xuejiao’s custody back on One of Sunder. They vacated their guest suite as soon as they could—of all the places on the leviathan, Anoushka’s own ship is the safest.

  “There was no other attack. Though some of my servants were killed—I am grateful you kept my Savita safe.” The queen’s mouth is tight, her colors ashen. “Admiral, I’d like to request your protection.”

  This is not a ploy she accounted for. She reins in her expression. “From what, Your Majesty?”

  “From danger within and without.” Nirupa touches the jewels fanned over her chest. “To show my sincerity, I’ll offer this as compensation, paid once the . . . problems have settled.”

  The tank’s exterior turns transparent. Inside floats the leviathan larva, a seahorse curl that might be six meters at full length, as yet smooth and nearly featureless. A scattering of nubs that will grow into protrusions, fins, and anchors for artificial plating. Across its gray palladium-banded hide reside two or three eyes rather than the enormous quantity of its adult counterpart. It must have already been implanted with the circuitry and signal arrays that would ensure its obedience, perhaps an artificial cortex to replace where its brain might have developed. The way servants are implanted, engineered in utero for compliance.

  “This seems at odds with the spirit of the auction,” Anoushka says mildly. “How long does this take to grow to any appreciable size, as a point of academic interest?”

  “Some time,” Nirupa says. “We mean to accelerate its processes somewhat, but that is a delicate thing. Too fast and this creature will lose much of its lifespan—you want this to last centuries upon centuries. The larva will have no overrides or accesses built in. I’ll give you a brand-new imprint and primary access to its cortex. You won’t need to fear potential backdoor ambushes.”

  “Who else have you requested protection from?”

  “No one,” the queen says, with the solemnity the answer warrants. False of course: Anoushka can recognize it when someone’s trying to play both ends against the middle. More or less. “The assault drones weren’t mine. That much you could already deduce. The mastermind behind it would see me just as dead as you.”

  Anoushka begins to smile. She relishes it: this is intoxicating. “I offer no insult, Your Majesty, but you cannot afford my services. The larva is fascinating, but the promise of it is a thin one. As you’ve admitted, it takes time to grow—as it is now, it’s of no use to me. To anyone.”

  The royal mouth stiffens. “It shall be sped up as much as is possible. In just eight years the larva can serve you as a warship. In forty it will be nearly the equal of an adult. But for the present, as collateral, I offer you one of my daughters. My elder, if you wish.”

  To Nirupa this is a serious offer: the monarchy here puts everything in their lineage. Nothing is more important than that eugenicist obsession; bloodline is to be defended to the death, and Savita is the designated heir. “How droll, Your Majesty. What use do I have for your princesses?”

  “Should you suspect me of foul play, you may take your payment out of her flesh. You can find other uses for her, I am sure, as long as she returns to me whole in mind and body.”

  She cocks her head. She could say she has far comelier concubines, wives a hundred times more brilliant than little Savita could ever hope to be, and that next to them Nirupa’s prized princess is mere dross. “What does she think of this?”

  The queen flicks her head. “Savita will do as she’s told. A ruler must make sacrifices for the sake of her throne.”

  Not that Nirupa has made any, Anoushka reckons. “You can always make more heirs—they take how many years to grow and train? Twenty? The blink of an eye, compared to growing a leviathan. What if I prefer to take you hostage? No doubt my conduct and reputation lead you to believe I prefer nubile women, but in truth my tastes are wide-ranging. I’ve even been known to acquire spoils of war older than myself as long as their qualities strike my fancy, and I’ve yet to capture a queen—what a novelty that would be.”

  Terror skitters across Nirupa’s features. It is a fascinating process, the way this emotion slackens the masseter muscles and stretches the extraocular ones. Tension turns every part of the body taut, plumping muscles with oxygen, spiking the endocrinal apparatuses
. Adrenaline sweeps through, but the queen can neither run nor fight and so she falls into the third response, paralysis. Anoushka thinks then that this will suffice, that she can grab the queen’s throat in her hand, or she can kick the woman’s legs out, bring her to the ground where Anoushka can crush first the bones in her ankles and sunder the hamstrings, and then move on to the abdomen with its multitude of excellent viscera, its tremendous treasury that she will plunder and despoil. She would take her time.

  But no. This is not enough, not yet. She wants to savor this—protract the moment when it comes, make her satisfaction and Nirupa’s fear last.

  “Or perhaps not,” Anoushka goes on easily. “Savita’s already with my officer. I promise not to ruin her. So what am I up against exactly?”

  Nirupa licks her lips, which must have parched. She swallows, visibly working against the panic response, the amygdala’s raw instincts. “The sabotage from years ago, the assassination attempt on me, those are connected. My enemy’s been playing a long game. I may well have been maneuvered into opening my world to outsiders and I must find out who’s behind this.”

  “I’ll need all the data you have on both, of course.”

  “Yes.” A pulse of connection from the queen. “You’ll have the gratitude of Vishnu’s Leviathan always, Admiral.”

  “Very good, Your Majesty. I trust we’ll all benefit.” She inclines her head.

  I will destroy everything you love, she thinks, and then I will destroy you.

  In her long decades Anoushka has learned the value of setting the stage, of all the things that contribute to awe or intimidation, of engineering the reactions she wants to elicit. And so when she returns to her harrier, she seats herself and drapes Xuejiao over her lap like a beautiful pelt made of woman and electrum and gemstones. She knows the mores on the leviathan, and knows that this display will shock. For Savita, it will look like a prelude.

  She brushes Xuejiao’s hair in slow, careful strokes, sable bristles susurrating through seal-black hair. Her wife leans into the touch, into her, the portrait of obedience—a pet tamed, and content to stay that way.

  Opposite them, putting herself as far as she can, Savita sits with her mouth rigid and her expression like stone. She does not make herself small—still too much pride for that. “You’ve spoken to my mother.”

  “So I have.” Anoushka sets down the hairbrush and slides one hand into her lieutenant’s diminutive dress, taking firm hold of a small breast and drawing it free of the silk. Her thumb circles a cobalt nipple. “My Xuejiao used to be a priestess who dedicated her chastity to a barbaric god. I sacked her city and scorched her temple. The clergy there was chosen for their beauty and I found her the most tantalizing among them, so I seized her for my personal use. At first she hated me and cursed me for a devil, a monster from the most outlandish sort of afterlife you can imagine. I took my time with her, though. I broke her in and trained her, made of her a fine stiletto. Now she’ll let me do anything to her, and she’ll do anything for me. What do you think of that, Your Highness?” Pure invention, but it fits her reputation well enough.

  From Savita’s expression, the tale—virgin priestess and all—is more than credible. The princess opens her mouth and shuts it with a click. “I have no opinion, Admiral. It hardly seems relevant.”

  She can shatter this girl; she can crumple this brittleness to dust. The virulence of the thought catches Anoushka by surprise. “Your mother gave you to me. You’re her collateral against the safety of Vishnu’s Leviathan and, I would guess, that of herself and your sister.” She pulls a slim choker out of her coat, placing it on the table. “This is a network nullifier. It will lock and form temporary bridges to your implants, so please don’t try to take it off. Without my key, attempted removal will fry some of your nerve clusters and disable motor control. Not fatal, but not pleasant.”

  The princess looks at her. “I’m not putting that on.”

  Anoushka kisses her lieutenant on the ear before gently setting her aside. In an instant she is on her feet, grabs the choker, and steps behind Savita. She closes the device around the royal throat: the click is loud, final.

  Savita tries to twist away from her but there is little room, and she blocks the way, looming over the girl, nearly straddling the chair.

  “There’s no need to be so distraught, Your Highness, I’ve never pressed my attentions on anyone who doesn’t want it—though many have been known to beg for it in the end, isn’t that curious?” Anoushka smooths down a nonexistent crease on her sleeve. “Queen Nirupa has sent me a fair amount of intelligence; with time I’ll discover who’s behind all this easily enough. But there is missing information. How is it possible that an imposter was able to infiltrate the ranks of your servants? I don’t mean copying the phenotype. I mean that the leviathan has its own verification system. An outsider may imitate the phenotype but not certain characteristics for which your servants are bred. An imposter would’ve been found out immediately—both the leviathan and the symbiotes would have rejected them.”

  Savita moves her lips but no word comes out. Her respiration rate has spiked. She inhales and flinches from the scent of Anoushka’s cologne, the sharpness of bergamot and clementine. “I don’t . . . ”

  “You do, princess. You’ve been prepared for the throne.” Anoushka places her knee on an armrest. “Your mother must have some idea of where the leak is. How it happened. How it happened so badly that someone was able to suborn the recreation deck’s systems—and those also require leviathan overrides. The ones only you, your sister, and your mother should have.”

  The princess trembles—Anoushka imagines how long the girl would have lasted in the leviathan’s belly. “It was . . . ” Savita licks her lips. “Over a century ago, closer to two. Before I was even born. Ventral-deck servants escaped and it was a catastrophe. Our enemies must have captured them and made copies of their leviathan implants. We’ve been dealing with hostile action since, but Mother kept us in lacunal space to escape the worst of it.”

  Leviathan implants. An understatement; in truth they are more like extra organs, built into the body of a servant to make them instruments and appendages to the world-beast. She thinks of the hollow places in her own body, the craters and absences that once harbored the pheromonal transmitters and receivers. Her old body—little remains of her original tissue, after those initial cheap body mods and then a total body revision under the scalpel of an Amaryllis doctor. How she exulted in those, even in the pain, the long convalescence from having every bone broken and reknitted, every artery sundered and rebound, nearly every organ regrown and adrenal gland rearranged. To be remade, to be born anew, her cerebral cortex cleansed of leviathan influence. No trace of history stays, not even on her face. Outwardly she says, “Why not update the biomechanical suite? Change the accesses and the receptor arrays.” But she already knows why.

  “It’s impossible. The leviathan is part animal, you can’t update a whale or a wolf, you can only . . . retrain it, and that takes much longer.”

  A flash of intuition. “The leviathan larvae, how many of them are in gestation?”

  Savita seems to stop breathing. Anoushka can almost hear the judder of the girl’s heart; expects that if she touches the side of Savita’s neck, lover-soft, she would feel the princess’ pulse spasming at triple speed. Carotid percussion. “I’m not privileged with that information.”

  Anoushka nearly laughs. “I’ll pretend I believe that. Something went wrong, didn’t it, with all the deal-making and negotiating? Nirupa hired someone to protect her before she came to me begging, promising a different larva to them. But that went south. She was double-crossed or else the very person she hired is responsible for the agriculture incident, for the assassination attempt, and for the attack on me. In fact I know precisely who it is.” Not the Nova Legion—none of this fits their patterns. Factoring in everything, assuming the Seven-Sung Fleet was able to hoard resources over years that they’ve wholesale committed to this, this i
s much more their style. Erisant’s style. She takes mental inventory of where her troops are stationed and the most recent reported Seven-Sung activities. She can make retaliation both thorough and swift. To Xuejiao she transmits, It is the Seven-Sung Fleet after all.

  The princess’ muscles are as stiff as rusted steel. “Then you’ll help us?”

  “Will I? My interest in the larva is much less than you think.”

  “Why are you here, Admiral, if the larva presents no value to you?”

  “Why indeed?” She could say I’m the one asking questions here and make a show of ushering the princess out of her ship, then undocking for departure. “The reasons are self-evident; I will not belabor them. This person Queen Nirupa engaged for services and who turned against her, how much access to Vishnu’s Leviathan have they gained?” Probably not its imprint, the one that is central to the world-beast’s obedience: that is difficult to reverse-engineer, exactly because it is essentially analog. The quirk that should have proofed the leviathan against tampering.

  “Some.” Savita is breathing fast again. “They don’t have the surveillance or the symbiont subsystem. No access to steerage, none to the uppermost decks.”

  Not much concern for the lowest decks, even though they hold so much of what is essential. Sear the ventral half and the leviathan itself would fail. “I can work with it. As for the other part of my compensation, I gave my word to your mother I’ll return you to her whole in mind and body, but that definition leaves a lot of room. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “What does that . . . ”

  Anoushka presses her thumb to the princess’ chin. She curves her other hand around Savita’s throat—it is a delicate thing, this throat, a gracile stem that she can snap without effort. She strokes over the collar’s cool metal, rests the heel of her palm against Savita’s pulse. The girl is panting.