Caine leaned back. “I don’t understand.”
“It has been at least ten millennia since the indagatorae walked amongst us. The genome for that taxae has been heavily compromised. It was repressed whenever it attempted to naturally reexpress in our communities. What is left of its coding is inconsistent, incomplete: insufficient.”
“So you can’t reintroduce the indagator?”
“Not by ourselves, no.”
Caine shook his head. “I don’t understand. How can I help? What do you need?”
Yiithrii’ah’aash spoke slowly, carefully. “We must have access to the original genome, to a genecode which was not altered by our repeated and forceful suppression of the indagator.”
Caine frowned — and then understood. “The beings I met on Delta Pavonis Three, the devolved versions of your species: although they are regressed, they still carry that genome.”
“Precisely. Indeed, I suspect that their population is heavily shaped by the genecodes particular to the indagator taxon. It is unlikely any other taxon could survive in isolation for so long.”
Caine nodded. “And you need me to get permission to acquire a sample and—”
Yiithrii’ah’aash was buzzing softly but steadily. When Caine grew silent, Yiithrii’ah’aash said, “No. That would not be sufficient. We cannot know if every cell, or any cell, in one Pavonian’s body or blood would carry the entirety of the code we require. It may only reside in what you would call stem cells, or in the nuclei of other specialized cell types. And only our experts will be able to make that determination.”
Finally Caine understood what Yiithrii’ah’aash was asking of him. “You need me to take you to Delta Pavonis Three to meet, and abscond with, one or more Pavonians.”
“Not abscond,” Yiithrii’ah’aash insisted. “We would not compel compliance. But we will not need to. The mark they placed upon you tells me that. They will still recognize rapport spores; they will understand.”
“Okay,” Caine allowed, “but what if they don’t understand? As you said, Ambassador, the Pavonians may be ‘of’ you, but they are not Slaasriithi anymore. So the way I look at it, that makes them free agents. Even if it’s best that they cooperate with you, they’re under no obligation to do so. And I won’t support any attempts to coerce or compel their compliance.”
“And I will never ask you to, Caine Riordan, because we are in absolute accord on this point: the Pavonians must be free to choose their own path. However, the mark on you tells me that they will hear our call and will come with us.”
“All of them?”
“Only if they so wish. But eventually, I believe they all shall. However, I suspect that we will not be able to tarry to determine this during our first visit.”
Caine mentally checked how this scenario would impact the clockwork gears of humanity’s own political machinery. Yiithrii’ah’aash was right about not tarrying: Earth needed Slaasriithi technical assistance as quickly and as profoundly as the Slaasriithi needed the return of their indagatorae. But doing so promptly was going to involve a territorial violation, no way around it.
Trying to process a formal request for access was a nonstarter. It would take months, maybe years, to be cleared by the fledgling Terran Republic’s inchoate and still-decentralized bureaucratic and diplomatic services. The upside of the violation was that, once the deed was done, the resulting agreement might provide an easy way to send most or all of the Pavonians to a good home, leaving DeePeeThree wide open for unrestricted human settlement. That would make everyone happy — eventually. But in the meantime…
“Yiithrii’ah’aash, you are aware that if we do this, it will be without any official permission or knowledge. In short, I will be violating the laws of my own government.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash bobbed slowly. “I have examined the ramifications of what I ask. That is why I only ask it now, after you have seen us in our worlds: peaceful, productive, and woefully incapable of protecting ourselves. Or of being truly useful allies to you. To change that, we must reintroduce the indagator. And to accomplish that, we must act in stealth and in violation of your laws.” He rose slowly, stiffly; was it a formal gesture of some sort, perhaps a supplication? “I would not ask this of you if there was any other way for our need to be met, or if the consequences were not so great. For both our peoples. And so I ask: would you do us the honor of consenting to be our Liaison with humanity?”
Caine stared at the tubes running into his arms, many without the benefit of needles or other mechanical interfaces. What had made this mission — a deep contact — different from a first contact was that the strangest and most unexpected challenges were those that percolated within oneself, not in exchanges with the exosapients. In this case, the questions and consequences spawned by Yiithrii’ah’aash’s request were so immense, and so intertwined with humanity’s uncertain and rapidly unfolding future, that it was impossible to separate and dissect them all discretely. At some point, the person on the spot just had to go with their gut feelings and choose a path.
“I will be your Liaison,” Caine answered. He felt a little giddy, a little as if he were trying to walk a tightrope at a very high altitude. “Now what?”
“Now,” Yiithrii’ah’aash answered slowly, “I believe we must converse with Ambassador Gaspard.”
* * *
Not quite two hours later, Gaspard stared after Yiithrii’ah’aash’s receding form, rubbing his chin meditatively.
“Well?” asked Riordan. “Will you support it?”
The ambassador quirked a smile. “Was my decision ever truly in doubt, Captain?”
“As far as I’m concerned, it still is. Nothing’s settled until you agree to the mission explicitly. And on the record.”
A single short laugh escaped from Gaspard’s thin-lipped mouth. “You have become cautious of administrators and bureaucrats, Monsieur Riordan: good for you. So, yes: I explicitly and formally agree to the mission Yiithrii’ah’aash asks you to undertake to Delta Pavonis Three, and release the legation staff you require for that purpose. Of course, you understand that my approval is still but a legal fig leaf. I do not explicitly have the power to agree to a covert foreign entry into our space. Even permission to overtly receive their ship into one of our systems would require final confirmation and scheduling, although it is within my powers as a plenipotentiary ambassador to agree to it.”
Riordan nodded carefully. “Yes, but you are still giving your consent. Which means you are instructing me to carry out this mission. If anyone is displeased, they will be coming after your hide, Etienne, no matter how much you protest, rightly, that it was my idea.”
“I will claim derangement,” Gaspard waved airily, “brought on by the stress of our ordeals upon Disparity and so forth.” The ambassador smiled. Caine found that he was starting to like this man that he had originally dismissed as a nuisance and a popinjay. “Seriously, Captain, I have my reservations about what Yiithrii’ah’aash has requested. The same ones you have voiced, in fact. Since we were unable to detect the marking the Pavonians had impressed upon you, it only stands to reason that the Slaasriithi could deposit more subtle markers, or perhaps biochemical agents, upon any of us or in any of the planetary environments with which they come into contact.”
The ambassador sighed, leaned back in his chair. “But ironically, it is this very fact which decides me in favor of bypassing the appropriate quarantine and assessment protocols upon which our bureaucrats would insist. Not because they are unduly worried by such exposures: their concerns over surreptitious xenobiological intrusion could hardly be more justified than in this case. But by the time they arrive at an independent means of detecting the microorganisms or diffuse organic traces in question, this political moment will be long past.”