The lead Neanderthal, one Enkidu by name, turned and curled his lip. “Fuck you, Bub.”

“I meant no insult,” Surplus said. “Only that there may be situations where quick wits count for more than strength.”

“Fuck yer mama, too.”

Ignoring him, the ambassador said, “In Paris, you sold a businessman the location of the long-lost remains of the Eiffel Tower. In Stockholm, you dispensed government offices and royal titles to which you had no claim. In Prague, you unleashed a plague of golems upon an unsuspecting city.”

“The golem is a supernatural creature, and thus nonexistent,” Darger stipulated. His mount whickered, as if in agreement. “Those you speak of were either robots or androids-the taxonomy gets a bit muddled, I admit-and in either instance, revenant technology from the Utopian era. We did Prague a favor by discovering their existence before they had the chance to do any real damage.”

“You burned London to the ground!”

“We were there when it burned, granted. But it was hardly our fault. Not entirely. Anyway, I understand that large swaths of it survived.”

“All this is ancient history,” Surplus said firmly. “The important thing to keep in mind is your mission. The Pearls Beyond Price which the Caliph himself entrusted you to bestow upon his cousin, the Duke of Muscovy, in token of their mutual, abiding, and brotherly love and with the hope that this might predispose the duke to agree to certain trade arrangements when passage between the nations is normalized. Sir, an ambassador with only two secretaries is the victim of tragic circumstances. An ambassador with none is merely laughable.”

“Yes…yes. It is all that keeps you alive,” Prince Achmed growled. Then, mastering his anger, “This conversation grows tedious. Your loyalty is dubious at best, and I shall have to give your ultimate fate long and serious thought when we reach Moscow. However, at the moment I am, as you point out, short of servitors and you still serve some functions, though not many. Navigation for one. I trust you will find this… Gogorodski… soon?”