“Not intentionally, but we do take his money. He has a goal for the world. We have a different one. The original idea for the Machinehood and the dakini came from a visionary man, the one who led Eko-Yi to independence.”

“Kanata?”

Ao Tara nodded. “I’m carrying on his work.”

The admission came so smoothly, so matter-of-factly, that it took Welga a couple of seconds to realize its magnitude. She had thought she’d need days or weeks to discover the truth about the Machinehood. Ao Tara had confessed it with utter nonchalance.

“And the technology itself?” Welga pressed. “Did the al-Muwahhidun give it to you?”

“Only at first. Most of the technology is local, designed here or at one of the other space stations. Some of it derives from China, India, and the Maghreb, but nothing on Earth can provide what we need here in microgravity. Forget what you think you know about the al-Muwahhidun. You have one experience with the caliph’s empire. I have another, rather different one. We’ve spoken with his traders, and their happiness is obvious. You must know that I was once Josephine Lee. They offered my son a solution to his disease, and to this day, I regret that I refused it.” Her eyes and lips tightened. “Fear stopped me and Don, and yet the supposedly safer solution turned out to be a lie.”

“And now you believe the claims coming from the black market reps?”

“I believe the actions on the front lines are different from the life within the empire. The caliph does not hold with tradition, though he is devout. He’s giving his people a good life. It’s not the future I want, nor do I think it’s realistic to ask people to live without machine intelligences, but I can understand what he’s trying to do.”

“At what cost?” She should probably keep her contradictory opinions to herself, but she couldn’t help challenging Ao Tara. “The caliph continues to push his borders. You claim to respect WAIs and bots, but the Machinehood’s demands and actions have led to their destruction along with the lives of human beings.”

Ao Tara looked troubled. “I regret that, but what about the harm done to human beings by our current governance and economy? If you’ve investigated my past, then you know about my uncle’s death. You know about the protests and violence that led to our current regulations, but it’s not enough. Consider your own situation. Millions like you file Requests for Investigation every day. The changes to our bodies continue to have unintended consequences. Swaths of humanity are dependent on government-provided antimicrobial pills. I’m not happy about the way people have reacted to our requests, but sometimes we need to get hurt before we can learn a lesson. The harm inflicted by the dakini is nothing compared to what people have done to themselves.”