Without looking at him, she spat words. “You heard that braying jackass, Le Mule. Shifting is just a nice way of saying that we’re going to be torn into trillions of tiny, subatomic particles.”
“It is a pretty strange concept,” Caine started agreeably.
Opal shut her eyes. “It is suicide.”
He studied her face, started at what he saw there. “Why are you crying?”
She blinked, looked even more surprised than he was, and yelped out a short laugh. “What? I’m what? Crying?”
Caine only nodded: clearly, this was more than just fear.
Opal waved an airy hand. “Oh, that’s nothing. I was just—”
Caine reached out and drew her close slowly, gently. She exhaled and put her arms around him. She was in that position, unmoving, for so long that he wondered if she might have gone to sleep. “Opal, are you—?”
She let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m—God, I’m such a coward.”
“You?” He held her back to look at her. “You? This is a joke, right?”
“It’s this whole shift business.”
He doubted that, but asked, “What about it?”
“Well, the mere thought of being shredded into subatomic particles—didn’t it scare you, the first time?”
Caine shrugged. “It couldn’t: I was in cold sleep. And by the time they woke me up, I had already been through three shifts. I guess some part of me accepted that if shifting was going to kill me, it would have already done so. But instead, here I am.” He smiled.
And then, she was grabbing his head in both hands and was kissing him. He also felt her shaking, as if she had started crying again, but a moment after he began to respond—eagerly—she stopped trembling. And by that time, he had stopped thinking.
Several seconds—or minutes—later (he could not tell), the compartment intercom toned twice: a priority message. “Folks”—it was Trevor—“if you’re still in your acceleration couches, you might want to stay there. We just received a communiqué from our hosts. Seems they’re ready to initiate shift. For those of you who’ve never experienced one, you might feel a little vertigo, so just make sure you’re seated or lying down. Fifteen minutes, they tell us. See you on the other side. Out.”
That reminder—about her impending discorporation—made Opal start away from Caine, who put his arms back around her. He tilted his head down until she could not fail to look him in the eyes: “Look: think of it this way. Your body is pushing around—sometimes destroying and rebuilding—electrons all the time.”
Opal shuddered. “Sorry, but logic doesn’t help. I’ve faced death a few times, you know. Getting too close to it on one occasion is what got me banished to the future. But here’s the funny thing: I always knew I wasn’t going to be killed. I have known—all my life—that I wasn’t going to die young, that I was going to outlive all my siblings and live on into advanced, and probably testy, hag-dom. But this—it makes me feel like I’m about to dissolve into nothing.”
“Well,” Caine said and his arms tightened a little more, “you certainly feel real enough to me.”
He did not expect what happened next: she pushed herself into him with a sinuous motion; her reluctant vulnerability sudden transformed into forceful wantonness. “You’d be surprised how real I can feel,” she said in a tone that sounded like fierce annoyance.
As Opal pulled herself against him, Caine imagined he felt various needs tightening her fingers—needs for love, for safety, for escape, for him, for release. But now, those separate needs were losing their distinctions, were fusing together into one impulse—
And Caine, as distracted as he was by her profoundly suggestive words and motions, finally understood where her tears had come from: she had wanted this to happen for a long time. And now, made desperate by a fear of imminent annihilation, that unfulfilled want had cracked the emotional container in which she kept herself, had started leaking out…
Caine stood away and extended a hand. “Come with me.”
She had risen and put her hand in his even before she said, “Where are we going?”
“To a therapeutic environment.”
She blinked. “And where on this tin-can would that be?”
He smiled, checked up and down the corridor, and led her aft. And as they approached the last door on the module’s central corridor, she understood: “The buoyancy tank? Now?”
“When better? You like baths; think of this as the ultimate bath.” He opened the door; a muted glimmer of moving water moired against the walls.
She seemed slightly more collected as she wondered: “Damn, is this even allowed?”
“Hey—I thought you were the bad-ass, maverick major.”
“Bad ass, yes: exhibitionist, no. How do we know that no one will—?”
“We just passed all their doors. Closed tight. Waiting for the shift. Lot of first timers like yourself. All probably a little anxious, and eager to hide it from everyone else.” Caine pulled off his T-shirt. “So this may be the one time we can indulge in a little—” he slipped into the water “—hydrotherapy.”
“Okay. Give me a sec.” She moved towards the changing booth.
“What for?”
“My grand entrance.” She slipped inside, but he still could see her: she didn’t bother to close the door. In a moment, she had shed her outer clothes. She primped for all of one second in the mirror, making sure her bra and briefs were trim and taut, showing off everything to its best advantage.
When she left the booth, she did not meet Caine’s eyes, but stepped daintily into the water on the other side of the tank and then waded across to join him. She leaned back against the rim of the tank, her body only a foot away from his. The water raised her breasts slightly. His arms—spread out to either side—suddenly felt very heavy. He felt the water lap against his side, shifted his body slightly, wondered if—oh Christ, stop thinking!
Smiling at his own awkwardness and tendency to overexamine everything—even this—he turned toward Opal.
She was not smiling.
And then, thinking became extraneous.
Part Five
EV Lacertae and Barnard’s Star
October, 2119
Chapter Forty
TELEMACHUS
Downing was tapping his lower lip meditatively with a compupad stylus. “So Mr. Thandla, you have confirmed our final position?”
The Indian nodded. “Starfield configuration and parallax measurement both put us in the EV Lacertae system.”
“That’s some rather fast travel, I must say. And no communiqués except this morning’s?”
“Correct.”
Downing turned toward Riordan. “I’m assuming that they sent us a list of the systems included in Earth’s ‘allowed region of development’?”
Caine nodded, and activated the holotank. A two-column list of star names glimmered into existence. “Excluding our home system, there are fifty-eight systems that have been reserved for us. I’ve highlighted the ones where we’ve already pitched our tents.”
Trevor read the glowing words. Other than the highlighted names, they didn’t mean much to him. A few systems—such as Luyten 726-8—he had only seen on military navigational charts and tables. They had been visited once, maybe twice, to serve as routing alternatives in the event that main-line systems were interdicted or had to be avoided. But other than that, he didn’t know much about the other systems, except they were all relatively close.
Elena asked the first question. “Those star names—did you have to do some kind of translation, or—?”
Caine’s smile was sly. “Nope. That came from them.”
“So they already knew what we called all these stars. Interesting.”
“Yes. I’d say with each passing hour, we’re finding more and more evidence that we’ve been pretty thoroughly monitored prior to contact.”
Downing poked at his palmtop: the list shrank down and zoomed backwards, displaced by a slow swirl of bri
ght particles at the center of the ’tank. Another jab and they stopped rotating.
Durniak came to stand by Downing. “So that is a map of the systems we are permitted?” He nodded.
Visser stared at the star map then looked over at him. “Is this bad?” she asked.
“Most of it is just disappointing. We ignored the systems that are not highlighted for a very good reason.”
“Which is?”
“They are mostly M-class stars or white sub-dwarfs.”
Durniak nodded her understanding. “Fewer planets, and almost no chance of finding any with biospheres. Gray worlds only.”
“Exactly. But there is one serious problem: a very significant omission from the list of allowed stars.”
Visser nodded. “70 Ophiuchi.”
Trevor looked at the list again. Good God, they’re right.
Opal cocked her head. “And why is it so important that 70 Ophiuchi is not on our ‘mother-may-I’ list?”
Downing shrugged. “Because we have a colony in that system.”
Opal nodded. “So we went off the reservation there.”
“Yes.”
“So what are we going to do?”
Visser smiled. “You ask direct questions and are not afraid of direct answers: you are good to have with us, Major. Come, we will think on it together before I go to meet the Dornaani.”
Opal smiled and set off with Visser. As she passed behind Caine, she gave the back of his left bicep a quick squeeze. Trevor looked away, wished he had done so a moment earlier. But, of course, he was going to see everything she did.
Because he was always watching her.
ODYSSEUS
The door into the Dornaani ship—an iris valve—dilated. A smooth corridor—the walls curved up gently from the floor and arched subtly overhead into a ceiling—yawned before them. Caine waited: they hadn’t worked out an entry order. Caine had presumed that Visser, as ambassador, would take the lead. But she seemed very still—almost rigid. Another second went by: Oh, what the hell—
Caine stepped through the round portal, did a quick sweep with the atmosphere analyzer. The green light never wavered. “The air is okay; actually, less CO2 and marginally fewer contaminants.” As if the Dornaani had brought them all this way to either murder them with toxins or asphyxiate them through incompetence. But protocols are protocols…
Visser steeped over the low lip of the valve, eyes slightly lowered. As she drew abreast of Caine, she glanced up with a quick, faint smile. Caine understood the look as thanks, responded with a smile of his own. Visser’s broadened in response before she moved further into the Dornaani ship with her usual, assertive stride.
Downing came next, followed by Elena. Behind them, still in the airlock, Opal stared at Caine without blinking. “You four be careful,” she whispered, still looking at him.
Caine raised his hand in farewell, just before the panels of the iris valve contracted with a swift, breathy hiss. He turned; found the others waiting for him. The milky walls stretched away into a dim haze. Uncharted territory: “Here be dragons”—or what might be stranger and more dangerous still.
Elena studied the walls as they moved forwards. “Any idea where we’re going?”
“Nope. The Dornaani simply asked us to—”
“Please,” interrupted a new voice, apparently speaking from the ceiling, “continue forward for twenty meters. You will find another portal. Place your hand on the round panel beside it.”
Visser cocked her head to one side. “What accent is that? And what gender?”
Downing smiled faintly. “I can’t make out the gender. And I would say there is no accent at all. Does sound a little nasal though, so I’m guessing that he—or she—was taught by a Yank.” Downing shot an amused glance at Caine.
Who wasn’t really in the mood to smile at any of Downing’s jokes. “There’s the portal.”
This iris valve was somewhat smaller in diameter—just sufficient for average human height, so Caine stooped a bit as he grazed his fingers across the saucer-sized pad. The panels scalloped away from the center point, retracting back into the walls, floor, ceiling. Visser glanced at Caine, crinkled her eyes slightly, then stood slightly straighter and briskly stepped over the threshold. Caine followed, resolved to be ready for anything.
Chapter Forty-One
ODYSSEUS
The one thing Caine hadn’t been prepared for was the anticlimax of that moment. The room was a plain white ovoid, all the fixtures of which reprised a curvilinear motif—except for one gray rectangular table furnished with four black chairs. Across from it was a crescent-moon table. Standing squarely between the two tables was, evidently, a Dornaani.
Caine, having girded his loins for a profoundly alien being, had not been prepared for yet another conventionally arranged biped. The Dornaani—not quite one and a half meters tall, raised long arms and long fingers into the air slowly. “Please feel free to look at my form: be sure you are comfortable before you come closer.”
“Should we? Come closer?” Caine had spoken before he realized he should measure his words carefully now: he wasn’t flying by the seat of his pants in the jungles of Dee Pee Three anymore: he was an official negotiator. Whatever that meant.
The being’s fingers widened further. “You may approach if you wish. Indeed, with the exception of this meeting, you may elect not to see, or even directly hear, any exosapients at all. It is our intent to minimize any shock that might arise from your first encounters with alien species.”
Caine inclined his head slightly. “We thank you for that accommodation. However, our delegation was selected, in part, for our receptivity to unfamiliar situations. Accordingly, we look forward to having as much direct contact with other species as is possible.” And gather more intel in the process.
The Dornaani inclined its own head in response. “We welcome this. It is not our custom to shake hands, but we know that it is yours. If it will make you feel more comfortable to do so, I am happy to comply.”
Caine was surprised by the next voice: Elena’s. “What is your customary greeting?”
The Dornaani’s upper arms drew in somewhat, the forearms went out at right angles from the body: the fingers—three very long tapers directly opposed by a rather stubby digit—splayed wide, like rays emanating from the ends of the sinewy arms. “‘Enlightenment unto you.’ It is an auspicious beginning, that you ask of our ways. However, we shall use your ways and language, for now: whereas we are accustomed to sentient species other than our own, you are not.”
Elena seemed ready to add something—possibly what she read about my experiences with Mr. Local on Dee Pee Three—but Downing put a hand on her arm and responded. “That is very considerate.”
“It is simply prudent. You may call me Alnduul, you may gender me as male, and you are free to ask any questions. You may also approach and inspect my form in greater detail, if you wish.”
Caine approached, reflecting that, after the Pavonians, the Dornaani hardly seemed alien. The two large, slightly protuberant eyes appeared pupilless at first—until Caine realized that a nictating inner eyelid was currently in place. The diminutive mouth seemed set in a permanent moue—until Alnduul lifted a wide-mouthed bottle of water to it. The mouth everted into an unsightly sucking protrusion, seeking the neck of the bottle much the way a tapir’s short trunk would snuffle after fodder. Caine repressed a shudder as small cutting ridges reminiscent of a lamprey’s clicked lightly against the container. Alnduul’s nose was almost nonexistent; a single nostril perched over the bony promontory that housed the mouth.
At the base of the almost pelicanate mouthflap and jaw arrangement, about where a human’s Adam’s apple would be, there was a set of slits or gills, above which there was a triangular flap: probably a foldable ear. The cranium itself—for there most definitely was one—was very rounded and smooth, and seemed to have a rearward extending shelf, so that if seen from above, the outline of the head would present as a teardrop.
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Caine felt that mental image of a drop suddenly superimpose itself over everything on the Dornaani physiognomy, and even the motif of the room and the ship, and so he understood: “Excuse me, Alnduul. Are the Dornaani native to water?”
The nictating lids fluttered. “We are. We prefer to rest in water, but as we have evolved, more of our waking activity takes place in air-space. And thus I am reminded: if you agree, I would like to change the room’s environment slightly.”
Visser nodded. “Of course. What changes do you wish to make?”
“We prefer higher humidity and slightly higher temperature. However, while wearing this suit, I will be comfortable with approximately eighty-five percent humidity at thirty degrees centigrade.”
One of Downing’s eyebrows raised slightly; he tugged open his collar. “By all means.” Caine imagined him in a pith helmet and found the image an apt—and deserved—parody.
As Alnduul manipulated controls embedded in the table, Caine noted the profoundly sloped shoulders: evidently streamlined for arms-tucked swimming, but reaching overhead had to be awkward, at best. The short, high chest was perched upon an abbreviated abdomen that tapered quickly into what, in a human, would have been an absurdly waspish waist. Short and powerfully muscled “thighs” winnowed down into long, thin lower legs, which ultimately flared out into wide, spatulate duck-feet. In silhouette, Alnduul presented a broad parody of the female hourglass figure—but with fingertips that came down well beneath the knees, immense feet, and a total absence of hair. Even so, it was a more humanoid shape than any envisioned by the most optimistic predictions of xenophysiologists.
The room was already becoming warmer; Caine felt the first bead of sweat form at his hairline. He tugged open his collar, watched as Visser and then Downing went forward to shake Alnduul’s hand. They smiled, introduced themselves, muttered something low and congenial, were the very pictures of human decorum. And that’s the problem.
Caine stepped forward, tucked his elbows in against his floating ribs, rotated his arms out like stunted wings, spread wide his fingers. Alnduul seemed to stare for a moment, then his gills audibly popped open and he returned the gesture. Caine bobbed his head slightly. “Is it proper for me to wish you enlightenment?”
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