by Rick Partlow
“And yet I would not,” he said, and I puzzled over it, wondering if the translator was on the fritz. “To vote for your inclusion was the terms of my challenge, and I would honor them no matter my feelings toward you. To do less would dishonor my people.” The translator added a slight emphasis that might have been a reproof, though I wasn’t sure of it and wasn’t sure how accurate the translator’s choices for tonal shifts were in the first place. “What I owe you must be paid back in kind, and I swear to you that I will find a way to do just that.”
He lowered his head and inclined it toward me and I wasn’t sure how to react.
“In this Skrith social ritual,” the translator said helpfully, its synthesized voice annoyingly cheerful, “you are expected to nuzzle the supplicant’s cheek in acceptance of their submission. Not doing so would be to reject them and require they depart from your presence.”
Fuck. I rolled my eyes, but took a step closer and leaned in to the Skrith’s left cheek. You’d better be right about this, you glorified virtual assistant.
I clenched my jaw and hoped Julie could shoot the werewolf-looking fuck if the computer had it wrong and I was insulting his family or something instead of accepting his submission. But he simply leaned closer and his fur rubbed the bare skin of my face. It was surprisingly soft, but I still I wished I had a beard, because it would have provided insulation against the awkward contact.
When I felt like I’d done it for long enough, I pulled back and offered him a hand.
“This is the human way,” I explained, “for friends to greet one another.”
His hand extended hesitantly, his rough, clawed fingers wrapping around mine with what felt like enough strength to crush my hand. I gripped his firmly and shook just slightly before letting go. It seemed as if only then he noticed Julie on the bed.
“Are you mates?” he asked. “I did not know.”
My jaw stuck halfway open, afraid to try to answer that, but Julie rescued me.
“We are,” she confirmed, with the hint of a smile.
“You are both fortunate, then,” he said. “My own mate passed away ten years ago and I have been unable to allow myself to find another. May you have beautiful and healthy children, and may you die well.”
“The polite reply,” the translator informed me, “is to wish that he dies well, also.”
I did, though I felt like an extra in a Conan movie saying it, and the Skrith departed, the curtain swaying with his passage.
“I don’t know if I just got a new best friend or a pet,” I confessed
“I hope it’s a friend, because we’re going to need all we can get.” She pulled the Glock out from under the covers and set it down on top of our folded clothes, then patted the mattress. “Come back to bed. We have to get up in like six hours.”
I stifled a yawn and did as I was told, not bothering to strip off my T-shirt again, just crawling under the covers with Julie and slipping an arm around her. She felt incredibly warm after the night chill of the stone floor, and she wrapped her arms around me, putting her head against my shoulder.
“Yes, by the way,” she said softly into my ear.
“Yes, what?” I asked, already feeling groggy.
She smacked the side of my head and I yelped.
“Hey!” I protested. “I might have had a concussion!”
“Yes,” she clarified, “I will marry you. You’re an overgrown twelve-year-old, but I can’t help it. You’re the only man I’ve dated in the last ten years who I didn’t want to kill after three months, and that has to be a sign from God or something.” Her expression grew serious. “I love you. And if we live two or three hundred years and can still stand being around each other, then I’ll still love you then.”
“And the ten kids?” I asked her, kissing the end of her nose playfully.
“Let’s start with one,” she said. “In a while. Once this all settles down.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” I sighed, letting my head rest back against the pillow. “We should live so long.”
Chapter Twelve
“What,” I insisted, “the fuck?”
“You knew what they looked like,” Julie reminded me, keeping her voice as low as mine so the translators wouldn’t pick up our words and broadcast them for all the aliens to hear. “You saw the videos and the pictures, just like the rest of us.”
“I did. But Jesus Christ, Julie, they’re octopus. Octopuses. Octopi.”
The Vironians weren’t that big a deal. They were descended from genetically modified lizards of some sort, maybe crocodiles but I was betting on Nile monitors. Their faces were on the flat side, their skin thick and scaly, but they were still humanoid. Two arms, two legs, stereoscopic vision, a mouth in about the right place, even if it was wider and longer than I was comfortable with, and had more teeth.
Well, there was also the issue with clothes. The Vironians didn’t really wear any. I guess I could understand why, considering how thick and tough their skin was, and apparently, they could withdraw their genitalia into pouches inside their bodies, so that wasn’t a worry. But it still made the hackles on the back of my neck rise, seeing nothing at all down there, like a Ken doll. They at least wore insulated cloaks, and I got the idea that it was because the Skrith kept things too cold for their liking.
They weren’t very talkative, either, at least not to us, passing by Garcia’s greeting with barely a nod, though Joon-Pah assured me it wasn’t personal. “That,” he had insisted, “is how they are with everyone, even each other.”
Garcia had accepted the explanation with the equanimity he showed in every situation, allowing the Vironian delegation to pass into the conference room. I’d figured the Skrith would hold it in the same place where we’d had our awkward state dinner the first night, but apparently, this place wasn’t hurting for big halls to hold meetings in. This one reminded me of the UN General Assembly. Except, of course, what happened here would be meaningful, something that occurred maybe once a generation in the United Nations.
Since the Skrith seemed to use any public event as an excuse to eat, the meeting tables were doubling as snack trays, with shredded meat, fruits and tubers in their centers. I wondered if the tables were a concession to the other races present, since the Skrith had seemed perfectly content to eat sitting on the floor. I wished to hell I was at one of the tables eating pulled pork with Olivera and Dani Brooks, or even patrolling the outer perimeter in my armor like Pops and the Delta team. I don’t know why the hell Garcia insisted on bringing me along for the meet-and-greet portion of this show, and my stomach grumbled from the lack of a real breakfast.
Then the Chamblisi entered the hall and drove all thoughts of food out of my head, except maybe an irreverent comparison to calamari. I’d known the Chamblisi were the end product of the Elders screwing around with the genes of an octopus or squid, but it was one thing to see video of a giant, shambling mass of tentacles, quite another to have one march right up and say hello.
The Chamblisi were not humanoid. Oh, they were around the same height, the sixteen individuals who shuffled into the chamber averaging about five feet tall. They couldn’t weigh much more than two or three hundred pounds at the outside, depending on how solid their insides were beneath that…ick. They did have two eyes, and the Elders had, probably for reasons of practicality, relocated the mouth from beneath the arms around to the front of their face, but that had been as far as they’d been willing to go, apparently.
They were land-dwelling beings, at least amphibian, so half of their tentacles had been bulked up with muscle and given pads instead of suckers, while the upper pairs of arms were more lithe, less muscular, with cilia-like manipulators at the ends, constantly squirming and waving like tube worms at a thermal vent on the ocean floor. They must have had some sort of skeleton, because they couldn’t have walked on land very well without one, but I couldn’t tell where it was. They wore no clothes, not even the cloaks the Vironians used to stay warm, their only adornment a sort of
harness around their upper arms that served as the equivalent of a purse or belt to carry pouches full of whatever a walking, talking octopus needed.
“Greetings, representatives of Earth.” The translator’s simulated voice was a surprisingly boisterous and cheerful representation of what I heard as a series of buzzes, as if someone’s cell phone had been left on vibrate and set on a cheap, plastic table, then assailed by a stalkery ex-boyfriend. Oh, and their skin changed color, which might have been part of it. “I am the One Who Dwells in Blissful Silence and Contemplates the Universe, and I share with you the warm welcome of the Chamblisi Harmonious Accord into our commonwealth of states.”
“I am Roberto Garcia,” the State Department official replied, after a split second hesitation, probably to decide whether he should offer a hand in greeting, “an appointed representative of the government of the United States of America on Earth, and I thank you and the Chamblisi Harmonious Accord for your warm acceptance.”
I had been curious how the translator would handle a language that was predicated on a change of skin color, but some programmer had been extra crafty the day they’d worked on this design. Garcia held up his phone as he spoke and changing colors blinked on the screen with the buzzing translation. It might have been awkward if someone had sent him a text right then. They could have started an interstellar incident.
One Who Dwells in Blissful Silence and Contemplates the Universe didn’t introduce any of…his? Her? Its? …co-workers, which I suppose was a time-saver, if their names were anywhere near as pretentious.
“I speak on behalf of the Harmonious Accord when I assure you, Roberto Garcia, that we Chamblisi fervently hope that things are as our allies, the Helta say, and that you humans of Earth are not as aggressive and warlike as the Tevynians, despite your physical similarities.”
“We wouldn’t be much fucking good to you if we weren’t,” I murmured, covering the audio pickup of my translator—having learned from my mistake with the Skrith. Garcia didn’t hear me or he would have given me a dirty look, but Julie did and she dug an elbow into my ribs.
“The Helta also thank you for your attendance,” Joon-Pah told the Chamblisi ambassador, inclining his head slightly to the big, purple, squiggly pile of goo. “The Harmonious Accord has honored us by sending someone of such senior station as yourself.”
“This is a momentous occasion,” the One Who Dwells in Blissful Silence and Contemplates the Universe replied, his pale purple turning bright pink at the compliment. “They wanted someone who could make so fateful a decision with their utmost confidence.”
“And I am sure you will make the correct one,” Joon-Pah said, taking a step back to allow the delegation to pass.
They moved with surprising grace for creatures taken out of the ocean just a few tens of thousands of years ago, and I watched them with wide eyes, unable to turn away even after they found their cluster of tables and a few of them settled into seats that couldn’t have been adequate for their anatomy. Not the head octopus, though. He roamed around, speaking to one delegate and then the next, giving them his utter and complete attention with a sincerity Garcia only wished he could fake.
“Do we have to say that name every single time we talk to…” I stumbled over the pronoun. “…them? The One Who Dwells in Blissful Silence and Contemplates the Universe? Is there like a symbol for that, like the Artist Formerly Known as Prince?”
“God, you’re old, Andy,” Julie said, shaking her head.
I glared at her.
“We’re the same age, you know that, right?”
“Yes,” she admitted, “but I try not to make it so obvious.”
“We’re trying to get Earth admitted into an interstellar alliance,” Garcia said, arcing an eyebrow at me. “We’ll call any of these fine representatives whatever they like.”
“The Chamblisi don’t really use personal names,” Joon-Pah actually answered the question. “What she gave us is an honorific awarded to her by her government. Those are only bestowed on Chamblisi who perform a key service to their people.”
“If they don’t use names,” I said, “then how do they know who anybody is?”
“They emit a subsonic hum constantly. It’s not a conscious thing, it’s part of their respiratory process, which is, by the way, quite complicated. No two are alike, so they simply know who everyone is without having to speak.”
“Like a biological version of an IFF transponder,” I mused. “Interesting.”
“That’s great for people talking face-to-face,” Julie protested, “but what about paperwork?”
Joon-Pah looked at her blankly, not understanding, and I stepped in.
“Like records,” I explained, “official documents, government files for their employees, that kind of thing?”
“Ah, yes. Well, that is a human thing, I suppose. The Helta keep records, but we are not so…what is the word? Anal about it as you humans. The Skrith have songs commemorating their lives, added to as they grow older describing their accomplishments. The Vironians simply remember, and when asked how, express disbelief that we can’t remember every detail. As for the Chamblisi, their own language has no word or color for deception—they do not have the concept. They understand it now because of the Skrith and, I am ashamed to say, my own people. But their physiology makes deception all but impossible. None of them would lie about who they are or what they’ve done.”
“Not capable of lying,” I mused, with a pointed look at Roberto Garcia. “Sounds like it might put diplomats and politicians out of business.”
“They can’t lie to each other,” Garcia corrected me, his smile cynical. “That doesn’t mean they can’t lie to us.”
I snorted a humorless laugh and scanned the crowd automatically with what was becoming an instinct after a year and change as head of security. All the delegations had filtered into the great hall, shadows shifting over them in the soft and wandering light of crystal chandeliers swaying in the light wind admitted by the upper windows. Slivers of shadow would fall across a cluster of bipedal shapes and I could almost believe they were humans until the flickering light revealed them for an instant as ursine, or canine, or saurian.
No one wanted to be the first to settle in at their table, I thought. Maybe there was some pecking order, some diplomatic game I hadn’t been read in on, and it was impolite to be the first ambassador to sit down. With so many individuals from so many races dancing a diplomatic waltz it was hard to keep track of my own people. They tried to stay at the far side of the room, as unobtrusive as someone wearing 400 pounds of powered armor could be.
They weren’t the only security here, though. No one had made mention of it and no one was wearing any sort of uniform, but I’d developed a sense for this sort of thing. Every delegation had at least one individual who seemed extra watchful, not socializing, hypervigilant. That’s not to say they were good at their jobs. I don’t think any of the Alliance members had a clue of what real security was, and if their worst-case scenario came true and we were bad guys, they all would have been dead before they could lift a finger to stop us. But it’s the thought that counts.
“Stop planning how to kill our allies,” Julie whispered in my ear and heat flushed in my cheeks. She really did know me too well.
“It’s time,” Garcia said, tapping a finger on his watch. “The Skrith should be calling everyone to order in a couple minutes. We should get to our table.”
“Maybe I should just circulate,” I suggested. “You know, keep an eye on things.”
“That’s what your guys in the armor are for,” he reminded me. “And God only knows how you got the Skrith to agree to have them in the room armed.”
“He and Anu Neeme Klas are best buddies now,” Julie confided. “It’s some heap big wolf-man mojo that involved, for some reason, coming into our room in the middle of the night to let us know how sorry he was.”
Garcia raised an eyebrow and I flushed again. Okay, so everybody knew about me and Julie, but m
aybe Garcia wasn’t part of everybody yet and I was old-fashioned enough that I didn’t want to announce the fact we were sleeping together to every State Department official who came along. Though, I suppose, once we got married, most people would assume.
“Good to know,” Garcia said, though I wasn’t sure which revelation he was speaking of. “Come on. Joon-Pah is up first and I don’t want to miss the show.”
***
Humans and Helta were perhaps too much alike. Either that, or people like Delia Strawbridge and Roberto Garcia had been a bad influence on our old friend because, good God, could he talk.
After a preamble of greetings and honorifics nearly twenty minutes long, he started. “We have called our allies, our friends together this day for an historic occasion. It has been well over two centuries since we welcomed another race into our Alliance.”
I blinked back awake, after having nearly gone comatose for the first part of the speech. This sounded important.
Joon-Pah was on a raised platform four meters above the center of the hall. It looked more than anything else like a ziggurat, a steppe pyramid, and watching the Helta climb to the top had reminded me of a bighorn sheep traversing a rocky cliffside. If the hall had been perfectly flat, it would have made looking up at him a literal pain in the neck, but it was a gentle concave instead. At the point where the tables began, watching Joon-Pah speak required only a slight lifting of the head.
“I understand that some of you may have trepidations, considering the disastrous events following our attempt to aid the Tevynians, but in our youth and ignorance, we took on too much. Their culture was not ready for the technological gifts we bestowed on them and we have all paid a price for our arrogance, none more so than the Helta. I would venture to say that we have learned our lesson from this failure.”
Joon-Pah was delivering the speech in his own language, and thankfully, each of the member races was having it translated at their own table. I worried at first that he’d have to rig up the whole flashing colors thing on the platform for the benefit of the Chamblisi and I’d wind up having a seizure from the constant barrage of multicolored lights.
