The V'Dan (8 page)

For that matter, the Salik could strike at any time. There wasn’t a prophecy guaranteeing his survival if he became a Salik captive a second time. That meant staying out of their tentacles. He’d fight to the death if that happened again.

(
I’m getting some grim, unhappy subthoughts from you,
) Jackie’s mental voice interrupted. Her
telepathic
touch felt like a warm ray of sunshine slipping down between the clouds spreading gloom throughout his mind. (
Is something wrong?
)

(
Just thinking,
) he tried to dismiss, leaving the washroom. A prod from her, however, told him she wasn’t going to let the subject go until he aired it. Pulling out his clothes, Li’eth replied while unwinding the towel from his hips. (
I had bad dreams again, this morning. About the Salik. On top of that, today is your semiformal introduction through the windows. I’ll be expected to be on hand as the highest-ranked anyone inside quarantine. There is always someone in any large crowd who has a grudge against the Imperial Family.

(
Your people constrained themselves to just shouting an occasional, “Go back wherever you came from!” and “Earth for the Earthlings, not for the weirdlings!” but I didn’t feel physically threatened. Then again,
) he allowed, threading a belt through his pant loops, (
your people had no idea anyone else of our race was out here, away from your home system.

(
I’m not sure how my own people will react, though. Knowledge that we came from another world is a major religious foundation stone. It’s sort of been expected that if anyone survived the cataclysm of the Before Time world, they’d have grown up to be wise and mature and . . . not what your people actually are, which is very V’Danic . . . ahh . . . what’s the word in Terranglo . . .
Humanistic?
Very
Human
, at any rate. Mortal and fallible and prone to the same lows and highs in every direction . . . which may be disappointing for many, and outright mind-shattering for some. Concerns for our safety are therefore making my thoughts grim.
)

While she mulled that over, he pulled on undershorts and socks, then reached for the dark crimson trousers with their hard-to-puncture meshweave interfacing. Cream-colored shirt, bright red jacket with golden lapels and matching meshweave interfacing. Jacaranda did not press the point as he continued to dress but changed the subject somewhat.

(
Part of me isn’t thinking grim thoughts about that, so much as I’m busy thinking this is going to be like seeing a new species of animal in a zoo,
) she told him. (
“Come, watch the rare polar bear through the bars of the cage! Throw peanuts at the albino elephant! Watch out, for that monkey will try to fling its own feces at you! Step right up, it’s just ten credits per visit to see the new Terrans at the Alliance zoo!”
)

A snort escaped him. Mouth involuntarily twitching up at
the corners, Li’eth straightened from tugging on his boots and checked his image in the mirror on the inside of the washroom door. Blond hair damp but neatly braided, with streaks of burgundy here and there, the one long tendril of burgundy angling down across his right eye, the broad side lapel, the frogging neatly . . . no, that one was twisted. He unbuttoned it, smoothed out the braiding, and reattached it.

(
Which is just silly, a touch of nervousness at the unknown,
) Jackie continued, (
with no idea how everyone will react to us. Or even if they’ll like our version of “pageantry.” I know that Lord Ksa’an is a bit dubious on how little we have for the moment.
)

(
Imperial First Lord Ksa’an,
) Li’eth corrected her, checking over his image carefully from head to feet, even turning to check the Imperial posterior to make sure the coattails lay smooth and perfect. (
It’s very important not to skip the Imperial First bit. He’s very proud of his status.
)

(
Duly noted . . . though I think your people are going to be shocked by how casual we Terrans tend to be. Or at least by how short our titles are. I keep trying to turn and check to see who this “Grand High” Ambassador is. We don’t have different degrees of Ambassadorship, you know.
)

(
Yet. You may find it useful as you send more and more to the various worlds out here.
) A tug and twitch of his trouser leg made the dark red fabric drape properly over his left, calf-length boot rather than bunch up on the cuff edge. He even had replacement medals, brightly enameled metal disks on pins rather than dangling from colorful ribbons like the Terran ones. The solid steel triangles of his captain-rank pins gleamed at the collar, on the shoulder boards, and at the cuffs of his military coat, large and visible . . . which made him wonder if he was going to retain the lowly Second Tier rank of a captain.

It wasn’t as if he could hide his true identity anymore, after all. The Terrans in their negotiations had mentioned his identity freely. He couldn’t blame them for doing so, however; Li’eth understood that such things were their way of showing trustworthiness, of honor and integrity.

That thought made him wonder if he should assert his rank a little, and not the military one. A mere captain couldn’t dictate where a leftenant superior should serve—they were
placed in command of them, not allowed to pick—but an Imperial Prince
could
command that, say, a certain Leftenant Superior V’Kol Kos’q should serve him directly.

And didn’t Empress Kah’nia-sun instruct her son, Hi’a’gon, that, “A prince should always strive to have two good friends about him, good enough to be honest and tell him ‘no’ when he needs to hear it,” back in the seventh millennium? Wait, eighth. It was in the mid-7600s . . . somewhere . . . When exactly
did
Great-plus Grandmother rule . . . ?

He shook it off as unimportant. With forty-five centuries’ worth of ancestors to keep track of, surely even an Imperial Prince could be forgiven the sin of forgetting exact dates of specific reigns now and then. That, and the clock set in the wall by the door said it was nearly time for the semiformal viewing. No time to look it up on the workstation.

The meeting would take place in the observation lounge, which had a nearly floor-to-ceiling viewing window. Reporters would be few and carefully vetted. Officials would also be few and carefully selected. Questions would be few and carefully prepared in advance. In archaic hydrofluid terms, this was an interview meant merely to “prime the pump” with a splash of information, sharpening the curiosity of the currently available public, and setting things up for a hopefully smooth broadcast to the other worlds. Either by slow mail courier, or by those Terran hyperrelay things.

It was kind of exciting simply to
be
here and now, at this place and time, knowing that they were making progress on bringing the Terrans into the Alliance and into helping them win the war.

—

Entering the observation lounge, Jackie selected one of the center seats in the double row of chairs lining the chamber. With her were nine others selected from the Terran delegation to be the first to meet and converse with locally based representatives of the other sentient races in the Alliance. Rosa took a seat to her left, and Li’eth picked a spot near the broad, floor-to-ceiling window that filled most of the forward wall.

That window was shuttered at the moment. The others filed in, ranging from Captain al-Fulan and two Marines who were
free at the moment in their duty shifts to attend, to Clees and his ever-present hovercameras, a couple nurses, and a handful of embassy personnel. The Imperial Prince subtly tugged his uniform jacket straight as they took seats, and began.

“Today, you will be meeting the Choya. They are an amphibious race, preferring temperatures and humidities warmer than customary for . . . our joint species,” he amended, carefully not calling anyone a V’Dan. “Under previous conditions, you would have met representatives from both the Choya and the Salik at the same time, as they both prefer humidity and heat . . . but obviously that is no longer possible. For reasons of comfort, the others will be introduced in their own pairings.”

He paused, lifting his head a little. Jackie glanced over her shoulder to see that one of the two Marines had lifted her hand. Upon being acknowledged by their host, she stood, shoulders and chin level, arms at her sides. “Imperial Prince, I am wondering why you would introduce the aliens in pairs, sir!”

Jackie felt a touch of humor in Li’eth’s underthoughts. They colored his aura with bits of gold, making her reflexively blink the vision away. She wasn’t used to
seeing
auras; that was his ability, and a distracting one for the Gestalt to give to her. Seeing things from a distance—more like sensing but with some inner vision—yes, she could see things via clairvoyancy, when it related to wanting to merge a holokinetic illusion with its surroundings, but not auras.

“Please relax . . . Private, yes?”

“Sir, Private First Class Jay Krimmer, sir!”

(
The words you want in Terranglo are “At Ease,”
) she offered.

Dipping his head, Li’eth switched languages briefly.
“At Ease, soldier, and be seated. This is not a formal meeting, and I am not in your chain of command.”
Switching back to V’Dan, he gave her an explanation. “Introducing alien races in pairs was suggested by the K’Katta as sound psychology. Indeed, experiments have proved that the alien races, when introduced in pairs, are more likely to be perceived as allies. Alone, they seem friendless and thus less friendly. Together, they can be viewed in terms of ‘If those two can get along with each other in the same room, then we should be able to get along with them, too.’

“This has not only proved to be effective among . . .
Human
mind-sets, but among their own kinds as well. For the most part, the Salik being the current notable exception,” he stated. Returning to the subject of introductions, he gave them some information about the species they were about to meet. “The Choya, being amphibious and preferring saltwater to freshwater habitats—though they can occupy freshwater with the right provisions—are fairly unique. Even the Salik rely more upon lung power once they become adults, but the Choya remain in possession of fully functional gills as well as functional lungs from birth.

“The females tend to be slightly smaller than the males, and have multiple front-to-back crests, usually no less than three but most often four or five; males tend to be slightly larger and usually have only one, or at most, two crests. Male crests are further distinguished by being taller than female ones by a couple size factors—in measurement terms that don’t require you to try to translate between Terran and V’Dan systems, it’s roughly the difference between a single fingerbone versus an entire finger,” he offered. “There is, of course, no shame in not being able to tell them apart right away, and you can always refer to them by the honorific meioa, or in third person by the pronouns for ‘they,’ ‘them,’ and so forth.

“This, of course, goes for any of the beings you are about to meet, including our fellow V’Dan . . . who are
Humans
like you.” He paused, eyed the gathered Terrans, then nodded at Jackie. “Are you ready, Grand High Ambassador?”

“Yes. Is everyone else ready?” she asked, twisting to look around her. Every member of the Terrans save for Clees had taken a seat; the telepath-cum-reporter hovered at the back of the room, peering through a camera hovering directly in front of him and guiding two more into clinging to the walls, one behind and to his left, the other up at the front of the room, where it attached itself to the ceiling and angled its lenses down at everyone. At the nods of the rest and with no signs of dissent, she turned back to the shuttered window. “. . . You may begin when ready, Your Highness.”

Nodding, he turned to the room controls.
“Is everyone ready on the other side?”

A familiar voice came back across.
“Everyone is ready; thank you for being settled on time.”

Nodding, Li’eth tapped the button that unlocked the window shutters. They split horizontally, rising into the ceiling and sinking into the floor on both sides of the glass, or whatever served as a transparent substance for V’Dan observation ports. On the other side, standing off to the left side of the round-cornered window, Jackie could see Imperial First Lord Mi-en Ksa’an, with his two-tone green stripes and his dark brown hair. His outfit today was a deep blue with overtones of purple, cut in a style similar to Li’eth’s military uniform.

Behind and beside him were three more V’Dan. Filling the right half of the chamber sat the Choya delegation, a total of five aliens. Jackie knew that two in each party were reporters, news collectors for transforming the account of the meeting into packets that would be sent off on each starship leaving the local system, in the hopes that someone would get this information back to their home governments or to colonyworlds. One of those reporters for each group was easy to determine, too, for they were doing things with objects that seemed to be used for guiding and checking on hovering gizmos. Cameras, most likely, small and vaguely similar to the ones being wielded by their own makeshift reporter.

The V’Dan were, well, V’Dan. Humans with colorful marks on their bodies, clad in outfits similar to the Imperial First Lord’s. One fellow, sitting next to the camera-tending woman, had chosen a shirt and braid-frogged vest that bared his arms so that his yellow lightning stripes could be seen on his mahogany skin.

It took Jackie a few moments to realize that the reason for his bare arms wasn’t the heat, since the other V’Dan were dressed conservatively despite the sweat forming on their faces. It was, she realized, because none of the randomly placed, wobbling, forked
jungen
marks turning his dark chestnut skin a vibrant gold on those bared arms reached up past his collarbones. Nothing on neck, nothing on face, nothing visible in the dark brown of his eyes or the short-trimmed, tight black curls of his hair. Though the much-lighter-skinned woman seated next to him, playing with her camera controls, had medium blue blotches irregularly scattered over her limbs, somehow his branching, golden streaks look more intriguing, more prominent, thanks to the sheer amount of skin exposed.