“When Kekeki’s upset, yeh see yellow-and-red flashes along her spine and arms,” Angus said.
“I didn’t notice anything like that,” Saoirse told them. “Kekeki said that the arracht wanted to know if the Terrans would promise not to harm them. Ichiko told her that she’d ask her superiors what their intentions were, and Kekeki said they’d be waiting to hear the answer. Then Kekeki left.”
“Flashing red-and-yellow streaks as she departed,” Liam cut in.
“No,” Saoirse said firmly, then looked at Angus and her mam. “Did yeh know that the arracht don’t think of themselves as individuals, don’t really care if one of them dies, and they make all their decisions as a group? That’s what Kekeki told Ichiko, and Ichiko said that meant they might be a ‘collective gestalt intelligence,’ whatever that means.”
She saw her mam glance at Angus, though what she was trying to communicate with the look wasn’t clear to Saoirse. “Aye, we know they don’t think the same way we do,” her mam said finally. “We’ve understood that for a long time. Still, they’ve helped us, and so we’ll continue to help them. Yeh need to remember that, Saoirse. What have the Terrans done for us since they returned? They’ve repaired First Base, but oh, now First Base is theirs and not ours and we’re not allowed in there, are we? They’ve given us back some technology we’d lost, but once they’re gone, we won’t be able replicate or repair it here. For that matter, do we even need their technology? They’ve made noises about maybe letting some of us go with them back to Earth, but it’s only noise until they actually say we can. Otherwise . . .” Iona shrugged. “All they’ve given us are empty promises and words that don’t mean shite.”
“They keep us and Canis Lupus at arm’s length,” Angus broke in. “They won’t even breathe our air or eat our food. They treat us like we’re diseased sheepers who need to be kept isolated in a separate field. Even yer Ichiko does that. I grant yeh that she’s pleasant and friendly enough, but she’s still one of them, not one of us. Yeh need to keep that in yer head, Saoirse. I trust the arracht more than I trust any Terran. So does yer mam, and yeh should, too.”
Iona glanced again at Angus and gave a long sigh. She reached across the table and placed her hands over Saoirse’s, her lips lifting in a sympathetic smile. After a moment, Saoirse spread her fingers enough that her mam’s fingers interlaced with hers, pressing tightly.
“I hear what yeh and Uncle Angus are saying, Mam,” Saoirse said. “I don’t know about the other Terrans, but I do trust Ichiko.”
“Yeh don’t really know her,” her mam responded.
“I know her as well as I know Kekeki. Maybe better.”
“Do yeh know her, or are yeh just saying that because yeh like her,” Liam interjected. “After all, I know yeh, Sis.”
Saoirse glared at Liam. “Aye, I like her that way and if she weren’t a Terran, I’d be asking her into me bed if she were willing. But that’s not possible, is it? I do know her beyond that, though, and I can’t believe she’d do anything to deliberately hurt us.”
“I hope yer right,” her mam said. “I’d hate to find out otherwise, for all of our sakes.”
* * *
=The syna on the skyship are becoming stronger. Since they moved from the plotch on the Inish that were taken up to the skyship, they’ve found their way into most of the biological components within the ship’s system, what the eki call ‘wetware,’ and have nearly achieved a true Jishtal with the false creatures those on the skyship created to serve the eki there,= Keksyn said to Kekeki.
Kekeki could feel many of the other arracht listening to the conversation without speaking. =Are we certain this is the path we want?= Kekeki asked.
=It’s the path the syna have taken,= was Keksyn’s response. =The choice of the syna never has been our choice to make. Ever.=
=There was a choice,= Kekeki insisted. =We could have warned the Terrans of what might happen.=
=But we didn’t do that,= Keksyn answered, =and all life is persistent, as we know. The syna does what it must to survive. That’s all the syna want. It’s what we want as well, after all.=
As Speaker to the Eki, Kekeki could only agree with that, though it gave her little comfort.
Improvising Poetry And Dancing Upon The Shore
A COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE?” Captain Keshmiri said. “You’re confident in that assessment, Dr. Aguilar?”
Captain Keshmiri wasn’t physically present in the room—only Ichiko and Nagasi were seated in Nagasi’s office. The captain and Luciano were present in com-unit windows along the walls; Ichiko’s AMI had said that at least another dozen people aboard the ship were also listening to the conversation: mostly scientists and military officers who might be asked to contribute to the discussion if something required their expertise.
“Confident? Not entirely, Captain,” Ichiko answered. “But that’s certainly what Kekeki was implying about the arracht. She consistently referred to herself and them in the plural—always ‘we,’ never ‘I.’”
Captain Keshmiri displayed her Iranian heritage in her coloring, though her short-cropped hair, once a deep brown verging on black, was now liberally seeded with white. Crow’s-feet adorned the corners of sharp-gazed, midnight eyes untouched by any cosmetics, and she wore her uniform like a second skin. Ichiko couldn’t imagine her without it.
Luciano’s image stirred in the periphery of Ichiko’s vision, though she’d been trying to avoid looking at him, not certain what she’d see in his face—does he expect me to sleep with him again tonight? Do I want to?
“I don’t know how important referring to themselves in the plural actually is, Dr. Aguilar,” Luciano interjected. His voice was businesslike and professional. “After all, we do the same sometimes without trying to indicate that we’re part of some group consciousness. For instance, I might say to the crew that ‘we’ve made a decision’ when, really, it’s the captain who has made the decision and I’m just relaying it. For that matter, it might also be a societal quirk of theirs, or even a simple mistranslation since the conversation was filtered through that young Inish woman.”
“Granted,” Nagasi said, “but the possibility makes for interesting speculations and potential problems in dealing with and understanding these arracht. If they truly are a collective intelligence, interacting with them might be more like interacting with an AI network—perhaps similar to our AMIs—than with any human society. Maybe we should be consulting with our programmers.”
“I don’t think we’re quite there yet, not until we have more hard facts and information,” Captain Keshmiri said, then her gaze returned to Ichiko. “But, Dr. Aguilar, you are confident in your statement that we’ve stumbled across our first true alien intelligence with the arracht.” There was far more statement than question in the captain’s voice.
“I am. Entirely. Kekeki is absolutely a sentient being. I’m certain of it.”
“That, I think, is of more immediate concern than speculation about the way they communicate or make decisions. Our guidelines on first contact aren’t of much use here, since there have already been centuries of contact between humans and arracht through the settlers who were left behind at the onset of the Interregnum. We’re latecomers to the party.”
Luciano cleared his throat. “For clarification, Captain, it’s only the two clans on the archipelago who have had intimate contact with the arracht. In my conversations with Minister Plunkett, it’s clear that Mainlanders don’t believe that the arracht are anything more than large and potentially dangerous fish. Since the Mainland clans agreed to stop hunting the arracht after the Great Fishing War, they’ve had little-to-no contact with the creatures. They certainly don’t think of them as sentient at all as far as I know.”
“Mainlanders don’t have the plotch, either, at least not anymore,” Ichiko said. “From my stay with the Inish and from what Kekeki said, it’s clear that both the Inish and the arracht believe this p
lotch is somehow the vehicle through which the two species can talk to each other in easy cross-species communication, without either of them knowing the other’s language.” Ichiko remembered Kekeki’s tentacled arms slithering over her as if in a caress, and she shivered.
“Would you be able to collect a sample of plotch from Saoirse?” Nagasi asked Ichiko. “We have samples from the Inish who were previously up here, but Saoirse claimed that the arracht have somehow ‘awakened’—that’s the word Saoirse used—the plotch within her. Maybe we could learn more if we could examine a sample up here.”
“If Dr. Aguilar can provide that, fine,” the captain said. “But let’s not lose our focus. I’ve sent word back to Earth that we have a potential first contact situation, but we don’t have the option of waiting for decades to get direction from the UCE. We will have to make the best decision we can as to how to proceed from here. You’re all aware of our mission limitations, and that’s my main concern at this point.” Captain Keshmiri looked at them. “We can’t remain here indefinitely. It’s simply not possible. We’re already approaching the initial mission timeline. I’ve had Support run the figures: at this point we have at most a six-week window before we must leave since we could no longer reach Earth before exhausting necessary supplies—and that’s with our current crew only without adding any possible Lupusians to the equation. We could possibly stretch that out a week or so longer if we strictly ration the food, water, fuel, air supply, etc. to the bare minimum, but . . .” Her voice trailed off with a shrug.
AMI had been silent in Ichiko’s head. Now she spoke what Ichiko was already thinking.
We won’t be taking any of the Lupusians back with us. They’re to be left behind.
* * *
“When is the captain going to inform the Lupusians?” Ichiko asked Luciano.
It was telling that Luciano didn’t bother to ask, “Inform the Lupusians about what?” Instead, he merely lifted his shoulders and let them drop again. “I don’t know. The timing’s her prerogative. Ichiko, you can’t let anything about this leak out to the Cani . . . to the Lupusians before the captain makes her official announcement or there will be repercussions. Neither of us want that, I’m sure.”
Ichiko wasn’t certain whether Luciano meant himself and the captain, or himself and her. After the meeting with Nagasi, the captain, and Luciano, her AMI had relayed a request for her to come to Luciano’s quarters for dinner. She’d accepted, somewhat reluctantly, but Nagasi had said that there’d be no progress on the vials that Ichiko brought with her from the archipelago for a few days at best. “Besides,” Nagasi had admitted with a sigh before she left, “I suspect that the captain will be sending the remainder of our Lupusian volunteers back downworld very soon. We may not even have time to test any of Seann James’ potions on them, so . . .”
Nagasi had shaken his head dolefully.
The decision was all but made, Ichiko knew then.
The meal—something resembling a chicken breast on a bed of something resembling rice, with a green something resembling broccoli as a side dish, and a beaker of actual red wine from the private Officer’s Stores—sat on the table between them. Ichiko picked desultorily at the supposed chicken, which tasted too salty under the cheese sauce that topped it. She thought of the meals she’d seen in the Mullin clanhouse, and wondered how they’d compare if she could only have tasted them. Far better, she suspected. The prospect of another five years of reconstituted algae and soy before she could taste real food again was disheartening.
Luciano took a sip of the wine. “You do understand, don’t you? Informing Minister Plunkett and the others will be, well, a somewhat delicate negotiation. We want to avoid any issues with the locals.”
“I get that. Believe me.” She could imagine the profound disappointment Saoirse would feel. I need to be the one to tell her. I can’t let her find this out secondhand.
“Good. Then we’re all on the same page.”
Not really. But she managed an uncertain smile in his direction. “Before all this happens, I want to go back downworld at least one more time,” she told him. “Back to the archipelago. I told Saoirse and Kekeki that I’d be back, and I think now, more than ever, I need to keep that promise. There’s so much more we need to learn about the archipelago culture, but especially about the arracht and their society before we leave. But I need to know how I’m supposed to handle contact with the arracht, knowing what we now understand about them.”
Luciano was frowning before she finished speaking, his face darkening as if a storm were rising underneath. “I sympathize with how you feel, Ichiko.”
“But?”
“Let me talk to Captain Keshmiri first, and Nagasi as well since he’s your direct report. If they don’t have any objections, the next shuttle goes downworld in less than twenty-four hours. You can be on it.”
“You’ll talk to them when?”
His head tilted at her tone, but she gazed blandly back at him. “I can do that as soon as we’re finished eating.”
“I’m finished now,” she said. She pushed her chair back from the table. “I’ll go down to my quarters to give you privacy while you talk.” Then, because she knew it was what he wanted her to say: “You can come to my quarters and give me the news afterward.”
He grinned at that. “And if it’s good news?”
“Then we can celebrate. Together.”
“You’re only saying that to give me an incentive to make sure it’s good news.”
She managed a genuine laugh. “If that’s what you think, then fine,” she told him. “I’ll use whatever bargaining chips I have. I’ll talk to you later, Luciano. Make sure you have good news.”
* * *
Since Ichiko had left Great Inish to return to the ship, Saoirse had been mulling over everything they’d said and what they’d learned. Ichiko had said that she wanted to know more about the arracht; Saoirse had decided she’d begin that process for her.
Through glasses crusted with dried salt water, Saoirse watched Kekeki rise from the water as she grounded her small currach on the ledge and hopped from the boat. The tentacles of Kekeki’s upper arms laced around the rocks on the ledge as the sound of disturbed water echoed through the cavern. The multiple pupils on Kekeki’s eyestalks blinked and focused on her, and she heard Kekeki’s voice speaking in her head through the sound of the clicks and trills the arracht was making.
“We heard yeh ask to speak to us,” Kekeki said, “and now yeh’ve come. We can feel that yeh are worried.”
“Aye, I’m worried.”
“Do yeh worry only for yerself?”
Saoirse shook her head. “I worry for everyone. For all of us—those up in the sky, the Mainlanders, the Inish, the arracht. All of us together.”
“Is the Banríon also so worried?”
“If she is, ’tis about other things.”
Kekeki produced a low rumble that translated as a chuckle in Saoirse’s head. “Yeh Four-Limb land creatures are so strange. What worries are in yer head, Saoirse?”
“Yeh told Ichiko that yeh wondered whether the Terrans left my ancestors behind because we’re flawed and yeh arracht could ‘fix’ us. Is that something yeh could do? Could yeh make us more like yeh arracht? Is that something yeh also want to do to us?”
Another rumble of low laughter. “Aren’t yeh talking to us now through the plotch? Doesn’t that mean yer already more like us than yeh once were?”
Saoirse shrugged. “Aye, it does, but is that all yeh meant?”
Kekeki let herself slip back u
nderwater for a moment before emerging once again in a foaming wave. “We aren’t sure how to answer that,” she said when she’d steadied herself once more, like a colorful thunderhead looming over Saoirse. “We told yer Ichiko that she wore a shell which didn’t allow her to truly understand us or this world. But that shell is something she chooses to wear, like a false walker that picks up an abandoned spiny walker’s shell after the original occupant has died. The shell that keeps our world separate from Ichiko isn’t actually part of her and she could abandon it if she wished—or if we chose to remove it from her ourselves. But the fact that yer each individuals . . . that’s not a choice on yer part. It’s what yeh are.”
“Yeh mean yeh can’t change that part of us.”
“It means we don’t know if we could, or—if we did—whether yeh would still be precisely what yeh are now. Yer minds work differently than ours. But we could give yeh a glimpse of the way we see the world, if yeh wish. If that’s what yeh wish to know.”
“Is it dangerous?”
Again came the laughter-rumble. “It was dangerous for yeh to take yer first breath, and that action will inevitably end in yer death. But we know that’s not what yeh were asking. The answer is that we don’t know. It wouldn’t be our intention to harm yeh, but it might. Yeh have to choose for yerself.”
Saoirse hugged herself in the chill of the cavern, with the gentle blue glow of the algae smeared across her glasses. She took off the spectacles to clean them on her sleeve. She knew what her mam would tell her: No, don’t do this. This isn’t something yeh need to do. But she also could imagine how Ichiko would answer if Kekeki had made the offer to her. “All right,” she told the arracht as she put the glasses back on. “I’ll take that new first breath.”
Kekeki rumbled her laughter again as she lifted herself further from the water, her middle arms now holding her up as her body bent down toward Saoirse and her top arms enclosed her, the finger-tentacles wrapping fully around her body. In that moment, the world around her shivered and became an alien place.
Amid the Crowd of Stars Page 22