Arbitrium: A Tor.com Original

By Anjali Sachdeva

"Arbitrium" is a post-apocalyptic Tor.com Original short story from Anjali Sachdeva, author of All the Names They Used for God.

Vashti is a pathogenic diplomat—an ambassador to the world of viruses, whom she communicates with through a machine that can translate their chemical signals into images, tastes, smells, sounds, and memories. She begins a negotiation between the US Government and a diplomatic contingent from Arenavirus, a virus which has just begun spreading a deadly mutation in Florida. If Vashti is successful, she and Arena will reach a diplomatic agreement; if not, the Arenavirus infection will continue to spread, and humans will have to race to try to find a vaccine or treatment. As she navigates the diplomatic discussions, Vashti is also trying to connect with her daughter Alma, who lives on the other side of the country in a technology-averse commune. By the time the negotiation ends, Vashti discovers that Arenavirus have learned some impressive and deadly tricks from their interactions with humans.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jun 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781250860187

Book preview

In the conference room, Vashti can feel the incremental temperature increases sinking into her skin. Twenty-two degrees centigrade. Twenty-three. Twenty-seven. At twenty-eight she shrugs out of her suit jacket, slips in her ear plugs, strips down to her modesty garments, and lowers herself into the bed of conduction medium. The warm gel oozes up around her arms, legs, and belly, and she attaches the sensors at her temples. Twenty-nine. In the next room, behind a sealed door splashed with a biohazard symbol, a common gray rat lies in a smaller tub of the same gel, sedated and motionless but for its easy breathing. Vashti closes her eyes and nestles her head in until the gel has covered all but her nose and mouth, breathes slowly and deeply. Thirty degrees. Briefly, she hears the melodic hum of the Xu-Bose machine beginning its translations, before the transdermals take effect and she is no longer aware of the room around