A Deepness in the Sky

"Very well. Just want you to know...our internal enemies have stepped up the pace. I'm seeing meddling all through our automation.Watch Trinli. I'll bet he's sitting there diddling his localizers." Anne's gaze flicked up for an instant, catching the question in Nau's eyes. She shrugged. "No, I'm still not sure it's him. But I'm very close. Be ready."

A second passed. Anne's voice came again, but now publicly audible here and in the Peddlers' temp. "Okay. Here we have live video from Parliament Hall at Southmost. This is what a human would actually see and hear."

Nau looked to the left, where his huds showed Qiwi's pov in the temp. The main facets of Benny's display flickered. For an instant it wasn't clear what they were seeing. There was a jumble of reds and greens, actinic blues. They were looking into some kind of a pit. Stone ladders were cut into the walls. Moss or hairy pelts grew from rock. The Spiders crowded like black roaches.

Ritser Brughel glanced up from the pictures of Parliament and shook his head almost in awe. "It's like some Frenkisch prophet's vision of Hell."

Nau gave a gave a silent nod of acknowledgment. With the ten-second time lag, casual chitchat was to be avoided. But Brughel was right; seeing so many together was even worse than the earlier spybot videos. The zipheads' cozy, humanesque translations gave a very unreal view of the Spiders.I wonder how much we are missing about their minds. He called up a separate image of the scene, this one synthesized by ziphead translators from a Spider news feed. In this picture, the steep pit became a shallow amphitheater, the ugly splashes of color were orderly mosaics worked into the carpet (which no longer looked like scraggly hair). The woodwork was everywhere glistening with polish (not stained and pitted). And the creatures themselves were somehow more sedate, their gestures almost meaningful in human body language.

In both displays, three figures appeared at the Parliament's entrance. They climbed (walked) down the stone stairs. The air was full of hissing and clicking, the true sound of these creatures.

The threesome disappeared into the bottom of the pit. A moment passed and they reappeared, climbing the far side. Ritser chuckled. "The midsized one in front must be the spy chief, that's what Bonsol calls ‘Victory Smith.' " One detail of the ziphead story was accurate: The creature's clothing was dead black, but it was more a pile of interlocking patches than a uniform. "The hairy creature behind Smith, that must be the engineer, ‘Hrunkner Unnerby.' Such quaint names for monsters."

The three climbed out onto an arching spike of stone. A fourth Spider, already on the precarious structure, clambered to its pointed end.

Nau turned from the Spiders' hall to look at the crowd at Benny's. They were silent, watching in vast shock. Even Benny Wen's helpers were motionless, their gaze captured by the images from the Spider world.

"Introductions by the Parliamentary Speaker," spoke a ziphead voice. "The Parliament will come to order. I have the honor to—" Around the sensible words, Ritser's spy robot sent back the reality, the hissing clatter, the stabbing gestures with forelegs that ended in rapier points. In truth, these creatures did look like the statues the Qeng Ho had seen at Lands Command. But when they moved it was the chilling grace of predators, some gestures slow, some very very fast. Strangest of all, for all their superior vision, it wasn't easy to identify their eyes. Across the fluted ridges of the head, there were patches of smooth glassiness, bulbous here and there, with extensions that might be the cool-down points for its thermal infrared vision. The front of the Spider body was a nightmarish eating machine. The razor mandibles and clawlike helper limbs were in constant motion. But the creature's head was almost immobile on the thorax.

The Speaker left the tip of the stone needle, and General Smith climbed up, negotiating a tricky passage around the other. Smith was silent for a moment, once she reached the point. Her forelegs waved in a little spiral, as if encouraging foolish persons to get close to her maw. Hiss and clatter came from the speaker. On the "translated" image, a legend appeared over her representation:SMILING GENTLY AT THE AUDIENCE.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Parliament." The voice was strong and beautiful—Trixia Bonsol's voice. Nau noticed Ezr Vinh's head jerk slightly at the sound of her. The diag traces on Vinh rose with the usual conflicted intensity.He'll be usable, just long enough, thought Nau.

"I come here speaking for my King, and with his full authority. I come here hoping I can offer enough to win your trust."