Official request from Minister Par Nir Bedoi, Home Affairs, to the matriarchs of F’nar
F’nar Plain, November 3, 2376.
Esganikan’s ship had become a city in its own right.
Out on the plain, the vessel had changed shape and had rearranged itself into a number of smooth shapes like a series of bronze and blue bubbles. It solved the logistics problem of where F’nar might put two thousand extra wess’har.
“Wow,” said Eddie. He thought of the two shiplets that had formed out of the main vessel and gone their own way. “How do they do that?”
Nevyan, walking beside him, tugged at the neckline of her dhren, the opalescent white wrap that many of the matriarchs in F’nar wore. It formed itself immediately into a cowl. “You call it nanotechnology.” She pulled the dhren apart as if ripping it and it opened along an invisible seam like a zipper. “This fabric uses that principle. The ship’s materials are created the same way.”
“For a bunch of nature lovers, you do employ some dodgy hi-tech.”
Nevyan zipped herself up again. “If it were dodgy,” she said, “we would not be using it.”
Eddie resigned himself to being a caveman again. Wess’har had been a space-faring species when humans thought bows and arrows were this year’s must-have and were starting to realize wild dogs could be their best friends. It put you in your place.
“I should have asked this a long time ago, Nevyan, but how far back does the wess’har civilization go?”
“Define civilization.”
“Building cities.”
“Using your frame of reference, a million years.”
“I’m not sure we’d got to grips with fire by then.” Eddie’s brain gave up trying to examine the context and settled for being awed. The wall-to-wall hard-science PhDs of the Thetis payload had been gently patronizing towards his humble anthropology degree, but he felt he was now the best placed of all of them to see how astonishingly nothing Homo sapiens was. “And you haven’t started living on pills or given up sex or uploaded your consciousness into machines.”
“Why would we want to do that? It sounds extremely foolish.”
“Well, we always tend to think that’s what we’ll be doing in years to come.”
“You’re a very sad species,” she said, without a hint of sarcasm. “You want to eradicate all the things that make you a living creature.”
“Where were you when I was making documentaries?” Eddie asked wistfully.
The camp of scattered ship-bits was busy with Eqbas personnel, many of them females. One group was standing in a circle, gazing down at something on the ground and occasionally crouching to press their hands on the soil. Eddie let his bee cam loose. It made a slow pass round them and one watched it in that same carefully hostile way that Serrimissani did. He hoped it would take evasive action fast enough if the Eqbas swatted it.
“What are they doing?” he asked.
“Finding a water course to tap into,” said Nevyan. “They plan an extended stay.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“Confused.”
Nevyan walked past the hydrology team to where Esganikan Gai stood watching the activity in her camp. It had the feel of the Thetis mission, setting up a base and trying not to look or feel permanent, two years and a whole messy history ago.
Esganikan made a gesture with one straight arm, beckoning Nevyan towards her like an aircraft director on a carrier’s deck. It struck Eddie as a little imperious. If she tried that on Shan she’d get a rude awakening.
Shan. He hadn’t been back to see her yet and she’d been conscious for a couple of days according to Serrimissani; the ussissi was a natural journalist if ever he saw one. Poor old Shazza. She’d be in a terrible state. He wondered if she’d recognize him. There was always something embarrassingly painful about seeing a once-powerful person reduced to frail dependence, a nasty tap on the shoulder from your own mortality.
He started musing. What happens to people when they realize they’re never going to die? Wow. The whole human existence is predicated on inevitable death. Maybe Shan would recover enough to talk to him about that. He hoped so. He hoped she would talk to him anyway, even if she never gave him another story, and he accepted that he had finally gone soft and begun caring about things other than his job. He wondered if he’d have felt that way if he’d still been on Earth, in the daily fight to get a story before any other bastard did.
“Greet you,” said Esganikan, providing her own fluting chorus. She made that aircraft controller’s marshaling movement again. “Learn English for Ual.”
“Don’t mind me,” said Eddie. He stepped over the threshold of a shiplet, now somehow relaxed into a bubble-shaped hut. He found himself in a vestibule that put him in mind of the city of Surang, organic curves and projections even more eccentric than F’nar’s. His bee cam followed him inside.
Nevyan knelt down opposite Esganikan and warbled at her. Eddie decided to stay standing. There was an exchange that he couldn’t begin to follow but it appeared friendly enough. Then Nevyan knelt very still, something Eddie had learned to interpret as a negative reaction. She’d heard something that had surprised her.
“Clue me in,” said Eddie.
“I’m asking her why she has so many isan’ve with her,” said Nevyan. “She says that some isan’ve choose to leave their families behind, in safety, or to delay bonding. It’s the nature of many missions.”
“But you travel with your whole clan. Mestin took you all on her tour of duty on Bezer’ej. Can’t they?”
“We never travel outside this system,” said Nevyan. “And it’s a relatively safe place.” She listened intently to Esganikan again. “She says that we have the luxury of a more backward life.”
Backward. Eddie flinched. “Are you going to smack her in the mouth for that?”
“Why?”
“Never mind. Can I take a look around the camp?”
Esganikan considered the request, trilling. “The teaching?”
“What’s she asking?”
“She asks if you have any text to accelerate her learning of English.”
“A book?” Eddie fumbled in his pockets and took out his handheld. He hated the idea of being parted from it, but this was going to make his life a lot easier. “There’s a stack of dictionaries in here, but no language course as such, and it wouldn’t be wess’u to English anyway. Not much help.”
“A list of words and rules.”
“Yes.”
Trill, trill, warble. “That’s what she requires.”
Eddie handed Esganikan the device with the BBChan logo color-coded right through the casing and every component. “Don’t break it,” he said. “It belongs to the company.” He showed her the controls with exaggerated gestures. “I’ve opened it at the right page. Can you make a copy somehow?”
“Will learn,” said Esganikan grimly.
“Yeah, I bet you will,” said Eddie, and excused himself while the girls did business.
He walked among the bubbles, nodding politely at any Eqbas who looked his way. One of them watched the bee cam and walked slowly after it, giving him a wonderful but sinister shot. Eventually he recognized Shapakti. A sense of relief flooded him in the way it always did when he was in completely unknown territory and spotted a scrap of familiarity.
“Clever,” said Eddie, pointing to the shiplet bubbles and giving him a thumbs-up gesture. Gestures were always dangerous but Eddie doubted there was enough cultural similarity between them for it to mean something offensive. If he got a punch in the face he’d know he’d guessed wrong.
Shapakti stared at Eddie’s thumb and made an exaggerated pointing gesture with both arms.
“Safety exits? You’ll be coming round with drinks and tax-free purchases later?”
Shapakti burbled and took him by the arm—gently, thank God—to turn him to face the direction in which he’d pointed. “Gethes,” he said. Well, that was clear enough. “Who that gethes
?”
Eddie shielded his eyes with one hand against the glare from F’nar’s terraces and focused. The frame was emaciated, and the stride unsteady, but it was Shan. Ade walked behind her.
“Holy shit,” said Eddie. You saw her brought in. You saw how bad she was. “That’s unbelievable.”
“Who?” Shapkti constructed his English phrases like a wall. “Who is that?”
Eddie wouldn’t get emotional. She wouldn’t like that, not one bit. “Shapakti, old son, that’s Shan Chail. Frankland. Understand?”
“C’naatat?”
“That’s it.” Eddie, flushed with that perilous enthusiasm that came with suddenly being understood in a strange language, threw caution aside. “Shan Chail—isan. Aras—jurej. Oursan. Yes?”
It was certainly an economic language. Shapakti made a curious roll of his head and let out a long low trill that might have been surprise. It could also have been complete incomprehension. They waited, watching. Shan advanced, stumbling occasionally and being steadied by Ade.
She looked terribly, terribly ill. That was a huge improvement. She paused in front of him, a little shaky, hands on hips.
“Hi Eddie,” she said. “Don’t I even get a good morning?”
“Bad hair day, doll?”
“Remind me to introduce you to Mr. Truncheon.”
“I really missed you, you old tart.”
“It’s good to see you too, you tosser. It really is.”
He stopped short of hugging her. He wanted to. But c’naatat made you cautious, even if you had no breaks in your skin and the chance of infection was remote. He hoped she realized that he cared.
Ade stared at Shapakti in a way that would have started a fist fight on Earth. The Eqbas didn’t react at all. He was focused on Shan.
“Shan, this is Shapakti,” said Eddie. “You’ve got his attention.”
Shapakti inhaled audibly. “Frankland.”
“I might even let you call me Guv’nor,” she said. “Teh, g’ne’hek eqbas’u sve?”
“Hey, clever,” said Eddie. She could do the two voices. It was fascinating. “What did you say?”
“I’ve asked him if he’ll teach me eqbas’u.”
“Esganikan wants to learn English.”
“Our gift to the world. We’ll throw in cricket, syphilis and bureaucracy for free.” Shan raked one hand through her hair, a little self-conscious. Eddie had never realized she cared how she looked. “Is that a deal, Shapakti? Teh, mek?”
“Mek, chail,” said Shapakti.
“Good lad. Now let’s go and see Esganikan.”
“Why?” asked Eddie.
“Nosey bastard,” said Shan, playing the police officer again. “Because I’m an isan of F’nar and she’s on my manor, son. That’s why.”
Eddie pointed to the appropriate bubble. “In there. Should you be up and about this soon?”
Shan ignored him with the practiced air of someone who was used to asking all the questions and strode ahead, a credible approximation of her old pace. Ade matched her stride. “I hear Esganikan Gai is keen to know more about c’naatat. Ade and I are going to show her.”
“Be nice to her, won’t you, Shan?”
“Any reason I shouldn’t be?”
Shapakti fell in behind her, warbling and trilling. It was simply melodic noise to Eddie, but Shan half-turned to deliver a blast of wess’u at him. Shapakti dropped his head a little and lapsed back into silence.
“What did he say?” asked Eddie.
“Cheeky bastard wanted to know if I give oursan to the c’naatat who hates him.”
Shapakti meant Ade. Ade dropped his gaze and found his boots of sudden and overwhelming interest.
“And what did you say?” said Eddie.
“Nosey bastard,” said Shan.
Ual found F’nar an extraordinarily awkward city. It was chaotic, disorderly and full of stairways. Isenj weren’t built for steep stairs.
The treads were too narrow for him to place his whole bulk on them and he found himself tottering, trying to find purchase with his rear and side legs and failing. Bipeds never had to worry about such things.
“I suggest we stay at ground level,” said Ralassi.
“If I’d known our stay would be extended, I would have brought more supplies with us.”
“The next shuttle will drop off some food, Minister. Do you want to eat now?”
“Later.”
“And do you intend to return to Umeh?”
“You think I can remain here?” Ual hadn’t expected this. He had anticipated the rage of his opponents—in government and among the electorate—but he had not foreseen Eqbas dispatching a vessel to Umeh. “I’ve probably made a disastrous mistake, but I must try to salvage something.”
The Eqbas ship hadn’t landed. It was just orbiting and gathering data. It was the worst possible situation. How could he now expect isenj to accept the assistance of the wess’har with one of their ships looking like a potential aggressor? Now he had neither his bargaining chip, as Eddie called it, nor a receptive audience for his plan.
The first isenj ever to visit the enemy on a peaceful mission had got it badly wrong. Ual knew he would go down in history and memory as a fool rather than a visionary.
But he had come this far. The cycle of resentment and decline and sporadic fruitless war had to be broken. He made his way back down the passage to the Exchange of Surplus Things and tried to find a corner in which to be inconspicuous.
Wess’har came to look at him, or so he thought; but they appeared to be spending as much time sorting through containers of food as studying him. They were all tall and irregularly shaped—vertically symmetrical, yes, but all gangly limbs and long faces.
Eddie, with his talent for comparing all beings to species on his own world, called them sea horses. There were no longer other animal species on Bezer’ej and there hadn’t been for many, many generations. Ual had nothing in his environment that he could compare to the wess’har. It was the first time he had thought about the sadness inherent in that.
But some wess’har were shorter than him. A small one with a plume of stiff gold hair across the top of its head, just like the big females, approached him and stood far too close to him. He was a government minister. He’d earned the right to a little more personal space.
“You’re in trouble,” said the wess’har in perfect English. “I’m Giyadas. Nevyan took me as her daughter.”
Ual decided she was an infant. As with isenj, it was hard to tell a wess’har’s age by their size: but wess’har had no genetic memory to make them wise from birth, and none of the social restraint that adult isenj learned. Adult wess’har seemed as outspoken as young ones, often to the point of offense.
It was his first impression of them—big, gold, shiny, and rude. They would never show the self-control needed to cope with living at close quarters like his own people.
“Yes, I’m in a great deal of trouble,” said Ual.
“Have the gethes shafted you?”
“What does that mean?”
“Put you into a difficult position and then abandoned you.” The child looked up at him, tilting her head this way and that. “Eddie taught me the word.”
Ah. Eddie’s accent was discernible. “If you mean that the humans can do nothing more to aid us in exchange for the things we have given them, yes.”
“You’re hard to understand.”
He was a minister of state yet he was reduced to chatting to a small alien child. This wasn’t how Eddie’s shuttle diplomacy was supposed to work.
“My people won’t like it at first, but I think we will fare better by cooperating with your people than by fighting them. There is an…inevitability about wess’har.”
“You mean that we can take you any time we want.”
Ual repeated the phrase to himself, appalled. Yes, it was true. And now the Eqbas were involved it would happen, sooner or later. Sooner and peacefully struck him as better than a long noble fight to
the last isenj. They had made that boast before and lost. And there had been no last isenj, just millions more. “More words that Eddie taught you?”
“Shan Frankland said it.”
He had heard small snatches of information about Shan Frankland and was trying to piece them together. Even dead, she seemed still to be pivotal for the wess’har. “The dead officer.”
“No, she lives.”
Ual decided to let the comment go unquestioned. Humans had some eccentric beliefs about noncorporeal existence and it seemed that Giyadas had been exposed to them. “And what do you think of your cousins from Eqbas Vorhi?”
“They’re different.”
Ual was being sociable. There was no harm in indulging the child of a potential ally. Giyadas took his arm and tugged a little more forcefully than he imagined such a small creature could.
“I want you to meet someone,” she said.
Ual followed her patiently, maneuvering his bulk around crates and containers while wess’har stood back to let him pass. They didn’t attack him or even hurl abuse. He was the enemy, the ancient enemy, and he knew what would have happened if a wess’har had arrived on Umeh. Isenj felt the old injustices as vividly now as their forebears did in the days of Mjat.
But there was no hostility. If anything, they seemed no more than mildly curious. He almost tripped over a strange cylindrical fruit on the floor but a wess’har reached down and removed it from his path.
I don’t understand them at all. Rude and considerate; peaceful and extravagantly violent; technologically sophisticated and yet living a primitive rural life. And they have never threatened Umeh.
Ual had come to negotiate, not to learn, but learning was overwhelming him. No isenj could have any idea what they were dealing with.
He shuffled out into the sunlight of a gloriously clear day quite unlike any on polluted Umeh. The alleys and small courtyards that made up the tangled ground level of terraced F’nar were fiercely illuminated by the reflection from the pearl surfaces, the polar opposite of Jejeno in every way he could imagine. Giyadas trotted ahead, stopping every so often to check he was keeping up.