revealing nothing of her thoughts or personality or soul there was no signal of any kind from her not even an eye flick or nod but shift seemed to get what he wanted because the iron that had defined his manner up until this moment suddenly melted and he murmured I suppose I should tell you I held up my hand palm out don’t bother what skies grip on my shoulder could have been a warning and entreaty to calm down a rebuke or even a plea to be a little more human with a frantic parent any of those things or all of them in that the Porrinyard s are like most lovers of prickly people they think that the prickly person can be fixed but I let my voice turn to ice and offered shift the most level contempt I could muster I made myself available to you despite my own pressing agenda and you still began this interview by making me perform like a trained animal I’ve been through a lot of that in my life and I resent it enough to tell you the hard truth I’m not interested in finding your daughter
CHAPTER 3
Before the Slaughter
I half-expected Schiff to jump me or start cursing or rely on that other crutch of self-important men the huffy demand do you know who I am but he just said may I ask why not certainly I have more important things to do he bristled I don’t appreciate you calling my daughter unimportant I’m certain that she’s very important to you sir you’re her father but she’s only a distraction to me an interruption in my own agenda here I don’t see why I should have to drop everything and help you he opened his mouth then closed it with an audible click the good news I said while he was still absorbing that is that you still have a chance to persuade me otherwise what do you require counselor a bribe I promise you I’m wealthy enough to afford one had I truly wanted to revel in my own inhumanity I might have laughed at him the riches deposited in my account during my brief visit to Zanna had been more than I could have earned in lifetime’s of service to the core more than enough to fund a long lazy and boring retirement if that’s what I wanted you can start with who you are and why ambassador Kreutz you’re worth placating but not worth helping shift spared another look at fox who again seemed to give him nothing whatever their relationship he didn’t seem to make a move without her but if there was communication between them it was playing out at a level more subtle than any I could pick up I’m a wealthy man I’m famous within my industry but my connections are not remarkable and I never wished they were damned if I didn’t believe him what exactly do you do mr. Schiff I’m a manufacturer of what among other things spaceship components anything classified or sensitive he offered a grim laugh at that hardly let me be the judge of that what followed was more detailed than I needed but more than I ever could have wanted in summary his company manufactured
fixtures used on interplanetary transports not interstellar mind you shift never touched starships he had nothing to do with blue gel crypts or specific gravity or the post sea drive that stuff was all monopolized by parties above his pay grade parties that included my own somewhat estranged relatives the baitul Heinz he worked in trisystem stuff exclusively and even then on nothing high-tech he was just a subcontractor a purveyor of design elements which had less to do with getting vessels to zip from here to here than with making sure that short hop passengers had a comfortable place to sleep or shit when they weren’t gorging themselves in the dining room were lazing around on the observation deck and you swear to me that this is all you do Schiff had the look of a treasure hunter whose Hall had not been enough to cover expenses I’m also a middleman working on projects for others what about those sir is it possible that any of those are sensitive it’s always possible my major clients include about a dozen corporate and government concerns most of which operate under heavy security but I’m not much more than the landlord who provides the building and I haven’t done anything sensitive enough to make helping me or not a reason for deception believe me counselor if Kreutz treating me like I’m
unimportant it’s because I’m nothing more than a father worried about his daughter i gestured toward the amphitheater you do know that this entire conversation might be academic if your daughter’s already down there dancing in this year’s ballet it’s far too late to do anything to save her that’s occurred to me too but all the experts I’ve consulted say that it’s unlikely it takes the average human pilgrim years to get through the various trials the Villani require of those who want to be chosen there should still be time to talk to her to see if her mind can be changed and if not to make sure that she’s taken this insane path out of her own free will then it’s not urgent and you don’t need my help he bristled that’s pretty circular logic counselor you can’t help me if it’s urgent and you won’t help me if it’s not I glanced at Skye aware even as I did that the moment functioned as unintentional parody of shifts own over reliance on Fox she looked smug the same expression the Porrinyard s always wore when winning arguments with me that’s the thing I’m known for winning arguments it’s arguably one of the few things I’m good at but the Porrinyard s have
even when I’m only with one of them and especially when they know me better than I know myself damn it I did not have time for this I massaged the bridge of my nose feeling as tired as I might have been had I traveled the interstellar distance between New London and this overlook on foot Schiff watched me for several seconds you look tired I am NOT physically but at the heart of what I am from what I hear you only arrived on this planet a few hours ago a little bit more than a few most of a day and you must be worried about your own agenda whatever it is I couldn’t believe this distraction was so close to going away I’m sorry sir I can’t discuss my mission here but it really is more important than Marin could ever be to anybody other than her own immediate family
he stood suddenly tell you what then as long as we’re agreed that my daughter’s safety is not at stake tonight and that nothing can be done right now in any event then there’s no real harm in postponing this conversation until after the ballet is over you get your feet under you I’ll see if I can come up with some factor important enough to change your mind and will commit to speak again in two days maybe you’ll have some thoughts by then his sudden retreat made it difficult to come up with a reasonable objection all right he extended his arm and what I was stunned to recognize as an offer to shake hands I remembered that his daughter had been gone for years that might not have been enough time for the pain of her absence to go away but it would have reduced the initial overwhelming panic to a species of fear more resigned more pragmatic and probably know less crushing he would have spent a large part of the past few years at sea negotiating the distances between tiny outcroppings of hope and I was just another no more promising than any of the others that had proven rocky and barren it didn’t explain why he was so willing to walk away I shook his hand and foxes then watched with confusion as the pair of them descended the bleachers and melted back into the hurricane of activity around us neither looked back the last thing I saw him do was greet a rotund little Burstein II who grasped him by the shoulders and nodded with insistent friendliness Schiff clapped a hand on the pristine ease right arm and said something just as animated but no less steeped in sorrow than his conversation with me Skye punched me in the arm she wore her Andreea face it’s a look the Porrinyard s sometimes put on whenever they want to mock my usual forbidding frown the eyebrows knit the glare intense the mouth stretched taut enough to make the lips disappear there’s nothing about determined bitchiness like mine that knows how to withstand being made to feel like a silly cow what she dropped the expression in favor of one midway between love and pity I can see why the man’s done so well in business what are you talking about I refused to help him yes that’s what it looked like but he knows an unconscious town when he sees one oh really I said with growing irritation and what tell was that she stunned me by stealing a kiss I love you what tell later Oceans found somebody else you need to talk to for the dancers this was their pilgrimage to their Mecca their march to the promised land they venerated beyond life and even though I saw it as a lunatic as I consider a
ll religions I could not help feeling a certain intangible electricity building around us if not from the significance so many invested in the event then at least from the anticipation the excitement the understanding that we were here to watch and record something for the scientific community it was a puzzle that could be quantified there were machines here that could estimate the number of lonny dead by the taste of wind-borne blood mist as quantified in parts per million others that recorded every errant wave of Avalon EES whips and separated the delicate movements meant as communication from the cacophony of corrupted signal sent by accident when those whips writhed in pain still others that released thousands of cameras the size of nets to follow every last movement of every last dancer and archive the whole so that the choreography could later be mapped one agonizing bit at a time and then there were the diplomats those who straddled the fences between nations trying to prevent this controversial place from erupting into flashpoint already long a fixture of blonds diplomatic community at the point when the first human dancer appeared in the amphitheater and began the ballets transformation from scientific curiosity to diplomatic flashpoint ambassador villa seen her puff of the rear goal and delegation had grown even more important in the years that followed and was now a key opponent of the dip course efforts to declare Confederate jurisdiction over human dance pilgrims when I first saw him he was speaking in his native tongue to a fellow rear Gaul one whose constant boughs at the end of every sentence the more senior rear Gaul spoke marked him is not just a subordinate but an unusually obsequious one that person scurried away without looking at us freeing Ocean to ask her to pause the follow-up question in the same language her towpath responded in perfect unaccented Homme SAP mercantile there’s been some unusual activity out there what kind usually the natives all approach this event from the opposite rim but tonight some of the groups appear to be off course we don’t know if they’re lost or simply taking what you would call a detour to avoid obstacles out in the desert wastes but we’re keeping watch of their movements all the same he nodded at me I believe I recognize your counselor Court it’s a pleasure tending to tall but not giant by the
standards of the average human being reorge all are lanky bipeds with triply segmented arms and legs radiating from a torso about as large as the human equivalent would be if it included the ribcage but not the lower abdomen to my eyes it had always given them a delicate look almost as if they could be knocked over by the first strong wind but they’re tougher than they look as well as faster and stronger and several degrees more agile their eyes are jet-black marbles and their faces are fixed masks expressionless but for a mouth that like the extinct dolphins curves along the lines of a human smile one reason that mankind has never had any trouble buying into their veneer of a mobility I said forgive me sir have we met her Poth drilled his kind equivalent of laughter no counselor you once questioned a distant relative of mine 1v Guiness Mook Tov in preparation for a hearing on the planet Qatar cos but knowing the limits of the human eye as I do I don’t believe you’d be able to discern any special resemblance between us I had a bit of trouble remembering Mook Tov a minor functionary who had been ailing when we met how’s he doing heart of puff cocked his head not well I fear that has always been the great peril faced by those of us who venture forth to interact with alien beings sometimes we strain the capacity of our minds to adapt the word alien functioned as a shear matter of perspective here since motives big problem had been the psychological aftermath of discovering an atrocity committed by a member of my own species taking no offense by gestured at the teeming amphitheater below you seem to do well enough dealing with that I have had bad days counselor the
massacre of D Jews embassy a rear Gong sad sigh sounds much like a human beings yes that was one of the very worst were you there when it happened no I was fortunate enough to be half a world away at the time but it was still a terrible day and also come to think of it not because as awful and as avoidable as the loss of life was the event was also not without vivid demonstrations of your kinds peculiar capacity for heroism ambassador des Jews his shudder was also very human no that man was just an idiot endangering his own people the greatest fear of my own life is that I might have unwittingly encouraged his tragic folly by telling him as much but there were other numerous examples among your embassy staff people who risked their lives for their comrades or for Isadora that poor young woman who started it all if you leave this conversation knowing nothing else about me counselor be assured that what I saw then cemented what was already a considerable and even for my kind unusual personal affection for your species this struck me is the usual empty blather of a diplomat expressing his great love for the representatives of a nation he would have ward upon with equal enthusiasm but the Porrinyards must have sensed otherwise and how did you come by that sir did you not know it is well-known at least among the diplomatic community on this planet I once raised an orphaned human child as my own daughter most people learning that for the first time would not have reacted with a wince her path caught my expression there is no reason to tread carefully around me counselor I’m already well aware that as a you also counted several nonhumans among
your family unit and that this ended badly for all of you unlike so many of your own kind I do not take it as a blot on your own character in the meantime I am pleased to offer myself as a resource is there anything you’d like to know my questions so far included a number I wasn’t ready to ask I’m still filling in the background ambassador any overview you can provide would be fine then that would be my honor he draped an arm around my shoulders and walked me several steps closer to the edge of the cliff the perspective was more vertiginous than I could have wanted I’d much preferred the relative safety of the bleachers which provided the view at a remove sufficient to avoid distracting the height sensitive with the threat of a fatal plunge but the amphitheater was called that for a reason the opposite rim where the Villani entered was just a steep slope leading down to a level valley floor our rim was a vertical cliff a drop of several hundred feet before the base began a gentler curved toward the amphitheatre floor the worst of the drop off was about a dozen meters ahead of us but this was where the ground began to descend and I wasn’t about to get any closer to the edge then her puffs had taken me my imagination was already working overtime at conjuring up any number of ways I could lose my footing and surf a cascade of dirt and rock over the edge of the precipice any obstruction the metres of rock before us might have presented to our view of the amphitheatre floor was compensated for by the sheer size of that natural stage below us brilliant with a reflected starlight the housings of whips undulated above thousands of spherical heads in perfect precision the patterns of movement sweeping across the packed masses in waves the occasional collisions echoed upward as metallic clanks also this close to the edge the air seemed to change character once again it was dusty rank filled with the memory of past slaughters heard a puff offered me a reassuring squeeze of the sword I wouldn’t have accepted from most human beings what you’re looking at My dear counselor is the single greatest mystery known to intelligent life you mean the ballet not just the ritual counselor many sentient species engage in mass suicides of one kind or another among them your own and it’s usually a simplistic sordid downright ugly thing a manifestation of madness if that’s all this was few would spend an hour concerned with it there are also a number of species who like the Villani engage in dance as a form of communication again among them your own nothing special but this particular choreographic language is something far more a code more packed with data than any of the word based systems used by technological civilizations from what we can tell it’s even more sophisticated than any code used by artificial intelligence even the AI source claimed to be unable to translate it you don’t know them as well as I do ambassador they lie as easily as you are I breathe go on now the Villani do have some simple symbolic gestures fit for communicating simple ideas which is fortunate in that it permits some basic level of interaction b
etween us but most of what you see when an individual undulates its upper webs is a highly evolved system for transmitting complex embedded images in wave forms the measurable bit traffic of any given exchange is so dense with unique information some of which we can then isolate but have so far had the devil of a time translating that it reveals the existence of entire network of related ideas are presented as three-dimensional image of astonishing complexity they are not exchanging thoughts in a mere sentence they exchange the equivalent of entire planetary libraries do you know what that makes them counselor why don’t you just tell me well among other things they’re the single most intelligent organic species ever encountered that’s not a theory that’s a measurable fact and but for a couple of thousand simple memes amounting to no more than baby talk all our study has left us with next to no idea what they’re saying the Porrinyards who had followed us to the edge of the cliff asked him how do we know they’re not just talkative bores saying nothing of any real importance that’s a possibility of course you don’t need to spend much time in diplomatic circles to know that the amount of blather within any given communication isn’t always a measure of its profundity I once spent a mealtime in a transport hub lounge listening with great fascination as a pair of young human males regaled each other with colorful descriptions of the mammary glands on a certain young female they had just seen I was entertained by the breath of the human facility for self-expression but none of it ever provided more useful information than the original assessment great tits the Porrinyard s covered they’re matched grins with fanned fingertips I think I’ve been in that lounge myself no doubt but that’s where we come to the other insoluble mystery of the Villani people he spread his arms encompassing the spectacle before us why it all seems to be centered on this day when so many gathered to die the silence that followed was nine total until Ocean spoke alone maybe they’re just disgusting it’s to die for I wanted to punch him but he was standing behind Skye by the time I realized that I could accomplish the same thing by hitting her the moment had passed her path just trilled again I really do love your species the bottom line counsellor is that the most distinguished EXO linguists of ten species have been studying this right for decades and have yet to progress beyond minimal understanding we only know that it amounts to the Villani trying to work out what they see as a problem of tremendous importance and that for some reason that still escapes us they now seem to consider the input of your own race pivotal my head hurt and isn’t that the part that makes the least amount of sense yes also the part that makes it so completely fascinating it would be so much easier if your pilgrims could just explain it to us but they claim we don’t have the vocabulary to explain the epiphanies they believe they’ve reached which is also fascinating in a different way the size of the paradox flummoxed me human beings and flan II had evolved on different worlds our brains worked differently we processed information differently there’s no way that any of us should have been able to best of lonny at a ritual that tied to the way their brains and bodies were wired a ritual they evolved to perform was it just delusion on the part of the dance pilgrims or had they seen something the same way Isadora had claimed to see something capable of progressing the ballet toward the conclusion the Fulani believed to be so important it was a difficult problem one that might remain insoluble for decades or centuries it might even be one of those occasional riddles so complex that taken apart they no longer possessed enough substance to allow the existence of an answer but was it my problem did it have anything to do with the reason I was here or was it just a giant mystery capable of overshadowing some smaller one I needed to find in order to make a difference I was still wrestling with my doubts when I heard a fuss behind us we turned and saw another rear gall thinner and darker scale than her path and wearing an inactive whip harness scaled to the proportions of his species pushing his way past to kiss and Houghton shuffling along at their own kind glacial pace heard of path assured me away from the cliff met the newcomer and uttered a sentence harsh and dusty and punctuated by glottal clicks I didn’t have to know the rear Gong language to sense the fear behind the others reply her path asked another question the other rear goal hurried out another dozen words in a rush his voice growing higher and more urgent I said what’s happening her path turned to me we might have a problem what’s wrong I told you before that Fulani movements out in the desert presented reasons for special concern yes there has been a new development how always before on this day there have only been the flan e in the amphitheater and the Villani watching on the southern rim aside from the expected number of individual stragglers this has never changed the vantage point where we stand now has always been unmolested and now the Porrinyards asked one of the larger approaching groups already approaching the amphitheater from the east just made a sudden course change about five minutes ago they looped around and are now headed right for us they’re not in sight yet but at the rate they move they’ll be on us in minutes our best analysts have consulted yours and concurred that this might be very bad how bad the last time we saw something on this scale was 10 years ago before the slaughter at D Jews embassy I’m afraid I’ll have to cut our conversation short councilor in order to see to the evacuation of my own people I advise you to get back to your vehicle or to another place of safety if you can there’s not much time I cried after him what do you mean if I can but he was already gone following the other rear goal into the crowd high-pitched shrieks began to rise from
Andrea Cort 03: War of the Marionettes Page 4
