Raising Caine - eARC

by Charles E Gannon

  The Slaasriithi’s tetrahedral head turned slightly, as if he might be considering Caine more closely. “You are not well, either.”

  Caine waved off the concern. “It’s nothing. We have more immediate concerns. We are running out of both food and water. I am sorry to ask for help even before we have exchanged names and learned more of each other, but it is imperative that we see to the needs of our group.”

  “The water in the river is safe for your species to drink—”

  —which we would have discovered, out of desperation, in the next few days—

  “—but the matter of food that is both palatable and nourishing will require the labor of several taxae. To initiate that process, I must coordinate with my partners. Will it alarm you if I bring them here to join us?”

  “Not at all,” Gaspard jumped in eagerly. “We have hoped to meet you, to meet anyone. How fortunate that you have found us at last!”

  “In actuality,” the Slaasriithi responded slowly, “we have been following your movements for three days now. I just arrived yesterday, however.”

  “For three days—?” Gaspard blinked rapidly. “Then why did you not offer help? Why did we have to beat the bushes to discover you? This is most inconsiderate.”

  The Slaasriithi reeled in its neck a bit. “We were instructed only to observe and, when feasible, report. But that has been difficult, due to the OverWatchling’s general elimination of broadcast signals.”

  “OverWatchling?” Macmillan echoed.

  “A planetary, uh, guardian?” Caine guessed. “But not actually part of a taxon?”

  The Slaasriithi turned towards him. “Yes, it is as you say. It has been coordinating all activities.”

  “Are there no ratiocinatorae on Disparity to temper this OverWatchling’s actions, then?” Gaspard pressed.

  The Slaasriithi’s “head” hovered a bit more erect. “I am a ratiocinator, but even Seniors of my taxon rarely, if ever, challenge the instincts of an OverWatchling.”

  Gaspard considered that. “May we know your name, ratiocinator?

  “I am W’th’vaathi. Allow me to summon the others who speak for their taxae, here.”

  “Please do.”

  W’th’vaathi slid swiftly and noiselessly back into the brush.

  Riordan turned to Macmillan. “Go back to the group, tell them what’s going on, and that they should sit tight. This is not, I repeat not, a threat scenario.”

  Moments after Keith had left, the brush parted more widely; two other Slaasriithi were with W’th’vaathi, both wearing similar backpacks. One was slightly taller, but proportionally similar in build. The other was considerably smaller and had rings on its toe-analogs as well as its fingers. It was of lighter build, but had a proportionally longer neck. The sensor cluster capping it jerked to attention. “Humans,” a slightly different voice announced from its backpack. It was, from the tone, a self-confirmation, not an attempt to summon their attention. “I am Thnessfiirm. I have the honor of speaking for the cerdorae, here.”

  Gaspard frowned in an apparent effort to focus his recollections. “Cerdorae,” the Ambassador mused. Then, turning to W’th’vaathi, “That taxon is the one that is machine- or device-focused in their activities, correct?”

  “You might see it that way, yes.”

  “And so he is that taxon’s local spokesman?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” W’th’vaathi allowed, “but Thnessfiirm is not, to use your term, a spokesman. He is a she. As I am. Technically.”

  “‘Technically’?” Dora’s tough-as-nails demeanor lapsed just long enough for her to sound completely baffled.

  “Distinctions of gender, or sex, are mostly meaningless to us. We adopt the sexed pronoun appropriate to our last reproductive role, since any of us may perform any of the roles.”

  Gaspard and Dora looked at Caine, who looked at both of them. “That’s, um, a new concept for us,” he confessed.

  “We presumed that it might be. And the Slaasriithi to my right is Unsymaajh.”

  The largest of the Slaasriithi bobbed. “I have the honor of speaking for all convectorae. The smallest and fleetest of my taxic family have been watching you for the past several days. You will appreciate, I hope, that, lacking any concrete information of what transpired in space, we had no way to be certain that you were the guests of Yiithrii’ah’aash, rather than those who attacked him. We are glad to learn that you are friends and that our paths may be joined, now.”

  “So are we,” Riordan affirmed as Macmillan returned. “And speaking of joining our paths, we should resume our journey and get as far away from the wreckage of our shuttle as possible. And if that silver object at the north end of the valley is a construct of yours, it would be best to—”

  “I regret interrupting.” W’th’vaathi had risen up again; her hip joints seemed tense. “However, you must abandon your current path. The Silver Tower you have seen is not the place that Yiithrii’ah’aash and the Disparity’s Prime Ratiocinator, T’suu’shvah, determined that you should be received and housed.”

  Riordan paused. Was W’th’vaathi reluctant to continue on to this Silver Tower because that might attract hostile attention to it, or was she simply determined to follow the letter of the law? “W’th’vaathi, is our current path not the best one?”

  W’th’vaathi’s pause was halting, puzzled. “We should not travel there because it is not where you are to be received.” W’th’vaathi said it slowly, as if she presumed that Riordan had not heard what she said the first time.

  Okay, so W’th’vaathi just doesn’t like, or isn’t accustomed to, thinking outside the box. “But there’s no reason we shouldn’t go there, then?”

  W’th’vaathi paused again, but this time, as though she was having to consider an entirely new concept. “No. But it lacks adequate preparation.”

  Gaspard leaned into that explanation. “Adequate preparation?”

  “We have not sent appropriate provisions or furnishings, there. Nor have Yiithrii’ah’aash’s picked taxae spokespersons convened there. Also, is it not a likely site for the attackers to destroy, if they penetrate our defenses?”

  “It might be,” Caine admitted. “But is it not fortified, or equipped with defenses of its own? Is it not a comparatively safe place?”

  W’th’vaathi thought again, but more briefly. “It is, but we find that safety in such situations is better achieved by being difficult to find, rather than hard to destroy.”

  “Normally, I would agree, W’th’vaathi. But I fear that there is no way that we can be made as difficult to find as you would be on your own.”

  “Indeed? Why do you so conjecture?”

  “Sensors will pick us out,” Macmillan asserted with confidence. “If the attackers come after us, their sensors would easily discriminate our thermals and outlines from yours. Our own arrays could manage that, and the enemy technology seems to be well ahead of ours.”

  W’th’vaathi considered this new information carefully. “It seems, then, that we must go to the Silver Tower. It is one of three such places on Disparity, a place where our spokespersons convene and where we store artifactures.”

  Veriden frowned at the strange word that had emerged from W’th’vaathi’s backpack. “‘Artifactures’? I think your translator needs a programming update.”

  W’th’vaathi’s tendrils made a wavelike motion that Caine read as easy agreement. “It may be as you say. Our translating artif—no, I perceive now: our translators are what you would call ‘complex machines,’ not merely ‘tools.’ So: these translating machines were last updated before the most recent Convocation. I suspect they are deficient in many of the nuances of your various languages. Specifically, we label all non-living creations as ‘artifactures.’ This is a crude approximation of our actual term, which contains more embedded allusions than may be conveniently referenced during a conversation.”

  “So, you store all your machines—and tools and gadgets—in the silver towers?” D
ora seemed all at once surprised and doubtful.

  “All those we deem complex. We keep unpowered tools and very simple machines, such as vises and gliders and winches, in our arboria, but nothing that would be efficacious in defense.”

  Upon hearing the word “defense,” Caine nodded. “But the Silver Towers are equipped with defense technologies?”

  “Some,” W’th’vaathi answered tentatively.

  “Yes,” asserted Thnessfiirm. “They are mostly of a remote-operated nature. And the towers have reinforced subterranean layers. They provide shelter and are constructed so that occupants may withdraw from the structure without being observed.”

  Well, the cerdorae certainly seem to be the go-to taxon for military needs. Caine nodded. “Then the Silver Tower is precisely where we must go.”

  W’th’vaathi’s long neck wobbled from side to side. Her tone was uncertain. “It is not in our nature to give visitors access to our complex machines. I have instructions to observe and to render aid. But bringing you to a Silver Tower that has not been adequately prepared—”

  Or do you mean, “adequately sanitized?”

  “—contravenes prior guidelines.”

  “Can’t your Senior Ratiocinators be contacted to vouch for us, to confirm that it is safe to bring us to this closest Silver Tower?”

  “We cannot contact them directly. The OverWatchling prevents all long range communication during any incident where invaders may be in or near orbit.”

  “Then how the hell do you coordinate counterattacks, ambushes, supply disruption, jamming, observation?” Keith Macmillan’s voice was relatively calm, but his face was becoming a bright red.

  Thnessfiirm seemed to have the best implicit sense of the humans’ frustrations with Slaasriithi defensive preparations and infrastructure. “You will understand that the circumstances occasioned by your arrival are unknown to us, except as mentioned in the chronicles of our distant past.”

  “We do understand,” Riordan assured the smaller Slaasriithi, cutting a sharp look at Keith. “But those of us who are charged with ensuring the safety of our group find it worrying that we will not have access to er, complex machines with which to protect ourselves.”

  “I comprehend their worry and share it,” W’th’vaathi asserted. “And I am decided: your party is other than we thought it to be. And it is not credible that you are attackers masquerading as victims. This was a possibility which my taxon’s Seniors warned me to guard against, but I am satisfied that you are not dissembling. We shall travel to the Third Silver Tower. On the way there, your need of food can be answered by the efforts of the convectorae. However,” she looked at Caine directly, “your illness is a more difficult matter. Did you spend any extended time sheltering under one of these trees?” She gestured to a cone tree.

  “I did.”

  “Was the olfactory experience not…aversive?”

  “Yes, but the predators that had me ringed in were even more aversive.”

  Riordan had the sense of a dire silence as the Slaasriithi looked at each other with unseen eyes. “We comprehend. We will make all haste. We shall invite these water-striders to summon others of their kind and we shall go downriver as swiftly as we may.”

  “Um, we were expecting help from those complex machines you mentioned,” Veriden intruded brusquely.

  W’th’vaathi’s tendril-fingers drooped. “I regret to say that the Third Silver Tower lacks many of the assets of our other two. It is equipped to receive and launch our cargo craft, but they are all hypervelocity ballistic systems. They are unable to land without special facilities. Besides, they would attract the attention of your attackers.”

  “Do you know if the attackers are still near Disparity?”

  “We suspect so. There is no indication that they have left the system.”

  Macmillan now sounded distinctly annoyed. “Then why haven’t you hunted them down, chased them off?”

  “I reemphasize that Disparity is a transitioning colony world. We have no such defense-in-depth, and cannot risk losing more of our assets.”

  Gaspard threw up his hands. “But this system is adjacent to your homeworld.”

  W’th’vaathi’s sensor cluster fixed on him. If the Slaasriithi had been a human, Riordan had the impression she would simply have shrugged and asked, “And what’s your point?”

  The ratiocinator’s silence seemed to increase Gaspard’s exasperation. “How can you not have more developed defenses at such a close approach, such a key access point, to your homeworld?”

  “Why should we?”

  “Mon Dieu, because this might be the system from which an invader would stage an attack to destroy your homeworld!”

  “But the destruction of any race’s homeworld is directly prohibited by the Twenty-First Accord. And there are many defenses at the system you call Beta Aquilae. But even if it was to succumb to an attacker, we would simply shift our emphasis to a new homeworld.”

  Caine goggled. “A new homeworld? Can’t there only be one?”

  “Yes. One at a time.”

  “No, no. I mean, how can you come from more than one world?”

  “Ah. You have confused the word ‘homeworld’ with ‘world of origin.’ They are explicitly not the same.”

  “Not to you, perhaps.”

  “I commend you to consider that you should not consider these terms synonymous, either, and that other races use these as we do, rather than in the context you have presumed.”

  Wait: so when the Dornaani, or other races, refer to their “homeworlds,” they do not mean—?

  But W’th’vaathi was expanding upon her comment. “Once a race has been changing biospheres for millennia, the planet of its origin becomes more a matter of curiosity than urgent information. Now, we must resume the journey at once. The others of Unsymaajh’s subtaxae shall forage for your nutritive needs as we travel, and any newly summoned water-striders should join us before mid-day.”

  As they walked out of the trees and met the stares of the rest of the survivors, W’th’vaathi stopped and studied the three water-striders waiting patiently in the river. She turned to Riordan. “The convector subtaxae who have observed you reported that you had been traveling with the water-striders. Were they in error?”

  Caine shook his head. “No.” He gestured toward the striders. “They’ve been keeping us safe for the past several days.”

  Unsymaajh’s head moved forward slightly, as if he were trying to get a better look at something between Riordan’s eyes. “They have been keeping you safe? How?”

  “By escorting us downriver.”

  Unsymaajh and W’th’vaathi exchanged glances with their undetectable eyes. W’th’vaathi turned back to Riordan. “Did you not summon them?”

  Caine looked at the rest of the group, who were all looking at him: every human face was a study in perplexity. “Did I summon them?” Caine repeated, feeling stupid. “No: I don’t know how to do that. They just—showed up.”

  Another set of looks were exchanged among the Slaasriithi, more of whom were drifting toward the shore, and toward the humans, all the time. “So,” W’th’vaathi said slowly, “Yiithrii’ah’aash did not brief you on the flora and fauna that our race brought to this world, even though you are so strongly marked—and with the musk of the water-striders most strongly of all?”

  Riordan shook his head. “No. Besides, that marking wasn’t conferred by Yiithrii’ah’aash. A water-strider did that, just before it died.” W’th’vaathi folded her tendril-fingers patiently, and settled into a hip-stabilized crouch. The expectation of hearing the story behind the death of the water-strider was obvious. Caine imparted an extremely truncated version.

  At the end, W’th’vaathi extended her neck a little further and said, “Come.”

  Riordan followed her down to the water. W’th’vaathi turned. “Wade toward the largest of the water-striders. You have nothing to fear. Truly.”

  Caine moved out into the water, and, after a few
steps, the largest of the water-striders seemed to be bending its—well, its “knees”—to get a better look at him. The further out Caine waded, the further down the water-strider bent, its legs spreading sideways and its joints allowing the heavy body to lower toward the river. For a moment, it resembled a four-legged mammalian tarantula, the joints of its legs higher than the trunk of its body.

  By the time Caine had waded hip-deep into the current, he was only a few meters from the creature, which was almost eyeball-to-eyeball with him. And in those alien eyes, Caine read—what? Nothing? Perplexity? Curiosity? Or even—expectation?

  “She is waiting,” W’th’vaathi called from the shore, as one of the water-strider’s legs began stretching out, lowering into the water at a more gentle angle.

  “For what?”

  “For you to take your place.”

  Caine hated feeling stupid and he’d spent most of the last five minutes doing exactly that. “To take my place where?”

  “Upon her back.”

  “You mean, we’re supposed to—ride them?”

  “Of course.” W’th’vaathi’s reply was mild: too mild to conceal a hint of ironic amusement.

  Or so Caine told himself.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Southern extents of the Third Silver Tower; BD +02 4076 Two (“Disparity”)

  By the time noon was past, the group had made as much progress downriver as they normally made in a full day. Also, Riordan no longer felt like one of the water-striders was standing on his chest every time he inhaled.

  W’th’vaathi, who had not noticed how Ben Hwang and Caine surreptitiously arranged to be on the same water-strider as she, remarked. “Your respiration seems less labored, Caine Riordan.”

  Riordan smiled. “Yes, thanks to you and the water-striders.”

  “It is a great misfortune that you were unable to obey your instincts to leave the area under what you call the cone tree. You may have become more deeply infested with the defense spores than we believed possible.”

  Caine tried to remain calm. Being super-saturated with defense spores did not sound particularly promising.