by E. M. Foner
“It’s not a question of technology,” Jeeves reiterated. “The Kasilians forbade us from interfering. They look forward to the death of their world as a fulfillment of prophecy, their chance to become one with the multiverse. It sounds like the only reason they are coming out of seclusion at this point is to give away their worldly possessions before the end comes. We should learn more from the young woman with the visions when she arrives.”
“Let me get this straight,” Kelly stated. “We’re holding this meeting because a teenage girl had a vision, this according to a third-hand account from my conspicuously absent husband who heard it from the girl’s father? Shaun Crick would tell you that Earth is on fire if he thought you were dumb enough to give him a free ride there to help put it out.”
“Kasilian dream visions are a historical fact,” Dring informed Kelly. “It’s not a communications system my own people ever employed, but it’s a matter of record that non-Kasilian humanoids who participated in their faith and took certain drugs were susceptible.”
“Oh, so there are drugs involved. That gives me a high degree of confidence in these visions,” Kelly replied sarcastically. “And if you don’t want to interfere, why are you even talking to me about it?”
“Perhaps Jeeves meant to say that we don’t want to interfere directly,” Libby hedged. Kelly glanced up at the ceiling in exasperation, shook her head and groaned.
“So while these poor deluded aliens are handing over their wealth and cultural heritage to every adventurer with cargo space who can follow a psychic, or should I say, psychedelic map, you want me to talk them into changing their minds?” Kelly demanded.
“You won’t be alone,” Jeeves told her. “Dring and I will accompany you, and I’m sure that your family would enjoy a chance to walk around on a real planet for a change.”
“It’s just for a week, a fact-finding mission to see how far their situation has deteriorated,” Dring added. “No outsiders have set foot on Kasil for thousands of years. For all we know, there may be Kasilians who are open to other options.”
Suddenly there was a loud yelp from outside, followed by a pause in the music. Kelly bounded to the door, expecting to see that Dorothy had accidentally tied herself into a pretzel while trying to imitate Aisha’s graceful moves, but it was just that Beowulf had pinned Borgia under a giant paw and was taking his time about letting her up again. The young dog loved teasing the old war hound, literally running circles around him, but sometimes she became overconfident, and then Beowulf showed that he still had a few tricks left in the bag.
“Bad dog! Let her up,” Dorothy scolded Beowulf, who probably outweighed all three of the dancers put together. Beowulf gave her a lazy smile and removed his paw from the smaller dog’s rib cage. Borgia popped right back up, but rather than resuming her friendly harassment of the larger dog, she raced toward the entrance of Mac’s Bones to greet the three Crick girls returning from their outing.
The Cricks were trailed by a Shuk mulebot, heavily laden with packages, so it was apparent that their trading had gone well. Becky broke away from her sisters and approached the ice harvester, while the two younger girls continued towards their cobbled-together ship. Borgia, scenting dog treats in the new supplies, chose to abandon Kevin and transfer her affections to the girls heading back to the Crick campsite.
“Mom pinged and said you wanted to see me,” Becky addressed Kelly with trepidation as soon as she drew within easy speaking range. The eldest Crick girl paused to cast an odd look at her brother, who was standing on one leg with both of his arms outstretched and the palms held perpendicular to his forearms, seemingly trying to look back in her direction without turning his head. Like all children who passed extended periods in Zero-G, Kevin spent several hours a day on the exercise equipment that was designed to build muscle mass and promote bone density, and as a result, he was extremely flexible and well-coordinated. The boy had a much easier time following Aisha’s movements than Dorothy, but living in close quarters with seven other family members had imbued him with the sensitivity not to embarrass Kelly’s daughter by being too quick to learn.
“Thank you for coming, Becky. Please, come in,” Kelly welcomed the girl, stepping back into the living room of the converted ice harvester. Becky was tall and thin, typical characteristics of children who had spent chunks of their childhood in small spaceships, and she moved with a combination of willowy grace and deliberateness, as if used to keeping track of the positions of her limbs.
“Is this about my calling?” Becky asked nervously when she saw that Jeeves and Dring were also waiting.
“Yes,” Kelly replied. “There’s nothing to be worried about. Jeeves and Dring are here to see if there’s something we can do to help the Kasilians. Libby and Gryph, the Stryx who run the station, are listening in as well. We’re all worried that the situation on Kasil could turn into a riot of galactic proportions when word gets out. At the moment, you are our only source for this information.”
“I’m not making it up!” Becky protested defensively. “I don’t know what my parents told you, but if I could make the callings stop, I would.”
“We believe you,” Dring said soothingly. “And perhaps I can help you block these callings if you no longer wish to follow that path. But right now we just want to understand what you have seen, so we’ll have a better idea how to act.”
“I don’t get the callings often,” the girl explained, looking at the floor as she spoke. “About three times a year, they come like a dream while I’m sleeping, but I can tell the difference immediately and I remember everything when I wake up. Until this last calling, it was almost like watching immersive nature documentaries, with all sounds and smells, everything so real. I think they must have been showing the seasons somewhere because it was always about birds migrating, fish returning to rivers to spawn, the changing colors of vast forests.”
“But there weren’t any messages?” Kelly asked.
“There were always messages, but I didn’t understand them,” Becky confessed shyly, instantly gaining credibility with Kelly. “It’s like when I was little and I would try to skip ahead and do the most advanced school lesson in the ship’s library. I would understand all of the words, well, most of the words, but somehow, none of it made sense because I hadn’t learned what came before. I think the callings described a system for living in harmony with the universe, and I kind of felt bad that I didn’t get it.”
“But this last message made sense?” Kelly pressed.
“Yes, the last was almost like a commercial,” Becky explained. “Imagine if you wanted to sell everything you had, so you made sort of an immersive catalog of all of the attractive items. But in this case, they just want to give everything away. The impression I got was that they wanted to be freed of material burdens before they rise to a new plane of existence.”
“Your father is anxious to visit the Kasil and help assume part of that material burden,” Dring stated diplomatically, but the girl wasn’t a fool and she blushed in embarrassment. “The Stryx are willing to put us all through the tunnel together, to check on the situation in person, because we do believe your vision was accurate. And I’m sure the Kasilians could help you stop these callings with less risk of side effects than any other method. Are you willing to accompany us?”
“Of course,” the girl replied simply. “I go where my family goes.”
“Then scoot along home and tell them we’ll be leaving after dinner,” Jeeves spoke up for the first time since the girl had arrived. “Advise your father we will accompany your ship with the Nova. Gryph and the other Stryx will reopen the old tunnel exit, since that seems to be what the Kasilians want, but we will prevent any other ships from making use of it until we have a chance to assess the situation. I’m sure we all have many things to do, so I’ll see you back here at 18:00 hours,” he concluded, leading Kelly to reflect that the young Stryx had been developing his executive ability.
Becky merely nodded and headed off h
ome, and Dring followed on her heels, probably to make use of the remaining time to prepare his own ship for their absence. After Jeeves departed, Kelly put off her own thoughts of packing to enjoy a few minutes of watching Dorothy and Kevin trying to imitate their instructor’s fluid movements. Shifting her gaze to Aisha brought her thoughts back to duty.
“Who is going to take care of the embassy while I’m gone?” Kelly asked the ceiling, knowing that Libby always had an ear open for her. “You know that Donna absolutely refuses to go to diplomatic dinners. She says she has too much respect for her digestive organs.”
“Won’t it be a good chance for your intern to get some high-level exposure to the other species?” Libby answered with a question of her own. “I know you’re always worried that Aisha will leave EarthCent service to take a job with BlyChas, or even to work for the Hadads in the Shuk. Either choice would certainly mean a big increase in pay and free time for her. Letting her fill your ambassadorial shoes at a few diplomatic receptions might be the best way to keep her excited about EarthCent.”
“But she’s barely been here a month,” Kelly objected. “And now that I think of it, the Drazen, Frunge and Dollnick ambassadors will all be attending the fundraiser for our shared ag deck tomorrow night. I was hoping to get them to talk, rather than throwing food at each other like usual.”
“The Drazen, Frunge and Dollnicks have been throwing things at each other for thousands of years,” Libby chided the EarthCent ambassador. “As long as Miss Kapoor has the sense to duck if something is cast in her direction, I can’t see why there should be a problem. I’m sure that Donna bought tickets for both you and Joe, so tell Aisha to bring an escort if you’re that worried.”
“That’s an idea,” Kelly mused. “I’m pretty sure Donna told me that Blythe won’t be back from visiting InstaSitter franchises on the station network for another week yet, so I’ll get Paul to accompany Aisha. He knows as much about the local aliens as anyone, and she should be comfortable with him since she sees him around the house.”
“That’s settled then,” Libby said, rather smugly, Kelly thought. “You won’t need your nose filters on Kasil, but Jeeves will have to reprogram your translation implants once you arrive. After thousands of years in isolation, the primary Kasilian language has probably changed quite a bit. And Gryph suggests that you all carry external voice boxes, as if this were a first contact mission.”
“I haven’t even seen a voice box since I left Earth,” Kelly mused. “It functions like a reverse translation implant, right?”
“It’s quite possible that the Kasilians no longer use implants, and they wouldn’t be programmed for English in any case,” Libby answered. “If you speak out loud, the voice box will wait for you to trigger it before translating, but you can also have it pick up the subvoc signal from your own implant and translate simultaneously.”
“It’s just for one week, right?” Kelly sought confirmation.
“Absolutely. Once you come back and report, we’ll decide where to go from there. But if you see the chance to talk the Kasilians into evacuating or letting us act directly, don’t hesitate to make a deal. As of this evening, you’ll be officially detached from EarthCent service and functioning as a Stryx special ambassador for the duration of the trip,” Libby told her.
“Is this going to cost me something?” Kelly inquired cautiously.
“Don’t worry,” Libby assured her. “Unlike EarthCent, the Stryx diplomatic service is fully funded.”
Four
Paul good-naturedly took the evening off from working in his lab to escort Aisha to the ag deck fundraiser. As an advanced student at Union Station’s Open University, he was researching practical methods for simulating gravity on vessels not large enough to do the job by spinning around their own axis. While the field had been exhaustively studied by gravity-loving spacefaring aliens for tens of millions of years, each species had its own preferences and notion of aesthetics for small ships.
Over the last month, Paul and Aisha had developed a nodding relationship based on thirty-second encounters in the kitchen and stolen glances in the living room, but both of them were shy. The two young adults also felt there wasn’t enough time in the day to do half of the things they needed, so they had never spent any time really talking.
Although Blythe had been away traveling for nearly a month, Paul was so accustomed to her standing order for all of his free time when she wasn’t busy herself that he hadn’t risked making any changes to his schedule while she was gone. Blythe often brought him along to serve as an unpaid employee of BlyChas Enterprises when she was on the station, and this evening, Paul wore a suit that she had given him for that very purpose.
“Is it alright, do you think?” Aisha asked timidly, appearing in the living room wearing a traditional sari of bright red, densely embroidered with fine needlework. “It’s the only formal thing I own.”
“You’re beautiful,” Paul stuttered when he found his tongue. Then his face turned the same shade of red as the fabric when he realized what he had said. “I mean, it’s a terrific dress. You’re going to make the other women jealous.”
“It’s actually my wedding sari,” Aisha confessed. “My mother is a seamstress and she worked on it in her spare time for months. When I joined EarthCent and left my family home, I forfeited my dowry to my sisters, but my mother insisted I be allowed to take this sari.”
“It’s stunning,” the young man repeated, feeling like he was seeing Aisha for the first time. After she arrived on the station, Kelly had sent Aisha to the Shuk to outfit herself with money Donna had supplied from the embassy’s petty cash, and the girl had come home with the lowest priced utilitarian coveralls she could find. The coveralls made her look like a station schoolgirl who worked part-time in a service industry job after she finished her lessons.
The EarthCent course and her month on Union Station had shown Aisha a different set of rules than her traditional upbringing, and as Kelly’s stepson, Paul’s status wasn’t that of a complete stranger. The McAllisters had made her so comfortable in their home that she had almost forgotten that Paul was a man. Now she began to think that the sari might have been a mistake after all.
“We’d better get going, then,” Aisha said in a rush, suddenly aware that with the rest of Kelly’s family off to Kasil, she was alone in the ice harvester with Paul. How had she slept the night before with nothing but Dorothy’s empty room between their compartments? How could she come back home with him after the fundraiser? She was beginning to panic just thinking about it, and her heart almost stopped beating in her chest when a warm body pressed against her side.
“Looks like Beowulf is a fan of your sari too,” Paul said with a laugh, as the arrival of the normally supine canine broke the tension. “It must be the Huravian part of his heritage that appreciates it so much since Earth breeds can’t see red.”
The retired war dog shook his head at Paul, amazed that the human couldn’t sense how uncomfortable the new member of Beowulf’s pack felt. Sitting upright and lifting his head brought the giant dog’s eyes to almost the same level as the girl’s, and he gazed at her solemnly, trying to send the reassuring message that he would sleep on her rug tonight.
Aisha felt as if Shvan, the dog-mount who transported the Hindu god Bhairava to heaven, had magically arrived to protect her, if only from her own weakness for the handsome young man. She took a moment to scratch behind Beowulf’s ears and over his eye sockets before asking Paul, “I assume you know where this event is taking place?”
“Sure. It used to be the Gem ag deck, but they let the lease expire. Jeeves told me they changed it into a park after they replaced the fresh fruit and vegetables in their diet with some sort of all-in-one nutrient drink, but it turned out that Gems aren’t big fans of nature. No surprise there, I guess,” he concluded with a wry smile.
The two young people walked to the nearest tube lift, where Paul spoke the instructions, “Humanoid-shared ag deck fundraiser, please.�
�� There was a slight sensation of acceleration as the lift began to move, but the path was largely along the station axis, only a few decks above the inner docking cylinder where Mac’s Bones was located.
“I didn’t know the elevators were so smart,” Aisha admitted, anxious to get back on a more practical conversational footing. “I thought you needed to know exactly where you were going before getting on.”
“You do need to know exactly where you’re going,” Paul replied in bewilderment. “Oh, you mean like having an address rather than an event or somebody’s name, which is a good way to track people down, by the way. I’ve never asked exactly how it works, but my guess is if the lift can’t figure out where you want to go, it just kicks the request up to the next level, maybe a station maintenance bot. If the bot can’t figure it out, the request goes up more levels until it gets to something with real artificial intelligence. If the AI can’t figure out where you’re trying to go, it would probably ask you for more details.”
“I was never on an elevator, I mean a lift, before I was sixteen,” Aisha told him, wondering why she was suddenly sharing details from her background that she had tried to keep hidden since accepting the EarthCent job offer. “I come from a small village in the countryside, and there were so many houses left empty after the Stryx opened Earth that there hasn’t been much new construction in two generations. My grandparents thought that with all the people leaving to work in space, those who remained behind would have the opportunity to grow wealthy, but it didn’t work out that way.”
“Why not?” Paul asked, sensing a new bit of data for his analytical mind. “Wouldn’t that have freed up a lot of land, so that the remaining farmers could grow more than they needed for their families and sell it on the market?”