High Priest on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 3)

by E. M. Foner

  “Thanks, but I’m surprised Jeeves didn’t ask me for permission himself. He’s such a stickler for the rules.”

  “You never resigned as the EarthCent military attaché so you’re officially my property,” Kelly replied with a wicked grin, linking arms with her husband.

  “They’re coming! They’re coming!” Dorothy and Kevin called as they scurried back to the column. Shaun came to halt just where the artificial surface gave way to dense vegetation, theatrically raising his hand for the others to do the same. Ignoring the hand signal, everybody continued on until they formed a little knot of humanity, plus one small shape-shifting dinosaur and a hovering, seven-year old Stryx.

  The Kasilian welcoming delegation that emerged from the forest consisted of two wooden wagons, each drawn by a team of healthy looking quadrupeds. The draft animals didn’t quite resemble any Joe had ever seen, despite his years of service on a number of technology ban worlds. The Kasilians themselves were only roughly humanoid, covered in a fine down and equipped with what first appeared to be a single long tentacle, but later proved to be a prehensile tail. The wagons were also accompanied by a few dog-like creatures, and Borgia raced forward, tail wagging, to sniff at them.

  “Greetings, Lonely Ones and Follower,” called the apparent leader of the delegation of three Kasilians. Now that they were drawing close, it occurred to Kelly that two of the aliens were teamsters. All three Kasilians wore floppy black hats, creating an impression of evil chefs, though Libby had assured the humans that Kasilian foodstuffs wouldn’t cause them any harm worse than mild indigestion.

  “Hello to you,” Shaun called back, forgetting to trigger his voice box. “We’re here to help relieve you of your material burdens.”

  “Shhh,” Mary shushed her over-eager husband. “We accepted that Kelly would handle all of the first contact negotiations.”

  “It’s not a first contact,” Shaun protested. “These people have been around a lot longer than us, and it’s our daughter who heard from them first. Besides, I don’t think he understood me.”

  The wagons drew to a halt just before the grouping, and the native Kelly had identified as the leader descended by means of a short ladder fixed to the side of the contraption. Up close, the draft animals looked a little more natural, although they still didn’t call to mind any Earthly associations, unless you included artistic conceptions of extinct mammals created from the fossil record.

  Jeeves arrived back as the Kasilian leader was climbing down, and the Stryx took the opportunity to speak to the humans over their implants.

  “I’ve analyzed enough conversations to update the translation equivalency tables, but don’t be surprised if there are some misalignments. In short, their universal language has drifted quite a bit since they withdrew from the tunnel network, and the vocabulary reflects a shift to a low-technology agrarian society. Done. Your translation implants and voice boxes are updated. Don’t forget to subvoc or you’ll hear echoes of yourself speaking.”

  “Thank you for welcoming us,” Kelly subvoced, nodding with satisfaction as her implant seamlessly screened out the translation generated by her voice box. “I’m Kelly McAllister, on temporary duty as ambassador for the Stryx. We came because this young woman, Becky Crick, received your calling. The Stryx are concerned about the possible unintended consequences of your coming out of isolation.”

  “I am pleased to meet you, Lonely Kelly, and you as well, Follower Becky. I am Kach, and I welcome all of you to Kasil. I have brought rapid transportation so you may reach Cathedral by nightfall,” he said, indicating the wagons. “There you can meet with the appointed representatives of our people.”

  “Is the old tongue still understood here?” inquired Dring, who wasn’t equipped with implants and was something of a linguist along with his other scholarly pursuits.

  All of the Kasilians snapped to attention when Dring spoke, but it was Kach who bowed and answered, “You speak the Holy Language, Ancient One. Stupid ones like me do not understand many of the words, but our priests will speak with you easily. Please, come now. It is a long way to Cathedral.”

  The humans and Dring climbed up the short wooden ladders into the wagons, which were simple but finely constructed agricultural produce transports with benches added to the side boards. The adults ended up in one wagon while the six Crick kids and Dorothy clambered into the other. Kelly sighed and resolved to let Dorothy have her way as long as the wagons remained close to each other. She was about to ask Mary if Borgia would be able to keep up, when the “rapid transportation” started with a lurch, describing a slow circle to reenter the woods on the somewhat overgrown stone roadway. The draft animals moved at a pace that was probably no faster than she could walk.

  “Could I ask you a few questions?” Kelly subvoced, hoping that Kach could hear her voicebox over the clatter of the hooves, wooden wheels on the stones, and the noise made by the wagon’s rattling. She was glad to note that the wagon bodies rode high enough to allow her to see over the heads of the team and into the bed of the vehicle commandeered by the kids. Of course, with Metoo sticking to Dorothy, and Jeeves floating about somewhere, there wasn’t any cause to get worried.

  “I will try to answer,” Kach replied, and politely climbed off the driver’s bench into the wagon bed to make conversation easier. But even as he sat down next to Kelly, he cautioned her, “I’m just a local farmer who happens to live near the old landing site, so don’t expect too much of me. The district priest called on me this morning and asked if I could take two wagons to pick up visitors and bring you to Cathedral.”

  “Please forgive me if I give any offense, but the only information I have about your people is thousands of years old,” Kelly began, noticing that Dring was listening with visible concentration, though she was unsure how much he could understand. “To begin with, other than the old concrete on the landing field, I haven’t seen any signs of technology since we arrived. After millions of years as a space-faring species, did your people ban technology?”

  Kach was slow to answer, perhaps he was puzzled, but Kelly couldn’t read anything from his furry face. Finally he asked, “What does this word ‘technology’ mean?”

  Kelly was stumped for a moment and thought about calling Jeeves through her implant to come and interpret, but then her pride took over and she decided to just take her time and explain. Besides, at the rate the wagon was traveling, there wasn’t much motivation to hurry.

  “Technology refers to the tools and machines you make, like the ship we arrived in, or even this wagon. I’ll bet there was a time a few thousand years, sorry, make that a few million years ago, that your people had to invent the wheel. A wheel is a great example of technology,” she concluded enthusiastically.

  “Ah, I understand. So you have seen our technology since arriving. The wheel is a great example,” Kach concurred.

  “Yes, the wheel,” Kelly echoed, wondering why the conversation was going in circles. “But after your people invented the wheel, they invented many other things, including ships like ours that flew to the stars, machines that could think and solve problems, methods of communicating over great distances.”

  “Oh, now I do understand. You’re interested in the old machines, the things we gave up to become one with Kasil in her time of death and redemption. Our people did create much, how did you call it, technology, when we traveled among the stars. But now we all live in harmony with the land and those things are unneeded,” the Kasilian replied.

  “But technology isn’t just about space travel,” Kelly protested. “How about tools for growing food, and factories, and computers for keeping records of business transactions?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand some of the words you are using,” Kach replied ruefully. “But I have seen and heard of the lives lived by aliens throughout the galaxy. Our priests make such visions available to those who wish to receive them every evening when our work day is done. The young and the old seem to enjoy them very much, but
at my age, I prefer to stare into the void.”

  “You’ve mentioned your priests several times, and you called our destination a cathedral,” Kelly replied, trying to not think about a life spent in contemplation of doom. “Are all of your people of one faith? Where I come from, there are dozens of religions with large numbers of believers.”

  “Again, your words are a little confusing,” Kach reported. “Of course we all believe in the same Truth, it makes no sense to me that you could have dozens. Why, all but one of them would have to be false!”

  “Oh,” Kelly said, her lips making a perfect circle as she drew out the sound. So she was dealing with religious fanatics. I suppose that makes sense if they’re bent on species suicide, she thought. But he seems so rational. “And the leaders of your faith are telling you to give up all of your worldly possessions because the end is nigh?” Kelly had to bite her tongue to keep from breaking out in laughter when she realized she had just removed “nigh” from her list of must-use words without even trying.

  “Leaders?” Kach asked. “How can there be more than one leader of any one thing? There is only one High Priest, whose calculations are forever true.”

  “I see,” Kelly replied, wondering if the Kasilians had regressed to the point that they had given up their intellectual capacity along with their technology.

  “Do you number your people?” Dring asked. Apparently, he had already heard enough to adjust his pronunciation and grammar to venture a simple question. Kelly was almost as impressed as the first time she saw him shape-shift from a toy-like dinosaur into a dragon.

  “Yes, Ancient One,” Kach replied, with a slight bow of his head. “Twice a year every district on Kasil holds a census festival, and the priests number all living things.” Kach paused for a moment, and if Kelly didn’t know better than to make assumptions about alien expressions, she would have said he looked a bit uncertain for the first time. “Of course, the counts of the beasts of the field, the creatures of the water and the things that fly in the heavens are based on small samples.”

  “Estimates,” Kelly subvoced, but the voice box failed to translate the word. Perhaps it was taboo to introduce doubt in the counting? “Extrapolations,” she tried again, a more accurate description in any case. This time, the word was translated.

  The Kasilian clapped his hands and his eyes became noticeably brighter, such that Kelly was sure they would be visible in the dark. “Yes, extrapolations. I was cautioned that most people from other worlds use, uh, technology to do their thinking, so I was trying to speak with simple words.”

  “Good job, Kel,” Joe murmured, nudging her in the side. “You’ve convinced the turnip farmer that you aren’t a peat digger.” Kelly glared at Joe, who immediately returned to his conversation with Mary. Across from Mary, Shaun was in a world of his own, studying the forest intently as if he expected to spot treasures hanging from tree branches.

  “Is it permitted to tell the number of your people?” Dring followed up.

  “It is a long number, like the trees of the forest,” Kach replied. He held up four fingers of what Kelly now realized was a six-fingered, dual-thumbed hand, and raised his other hand in a closed fist. Then he rapidly raised and lowered a few fingers on both hands, showed another clenched fist, and repeated similar movements in quick succession, before letting his arms fall back to his sides.

  “Forty-seven million, three hundred and twenty-six thousand, five hundred and thirty-two,” Dring translated. “It’s a Base-12 counting system, and the Kasilians have always avoided speaking large numbers out loud. At least that hasn’t changed.”

  “On all of Kasil, that’s your total population?” Kelly asked Kach in shock. “There must have been a thousand times that many Kasilians when your people had colonies all over the galaxy!”

  “The priests also tell us that,” the Kasilian replied complacently. “But the visions of that time show that the people were unhappy, always at war with each other over desirable places to live and possessions. We even fought with other species where the Stryx allowed it. But when the great Prophet Nabay foretold the end for Kasil and shared it through vision speech, our people understood that all was vanity, that the only thing that matters is the Whole.”

  “Is that ‘Whole’ as in entirety, or ‘Hole’ as in empty space,” Kelly asked, not wanting to misunderstand what could be the central concept of the Kasilian religion due to a homonym.

  “Ah, so you are a philosopher!” Kach replied excitedly, his eyes shining like flashlights. “I apologize for thinking so poorly of you at first. I myself did not understand the duality of light and dark matter until I reached the eighth level of knowledge, and that didn’t occur until I was a grandfather.”

  Kelly was beginning to suspect a glitch in the new translation tables since she understood all of the words Kach was saying but his meaning didn’t quite click. Maybe this was how it was with Becky and her inability to interpret the vision messages. She looked to Dring to see if he was equally puzzled, but the Maker was clearly satisfied with the progress of the discussion and enjoying himself immensely.

  “I am happy to hear that your people retain their ancient love of cosmology,” Dring remarked. “I spent many an interesting millennia studying the history of unseen space with your scholars of old. I hope you are not planning on giving away your telescopes with your other goods.”

  “Never!” Kach replied, as if shocked by the notion. “It’s only the objects of envy that caused us so much sorrow in the days of old that we need to divest before achieving Unity. The jewels, precious metals, objects that were gathered from other species for the sake of hoarding wealth.”

  Snapping out of his reverie, Shaun was unable to contain his excitement. “You can rely on me to do everything I can to help relieve you of the burden,” he declared, remembering to trigger his voice box this time. Mary looked a little embarrassed in the moment of silence that followed, but then Kach responded, and the deep emotional tone of his feeling was apparent even through the implant translation.

  “Thank you,” the Kasilian said.

  Six

  Aisha’s slender body swayed gently as she scrubbed the pots after dinner. Although she still felt a lingering uneasiness when alone with Paul, she had prepared a large Indian meal the day after the fundraiser and kept doing so throughout the week. Paul came home to eat every night, after months of ordering take-out in his lab or eating out with Blythe when she was around. He claimed to be receiving subliminal messages about the meals, but Aisha assumed Paul was just following some sort of instructions from Kelly to keep her company.

  There was an awkward exchange over who was to clean up after the first meal. Initially, Aisha gave in to Paul’s insistence that he had been doing the dishes since he was taken in by Joe after being orphaned as a child. But she was so acutely uncomfortable watching a man doing kitchen work that she ended up hovering behind him and then rewashing everything when he finished. She gave Paul the excuse that she’d been doing the dishes since her wrists were strong enough to hold them, and that gave her seniority.

  Paul usually headed back to his lab soon after the meal, but tonight he lingered in the kitchen and continued the dinner conversation with Aisha as he nursed a glass of beer. Strangely enough, he was barely aware of what Aisha was talking about, but somehow he could always catch just enough of the thread to say something that indicated he was paying attention. He felt hypnotized by her rhythmic movements as she worked through the surprisingly large collection of pots and saucepans she utilized to prepare a vegetarian meal. Paul had no reference to tell him that each night she was creating a holiday feast for two, using the freshest ingredients she could find on the Shuk deck first thing every morning. Some of the legumes required soaking all day before cooking.

  “So until that awful competition, I always thought I would be a professional dancer,” Aisha continued her narrative, scraping at a bit of seed husk stuck to a pan. She was accustomed to cooking certain dishes with ghee an
d she hadn’t quite gotten used to the oil substitutes. “I’d always done well with the tutor bot, but there weren't any jobs in our village for sixteen-year-old girls who talked like they swallowed a reference library. A couple of generations ago my parents could have married me off to some boy, but these days the young men all prefer signing labor contracts and leaving for space over settling down in the country with a teenage bride. And the truth is, I had a reputation for being a bit too aggressive for a girl,” she added shyly.

  “Aggressive? You?” Paul asked in disbelief, having registered the last few words. “You’ll have to give me an example or I’ll think you’re just making it up.”

  Aisha looked over her shoulder at Paul and gave him a crafty smile. “Oh, I caused my parents enough problems, you know? They never would have agreed to my going off alone if I hadn’t.”

  “I don’t know,” Paul replied jocularly, having entered fully in the conversation. “Let’s hear some specifics.”

  “I asked too many questions about why we kept living the same way year after year,” Aisha began. “Nobody liked it when I suggested changes to the traditional methods for doing things that I was sure would make life better. And when a factory farmer from the city began buying up hereditary fields from people who didn’t have the legal right to sell them, I sent evidence to the local government and the media sites. After that, many of our neighbors stopped talking to me, and my parents barely let me out of the house for a whole year because they worried that it was unsafe.”

  Her voice went flat at this last statement and her shoulders seemed to sag. Paul suddenly knew that her village life had not been the idyllic rural upbringing portrayed in the immersives. He rose to his feet and moved closer, wanting to donate his own strength to support her, but Beowulf raised his massive head and gave a warning growl.

  “Not now, Killer,” Paul told the dog crossly, and hesitantly extended a hand towards the girl’s shoulder, thinking perhaps to give it an encouraging squeeze. The dog ventured a sharp bark and indicated the door with his nose, but Paul still didn’t get the message. Then Blythe walked into the kitchen.