Looking more carefully at the high-ups present, Fassin realised that, basically, the gang was all here. Apart from Ormilla himself, the Hierchon’s two most senior deputies, the Peregals Tlipeyn and Emoerte were in attendance, as was the most senior member of the Propylaea to survive the portal’s destruction, sub-master Sorofieve, the top Navarchy officer, Fleet Admiral Brimiaice, Guard-General Thovin, First Secretary Heuypzlagger of the Administrata, Colonel Somjomion of the Shrievalty — his own ultimate superior officer for the duration of the current emergency, Fassin supposed — and Clerk-Regnant Voriel of the Cessoria. The absolute elite of the system.
Fassin looked at the pot-bellied stove device squatting on the golden floor, and at the heavily armed troopers, and thought what a perfect opportunity was presenting itself for a complete decapitation of the system’s top brass.
“This is an extraordinary session of the Mercatorial Court of Ulubis, before the Hierchon Ormilla,” an official announced over the chamber’s PA, voice thundering. “The Hierchon Ormilla!” the official shouted, as though concerned that people hadn’t heard him the first time.
The official was speaking the human version of Standard, the galaxy’s lingua franca. Standard had been chosen as an inter-species, pan-galactic language over eight billion years ago. Dwellers had been the main vector in its spread, though they made a point of emphasising that it was not theirs originally. They had one very ancient, informal vernacular and another even more ancient formal language of their own, plus lots that had survived somehow from earlier times or been made up in the meantime. These latter came and went in popularity as such things tended to.
“Oh no, there was a competition,” the Dweller guide\mentor Y’sul had explained to Fassin on his first delve, hundreds of years ago. “Usual thing; lots of competing so-called universal standards. There was a proper full-scale war after one linguistic disagreement — a grumous and a p’Liner species, if memory serves — and after that came the usual response: inquiries, missions, meetings, reports, conferences, summits.
“What we now know as Standard was chosen after centuries of research, study and argument by a vast and unwieldy committee composed of representatives of thousands of species, at least two of which became effectively extinct during the course of the deliberations. It was chosen, astonishingly, on its merits, because it was an almost perfect language: flexible, descriptive, uncoloured (whatever that means, but apparently it’s important), precise but malleable, highly, elegantly complete yet primed for external-term-adoption and with an unusually free but logical link between the written form and the pronounced which could easily and plausibly embrace almost any set of phonemes, scints, glyphs or pictals and still make translatable sense.
“Best of all, it didn’t belong to anybody, the species which had invented it having safely extincted themselves millions of years earlier without leaving either any proven inheritors or significant mark on the greater galaxy, save this sole linguistic gem. Even more amazingly, the subsequent conference to endorse the decision of the mega-committee went smoothly and agreed all the relevant recommendations. Take-up and acceptance were swift and widespread. Standard became the first and so far only true universal language within just a few Quick-mean generations. Set a standard for pan-species cooperation that everybody’s been trying to live up to ever since.
“Which is not to say that everybody everywhere loves it without qualification. Amongst my own species in particular, resistance to its use continues to this day, and individual obsessives and small and indeed quite large groups and networks of enthusiasts are forever coming up with new and, they claim, even better universal languages. Some Dwellers persist in regarding Standard as an outrageous alien imposition and a symbol of our craven surrender to galactic fashion.
“Such persons tend to speak ancient formal. Or at least they do where they haven’t invented their own unique and generally utterly incomprehensible language.”
Uncle Slovius himself, on what, fittingly, had turned out to be his final delve, had accompanied Fassin on this, the young man’s first. “How perfectly typical,” he’d observed later. “Only Dwellers could have a completely fair competition eight billion years ago and still be arguing over the result.”
Fassin smiled at the thought and looked round the giant auditorium as the official’s words echoed and faded amongst the precious metals and sumptuous clothing. He thought it was all very impressive, in a slightly camp, almost vulgar way. He wondered how much tedious ceremony and baroque speechifying they would now have to sit through before anything of note happened or was said. He did a quick count of the bodies in the chamber. There were well over twice the thirty that the emissarial projection had told him to expect.
A tap-screen appeared on a stalk out of the platform surface and positioned itself in front of him, flicking into life with search and note facilities enabled, but no audio or visual record. Fassin tapped a symbol to confirm that he was there. Round the circular chamber, the others were also being presented with screens or their species-relevant alternative.
“You are here to witness the transmission of a signal from the Engineership Est-taun Zhiffir,” Ormilla’s deep, synthesised voice said calmly. “We are informed that it is, of necessity, in the form of an Artificial Intelligence construct which will be destroyed after the audience has finished.” Ormilla paused, to let this sink in. Fassin thought he just hadn’t heard right. “How you use the information you are about to learn is a matter of duty and conscience,” Ormilla told them. “How you came by it is not; any revelation regarding the signal’s form is punishable by death. Begin.”
An AI? A conscious machine? An abomination? Were they serious? Fassin couldn’t believe it. The entire history of the Mercatoria was the record of its implacable persecution and destruction of AIs and the continual, laborious, zealously pursued effort to prevent them ever again coming into existence within the civilised galaxy. That was what the Lustrals were all about; they were the AI hunters, the remorseless, fanatic persecutors of machine intelligence and any and all research into it, and yet here they were, calmly watching the cooking-pot device and the technicians surrounding it.
A semi-transparent image flickered in the air above the dark machine in the centre of the chamber. The hologram was of a human male dressed in the uniform of an Admiral of the Summed Fleet. Fassin hadn’t even known that one of his species had risen to such impressive heights. The human admiral was an old, well-built man with a heavily lined face. Bald, of course, but sporting a heavily tattooed scalp. He wore, or his image appeared to wear, a high-rank space-combat suit, its helmet components in stowed configuration round the neck and shoulders. Various insignia on the surface of the suit confirmed with no discernible subtlety that the Admiral was an extremely important military person.
“Thank you, Hierchon Ormilla,” the image said, then seemed to look straight at Fassin, who felt startled for a moment before realising that the image probably appeared to be looking directly at everybody in the chamber. He certainly hoped so. “I represent Admiral Quile of the Summed Fleet, commanding the Third Medium Squadron of the battle fleet accompanying the Engineership Est-taun Zhiffir on its journey towards Ulubis system, Fleet Admiral Kisipt commanding,” the projection said in a calm, no-nonsense voice.
Battle fleet? thought Fassin. You didn’t send a battle fleet to accompany an Eship, portal-carrying or not, did you? They usually travelled with a few Guard ships or one or two units of the Navarchy Military plus a single small Summed Fleet craft sometimes for ceremonial purposes. He was no military expert, but even he knew this sort of stuff, just from catching newscasts of at-the-time-recent connections and reconnections. He watched the military on the semicircular podia closely. Yep, looked like they were startled by this news, too.