Monkeys chattered and whooped from the trees at the intruders.

Evrim came up the path carrying the missing limb and laid it on one of the votive tables.

“I found it in the cleft of a banyan tree.”

The second dragonfly drone hummed over, darting around the limb in small circles.

The Tibetan transport module cast a shadow down on them from above. It was shaped like a wheel, petal-angled thrusters punctuating its exterior disc, its surface glazed with abstract, interlocking waves.

Evrim looked up at it. “I do not like the automonks, but I have always admired the Tibetan drones. Their technology is such a marrying of art and science. And it is a pleasure to watch them operate—their movements have a grace that makes our DIANIMA drones look stiff and industrial. Inanimate, in most hands—of course, sometimes there is a music to our drones as well, with the right operator.” Evrim glanced at Altantsetseg. “But the Tibetan constructions seem to take joy in their own movement.”

As if in answer, the dragonfly that had been speaking to Altantsetseg broke off and spiraled upward to the transport module, turning a superfluous corkscrew in midair.

“They are not drones,” Altantsetseg said. “Though I suppose most people still call them that, the same way for decades people called our terminals ‘phones.’ These are sophisticated hybrid systems, generations ahead of our DIANIMA con- structs.”

“What language were you speaking to it?”

“Battle Pidgin,” Altantsetseg said. “The operator is a veteran of the Chinese-Mongolian Winter War and the Battle of Belgrade. Like me. In Belgrade she was in a unit with someone from my town, in fact. Nice to speak the lingo again—it’s been a while.”

But “nice” was not the word: Altantsetseg’s eyes were far off, her face tight. War was always running in the background.

“They use a liquid interface as well,” Altantsetseg continued. “Like my tank—but theirs is more sensitive, and they have an AI/human holon system worlds beyond what we have. The integrative feedback between operator and machine is amazing.”

“It is amazing,” Evrim said. “And it is also what has made the Tibetans so fantastically wealthy—that, and the fact that they protect their technology so thoroughly. You can’t simply buy their drones: you have to purchase an entire system, complete with an operator assigned by the Tibetan Buddhist Republic to operate it. But what they have is so groundbreaking that plenty of security and research firms are willing to do so.”

“I’m not familiar with that term—‘holon,’” Ha said.