Lora stands outside Jack Jacques’ door, waiting with the first two of his contingent of bodyguards. They are arguing, the mayor and his wife, an occurrence that is becoming more and more common with each passing week. Lora has a short internal conflict about how to react when the mayor comes out, but he takes this away from her. He emerges too fast, and is already wheeling down the hallway by the time she can move. She falls in behind him, as do the bodyguards, power-walking because the mayor seems to have set the chair speed faster than expected. Lora wishes he had stuck with the prosthesis, but it’s his choice. He was the one who got his leg shot off.
“Mr Mayor…”
“Welcome back, Lora. How was your vacation?”
“Diverting, sir.”
“Excellent, excellent. Is that a new dress?”
Lora has on a summer dress instead of her usual suit. “It’s a hot day. I’m trying something out.”
She hands him his bracelet, which synchronises with his phone implant after recognising his ID chip. He never takes work home, but the engine of state does not stop running for his family life. The bracelet has eight hours of new information too sensitive to entrust to the air.
“What have I got?” asks the mayor.
“Your head of security is waiting outside your office.”
“Aminat? Does she have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t anybody stop her?”
“She’s the head of security.”
Jacques sighs. “What else?”
“You have to inspect the Homian Resettlement Institute and—”
“Jack!”
Aminat has lost patience and strides towards them. The bodyguards bunch protectively, but the mayor waves his hands. “It’s Aminat. Come on. What’s the matter with you? She’s not here to kill me.”
“Don’t be too sure,” says Aminat.
“You need to call me Mr Mayor in public, Aminat.”
“You gave Femi Alaagomeji back to the Nigerians.”
“I prefer to think of it as gaining Dahun.”
“Why the fuck do we need Dahun?”
“We don’t. I just like him.” The mayor smiles. Lora has seen him do this before, where he is not amused but uses the smile against an opponent. He wheels past Aminat, to the statues of Orisha that precede his office. All bar one are made of rock. The final one before his door is gleaming metal, a robotic sentry that acts as the final defence for the mayor. It had to activate during the War of Insurrection, but the artist who provided the camouflage is in Nigeria now, so it hasn’t been covered in clay.
“What do you want me to do with him?” asks Aminat, jogging to keep up with the mayor, who deliberately uses the maximum speed on his chair.
“You don’t have to do anything with him, Aminat.” He sheds his bodyguards outside the office, then transfers to his chair behind the desk. “Maybe use him in the police. Crime is up by thirty per cent this quarter.”
“Thirty-two per cent,” says Lora.
“Thirty-two per cent,” says the mayor.
“But that’s your fault,” says Aminat.
“How is that?”
“Don’t play games with me, Jack. Don’t play stupid.”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to trade Femi?”
“Didn’t Kaaro tell you?” Lora says. “From what I hear, he interrogated her the day before.”
“You what?” Aminat looks surprised.
“You need to work on those communication skills, abi?” Jack says.
Aminat seems to square up and Lora feels a self-defence sub-routine pushing against her protocols.
“How can I ease your pain?” says the mayor. Again, this is a thing he does, making fun of a person’s issue then becoming all reasonable and serious.
Aminat points to Lora. “Ask her to leave. I want to talk to you in private.”
“Not a chance. This woman knows more about me than my wife. She stays.”
“Fine. I quit.”
“No, you don’t. Come on, Aminat. You’re being petulant. You were never like that. At least sit down.”
Aminat sucks her teeth and sits in the chair opposite the mayor, desk between them. “You asked me to do a job. I cannot do it if you keep interfering, and if you keep information from me.”
“The crime rate isn’t on you.”
“I know. It’s on you. You have to let me prosecute your war buddies. I know what they did for us, but they get one free pass for that. They have all used their passes. Now you bring Dahun into the mix, their leader.”
“No,” says Lora. “Dahun trained them for us. He had his own men. He has no loyalty to—”
“Please stop talking. He said you could listen, but that doesn’t mean you have to speak.” Aminat swings back to the mayor. “We did not win a war. Instead of freedom from Nigeria, we got taken over by the Homians on one hand and criminal organisations on the other. I need carte blanche.”
“Aminat—”
“Carta blanca!”
“All right, Jesus. Fine.”
“No more executive pardons?”
“And you have to use Dahun.”
“I—”
“Package deal. Take it or leave it.”
Aminat seems to think for a second, then she leaves the room.
“That’s what you wanted all along,” says Lora.
“Yes. She’s not wrong about the crime thing. It is my fault, and I do have to stop interfering.”
“She didn’t know about Kaaro meeting Femi,” says Lora.
“No, which is interesting. And you say there’s no recording of what transpired between them?”
“None.”
“Is it a romantic thing?”
“Intelligence suggests he hates her, sir.”
“Hmm. Love and hate can be sides of the same coin, and like a coin, they can flip.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Give it time.” The mayor checks his correspondence. “What’s this church thing?”
“The primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria says we can’t have a bishop in Rosewater after the breakaway, so she instructed the archbishop of the Ibadan province. The archbishop of the Ibadan province, to which Rosewater belongs, is who instructed the bishop of Rosewater cathedral to return to headquarters. Except our bishop refused to leave. This letter is asking you to set the bishop free.”
“What? But I didn’t—”
“I know. The bishop doesn’t want to leave his flock.”
“He’s free to fuck off if he wants to. He knows that, right?”
“Yes. This is propaganda. I’ll draft a response stating simply that the bishop is free to leave. I’ll leak it to the press as well.”
“See if I can attend his service on Sunday. That’ll make a good photo op.”
“Done.”
He squints at the next thing. “I must be… This has to be a mistake.”
“It’s not.”
“Lora, there’s a think tank asking that Rosewater establish a navy.”
“Yes.”
“We’re landlocked.”
“I know.”
“Is it for our river? Are we to patrol the Yemaja River, first east, then west?”
“There’s a report that comes with the letter, sir.”
“I’m not reading that. It has a hundred and thirty pages. Did you read it?”
“Yes, and you should read it too, but the bottom line is our imports are coming in on vessels that are being harried by Nigerian troops or customs, or Nigerian-sponsored pirate ships, and that’s even before the cargo makes its way in-country to our borders. We’d have a merchant navy and a few gunboats in international waters capable of keeping the vessels safe up to Nigerian ports.”
“We’re landlocked. It’s the appearance of stupidity that bothers me.”
“There’s precedent. We wouldn’t even be the first landlocked African nation to have one. Uganda holds that honour, although you could argue that it is Ethiopia.”
“Fine. Turf it to the cabinet. Let them debate it while I read the report, then we’ll decide what to do.”
“Done.”
He reads a few more letters, discarding some, generally whisking through the pile. “Okay, can we go now?”
“There’s one more thing not on the pile, but I had no time.”
“What?”
“We have a floater problem.”
“How so?”
“When… the new god removed the dome and spread the boundary all over the city, she inadvertently released the surviving floaters, so they’re now in the wild. There have been some attacks on people.”
“So we need a special detachment?”
“That would breach the protocol we established with the Homians. We’ll have to talk to the god about it.”
“That’ll be fun.”
“I think a useful entry point would be that the floaters have eaten all the raptors. Coat it in environmentalist language, and she might listen.”
“Have they eaten all the raptors?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Okay, I’ll ruminate on what to tell Alyssa.”
“They call her Koriko now.”
“Noted. Shall we go?”
Before the war, the centre of Rosewater used to be home to a two-hundred-foot-tall biodome, which grew over the giant alien Wormwood. The city grew around the alien, and the old god favoured a dome to keep his domain separate. The new god had no such ideas and made the entire city her domain. The site of the old dome retains its power in human and Homian imagination. There are markers for those who died, the hundreds of people chosen to live with the god in the dome. There is a new airport, and a shopping complex. It turns out many corporations like winners of rebellions and competed to redevelop the bombed-out city.
One of the new structures is not of human origin. The Honeycomb is a complex of hexagonal column cells between sheets of a material the Homians developed. It is the centre of alien existence and the unofficial embassy, which is why it is perpetually picketed.
The mayor’s outriders make a path and the main vehicle sails through. In the sealed environment the voices of the protesters cannot be heard, but the placards speak with great eloquence. If you discount the fringe groups, there are two main factions: humans who protest the alien occupation, and humans who want to be aliens. It’s a strange thing that the Honeycomb does not accept volunteer humans as Homian hosts.
The car comes to rest outside a reception area where two figures wait. The doors open, disgorging Lora, the two bodyguards and the mayor. The wheelchair transfer is automated. To Lora’s mind, the mayor seems to revel in this wheelchair whenever he is with the Homians.
By all standards there should be no difference, physically, between humans and Homians. The bodies are human; the only difference is the mind, the driving software, from Lora’s perspective. Yet the two sent to greet the mayor exemplify their otherness. There is a constant, fine tremor to the hands, not marked enough to affect their motor skills or dexterity, but Lora has seen it in all of them. If you talk to a Homian for longer than five minutes, the eyes seem to lose synchrony and drift apart, only to rapidly correct themselves as if they are aware of it. Every last one of them has a mild green tinge to the whites of the eyes, like jaundice. Lora finds it interesting that these changes are not seen in reanimates. Either way, it would not be difficult for any of them to pass as human.
“Mr Mayor,” says the second oldest Homian in Rosewater: Lua, the scientist charged with keeping all the billions of Homian minds safe on a moon too many light years away.
“Lua.”
They shake hands and go into the closest of the honeycomb cells, which is a cavernous hall with sparse furnishings. The floor is soundless, and even the mayor’s wheels are silent. The ceiling is high and there are hangings on the wall, geometric patterns that Lora does not know whether to consider art or a kind of coat of arms. She inhales, but the space is odourless.
They go through a pair of doors and the temperature drops noticeably.
“The first thing that happens, Mr Mayor, is we receive the deceased, whether they are quiescent or in the reanimated state. To the left, you’ll see our refrigerators, what you call a morgue. To the right, the antechamber of the reanimates.”
“We used to keep them in prison,” says the mayor. “How long since you finished this place?”
Lua squints. “It’s not finished. The structure is modular. We will continue to expand according to need, and, of course, dependent on your generous donation of land.”
Flattery. That’s new.
The first transfer of mind patterns from the Homian moon took place in Rosewater prison just after the war, as an act of faith between the mayor and the new god. Lua was part of that batch. Humans took care of the orientation at that time, but the whole operation is Homian-run now.
The contiguous space is vaulted, walls curving to the ceiling, and while there is no stained glass, there is a religious aura. Lua has lowered her voice.
“The intermediary is here. She takes the bodies or reanimates one at a time into the temple.”
“You call it that?” asks Lora.
“It’s not a religious thing, but some of what happens is akin to worship, I admit. Why?”
“Just curious. You are aware that she is considered a god?”
“And why not? Does she not have power over life and death here?” Lua’s voice holds a hint of sarcasm.
“So the brains are just… downloaded?” The mayor is trying to avoid any incidents. He wants the aliens compliant, in the space that he makes for them, so that they won’t create a flashpoint for the humans.
“In a manner of speaking. Each Homian mind is encoded on a server. The constructs that maintain the integrity of data get a signal, then prepare to entangle the mind with a few billion xenocytes. Once that is ready, the transfer occurs in what you call the xenosphere. The uppermost xenocytes of the sphere are in inner space and the intermediary escorts the reborn individual within that psychic space into the body. Then the body wakes. Through here.”
They do not get to see much of the temple, or the work the god does, or even the god herself. Instead they are ushered to a recovery area, which is full of beds and a recording of surf. The sound of waves crashing and breaking, with the occasional seagull, is meant to be soothing. Lora doesn’t get it, but she learns.
Lua stops and turns. “The rest of the complex is for orientation and education. Physiotherapy, getting them used to their new bodies, language acquisition, social studies, setting them up with a place to stay, that sort of thing.”
“And where are the failures?” asks the mayor.
“I don’t understand.”
The mayor has tented his hands, elbows on the armrests of his chair. “These are largely biological processes. I’m guessing this process works… ninety-seven per cent of the time? In a bell-curve distribution, if ranked? That means some failures, the ones outside two standard deviations, the transfers that did not go well. Where do you keep them?”
Lua says, “I’ll need to consult.”
“And that’s how I know you’re lying.”
“No, I need to be sure that I know everything that is going on. Not everything is a conspiracy.”
“Oh, everything is, Chief Scientist Lua. There are those who know, those who guess, and those who are oblivious. Go consult. We’ll wait.”
Sotto voce, Lora says, “This is the real reason we’re here.”
The mayor nods.
“You knew?”
“I suspected. It’s not the fact of it that bothers me. It’s the fact that they tried to hide it. I don’t like allies who don’t come clean.”
“Are they?”
“Are they what?”
“Allies?”
Lua returns. “Mr Mayor, there is such a place for failed transfers, but I’m informed it is too dangerous for humans to enter.”
“Why? Is it toxic?”
“No, but there’s a risk of compromised mental integrity.”
“My mental integrity has always been suspect, but I take your point. My executive assistant, Lora Asiko, will go. She’s a lot more stable than I.”
Lora bends at the waist to speak in the mayor’s ear. “Sir, I’m not leaving your side.”
“They won’t harm me in here, Lora. Don’t worry. Just inspect the facility.”
“Don’t speak to anyone,” says Lora.
“I’m not a child,” he says, but Lora detects the tone in his voice that suggests a joke.
Lua does not speak, but leads Lora down a side corridor into a room that requires some kind of verification. She is so fast that Lora is sure she was being deceptive before when she feigned ignorance.
There are sixteen people on cots, some strapped down, all attempting to scream at demons unseen. There are staff members trying to comfort the wretches, to no avail. Lora takes a step into the room, but an arm whips around her head and sprays a mist into her nostrils.
“I’m sorry,” says Lua’s voice. “I can’t allow you to remember this.”
A self-defence protocol activates, and Lora seizes the arm and throws Lua over her left hip. The chief scientist does not resist, so Lora simply steps on the alien’s chest. She looks around to see if anyone else is coming to assault her, but the only noise is from the suffering rejects.
“You think whatever pharmaceutical you sprayed into my nose will kick in soon, and that’s why you’re relaxed lying on the floor,” says Lora. “I know it will not kick in at any time, and that’s why I’m relaxed standing on you.”
“I don’t understand. You should be hallucinating,” says Lua, now fidgeting, but the frame of her body is slight, not built for physical conflict, and Lora controls her easily.
“How do we resolve this? Your intention was to deceive me and maybe harm me. Do I kill you now? Do I have you tortured to find out why? You can see how this makes you inherently untrustworthy.”
“I underestimated you, Miss Asiko,” says Lua.
“No, you didn’t estimate me at all,” says Lora. She stamps on Lua’s head twice, hard, until she is sure the alien is unconscious, then takes her time assessing the room.
Later, after she has briefed the mayor, he decides the patients are Homian business, but resolves to have armed cover the next time he comes into the Honeycomb.