Now it was Simon who said: ‘Excuse me?’

A giggle rose inside her.

‘You might want to check my biofact logs.’

‘I did. You made nose filters.’

‘Of course.’

‘But you forgot to mention that.’

‘Oh, McStuart was so kind to me in debriefing that the joy overwhelmed me.’

‘Rekka, Rekka.’ Simon’s hug tightened. ‘Bad girl.’

Sharp’s attention was not on the aikido people down on the mats, but on the VIP seating, where the Japanese-Brazilian cousins, the UN senators, were taking their places. Rekka stared, about to ask what was wrong, then realized she was too used to being alone with him. Any reply he made would come straight out of his chest speaker, loud and clear to everyone.

I never thought about private conversation.

Later she would have to ask Poliakov’s advice.

‘You’re not annoyed too much, are you?’ she said to him.

‘Our friend’s ability to fine-tune his synthesized emissions is incredible. He exactly matched the energy resonance of an alien species, meaning us. And in so little time.’

‘He emits human pheromones?’ asked Simon. ‘How is that possible?’

‘Sharp fine-tunes his output molecules, but they’re not human pheromones. Unless you think that humans smell molecules according to their shape, you’ll realize it’s very possible.’

‘Er—’

‘Simon’s expertise lies outside bio sciences,’ said Rekka.

‘Scent receptors respond to patterned electrical resonance - to put it simply, the receptor resonates with the molecule - which is related to molecular shape but is not the same thing. In particular, two different configurations can smell identical, so long as the energy levels are correct.’

‘Oh,’ said Simon.

Rekka snuggled back against him. Down below, a thin Japanese man, also in white jacket and long black skirt - actually it was a split skirt, she realized - walked to the centre of the mats, knelt down and sat back on his heels. The others, Gwillem included, followed suit. The Japanese man clapped his hands several times, in a careful way that denoted ritual, and everybody bowed, forehead to mat.

Someone announced the man as Akazawa-sensei, and then the demonstration began, with fifteen pairs of aggressors and defenders. Attackers threw graceful punches or knife-thrusts, then cartwheeled to the ground as defenders became an axis of rotation, using angular momentum to put their attacker down.

Rekka remembered Sharp’s people, huge bannermen rushing toward her campsite, and thought that perhaps real violence was something messier and more brutal than the nice display below.

On the other hand, Akazawa-sensei had enormous presence, and a centred composure that perhaps he could maintain under any pressure. Sharp looked at him, then at Rekka, then gave a nod: a learned human gesture.

He smells the charisma.

Part of what the Chinese called chi, the part relating to aura or charisma, must be simply pheromonal emissions. Rekka had never thought of it before. The rest was balanced muscular tensegrity - her years of yoga taught her that. Aiki discipline for Pilots was to enhance their spatial awareness, to open up their proprioreceptive senses.

Gwillem attacked Akazawa-sensei with a wooden knife, but there was a blur of motion, and Gwillem lay on the mat, while Akazawa-sensei raised the knife in the air. Rekka had not seen the weapon changing hands.

The demo concluded with what looked like a free-for-all, Akazawa-sensei the calm, moving centre of the storm while attackers flew in all directions. Afterwards, Rekka clapped as hard as anyone, calling out approval, though she could not match the volume of Simon’s cheers.

Afterwards, as they walked outdoors - Poliakov sure that Sharp would be fine in the bright Arizona sunshine, monitoring his blood chemistry nonetheless - they saw the Higashionna cousins, the UN senators, climbing into a TAV on the tarmac.

Sharp slowed, and so did Rekka, while Poliakov and Simon walked on.

‘Only you can hear me?’ The voice from Sharp’s speaker was slightly muted, corresponding to subtle scent emission, but louder than a whisper. ‘Is that right?’

‘Only me, for the moment.’

It was hard for Sharp to calculate hearing distance.

‘Why do you not fear them, those two?’

‘Simon and Poliakov?’

‘No. In the device.’

It took her a moment to understand the mistranslation. She pointed towards the TAV, which was starting to move off with the Higashionnas on board.

‘Yes, Rekka. Do you not taste their evil?’

‘Evil?’

‘Can you not smell dark nothing?’

‘I don’t think so. No.’

Sharp turned and stopped. Rekka realized what he was looking at. Around the corner of one building, there was a hint of sandstone that moved, perhaps sulphurous yellow beyond.

The Zajinets.

Then they were not there.

What—?

It wasn’t fast movement; it was something else. But then the aiki demo had seemed like magic.

‘I can’t believe it.’

The Zajinets had been standing there; now they were not.

TWENTY-FIVE

LABYRINTH, 2603 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

In the language called Aeternum, the word for office still existed, but it was marked as deprecated, meaning that at some point, in some future upgrade, the word would be dropped from the core vocabulary. Language affected thought, and change was necessary - in this trivial case, because people had long been able to work anywhere - but the Logos Academy was careful with semantic evolution. Pilots occasionally followed extreme-geodesic emergency flightpaths, including hellflights, and might return centuries later than departure, relative to Labyrinthine mean-geodesic time. Catching up with the language, through prepared upgrade paths, was a key part of arrival procedures.

Still, Max considered this golden room to be his office.

‘I need to be sure,’ he said out loud. ‘I need to know what’s there.’

=You know what Carl Blackstone saw.=

‘Twenty-five years ago.’

=An insignificant duration, on these timescales.=

‘I still need corroboration.’

=And will you tell the Council?=

‘Why do you mention them?’

But now the golden walls were silent. Max ran a hand over his shaven scalp, then folded his massive forearms, revealed by his pushed-up sleeves. When people called Labyrinth a mysterious city, they had no idea how true that was.

He rubbed his face, then gestured a small holospace into being, and said: ‘Will you fetch Avril Tarquelle now, please?’

‘Sir,’ said the Pilot in the image.

The holo winked out.

He strode to the doorway, where the wall melted open, then stood with arms folded, beneath the archway, observing the outer chamber. At first it was empty. Then slabs of nothingness rotated through the air, and a young red-headed female Pilot stepped out of the disturbance.

‘How’s it going, boss?’

‘Very good, Avril. How’s your ship?’

‘Beautiful, as always.’

‘Good. Come in.’

The inner office - what word would he use when the language eventually changed? - was shielded against direct geometric shortcuts. If an enemy appeared in the outer chamber, Max could wall himself off. Not that such a thing had ever happened. This was Ascension Annexe, and well protected, inside a city-world that itself was safe.

Call it professional paranoia. In the field, such habits saved lives.

‘Relax.’ Seats morphed into place. ‘You’ve been feeling all right?’

Avril did not sit.

‘If you’re talking about Powell, sir, then I’m well over that bastard. Begging the commodore’s pardon.’

Max laughed.

‘Granted. So sit down, will you?’

‘Sir.’

He gestured a holovolume into being. Avril examined the data, checking the trajectory figures, then sucked in a breath.