“They’re mammals?” asked Fowler. “Like monkeys and hive-rats?”
“They’re homeotherms,” Nkembe replied. “Warm-blooded. But they don’t produce milk, so they’re not mammals. The Tluaanto tell us they mash up food for their youngest offspring.”
“Nurture,” Gregory said. “Social creatures, then.”
“In as far as that goes. They certainly cooperate, don’t they, Envoy Buoun?”
Buoun checked something on his wristwrap. “Yes. They work together, it says here.”
“Precisely. The Qesh appear well-suited to complex tasks: engineering, manufacture, agriculture.”
“That is the conclusion of our scientists also,” Buoun put in, still reading from his device.
“One question goes unanswered and unaddressed in this data, though. Do the Qesh speak?”
Pi and Buoun said, “No” at the same time.
“Not in a full language,” Buoun added.
“How then do they communicate?”
“Our chief scientist Chlalloun believes they use a combination of squeaking, chemicals, and hand gestures. He suggests they follow each other’s meaning based on … situation. If they are gardening, then they know the other is saying something about gardening. If they are fixing something, they know they are communicating about that.”
“So, they’re task-focused?”
“Pardon?”
“They don’t make small talk, she means,” said Fowler with a wry flick of his eyes toward Gregory as if to say, Same as the doctor. “They don’t discuss matters except for work-related ones.”
“Oh. I’m not sure.”
Fowler took advantage of the attention to continue his questions. “What’s ‘Qesh’ mean? They don’t speak, so it must be one of your words.”
“I cannot find a word in your languages that match,” said Buoun. “Qesh describes people who are very intelligent in one or two ways, but unable to communicate easily.”
“The word savant may be close,” said Gregory.
“Savant. Thank you.”
“I was under the impression we were meeting a new intelligent species,” Pan said, clearly disappointed in what he was seeing and hearing.
“You are,” Naat told him through Buoun. “Perhaps by now, our scientists have found a way to communicate and exchange information. Intelligence comes in many forms, it has been proven.”
The ripple of displeasure crossing Pan’s face was no doubt to do with being told something he already knew. “And perhaps your scientists haven’t found a way to communicate,” he replied. “Speaking of your mission crew, what happened to their ship? The one we’re going to assist. You said they ran into trouble, but you haven’t told us anything beyond that.”
“We are vague because their message was vague. Most of what they told us was concerned with the Qesh. Until you arrived, we had been forced to hope that our second ship en route would be in time to take care of the first’s needs. But they will not arrive for two more of your years. That may be too late. Once again, we are grateful for your assistance.”
Someone on the human side of the table should have said, “We were glad to” or “You’re welcome.” Something polite like that. But no one spoke. Not even Gregory. After ten minutes of watching the set of images cycle through, the group came to the agreement that there was nothing else to discuss. The various Tluaanto retired to the rooms prepared for them while Gregory decided he should try for some rest, as early in the day as it might be. They’d be arriving in the new star system at night by shiptime and there’d presumably be plenty to do then. He could only hope it would be interesting work.
And safe.
10
Assured was due to emerge from leapspace at 2131 shiptime.
Gregory and Grace stepped into the elevator to the bridge at 2128. Upon arriving at that level, they found the short hall between elevator and bridge clogged by the presence of Vazak and three human soldiers. All the humans were broad specimens like the warriors, Chipper, Umbrano and Manolo.
Corporal Bradstock, much shorter but no less stocky, stood just inside the command center on watch, his gaze following the flow of voices around the room. Gregory’s gaze snagged on the bridge’s starboard wall where four chairs had been placed. The three Tluaan councillors had seated themselves. Buoun’s chair was vacant, the envoy choosing to stand beside Fowler at the railing between bridge entry and helmstation.
Gregory joined those at the rail, while Grace leaned against the wall on the other side of the entryway to Bradstock. Pan and Chinyama were down at the workdesk between helmstations, as was customary.
“Getting crowded in here again,” Fowler said by way of greeting.
“Fifty seconds until FTL field dilation,” called the main shift primary helmsman. The man was a lieutenant whom Gregory now knew as Toller.
“Prep shields,” ordered Pan.
“Prep shields, aye,” Toller replied. “Standby for transition.”
“Transition, aye,” called various stations.
On the main screen, the gray static of leapspace blinked away, revealing the black velvet of normal space. Crew voices began barking at each other ...
Pan: “Raise shields. PC and MC online.”
Toller on the helm: “Shields, aye.”
Weapons control: “Particle cannon and missile countermeasures confirmed.”
Pan: “Threat status?”
Sensors and wep-con: “Negative on contacts.”
Toller’s assistant helmsman: “Our emergence point is fifteen degrees above system ecliptic plane, 8.8 AU from star.” Gregory knew this woman now as Yassim, a young lieutenant with a pebbling of tiny scabs across her forehead sustained when Assured’s gravity had gone haywire several days earlier.
Chinyama: “Launch signal buoy.”
Sintopas: “Buoy away. Decoding Tluaan navdata.”
The assistant sensor operator: “Navdata viable.
Pan caught the other sensor operator’s eye. “Astronomy?”
“Local system comprised as reported by Tluaanto. Yellow dwarf star. Six planets, three in close to the star.” As she spoke, a graphic of the system appeared on the mainscreen, a yellow star toward the left side of the chart with an object marked a tad to its left and four more spread out to the right.
“Label planets as per Tluaan naming conventions,” said Chinyama. “Kh’het1, Kh’het2a and 2b, Kh’het3, et cetera.” Those alphanumeric labels popped into being on the chart above their respective objects. Kh’het1 was the marker to the star’s left.
The primary sensor operator continued smoothly. “Kh’het1 is a dwarf planet, approximately four thousand klicks in diameter and currently far-side of the star from us, but visible from our vantage point above the ecliptic plane. 2a and 2b are binary dwarves rotating around each other. Kh’het3 is Earth-spectrum and sitting in the habitable zone. 4 is further out, thirty per cent smaller than Kh’het3. And 5 is a gas giant, diameter approximately thirty-six thousand klicks. Evidence of scattered asteroid clusters throughout the interplanetary medium, but no belt or belts per se. Also evidence of Kuiper-type belt and scattered ejecta in system’s outer ring beyond Kh’het5. All planets besides Kh’het1 are currently our side of the primary.”
Gregory had already deduced that last bit of information from the map, especially since a new marker had appeared on the chart, the blue triangle signifying Assured’s position. As with many star systems, these planets had arrayed their orbits across a flat and invisible ring around their sun—the ecliptic—although they were spaced at different points in their respective orbits. Assured’s blue triangle sat above that orbital plane, aiming in and across from one edge of the heliosphere.
“Find me that artifact,” Pan called.
The second sensor operator replied, “Artifact observable in orbit around Kh’het4.”
The small planet nearest the habitable one, Gregory told himself. For some reason—racial nostalgia maybe?—the planets designated 3 and 4 put him in min
d of Earth and Mars, worlds he knew only from children’s and history books.
Pan ordered, “Kh’het4 on screen.”
The star system chart was traded for a wavering close-up of the gray-and-orange world he’d seen in the Qesh artifact pictures during the breakfast meeting. The planet had a smattering of specks above and around it, moons probably. A moment later, the vision reformed again to a closer zoom, centering on one of those gray-brown specks in orbit. Another shift and the object jumped closer. The bulky cylinder they’d seen in the earlier images appeared to now have an egg-shaped growth on one side. Gregory could only assume it was the Tluaan mission ship.
From her seat, Pi asked in English, “Are our ships okay?”
Plural? Gregory thought. The Tluaanto had said they’d sent one. Please tell me that’s Pi’s bad English making a mistake. Please tell me they haven’t “hidden” more information from us.
“I make one vessel mated with the artifact,” Pan replied, bent over the datastation between helms. “Can’t see any others.” He flashed a frown over his shoulder at Gregory and Fowler—the ambassador could guess why.
“Distance to Kh’het4?” Fowler asked.
The female helmsmen replied, “Seven point one three AU.”
“A billion kilometers plus loose change,” Fowler said, perhaps to impress people with the quick calculation. “It’ll take longer to get there than the entire FTL leap took.”
“The irony of space travel,” Gregory replied, quoting a Caultan song, not sure the Xerxian would get the reference.
“The reality of physics,” Fowler replied, “and technology.”
No, he hadn’t gotten the reference. Before Gregory could explain it, Naat said something to Buoun who translated immediately.
“Please, can you alert our ships to our presence here, Captain?”
“I can,” said Pan, turning. “First, why do you keep saying ships plural?”
“Pardon?” Buoun replied.
“You sent one ship here, right?”
“Oh! I see. We sent one large craft—but it is more of a shell—we call it a carrier shell. It had several smaller ships within it.”
“I see,” said Pan. “Warships?”
Buoun blinked. “N-no! Research vessels. I was told two survey shuttles and two larger … er … we call them multiple-purpose vessels. They do carry light armament for defense. But also living quarters, research areas, and better maneuverability within a system that the carrier shell.”
“Our big ship was leave at the side of the system,” Pi chimed in. “When it first came to Kh’het system.”
Side? Gregory thought. Edge, she means.
Pan mmm-ed. “Just asking. So that’s a multipurpose ship attached to the artifact?”
“It appears so,” said Buoun.
“Let’s call that a frigate. Closest to our ship types. And a simpler name. Ensign Sintopas, send our prerecorded hail to the frigate, encoded for Tluaan comms.”
Gregory nodded to himself as Sintopas got busy on that. He and Naat had composed the message together before each had recorded it in his own language. The message would announce the presence of humans along with that of the ship’s elite Tluaanto.
He leaned closer to Fowler. “How long …?” he started.
“The message? An hour to get there, an hour to get back.” At Gregory’s mildly startled look, the colonel gave one of those unsettling smiles of his. “I was already wondering, doing the math in my head.”
“Two hours to get a reply from them.”
“If they respond immediately.”
“So where’s the second frigate?” This was from Pan and he was asking it of both Buoun and his sensor stations.
“I … I don’t know,” said Buoun. He asked something of his superiors who appeared to wave away his concern. Buoun did not look happy about that.
Now what’s that about? Gregory wondered.
“No other ship traffic on scans,” said an operator.
To while away the next few hours of travel, Gregory split his time between sitting on the side chairs with the councillors—who seemed content with lounging around, lost in their thoughts—and retiring to the Ready Room where he could nibble at snacks, play a mindless card game on his tab, and let Grace take a break too. At one point, he noticed Vazak and Chipper playing the ancient game of rock-paper-scissors in the passage, while the Xerxian Tacticals watched on with disdain.
Back on the bridge, he joined Fowler at the rail again.
“I don’t think I’ve ever noticed how tedious space travel is until I came on this mission,” he said.
“Wanna play rock-paper-scissors?” Fowler asked him. The colonel was about to say more, but he was interrupted by a shrill announcement from the assistant helmsman.
“Contacts!”
Pan peered hard at her panel.
Gregory put a hand to his breastbone, inhaling sharply.
Chinyama had moved to one of the sensor stations. “Tluaan contacts?” he asked.
“Unclear,” she responded.
“Not Tluaanto,” said Pi, understanding the exchange without help.
“Two bogeys,” a sensor operator chimed in. “Both on intercept course, but …” She fell silent, apparently perplexed.
Pan finished for her. “Where’d they come from? They weren’t there a minute ago. Were they just sitting out there, cold, nowhere near any possible bases?”
“Seems like it, sir. Lying in wait, maybe?”
“Let’s hope not.”
“Two contacts?” Chinyama asked, all business. “Size?”
“Tiny,” said Lieutenant Toller before others could respond. “Fighter-size. Or extremely small runabouts.”
Chinyama joined Pan at the operations board. Gregory and Fowler rounded the railing and leaned against a sensor station for a better view of its datastreams. One of the feeds did show a pair of tiny green triangles. They were far away from any clusters of asteroids or planets, literally out in the middle of nowhere. Speed measurements and astronomical data blinked on and off along the edges of the feed.
The Tluaan councillors were all on their feet; Naat and Vren tried to approach but Chinyama warned them off with a stern look and a raised palm. Out in the corridor, the human and Tluaan soldiers had crept closer to the commotion.
“Ten o'clock,” the assistant helmsman said. “Ten o’clock and thirty degrees low.”
More decoding was required for Gregory—all such references must have been to the ship’s bow and orientation. The contacts were ahead, to port and slightly below. A holopad on Pan’s databoard threw up a white dome of projected light: those green markers flashed at the center.
“Accelerating hard,” said Chinyama.
“Headed on an intercept vector and moving like they mean it,” Pan said. “Not as fast as our fighter-interceptor, but still …”
“If we shed speed now, we can shift course and evade them easily, Captain.”
“Not my point, XO. What have we stepped in? That’s my point.” He glanced meaningfully at Naat.
“Pegged ’em,” announced the sensor operator near Gregory. She tapped something and an image appeared on the mainscreen, blurry but showing two objects at distance, shaped like arrowheads.
Gregory caught Pi’s eye. “They’re definitely not yours?”
Pi rattled off something in her own tongue.
Buoun flinched. “She … she said those ships are … are s-sent to attack our p-people at the Qesh artifact.” One of his hands rose to tweak at an ear—a sign of anxiety and overwhelm. As was his sudden stammer. This had startled him as much as it had the Assured crew.
Oh, God. What have we stepped in, indeed?
“‘Are sent?’” Pan snapped. “More information. Now.”
The Grand Councillor seemed calm and prepared as he started an explanation.
“It was our fear that something like this might be happening,” Buoun translated. “The ‘difficulties’ our expedition reported were to do with be
ing attacked. They survived it, but many orbits—years—have passed since they sent that early message. If the attacks have continued, then any of our survivors will be at that artifact and possibly defenseless. That may explain why your sensors can only see one … frigate. There should be two. We require your intervention. Again. And we will be grateful for it.”
All around the bridge, humans gaped at Buoun and at Naat. Buoun dipped his head under the scrutiny; Naat did not. His eyes had fixed in some middle distance where he didn’t notice the growing distress and anger of the humans before him, and of the Domain Ocean councillor beside him. This time, it was not Pan who lost patience with the Tluaanto …
“What is going on!” Gregory roared, the words boiling up from within him, spewing forth at Naat. “You said these Qesh can barely communicate and were trapped on their artifact. Now they’re throwing fighters at us! Did you steal this artifact from them? Did you attack their other assets? We will not intervene in anything unless you tell us the truth. We won’t even consider it!”
If he hadn’t been so furious, Gregory knew, he might be appalled at his own loss of self-control. Right now, he didn’t care. Pan nodded approval at the outburst. Fowler mumbled something Gregory didn’t catch.
Naat gave a mild twitch of his lips, still staring into space. “We have not told you everything. We …” In English, the councillor said, “…apologize.” And then in his own tongue again: “Is that your word?”
Buoun told him that it was. Gregory and Pan growled impatiently.
Naat continued, “We knew your ship is well-protected against whatever we would find. And, in truth, we didn’t know what we would find. Those attackers are not Qesh.”
“Not Qesh,” Gregory groaned. He struck the railing with the meat of his fist.
“The Qesh people have been under attack from shortly after our first ship arrived, you see. Our expedition was caught up in it and unable to retreat. They reported seeing a massive vessel arrive and deposit something in orbit around the habitable planet, the Qesh home world. When they investigated, they drew attention and aggression.”
Assured (Envoys Book 2) Page 11