“I requested this communing to alert you to the significance of the impending demise of the human named Caine Riordan.”
“Your reason for contact is included in my awareness of the situation. But I do not perceive why a single being’s impending demise warrants this concern.”
“You are aware of the role of the human, of the tacit assurances we provided him and his group for their safety on Disparity, and of his possible further significance to Yiithrii’ah’aash’s mission?”
“The ratiocinatorae have relayed these data points, but I do not understand the implicit connection between a single being and these greater significances.”
Mriif’vaal breathed deeply: it had already been five minutes, and the OverWatchling’s inability to perceive the social and cultural ramification of the matter promised that it would take much, much longer. “I shall explain. Firstly, you may recall that we counseled you regarding the importance of individual human lives when they first crashed upon this world.”
“I am aware of the content of our prior contact.”
Aware of it in the sense of being an immense but uncomprehending recording device. “What we were not aware of at that time was that this particular being, Caine Riordan, was already Affined to us by an old mark—an unthinkably old mark. We are uncertain of the origin of this mark, but believe it may be connected to the profound sense of importance and urgency that Yiithrii’ah’aash imparted to us about this mission.”
“I have much data that was initially relayed from Yiithrii’ah’aash’s ship, the Tidal-Drift-Instaurator-to-Shore-of-Stars. There is no record of any human passenger bearing such a mark.”
“I cannot account for that discrepancy,” Mriif’vaal sent wearily. “It may be that Yiithrii’ah’aash did not wish to call attention to this factor in our communications. It may be that he was unaware of just how old, or just how powerful, this marking was upon Caine Riordan. Conceivably, it did not fully express itself until the human was fully in our environment. That would not be uncommon; many marks sleep until touched by microbiota they recognize and only demonstrate their full intensity when fully awakened thereby. It could have been so here on Disparity.”
The OverWatchling did not respond for a long time; Mriif’vaal estimated it to be a delay of ten minutes. “What may be done? Given this new data, I would have agreed to many of your initial suggestions for action, or for release of assets, which I refused. But the past is past and may not be changed.”
“True.” Mriif’vaal took his time, allowed his body to replenish its pheromones and spore sacs to make his next message particularly clear and forceful. “But you may still change the future, may change the unfortunate course of events that has resulted from the recent past you now regret.”
“I do not understand.”
Mriif’vaal felt the OverWatchling’s growing willingness to alter protocols and precedents, and so, proceeded carefully, like a tracker attempting not to startle skittish game. “There are other old marks, spores, and antidotes. They are resident in your awareness. You may summon the Emitters to produce them. And they are precisely what Caine Riordan needs to survive, for he is dying not from the wounds inflicted by his own kind, but from our own defensive spores. Which, as we communicated to you before, could have been suspended. But that was not done.”
“To do so would have deviated from protocol.” This time, the OverWatching’s reply was evasive, less resolute.
“Clearly,” Mriif’vaal agreed. “But we must weigh that deviation against other concerns. I shall enumerate these concerns. If we allow this human to die when it is known that we may preserve his life, how will this particular group of humans Affine with us? Indeed, given their nonpolytaxic origins and perceptions of life and death, why should they? These beings fought to survive and indirectly defend the sovereignty of our planet. How will we explain to them and the rest of their species that Caine Riordan, an ancient-marked envoy, must be allowed to die—and not from wounds inflicted in the battle, but because of our unwillingness to correct an ailment caused by our own spores? If you would salvage this situation, if you would preserve the chance of an alliance between our races, then you must cure him.” Mriif’vaal realized as he released the last fervent wash of pheromones that he might have pushed too hard.
The OverWatchling’s reply was not brusque, but it was more firm than the prior ones. “What you ask is without precedent. The antidote to which you refer, the prime theriac,has not been used in millennia and there are many injunctions against doing so.”
Carefully now. “Those injunctions arose from vastly different exigencies than the ones which face us now. They pertain to wars fought in the distant past, wars in which our antagonists were not true humans, but, rather, a malign subspecies derived from them. But these humans, the ones who were invited to Disparity, are the originals of their breed. Their genecode predates that of the self-warped subspecies that tormented us, and which recent intelligence suggests is one and the same as the exosapients who have masqueraded as the Ktor.” Mriif’vaal paused, let the OverWatchling process these concepts. Then he circled back to the key assertion. “If the Slaasriithi polytaxon would be Affined to these natural humans of Earth, we must preserve the life of this being that we ourselves have unwittingly brought to the edge of death. If we do not bear the responsibility of action to undo such a mistake, why would his kind believe or trust us in any other particular?”
The OverWatchling was slow in responding. Clearly, the arguments were wearing upon its inclination to remain in compliance with normative protocols. “I still do not perceive the urgency you presume to reside in this single being. Is it not his fate, even desire, to devote his existence—including the surrender of it—to the welfare of his taxon?”
“No. That is not how humans have evolved, either biologically or socially. Because they are not polytaxic, their priorities are radically different. The importance we put upon the collective, they put upon the individual.”
“And we wish to ally with such creatures?”
“Most urgently, I believe.”
“I require confirmation of that assertion.”
“If Yiithrii’ah’aash were here to provide it, I would never have contacted you myself. Consequently, your request for confirmation is, with apologies, illogical.” Not to say specious.
The answer was very long in coming. “That is true.” As Mriif’vaal waited, it felt as though the world breathed in and out deeply. Then: “Your counsel is prudent. I shall comply.”
* * *
Caine started awake, started again when he discovered Yiithrii’ah’aash’s sensor cluster focused on him, only a meter away. It drew back. “I did not mean to frighten you, Caine Riordan. Apologies.”
“I wasn’t frightened. Not exactly.” Caine was suddenly and acutely conscious of still being in shorts and a tee shirt, the only recuperation clothing he had. Upon recovering consciousness two days ago, he had awakened to find himself lying stark naked in a strange amalgam of a bed, a couch, and an oversized sponge that smelled vaguely like citrus and bergamot. The Slaasriithi had been startled by his attempt to cover himself. His sudden, urgent motions without (for them) ready explanation led them to conclude he might be having a seizure of some sort. When Riordan groggily asked them for a hospital gown, much buzzing and sibilant speech ensued. After thirty minutes, they brought him an otherwise featureless black slate, which, when activated, displayed any number of gowns: wedding, formal, debutante ball. The attempt to find clothing had gone downhill from there, largely because the Slaasriithi, being unconcerned with personal coverings of any kind and quite unfamiliar with human sociology, presumed that all Earth garb was fundamentally a form of signification. To them, the concept of “modesty” was as foreign as the term “nudity” was redundant.
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s sensor cluster regarded him steadily. “I am most gratified and glad that your health returns to you. And to those of your fellows who were wounded.”
Caine nodd
ed; Gaspard, the only human the Slaasriithi had permitted to see Riordan so far, had summarized the aftermath of the battle at the river. Eid had indeed fled to safety. Salunke had been knocked senseless when the explosion of a rifle grenade had blown down a rotting tree which fell upon her. Prior health concerns were also resolving: the wounds inflicted upon Hirano by the pirhannows were healing nicely, and it was speculated that she would not lose her eye. Hwang’s internal injuries had not been so severe that they were beyond the ability of his own body to heal.
But Trent Howarth was dead. No one knew what had happened, but the speed of his exit from Puller was reasonably suspected of having compromised his HALO rig. Qwara and Xue had been buried and Riordan himself had been excavated from beneath the bulk of the slain water-strider that had, it seemed, sacrificed itself to conceal him from the Ktor and the clones. The loss of Macmillan was not mentioned. Caine suspected that many simply wrote him off as one of the enemy dead. Riordan was of the opinion that he, too, was a fallen fellow-traveler; the only difference was that he had been a casualty from the time he had left Earth, his soul torn asunder when forced to choose between his daughter’s life and the fate of his planet. Caine wondered if he himself would have fared any better against that most terrible weapon of all: one’s own greatest loves turned against each other.
Gaspard had made many vicariously proud noises about the extraordinary underdog outcome of the engagement beside the river, pointing to the scant losses among the humans and the Slaasriithi. But Caine’s memories kept showing him very different pictures: Unsymaajh toppling from his downward swoop, Qwara pitching backward with only a fragment of her head remaining, Xue’s limp collapse, or the imagined bird’s-eye view of Trent falling falling falling. And unbidden, Keith Macmillan’s tortured face rose up as well.
Gaspard eventually noticed that his references to the “wondrous deliverance” Riordan had effected for the legation did not seem to cheer the recipient of those panegyrics. But when the ambassador inquired if something was amiss, Caine deflected the inquiry, citing exhaustion. During his command of insurgents in Indonesia, Riordan had learned not to share regrets and remorse except with select persons, in private places, and after some time had passed. And Etienne Gaspard was never going to be such a person, despite how well he had ultimately risen to the challenges of their disastrous journey.
Riordan’s reveries ended abruptly when Yiithrii’ah’aash shifted in his framed stool. “You are uncharacteristically silent, Caine Riordan. Do your require more rest? Should I return later?”
“No, no. I was just…thinking. I had not been informed that you were coming today, although Ambassador Gaspard informed me that you shifted in-system three days after our engagement with the—with our enemies.”
“With the Ktor,” Yiithrii’ah’aash corrected.
Caine was silent, considered: Yiithrii’ah’aash’s identification of the Ktor as their attackers—and as humans—was not a probe, not a conjecture to elicit either confirmation or denial. It was uttered as a statement of fact. So it didn’t seem as though that extremely classified piece of information was so classified anymore. Indeed, maybe it never had been for the Slaasriithi. “How long have you known? About the Ktor, I mean.”
“‘Know’ is too strong a word. We suspected, some of us strongly. We Slaasriithi were not alone in this. We intuit that similar suspicions reside in the Dornaani Collective, particularly amongst the Custodians.”
“Then why has the issue not been raised?”
“The Accord is an organization that rightly connects the assurance of privacy to the assurance of peace. Races that presume no rights to impede upon each other tend to be able to coexist.”
“But if it turns out that one of them is a liar, that same coexistence can splinter in a second. With grave consequences.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s sensor cluster inclined slightly. “This is also true. As some of us have pointed out. However, over time, many Slaasriithi who suspected the true identity of the Ktor became hopeful that they had been mistaken, or that the Ktor had changed. It is difficult to imagine how so warlike and aggressive a subspecies could endure for so long without evolving into a less self-destructive social organism. But perhaps the more powerful inclination against seeking direct evidence of their biology arose from our own societies’ desire for tranquility. The question of Ktoran identity was a very unnerving topic, and full of dire consequences if it was revealed that they had misrepresented their nature. As has now occurred, here on Disparity. However, we did not foresee that the confirmation would take such a brutal shape, or how quickly it would follow the conclusion of the recent war. Yet perhaps this has been, as your idiom has it, a blessing in disguise.”
Riordan nodded. “But your suspicions of the true identity of the Ktor were hardly something you could ever fully forget.”
“Why do you say so, Caine Riordan?”
“Because, during the journey with W’th’vaathi, we had a conversation which indicated that your defense spores were tailor-made to work upon human biochemistry. That, in turn, suggests that we were among your most dangerous enemies in the distant past.
“But Earth wasn’t launching attacks against other species twenty millennia ago; it was still busy inventing fire. So the human threat which prompted you to devise these spores must have come from elsewhere. And then, when you joined the Dornaani in their Accord, there was already one other member race. A race that was both reclusive and secretive, but also aggressive, and for which no prior record existed: the Ktor. So you had to wonder: ‘is the Ktor claim that they are ammonia-based worms inside big metal tanks just a masquerade?’”
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s tone puzzled Riordan; the Slaasriithi inflections did not resemble those of humans, and this was one he had not heard before. “This is indeed what some of us wondered.”
Riordan sighed. “And now two humans have continued that fine tradition of treachery and aggression. Danysh sabotaged your ship and almost killed you along with us. Macmillan enabled a raid against the surface of a world that is, in interstellar terms, right next door to your home system. I’m half expecting you to tell me that our visit to Beta Aquilae, and this whole diplomatic envoy, has been called off after what my species has done to yours. Again.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash raised a tendril. “You misperceive. Our only concern is with your compromised subspecies, the Ktor.”
Caine frowned. “Compromised?”
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s tendrils waved, one following the other slowly. “The Ktor are not natural, not entirely.”
“In what way? And how can you tell?”
“Many of our biota can ‘taste’ other genecodes, particularly the difference between those which arise from mechanistic genetic alteration, and those which arise from natural evolution or inducement. The latter leaves no genetic detritus, to put the matter crudely. However, the former process—mechanistic alteration—restructures genes through externally forced or crudely imposed addition, removal, or modification of target codes.” Yiithrii’ah’aash may have read Riordan’s frown as incomprehension. “Let us put it this way: natural processes change genetics the way a hand smooths a clay pot on a turning wheel. Mechanistic processes are the blows of hammers, the cuts of knives, the gnawings of nanytes. Many of our biota can, for lack of a better description, smell or taste the ragged code left by these artificial processes.”
Riordan suppressed a host of questions that this revelation stimulated about the Ktor, as well as about the genetic research opportunities that might arise through a partnership with the Slaasriithi. “I’m glad that you distinguish between us and the Ktor, Yiithrii’ah’aash, but the fact remains that two of my people brought war and death to Disparity. And the Ktor were using our clones and our equipment.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash oscillated his neck lazily: the equivalent of a shrug. “These statements are true, but they are also unimportant.” Perhaps perceiving the surprised expression on Riordan’s face, Yiithrii’ah’aash
held up several didactic tendrils. “If I were to take a dead branch from the forest, and slay my clutch-sibling with it, may I then blame the forest for committing the murder? The forest only provided the object I used. The hand and the will that wielded it show us the culprit. The same holds true of what transpired on Disparity: it was not your doing. The Ktor were the hand and the will behind the treachery and the murder. They simply found the weak and the vulnerable among you and corrupted them to use as their tools.”
“Then isn’t human corruptibility at least partly to blame?”
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s neck wobbled diffidently once again. “Any social creature that is not part of a polytaxon is ultimately corruptible. The survival imperative of disparate individuals is particularly accute and so the values of self-preservation and selfhood may overpower any instinct toward communal preservation and group identity. Conversely, the inevitable outcome of our polytaxic evolution is that the group is more important than the individual; this makes the Slaasriithi unique among the races of the Accord. On the other hand, while human individualism is not unique, its extraordinary intensity also makes your species the most readily corruptible.”
Riordan was tempted to shake his head in dismay. “Then why not presume that we will eventually become just like the Ktor?”
“Because although the countervailing communal impulses of altruism and empathy may not be as strong in your society as in ours, those impulses nonetheless remain intact and uncompromised. However, this balance between egoism and altruism was disrupted by whatever mechanistic modification was used to alter your genecode into that of the Ktor. Possibly this disruption was an unintended artifact of the modification. It is no less likely that it was one of the explicit objectives of the process. However, undamaged, that dynamic tension between love of self and love of others is the guarantor of your social equilibrium.”
Raising Caine - eARC Page 55