Simple Authority

The machine brains wander with the City, along with the biological races....and of course they must help implement Authority, being all pervasive in the infrastructure of modern life.  But who makes decisions within Authority?  No one really knows, least of all we unenlightened Ambassadors of the diplomatic corp.  It doesn't do any good to ask, for in the City one cannot question Authority.  Maybe that simple fact is what has held it together for so long, as it reels endlessly through space and time.  Most persons hold that Authority is benign and beneficial, and thus a good thing in general.  But when some persons, or even some machines, just plain disappear without warning or explanation, it makes me a little queasy.  How was Authority offended?  Might I somehow offend?  I sit in the nicely decorated parlor of my Embassy, thinking these thoughts.....Jeeves stands silently waiting, with robotic calm and detachment, watching me....watching my thoughts?