Unseen Demons

by Adam-Troy Castro

  Dr. Vayl’s eyes narrowed enough to suggest that he was either deeply offended or deeply enthralled by the image; his sudden animation seemed to suggest the latter. “I would be inclined to believe so, myself, but bereft of data I would also have to admit the possibility that human beings always said hello to other sentients that way.”

  “Too often they have,” Rhaig said.

  Whalekiller, giving the devil his due, actually chuckled at that.

  Cort only had eyes for Dr. Vayl. “All right, then. Forget meaning. Would it qualify as any kind of message at all?”

  Vayl’s eyes were almost closed, now. “I would have to say so.”

  Whalekiller, whose own enjoyment of the turn the conversation had taken had lit up his face like sunrise, seemed almost giddy.

  “So what you’re saying is — inflicting pain qualifies as communication.”

  “Not in any articulate manner, of course — but yes, I would have to say so. In fact, at the bare minimum, pain is the body’s message to itself. Unfortunately, I don’t see how that is relevant here; as I’m sure you’ve been told by now, the Catarkhans==”

  “—don’t feel pain. I know.” Cort stood, bowed, and signaled the still-goggling Whalekiller that the interview was over. “Thank you very much, Goodsir Vayl, Goodsir Rhaig; I have all I need for now.”

  9

  That night, back at the Embassy, Cort sat on the edge of her bed that was the only item of furniture in the small cubicle she had been provided. It was her second set of quarters; the first had been the local equivalent of VIP accommodations, tiny by the standards of some official residences where she’d stayed but downright palatial considering the limited resources available to most first-contact embassies. There was room to pace, a desk, a soft chair, a dry-flotation mattress on the bed, a sleep inducer, full sonics in the bath, and a full-sensory hytex link. She would have been absurdly comfortable there; the inducer alone would have ensured the kind of dreamless full night’s sleep that she rarely achieved in a lifetime of nights too often interrupted by bad dreams and cold sweats. But she had wanted a smaller room with fewer amenities, and had successfully fought Ambassador Lowey’s protests to the effect that an important visitor like her clearly deserved the best.

  These second quarters were even smaller than the medical isolation cell provided to Emil Sandburg — the only item of furniture was a bed that folded up into the wall, and the only amenity was a sonic shower tucked away in one corner. The idea of pacing, in that small amount of floor space that remained, was a joke; any observer would have thought she was merely spinning in circles. It was very much like being in prison, which was precisely what Cort liked most about it. Let other VIPs have rooms large enough to get lost in. Cort didn’t approve of rooms she could get lost in any more than she approved of planets. Quarters this small reduced everything to its bare minimum: herself, and her task. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing more. Everything else was static, and an invitation to unwanted dreams.

  She’d rejected an invitation to dinner with Lowrey and the rest of his command staff, eating in the room as she pored over the life story of Emil Sandburg. It was, strictly speaking, irrelevant to the case she was putting together — interspecies law didn’t allow for sympathy based on cruel childhoods — but it provided an interesting picture. Or rather, the lack of one.

  His parents were nonentities, zeroes in political affiliation, religious background, and lateral economic movement. He had gone through thirteen years of schooling without distinguishing himself in the locally mandated intelligence tests, personality profiles, socialization ratings and emotional intelligence scores. None of the tests had indicated either antisocial activity or any kind of personality at all. His Dip Corps Psych Evaluation described him as dull and humorless but worth signing because of a compensatory drive to succeed; it was even noted that he wouldn’t be popular among his fellow indentures but wouldn’t be a noticeable irritant either. (It was, she noted with grim humor, pretty much what the same required evaluation had said about her.) There had been no sign of murderous tendencies or the arrogance he had shown in his meeting with Cort. Maybe he’d been repressing his true personality. Or maybe the personality he showed now was the put-on…? Maybe he enjoyed being a monster?

  It was not a point of view she could share; being a monster had blighted her life. But then her monstrousness had come early, reducing everything she’d done since to expiation. Sandburg’s monstrousness — or at least, the discovery of it — had come late, as if it was something he’d needed to work hard to achieve. Maybe he saw it as an accomplishment, something to be proud of…?

  Something resonated there. She flagged the question for later perusal.

  From there she moved on to historical and legal precedent, examining the stories of historical crimes against natives on a flat view image projected against the plain white wall. She went back centuries, back to the old single-system days, even back to the single-planet days, and was depressed by just how many there were, though there were of course many more in the days when the Confederacy was still trying to be a colonial power, and understanding the aboriginals was not nearly as great a priority as making sure they were subjugated. It was such a litany of human madness that it made even Cort, who was already familiar with much of it, nauseated at the sheer waste.

  Habit, and masochism, led her to call up the well-worn story about the massacres at Bocai. It was an old tale, and one she knew by heart; she didn’t need to read the file. But she did spend some time examining the one image known to have survived the event: a still shot of the ragged survivors being loaded into a rescue shuttle. It was not the best neurec image of all time: a poor signal had blurred the captured memory and turned the finer details into mush. But even so, it was easy to tell that the survivors were traumatized to the edge of sanity; their faces looked vacant, uncomprehending. One, a little girl who stood alone by the edge of the frame, staring at nothing, had pale eyes old enough to have witnessed the shattering of worlds.

  Don’t trust anything sentient, she thought.

  Then the hytex image scrambled with a voice message that the Ambassador needed to see her in his office immediately.

  She found him dressed for bed and pacing in circles like a man who believed the floor to be mined and who was so irritated at the inconvenience that he was trying to set one off just for spite. He had worked himself into serious frenzy; his forehead was a spotlight, and his hair an explosion of greasy thickets. Whalekiller, who must have caught some of the shrapnel already, stood just outside Lowery’s orbit, studying the floor so intently that he might have subscribed to the mine theory himself.

  The Ambassador stopped in mid-circle the instant he saw Cort. He glared at her, his eyes round, his face the color of blood. “Counselor. I was assured that you were good at your job. I was told that you were a professional.”

  Cort answered with perfect calm. “I am.”

  “I just spent the last three-quarters of an hour calming the Tchi Ambassador. He says you threatened violence against their man Rhaig. Is it typical Tchi bullshit or is he telling the truth?”

  “He might think he is,” Cort said.

  That broadsided Lowrey; clearly, he’d expected a flat denial. He approached and faced her from less than a meter away. “And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that since their Ambassador wasn’t personally present when we met with Rhaig, he only knows what Rhaig told him. He might not be a part of the lie.”

  Lowrey studied her eyes as if expecting the answer to scroll across them in readable type. “Rhaig says you threatened to punch him.”

  “I did not. I just presented a hypothetical first-contact situation that included me punching him in the face. I never said that I intended to do it, or even that I wanted to. I just used it to set up my question.”

  Lowrey’s cheeks twitched. “Rhaig says that you were trying to intimidate him into ceasing his support of the Catarkhans.”
<
br />   “Rhaig has yet to accomplish one damn thing for the Catarkhans. And he was sitting next to another member of the Tchi delegation who had absolutely no trouble understanding the difference between a hypothetical question and a genuine threat.”

  Lowrey’s anger was fading, now; but like most people who have felt anger slipping away, he used the tools he had to try to prevent it from leaving. “He says Dr. Vayl will testify for him.”

  Cort met his look with a far steadier one. “I’m not fond of the Tchi. But unless I hear that from Dr. Vayl himself, who I would consider a reliable witness, I would have to consider the Counselor a bigot, a paranoid and a liar.”

  “The Ambassador absorbed that, then gave a barely perceptible nod and retreated to the safety of his desk, collapsing in his seat with the suddenness of a man yanked down by invisible strings. “Shit,” he said, patting the desktop. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” And then, several seconds afterward: “Shit.” The bluster of a few seconds earlier was completely gone now, replaced with a weariness so palpable it seemed to be what he had instead of blood. His features sagged, and his eyes aged about ten thousand years, and he said, “Do you know why the Dip Corps assigned me to this place, Counsellor? Not because I’m good at first contact; I’m not. I never have been. They gave me this job because seniority demanded it. They figured I couldn’t mess things up too badly on a planet of beings blind, deaf, and dumb. Nobody saw how I could possibly manage a diplomatic incident out of that. Nobody ever thought that anything on this rock could possibly be that important.” He sighed. “But one thing even I know is that if you don’t know how alien cultures think, you run the risk of making matters worse.”

  Cort moved to one of the chairs and sat down. “With all due respect, sir, I’ve spent my career arbitrating legal disputes with alien cultures. And I strongly suspect this particular misinterpretation has less to do with Counsellor Rhaig being a Tchi than it does with Counsellor Rhaig being a flaming asshole.”

  Forgotten in his corner of the room, Whalekiller tried very hard to stifle a laugh.

  Lowrey, shooting him a look, and trying equally hard to remain stern when his own ability to maintain a straight face hung by a thread, said: “He’s going to hurt us for this, Counselor. He’s going to demand sanctions.”

  “Not a loss, sir. He was going to try to do that anyway. He had it planned when he got here. It’s his agenda. He practically admitted as much – he’s thrown in with those who want us censured and crippled by a total diplomatic quarantine. Unless I’m wrong, he really believes he can use this situation to cut us off from all influence in matters of interspecies policy.”

  Lowrey blanched. “And can he?”

  “Of course not. It’ss a fringe-group opinion; he doesn’t have nearly enough influence, even among his own people, to push through what would essentially be an act of war. He can only use our failure here — if we fail — to build some additional support for his cause. And I won’t let him, because I have no intention of failing. I’m going to make justice happen here, whether the Catarkhans are capable of providing it or not.”

  Lowrey almost looked afraid, now; he wore the same paralyzed-rabbit expression that his indentures had shown during this morning’s briefing. “I think you’re taking bigger risks than you think. He’s got more influence than you think.”

  “Then it’s twice as important to settle this. And I intend to.”

  The Ambassador sighed, linked his fingertips, and examined her like a man who had just boarded a ride he couldn’t leave. “How?”

  She turned toward Whalekiller. “Something you said earlier — about the Catarkhans not having many contagious diseases.”

  “That’s right. They’re very simple organisms, on a cellular level. They—”

  “I don’t need that much detail. It just occurs to me that saying they don’t have many contagious diseases is another way of saying that they do have some.”

  Whalekiller immediately looked wary. “And?”

  “Any fatal ones?”

  We’ve catalogued a few. “Why?”

  “I want to see what Catarkhans do when they’re dying.”

  10

  The void the skimmer travelled was not the vacuum of space, but it could have been. It was night on a world without artificial light, a condition that rendered the landscape below them effectively invisible; it was a stabilized vehicle so unbuffeted by local weather conditions she could pretend she wasn’t moving at all; it was filled with air so filtered that even her hypersensitive nose couldn’t discern any of the annoying local smells. Cort found that comforting, in a way: but for the trace level of unease she always felt in the presence of other sentients, it was pleasantly like being safe in an egg. It was amazing, she thought, just how much the absence of anything involving planets or other people improved the general ambience of things.

  Whalekiller naturally did his best to disrupt that ambience, banging around an equipment locker in the rear of the skimmer as if all human civilization depended on his ability to make percussion noises with every tool in his inventory. Worse, he insisted on chatting: “I know it’s night here, but we’re going to make things easy on ourselves. We’re going to hop hemispheres, pick a hive someplace where its mid-day.”

  “Fine,” said Cort.

  “It really doesn’t matter one way or the other, of course. There’s no natural light underground; wherever we go, we’ll still have to carry in helmet lights. But most people exploring downside feel more comfortable knowing that there’s still a sun burning somewhere up above.” More clanking and clanging; a muffled curse. “I don’t know why that is. Psychological, I suppose.”

  “Fine,” Cort said again.

  Whalekiller backed out on his hands and knees. Then he sealed the locker, stood, arched his back in a manner that suggested a dedicated project to realign each and every vertebra, then collapsed into the seat beside Cort. Collapsed was the precise word; he didn’t so much lower himself into the chair as permit gravity to pull him there. His weariness showed in the dark circles lining his eyes. “Of course, waiting till tomorrow would have been good, too.:

  “Sorry. I figured we were up anyway. Might as well get the job done.”

  “Up and exhausted, and the job could have waited. Or don’t you ever sleep?”

  “As little as possible,” Cort said.

  “Bad dreams?”

  “Better things to do.”

  He accepted that, and pretended to consult the display, which was now projecting a miniature topographical map of the dark regions passing by far below. With the course laid in, the map was a best a formality, designed to provide a pilot the illusion of having something to do with controlling the vehicle; it was rendered even more irrelevant by the exaggerated vertical scale, a sop to clarity that turned even the gentlest foothills into jagged Himalayan spires. As a navigation resource, it was next to useless; as reassurance that the vehicle remained in charge, it was invaluable. But Whalekiller’s expression as he regarded it seemed lost in more ways than one…and more tired than mere physical weariness could have accounted for.

  He didn’t look at her when he said it. “Bocai, right?”

  A lump of molten lead, composed of equal parts anger, embarrassment, shame, and fear, materialized all at once in the center of her chest. She wanted to kill him. “You’ve been investigating me.”

  He still wouldn’t face her, so deeply engaged in the navigation display that it might have been offering him a life-sized landscape in which to hide. “It didn’t take much, Counselor. I didn’t have to read anything classified. It’s all in your Dip Corps profile — maybe a couple of levels deeper than most searches would penetrate, but nevertheless available for any sufficiently interested person to find.”

  “Nobody invited you to be interested.”

  Whalekiller’s eyes flickered toward her. “I’m an exopsychologist. Poking my nose into alien minds is what I do.”

  Cort felt more violated with every word he spoke. “I’m not
an alien, mister. And I’m not a mystery put here for you to solve.”

  He looked at her, and though his own eyes were as dry as hers, the sadness she saw there seemed, like hers, far too great to have accumulated in only one lifetime. “Everybody’s an alien, Counsellor. And everybody’s a mystery. We weren’t necessarily put here to understand — but we were sure as hell put here to try.” He let that hang for a heartbeat, as if believing that it might be enough — then apparently saw that it wasn’t, and shrugged, providing the ultimate inexpressive gesture for the ultimate inexpressive moment. He regarded the navy display again, and said: “It makes no sense. Two small communities. One human, one indigenous sentient. Living together, in a remote region of the indigenes’ homeworld, in what seems like perfect harmony for twenty years. The two species trading, communicating, participating in each other’s festivals, so psychologically compatible that they fool themselves into believing they’re also psychologically identical. So pleased with how they get along that two families, acting with the approval of their respective leaders, experiment with raising each others’ young.

  And then, with no warning…: He shook his head. “Do you even remember what set it off? What would make both sides go after each other with such hatred? And why would…”

  She cut him off with the most acidic voice she could muster. “I’ve answered these questions before, Bondsman.”

  But Whalekiller remained unfazed. “You’ve said you don’t remember. From what I could see, none of the other survivors did, either. Oh, they told plenty of horror stories about what the Bocai did to the humans, and what the humans did to the Bocai…but nobody’s ever said word one about what started the killing. Nobody’s even come up with a workable theory. All I can tell is that one little girl with one foot in both worlds walked away saying she hated humans and Riirgaans both. That she would never trust sentients again.” He looked away from the navscreen, and bored his eyes into hers. “It’s what you said to me. You’re a bigger mystery than Sandburg, you know that?”