Downing’s smile widened, then seemed to falter, along with his eyes. He turned quickly, exited with a backward wave as the hatchway into the Commonwealth—or would it now be Terran?—corvette sealed with a shrill hiss. A moment later, Caine felt a slight shudder in the module, as though something were pressing down on the roof of the room: the counterspin boosters. The fractional centrifugal forces that had provided a faint pseudo-gravity diminished, were gone.
All alone in a can in space, weightless and adrift. But no, not quite alone. Caine looked at the iris valve at the other end of the chamber. No reason to be apprehensive. So far, the Slaasriithi were the most honest—if reclusive and enigmatic—allies that Earth had. It was beyond thinking that there should be any danger from them, particularly here. Their recently arrived ship was enveloped by the entirety of the human fleet, and fully exposed to the scrutiny of Alnduul and the Custodians. And yet—
“You are present, the-Riordan-called-Caine?”
Caine rose—and felt quite stupid. He was still alone, so for whom was he standing?
“I am.”
“And you are alone?”
“As you requested. May I ask to whom I am speaking?”
“My full name is cumbersome for your tongue and quite long. Perhaps you would consent to call me Yiithrii’ah’aash.”
I will if I can. “I am pleased to meet you, Yiithrii’ah’aash.” Caine had the sensation of his tongue being poised to stumble over the downhill slalom of syllables, was surprised to get to the end of the word without major disaster. “While I doubt I could pronounce it just yet, I would be happy to learn your full name and what it means.”
“This is most gracious and we appreciate it. However, we would defer this to some other time, if this is acceptable.”
I had good enough manners to try; he has good enough manners to let me off the hook. We’re off to a good start. “Of course, Yiithrii’ah’aash. I would appreciate knowing your title, however.”
“It translates quite imperfectly into your language, the-Riordan-called-Caine, and it is not so much a title as a denotation of present function. One term for it would be ‘facilitator’; another might be ‘liaison-symbiote.’ I do not know your language well enough to determine which more accurately reflects my role in this meeting.”
“You seem to know our language quite well—” And then Caine realized that the voice was not a machine equivalent. “Yiithrii’ah’aash, you are speaking to me without the benefit of a Dornaani translator?”
“This is correct.”
“How did you—?”
“The-Riordan-called-Caine, we, too, are a species renowned for our curiosity, so it is with regret that I must decline to answer your questions. I am under fairly restrictive time constraints. Suffice it to say that it was my honor to be selected to become fully familiar with the speciate self-reference materials that you presented at the Convocation.”
Good grief, that would mean—“You became familiar with all those materials?”
“This is so.”
“That was a great deal of work, Yiithrii’ah’aash.”
“It was a great honor and illumination. We Slaasriithi regret to have given you such limited information in return, and it is for this reason—among others—that this meeting was deemed advisable as soon as it was practicable.”
“I’m sorry. I do not understand.”
“My apologies. I will elucidate. It was our desire to communicate directly with you at the Convocation. However, in the months preceding that gathering, envoys from the Arat Kur arrived at one of the contact points along our shared border, urgently requesting dialog with our representatives. Their intent, plainly put, was that we should help them deny human admission to the Accord.”
Son of a—“But how could they do so without revealing details of our race, without violating the privacy stipulations of the Accord?”
“Your bafflement reprises our own. However, in telling us about humanity, the Arat Kur demonstrated that they had a far greater awareness of the ancient history and inhabitants of this region of space than we did. Based on their reaction to your candidacy for membership in the Accord, humanity seemed to be the epicenter of their species’ fears. When we refused to commit to an a priori rejection of your candidacy, we discovered that their fears of you quickly became fears of us.”
“Because you had indirectly supported us?”
“That, too, but subsequent information prompted us to reconsider the possible causes of the Arat Kur’s diminished congeniality.”
The end of the sentence dangled like a baited hook. “And what new causes came to light, Yiithrii’ah’aash?”
“There are several, but most share a common root. It is conjectured that, in some time past, your race and mine were, if not allied, then at least affined.”
Caine smiled at the archaic usage.
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s voice skimmed and glided in an oddly liquid fashion over the English phonemes and idioms. “As Convocation approached, we projected that any ready exchanges between us, or strong support for your candidacy, could make the Arat Kur—intemperate.”
Caine understood. “Because if they interpreted your friendship toward us as a prelude to alliance, they’d preemptively move to a war footing, escalating what might have been a salvageable situation.”
“Yes, this was our thinking. We regret and apologize for its profound flaws.”
“You couldn’t have known that they had already prepared themselves for war,” Caine pointed out.
“Embarrassingly, we did not even consider it a possibility. It was too uncharacteristically precipitous and aggressive for their species.”
“Convocation was beyond anyone’s power to salvage,” Caine said with a shrug. “However, I have since learned that your ships were commerce-raiding all along the Arat Kur border during the war, keeping more than a third of the Wholenest’s military assets tied up in fear of a large-scale incursion.”
“That is so.”
“Well, that was an immense help, and my leaders wish to express their immense appreciation for it. With this war behind us, we can initiate the kinds of cultural exchange I’m sure both our peoples would welcome.”
“This is a most interesting proposition, and one which we must discuss at some later date. However, our time now grows short. Perhaps it would be wise for us to conclude this dialog with a brief meeting.”
Or maybe not. I’ve faced enough anxieties, real and imagined, for one year, thank you. But Caine said, “Yes. I would like that.”
The green light above the airlock’s iris valve flashed three times and went out. The portal opened with a breathy squeal and Caine stepped forward, glad for the speed with which this was happening, that his mind had less than one second to spin within the maelstrom of primal fears that he had come to associate with first contacts. What will they look like? What will they smell like? Will I lose my composure, run gibbering into a corner because what I have seen is something that humans should never have seen, should never have encountered? Will I unwittingly insult them? Will I fail my race by seeming stupid, inept, rude, too aggressive, too passive, too silent, too loquacious? In short, how can you control the encounter and win the day, when the rules of the game change every time you play it?
However, Caine stopped in mid-stride—because there had been no way to be ready for what he saw. Because he did feel like running into a corner, gibbering, the universe tilting and making less sense with every passing second.