Machine Rights

The night before the conference was to open, the cocktail reception was in full swing in the castle in the sky.  Back at the Royal Spaceport, a chrome flying saucer quietly set down, and a single cyborg emerged from the craft.  The machines had decided that if everyone else was going to have a party, they wanted to go too.  After all, machines have rights, you know.  So they had outfitted right off the assembly line a saucer-gunboat, sticking two 1.2 megaton anti-matter cannon into the design.  And they had prepped an Excellent Class cyborg as Machine Envoy....his ivory exterior had been buff-polished, and his scrimshaw detailed out.  And they hung a solid gold bicycle chain around his neck, to symbolize his official nature.  The magi in charge of the flying carpets at the Spaceport were at a lose as to whether or not the Machine Envoy should be whisked to the Royal Reception, or if he should be ignored, since they didn't have any machines or cyborgs on their short list for gratis carpet taxi service.  But the Xanadu Diplomatic Office, who was throwing the whole shindig, quickly switched to the option where the machines did for some reason send somebody, and the official status of the Machine Envoy was confirmed.  It looked pretty impressive anyway, standing calmly on the flapping carpet as it elevated to the cloud castle.  Estaban saw the cyborg enter, and stand briefly just inside the hall, as the herald keyed the P.A. and announced "The Machine Envoy!  er..the envoy of the machines."  His name was the same as his status?  That sounds like a good idea in general, don't you think?  Maybe not.  Anyway, Estaban recalled with some fondness his time with the cyborgs riding the machine tanker, so he made his way through the throng, to see if he could strike up a conversation with Mr. Machine Envoy.  Over by the punch bowl, Shelby took this all in, and began to edge in that direction too....towards the unexpected player, the wild card?  Machines had always simply avoided spider-space, as defined by the webs....didn't cost much to route around them the few times the problem had come up.  So what was machine concern in the present negotiations?   Actually, the Machine Culture had come up with a very clever idea.....(to be continued)