by S. H. Jucha
The landing of aliens had shocked Nyslara and her soma, but events had unfolded in a most unlikely direction. Instead of being subjugated or decimated, the Haraken who Nyslara termed Dassata struck a bargain to bring peace to the planet. But Nyslara wanted more than an end to the fighting among nests. She wanted to see the Dischnya raised out of their tunnels and elevated once more to a robust, technological society.
Nyslara and Pussiro hurried to the telescope post, which was concealed in the top of a small knoll and offered the advisors an unobstructed view in all directions. At the queen and wasat’s entrance, the advisors leapt aside, freeing the path to the telescope.
“The view is limited,” Nyslara said with disappointment, after examining the ship through the telescope. “And the ship is already in orbit. Not timely news, my advisors.”
“Forgive us, my queen, we thought the scope required repair. That’s why we delayed calling you,” an advisor commented.
Nyslara grumped, not pleased with the excuse. Her view was of a section of the new ship. Nyslara desired to see the vessel in its entirety, so she turned the magnification ring at the eyepiece, but it failed to move. “Yes, I see the problem with our telescope. Can it be repaired?”
“At first that’s what we thought too, my queen,” a second advisor said. “If I may …” he added, stepping to the scope when Nyslara granted him permission.
The advisor eyed the viewfinder, swung the telescope a few degrees. “This view is at the same magnification, Chona Nyslara … a view of Dassata’s ship in which he first arrived and which has returned.”
Nyslara was treated to an image of Dassata’s slender ship, which was similar in size to the nest killer commanded by Captain Shimada. A striking difference in the new view was that the scope’s image was filled primarily by the day’s empty sky. The Dassata’s ship would need to be laid end to end many times to fill the view.
“Commander, observe the Dassata’s ship,” Nyslara commanded.
In the presence of others, Nyslara and Pussiro kept up the pretense of queen and wasat. She’d yet to announce her mating with Pussiro, but her soma would soon detect the change in her scent. She couldn’t delay the news much longer but had hoped Dassata would return first.
After Pussiro examined the telescope’s image of the Rêveur, Nyslara ordered her advisor to shift the view to the new arrival. Pussiro took his first view of the giant, oval-shaped ship or, at least, a portion of it. He spared a quick glance for Nyslara and then reexamined the vessel. His comment was, “I wasn’t aware Dassata intended to bring all of his soma to Sawa Messa.”
* * *
Reiko tried to parse the incompatible elements that confronted her — Alex returned with a city-ship, but he was no longer a Haraken.
When Reiko granted permission, Cordelia sent out a fleet-wide introduction to Alex’s forthcoming message. It allowed the captains time to relay the link throughout their ships and to the travelers holding station planetside. Crew members accepted the link in their implants and were connected to their ships’ controllers.
The SADEs, who stood guard over the Dischnya nests, picked up their comm links from the travelers over the shoreline. Everyone got a preview of the unusual nature of Alex’s comm when it was introduced by Captain Cordelia of the city-ship Freedom. If SADE chests could have swelled with pride, they would have done so.
When ship controllers signaled to the Freedom that comm links to the fleets’ crew were ready, Cordelia relayed to Alex that the fleet waited.
Raucous cheering reached Alex from those around him and in the nearby corridors. Cordelia chose to relay much of the fleet’s reactions to him over the bridge speakers. The combined output was as deafening as it was unidentifiable — composed of human accolades and unusual sounds, which only SADEs could generate.
When the noise died down, Alex continued.
Before Alex could draw his next breath, the SADEs reached consensus and communicated their decision to him.
* * *
Immediately after Alex’s announcement to the fleet, he reached out to Z and Willem.
Alex detected Willem’s humor in the comment about Pussiro, and it made him smile. The SADE had progressed far from his initial stage of anger and despair to co-lead a scientific exploratory mission and find his place in the world of humans.
The request pained Alex, but he approached the question head-on, which was his style.
tives. The word means hidden.>
Alex grabbed some vids from the folder and watched Z track a rodent along a branch. The animal shrieked, jumped up, and fell to the ground. He replayed the sequence, zeroing in on the aspects that Z had examined in detail, the shimmering on the branch and the strike of the Nascosto, its quick action betraying its camouflage.
* * *
Alex needed to address one more group before he descended planetside. He assembled the Freedom’s entire entourage in a single empty bay, while Cordelia broadcast his message to the SADEs below.
Alex grabbed an empty packing crate stacked against a bulkhead. He hauled it over to the waiting crowd and jumped on top of it. “This message is for the Daelon Independents and the Confederation SADEs, and it concerns how to work together,” Alex began. “Harakens, humans and SADEs, who are with me, have already learned these basic concepts and embellished them. To our new human guests, I would say: SADEs are capable of offering you a great number of alternative choices, and they can advise you as to the most efficient means of accomplishing a task. You, of course, will presume to direct the course of events, and these newly freed SADEs will accede to your requests. But, this is wrong. Humans and SADEs must work together, find solutions together, and balance the priorities of every sentient creature on this planet. Do that and you’ll have succeeded beyond your wildest imaginations. Don’t do it, and you’ll wonder where you went wrong for the rest of your long lives.”
-8-
So It Begins
Knowing renewed communications with the queens was imminent, Alex requested Tatia to recover the Confederation SADEs who’d been acting as guards for the Dischnya nests to ensure the peace in Alex’s absence. While he was gone, Willem had monitored the power cells of the planetside SADEs. Locking their avatars and using minimal power consumption had drastically slowed their energy consumption, but they needed to be recovered or charged soon.
“I have some ground rules for the SADEs’ recovery, Admiral,” Alex said to Tatia in a private conversation. “You’ll need three travelers to handle your passengers, and I want three pilots with the right dispositions.”
Tatia frowned at Alex, unsure of what he was asking. “Sorry, Alex, you’re going to have to be blunt on this one.”
“The SADEs have been standing in this planet’s weather, day and night, sun and rain, calm and stormy, for the entire time I’ve been gone. What would you look like after that period of time and exposure?”
“Me? I probably wouldn’t have much skin left where it was exposed,” Tatia replied thoughtfully. “The SADEs are going to show sand and grit caked in every crevice of clothes and synth-skin.”
“Precisely, Admiral. I’ll have a separate bay readied with Claude, Julien, Cordelia, Z, and Miranda standing by to assist. Have your pilots land in the bay, wait in their seats, and exit when cued. Their main cabin vid cams will be inaccessible via the controller during the flight.”
Tatia didn’t have to give it much thought to understand what Alex wanted. He was being careful not to expose the rigorousness of the SADEs’ avatars to the humans aboard the Freedom. There were enough differences to work through between the disparate individuals who followed Alex, without adding that aspect of the SADEs.
In the heat of the day, Svetlana, Deirdre, and Lucia descended planetside. They were alone on their travelers and expected to land at a series of nests to collect their lot of SADEs.
However, the moment the SADEs were alerted of the travelers’ descent, they ran calculations over their comms on the quickest recovery points. Nearly two hundred SADEs deserted their posts and sprinted toward three points on the plains, and Trixie sent the coordinates to the pilots.
After landing, each pilot had only a few moments to wait until their respective passengers arrived. They received the word when all individuals were aboard and made their way back to the Freedom. Once the bay was pressurized, the pilots waited while the SADEs exited. When they received the all clear, they promptly left their travelers and made their way through the bay’s airlock, receiving the thanks of the SADEs on the way.
I’ve got my wish, Svetlana thought. Life is about to get much more interesting.
* * *
Alex needed permission to operate on the planet, and he was prepared to deliver what the Dischnya and Swei Swee wanted in exchange for their approval to grant humans and SADEs the right to live on Celus-5 or Sawa Messa or whatever everybody agreed to call the planet.
As Celus crested the horizon, Alex landed at the edge of Nyslara’s nest. The queen must have been expecting him, because, as the traveler touched down, Nyslara and Pussiro bolted from a tunnel hatch and loped through the dried grass to meet him.
Alex exited his ship with his entourage in tow and halted, while the pair raced to him.
Nyslara skidded to a stop, her clawed feet seeking purchase on the hard ground, and threw her arms around Alex. “Dassata returns,” she said, her voice characterized by the Dischnya’s soft tones.
Alex’s surprised expression mirrored Pussiro’s own. Nyslara and he had only exchanged the human greeting once before, but apparently, the queen wanted to communicate her relief at his return.
As for Pussiro, he stifled the growl that threatened to rise in his throat. If there were an alien he dared not challenge, it was Dassata.
“I’ve brought the resources required to build your structures, Chona Nyslara,” Alex said formally. “I wish you to call a Fissla. My soma will build when the queens agree to peace among the nests and with the Swei Swee.”
“It will be done, Dassata. Might my emissaries travel aboard your shuttles?”
“Yes, Nyslara, but, mind you, I require all forty-one queens to attend.”
“Did your soma meet with the seven queens who didn’t present themselves at the last Fissla?”
“Four queens understood our purpose in standing as sentinels against the attacks of other nests. Three did not.”
Nyslara regarded Pussiro. As her wasat, he understood the use of force against a nest, but she was responsible for the strategic decisions that guided the fate of her soma. More important, if Dassata was ready to afford the Dischnya the opportunity to climb out of their tunnels, Nyslara decided she would do whatever was necessary to grant his requests.
“I will gather some queens and their wasats, Dassata, and we will travel aboard your ship to meet with these seven, who would halt the progress of our combined soma. Your other ships need only visit the remaining thirty-four, not including the nests of the queens who will travel with us.”
“Be ready tomorrow, Nyslara, when Nessila rises,” Alex said.
“One question before you depart, Dassata?” Pussiro asked. “Are all your soma real?”
“They’re all real, Pussiro, in that every one of them thinks and feels. Some are made of
flesh and bone, as we are, and some are not.”
Pussiro could feel the heat from Dassata’s stare, daring him to disagree.
The nests’ lookouts had called Pussiro to their scopes when they witnessed the flaying of clothes and flesh from Dassata’s soma, while they stood guard. Pussiro would have thought the sentinels had died, locked somehow in an upright position, except their heads continued to scan left and right. When Pussiro shared his observations with Nyslara, they assumed the sentinels were technologically sophisticated machines.
At the time, it was Nyslara who recalled that Willem had no scent. That Willem and the sentinels were machines explained the reason why they didn’t have the expected odors of their comrades. However, it was also Nyslara who warned Pussiro that the simple explanation was incomplete. “Recall, Pussiro, Dassata treats all of his soma equally, and, other than his mate, Ené, his closest advisor is Julien, who also has no scent.”
Nyslara and Pussiro let the subject lie about Dassata’s mysterious soma, but the queen cautioned her wasat to walk carefully and leave no claw marks around the subject.
Unfortunately, Pussiro’s curiosity got the better of him, and now he faced the result. “It’s understood that Dassata values each of his soma. The Dischnya will too,” Pussiro said, as diplomatically as he could. The answer seemed to mollify Dassata, who continued to stare at Pussiro for a little longer before the heat went out of his eyes. Then he wished them well and stalked back to his ship.
“If we weren’t mated, Pussiro, I would strike a welt across your hindquarters with my tail that wouldn’t soon heal,” Nyslara hissed, and Pussiro had the decency to duck his head in regret.
* * *
Most humans would have been awed by the extent of the communication that flew between Alex and Julien, who bantered, argued, and, often, simply wondered about the future.
