Chapter 17
“Does that make any sense to you?” Philippe asked Shanti.
“Trang, they’re aliens,” she replied. “Their logic is different.”
He sat back in the chair and stared at her as she sat behind her desk. “So you’re comfortable with this,” he said.
Shanti shrugged her shoulders.
“They make demands,” Philippe said. “The demands escalate. They say that the Hosts are despots, would-be murderers, and thieves. Then—even though none of their demands have been met, not a single one, and the Hosts have been completely inflexible—everything’s suddenly OK, the Hosts are great, and the status quo is the best thing ever.”
Shanti shrugged again. “They made a deal, maybe? Something you don’t know about? You know they were losing allies—maybe this new crew didn’t understand how badly they were blowing it. And then they realized how much they were hurting themselves, and now they’re trying to make it up.”
Philippe shook his head. “They’re still making enemies. It’s just that now they’re blaming the Snake Boys and that poor Host trader for everything.”
“So, they’re bullies, these new guys. They don’t learn. They lash out.” Shanti looked exasperated. “Fuck, Trang, I don’t know.”
Philippe kneaded his temples. “This worries me. It worries me because it doesn’t make any sense. And besides, it’s been a week—have you seen any indication that the Cyclopes are trading again? I haven’t. Baby hasn’t. No one has. If they want things to return to normal, then things should be normal. It reminds me of Guantánamo—they’re saying what everyone wants to hear, but their actions don’t match up.”
Shanti spread her hands. “There’s not much we can do. I mean, I can tell everyone to keep an eye peeled, but if it’s between the Cyclopes and the Hosts—”
“I know,” Philippe said. “I know.”
“Your people don’t seem to be able to relate to others the way they used to,” Philippe said.
“That’s a shame,” Creepy replied, clearly uninterested.
Philippe took a couple of deep breaths and willed himself to stay relaxed. He wanted to be able to say this without losing Creepy. “I think there may be an attack.”
“There are always attacks,” said Creepy. “My planet is plagued with warfare—different families attack each other all the time. The priests egg it on. It’s disgusting.”
Philippe took another breath. “I don’t think that’s true now.”
Creepy looked skeptical. “Well, that would be a significant improvement, if it’s true, but. . . . I take it you haven’t actually been to my planet?”
“I haven’t.”
“So, basically, you just know what the priests tell you. Believe me, they know how to lie.”
Philippe decided to drop the subject. “Tell me about the catastrophe.”
“The one you’re supposed to prevent?” asked Creepy, looking grim. “It’s bad—very bad. That’s why they took me, so that I could help you stop it. It destroys their people, and my people—and I guess probably your people, too, right? Otherwise why would you be involved? Anyway, it’s bad news all around.”
“What is it?” Philippe asked again
“I don’t know.”
Philippe took a couple of breaths. Stay calm.
“You don’t?” he finally said.
“No,” said the Host.
“How will you stop it?” he asked
“You stop it,” said the Host. “That’s why you were chosen. I help—or maybe I’ve already helped, maybe just telling you that it’s going to happen is help enough. I don’t really know.”
“Do you know when it happens?” asked Philippe.
“I don’t even know when now is, how am I supposed to know that?” asked Creepy. “Anyway, if you’re worried that it’s going to happen soon, you should visit my planet.”
“Why?” asked Philippe
“That’s where it happens—that much I know,” said Creepy. “Whatever happens, happens there.”
A visit was surprisingly easy to arrange.
Philippe went to Max. “Your messiah wants me to visit your planet,” he said.
“That is wonderful news,” said Max.
“I don’t think my government is ready to allow something like that,” Philippe said.
“We can make the visit discreetly, so that your government’s surveillance satellites are unlikely to see it,” Max replied. “The ships of the merchant you have befriended make regular trips between our planet and this station. I am certain he would be happy to assist us.”
Everything seemed set, but a hitch occurred to Philippe that night as he was lying in bed: He had lost Creepy when he went back to Earth, and Creepy had attributed that to Philippe’s trip through a portal.
Assuming that Creepy’s theory was right—that he couldn’t stay with Philippe when they traveled through a portal—then going through the portal to the Hosts’ planet would force Creepy out of his head and into someone else’s again.
Well, thought Philippe, I should probably have company anyway.
“Hi, Shanti,” he said the next day, closing the door to her office. “I have to tell you something.”
“Go for it,” she said.
Philippe took a deep breath. It was just a little lie.
“I’m going on a top-secret mission,” he said.
Shanti nodded, her face impassive.
“I’m going to visit the Hosts’ home world.”
“Oh,” she said.
“They’re OK with it, but you know, it has to be an unofficial visit,” Philippe continued. “Very hush-hush. I’m telling you because I don’t want you to worry when I disappear for a few days, and because I suppose I need a guard. But this is top secret: You can’t mention it to anybody.”
“Sounds exciting,” she replied, looking down and poking at something on her desk. “Top secret?”
“Yeah,” said Philippe. “It’s really, really top secret.”
Shanti picked up a scroll. “So top secret that I haven’t heard a peep about it from Special Forces or Union Intelligence.”
“Very top secret,” Philippe replied, feeling a little foolish.
“Can I ask you something?” Shanti put down the scroll and looked him in the eye. “Is it so very top secret that even the DiploCorps doesn’t know about it?”
Philippe flushed.
“Yeah, I’ll get in a lot less trouble if you don’t answer that question,” she said, unperturbed. “Well, considering the sensitive nature of the mission, I guess I’d better go myself.”
Philippe started.
“Just remember,” Shanti said, her voice getting harder, “top fucking secret. That means you keep your mouth fucking shut, now and for always. I don’t want to spend six months in an orbital capsule with my thumb up my ass because you like to talk. And we take George.”
Philippe nodded—that actually sounded like a good idea. So there would be three of them: The unit’s doctor, its diplomat, and its commander. . . .
“Won’t we be missed?” he asked.
Shanti laughed. “And you wouldn’t be missed if you went by yourself?” she asked. “Don’t worry—we’ve pulled this kind of shit before. Patch will cover for me, and Vip and Thorpe can fake up the surveillance footage. If you’re not already behind on your messages, get behind on them—it’s a good idea, too, if you prep some mail to go out while you’re gone, that way there’s no gap. Unless there’s some colossal sister-fuck, no one on Earth will have a clue that we went.”
“Um, thank you,” said Philippe. “Hopefully there won’t be.”
“Yeah, but you gotta tell me what we’re doing,” said Shanti. “Just a couple of days, right?”
“Just a couple of days,” said Philippe. “Max says that their home world is basically right next to their portal, so we just run over there, spend a day visiting, and run back.”
“And you’re not doing anything stupid, right? Like signing a
treaty or committing Earth to anything?” she asked.
“No, no,” said Philippe. “I just want to take a look.”
Shanti grinned. “Me, too.”
It was surprising to see how docile the SFers were—usually there was endless gossip when something out of the ordinary happened. But this time, Shanti just told the relevant parties that the three of them were going to be gone and that they didn’t want any record of their absence. And everyone just accepted it—no one asked them where they were going or what they were planning to do or why they didn’t want the Union to know about it. No one asked questions, not even Baby.
“That’s what it means to have discipline,” Shanti said when Philippe remarked on it.
He got the same kind of unquestioning acceptance when he told Max and the merchant that they’d need to go through the portal exactly three times before landing on the Host planet and exactly three times before returning to the station.
Philippe had come up with that idea to solve the problem of Creepy being forced out of his mind when they passed through the portal. Once he hit on that solution, he was doubly happy that the doctor was coming along—with three people Creepy could bounce from Philippe’s head into, say, George’s on the first pass through the portal, then on the second pass, he could go into Shanti’s head, and then on the third pass he’d be back in Philippe’s head just in time for them to land on the Host planet.
“What?” asked Creepy when Philippe explained this to him.
“We’ll go through the portal six times total,” said Philippe, pausing for breath, “The first two times you’re forced out, go into one of my companions’ heads. Then on the third pass, go into my head. Then follow that pattern a second time. That way you’ll be with me when we land on your planet, and you’ll be with me when I come back here. We don’t want you in someone else’s head when we reach your planet, right?”
Amazingly, he was able to get all that out before losing focus and Creepy. Even though what he was doing hardly qualified as traditional meditation, it really was getting easier to achieve and maintain that relaxed, slightly zoned-out state.
Things had been quiet on the station—too quiet, really, since the Cyclopes had not resumed trading and were largely avoiding the common areas. Despite that, when Philippe, Shanti, and George finally walked out of the humans’ living area and headed over to the Hosts’, Philippe felt confident.
And excited: He was going to an alien planet! No human had ever done that before. Sure, he was going to make sure there wasn’t some Universe-ending catastrophe about to happen, but even if Philippe took every single thing Creepy said at face value—and really, why should he?—it didn’t mean that this trip would be anything other than a fascinating bit of adventure travel. After all, the catastrophe might not happen for years and years. And Philippe’s mere presence might be enough to stop it—he might have stopped it already, without even knowing it.
The three humans walked casually into the Host living area, where Max greeted them. Just as casually, they walked through the living quarters to the loading dock. George had told them that they should wear their protective hoods while they were on an alien ship or an alien planet, so they pulled the hoods over their heads.
The dock’s doors opened and Philippe saw open space. He recoiled for a moment before realizing that he was looking through the transparent body of the Hosts’ ships. He had seen their ships before, on video—they looked vaguely like glass-topped cake holders—but actually stepping out onto one was a little unnerving. He felt exposed, especially after living in an enclosed space for so long. He wondered briefly why a species would build a station with no windows whatsoever and then build ships that were nothing but.
“You are welcome to my family’s ship,” said the merchant.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” replied Philippe. “This is a beautiful ship. What is its name?”
The merchant looked at him, puzzled. “I do not think that question translated correctly. I apologize, but I believe that we must hurry. Please follow me,” he said, walking over to some cargo containers.
The gray containers were arranged in two groups, so that there was a long, narrow aisle between them. “I believe that if you wish to make a discreet visit to our planet, you should stand here,” he said, gesturing at the aisle.
Philippe began to step in, but Shanti grabbed his shoulder and gestured the doctor in first. He walked up and down the aisle, and then nodded. She gestured to Philippe to get in and followed him.
“Was that necessary?” Philippe whispered, putting his hand over his translation mike.
“Just getting you in the habit,” she whispered back. He glared at her mike, and she shrugged and put her hand over it. “I know it’s been a while since you took your security seriously, but you might want to be a bit more cautious if you’re going to run off and visit strange planets.”
It’s just the Hosts, Philippe thought to himself, but he wasn’t going to argue about his security with the head of security. He looked around.
“Is this going to be enough cover?” he asked.
Shanti shrugged. “Well, the Union’s not looking for us, so I’d say as long as we don’t draw attention to ourselves, we should be fine. Just don’t, like, wave when we pass one of our satellites.”
“OK,” said Philippe, looking around some more. “Where are the seat belts?”
The ship gave a slight shudder and moved gently away from the station.
“Artificial gravity,” said George. “God only knows how they do it.”
“Yes?” asked Shanti.
Philippe turned his head to look at her. The merchant’s nephew was standing at her end of the aisle. He didn’t look particularly happy.
“I was told that you are female,” he said to her.
“Yes, I am,” she replied.
His voice was, of course, without inflection, but his body language reeked of hostility.
“It is through simple chance that you were born female,” the Host said.
Shanti stared at the alien for a moment, her face hardening. She’s just never going to let things lie, thought Philippe.
“Actually, in my case, it wasn’t,” she snapped. “In my case it was part of a long-term strategy to repopulate the planet after a catastrophic war.”
The Host gave her a puzzled, but still unfriendly, look and walked away.
“That was strange,” she said, looking at Philippe. “What? I didn’t cuss.”
Philippe realized that he was staring at her. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. It’s just—you know, I forget sometimes about what a hellish upbringing you must have had, and then you say something like that.”
She smiled. “It wasn’t that bad—I mean, yeah, we were raised with a bunch of lies, but it was all very positive for us, you know. We thought that we were going to be the heroes, that we were going to save everyone from the bad things. So we were pretty upbeat—we used to meet secretly at night and try to figure out how to stop that big war that was supposed to happen. It didn’t get really weird until we were 12 or so and the Old Man got rid of our teachers.”
Philippe wondered whether or not he should ask how exactly “the Old Man” had accomplished that, but then Max appeared at the end of the aisle. “Are you all comfortable?” he asked.
“We’re OK, thank you,” said Philippe.
“I am so pleased to know that,” said Max. “I wanted to show you this device.”
He held up a small piece of machinery.
“It is a translation device for use with Hosts who lack translation gear, which as you know, is a group that until recently contained all Hosts who were not priests. It operates on a similar principle as our translation gear, translating our spoken language into universal code, which is then broadcast to your translation gear. When you speak, and your gear broadcasts universal code, this machine translates that code into Host speech, which it broadcasts through this speaker.”
“Oh, that’ll be useful,
” said George.
“Do you have any questions about anything?” asked Max.
Why not? wondered Philippe.
“I was curious to know about the clear portion of this ship,” he said, pointing up to the transparent roof. “Is that a force field?”
“I am uncertain if that translated correctly,” Max replied. “I do not know what a field composed of force would be like, so I believe the correct answer to your question is no. The clear portion of our ship is composed of a composition.”
“Thank you,” said Philippe, silently cursing his translator.
“Hey, is that your portal?” asked Shanti, pointing to a ring of lights that was fast approaching.
“It is,” said Max. “If you will excuse me, I hope to contemplate this, the most profound of the mysteries of the Universe.”
“Go for it,” said Shanti.
He stepped away, and soon Philippe could hear the Hosts thrumming rhythmically. The portal—or at least the markers indicating the portal’s location—drew closer and closer. They went through.
In the blink of an eye, the starscape before Philippe changed completely. A bright blue sun shone before them, momentarily dazzling him. He held up a hand to block the light.
Only then did he notice the massive planet. It was covered in white clouds, which formed familiar patterns of stripes and whorls. Through the gauzy haze Philippe could see something bluish green in color. Was it water? Vegetation?
He peered closely and spied another gap in the clouds. This time something reddish showed through. Was it desert? Would the sky over a desert be so cloudy? There was a dark ribbon cutting through the red—a river? Wouldn’t a river be too small to be seen from space? Maybe some kind of geological formation? A mountain range?
Philippe’s curiosity was suddenly overwhelmed by a brief but sharp stab of homesickness—the planet was beautiful, and it was also strangely familiar.
“That your planet?” asked Shanti, stepping out from the aisle. George tapped Philippe on the shoulder and gestured for him to follow.
Philippe realized that they could stand in the open now: Earth had no eyes here, theirs were the first.
He stepped out, grinning.
“Yes,” said Max. “That is our planet.”
“The portal’s just right there by your planet,” she said.
“We are extremely fortunate,” said Max.
“Sooo,” she said, a little too casually. “Are we, like, staring down the barrel of a big old gun, or what?”
Philippe’s gaze followed her finger. He hadn’t noticed the station—as big as it was, it had been dwarfed by the magnificent planet and brilliant sun behind it. But it was there, between the portal and the planet, and indeed, what looked suspiciously like the barrel of an enormous cannon was pointed right at them.
“No,” said Max. “That is new.”
“A big new gun,” said Shanti.
“Yes, it was recently built to replace the previous defense station,” replied Max.
“That is fantastic,” she said, in a tone that conveyed rather the opposite sentiment to the humans present.
“We must wait a few minutes,” said the merchant. “There is a ship of meditation that is scheduled to pass through the portal next. But we will not have to wait a long time here, and we will not have to wait even a short time on the other side of the portal.”
“What’s going on?” Shanti asked.
“It’s a religious thing,” Philippe replied quickly. “The Hosts like to make several passes through the portal in order to contemplate it. We’re only going back and forth once.”
“OK,” she said. “Uh, I guess we should get back with the cargo crates then.”
“Good idea!” said Philippe, eager to ward off any discussion of the precise reason for their itinerary. He grabbed George, who was staring intently at the planet, clearly fascinated. They went back to the aisle, George still peering around them to look at the planet before them. The brightness of the sun didn’t seem to bother him at all.
Philippe noticed that George’s eyes were now a silvery-gray, which gave him a nasty start. Then he remembered that the SFers had artificial corneas.
Behind George, Philippe saw something move. “Oh, hey,” he said, pointing. “It’s the meditation ship—they’re going through the portal.”
“You know, they’ve got a shitload of satellites, and they all look nasty,” muttered Shanti. “I mean, that looks like a whole fucking defense grid around their home planet. We don’t have anything like that around Earth.”
“Well, they’ve had almost a thousand years to develop it,” George muttered back.
They were both staring at the planet—or, more likely, at the defenses surrounding it. But Philippe had never actually watched a ship go through a portal, so he decided to look at the larger cake dish—this one loaded with Hosts, their orange and red bodies clustered together like autumn leaves—as it passed through.
It was a little spooky—the front end of the ship just disappeared, as though it were passing behind an invisible door, and soon the whole thing was gone.
Then their ship began to approach the portal, which was encircled by an elaborate and brilliant filigree of lights. It was a spectacular marker, much bigger than the one on the other side, made up of lights that appeared to move and change color.
They celebrate the portal, Philippe thought. Their attitude is so different from Earth’s.
As they got closer and closer, Philippe became more and more fascinated by the lights. The pattern of the filigree somehow looked both angular and flowing. It was unfamiliar but beautiful, and Philippe wondered if it was totally unlike anything on Earth, or if the possible shapes and combinations of shapes in the universe were finite, and if you looked through the entire history of human art you would find this exact pattern decorating a silk brocade or a wooden icon or a clay pot.
He strained his neck looking up at the pattern of lights as they traveled under it. He realized that the filigree was three-dimensional, with parts of it looping out and behind the main plane directly above him.
Then he realized something that sent a shock of cold through his body: He could still see the filigree. It was still sunny.
They were still there.
“The hell?” said George.
“Fucking portal’s fucking broken,” said Shanti, her voice just a tiny bit higher and faster than normal. She pointed her finger in the direction of the planet. “And what the fuck’s that?”