Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (e books free to read txt) 📗

“Everyone has a history, Lady Numadesi. Each individual is a collection of wounds, a catalogue of scar tissue. True for AIs, truer still for humans.” Xe has risen from the table, has moved suddenly close. Krissana—the haruspex shell—is not tall, hardly imposing, but with Benzaiten at the helm there is a different physical presence: something more, something alien. “Don’t you remember? There was a city of gold, full of leopards, where you ruled as its lady—that is where Anoushka found you. And before that, you were a coordinator in the Seven-Sung Fleet. A mundane enough job, coordinating missions, working communications. Hardly a commanding officer or even a field agent. But you never told Anoushka about it, did you?”

Chapter Four

Very little in Vishnu’s Leviathan has changed, in all Anoushka’s time away. More than a hundred years, closing on two. The monarchy has remained constant, as changeless as the coefficient of the beast’s generated gravity. Even the same queen—she glances at the figure onstage draped in billowing brocade, in trails of fabric like mist, giving a welcome speech of no particular consequence. Arms decorated in circuitry patterns, blue and white and the occasional lapping tongue of damask, hair held high by her crown. She was several decades into her reign when Anoushka was here, and it seems she’s had the best in telomere extensions since, in anti-agathic edits that keep her looking ageless. Still, the flesh gives eventually—Nirupa wouldn’t have made daughters otherwise, and the throne requires a warm body to fill it.

The reception hall is enormous, the ceiling so distant it could be a sky: she remembers thinking as much, long ago. A fragrant haze of fresh summer and honeysuckle. Chandeliers of diamond dust and symbiotes beating hummingbird-fast. The dining tables look as though they have been carved from blocks of hematite, the utensils—chopsticks and spoons—appear to be gilded ivory, and even the servants wear stained crystals in their hair. No matter the state of Queen Nirupa’s coffers, she will not appear less than in her element, monarch over a territory of absolute opulence. Even the perfumed ambience incurs cost, one that Anoushka doubts the queen can afford after that sabotage. What an event that must have been. She wishes she had been around to watch the hydroponics deck burn, and the thought pleases her enough that she can maintain her smile when Queen Nirupa reaches her table.

“Admiral.” The queen gives her a nod and waits for her to stand up, accord her a gesture of courtesy. A flicker of irritation crosses the woman’s features when Anoushka does not oblige. “I’m beyond pleased to see you here. We’ve never done business, but I hope this will mark an auspicious beginning.”

She returns Nirupa’s nod: no more, no less. Ever since she’s gained command of the Armada of Amaryllis, she has refused every commission request from Vishnu’s Leviathan. “I am sure, Your Majesty. This reception is a great credit to you.” Not least because the queen has successfully separated mortal enemies, putting as much distance between them as possible. Different ends of the hall, judicious placement of privacy partitions and buffer tables.

Nirupa glances down at Xuejiao, who sits at Anoushka’s feet, collared in pearl-and-electrum and eating a morsel out of Anoushka’s hand. She chooses not to comment, even though Anoushka knows this offends the queen’s sensibilities. The woman has specific ideas about proper public displays, and a concubine on a leash is not one of them. “We all strive to excel at the duties life has given us, Admiral.” The queen makes an expansive motion. “Please, enjoy yourself.”

Anoushka does not pay much attention to the food, though she knows it is impeccably prepared and likely tastes excellent. She breaks a samosa in halves to feed it to Xuejiao, who laughs and eats and licks her fingers clean. Across the table she surveys the hall a second time, taking in small undulations beneath the scaled walls, those movements that signal the leviathan is alive and well, that the ventral-deck servants have not skipped out on maintenance. She wonders at the number, how many Nirupa had to grow and replace after the revolt; even incubated clones take time to mature. The most recent batch would have been made prioritizing sloppy haste rather than quality, and what resulted are likely stunted, witless. Her thoughts snag there. She swiftly steers them elsewhere.

The nearest table belongs to a party from the Diamond Republic of Da Nang, her sometimes-client. One of their diplomats stares at her with undisguised curiosity. They share the table with functionaries from Krungthep Station and Kowloon: a joint operation, funded three ways, though she expects the Diamond Republic footed most of the bill. Further away is the Vatican table, where cassocked clergy sit with tightly moderated expressions, looking like funereal specters on the verge of dispensing wrath. Disapproving of what they think of as hedonism, and even more disapproving that the leviathan is full of iconography they consider heathen. No doubt they are planning to convert a new leviathan into something more Christian—maybe they will give it seraphic wings, enormous and absurd.

Queen Nirupa moves through the hall, gracious, smiling. Her daughters—a few years apart in age—attend to lesser guests, the ones who probably don’t stand a chance of winning the auction, the ones who have been invited only as a formality. Utensils clink against plates of silver-striated glass. Conversations are muted or scrambled into soft gibberish, contained to each table by acoustics cancelers.

One of the servants walks several paces behind Queen Nirupa, carrying a laden tray. Dressed like the rest, the same plain black kurta, the same features. Yet there is a difference in bearing, in movement: awkward with the tray not because they are weak of limbs but because they’ve never done such work, when servants bred in this place perform it as second nature and would handle three trays at once adroitly.

“Admiral,” Xuejiao says against Anoushka’s palm.

“Yes.” She considers. Nirupa’s death would not hinder her—rather the