Assured (Envoys Book 2)

by Peter J Aldin

  “My government would consider any interaction with you to be formal.”

  Buoun blew out a breath through his nostrils and rubbed at his stumpy head crest, staring into his water glass. “Mine too. I find that sad. I had …” He glanced up at Gregory. “May I be open and honest? May I make a personal comment?”

  “Of course.” Gregory smiled gently. “Consider this an informal interaction.”

  “Thank you. I want to tell you that when I first stepped onto the human probe, when I watched the hologram and tried to make sense of human writing, I hoped our people would be friends. I desired it still when I first stepped onto Assured. And perhaps it was a foolish desire, but I wished that the friendship would extend beyond our people. That I would have a friend myself. A non-Tluaan friend. A foolish desire. An immature one. A selfish one. A weak one.”

  “A noble one,” Gregory told him. Maybe it was the scotch, maybe it was the hour, or the latent emotions from the funeral. But he felt a welling of affection for the man.

  Tlu! he corrected himself. He’s not a man. He’s thoughtful and decent. But he’s not human.

  “You don’t hate us?” Buoun asked. “You don’t hate me?”

  “For Domain Moon’s hostility and Domain Surface’s treachery?”

  “And for the fact that my leaders hid the other domains from you when you arrived here. And hid the fact that we were already sending interstellar expeditions.”

  “No, I don’t hate you, Buoun. I think you’ve done your best to work with us within the constraints you have.”

  “Constraints?”

  “Restrictions. Limits.”

  “Ah. Thank you. There’s always so much of your language to learn. Yes, during the conflict—the space battles—I tried to serve both you and my own domain. But also, my species.”

  “That’s a heavy responsibility to wear, Buoun. And even with the differences in our body language, I can often see how heavily you wear it.” Buoun’s head dipped in acknowledgement or perhaps gratitude, maybe even embarrassment. He still couldn’t always read Tluaanto reliably. “If we’re being honest and informal here, I am angry at your leaders. And theirs. At the Tluaan political system. I’m angry that we came in good faith only to be immediately endangered. Domain Space involved us in a war that wasn’t ours. Domain Moon aimed a nuclear rocket at us. Domain Surface damaged our ship’s systems. They killed our people.”

  “But not Ocean. They did nothing.” Buoun’s voice was soft, thoughtful. “Ocean are a good domain. Probably the wisest of us.”

  Then it’s a shame we didn’t meet them first. He spared Buoun that thought.

  “You will still allow them to come with us? Domain Ocean, I mean. That is, if …”

  “Yes, they can come,” said Gregory, allowing some of his weariness into his tone and posture. “Captain Pan has argued we should see out this mission to Kh’het.”

  “Has argued? With you? You don’t want to go?”

  “I don’t,” he admitted. “I would very much like to go home. I’ve had my fill of nasty surprises and death and destruction.” I’m so goddamn fed up with the whole thing.

  Buoun was nodding. “Perhaps, then, you should argue harder with Captain Pan. Convince him. Our needs to hurry to Kh’het are not your needs.”

  Gregory blinked at him. “Not what I expected you to say, Buoun. Do your councillors know you think that way?”

  “They do not. If they did, I would be … Hnnh. I would be working elsewhere.”

  “Well, while we’re being frank with each other, Captain Pan has seniority when it comes to military decisions. He views a reconnaissance trip to a new and inhabited star system as a matter of Confederation security. Which means I’m outvoted, I’m afraid. Returning to the topic of Domain Ocean—they can come along. We have no issue there, because, as you say, they’ve displayed no malice toward us and they lost a warrior trying to protect us from the attackers. But please, Buoun, ensure your leadership understands: this is to be a quick trip. An in-and-out. We drop off supplies to your mission crew, we take a quick look around for ourselves—which we have certainly earned the right to do—then after a day or so, we bring your delegation back to Liberty Habitat and we return to Confederation territory to report to our leadership.”

  And to heal.

  “I understand.” A pause, then, “I will miss you, Chris. You are a good person. Humans are good persons.”

  No, we’re not. Not by a long shot. Then again, we haven’t tried to murder and extort Tluaanto so far.

  “Will you return?” Buoun asked. “You specifically, I mean.”

  “The Parliament will decide who returns. And why.”

  “You can’t send them a message now? Ask their permission to remain here until another ship comes? You would be welcome to set up a temporary home on Liberty. I would ensure it’s comfortable for you. There is so much you haven’t seen of our culture: art, entertainment, music. Good things.” He inclined his ear to the sounds filtering out of Gregory’s cabin. “Is … that music?”

  Gregory smiled at the question. “That’s a very kind offer. But it takes a message almost a month to reach Foucault’s Moon and for the reply to return. Also, I’m not sure I want to stay.”

  “I am sad that you feel that way. But I understand it. This has not turned out the way I hoped or expected either.”

  Seeking peace—as befitted his vocation—Gregory raised what was left of his whisky. “Do you know our tradition of toasting?”

  “A gesture intended to invoke either gratitude or luck. Tluaanto do not believe in luck, but …” Buoun picked up his water glass, returning Gregory’s gaze expectantly. “I sense it’s luck you are invoking?”

  “Absolutely. A toast to no more problems between our peoples.”

  “I agree.”

  Both of them drank as Gregory admitted to himself it was a stupid wish. There would always be problems.

  Please, just no more that lead to death and destruction.

  Buoun put down his glass so he could fumble around in a pocket. “I came to talk, but also to gift you something.”

  “No, no. I don’t require any gifts, Buoun.”

  “You gave me something of your daughter’s many days back. It means a lot to me. I keep it in my personal baggage and look at it often. Since then, I have wanted to respond with something equally valuable to me. I now realize that I can.”

  Gregory squinted at the object in Buoun’s hand. It looked like a book. An old book. Yellowed plastic pages with faded pictures visible as the Tlu flipped through it.

  “This has been my most treasured possession for a long time. Now, your daughter’s dinosaur toy is.”

  He leaned forward, arm extended.

  Taking the book, Gregory turned it over. The finish on the pages was brittle. It was like many relics of the CUSET and PRC era, an antique. He had to put it down for fear of damaging it. “This came from the probe?”

  “Your ancestors placed several cultural objects in it for other species to find.”

  “They let you take this from the museum?” It surprised him that Domain Space would be that kind to one of their functionaries.

  “They did not let me.” Buoun affected a human smile. “You see my meaning?”

  Gregory raised his eyebrows in return. “You stole it?”

  “I stole it. I was angry.”

  “You’re gifting me a stolen artifact?” Gregory had lowered his voice, aware that the woman in a nearby cabin was a former Thesian policeperson.

  Buoun’s fur rippled with colors. “I’m…? Oh! Hnnnh! I am causing offense this time, aren’t I?”

  “I’m just not sure I should take this. It’s not really appropriate.”

  “It has been deleted from the records of the museum.”

  “Doesn’t make it better, Buoun. Why’d you take it? You were angry?”

  “I was …” He consulted his wristwrap for a few moments. “I was fired from my job. The museum had been closed. I took the book t
o have something human for myself.”

  “A hack-you gesture.”

  “Pardon, a what?”

  “Never mind.” Gregory reached across and placed the book by Buoun’s glass. “I can’t take it. But I’m not offended. Thank you for trying to do something nice for me.”

  Buoun made a sad noise low in his throat and put the book away. He picked up his water. “All right. Perhaps we can drink to one more thing, Chris. To friendship.”

  “That, I can accept,” Gregory said and raised his glass. “To friendship.”

  April 15th– 16th, 3014, Old Earth Calendar

  9

  0757 shiptime in Assured’s Ready Room. In counterpoint to its occupants’ somber moods, the room’s air was rich with lively aromas. The Tluaanto ate with eyes on their food. Gregory, Pan, and Fowler exchanged occasional small talk while eating theirs. Once or twice, Buoun murmured what Gregory supposed was a translation of the chitchat. Well, no matter: there were no state secrets being discussed here.

  Breakfast for the humans was coffee, starberry juice, pastries, and fat grapes grown in Assured’s hydroponics area. Naat, Pi, Vren and Buoun had brought their own meal in separate, individualized vessels: dark brown flat-breads in opaque plastic dishes and liquids sipped straight from thermos-style decanters. The breads had been smeared with green or orange pastes and the Tluaanto rolled them up to eat them. Chris Gregory couldn’t be sure what they were drinking, but it was probably water.

  The ship’s surgeon Lt. Nkembe had also been invited to the meal and the meeting to follow it. She had a degree in Diverse Biology as well as in Medicine, and it was going to come in handy. Nkembe ate only grapes, drank nothing, and said nothing, sneaking curious glances at the Tluaanto the whole time.

  When it seemed that all were sated, Pan dabbed his lips with a napkin and called in stewards for removal of all items.

  Gregory held onto his mug as the three galley crewers neared him. “Leave the coffee. If you please.”

  “I second that,” Fowler added, topping off his own mug.

  “Also, leave our water, please,” said Buoun.

  Through the open door, Gregory could see Grace’s left arm and shoulder, and Warrior Vazak’s right. They stood with backs against the bulkhead, facing the Ready Room door. It still shocked him to see that half of Vazak’s arm was missing—even though he’d witnessed it happen. Presently, the stump was strapped in a sling. Grace had mentioned she held a grudging trust for Vazak—but surely that trust was being tested out there.

  To Vazak’s left, Gregory knew, was Corporal Bradstock. Enforcer Manolo and Corporal Tukimatu had been positioned back by the elevator. The sole-surviving Master-At-Arms, Seroughi, was on bridge watch where he could be called on immediately if Vazak went inexplicably berserk.

  And who really knows whether she will or not? Gregory thought. Who knows if this Domain Ocean councillor will tear her arm open and produce a laser? Or whether Pi will unleash some kind of bio-agent from her water flask?

  He told himself to get a grip. Caution was one thing, paranoia another.

  Hells knew what was happening back in Chaatu system, though. There’d been rumblings of further warfare, although with their nuclear rockets disabled and with their assets significantly diminished, he didn’t think Moon or Surface had it in them. Neither did he think Space would actually toss an asteroid at the planet since their relations with Ocean had grown even warmer these last few days …

  And if they do kick the crap out of each other, so be it. It’s no longer my problem. The thought made him hate himself just a little. But he clung to it all the same, as a kind of touchstone for his sanity.

  As the stewards filed from the room, Pi said, “We are thank you, because eat together is an good way to say we have peace.” This time Buoun did not visibly react to his superior’s mangling of English grammar and vocabulary. His expression remained neutral with his hands folded comfortably on the table.

  Gregory replied in a level tone, “It’s an opportunity to revive our friendship by visiting a new place together.”

  Pi inclined her head while Buoun translated. She said, “Are we in leapspace now?”

  “Not yet,” Pan replied with a glance at the timestamp on the wallscreen. Assured had begun heading to Chaatu’s leappoint an hour ago. “We’ll enter it in a little more than nine hours’ time. That’s …” He made a quick mental calculation and told them the figure in their number system.

  After Buoun translated the math, Pi said in English, “How long will it go? The flying there?”

  “The trip will take four hours thirty-one minutes, our time.”

  “So fast,” Councillor Vren said.

  Naat asked, “Does this mean your star drive operates at one light year for each of your hours?” It took Gregory a moment to realize the connection, the basis for the question. Kh’het System was 4.9 light years from Chaatu.

  Pan’s twist of lips and cheeks indicated amusement. No doubt he thought the Grand Councillor’s question represented not naivety, but a clumsy attempt at data gathering. The captain replied, “Leapspace doesn’t follow such simple formulas. Nor that kind of logic.”

  Now it’s our turn to do the data gathering, Gregory thought.

  He asked, “Are you ready to share your information about the Qesh?”

  This new, intelligent race you’ve mentioned and dangled in front of us time and time again, like bait on a hook.

  “We are,” said Pi.

  She looked to Nkembe who produced a data wafer from a uniform pocket and passed it to Pan.

  Pi continued, “This is that. Translation into an format you can use. I gave it to your doctor when I …” She faltered, losing the English word.

  “—boarded,” Buoun finished smoothly.

  Gregory glanced at Nkembe. She’d had the files a few hours before breakfast then. Time enough for thorough research.

  As thorough as this Tluaan information allows for, anyway.

  He turned his chair to face to the wallscreen as a slow stream of still images began flowing across it. The first few showed a dark and dull tube hanging in space like a brick silo laid on its end. In places, metallic objects dotted the silo’s sides like stunted fins; some appeared bent, one had been reduced to a stub, indicating meteorite damage. Another angle showed a patch of the artifact’s hull splayed open to space—someone, either Qesh or Tluaan, had stretched a kind of strap-webbing across it. Most images were taken at distance and in some of them, a planet showed in the background, its mottled surface appearing uninviting to explorers.

  “As you can guess, this is the Qesh artifact,” said Nkembe. It was the first thing she’d said since entering. “I had to rely on the XO and Chief Lindberg to understand the data on this, given that engineering is not one of my specialties. But after this, there will be some images of the Qesh themselves and I can speak to them.”

  “Those metallic items shaped around the hull,” Pan said. “They’re drive nacelles? Field emitters?”

  “The Tluaanto and XO concur that they’re field emitters but no one is sure if it’s for force shielding or for propulsion.”

  “Even after five years of being out there?” Gregory said, referring to the expedition that had captured this data and sent it back.

  “You’re forgetting that it took five years for the data to travel back here at lightspeed,” Pan told him.

  “Right. I am, yes.”

  No one felt like asking about or commenting on the handful of images that followed. The interior images made it look like an ancient sewer system, built from cement and ceramic tiles or bricks. It was gloomy and worn.

  Eventually, the subject matter changed entirely. Human personnel straightened in their chairs, making small noises of interest. Councillor Vren from Domain Ocean did too. These new pictures depicted what must be several different Qesh. Gregory hadn’t known what to expect, but it hadn’t been this. They moved about on six limbs, big-eared, dome-eyed, and completely hairless, their bodies wer
e barrel-chested but narrow at the hips.

  Fowler laughed. “Looks like someone skinned a Centauran hive-rat and crossed with a capuchin monkey.”

  “Crude description,” Nkembe scolded.

  “You’ve seen capuchin monkeys?” Gregory asked him. He’d only seen them in books himself. As a child, Earth monkeys and apes had held the place in his heart that dinosaurs had held in his daughter’s.

  Fowler shrugged. “My Dad bred them. As pets and lab animals.”

  Pan raised an eyebrow. “Did the monkeys get a say in which career they’d follow?”

  “Hilarious,” Fowler said.

  Neither man had taken his eyes off the screen during the exchange. And Gregory could understand that. In several photos, two or three Qesh appeared together. Each Qesh was almost identical except for subtle differences in the red or gold striations across their otherwise sickly-gray torsos.

  “Captain, can you please freeze this image?” Nkembe asked. She got her wish and stood beside the screen. “The Qesh appear to range in size, but not greatly. The Tluaanto state that we’re looking at adult specimens in these images. The smallest individual we see is as long as a Caultan Labrador dog. The largest are like the biggest sandsifters on Castor.”

  Gregory pictured that in his head. No longer than one-and-a-half meters.

  Nkembe tapped the screen with a finger. “All paws, front and back, have two fingers and two thumbs. Tluaan research shows Qesh have vision and hearing in our range, but they’re more short-sighted and with a keener olfactory sense than humans. Their tactile sense is more sensitive also. The next image in the sequence is an interesting one.”

  It showed a Qesh rearing up, its forearms reaching for something on a dirty ceramic shelf above it, a green and knobby fruit or vegetable.

  “Are they vegetarian?” Pan asked.

  “Probably. The Tluaanto say the Qesh had no meat aboard their vessel when they arrived and haven’t been interested in any meat offered them, cooked or raw. The data also describes Qesh growing extensive gardens in a section of their artifact. Vines produced the food in the image. What I’ve seen of their teeth would support the idea of vegetarianism,” she added.