So I didn’t remark on the fact that the safe house in the stern lowers of Pictures of the Floating World clearly didn’t belong to the elegantly spoken ex-Black Brigade man and woman who were waiting in it for us. Stern lowers is the cheapest, harshest neighbourhood on any urbraft or sea factory and no one who has a choice about it chooses to live there. I could feel the vibration from Floating World’s drives intensifying as we took a companionway down from the more desirable crew residences at superstructure levels over the stern, and by the time we got inside the apartment it was a constant background grind. Utilitarian furniture, scuffed and scraped walls and a minimum of decoration made it clear that whoever did quarter here didn’t spend much time at home.

“Forgive the surroundings,” said the woman urbanely, as she let us into the apartment. “It will only be for the night. And our proximity to the drives makes surveillance a near impossibility.”

Her partner ushered us to chairs set around a cheap plastic table laid with refreshments. Tea in a heated pot, assorted sushi. Very formal. He talked as he got us seated.

“Yeah, we’re also less than a hundred metres from the nearest hull maintenance hatch, which is where you’ll all be collected from tomorrow morning. They’ll drive the skimmer right in under the load-bearing girders between keels six and seven. You can climb straight down.” He gestured at Sierra Tres. “Even injured, you shouldn’t have too much trouble.”

There was a rehearsed competence to it all, but as he talked, his gaze kept creeping towards the woman in Sylvie Oshima’s body, then skidding abruptly away. Koi had been doing much the same thing since we brought her off the Angelfire Flirt. Only the female Brigade member seemed to have her eyes and hopes under real control.

“So,” she said smoothly. “I’m Sto Delia. This is Kiyoshi Tan. Shall we begin?”

Ascertainment.

In today’s society, it’s as common a ritual as parental acknowledgement parties to celebrate a birth, or reweddings to cement newly re-sleeved couples in their old relationship. Part stylised ceremony, part maudlin what about that time when session, Ascertainment varies in its form and formality from world to world and culture to culture. But on every planet I’ve ever been, it exists as a deeply respected underlying aspect of social relations. Outside of expensive hi-tech psychographic procedures, it’s the only way we have to prove to our friends and family that, regardless of what flesh we may be wearing, we are who we say we are. Ascertainment is the core social function that defines ongoing identity in the modern age, as vital to us now as primitive functions like signature and fingerprint databasing were to our pre-millennial ancestors.

And that’s where an ordinary citizen is concerned.

For semi-mythical heroic figures, back—perhaps—from the dead, it’s a hundred times more meaningful again. Soseki Koi was trembling visibly as he took his seat. His colleagues were both wearing younger sleeves and they showed it less, but if you looked with Envoy eyes, the same tension was there in unconfident, overdone gestures, laughter too readily coughed out, the occasional tremor in a voice as it started up again in a dried throat.

These men and this woman, who had once belonged to the most feared counter-insurgency force in planetary history, had suddenly been granted a glimpse of hope among the ashes of their past. They faced the woman who claimed to be Nadia Makita with everything that had ever mattered to them hanging clearly visible in the balance behind their eyes.

“It is an honour,” Koi began, and then stopped to clear his throat. “It is an honour to speak of these things …”

Across the table, the woman in Sylvie Oshima’s sleeve looked back at him steadily as he spoke. She answered one of his oblique questions with crisp assent, ignored another. The other two Brigade members weighed in, and she turned slightly in her seat towards each of them, offered an antique gesture of inclusion each time. I felt myself receding to the status of spectator as the initial round of pleasantries peeled away and the Ascertainment gathered momentum. The conversation picked up, moved rapidly from matters of the last few days across a long and sombre political retrospective, and then into talk of the Unsettlement and the years that preceded it. The language shifted just as rapidly, from contemporary Amanglic into an unfamiliar old-time Japanese dialect with occasional gusts of Stripjap. I glanced across at Brasil and shrugged as subject matter and syntax both accelerated away from us.

It went on for hours. The labouring motors of the urbraft made dim thunder in the walls around us. Pictures of the Floating World ploughed on its way. We sat and listened.

“…makes you think. A fall from any of those ledges and you’re offal splattered across »the outgoing tide?«. No recovery scheme, no re-sleeve policy, not even family death benefits. It’s a »rage?« that starts in your bones and …”

“…remember when you first realised that was the case?”

“…one of my father’s articles on colonial theory …”

“…playing »?????« on the streets of Danchi. We all did. I remember one time the »streetpolice?« tried to …”

“…reaction?”

“Family are like that—or at least my family were always »?????ing« in a slictopus »plague?« …”

“…even when you were young, right?”

“I wrote that stuff when I was barely out of my teens. Can’t believe they printed it. Can’t believe there were people who »paid good money for/devoted seriousness to?« so much »?????«‘

“But—”

“Is it?” A shrug. “Didn’t feel that way when I »looked back/reconsidered?« from the »blood on my hands?« basis in the »?????«.”

From time to time Brasil or I would rise and make fresh tea in the kitchen. The Black Brigade veterans barely noticed. They were locked on, lost in the wash and detail of a past made suddenly real again just across the table.

“…recall whose decision that was?”

“Obviously not—you guys didn’t have a »chain of command/respect?« worth a fucking …”

Sudden, explosive laughter around the table. But you could see the tear sheen on their eyes.

“…and it was getting too cold for a stealth campaign up there. Infrared would have shown us up like …”

“Yes, it was almost …”

“…Millsport

“…better to lie to them that we had a good chance? I don’t think so.”

“Would have been a hundred fucking kilometres before …”

“…and supplies.”

“…Odisej, as far as I remember. He would have run a »?????« standoff right up to the …”

“…about Alabardos?”

Long pause.

“It’s not clear, it feels »?????«. I remember something about a helicopter? We were going to the helicopter?”

She was trembling slightly. Not for the first time, they sheared away from the subject matter like ripwings from a rifleshot.

“…something about …”

“…essentially a reactive theory …”

“No, probably not. If I examined other »models?« …”

“But isn’t it axiomatic that »the struggle?« for control of »?????« would cause …”

“Is it? Who says that?”

“Well.” An embarrassed hesitation, glances exchanged. “You did. At least, you »argued?/admitted?« that …”

“That’s crabshit! I never said convulsive policy shift was the »key?« to a better …”

“But, Spaventa claims you advocated—”

“Spaventa? That fucking fraud. Is he still breathing?”

“…and your writings on demodynamics show …”

“Look, I’m not a fucking ideologue, alright. We were faced with »a bottleback in the surf?« and we had to …”

“So you’re saying »?????« isn’t the solution to »?????« and reducing »poverty/ignorance?« would mean …”

“Of course it would. I never claimed anything different. What happened to Spaventa, anyway?”

“Umm, well—he teaches at Millsport university these—”

“Does he? The little fuck.”