Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [60]
“Put your clothes on,” she said.“Our story is that we stayed up all night negotiating. You, of course, gave in on every point. Don’t bother saying a word. I’ll take care of it all. Just keep silent and look hangdog. That shouldn’t be hard for you.”
Surplus obeyed without demur. This was, in Zoësophia’s abundant experience, how men inevitably reacted to being thoroughly bested in the sexual arena—with a quietly sulky submissiveness born of humiliation and the hope that it might happen again soon. It was such a primitive, animal response as to make her wonder if the old legend wasn’t true, that men—even dog-men—were descended from apes, while women were descended from the Moon.
Still, there was an amused glint in the corner of the ambassador’s eye that Zoësophia could not account for.
“Before we go down, let me see to your clothing.” With a few deft tugs, Zoësophia made Surplus look subtly bedraggled. “That’s better.”
“Shall I unlatch the trap door now?”
“What an extraordinary question.” Zoësophia widened her eyes in astonished hauteur. “I’m certainly not about to do it for myself.”
When Surplus and Zoësophia came down the spiral stairs—Zoësophia like a goddess floating downward to Earth and Surplus like a man cast out of Heaven—they found the Pearls waiting for them all in a row. Six hard stares of accusation and angry speculation formed a wall of resentful pique. Behind them, the Neanderthals shuffled in embarrassment.
“Well?” Russalka demanded. The word might have been carved from ice.
“Ambassador de Plus Precieux was a firm and energetic negotiator,” Zoësophia said solemnly, “and he held out far longer than I had expected him to. But in the end, I wore him down. His determination wilted while I was still prepared to go on for as long as it took. The results, I am pleased to report, were everything that might be desired.”
Russalka crossed her arms in a manner which would have thoroughly befuddled a male. “Yes, but what are they?”
“In brief, the ambassador and I are going to the Terem Palace together this very next Tuesday morning. We will meet in private with the Duke of Muscovy, at which time I will present him with whatever proofs it takes…” She paused for emphasis. “Whatever proofs it takes to convince him that he would be completely mad not to bring us all to his bedchamber before moonrise that night.”
The squeals of delight that arose from the Pearls were so shrill and prolonged that even the Neanderthals winced.
There were five underlords in all.
Though the bodies they inhabited were human, it was not difficult to detect the machines within, for they so despised the flesh they wore that they would not condescend to wear it well. Their metal parts were not proportioned properly for the bodies they had gutted for disguise, but they refused to alter those mechanisms, simple though that would be for them to do. Gleaming steel stuck through here a shoulder and there a cheek, and an alert eye could occasionally glimpse tiny sparks of electricity through an open mouth or an empty eye-socket. They hunched when they stood, glided with an unnatural smoothness when they walked, and folded their arms tidily up and together before them, like unused tools, when they were still.
Anya Pepsicolova knew immediately that something had gone seriously wrong when she showed up at the underlords’ conference room to discover all five of her inhuman masters gathered together to confront her. One was enough to conduct any business they might have. They showed up in force only when human suffering was in the offing.
There had only been one when she’d looked down from the Whisper Gallery not half an hour ago. She’d been kept waiting after she made her roundabout route to the underlords’ stronghold. Obviously, they had assembled for her.
She lit a new cigarette from the stub of the old one and flicked away the butt