Jaydium (23 page)

“I honor the light of your water.”

“And we honor the light of yours.”

Something in Raerquel's eerie silence as it settled itself on the floor nearby prevented them from deluging it with questions. They waited.

Raerquel's upper appendages curled and uncurled repeatedly. It reminded Kithri unexpectedly of an old jaydium miner coerced into giving a public speech. Dowdell had once looked like that, when his drinking buddies at the Thirsty Miner found out it was his birthday, and made him stand up and tell a joke or else buy a drink for every man there. She could see him, face flushed, shoulders hunched, pulling at his overall pockets and looking around for some place to spit. She almost smiled at the memory, but then the old feelings — the pain and the desperate loneliness — rose up in her to wipe away any hint of nostalgia. Did she really want to go back to
that?

Raerquel began speaking. “Everything I have learned of you is convincing me that you are an intelligent and conscience-gifted species. You are my honored guests, not research animals to be kept ignorant for the sake of experimental protocol.”

“Ignorant? Of what, exactly?” Eril asked as he sat down again. As he spoke, Kithri watched his face. A few minutes ago, going through the water ritual, he'd looked so calm, like a tri-vid hero. Now he seemed more human.

“The quaking we experienced was not a natural phenomenon,” said Raerquel.

“But if it was artificial,” Kithri said, puzzled, “it must have been
enormous
.”

“The detonation of interplanetary missile at uninhabited northern polar region was indeed enormous,” replied Raerquel. “Fortunately, the NewHome leaders were not intending the destruction of life, only a warning.”

“Oh my god,” Lennart said, running his hands over his flushed face. “Not here, too.”

“What kind of warning?” Eril asked.

“It is as I feared,” Raerquel said after a brief hesitation. “Offspring planets NewHome and Tomorrow reacted to our arrogance with even greater belligerence, which must breed only more hostility. A trade embargo they could abide, but not the seizure of assets and expulsion of their diplomatic staff. As long as we continued discussions, there was hope that irrevocable action could be avoided. Now the first blow has been struck — a warning only, as I told you, but enough to frighten our own leaders into more desperate measures.”

Kithri's chin jutted upward as if it had a will of its own. “I've heard this kind of talk before,” she said. “‘Desperate measures'. ‘Irrevocable actions'. Nothing but excuses to do what they damned well pleased — and we were already in the midst of an interplanetary war.”

She narrowed her eyes. “How do we know this story isn't just another of your
tests
to see how we'll react?”

“Excellent questioning,” said Raerquel, continuing the graceful, rhythmic motion of its tentacles, “but you must inform me what proof you will accept. News broadcasts, which could be prerecorded in a dramatic manner? Verification from other clan superiors, who could be likewise deceitful? Personal observation of the blast site, which could be falsified?”

“How about the simple truth?” Lennart looked up, eyes shadowed. “Like they say, that's the best place to begin.”

“Is there such a thing, my human friend, as a
simple
truth? Not in this world, I am assuring you. Perhaps they are correct who believe that, by our own ambition in colonizing the stars, we have split our race into irreconcilable opponents. If so, does not each faction offer its own
simple
truth?

“Once,” the gastropoid continued, “in our dimmest past, we were only one clan. We all shared the same Flesh-Before-Naming. Such dissension as we now face would have been unimaginable. Then many clans arose, still sharing the same birthing place. Ocean-of-Home grew more and more crowded, until finally we were forced to emigrate, first to the land and then the heavens. We found and settled two ocean worlds, NewHome and Tomorrow.”

Brianna leaned forward, her voice steadier. “Since an aquatic environment is necessary for reproduction of your species, you chose compatible ecosystems. You must still share common experiences...a sense of shared origin...”

“They are our offspring worlds. Why should we mistrust them because their waters are different from ours? One clanmate does not take another hostage.”

“So what are you fighting about?” Lennart asked.

“
I
am not fighting, I am committed to
preventing
that most terrible disaster. Council-of-Ocean and other governing bodies fight because they fear their own blindness. They have given surrender to the illusion that light is divisible, that the light of NewHome — or Tomorrow — or even the strange world that saw your hatching — is in some fundamental way separate from the true light.”

The alien paused, then continued in its expressionless voice, “Hope for reconciliation has been advanced by only a few, such as myself, but even that small chance is now fading quickly. Last
untranslatable
-four, the leader of our peace faction was arrested for treason, and is now facing execution. Yet better the death of one individual than that of three living planets.”

“I
still
don't understand what you're fighting about,” Lennart said. His voice sounded harsher than Kithri had ever heard it. She'd always thought of him as gentle.

“Does it matter?” Eril said. “As you pointed out,
we
found plenty to fight about. And a lot of good people died trying to keep the Fifth Fed from falling apart.”

Listening to them, Kithri shivered involuntarily and hugged her arms tight to her body.
This can't be happening, Not like Stayman, And Albion... Skies, I don't want to think about it! I just want to get out of here!

“As to destructive capability,” Raerquel said with an incongruently airy wave of one tentacle, “it is a small matter of utilizing the atomic constituents of water, slightly modified.”

“You mean you're using hydrogen-fusion bombs?” Lennart asked. His face paled visibly.

“What's that?” Eril turned to him.

A flicker of something dark and unreadable passed across the ancient spaceman's eyes. “So your historians lost that particular achievement, heyh? Forgot your worst mistakes so you could make them all over again.”

“How could my people not know water and its deadly secrets?” Raerquel said. “It is our beginning, our ending. Our nourishment and our life.”

Raerquel swung its head section in Lennart's direction. “You have come from a world without armed conflict. Therefore it must be possible to achieve. You can tell us how it was accomplished, guide us, lend us the wisdom of your success. You will do this for us?”

Lennart lowered his eyes. “I...I don't know how much help I can be. We didn't
make
the peace, we only
inherited
it. It all happened hundreds of years ago! What good would it do now to hand you a bunch of slogans? Like they say,
this
and like they say,
that?
Oh, we studied all the historical speeches, the treaties, the Great Preamble. We had aggression-release and compromise training drilled into us from the time we could talk. Those that didn't — or wouldn't — pass the screener got mindwiped or sent to the asteroid mining camps where their so-called
violent tendencies
would at least be functional.”

“You exiled all the wolves and turned yourselves into a nation of...sheep,” Eril said. “The price of peace?”

“The price of war is a whole lot higher, captain,” Lennart said grimly.

“How dare you say
no
, now when these people ask you for help!” Kithri flared. “After all you've said about Brianna's Dominion and the pirates, about the Fed, about how we threw away your age of peace. It was all bullshit, wasn't it, all empty words — ”

“Words, yes!” Lennart cried. “That's how we made peace — empty words, repeated over and over in every conceivable combination until one day they weren't empty any more!”

He turned back to Raerquel. “I could tell you everything I remember — where the negotiations were held, which nations signed which accords, which leader gave which famous speech. But would any of it make sense to you? Would our human solution work here?”

“It
must
work,” said Raerquel. “Something must.”

After a long moment of silence, Brianna spoke up. “I don't understand your references to the aquatic origin of your species. Isn't this city — ”

“Only an adaptation. I will be sharing with you the waters that are the true source of our life, not these houses of dust. Soon, when Council-of-Ocean questions you. And once again you will tell us of your world, Eril-human-leader, and how you came here.”

Kithri's stomach gave a sudden lurch. “Does he have to go through that again? Your committee's already heard everything we have to say. One more time isn't going to make them believe us.”

Raerquel swung its tapered head section around so that all four discs gleamed in the laboratory's indirect lighting. The thing was
studying
her again.

She swallowed hard and went on, “And what do
we
have to do with your war? We sure as hell didn't start it, and Lennart's right, there's not a thing we can do to stop it.”

“If I can be providing proof of your personness,” Raerquel answered slowly, “then I can be showing that beings not of oneness with Flesh-Before-Naming are deserving of personness. Surely if consideration can be extended to something so alien as a
mammal
, then the inhabitants of our offspring planets, who are otherwise so like us, also merit it. Are you not receiving the translation of my words? Do you not understand why you humans are so important to me, aside from mere scientific curiosity?
You
are my key to ending this war.”

Progress to the periphery of the city was slow, but gave them time to get a good look at it. Kithri recognized one structure after another. She wondered what had happened to the vibrant colors of Brianna's city, and then corrected her thinking.
This
was the original and the other only a ghost transformed by some unimaginable process. If they were now in the far past, Lennart's past, this planet might well be the point of divergence, the origin of both her world and Brianna's. A disturbing thought snaked through her mind. Had the gastropoids had blown themselves up and was her Stayman with its alkali pits and dust-filled Plain the result?

She shivered in the warm air and wondered what would happen to Raerquel's peace movement if it accepted its own annihilation as its
inevitable
future.

Will Eril tell them what their war will do to this planet, in the hope of getting them to keep talking instead of bombing?
She was grateful the decision wasn't hers.

At the edge of the city lay parkland, very much like the green stretch where she'd first set
‘Wacker
down. In the distance, a few gastropoids, their silvery hides gleaming in the sunshine, herded a flock of long-bodied, rat-tailed creatures who lifted their heads curiously and then returned to grazing. Kithri thought they might be furred, but couldn't be sure.

At the very edge of the pavement, a row of flat, sideless vehicles hovered only a few inches above the milky-quartz threshold. Several gastropoids were in the process of disembarking.

“Hai, Raerquel Hath'djan, so those are your alien mammals!” boomed one of them. “You have scientific proof they are truly sentient?”

“I am seeing you, Suppbril Ad'herim. Any news from NewHome station?”

The other alien rippled enigmatically. Kithri watched Raerquel in sympathy.
How would I feel if I had a bunch of intelligent aliens in my custody on the eve of Albion being blown into bits? Would I care — would I show them the consideration Raerquel's shown us?

The other gastropoids undulated away towards the city. Raerquel slithered on to the platform, occupying most of the front portion. The four humans followed and seated themselves in the center and rear.

Kithri smoothed her hands over the platform, wondering where the control mechanisms were. The surface felt slightly yielding, not brittle like true glass. “This can't be the same stuff the city's made out of, even if it looks like it.”

“Looks?” Raerquel asked. “Ah, to your eyes all water is appearing the same.”

Raerquel telescoped down the erect portion of its body until it reached the platform with its lower appendages. Then it stroked the clear surface like the Port Ludlow guitar player Kithri had once seen coaxing a harmony from his battered instrument. In response, a series of bulbous-tipped knobs rose above the surface. As Raerquel manipulated them, the vehicle lifted slowly to a height of several feet and then began to glide westward.

“You mean this material
looks
different to you than the city buildings?” Eril asked.

“Functional optical molecular qualities are quite distinctive,” the alien replied, finishing its stroking. “Underwater, these differences are enhanced. Here, in this dry place, there is little true light.”

“You were able to construct buildings — like those —
underwater
?” asked Brianna.

Raerquel gestured with a delicate upper tendril. “Once all this was part of the sea of life, before the land changed. The mountains pushed upwards and Ocean-of-Home shrank. Much was lost as we adapted to dry living. We built new cities here, on the banks of the old seas, cities like the one we are now leaving, cities of working, dreaming, waiting...”

“To return to the water?” Kithri asked.

“Even now, we must. For eggs to hatch and water-breathing trochophore younglings to grow. The Flesh-Before-Naming. For the dying oldsters, for the sick in spirit. We adults are able to utilize gaseous oxygen, and our integument is tolerant to the dryness of land with the aid of the healing gel. Terrestrial adaptation, although unpleasant, is possible.”