Ambassador

by William Alexander

  “No, no, no,” Ca’tth protested, but he spoke softly as though already resigned to losing the argument. “Don’t let him know about things he can’t ever escape. Cruel, cruel, cruel, cruel, cruel. It’s too cruel of us to tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” Gabe demanded, though he tried to keep his voice low and quiet.

  Jir lashed her long hair behind her.

  “Evacuation,” she said.

  Ca’tth groaned. Ripe sniffed the air. Jir ignored them both.

  “We’re planning to evacuate our systems,” she went on. “That’s what we’re talking about here. That’s what we’re trying to do. The Outlast is expanding suddenly and impossibly fast. They’ve claimed much of their spiral arm already, and now they’ve begun to invade our own smaller arm. So we plan to abandon our homes. But we’re not sure how to do it or where to go. Should we travel together like the Kaen, all in one nomadic fleet, or should we split up and scatter? Do we tell each other which way we’re going or try to stay safe by staying secret? Do we hide and then try to find our way home again later? Do we risk uprooting Ripe’s elders so they can travel, or should his people send only seedpod ships? Do we ask the Machinae for help?”

  Ca’tth shook his head several times. “The Machinae never listen, never, never, never. No one understands them. And once we leave, we can never go back, not after the Outlast lays claim to our system. Then it all belongs to them, always, always, always, from now until the universe collapses on itself.”

  “That’s only what they believe,” said Jir. Her hair snapped like a whip.

  “Yes,” Ca’tth said sadly, “and they’ve been right so far.” He gave up on the glider he was trying to fold, crumpled it, and threw away the crumpled ball.

  Gabe plucked another leaf. “Your plane will fly better if you fold the wing tips,” he told Ca’tth. “Like this.”

  Ca’tth and Jir both watched him fold. Ripe stayed where he sat and stuck each of his gliders in the ground, point-first, playing his own private game according to his own rules.

  “How far can you travel?” Jir asked Gabe. “Have your people explored much beyond your motherworld yet?”

  “Only as far as our moon,” Gabe answered—a simple, honest answer. He tried not to sound defensive about it.

  “Your own moon?” Jir asked. “In orbit around your own world? No farther than that?”

  “Not yet,” said Gabe. “But we have sent probes and robots farther out. There’s a robot on Mars that we dropped with a sky crane. Dad and I stayed up late to watch it happen.”

  “I don’t think you can help us,” Jir told him. She still sounded condescending, but not so annoyed. “And I don’t think we can help you, either. But if you haven’t traveled far, then the Outlast might not even notice your people.”

  Ca’tth made a sudden noise that didn’t translate. He snatched away the leaf branch and stomped on it.

  “Hey!” said Jir, surprised and annoyed again.

  “Bones and carapaces!” Ripe protested.

  “Run,” Ca’tth whispered, his eyes wide and his ears moving. “Omegan is watching us. Watching, watching, watching now. I’ll stomp off like a sore loser. Everyone scatter. Play a chase game in the trees until we can meet again.” He locked his massive eyes on Gabe. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You can’t travel, and we can’t take you with us. Try to hide when they reach your system. I hope they don’t find you.”

  He disappeared into the trees. Ripe followed, lifting his legs very high as he ran.

  Jir of the Builders and the Yards hesitated. Her hair lashed like the long eel-ish tail that it actually was. “Farewell, Ambassador Gabe,” she said. Then she walked away rather than running, though she walked quickly.

  Gabe stood bewildered on the edge of the forest, alone.

  Ca’tth told me to hide, he thought. And he didn’t want to frighten me with news about huge and scary things. That makes me less suspicious of him. If my neighbors are all ditching this part of the galaxy, then they probably don’t have any interest in my system. Unless they want to hide out there. But it sounds like the Outlast are coming my way too. Maybe the Outlast are the ones trying to kill me—though they seem to want to kill everyone, so they’re more likely to stage a massive invasion than carry out sneaky and secret assassination attempts. They’re pirates, not ninjas.

  A galactic invasion inflicting mass extinctions felt like a force of nature, like tornadoes and hurricanes, like something Gabe could do nothing about other than buckle down and keep away from windows. And he still didn’t know what to think about his neighbors.

  He threw one last glider, frustrated. He threw it too hard and it nose-dived.

  Gabe turned around to find Omegan of the Outlast standing directly beside him. He made an involuntary noise of alarm.

  “Be silent,” Omegan said without looking directly at Gabe. The ambassador’s voice was as sharp and precise as little squares of broken windshield glass. His skin, eyes, and hair were all extremely pale, almost transparent. His expression was less transparent—Gabe saw nothing through it, nothing of what the other ambassador might think or intend to do. “You must be silent,” Omegan said again, his voice less sharp this time. “You must say nothing about your world or capabilities, not where I can hear you. I must not learn these things. Tell me that you understand.”

  Not really, Gabe admitted to himself, but he said, “Yes,” anyway.

  Omegan of the Outlast seemed satisfied, and he walked back to his hilltop.

  Gabe felt a huge headache coming on, fed by his incomprehension. He gave me a warning. About himself. Not a threat—a warning. Why would he do that?

  A crumpled leaf-ball missed his face. He looked up. Sapi crouched on a tree branch. Kaen stood on the same branch, balanced without holding on. She looked extra-serious.

  “Stupid!” Sapi yelled. “Didn’t I warn you about the Outlast? Can your species even make long-term memories?”

  Gabe didn’t have time to respond. Dizziness wrenched him away from his sense of entangled self.

  I’m waking up, he realized. I must be under attack.

  13

  Gabe was not under attack, but he was underwater. He came sputtering to the surface and found himself still under a bridge.

  It was dark. He could see reflected moonlight in the pool beneath the waterfall. This time he actually felt rested.

  “Sorry,” the Envoy said from the rock above. “My apologies. Mea culpa. I am culpable in your soaking. I tried to wake you before you fell in, but I couldn’t. With time and practice it should become easier to transition between your waking life and entangled travel. I hope that you will actually have the time to practice.”

  Gabe climbed back onto the rock. “Me too,” he said, shivering. The water was cold. The rock was cold, too. He pulled off his clothes and wrung them out, one piece at a time. Then he dried himself off with a small camping towel from his emergency backpack and put his clothes back on.

  “What did you learn?” the Envoy asked. “Did anyone seem surprised to see you? Did they try to find out where you are?”

  “Not really,” said Gabe. “Pretty much the opposite.” He described the Embassy visit while rubbing his hair with the towel and trying to get water out of his ears.

  The Envoy listened. It shifted between different shades of purple as it listened.

  “So that’s it,” said Gabe. “Our neighbors claim to be leaving, and they didn’t seem to want anything to do with me. So we still don’t know who is shooting at us, and we have to worry about an Outlast invasion, and I don’t understand what Omegan tried to warn me about. I didn’t always understand the neighbors, either. The plant made no sense to me at all. Even translated, he still didn’t make any sense.”

  Gabe had a thought that he didn’t like and didn’t want to say aloud. But the Envoy remained an expectant shade of purple, so Gabe kept talking. “What if . . . What if the aliens shooting at us are completely alien to me? What if I can’t ever understand why they’r
e doing this? How can I stop them if I can’t translate what they want? I don’t even get most of my own species. Frankie’s mom makes no sense to me either. I can’t tell how she feels about anything.”

  “Breathe, ambassador,” said the Envoy in an excellent imitation of Mom’s most soothing voice.

  Gabe took a breath. This took effort.

  “Whatever else occurs,” the Envoy said, slowly and still soothing, “you should trust in translation. Life anywhere and everywhere has very much in common. The nature of survival makes sure this is true. And social creatures enjoy and require communication. Understanding might be difficult, but it is possible. Always.”

  Gabe nodded. He tried to convince his breath and pulse to both relax into a steadier rhythm. He tried not to pay attention to simmering discomfort way down at the foundations of himself.

  The Envoy took a new breath of its own and held it for a bit before speaking. “What I still don’t understand is how the Outlast could be moving so quickly. It should have taken them thousands of years to spread so far. The previous ambassador was concerned about this. It’s why she left this system.”

  “What happened to the previous ambassador?” Gabe asked.

  “I wish I knew,” the Envoy admitted.

  Gabe spread out the towel on the cold, clammy rock, hoping it would dry.

  “Tell me more about the Outlast,” he said. “How are they even allowed to join the Embassy if they go around conquering planets and killing off other civilizations?”

  “Everyone is allowed to join the Embassy, Gabe,” said the Envoy. “It is surprising that the Outlast bothers to send an ambassador, given how little they regard other forms of life, but everyone is allowed. The Outlast intends to be the only sentient species left standing when the universe collapses. They believe that the end of one cosmos will lead to the birth of another, and that the next one can be shaped by whoever is still around when it happens. So they mean to be the only ones left. But they used to be content to just wait until the end came, assuming that everyone else would die off by then. Now they seem less patient. I would have told you about them earlier, but we haven’t had much opportunity to prepare you between Embassy visits.”

  “Protocol is still pretty grumpy about that,” said Gabe.

  “I’m sure,” said the Envoy. It sounded like it would be rolling its eyes if it had separate eyes to roll.

  Gabe fished out a package of Galletas Marías as a midnight snack. He chewed the cookies in a slow and thoughtful way, chewing over new information at the same time.

  A faint electronic noise chirped somewhere nearby. Gabe flinched. At first he thought it might be some sort of alien drone seeking him out. Then he realized it was coming from the outer pocket of his backpack.

  Gabe dug out his cheap cell phone. He had missed a couple of calls, followed by a single text from Lupe. The little screen glowed in the dark beneath the bridge.

  It’s late. Why aren’t you back yet? Mom’s back. I told her you went to bed early, in Frankie’s room, so she doesn’t know you aren’t here. She went to bed early, too. But the twins are up. My arms are full of twins. One of them is trying to eat my phone RIGHT NOW. Where are you and why aren’t you here?

  I’m fine, he wrote. Don’t worry about me. He didn’t tell her that he was hiding under a bridge or that he couldn’t risk coming back to Frankie’s house because he didn’t want energy beams to burn through the sky and ceiling while he was there.

  Come back, she answered immediately. Now, please. I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about Mom. She needs you here. So do the twins.

  Can’t come back yet, he typed. Still doing secret stuff.

  Lupe texted scathing and terrible things at him.

  Gabe responded with smiling emoticons.

  Fine, she wrote. How’s the planet?

  Still here, he typed.

  Good job. Tell the purple goo to keep you safe. Get back here ASAP.

  Ok.

  He wondered how long that would be. Then he forced himself to stop wondering, finished his cookies, and mulled over galactic genocide.

  “I don’t think the Outlast is after us,” he said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Agreed,” said the Envoy. “They wouldn’t bother with secret assassinations. And they might not even notice this world, given that Terrans are barely spacefaring. It seems more likely that the Outlast would focus their conquering attention on civilizations that take up more space. We may yet remain safely outside that attention.”

  Gabe nodded. “That’s pretty much what Sapi said. And Ca’tth. And Omegan himself told me not to tell him anything. He agrees that I should avoid catching his attention, which is odd. I don’t understand why. And I haven’t learned anything about those ships in the asteroid belt or the one shooting at us, and we can’t stay down here forever.” He rubbed his arms, shivering. Even summer nights could be cold in Minneapolis—especially underneath a bridge.

  “We shouldn’t stay here,” the Envoy agreed. “Your enemies, whoever they are, can track your location. It’s dangerous to remain in any one place for long.”

  While he packed his few belongings and put his damp sneakers back on, Gabe tried to think of where they might run to next. Downtown had larger buildings and more shelter, but it also had far more people in it. He didn’t want anyone else caught in the blast when the next attack found him.

  It would make sense to stay on buses and trains to keep in constant motion, just to be a moving target. Destinations and directions wouldn’t matter. But he didn’t have enough money to buy transit tickets forever, and neither the buses nor the trains would run all night.

  “Is there any way to block the entanglement signal, to keep them from tracking us?” Gabe asked. “Should I wrap myself in tin foil?”

  “No,” the Envoy told him. “It would do you no good to wrap yourself in tin foil.”

  The ground beneath them moved. Boulders in the stream bed shifted. Gabe grabbed the one they sat on with both arms.

  The ground held still.

  Gabe also held himself very still.

  “Is that what a landing spacecraft would feel like?” he asked, his voice low.

  The Envoy shook its mouth. “That came from below us, which makes very little sense to me.”

  The boulder beneath them rumbled again. Gabe felt fear scrape his insides. He took up his great-grandfather’s cane and reached for his backpack.

  The stone cliff beside the waterfall broke apart. A metal shape emerged. It looked like a basement silverfish grown to dragon-size, with dozens of legs extending from joints all along its length.

  Several legs pushed outward from the cliff face. The burrowing craft lowered itself and peered beneath the bridge through waterfall spray. A red disk glowed like a single eye at the very front.

  “You should run, Ambassador,” the Envoy said.

  Gabe ducked and scrambled behind the boulder.

  A beam of burning light swept through the space beneath the bridge and severed the Envoy’s throat. Puppetish limb and body slid off the rock in two separate directions. The Envoy’s mouth still moved, still tried to speak as it dropped into the water and sank.

  14

  Gabe did not move. He no longer knew how to move.

  The boulder broke apart, and then Gabe moved very quickly.

  He scrambled between the stones to get back to shore. One foot slipped into the water and suddenly became much colder than his other foot. He climbed the railing to the hiking path. His sopping sneaker squelched. The cane rattled in his hands. Both of his hands shook. They shook from the raw force of adrenaline rather than panic or fear. The scraping terror he had felt before was gone. The ache of the Envoy’s loss was also gone, shut off, and set aside. Both emotions would come back later, if Gabe lived long enough to feel them, but in that moment he knew only running.

  Another energy beam roasted the air nearby. A tree beside the trail burst open. The sap inside boiled as though struck by lightning.

>   Gabe ducked away from the spray of hot tree blood and ran harder. He moved in a haphazard way, zigzagging like Sir Toby did whenever the fox played the chase games that taught him how to hunt and how to escape when something else was hunting him.

  The sinuous metal thing tore through the creek bed. It splashed water and scraped against stones, moving parallel to the hiking trail. Then it lunged forward to slide downstream ahead of Gabe. The craft turned, reared up like some sort of spitting snake, and fired another beam from the glowing red cannon at the tip. Two more trees burst and burned.

  Gabe threw himself sideways, sneakers slipping against the trail. After the skid, he ran back the way he had come, back toward the falls. He wondered what he would do when he reached them.

  I’m cornered, he thought. I’ll never get up those stone steps fast enough. This is a dead end. The words dead end repeated in his head to the thudding beat of his sneakers on the trail. Dead, dead, dead. End.

  He didn’t actually get that far.

  The alien craft surged back upstream, climbed the bank with its many legs, and blocked the trail with the length of its body.

  Gabe tried to keep from slamming into it, slipped, and slammed into it anyway.

  The craft coiled itself around him, a huge metal spiral with Gabe trapped in the center. It raised the front half of its length to peer down at him. The headlike shape was a cockpit, the face made out of thick and semitransparent material. Gabe couldn’t see through it, couldn’t tell whether there was a pilot inside—someone he could talk to, communicate with, reason with. Someone he could demand answers from. Tell me why you’re doing this.

  The craft moved slowly now, keeping Gabe trapped while it took careful aim. The coils contracted. The cockpit lowered. The cannon glowed directly above his head.

  Gabe drew Toledo steel from inside his great-grandfather’s cane and drove the blade up into the cannon. The red disk shattered. Arcs of energy raced up and down the length of the craft. It reared its head back and writhed.