Camilla said, “Thanks for reminding me. I want Sixth House proof of life.”
Crown said, “You know there’s no question of harming them, especially at the moment.”
“Proof of life. Now,” said Camilla steadily. “I want to make sure there’s still sixteen. Maybe the reason they want Nona is to patch up numbers, and hide how many of them have died under torture.”
We Suffer said stiffly, “I was the one who promised them clemency, Hect. There is a no-torture clause. Merv Wing know that.”
“Yeah, well,” said Pyrrha, “you aren’t exactly showing a united front.”
“Unjust Hope is a very crap human being,” said We Suffer, “but my word is still not nothing in Blood of Eden.”
Pyrrha said, “How certain are you of that?”
There was a long silence. We Suffer wheezed through the mask, and then said abruptly, “I had intended to give you this anyway … Here.”
She opened up a brown-paper folder, and took from it a little piece of electronics, a fingernail-shaped thing with prongs. She tapped on a space in the cracked wooden veneer on the table, and nothing happened, so she tapped again more violently and it reluctantly opened—a panel in the wood, revealing hard white plastic sockets and buttons. Camilla was still again, chin in one hand and pen in the other, more like a picture of Camilla than Camilla herself. There was a sudden noisy crackle from the speakers in the walls, and then a disembodied voice— “Master Archivist Juno Zeta reporting, remaining as representative of the Oversight Body in lieu of the Master Warden. I count six days, seven hours, and forty-six minutes since the last recording. In answer to the previous question, the article title is Heteroscedasticity in Viscus Models for Long-Term Data. Head count standard. All well within the house formerly identified as Sixth. Awaiting further instructions.”
The pen had scratched a tiny mark into the paper Camilla had been doodling on. Her shoulders suddenly relaxed, and she clicked the pen, and her face minutely bent toward the mark.
“Do you accept this as proof of life?” said We Suffer.
“Yes,” she said. “This is the next proof-of-life question: How many pages in my Scholar’s thesis?”
We Suffer wrote that down. “All right. I cannot guarantee the next drop coming soon under these circumstances, but I will try to make it timely. Please, Camilla Hect, give me something.”
Camilla sat ramrod-straight, very still, in a pose of pure thought.
“Tell them they’ll have a Lyctor, or equivalent, if they wait,” she said.
“Now there’s a grim fucking thought,” said Two-Thigh-Machetes.
We Suffer said levelly, “Then we go with promises? Fine. Is there anything else?”
“Well, I need the bathroom,” said Nona.
“Ah, in the end, all of us are people … who need the bathroom,” said We Suffer, and leant back in her chair.
“You think I am trying to shore up my own failing power base,” We Suffer said finally. She had pressed her hands together so that it looked as though she were praying. “You think I am either cruel and traitorous—that I had thought this was the outcome of the great coming-together that we hoped for—or stupid, that I was naive. I am not naive … I had just never thought we would be given such a terrible scare, or such a terrible chance. I wish for Blood of Eden to fight, and fight beautifully; to win with whatever aid or succour your Houses may bestow. I do not want to run anymore. Now the negotiator comes. What will John Gaius ask for, and what will John Gaius want? And will we give it to him? All I can tell you is I am prepared to give my answer … and I feel that Blood of Eden would stand with me if they only knew how, if they were given good reasons. Please help me give them those reasons. We are done here. Let us all go to the bathroom. Dismissed, Ctesiphon-3, Troia cell.”
13
CROWN STOOD, AND BOWED, and tapped her chest three times with an open palm, which was the Blood of Eden way; then she began untaping Pyrrha from her seat, unmercifully, with Pyrrha barely wincing. We Suffer kept her seat as they filed out, Camilla in front, Pyrrha after, and Crown bringing up the rear, and before the door was closed Nona heard the bodyguard say: “Can I bloody well leave now? The package is late for work.” （“PACKAGE ZZZT IS LATE FOR WORK.”）
Crown’s jaw was gritted fast. She automatically started shepherding Nona toward the bathroom down the corridor, but Nona said—“Why does Pash hate us so much?”
Crown was so startled that her jaw relaxed.