Valence (Confluence Book 4)

by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  Jane nodded slowly. “If your people were to leave Pliga and have experiences on other worlds, they might find they also have more novel ideas.”

  Gili’s eyes widened a fraction. “And leave an Optimal Existence? That is not our way.”

  “And Schlewan?”

  “We will be doing everything in our power to be optimizing life for her as well.”

  Jane fidgeted. “There is still the matter of repayment for the work done on our ships.”

  Gili opened his mouth and shut it again, his throat fluttering. “We have been sharing.”

  “And we should give something in return. I’m afraid I don’t know what’s appropriate. Will you guide me in understanding?”

  “It is I who is not understanding. Existence is providing a bounty, more than we are using, more than twice our people could be using. This is a trifling. We have been enjoying this sharing between our peoples.”

  Jane frowned. She was getting it all wrong. “I’m sorry if I have offended. I want only to be as generous as you have been.”

  Gili’s throat fluttered. “Not offending. Existence is being generous. It is giving you and I what we need. All of us.” His lips curled in that manic imitation of a smile.

  Jane smiled in return.

  Jane left Gili as soon as she felt it was polite to do so and made her way back to the ship. She found Schlewan just finishing packing up her quarters.

  “A benefit of not owning much,” Schlewan said as Jane passed through the door and noted that the room already looked bare. Schlewan gestured for Jane to sit on a chair while she settled herself on the edge of the bed.

  “Master Schlewan, are you sure this is what you want? You were trapped on Atielle for so long, I don’t want to leave you alone on Pliga unless you are absolutely certain this is the right thing for you.”

  Schlewan’s eyes crinkled with warmth. “I appreciate your concern, Quasador Dux Jane Holloway. It is gratifying to know that you’ve considered my well-being in this manner. There is a difference, however. There, I was stranded with no hope of rescue, among people led by an individual I did not respect. Pliga will be very different. Here I will be a student among people I respect a great deal. And I will be able to learn things that may greatly benefit Sectilius, if I live long enough to return home.”

  “I see.”

  “I will keep a journal to document what I’ve learned. I think my perspective will be unique. It will be a mutually beneficial exchange.”

  “Did you know they were going to ask for this?”

  “I hoped they might. The teachers I’ve been observing seemed very interested in my perspective. If they hadn’t made an offer, I planned to discuss something similar with you. I was waiting to see how things developed diplomatically. And with Huna. If they had refused his request to leave, they might also have been less genial toward the idea of a long-term apprenticeship.”

  “We will be leaving in just a few weeks. You can still change your mind. We can try to find some other way to compensate them.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I am at peace with the decision. Tinor and Doctor Ajaya Varma will be very capable in my absence.”

  Jane nodded. “We will miss you.”

  “You will. Tinor most of all, I’m sure. But she has outgrown the need for a caretaker, and it is time for teacher and student to part. I’ve taught her well, and the ship’s teaching tools have taken over for me now. She has worked tirelessly to finish her education. She has just recently passed all the pertinent exams. She is a full medical master now.”

  Jane frowned. “I didn’t know that!”

  “She’s been waiting for the most opportune time to make an announcement. She wants to please you, you know.”

  Jane’s face got a little warm. “I know.”

  Schlewan stood. “Well now, well now, well now,” she said. “I have much more to do. I’ll be taking along files and tablet computers and a few medical tools. I would like to continue to gather things.”

  Jane stood too. “Please take a food printer and crates of raw food with you. I’ll ask Alan if he will work with Bigu to figure out how to make it work at the Tree.”

  “Casgrata. My teachers and I plan to modify a node of the Tree to make food tailored for my consumption, but in the meantime, that would help a great deal.”

  16

  BRAI NUDGED PIO GENTLY. The medical master was bringing her out of her medically induced coma for the first time, and it worried him that she was so slow to wake.

  The three of them filled the diagnostic bubble past capacity. Pio was well within reach. Movement was restricted by design within the space, but this was a little more claustrophobic than his earlier stay. At least he could watch Pio closely.

  Finally her dull, staring eyes moved in their sockets and she jerked, whacking her arms against the sides of the bubble. The sea cow wriggled between them, its black eyes worriedly watching Pio.

  “Oh,” Pio said sluggishly.

  Gradually she became aware of where she was, who was with her, and that Schlewan was attempting to communicate with her.

  “Are you in pain?” Schlewan asked.

  Pio was wary, reluctant to discuss how she felt with a sectilian. “No, not much.”

  It seemed to be true nonetheless.

  She moved, carefully examining her limbs one by one, delicately working around the curious sea cow’s body, not annoyed by its presence in any way. When she reached the missing limb, she didn’t dwell on the loss. It was just a temporary problem.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You saved my life.”

  “Don’t speak of it. You would have done the same,” Brai replied.

  A wave of warm feelings washed over him, surprising him with its intensity.

  “I would have, yes.” She turned her attention to the marine mammal, running the backs of her arms over the creature’s shaggy head. Its eyes partially closed, and it edged even closer to Pio. “And this sweet little soul came with us.”

  “It wouldn’t leave us. We must also give it some gratitude for our lives. It contributed to our rescue.”

  “We can’t go on calling her an it,” Pio said, continuing to caress the shaggy animal.

  “It is female?” Brai asked.

  “Of course she is. I think I’ll call her Lira. Thank you, Lira, for helping us.” Pio projected fondness and appreciation toward the animal.

  The sea cow rolled in place, a blissful expression on her face.

  Brai caught a burst of delight coming from Lira through his connection with Pio, which was echoed and magnified in Pio herself. “By the Cunabula,” he exclaimed.

  “She likes her name,” Pio said, pleased with herself.

  “I’ve never observed such communication,” Brai said, somewhat stupefied by what Pio had accomplished with this nonsentient animal.

  Pio’s mental laugh tinkled in his head. “You weren’t paying attention.”

  Umbrage spurted up inside him. “It didn’t seem important.”

  “It was to me,” she whispered.

  Guilt and regret replaced the momentary offense. This was acknowledged and he was forgiven instantly.

  “We must find a way to feed her,” Pio said.

  “They’ve been giving her leafy greens from the Greenspace Deck.”

  “That isn’t sustainable for the long term,” Pio replied.

  Brai stayed silent, shielding his thoughts from her for the first time in a long time. She wanted to keep the mammal with her. He found that very odd. And perhaps not right. The animal would surely be happiest in its natural habitat, not stuck in an artificial enclosure.

  But Pio understood what his silence meant. “She’s injured. She cannot swim properly for migration, which might mean she’d be vulnerable in the bay all alone. She is a social creature. And she wants to be with us, with me.”

  “Perhaps Schlewan could mend the injury—”

  “No. Not Schlewan. I can sense her revulsion that Lira is here inside the ship.”<
br />
  She wasn’t wrong. Schlewan’s feelings were obvious. “Ajaya or Tinor then?”

  “Perhaps.”

  But he could sense her reluctance. She had already become attached to the idea of keeping Lira in this brief time. Perhaps it was for the best. If she had Lira with her, the requests for his genetic contribution might subside. But he had to wonder, “Will the Qua’dux approve?”

  Pio’s limbs curled into tight corkscrews, indicating angst. “Why should I need Jane’s approval? Have they not told me I am free? That I am master of my destiny? That I may stay with them or go as I please?”

  A threat hung unspoken among those words. Alarm that she might be thinking along those lines made him instantly contrite. “I only meant—”

  “You have to let the old ways go. I intend to keep Lira with me. The humans and sectilians will adapt. You let me handle this in my own way. Do not meddle.”

  He struggled against a feeling of being wounded, moving as far from her as he could, which was not far at all, and turning his body so that he looked away from her into the air-filled medical chamber where Schlewan monitored their vitals and interpreted test results. “I assure you I will not interfere.” He didn’t know what else to say and resisted the urge to plead with her to stay with them. He didn’t think her threat had been completely serious and he didn’t want to agitate her further.

  After a time her feelings receded and she slipped into sleep. He dozed as well.

  When he woke, she was alert again and caressing Lira. Feelings swelled up inside him. “I’m sorry,” he blurted suddenly, without planning to.

  Her eyes darted to his, a lack of understanding in her mind.

  He squirmed. “I had lost all sense of caution. I wasn’t wary enough. I didn’t see the predator until it was too late.”

  “We both had. There were two of us there.” She reached out and stroked her arm down one of his limbs, just short of his worst injuries. “There is nothing to forgive. We both paid a price. We won’t be so careless again.”

  And just like that he felt as though all was right between them once more.

  17

  JANE HEARD a beep inside her helmet and tapped the control to answer. “Holloway here.”

  Ron’s deep baritone came through. “How you doing down there, QD?”

  She swept her eyes over the HUD of her suit, which showed the surrounding area still clear of all large animals and every member of her team in good shape. “Doing fine so far.”

  Jane bounded across the seafloor of the bay with a small team in power armor surrounding Pio and Brai, their marine-mammal friend swimming in circles around them. Their goal was to return the animal, which Pio had named Lira, to the wild if it would let them. So far it showed no interest in leaving the kuboderans behind. Ron hovered just above the water’s surface in a Speroancora shuttle, with more team members ready to dive if anything dangerous showed up.

  She was uneasy, and not just because of the potentially dangerous predators. Though she’d been submerged in this suit before, it was always disquieting. She reminded herself it was airtight, made to fight in the vacuum of space. It could handle keeping her alive underwater. It had before. She was being a little cautious, but no one had criticized her or complained about it yet. They’d all seen the damage the shark had done to Pio and Brai.

  She tapped off the autorun on her suit and called a halt. “These are the coordinates where I found Ei’Brai on the day he was injured. Lira’s home must be near here.”

  Pio drifted toward some areas of sparse, ribbonlike seagrass that grew denser over distance, and one of her long arms extended. She was nervous about coming back here, but was bearing up well. Her wounds had healed and her truncated arm had begun to regenerate. “We often saw her in this meadow. She was always alone. I never saw another of her species, though I believe she would normally live in a group.”

  The water was relatively shallow, only about thirty feet deep, and it was still fairly well lit here, though relatively colorless. The seagrasses undulated as far as the eye could see, but there were no animals like Lira anywhere nearby.

  Jane tapped her comm. “Ron, we aren’t detecting any large wildlife in the area. Can you scan the entire bay from up there?”

  “I’d have to increase altitude, which means a longer reaction time if you need us.”

  She glanced around uneasily. “Go ahead.”

  “Scanning now.”

  Alan walked deeper into the meadow and examined the seagrass. “This is probably its primary food source. We should take some samples.”

  Pio jetted over to him, an effusive feeling radiating from her. “Yes! We can modify a nutrition-conversion device to make a diet specifically for her, just as a diet has been made for Brai and myself!”

  Alan made eye contact with Jane, his eyebrows raised in question. “Sure. We could.”

  Ron came back over the comm. “Bad news and good news. Still not detecting anything. No mammals like Lira, no large predators. If she was part of a group, could they have migrated?”

  Alan squatted down with a sample bag and grasped some seagrass.

  Tinor strode over to him and stayed his hand. “Wait. There’s more to consider.”

  Alan straightened slowly. “Okay.”

  Jane held up her arm to get everyone’s attention. “Stay alert. Spread out. Keep the kuboderans inside our circle. Watch your heads-up display carefully for predators, just in case. Ron, widen your search, please. Look for other bays and sheltered areas where the water is shallow and calmer.”

  Jaross and Ryliuk moved out in opposite directions, scanning.

  Tinor gestured at the seagrass around her and Alan. “Look carefully. This hasn’t been foraged. It’s very lush. The biomass may be too fertile here. That may be why the others have moved on.”

  Alan cleared his throat. “I thought lush and fertile was good for plants.”

  “Good for the plants, but less nutritious for those who feed upon them. See how there are grasses around the perimeter that have been chewed down to the root? And the lines in the silt where the rhizomes have been pulled up? Seagrass that grows more sparsely likely also grows more slowly—and as a result contains more protein and more nutrition. If we become responsible for the sea cow, we have to make certain we optimize its food source. It has already lost some body fat while confined on the ship, despite Pledor’s efforts to feed it leafy greens. If we aren’t careful, we could do it harm.”

  Alan huffed, but not in an annoyed way. He seemed to be fascinated. “Noted.”

  “The Sectilius have long dealt with scarcity. Cultivation concepts are very important to our culture and taught in the schoolroom. Overfertilization must be guarded against to prevent malnutrition.”

  Alan moved over to the perimeter of the meadow. He gestured at the scraggly and closely cropped grasses there. “These? We could pull up the roots too.”

  Tinor got down next to him. “Yes. Let’s take at least twenty samples from different areas around the margins of the meadow. There will be little they overlooked before they moved on, but there will be some.”

  “Oh, see—look!” Pio exclaimed. “I asked her to show me what she eats. She is eating from the fringe area. What a good girl!”

  Tinor stood and marched over to Lira, observing the mammal eating with great intensity. Lira’s mobile upper lip looked elephantine as it moved delicately over the grasses, pulling with surprising strength to get even the roots and then shaking the silt away before chewing.

  Jane frowned. She hadn’t realized Pio was able to communicate that well with the mammal. She eased her consciousness a little closer to Pio’s to more closely watch her interact with Lira. Immediately she was struck by the intense emotional attachment Pio felt. Pio’s interest in the lumbering mammal was verging on obsession. Jane quickly withdrew and glanced nervously at the HUD again.

  She’d seen that kind of fixation before. In parents with newborns. And young adults who wanted babies but had to settle
for pets instead.

  Pio was not interested in returning this animal to the wild. Her primary concern was to make it possible to share her habitat with Lira, for companionship. But she was intelligent enough to realize she’d have to go about it in a roundabout way if the Speroancora crew was going to take her seriously.

  When Pio caressed Lira, the animal drew closer to her and rolled. When Pio stopped, Lira nudged her arms. It certainly seemed to be choosing to stay near Pio and Brai. It was acting just like a pet.

  Jane didn’t know why or how this bond had formed. But it had. And Pio seemed revitalized because of it. Losing an arm hadn’t broken her. The pain of regeneration hadn’t put her in a funk. After all she’d been through, the emotional state she’d been in when they’d found her, that was a good thing. Pio had lost a lot.

  Jane knew that it was a kuboderan characteristic to have a strong need to watch over and be involved with their crews. Now Pio had all of them to care about and Brai too, but she still seemed unsettled. Putting a more permanent crew on the Oblignatus would be a good start. Lira gave her another positive thing to focus on.

  Guilt pricked at Jane a little. Perhaps she should have done something more for Pio sooner. But she hadn’t really understood what was needed until now. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have guessed a pet would be the answer.

  “QD, I’ve found a group of five, far to the north. It’s definitely not within walking distance. I don’t see how we can get Lira up there until the ships are ready for launch.”

  Pio said, “It’s too far for her with her injuries, I’m sure. That’s why she stayed behind. Poor lonely Lira. She needs us.”

  Jane smiled at Pio and announced to the team, “Let’s start gathering the samples we need to learn to care for Lira.”

  Jane let Tinor take charge of the sample gathering. The young sectilian was in her element, ordering everyone around, issuing strict instructions, checking over their work, and signaling when they had reached their goals. In the end they collected samples from eight different sites and five different grass species that Pio coaxed Lira into showing them. Then they gathered a large amount to feed Lira over the next few days while Tinor analyzed the nutritional content of all the samples and worked on a solution to feeding the animal.