He looks at eleven enormous miners and a security detail and a small human female, and sighs.
“Well,” he says. “This is disappointing.”
“On your knees,” the head of security shouts.
“No, I don’t think so.” He tucks the tablet into his coat, unhurried. “I’m ninety-four rotations old and I have a condition in both hips, and if this is going to become physical I’d rather it happened to somebody else. Am I under arrest? By whom? I’d like that established before anyone touches me.”
“You’re being detained by Timbur Minecorp security,” says the detail commander, “for unauthorized access to critical Illibrium infrastructure — “
“Mm. And that’s a genuine charge on this rock, is it. Not something you’ve assembled this morning.” He looks around at us with mild interest, like a male examining the fittings in a rented room. “Which of you is the engineer?” His eyes come to me. “You built that fault.”
I don’t say anything.
“Oh, don’t be tedious, there’s no one here to impress. You built it, and you built itbeautifully.” He actually sounds pleased. “I looked at that load path for six minutes and it never occurred to me to doubt it. That’s not flattery, I’ve read three hundred grid reports in my life and I have never been fooled by one. You should be extremely proud.”
“You killed an old man,” I growl.
“I don’t know who you mean.”
“Ordek of Six.”
“And you killed our parents,” Chief snarls.
The male shrugs. “There have been a number of small necessities over the rotations and I’m afraid I haven’t retainedthe names. You’ll find that’s how it works, at a certain scale. You don’t remember the ones who didn’t matter.”
“Why are you here?” Chief questions.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re obviously a House elder and you came down four hundred levels into the Illibrium minepersonally.” Chief’s voice doesn’t move. “Why?”
And the old male looks genuinely, sincerely irritated for the first time. “Because I have been trying to have this done properly for eleven rotations and every single being I have paid to do it has been an idiot. Do you have the faintest conception of what I’ve been working with?” He gestures at nothing, at all of us. “A union official who could be bought for less than the cost of a good coat and who then had the extraordinary stupidity to get himselfarrested.Three operatives sent to remove one youngest brother who managed instead to shoot him in a corridor and get themselves seen. A human contractor with a gambling problem.”
He straightens his coat. “Eleven rotations of paying fools to do simple things, and then repairing what they broke, and then paying more fools. And then a genuine opportunity finally appears, a real fault, in the oldest section, unreported, and I am supposed to hand it toanotheridiot? No. I came myself because I have concluded that if a thing is to be done correctly on this miserable rock, I shall have to come and do it myself.”
And then Grytel comes down the gallery.
He’s late, he came from Admin, four hundred levels up, and he’s still moving fast when he comes around the last of the rock.
He stops so hard that the male behind him nearly walks into him.
“Uncle,” he says.
“Grytel.” The old male inclines his head, perfectly pleasant. “You’ve got thin. Your mother would say something.”
“Uncle.”
“Yes, Grytel, we’ve established the relationship.”
“You..” Grytel’s hand comes up and drops again. “You were at mycommissioning.You signed my…”
“I signed your commission, yes. I put you in that chair.” He says it as though correcting a small error of fact. “You’ve been an enormous help, incidentally, and I’d like you to know that none of it required any effort on your part whatsoever.”
Grytel’s jaw clenches. “The standing-order amendments.”
“Through your office, yes.”
“The demotion order.”
