Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (read me a book .TXT) 📕

your ornament, to be your tool and the wellspring of your satiation.” She inhales the mingled scents of their sweat and their arousal, the potent coital perfume. She gathers the rose-gold chain and spills the links onto her breasts. “You’re going to take on the AI’s commission.”

“I must be transparent.”

“To me. It’s my life’s work to study you so that I may be of use, so that I may serve and satisfy your every cause.” Numadesi rubs her cheek against her wife’s bicep and coils one leg around a shapely hip. “You decided as soon as you heard the name Vishnu’s Leviathan. It must be a prize of enormous worth.”

“That’s one way of putting it. Yes. Enormous worth.” Anoushka’s eyes drift shut. Her fingers absently trace infinity symbols over the chain, teasing Numadesi’s breasts. “Can you find out who else will be attending the auction? I’m assuming invitations are exclusive and involve complex interpersonal ties or alliances, and a good deal of money. Queen Nirupa will earn a tidy sum off that alone.”

“I’ve already seen to it.” Numadesi sketches in the air with her finger, pulling up a feed that appears in both of their overlays. “This is an overview of their current administration—Queen Nirupa, as you say, is their reigning monarch. She has two daughters in line, but judging by life expectancy on Vishnu’s Leviathan she is likely to continue her rule for at least three more decades before cognitive decay sets in. Of the guest list, just a few names would be relevant to you: the Vatican, the Vastness of the Cantilevered Sun, and the Needle-Eyed Flotilla.”

“Ah.” Anoushka chuckles. “Old enemies. Not the Nova Legion or the Seven-Sung Fleet?”

“Neither. But that might change should my lord send her request to join the auction. I’m not sure the Seven-Sung has the resources, if they’re still even active.”

Another laugh. “Going by my non-priority messages, plenty want me to represent them at this auction, to the point that they’re willing to compete among themselves to commission me—an auction all its own. There’s a profitable game if I cared to play it. But I prefer Benzaiten in Autumn as our client. Xers is the cleanest motive, relatively speaking. The least complicating, down the line, and the most beneficial to the Armada.”

“But publicly you’ll be representing yourself.” Admitting to involvement with any AI would be revealing too much. Even now it is not public knowledge the Armada of Amaryllis has ever had dealings with AIs beyond a few military agreements with Shenzhen Sphere, and those are more than a decade old.

“Publicly,” Anoushka agrees. She pushes herself onto her elbow. “I don’t plan to have the fact leave this room.”

Numadesi starts. She has her lord’s trust, and as a wife she is the foremost, not only in seniority but in how closely she functions as second-in-command, for all that she holds no formal rank. Yet this is anomalous. She sits up, the dark sheets sliding free of her, silk that tinkles like ceramic. “Not even Xuejiao is to know?”

“Not even she. What Benzaiten in Autumn does is fraught and has implications for humanity entire. I’ll tell our lieutenant if it proves necessary, but not for now.”

“My lord,” she says, “you’ve never imposed such a restriction before.” Has had no reason to. Recruits are appraised and tested for their background, personalities, instincts and action. Xuejiao had come up through the ranks and served the Armada for years by the time she was courted to become Anoushka’s.

“No.” The admiral exhales. “Most likely it’ll turn out that I am being alarmist. Nevertheless.”

“Your wisdom is the light by which I am guided.” She cradles Anoushka’s jaw with her palm, even as she knows this time something is different, something that goes deeper than Benzaiten in Autumn being a creature of rogue schemes and unfathomable passions. “Now and always.”

“I’m undertaking a new commission.”

They sit in a parlor that Numadesi and Anoushka share, the room perfumed by the breath of orchids and jasmines. Numadesi has conceded the ambience, today, to something brighter than twilight—late afternoon, the sky deep blue, the birds tropical. She allows them to land on her, and every so often a particulate projection would be solid enough she can pet them, even if what meets her fingers is not quite the right texture—too seamless to be plumage; she will need to calibrate them again, add finer details and incorporate a new suite of sensory adjutants.

A starling alights on Xuejiao’s shoulder and preens. The lieutenant sprawls on her corner of the divan, one leg tucked in, at ease. Her glazing collects and bends light, giving her a lunar gleam. She doesn’t fidget with the decorative palm fronds the way she usually does. Instead her hands are collected in her lap, prim. Numadesi takes note of this, out of habit: ever since she became Anoushka’s she has done so, studying the world around her with a leopard’s calculation. What moves, what does not; what is prey and what is danger. A person’s tic or nervous habit, a minute reaction—either too fast, too slow, or none at all.

“The beast-world Vishnu’s Leviathan is hosting an auction,” the admiral goes on, “the details of which I’ve just sent you to peruse. I have already contacted them with a request to enter it, and Queen Nirupa has graciously accepted. As for the other bidding parties, I’m not too concerned, but I want you both to look at the list. Half the delegates there will hail from opposing states. They’ll be busy at each other’s throat, and several are past clients of mine or owe me too many favors to incur my ire. Several militaries are invested in keeping the Armada in the game because we serve as a check-balance.”

“This all seems finicky,” Lieutenant Xuejiao says, her gaze refocusing as she finishes absorbing the data package. “Who are you sending, Admiral?”

“I’ll board the leviathan myself.”

Xuejiao bolts upright. “No?” Then, a little more evenly, “Surely not. You can send one of us—you can send me.