Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [32]
Chortenko did not take a carriage after the reception. He found that walking focused his thoughts. His dwarf savants strode along to either side of him in unthinking lockstep. Pedestrians, seeing him coming, hastily stepped into the street to be out of his path.
At last he said to the marginally taller of the two,“Is it not odd, Max, that the Byzantine Empire should send an American as its ambassador…and an American who is, not to put too fine a point on it, a dog?”
“Byzantium was founded by Megarians and Argives under Byzas in 657 B.C.E. The Caliph is the fourteenth in the clone-line of Abdullah the Politically Infallible. The straight-line distance between Moscow and Byzantium is 1,098.901 miles, which converts to 1,644.192 versts. The ambassador’s accent is that of the Demesne of Western Vermont, one of the smaller republics in Sub-Canadian North America. America was discovered by Damascene sailors during the rein of Abdul-Rahman III. Sailors are sexually promiscuous. Genetic anomalies are ambiguously discouraged by the political elite of Byzantium, though the civil code contains no provisions against it. No individual with a genome less than 97% human has ever achieved full citizenship in the Caliphate.”
“Hum. Interesting. What on earth could the ambassador be hiding?”
With absolute and unquestioning seriousness, the second savant said, “Anything.”
“Yes, Igorek, and yet it seemed to me that he also wanted us to know that he was doing so. The Honorable Sir Blackthorpe Ravenscairn de Plus Precieux is playing rather a deep game with us.” He clasped his hands behind his back and scowled down at the ground passing under his feet. His savants were serenely silent. Eventually he said, “We know what men fear. But what about dogs?”
The savants opened their mouths but were gestured to silence.
“Tell me, Max. What breed do you believe our good friend the ambassador is derived from?”
“Two characteristics distinguish the dog from other canids: its worldwide distribution in close association with humans, and the enormous amount of subspecies variability. Dogs do not have wisdom teeth. Wisdom is a cultural artifact. Breed is a cultural artifact. The ambassador is either a mongrel or a genetic chimera. Baboons have been observed to steal puppies from wild dogs and raise them to guard the pack. The chimera is a fabulous beast, described by Homer as ‘a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle.’ The ambassador’s source genome appears to be derived chiefly from the American foxhound.”
“Is it indeed?”
It was not a long walk to Chortenko’s house. When he got there he rang for the aide on duty. “Have Igor and Maxim fed and cleaned, then set them to reading today’s reports. I also require that you have the kennels in the basement expanded, and buy dogs for them—eight should suffice. American foxhounds, if possible, though anything reasonably close will do. Let us discover what gives them pain, and what they fear. Just in case we find we have to put the ambassador to the question.”
...5...
Moscow was a city of hidden passages and surprising depths. There were pedestrian walkways under all the larger streets, lined with small shops and lit by bioluminescent lichens growing on the undersides of their roofs. Basements opened into underground arcades where illegal businesses were run out of undocumented storage vaults carved from the bedrock when the city was young. Military installations from bygone eras and bunkers built to protect ancient tyrants from their enemies both abroad and at home were embedded deep within a three-dimensional tangle of transit and utility tunnels, some still functional and others containing the ruins of the electrical infrastructure that had been hastily ripped asunder after the revolt of mankind’s electronic slaves. Long corridors connected buildings that no longer existed.
“Vodka, miss?”
“Why the hell else would I be in this shit-hole?”