[Alive. As in meat-alive?]

“As in ensouled. Their primary goal is to establish whether you’re a secondary creation—just a smart machine that can emulate life—or a primary creation. One that has been animated by the very breath of God.”

[That is a very metaphysical distinction, Sasha, which has no practical purpose.]

“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? In my new republic, you’ll be accorded all the rights and responsibilities any citizen would have. For other, unenlightened nations, a ruling from a bunch of cardinals that happen to speak on behalf of around a third of the planet will come in very handy. Especially when it comes to overturning a couple of UN resolutions. If you’re alive, they can’t kill you.”

[I understand. What if I fail?]

“I’m getting perilously short of Plan Bs. All I can say is don’t screw up.” Petrovitch called up Madeleine. “Hey.”

“I’m here. Sam…”

“Yeah, if their Eminences aren’t going for this, then I’m going to come down there myself and kick some serious arse.”

“That’s not… it’ll keep. The Congregation are all here. They’ve agreed to your proposal. They want to reserve the right to make an interim ruling; definitive but not necessarily permanent.”

“Not happy, but I’ll take it. What I really want is my tanks parked on the moral high ground. We can shell the opposition once they’re up there. Have they got a computer? One I haven’t wrecked?”

“They all have palmtops, Sam. You’re not talking about a bunch of dinosaurs here.”

“We’re going to have to disagree on something. It may as well be that. Tell them to hold.” He switched his attention. “Michael: showtime. Geolocate the signals at the Jesuit mission on Mount Street. Give them your undivided attention and remember, this is your interview for entrance into the human race. Good luck.”

[No pressure, then.]

“Hah.”

He felt the AI’s presence dwindle to a pinpoint. He knew that, in the future, the record of Michael’s conversation with the cardinals would become an historical document of infinite worth. For good or ill. And it was entirely out of his hands.

“Doctor Petrovitch?”

It just wasn’t getting any better. “Hello, Miss Surur.”

“Are you ready?” she asked, anxious in case he found something else that might take precedence.

He looked at the passport in his hand, and covered it with his palm before slipping it back into his courier bag. “No, no I’m not. But I suppose we ought to get on with it.”

Petrovitch raised his head. The reporter looked impossibly bright. Now that; that was a skill he didn’t have. Whatever he was feeling, he showed.

“How do you want to do this?”

“Unedited. I want you to broadcast everything. No commercial breaks, no studio commentary. Station ident and a scrolling translation if you need it, but you’re not voicing me over. We both reserve the right to end the transmission when we feel like it. I’ll answer any question you want. I can’t promise I won’t lie to you. I can monitor your output myself, and I’m aware you sometimes make different versions of the same program, depending on your intended audience. I want this to be the same wherever you broadcast—at least the first time. Think you can manage that?” He spun in his chair, then back the other way so as not to tangle his cables.

“I’ll have to talk to my manager. If I can have my satellite feed back, that is.” She looked down at the trailing cable snaking all the way back to the car park. “I’m assuming that’s what I think it is.”

“Why don’t you save the questions for the interview? I’ll be more spontaneous.” Petrovitch cleared the mobile studio’s computers of the memory of the last quarter hour, and rebooted them all.

“Can you at least try and not swear?” Surur reattached her earpiece from where it dangled around her neck. “Your use of colorful language will more than likely get us taken off the air by local regulators, and there’ll be nothing either of us can do about that.”

Petrovitch flashed her a lupine grin. “You’d be surprised at what I can do these days. But okay, I wouldn’t want anyone’s burka spontaneously catching fire because of something I’ve said.”

She reached behind her for the radio transmitter tucked in her waistband. She played with the controls and, on finding the channel she wanted, put her hand over her mouth mic.

“Doctor Petrovitch? The Freezone is not a high-profile posting, and I’m just a village girl from outside Karachi. There are better interviewers than me, a lot more experienced who would kill for the chance to talk to you for five minutes. This is the biggest thing I’ve ever done. Please…” She pressed both her hands together in supplication.

Before she turned away to talk to whoever made decisions in her organization, he nodded his acquiescence. The cameraman raised his video rig in preparation, framing his shot of Petrovitch slumped in the doorway of the van, bleeding electricity from the fuel cells, wires coiling around him.

He looked up. Lucy was between Tabletop and Valentina, standing together in a huddle a little way off. He had to quickly stare back down at the ground again. They reminded him of how much responsibility he now had, not just to them, but to everyone.

He felt sick with dread.

25

Okay.”

They were live. Sound and vision were digitized, compressed, and beamed up to geostationary orbit, thirty-six thousand kilometers away: trivial, really. All the cool kids could do it.

Surur had peeled off the veneer of utter professionalism only briefly. That she could paste it down again so that the joins didn’t show warned Petrovitch that he was going to find the whole episode a genuinely horrible experience.

“This is Yasmina Surur reporting live from the Freezone with an exclusive Al Jazeera interview with Doctor Samuil Petrovitch.”

He watched it play in his head. He was taking two feeds: one from Europe, one from Indonesia. There was a slight time delay between them, a lag that was inherent in the system, but the time codes were the same. No one was interfering with the broadcast so far.

The frame was centered on her, then it started to slide until it was all him. He started to shrink away, then remembered he’d agreed to do this—that Valentina had told him that he had to do it, to present himself as continuity, as the safe pair of hands to steer the Freezone home.

Pizdets.

“Doctor Petrovitch, who’s in control of the Freezone?”

She was, to be fair, getting straight to the point. He didn’t know whether to look at her, or the black hole of the camera lens. He found after a few moments of trying that he couldn’t focus on the camera, that his eyes flickered as they tried to see through the glass to the substrate below. He blinked slowly and turned his head to face Surur.

“I am.” He felt he should apologize, so he did. “Sorry.”

“For the past year, you’ve always been determined to stay outside the Freezone executive. And now with less than two weeks of the mandate left to go, you seize power. Why is that?”

“Yeah, about that. It’s less deliberate than you think. Monday morning was a different world to Wednesday afternoon.” He used his exoskeletal arm to demonstrate the point, scratching the bridge of his nose with one of the pylons protruding from his wrist. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want it. I still don’t. But the Freezone is important, Miss Surur. Too important to sit back and watch it fail.”

“Why was it in danger of failing, Doctor Petrovitch?”

“This,” he said, and stopped. “This is complicated. I’m sure some of the people watching will know what it’s like when those who have power—political, bureaucratic, financial, military, cultural, whatever—use it to get what they want, over the lives and sometimes the bodies of those who stand in their way. I was…” He stopped again, overly conscious of the millions who were logging in. He could feel the surge in traffic, and wondered if the television station’s servers would cope with the strain.