"All part of the service." He glanced over at Tall Eyebrow again, who was trying to answer questions from three delegates at once, all of whom were clamoring for his sole attention. "He looks as confused as I feel." He turned to Big Eyes. "Excuse me. Talk to my friend."
"Stay," she said, with an urgent gesture and a high-pitched peep that indicated an exponent of urgency. "Elders."
Keff looked around. Two more of the eight, Smooth Hand and Big Voice, were making their way toward him, followed by the usual entourage of aides and flunkeys. Like Big Eyes, they wore modified capes of various colors and lengths attached at throat and wrists.
"You are here already," Smooth Hand said to Big Eyes. "Have you broached discussion with him yet?"
"No," Big Eyes said briefly. "We acquaint."
"Good," Smooth Hand signed. "Here are six of the eight members of the conclave council representatives, so our discussion may be of significance."
"Now's your big chance to impress them," Carialle said.
"Maybe they've made a decision on joining Central Worlds," Keff said, wishing he'd sacrificed comfort for dignity and worn the uniform after all. "How serve, gentle-ones?" he asked, keeping the signs as short as he could. The young female up-nodded encouragingly toward him.
Always a quick study, but unwilling to sacrifice courtesy for speed, Keff tried to incorporate his new friend's lessons in his handspeech. Working from discussions he had had with Tall Eyebrow about traditional protocol, he gave Smooth Hand the respect due the oldest member of the conclave, then greeted the others, ending with Big Eyes. She gave him a quick gesture of approval with joined thumb and long forefinger.
"That was a hash," Keff murmured to Carialle without moving his lips. "The Minute Waltz in eight seconds."
"Looked fine from here," Carialle said. "And they seem happy."
"In return," Smooth Hand said, "we greet you." Keff bowed his head as deeply as he could, and waited.
As usual, Big Voice took the lead in the discussion. The stout amphibioid pushed forward to the center of the group and glared at Keff, who glanced at Smooth Hand for direction. Instead of attempting to overbear the pompous councillor, the old one stood back with an air of indulgence. Keff assumed an air of respectful attention that made Big Eyes's eponymous features twinkle with amusement. Big Voice began his dissertation with exaggerated movements of his elbows designed to clear away anyone standing within half a meter of him. Everyone edged away. Keff carefully pulled in his knees.
"Stranger to this world, we are grateful that you return to us lost descendants of our ancestors," Big Voice gestured hugely. "From the far reaches of the void they come, never thought to have been seen again…" The language of diplomacy appeared to be rooted in both the new and old forms, comprising more sign than was used by Big Eyes-which bored her and the other young members of the council-and more verbiage than Keff's version, which confused the brawn. Keff paused and nodded and smiled in between the flowery statements, waiting for IT to cycle back translations to him utilizing the growing catalog it was picking up of the spoken language. Keff hoped that he would look thoughtful, rather than lost. His brief and polite replies, made when Big Voice stopped for breath, seemed to please his audience.
"… And that is how our cousins' journey ended, here on beautiful Cridi."
"We are grateful for your welcome of us."
"You say that you did not know of the Cridi who inhabited Sky Clear?"
"No," Keff said. "We had lost track of some of our own people many hundreds of years ago. They settled on, er, Sky Clear, and thereafter dropped out of communication with us. As it was with your ancestors."
"So, they have been self-governing all this time?" Big Voice asked. "Without the approval of your Central Worlds?"
"Well, not without the approval of the government, but certainly without its knowledge. We lost touch, you see." Keff tried the phrase a couple of ways and hoped they understood.
"So, it is not your Central Worlds who holds the half of Sky Clear?" Big Voice asked.
"Not precisely," Keff said carefully, settling in for a long explanation. "Our people, descendants of my ancestors who set out many hundreds of years ago, settled the world alongside yours. To encounter them, we-and they-were as surprised to see one another as you are to meet Tall Eyebrow and his companions."
"But they did not set down upon this world at the same time, nor before the Cridi?"
"He's going somewhere," Carialle said, in between sound bites from IT in Keff's aural implant. "I don't like what I think he's getting at."
"Neither do I. Not to my knowledge," Keff said out loud, sensing he was treading on tricky ground. "The humans who live on Oz-Sky Clear were not as good recordkeepers as the Cridi." Mentally he crossed his fingers, knowing he was eliding the truth. The early settlers had kept good tape archives of their settlement, and none of it included references to the Cridi except as a curious life-form they thought was indigenous to Ozran.
"Are we to understand that you came to our world only to convey our lost children?" Smooth Hand inquired, interrupting Big Voice by standing in front of him.
Keff was grateful to have a respite from Big Voice's pointed questioning. "That and to ask your people to join the great conclave of planets and beings we call the Central Worlds." Keff had worked out a set of handsigns he found symbolic of those concepts of unity and cooperation. The elder picked it up without a demur, and repeated it to the others. "This organization boasts members from many species besides humanity. We are proud of our diversity. I am instructed to convey the compliments of our government and say that they, and we, would be delighted if you would join."
"Beginning to think no intelligent life existed outside our own," Smooth Hand said, with dry humor. "How many are there?"
"Thousands of inhabited planets, hundreds of intelligent species with uncounted subgroups, millions of non-sentient protected species in various stages of development," Keff said, hoping he was placing the exponents correctly in his voiced phrases.
"Most impressive," Smooth Hand gestured, thoughtfully.
The other councillors chattered formulae at one another, speculating on the size of Central Worlds' sphere. Keff waved politely for attention.
"I can give you star charts, if you want."
"Yes! Occasional talk of ships passing through our system," Big Eyes said, describing the decline of an arc across the sky. "Believed to be myths. Not know. You?"
"Maybe," Keff said. "Maybe another race. There are countless others out there that we've never met. You might even have neighbors and not know it."
"Maybe the salvage squad," Carialle sputtered in his ear.
"Not in system," Big Voice protested. "That known of old."
"Meteors or myths," the elder said, indulgently. "If not myths, why not land before now? Why were they not curious? All ground control has ever retrieved is rocks. Fly-by saucers are mythical. System has very strange and strong anomalies."
"You can say that again," Carialle said. "That trash heap at the binary end of the heliopause, whew!"
"Shh, Cari," Keff said softly, nodding and smiling at the delegates.
Big Voice hovered above everyone's head and waved for attention. "The presence of so many other worlds containing humans shall then pose no difficulty in moving those off Sky Clear in favor of Cridi."
"Aha!" Carialle said.
"What?" Keff sputtered. "This is a long-established society, sir. It might have been different if you had made such a demand within say, three years of the discovery. Not after a thousand years. That's like saying that dinosaurs have a permanent claim on Burbank, California, on Old Earth just because some of their relatives are buried in the La Brea tar pits."
Big Voice paid no attention to his simile.