Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [101]
For which, of course, the ancestors despised them/it.
…targeted destruction of microstructures in the orbitofrontal cortex resulting in human slave units program of mass involuntary sterilization and biological cleansing poisoning of watersheds self-perpetuating spasm wars long-term destruction of atmosphere rendering planet incapable of supporting life…”
Still no response.
There were five underlords and they/it shared an equal number of bodies, never staying long in any given one. Even as this particular division of them/it tried desperately to reestablish communication with the demons it/they hoped to unleash upon the world, the underlord’s awareness flicked from body to body, restless as a panther in a cage. Each time, they/it displaced the awareness inhabiting that body so that it/they flicked onward to the next machine in the chain.
Flick.
Its/their mindless armies were massing by the underground canals at the Oktyabrskaya, Smolenskaya, Taganskaya, Krasniye Vorota, and Pushkinskaya docks. The silent throngs filled the docks and the tunnels leading to them and the long stairways leading to the surface.
Obedient as they were, the Pale Folk required a great deal of oversight. When one was jostled off the docks and into the waters of the Neglinnaya river, he had to be told to swim or he would drown. When a closed space filled up, the command to go there had to be countermanded or the Pale Folk would keep squeezing in, crushing those already inside like grapes in a wine press. So, because there were not enough underlords to supervise them all, Chortenko had provided bear-men as subordinate commandants, thinking they would be less odious to the machine intelligences than humans.
As they were. Marginally.
A squad of the Royal Guard was herding the last of the stragglers, chuckling and making incoherent jokes, into the Pushkinskaya docks. The last of their number, one Sergeant Wojtek, pushed a gurney with a man strapped to it who was so nondescript as to be uniquely identifiable. The underlord commanded their/its boatman to dock so it/they could step ashore, and pushed their/its metal body through the throngs to examine him and be sure. “You were in the borderlands,” it/they said to him.
“My dear fellow, I have been many places.”
“I am not your fellow. Nor am I dear. Your hair was brown then and your eyes gray. But these are easy things to change. You were in a party of men and sub-men who were ambushed by a cyberwolf in the courtyard of a ruined church, and should have died. Instead, you and your companions killed him.”
“Was that a friend of yours? Or a relation? Now that I look, I do see a kind of family resemblance.”
“This one’s talkative,” Sergeant Wojtek said. “If you want, I can kill him for you.”
Ignoring the interruption, the underlord said, “You are the Englishman Aubrey Darger, who hired Anya Alexandreyovna Pepsicolova not to look for Tsar Lenin as was suspected but for other purposes. Chortenko believes you are a mere confidence man. That is irrelevant. Our personal connection is only slight.”
“Well, I should think so!” Darger laughed. “We haven’t even been properly introduced.”
“Nevertheless, it is intolerable.” The underlord turned to Sergeant Wojtek and said: “Bring this one along when we march on the Kremlin. Keep him safely bound. Make sure he does not escape.”
“Sir!”
To Darger, it/they said, “Many will die quickly and relatively painlessly tonight. But not you. When I have the leisure to do so, it will be my tremendous pleasure to watch you die slowly and in excruciating agony. When your mind clears, I want you to reflect long and hard upon this promise.”
Darger howled with laughter.
As the underlord climbed back into its/their boat, they/it overheard Sergeant Wojtek say, “Oh, I can see that keeping you alive is going to be enormous fun.”
Flick.
The underlord walked down long and twisty passages lit only by the lichens that were ubiquitous in the City Below. Dead cockroaches crunched underfoot. Occasionally, so did a live one, to its/their slight but very real satisfaction.
A rat squeezed