Embassytown by China Miéville Page A

Bren. “I don’t see him often,” I said. “He doesn’t seem to come to gatherings.”
    “I’d forgotten you’ve a connection with him,” CalVin said, both eyeing me, though in slightly different ways. “No, Bren’s rather self-exiled. Not that he’d ever leave , you understand.” “That wouldn’t fit with what he thinks he is, to the rest of us.” “And he had the chance. He could have left.” “After he was cleaved.” “Instead . . .” They laughed. “He’s sort of our licensed misery.” “He knows most of what goes on. And further afield, too—he knows things he really shouldn’t.” “You couldn’t call him loyal. But he’s useful.” “But you really couldn’t call him loyal, anymore, if he ever was.” Scile listened avidly to them.
    “What’s it like?” Scile asked me. “I mean, I’ve been with two people before and I’m sure you have too, but I don’t think that’s—”
    “ No , Pharoi, no. Lord, you’re terrible . It’s not the same at all.” I was adamant at the time: now I have doubts.
    “Do they both concentrate on you?” he said. We giggled, he at the silly prurience, me at what felt almost like blasphemy.
    “ No , it’s all very egalitarian. Cal, me and Vin, all in it together. Honestly, Scile, it’s not like I’m the only person an Ambassador’s ever—”
    “You’re the only one I’ve got access to, though.” By then I wasn’t sure that was true. “I thought homosex isn’t approved of,” he said.
    “Now you’re just showing off,” I said. “That’s not what they do together. Them or any of the Ambassadors. You know that. It’s . . . masturbation.” That was the common if scandalous description, and it made me feel like a kid to say it. “Imagine what it’s like when two Ambassadors get together.”
    Scile spent hours, many hours, listening to recordings of Ariekei speaking, watching trids and flats of encounters between them and the Ambassadors. I watched him mouth things to himself and write illegible notes, one-handedly input into his datspace. He learnt fast. That was no surprise to me. When at last CalVin invited us to an event at which the Hosts would be present, Scile understood Language pretty much perfectly.
    It was to be one of the discussions Ambassadors held with Hosts every few weeks. Interworld trade might come only every few thousand hours, but it was backed by and built on exhaustive, careful negotiation. With the arrival of each immership, terms agreed between Staff and Hosts (with the imprimatur of Bremen’s representative) were communicated, the vessel would leave with those details and Ariekene goods and tech, returning on its next round with whatever we had promised the Ariekei in return. They were patient.
    “There’s a reception,” one of CalVin told us. “Would you like to come?”
    We were not allowed into the actual negotiations, of course. Scile regretted this. “Why do you care?” I said. “It’ll be dull as hell. Trade talks? Really? How much of this, what do you want of that . . .”
    “I want to know, that’s exactly it. What is it they want? Do you even know what we exchange with them?”
    “Expertise, mostly. For AI and artminds and things. That they can’t make . . .”
    “I know, because of Language. But I’d love to hear how they relate to that tech, when they get hold of it.”
    An Ariekes couldn’t type into an artmind, of course: writing was incomprehensible to them. Oral input was no better: as far as any exopsych specialists could discern, the Hosts couldn’t ken interacting with a machine. The computer would speak back to them in what we heard as flawless vernacular, but to the Ariekei, with no sentience behind them, those words were just noises.
    So our designers had created computers that were eavesdroppers. We built them from the simple loudhailer- and telephone-animals the Ariekei biorigged. They could—though no one made sense of how—understand each other’s voices (and those