Okay, so W’th’vaathi just doesn’t like, or isn’t accustomed to, thinking outside the box. “But there’s no reason we shouldn’t go there, then?”
W’th’vaathi paused again, but this time, as though she was having to consider an entirely new concept. “No. But it lacks adequate preparation.”
Gaspard leaned into that explanation. “Adequate preparation?”
“We have not sent appropriate provisions or furnishings there. Nor have Yiithrii’ah’aash’s picked taxae spokespersons convened there. Also, is it not a likely site for the attackers to destroy, if they penetrate our defenses?”
“It might be,” Caine admitted. “But is it not fortified, or equipped with defenses of its own? Is it not a comparatively safe place?”
W’th’vaathi thought again, but more briefly. “It is, but we find that safety in such situations is better achieved by being difficult to find, rather than hard to destroy.”
“Normally, I would agree, W’th’vaathi. But I fear that there is no way that we can be made as difficult to find as you would be on your own.”
“Indeed? Why do you so conjecture?”
“Sensors will pick us out,” Macmillan asserted with confidence. “If the attackers come after us, their sensors would easily discriminate our thermals and outlines from yours. Our own arrays could manage that, and the enemy technology seems to be well ahead of ours.”
W’th’vaathi considered this new information carefully. “It seems, then, that we must go to the Silver Tower. It is one of three such places on Disparity, a place where our spokespersons convene and where we store artifactures.”
Veriden frowned at the strange word that had emerged from W’th’vaathi’s backpack. “‘Artifactures’? I think your translator needs a programming update.”
W’th’vaathi’s tendrils made a wavelike motion that Caine read as easy agreement. “It may be as you say. Our translating artif — no, I perceive now: our translators are what you would call ‘complex machines,’ not merely ‘tools.’ So: these translating machines were last updated before the most recent Convocation. I suspect they are deficient in many of the nuances of your various languages. Specifically, we label all nonliving creations as ‘artifactures.’ This is a crude approximation of our actual term, which contains more embedded allusions than may be conveniently referenced during a conversation.”
“So, you store all your machines — and tools and gadgets — in the silver towers?” Dora seemed all at once surprised and doubtful.
“All those we deem complex. We keep unpowered tools and very simple machines, such as vises and gliders and winches, in our arboria, but nothing that would be efficacious in defense.”
Upon hearing the word “defense,” Caine nodded. “But the Silver Towers are equipped with defense technologies?”
“Some,” W’th’vaathi answered tentatively.
“Yes,” asserted Thnessfiirm. “They are mostly of a remote-operated nature. And the towers have reinforced subterranean layers. They provide shelter and are constructed so that occupants may withdraw from the structure without being observed.”
Well, the cerdorae certainly seem to be the go-to taxon for military needs. Caine nodded. “Then the Silver Tower is precisely where we must go.”
W’th’vaathi’s long neck wobbled from side to side. Her tone was uncertain. “It is not in our nature to give visitors access to our complex machines. I have instructions to observe and to render aid. But bringing you to a Silver Tower that has not been adequately prepared—”
Or do you mean, “adequately sanitized?”
“—contravenes prior guidelines.”
“Can’t your Senior Ratiocinators be contacted to vouch for us, to confirm that it is safe to bring us to this closest Silver Tower?”
“We cannot contact them directly. The OverWatchling prevents all long-range communication during any incident where invaders may be in or near orbit.”
“Then how the hell do you coordinate counterattacks, ambushes, supply disruption, jamming, observation?” Keith Macmillan’s voice was relatively calm, but his face was becoming a bright red.
Thnessfiirm seemed to have the best implicit sense of the humans’ frustrations with Slaasriithi defensive preparations and infrastructure. “You will understand that the circumstances occasioned by your arrival are unknown to us, except as mentioned in the chronicles of our distant past.”
“We do understand,” Riordan assured the smaller Slaasriithi, cutting a sharp look at Keith. “But those of us who are charged with ensuring the safety of our group find it worrying that we will not have access to, er, complex machines with which to protect ourselves.”
“I comprehend their worry and share it,” W’th’vaathi asserted. “And I am decided: your party is other than we thought it to be. And it is not credible that you are attackers masquerading as victims. This was a possibility which my taxon’s seniors warned me to guard against, but I am satisfied that you are not dissembling. We shall travel to the Third Silver Tower. On the way there, your need of food can be answered by the efforts of the convectorae. However,” she looked at Caine directly, “your illness is a more difficult matter. Did you spend any extended time sheltering under one of these trees?” She gestured to a cone tree.
“I did.”
“Was the olfactory experience not…aversive?”
“Yes, but the predators that had me ringed in were even more aversive.”
Riordan had the sense of a dire silence as the Slaasriithi looked at each other with unseen eyes. “We comprehend. We will make all haste. We shall invite these water-striders to summon others of their kind and we shall go downriver as swiftly as we may.”
“Um, we were expecting help from those complex machines you mentioned,” Veriden intruded brusquely.
W’th’vaathi’s tendril-fingers drooped. “I regret to say that the Third Silver Tower lacks many of the assets of our other two. It is equipped to receive and launch our cargo craft, but they are all hypervelocity ballistic systems. They are unable to land without special facilities. Besides, they would attract the attention of your attackers.”
“Do you know if the attackers are still near Disparity?”
“We suspect so. There is no indication that they have left the system.”
Macmillan now sounded distinctly annoyed. “Then why haven’t you hunted them down, chased them off?”
“I reemphasize that Disparity is a transitioning colony world. We have no such defense-in-depth, and cannot risk losing more of our assets.”
Gaspard threw up his hands. “But this system is adjacent to your homeworld.”
W’th’vaathi’s sensor cluster fixed on him. If the Slaasriithi had been a human, Riordan had the impression she would simply have shrugged and asked, “And what’s your point?”
The ratiocinator’s silence seemed to increase Gaspard’s exasperation. “How can you not have more developed defenses at such a close approach, such a key access point, to your homeworld?”
“Why should we?”
“Mon Dieu, because this might be the system from which an invader would stage an attack to destroy your homeworld!”
“But the destruction of any race’s homeworld is directly prohibited by the Twenty-First Accord. And there are many defenses at the system you call Beta Aquilae. But even if it was to succumb to an attacker, we would simply shift our emphasis to a new homeworld.”
Caine goggled. “A new homeworld? Can’t there only be one?”