by Sarah Zettel
“Ca’aed has been fortunate,” T’sha replied to the city through her headset. “I have brought Ambassador Z’eth a new cloning of skin cells that have worked well for us.”
“Ah,” sighed K’est, “I look forward to receiving them.”
Although long illness had given K’est a slight tendency toward self-pity, the city was not yet dying. Far from it. Everywhere, T’sha passed people alive with purpose. They tended and studied. They sampled and directed. In several places, she saw clusters of constructors and their attendants grafting living tendons onto dead bones and transplanting coral buds that glowed pink and orange with vibrant life. Although the winds swirling outside the city were thin, inside its sphere they were thick with life and nutrition. It was almost as if the engineers had turned the entire city into a refresher chamber. T’sha felt her skin expand to take in the richness flowing all around her.
All of this life was the result of Ambassador Z’eth’s tireless efforts. Another ambassador would have given up long ago and indentured her people to other cities for the best terms she could get. Perhaps she would have gone so far as to try to grow a village from what little still lived of her city.
Z’eth, however, soared over her tragedies. It was known that K’est had suggested that her people disband and allow her to die, but Z’eth would not hear of it. Instead, she had bargained and bartered for her city’s needs with a zeal that left the most senior of the High Law Meet in awe. Her city, her people, were not rich and might not ever be again, but they were alive, and if they were not strong, they were still proud.
T’sha had to admit Z’eth’s call for a private meeting made her nervous. Z’eth could wring promises from the clouds and the canopy, and T’sha was beholden to her on several levels. What did Z’eth want from T’sha? Or, even more important, what did she want from Ca’aed?
Z’eth’s embassy lay beneath the city’s central temple. The embassy was a chamber of shell and bone twined with ligaments and synaptic lace to connect it directly to the major sensory nodes of the city. What the city felt was transmitted to the embassy without the city even having to speak. Z’eth could tell by the tone and texture of her embassy walls how her city fared.
T’sha gave her kite to one of the embassy’s few healthy mooring clamps and presented herself to the portal. It recognized her image and essence and opened for her.
“I have told the ambassador you are here,” said K’est. “She is in the debating chamber.”
“Thank you.” T’sha slipped cautiously forward.
The embassy was crowded. So many people rested on the perches and floated in the air that T’sha could barely find room to glide through the corridors. T’sha glimpsed tattoos as she wove her way between them. Some were engineers and teachers, which she had expected, but most were archivists and trackers.
Of course, not even the city could keep track of all Z’eth’s promises. If there is enough of the city to work complex issues…T’sha winced at her own thoughts. K’est lived. It would grow strong again. Z’eth was dedicated and would see it happen.
T’sha laughed softly at herself. Old superstitions. Send a bad thought out on the wind, and it would land where it began. A pessimistic thought about K’est’s health could affect Ca’aed’s.
At last, T’sha made her awkward way to the embassy’s debating chamber. The room filled with the scent and taste of people. Words crowded the air and bumped against T’sha’s wings. In the center of it all hung Z’eth, her posthands clutching a synaptic bundle as she listened to an engineer, a teacher, and an archivist. For a moment, T’sha thought she might be taking the pulse of her city as it listened to the same discussion and weighed the words.
T’sha waited politely in the threshold. Eventually, Z’eth disengaged herself from her advisers and glided a winding but still dignified path to the door.
“Good luck, Ambassador T’sha.” Z’eth raised her forehands. “I’m sorry you find such a crush here. We’ve had a heavy day. K’est is suffering from a vascular cancer in the upper eastern districts. As you can imagine, we must work quickly.”
The news shook T’sha’s bones. “Good luck, Ambassador,” she said hurriedly, even as she touched Z’eth’s hands. “Please, allow me to return some other time. You have too much to do here without—”
Z’eth fanned her words away. “You leave for New Home in two dodec-hours, do you not?”
“Yes,” admitted T’sha, “but—”
“Then my words must touch you now.” Z’eth lifted her muzzle, as if tasting the air to find a quiet space. “Let us go to the refresher. It is not the place for polite conversation, but—”
“Gladly, Ambassador,” T’sha dipped her muzzle.
“Then follow me, if there is room,” Z’eth added ruefully.
They made their way through the corridor, sometimes flying, sometimes picking their way from perch to perch, but at last the refresher opened for them. T’sha allowed the thick air to surround her. The circulation pushed her gently from point to point, allowing her own toxins to disperse while her skin took in what nutrients the room had to offer. The walls sprouted fresh fruits and other dainties, but T’sha did not sample any, even though nervousness had emptied her stomachs.
Z’eth let the room float her for a while. It seemed to T’sha her skin was drinking deeply of quiet as well as nutrition. As T’sha watched, Z’eth swelled, opening her pores and relaxing her bones.
The moment, however, did not last. Z’eth returned to her normal size, angling her wings and spreading her crest to hold herself still against the room’s circulating breezes.
“I have been following up the records of your votes, Ambassador,” she said as T’sha brought herself to a proper distance for conversation. “You have been lavish with Ca’aed’s promises.”
T’sha resolved not to drop her gaze or twiddle her postfingers. “Now is not a good time to narrow our chances of success on the candidate world.” She could not yet bring herself to call it New Home. D’seun’s words still echoed through the High Law Meet. His friends were many, and they had promises they could call in at a moment’s notice. Without constant countering, there was still the danger that a vote might be taken to ignore the New People altogether and simply start full-scale conversion of the candidate world into New Home.
“Ambassador T’sha,” sighed Z’edi, “as one who has represented her city for a long time, let me warn you—if Ca’aed got sick now, you would have nothing to save it with.”
T’sha lost her balance for a moment and drifted away. Z’eth’s words touched her secret fear. She had not even voiced the worry to Ca’aed itself, although she suspected Ca’aed knew. “Ca’aed is strong and has the wisdom of years.”
“The past did not help Gaith. We are flying into the night-side, Ambassador T’sha, and we may not come out.” Z’eth dipped her muzzle. “Especially if we do not have New Home.”
“Ambassador.” T’sha hesitated. “Did I have your vote only because of my promises?”
Z’eth swelled. “No.” The word was strong against T’sha’s skin. “I believe you are correct. We must understand the New People. We must know they have no claim on the candidate world. If a feud began, we could be divided if there were…questions about our right to do as we do. We cannot be divided.”
T’sha felt as if all the air had rushed away from her wings and that she must fall. “A feud with the New People? How can it even be contemplated?”
“If we both want the same thing, and we both have justifiable claims, how can it not be contemplated?” returned Z’eth. “Ambassador, I know that your mother favored teachers from the temples for your education, but you are not that naïve. We have a severe problem. We need New Home. We have New Home underneath us. We must be ready to secure it. We cannot question that.”
Even if the New People truly have a legitimate claim? Ambassador, what are you asking of me? In the next moment T’sha knew, and the realization tightened her skin and bones. Z’eth wanted T’sha
to go in and study the situation, as mandated by the vote in the High Law Meet. Then, no matter what she found, Z’eth wanted T’sha to say that the New People had no legitimate claim to the candidate world.
“Ambassador Z’eth…I cannot promise to give you the answers you want.”
“I know that.” Z’eth drifted even closer. The taste and touch of her words flooded T’sha’s senses. “I am not asking you to say anything you do not see. I am asking you to understand how serious this matter is. How deeply we need this done. I am asking you to imagine scars on Ca’aed’s hearts and the ancient walls crumbling to dust on the wind because the life has been bleached out of them. I am asking you to imagine your city in pain.” She paused. “I am asking you to imagine what I have been through with K’est.”
Shame and confusion shriveled T’sha. Already Ca’aed was afraid, a fact that never left her, even though her city had never spoken to her of it but that once. What if…?
“I have never underestimated the dangers,” said T’sha, uncertain whether she was trying to reassure Z’eth or herself.
“I think you have, Ambassador,” said Z’eth, cutting her off. “I am sorry, but I believe what I say to be the truth. You are young, you are rich, and you have all the Teachings behind you. I have only my crippled city and my people promised down to their grandchildren.”
T’sha clamped her muzzle shut. If she tried to speak now, she would only spurt and sputter like a nervous child. Even so, she could not believe what filled the air between them. Ambassador Z’eth wanted her to discover that the New People had no legitimate claim to the candidate world so that if those New People wished to begin a feud over the world, the People themselves would not even consider that the New People’s cause might be legitimate.
Z’eth asked for this without facts, without sight or taste or any other concrete knowledge.
She asked T’sha to tell this heinous lie because she, Z’eth, feared for her city.
No, no, that’s not all, T’sha tried to banish the thought…There is more to it than that. She fears for her city’s people, for all of us.
But even if Z’eth only feared for her city, surely that was fear enough. T’sha tried to imagine Ca’aed as ill as K’est. What would she do? What would she not do?
And she owed Z’eth heavily for her support. Without her, T’sha would not be going to the candidate world at all.
But what was the point of T’sha going to question D’seun’s work if she took the answers with her?
T’sha tensed her bones. “I will remember the touch of your words,” she said. “I feel them keenly. They will not fall away from me in the winds of the candidate world.”
“Thank you, Ambassador,” said Z’eth gravely. “That is all the promise I ask.”
Thank you, Ambassador, for that is all the promise I can give. “Is there anything else we must discuss? As you said, I must leave soon, and I still have so much to settle with Ca’aed and its caretakers.”
Z’eth dipped her muzzle. “Care for your city, Ambassador. May it stay strong for your return.”
They wished each other luck and parted, Z’eth to find her advisers, and T’sha to find her kite.
What T’sha could not find again was her calm. As her kite flew her home, T’sha turned Z’eth’s words over and over again, searching for comfort, or at least a kinder interpretation in them.
A feud with the New People. It was not something she had even considered. If the New People had any kind of claim on the candidate world, surely, the People themselves would simply leave. Life served life. Life spread life. Sane and balanced life did not spend itself in useless contest. It found its own niche and filled it to the fullest. The People were sane and balanced and would not feud with the New People.
But what if the New People feud with us?
All of T’sha’s bones contracted abruptly at the thought. No. She shook herself. It could not happen. There are things which must be true for all sane life. If they have no claim, they cannot contest our claim. There would be no reason for them to. Z’eth is a great ambassador, but perhaps she has been fighting too long for the life of her city.
Not that she is growing insane, T’sha added to herself hastily. But perhaps her focus has narrowed.
That was a good enough thought that T’sha could pretend to be content with it. But even so, Z’eth’s words about a sudden illness touching Ca’aed left a nagging fear. Almost instinctively, T’sha ordered her headset to call Ca’aed.
“Good luck, Ambassador,” came the city’s voice. “How went your meeting with Ambassador Z’eth?”
T’sha deflated. “I will tell you, Ca’aed. I don’t know which upset me more, Z’eth or her city.”
Ca’aed murmured sympathetically. “Visiting the sick can be distressing.”
A silence stretched out between them while T’sha worked up the courage to ask the question that would not leave her alone. “Ca’aed?”
“Yes, T’sha?”
T’sha deflated even further, as if the weight of her thoughts pressed down on her. “You said…you said you were afraid that you would suffer, as Gaith suffered—”
“I am afraid, T’sha. I cannot help it.”
“But I may find that the New People have a legitimate claim on the candidate world. What then?”
Ca’aed was silent for a long moment. When it did speak, the words came slowly, as if the city had to drag them out one at a time. “If they live in the world, if they spread life and help life, and still their life and ours cannot live together sanely, I believe we must then find another world.”
Love welled up out of T’sha’s soul. She did not question her city’s words. If the words were not completely true, she did not want to know. She wanted only to believe. While she had Ca’aed with her, she could do anything and needed no other ally.
As Ca’aed’s sphere came into view, their talk turned to the provisions made for T’sha’s absence. Together they reviewed the promises of authority and caretaking and agreed to their wording. Ca’aed reported it was getting on well with Ta’teth, the newly selected deputy ambassador, but that Ta’teth’s sudden elevation still made him nervous.
T’sha couldn’t blame him. She knew what it was to sit cloistered in a waiting room while all the Kan Ca’aed considered your skills, your family, the promises you had made and accepted, and told the pollers who went from compound to compound whether they believed you were worthy of their trust. And this was before the question was even officially put to Ca’aed itself.
“He will calm down soon, I believe,” said Ca’aed. “Wait. Ah. Your parents speak to me and ask me to remind you that you agreed to stop by your home and talk about marriage promises.”
“Do they?” T’sha clacked her teeth hard, once.
“You should have your own household.”
Indignation swelled T’sha back up to her normal size. “Are those your words or theirs?”
“Both.”
I am surrounded. “You are my city, not my marriage broker.”
“You are my citizen as well as my ambassador. I speak for your welfare. Does your own body not speak to you of children?”
“Frequently.” This is a lovely conversation to be having right now. It is not a distraction I need.
“Well then?”
“All right, all right.” T’sha rattled her wings. “Take me there. Public affairs must wait for affairs of the home and egg, it would seem.”
“Sometimes, T’sha.” A rare flash of humor brightened Ca’aed’s voice. “Sometimes.”
Ca’aed spoke to T’sha’s kite and took control, guiding it between the swarm of traffic—kite, wing, and dirigible that always buzzed about Ca’aed and its wake villages. T’sha’s birth family lived near the top of the city. When she was young, she and her siblings had played chase, darting in and out of the light portals that made up their personal ceiling.
The family Br’ei had encouraged a garden around the tendons that tied their private chambers to
the main body of the city. Anemones in all the colors of life puffed out eggs and pollen that sparkled brightly in the approaching twilight. T’sha paused in front of the main door, intending to take time to organize her thoughts, but she misjudged her distance. The door caught a taste of her and opened.
Her birth parents waited for her in the center of the greeting room—pale Mother Pa’and who seemed to fill any room with her presence even when she was contracted down to the size of a child, and brightly shining Father Ta’ved, who had an aura of calm around him that could work on T’sha better than ten hours in a refresher. The interlocking rings of their marriage tattoos still appeared as dark and strong against their skin as they had when T’sha was a child.
Father Ta’ved’s city had fallen to a slow rot, one of the first. Mother Pa’and’s family could not bear the idea of their friends all falling into an ordinary term of indenture, so they arranged for Ta’ved to enter into a childbearing marriage with their oldest daughter. After two children, Ta’ved and Pa’and decided they both liked the arrangement. Ta’ved liked not having the pressures of his own house to worry over, and Pa’and found him an excellent father and friend. So, they renewed the promise. Pa’and even gave Ta’ved the option of bringing other spouses into the household, but he had never used it.
“Good luck, Mother Pa’and, Father Ta’ved.” T’sha rubbed her parents’ muzzles. She noticed, gratefully, that they had decided to leave her little sisters T’kel and Pa’daid out of this family conversation. T’deu had probably absented himself.
“Now.” T’sha backed just far enough away so she could see their eyes. “Let me see if I can guess how this will go. Mother Pa’and, you will wish me the best of luck on my new mission.” Mother dipped her muzzle in acknowledgment. Father clacked his teeth, just a little. “And you, Father Ta’ved, will mention that this is likely to be the work of a lifetime. Mother, you will agree with him and say how hard it is to do the work of a lifetime with no family to support you, to have to promise constantly and barter for everything that you need instead of being surrounded by those who are dedicated to helping you because their future and contentment are tied to yours.” T’sha swelled, spreading her wings to encompass the whole room. “Father will agree profoundly, and I, so moved by your arguments, will fly instantly to the marriage broker, pick myself out three husbands and a wife, and not leave for the candidate world until my entire load of eggs is thoroughly fertilized.” She subsided.
