by Ian Douglas
This structure, however, comparatively small though it might be, was undeniably alive and vital. St. Clair could see ship traffic passing above the rotating ring structures, like streams of dust moving in well-defined lanes. So while this ring might not be as immense, the activity did the job of making St. Clair feel woefully unprepared for what they were about to encounter.
The Toad’s cargo bay was fairly crowded with people, a carefully screened selection chosen for this first official face-to-face meeting between civilizations. Lord Ambassador Lloyd was seated opposite St. Clair, regal in his formal, bright red diplomatic uniform, complete with gold brassard, medals, and elaborately gilded half cloak. To either side were his entourage of aides and secretaries, most of them nearly as peacock-dazzling as he.
An android robot was seated to St. Clair’s left. It looked human, but when he glanced at it an ID tag came up against his field of view identifying it as being teleoperated by Dr. Francois Dumont.
As head of the expedition’s xenosophontological department, Dumont was an expert on alien technologies. He was too valuable to risk with a shore party, at least until more was known about the aliens, but his expertise would be invaluable during this meeting. He was, therefore, mentally riding the android while remaining safe inside Ad Astra.
On his right was a young woman in blue civilian utilities. Her in-head ID tag said she was Christine Mercer, a member of Dumont’s staff. Evidently, she was considered expendable where her boss was not.
“Commencing acceleration in ten seconds,” the voice in St. Clair’s head warned. “Two Gs for five seconds . . . in four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . boost.”
St. Clair felt a hard bump, and his weight became twice its accustomed eighty-three kilos. The Toad was boosting to match velocities with one particular ring. As the seconds passed, St. Clair could see that ring’s movement appear to slow . . . then stop. The Toad was dropping smoothly now through a well-defined lane of holographic light toward a brightly lit opening.
“Here we go!” someone from Lloyd’s group called out aloud. “Into the unknown!”
St. Clair wasn’t sure if the voice conveyed excitement . . . or terror. St. Clair himself wasn’t sure which emotions were appropriate here. The invitation had seemed friendly enough . . . sincere enough. . . .
But how did you judge the motives behind purely alien decisions, or gestures that seemed open and friendly? The truth might be something completely, darkly different.
“I still think I could be coming along in person,” the android at St. Clair’s side groused. “This puppet show is ridiculous.”
“We’ll get you ashore in person soon, Doctor,” St. Clair promised. “If everything pans out.”
“Huh. How come you’re going ashore in person? I’d think the commander of the expedition is more important than one aging sophontologist.”
“R.H.I.P.,” St. Clair replied, grinning. “‘Rank hath its privileges.’” He didn’t add the real reason he’d overridden the objections of ExComm Symms and half a dozen others on his command staff. He glanced across at Lloyd. He didn’t entirely trust the ambassador, and wanted a say in any agreements or protocols that emerged from this meeting.
Some things were too important to try handling them over a teleoperations link.
The Toad’s acceleration ceased. A moment later, St. Clair felt a sensation of movement, of very light acceleration, as a magnetic beam took hold of the shuttle and drew it inside. In the visual feed inside his head, the opening to the landing bay yawned around him, the orange light of the sun was cut off, and the craft gentled in to a graceful touchdown within a vast and brilliantly lit cavern.
They had arrived.
“Feels like about one G,” Mercer said, looking around. Her inertial cage unlocked and swung open, and she began unstrapping herself from the seat.
“Zero point nine six Gs, to be precise,” Dumont’s voice added. His robotic body contained accelerometers that allowed precise metrics.
“A delegation of the local polity is on hand to welcome us,” Newton’s voice said in St. Clair’s head.
“This wasn’t supposed to be anything formal,” he replied. “What kind of protocol are we looking at? Hell . . . what do I call them?”
“This would appear to be a friendly welcome rather than formal protocol,” the AI replied. “The senior greeter is called Na Lal. I cannot determine whether this is a given name or a title . . . or even whether there might be a distinction between the two in this culture.”
“‘Na Lal.’ Okay. I can handle that.”
Standing up, a pair of security robots moved to either side of St. Clair, escorting him toward the shuttle’s hatch. They were closely followed by Dumont’s telepresence robot, by the ambassador and Lloyd’s entourage, and finally by the rest of the passengers. They emerged in the alien landing bay; the compartment appeared to still be open to space, but obviously some sort of field was up to prevent the air (and the delegation) from rushing out into hard vacuum. The air tasted slightly richer than what he was used to, and carried some exotic smells. According to Newton, the atmosphere—at least in this particular ring segment—was about 22 percent oxygen with a slightly higher gas pressure than humans were accustomed to, but it was still breathable.
Ad Astra’s xeno people had assured him that there were no alien microbes present that would cause humans problems. He hoped to hell they knew what they were talking about. Just to be on the safe side, everyone on the shuttle had received a precautionary booster spray of antimicrobial, antiviral, and antiallergenic nano.
He stepped down the ramp and onto a firm but slightly yielding deck. The bay was huge, at least ten or twelve hectares in area, with a vaulted ceiling high enough to allow for localized weather.
“It looks like they’ve mastered gravity control,” Dumont’s voice said over his in-head link.
“We knew that already,” St. Clair replied. Various alien ships they’d encountered already had appeared to manufacture gravity to order.
“Yes. But these are civilian ships. Crowd movement. Trivial stuff . . . not military.”
“How do you know they’re not military, Doctor?” Mercer asked.
“It’s obvious. No weapons.”
“I’m not sure weaponry would look like weaponry in a civilization this advanced,” St. Clair said.
“Point,” Dumont conceded. “But it feels like casual traffic. People movers . . . or the equivalent.”
St. Clair nodded understanding. The vast bay was busy, with aircraft and machines of many different shapes and designs drifting in what at first glance seemed complete and chaotic confusion. On the deck, large numbers of what presumably were living beings moved in the distance, too far for him to make out details. Among the aircraft were dozens of iridescent bubbles, each several meters across, each silently floating in midair with obvious if mysterious purpose.
Lloyd’s entourage was close behind him. “You should let the ambassador precede you, Lord Commander,” one of Lloyd’s people told him. “Diplomatic precedence, and all of that . . .”
“Go to hell,” St. Clair said, a deliberately undiplomatic response. “Until I say so, this is still potentially a military situation.”
“But—”
“My lord,” Mercer said, interrupting. “Dr. Dumont! Look there.”
One of the large bubbles touched the deck twenty meters ahead and vanished like a silently popping soap bubble. In its place stood a group of ten . . . humans? They were the right height, the right shape; they even wore clothing similar to shipboard utilities. But as St. Clair walked slowly toward the group, he received his first shock.
The being directly in front of him, extending its hand in welcome, was Grayson St. Clair.
He stopped in midstride, almost stumbling. He was aware of a lightning-fast electronic conversation in the background, too fast for human understanding . . . and then the copy of himself in front of him blurred and shifted, adopting different features. The effect was
rather bland, and put St. Clair in mind of the CGI models widely used in vid advertising.
It took St. Clair only a second or two to see what had happened. Somehow, smoothly and seamlessly, the aliens had reached into his in-head circuitry directly, an on-the-fly hack to block out what they really looked like and replace the images with something more familiar.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, Lord Commander St. Clair,” the being said. “It was our intent to greet you in as nonthreatening a manner as possible.”
“I appreciate that,” he said. He hesitated, then accepted the offered hand. The grip was cool, dry, and felt perfectly human. “You’re Na Lal?”
He knew it was. Newton had just superimposed an identifier on his field of vision. Presumably, that was how the alien had known his name as well. Newton would be very busy at the moment acting as the technical interface between the two species.
“I am. You might think of me as a combination of mayor and chief of police for this subring district. Welcome to the world of Ki.”
“Thank you. This . . .” St. Clair indicated Lloyd, “is our diplomatic envoy, Ambassador Clayton Lloyd.”
“A pleasure, Lord Ambassador.”
“A-an honor, sir. . . .”
“And . . . I assure you,” St. Clair continued smoothly, “that we have considerable experience working with species alien to us. While I thank you for your consideration, you don’t need to use technological illusion to protect our fragile sensibilities.”
“Indeed? We were informed that yours was a primitive species, comparatively speaking, and felt more comfortable with your own kind.”
“And that you felt threatened by species of markedly different morphological structure than yours,” one of the others added.
Had Newton told them that? St. Clair wondered. Where else would they have picked up details like that?
“We also prefer to see the world as it is,” St. Clair said, “and not as we might wish it to be. Some of us, at least . . .”
The eyes in the too-perfect human face widened slightly. “So be it,” he said, and the face blurred again.
The image of Na Lal faded away completely and was replaced by a monster.
Chapter Five
When sh/he dropped his/r hold on the aliens’ electronic interfaces, one of the two alien beings closest to Na’lyallaghsclyah had jumped slightly, as though startled, but the one identified as Lord Commander Grayson St. Clair had shown no reaction that sh/he could detect. Na’lyallaghsclyah was impressed.
That, of course, was part of the problem with aliens; you could never be certain that you were reading their emotional reactions even remotely correctly . . . and what might be joy in one species could well indicate shocked horror in another. Or insane rage. . . .
Had the one called Lloyd simply been startled? Or had that jump signified something else? Sh/he would have to discuss human physiological responses with the alien AI later. But if Lloyd had just shown an involuntary startle reflex, the one calling itself St. Clair appeared to possess considerable control, something that Na’lyallaghsclyah appreciated.
Na’lyallaghsclyah was a Dhald’vi, a species that had been star-faring for so long most of his/r siblings no longer knew the world of their origin. Myth hinted that the Dhald’vi had evolved in the deep, ice-locked seas of a rogue world adrift between the stars, but those were only stories and no Dhald known to Na’lyallaghsclyah knew if there was any truth at all to them.
The humans were odd-looking, but, then, non-Dhald species generally were. The being closest to her/m stood a little shorter than Na’lyallaghsclyah’s one-grod-two, and appeared to be generally and bilaterally symmetrical. There were sense organs at the top, and two members for locomotion below; the thing moved awkwardly in an odd, stilting fashion, rather than flowing smoothly over the ground as did Dhald’vi. Very peculiar . . .
But the artificial intelligent with which the Xalit Ta had been negotiating had told them that these beings, these humans, likewise were castaways, separated from the world of their birth and lost both in time and space. Orphans, like the Dhald’vi. The knowledge predisposed Na’lyallaghsclyah to acceptance and to friendliness, despite the things’ strange appearance.
The Dhald’vi were given to flights of emotional expression.
Sh/he opened his/rself to the humans.
The fleshy, dark pillar in front of St. Clair rose a little more than two meters above the deck, but there was as much again of the being dragging out behind it like the blunt tail of a slug. The color was dark—a mottled brown-and-green—but the lumpy skin shone with iridescent patches of luminous blue. Something that might have been an eye perched at the top of the thing, though it wasn’t more than a puckered hole the size of a fist. St. Clair wondered if that might, instead, be a mouth. . . .
Then the being split open.
The slit started at the eye-hole and unzipped to the deck; the pillar split apart, a mantle unfolding to reveal the being’s complex internal structure.
The inside surface of the mantle was ablaze with bioluminescence illuminating internal organs and a kind of crisscross latticework of cartilage or strap-like tendons. A dozen short tentacles lined the mantle’s edges, weaving in the air as if in welcome.
Lloyd gave a startled exclamation and jumped back as though struck, and St. Clair heard a sharp babble of electronic conversation among the other humans in the shore party.
“Steady, all of you!” he snapped. “As you were!”
“I don’t think that’s a hostile gesture,” Dumont said, affirming St. Clair’s own thoughts.
“How do you know?” one of Lloyd’s people asked. His voice was shaking.
“Dr. Dumont is correct,” Newton told St. Clair. “I suggest that you extend both arms and touch appendages.”
Okay. Humans, at least in various Western cultures on Earth, reached out and shook hands in greeting . . . a custom that likely had begun as a means of showing strangers that you were unarmed. Here, the equipment was quite different, but the idea might be the same. He raised both arms. The alien further extended two tendrils.
“Just touch lightly,” Newton warned. “Don’t grasp.”
The alien’s flesh was cool to the touch, and slightly wet. St. Clair found himself looking into the being’s core; an equilateral triangle of three organs—were they hearts?—pulsed, each in rippling one-two-three synch with the others.
Newton was feeding St. Clair data drawn from the Mind of Ki. Na Lal—and that name appeared to be a contraction hiding a more difficult chain of syllables—was a Dhald’vi, a being most likely evolved from marine organisms in the same way that humans had descended from tree-dwelling apes. Nothing, he saw, was known about the Dhald home planet. Was that because they were holding back information for some reason?
“They appear to know little about their own origins,” Newton told him over a private channel. “I would conjecture that as a marine species their progenitors originally opened like that to take in nutrients or dissolved gasses from the sea water.”
The moment ended as the Dhald’vi broke the contact. The open body cavity closed . . . but only partway.
“Like coral polyps,” Dumont said behind him, “emerging from their reef to feed.”
“Something like that.”
“Does that mean it wants to eat us?” St. Clair meant it as a joke, but it was difficult to know what the gesture meant to the alien.
“The opening may also be related to sexual activity,” Newton told him. “By extension, it may be a simple greeting . . . or a statement of welcome.”
“Okay, but if it wants to have sex with me, tell it I have a headache.”
St. Clair studied the other beings with Na Lal. Two were Dhald’vi, both still with their bodies zipped up. Two were Kroajid, a species the humans had met before: two-meter tarantulas, eight-eyed and covered with stiff bristles. Members of the Galactic Cooperative, they referred to themselves as “Gatekeepers of Paradise.”
The sixth member o
f the alien welcoming committee was different. Where the Kroajid and Dhald’vi were clearly organic, this one was a machine, at least in part. The body was a basketball-sized black sphere suspended from five slender, telescoping legs, giving it the look of a terrestrial harvestman, a daddy longlegs three meters high. St. Clair studied the being for several moments, trying to decide whether he was looking at a robotic body, or an organic one with an outer layer of what looked like shiny black obsidian.
“The !!!K’tch are cybernetic organisms,” Newton explained, reproducing the string of clicks and clucking sounds with smooth fluency. “An organic brain, their reproductive organs, and a few other incidentals are protected inside that spherical housing. The rest is plastic and metal.”
St. Clair thought of Marine Major General Kelly Wilson and a number of other cybernetically enhanced people on board Tellus Ad Astra, people who were more machine than biological organism. Kelly could change bodies like other people changed their clothing. This being with the unpronounceable name seemed to have taken things considerably further than that.
The last four members of the alien group were something of a shock. A meter tall, disturbingly humanoid with large heads and large black eyes . . .
“Are those Xam?” St. Clair asked Newton.
“According to our host AI,” Newton replied, “those are Xa’am. That might translate best as ‘tame Xam.’”
Metaphorical red warning flags snapped up in St. Clair’s mind. He’d not thought about the possibility that the war Tellus Ad Astra had stumbled into in this epoch was in fact a civil war. . . .
“Question that AI,” St. Clair ordered Newton over a private channel. “I want to know what the hell is going on here with the Xam.”
“Yes, Lord Commander.”