When complete, one of the Porters scooped Laurel from the ground and deposited her gently on one of the benches. She sank into it as if on a featherbed, her head, shoulders, hips, and knees perfectly cradled. The bench was still warm from the baking process. It radiated heat, and Laurel’s shivering finally ended. She dropped immediately into deep, impenetrable sleep.
Asach ran a hand over the second bench, expecting a rough, dusty surface. Instead, it had the silky feel of soapstone, or polished wood: not slick like tile or glass, but warm like burnished pottery. Which was, Asach thought, essentially what it was. However, while Sargon stood, Asach did as well, in a stance of patient waiting, which the others seemed to find inoffensive. The furnishings team departed. The sun moved across the room, its rays warming the couch bases from every direction. Clearly the dome shape; the windows; the couches themselves had been situated to catch the warmth and light. Asach drank. The Moties chittered.
Then, Asach heard absolute silence, but felt an eldritch noise, like a disturbance in the very bones. Like jump shock, but without the disordered mind. Like grease sliding beneath the skin. Sargon stepped aside, and another framed the doorway. Its hair coat was beyond white— it shimmered platinum, even in the yellow sunlight. It was stooped, and its gripping hand rested heavily on the shoulder of the younger, smaller Enheduanna. The greasy feeling became prickly. Asach resisted the temptation to brush away a thousand centipedes. Laurel groaned and turned on the couch, but did not rise.
The feeling stopped abruptly. It said, “Halo,” in a booming voice.
Asach nearly dropped in surprise; recovered; answered. “Hello. I am Asach Quinn. This is Laurel Courter.”
The creepy feeling resumed briefly, then faded. “Halo,” it said again, “Mipela nem Tokkipa. Yu nem wanem?”
Asach felt dizzy. Of all the things on all the worlds possible on that day, hearing an alien being speak Tok Pisin was not among them. Meeting an alien named Word-Keeper in Tok Pisin ranked in likelihood right up there with purple cows. But there was nothing for it. Asach took the plunge.
“Mi nem Amari Selkirk Alidade Clarke Hathaway Quinn. Dispela nem Laurel Courter.”
The creepy feeling began again.
Had Asach benefited from Colchis Barthes’ find in Saint George, an ancient creature’s command of the language of servants and field hands would have been a good deal less mystifying. But operating while mystified was Quinn’s element, and Asach forged ahead, thankful for this Rosetta Stone even if its origins were at best incomprehensible, and at worst profoundly terrifying.
Asach was as aware as anyone of the perils to humanity attendant on a Motie breech of either of two blockades at Alderson points entering human space. The first and oldest, called the Crazy Eddie Point, was held by the Navy. A shift in that point the previous year had nearly allowed the fractured remains of a dozen warring Motie factions to burst through from the environs of Mote Prime. Holding it consumed most of the Navy’s resources—and placed a tremendous burden on Imperial taxpayers. That much was general knowledge.
The second jump point, called The Sister, was policed by an alliance of Motie traders. That alliance was cemented by their collective interest in the profits to be made through technology transfer from the Mote System to the Empire. Were the Navy’s incapacity to hold two simultaneous blockades insufficient incentive to maintain this shaky endeavor, Bury’s Imperial Autonetics legacy gave at least some humans additional venal motives for trans-species cooperation. The Sister too was under constant assault from shifting factions of the many enemies of their Motie allies.
The intrigue surrounding The Sister was not general knowledge—at least not yet. The Empire had spent the better part of three decades convincing a public scattered among a hundred worlds that humankind’s very survival depended upon keeping all Moties out of human space. The message that survival now depended on Moties policing themselves was proving difficult to spin. Regarding the Motie inheritance angle, the terms of Bury’s will were private. They were known only to Bury’s immediate family, those who had been present at the reading (including Renner and the Blaines), and an inner circle at Imperial Autonetics. The fact that Moties now held a forty-plus-percent stake in the Empire’s largest and most powerful industrial giant was not a statistic the Board wished widely known. Asach had not exactly been in touch with the latest news, let alone at the center of Imperial policy-making, during that sabbatical on Makassar.
So, in Asach’s mind, the only way that Moties could be present on New Utah was if one of the blockades had been broken. But, if that were so, where was the Motie technology? Where was the spaceport? Where were the Engineers and their Watchmaker helpers? Where were the sterile Mediators—the only caste allowed into human space? Was this—a worst-case-scenario—a new Motie farming colony? If so, the Empire’s worst fears had already been realized. The phenomenal Motie reproductive rate would soon overwhelm New Utah. How could this have happened without Imperial knowledge?
Powers of detachment served well, as several days of intensive language acquisition wore on with questions burning in the back of Asach’s mind. The old Master held the rank of Keeper-of-Words, charged with maintaining the legends associated with Sargon’s line. Lagash sifted these for human phrases. Most of these were in Middle Anglic. Asach painstakingly built a vocabulary from Tok Pisin to Anglic. They worked through numbers, nouns, actions. They called in other Masters, including the customs Accountant. They called in Doctors. They called in Miners. The young Master kept records, and had a phenomenal memory. Eventually, they exhausted the confines of the room, and Asach was allowed outside. They called in Farmers. They learned enough to carry on crude conversations. Laurel sat in stunned silence on the sidelines. Asach tried to draw her out, but received in answer only stoic tears.
Asach requested food.
“I will ask the Lord,” said Enheduanna.
Dizzy with hunger, Asach managed to send another round of bursts that night. Laurel moved like an automaton, muttering prayer.
“Wait!” called Asach, as a pinhead-sized light fluttered. “Hold it there!” This time, there was a reply:
FLASH Quinn Eyes Only.
Read attached Barthes report. Are ‘Swenson’s Apes’ Moties? Is Motie presence: New? Expanding? Threat? . Re: pre-Accession rules—prime directive applies, plausible deniability authorized. Possible translation keys attached. Advise efficacy. Barthes unblocked. Will provide him full Library data. Comms relay authorized as needed. Standing by for jump. All Due Haste. Renner.
Next came a copy of Barthes’ message with the Swenson’s Ape report, and a stream of sound files. Telemetry followed, with transmission windows and azimuths to the satellite.
Asach swore as the last of the cloak’s stored energy drained, and pondered the options. The bottom line was: Do what you can, and do what you have to, to protect the Empire. Screw pre-Accession rules if you must. Use Barthes if you can. You’re on you own until we get there. Oh yeah, thought Asach, screw it up, and we’ll swear we never knew you. Well, that was just about right. At the moment, resources included a nineteen-year-old suffering a crisis of faith, a librarian half-way across the continent, some files that would remain unreadable until daylight, and not even a pot to pee in.
‘Let’s get some sleep,” said Asach. “Big day tomorrow.”
At least this time Laurel nodded.