Trang (39 page)

He asked one of the Swimmer drones
to start recording for broadcast. “Our doctor has every confidence that, should
the parasite remain dormant, the human diplomat will recover,” he began. “He
will most likely return to our planet to recuperate, however. I am once again
taking over the position of human diplomat and representative of Earth,
effective immediately. I would like to extend our thanks to the Hosts for
providing us with the antidote, which the doctor tells me was vitally important
and saved the human diplomat’s life. I would also like to thank all of you who
have expressed your concern and well-wishes to us humans. Your support means a
great deal to us.”

After his statement, various aliens
came up to express their concern. “It is an emphatically shameful action that
an important official was poisoned,” said a Cyclops named Stern Duty, whom
Philippe had not met before.

“The poisoning was not intentional.
It was an accident, and the Hosts provided the antidote,” he replied.

“Nonetheless, it is a very
emphatically shameful action,” said the Cyclops.

Philippe expected someone to ask if
he had spoken with Arne, or if Arne had regained consciousness—certainly on
Earth those questions would be asked. But for whatever reason, the aliens did
not.

Finally Max and Moritz approached
and asked if they could speak with him in private. He commed Patch and had the
no man’s zone disarmed, and the three of them went into the cluttered
conference room. Philippe asked his guards to stay outside.

“We attempted to dissuade the
second human diplomat from eating Host food, because we knew it was probably
dangerous to your people, but he insisted despite our cautions,” said Max. “I
do not want you to have the least suspicion that it was anything other than an
accident.”

“Why would I think it wasn’t an
accident?” asked Philippe.

Max and Moritz looked at each
other.

“Max told me that when he heard you
were to leave, he attempted to dissuade you out of a belief that you are the
chosen one mentioned in the prophecy,” said Moritz. “We were concerned that you
might assume he had caused harm to the second human diplomat in an effort to
force you to return here. I assure you that that was not the case. I, too, was
present at the unfortunate meal, and what Max has told you is what I witnessed.
We attempted to dissuade him from eating our food, but he said that he believed
the risk was minimal and that his body could withstand any harm.”

“We know that you are a curious
people,” said Max, looking testy. “But curiosity must be tempered by an
awareness of the risks of danger. The curiosity of the second human diplomat
was excessive and ill-advised.”

“I must agree with Max in his blunt
assessment of the situation,” said Moritz. “I admire your people’s desire for
knowledge, but certainly this desire could cause you to participate in
dangerous activities. Survival is also important and must always be considered
while making decisions.”

“I appreciate your concern, and I
wish to assure you that I place no blame for this incident on your people,”
said Philippe.

He saw them out and went to speak
again to George. Arne’s condition was unchanged, so Philippe went into his
bedroom and guiltily packed the sick man’s things. When he was finally done
unpacking his own belongings, he lay down on the bed and went to sleep.

He slept heavily, with no dreams.
When he woke up, he got a caffeine-free ration bar and went to find the doctor.
Raoul told him that George was in Shanti’s office, so Philippe walked over,
knocked, and went in.

“They decided what they want to do
with Arne,” said Shanti, her face grim. It wasn’t until that moment that
Philippe realized they weren’t having an argument. They were angry—very
angry—at something other than each other.

“It’s criminal,” said George.

“What are they doing?” Philippe
asked.

“Oh, they’re outfitting a medical
suite for him!” said George with sarcastic enthusiasm. “It will have
everything
you need for a complete recovery! The latest in automated-care technology,
because God forbid a human being touch him.”

“They’re putting him in isolation?”
asked Philippe.

“They’re putting him in an
orbital
isolation pod!
” George spat. “They’re outfitting one now—you know, one of
those
pods
where they keep mass murderers and serial killers. Because
that’s
what he deserves for his service and sacrifice to the Union.”

Philippe was stunned. “You mean the
ones in
space?
”

“Yes, the ones in space!” raged the
doctor. “The ones in orbit, kilometers away from the precious surface of the
precious Earth. And do you know how long they’re going to keep him there?”

“How long?”

“They don’t know!” George threw his
hands in the air. “However
long
it takes them to feel
safe,
because
obviously this parasite—the one that grows on plants? the one that’s gone?—
obviously
it’s an intelligent life form bent on taking over the motherfucking planet.
Christ!”

“George.” It was Shanti. She was
trying to calm him, which in its own way was disturbing.

George turned to her. “You know,
any
intelligent
form of life would know enough to stay the hell away
from us.”

His breakfast lay untouched on his
desk as he began composing a message for the DiploCorps expressing the shock and
outrage of all the humans on the station at the way Arne was being treated.

“Needless to say, this is pure
poison to station morale. The soldiers can now expect that, if they too are
injured on the station, their sacrifice for the Union and for Earth will be
repaid by imprisonment in an ultimate-security facility,” he wrote. He made
some vaguely threatening noises about how the aliens would react if they found
out how their “honored colleague, and in some cases, dear friend” was being
treated.

He also drafted a message to send
to all of his and Arne’s mutual acquaintances in the DiploCorps, alerting them
to the situation and asking them to bring any influence they might have to bear
to help the sick diplomat.

It wasn’t much—if the Union was
outfitting the pod, then the decision had already been made. The DiploCorps was
either being ignored or going along with it. But it was what Philippe could do.

George knocked on his door and told
him that Arne was awake and wanted to talk to him. Philippe hurried to the
infirmary. Arne was looking marginally better—his eyes were open, at least. His
body, though, was still completely limp, as though every muscle had been
utterly exhausted.

“
Apparently
the
planet-conquering life form still lurking within your friend here is too
dangerous for you to enter into its dread presence,” he replied. “Even we
disposable medical staff are now required to wear our hoods and gloves when
touching the untouchable.”

Philippe looked at him.

“Yeah, I think it’s bullshit,” said
George. “The main problem is, given his condition, he’s being monitored with a
camera. And if they go through that footage and see you go in there, they might
fix up a pod for you, too. At this point, I seriously have no idea how they’re
going to treat Gingko, Raoul, and me when we head home.”

“I’ll risk it,” said Philippe.

George looked at him for a moment,
and then smiled and touched his shoulder. The doctor let him into the unit and
showed him the pull-up seat in the floor. Arne asked George if they could have
some privacy.

“Oh, come on,” said Philippe. “So
you ate something you weren’t supposed to. I accepted gifts from the aliens,
and we didn’t know if that was safe. We’ve all done it—someone offers you food,
you eat it. Otherwise you’ll offend them. If their sanitation isn’t quite up to
snuff, you get sick afterward—that’s just how it goes. One time when I was in
Kurdistan, I was desperately ill for a week after drinking a warlord’s goat
milk. But you know, he signed the treaty and stuck to it, and frankly, that was
worth losing seven kilos in as many days.”

Arne shook his head, the movement
barely perceptible. “No, no, no. They
tried
to tell me not to do it.
They
tried.
Have you met Five-Eighths?”

“I said I wanted to try some food.
They—the Hosts—they said it might not be safe,” Arne whispered. “And then they
launched into this story of an old outlawed cult among their people, these Host
priests who wanted to experience being alien so much that they would eat alien
food and die. And I thought, OK, maybe this is a warning, but maybe it’s a
challenge—if they could risk their lives to bring people together, what better
way to prove that that’s what I want to do?”

“Oh,
Arne,
” said Philippe.

“And he took me
aside—Five-Eighths—he took me aside, and he said, ‘I really don’t think you
should do this,’” Arne croaked, agitated. “And then he said, ‘Can’t you see how
frightened they are?’”

He paused, his breathing irregular.

“‘Can’t you see how frightened they
are?’ he said,” Arne said again, once he had recovered. “And that’s when I
decided I had to do it. I had to, you know. I had to prove him wrong.”

Philippe stared at him in
amazement. “Why?”

“
Because I couldn’t see it!
”
Arne hissed. “I
couldn’t
see how frightened they were—they didn’t look
frightened to me, or happy, or angry, or anything. And this dumb jarhead, this
ambulatory scrotum who probably joined the SF to avoid being thrown into jail
on a morals charge,
he
could see it. They
all
can see it. I’m the
only one who can’t.”

Philippe just sat and looked at
Arne.

There has to be something I can
say,
he thought.

“Look,” said Philippe, gently
putting his hand on Arne’s shoulder. “None of this matters, OK? You got hurt
and you feel like crap—I went through the same thing, all right? The important
thing—”

Arne was shaking his head.

“The
important
thing—” said
Philippe, in a firmer tone of voice, so that Arne stopped shaking his head and
looked at him “—is that you don’t get down on yourself, and that you get
healthy. You’ve been through a lot, and it’s very hard, and I know you feel
terrible and feel like you’ve failed. But I’ve worked with you—you’re a good
diplomat, you’re good with people, and you’re smart. Trust me, I was in Ottawa
before I came here, and the DiploCorps could use many, many more people like
you. And you’re going to need all your skill when you get back to Earth—I
suppose the doctor has told you how they plan to treat you?”

Arne nodded.

“OK, you know that it’s not fair
and it’s not right. You deserve better, and you need to focus on getting well
and getting your strength back, not on tearing yourself down,” Philippe said.
“I’m sending messages to everyone I can think of who might be able to help, but
you know that you’re going to have to fight this, too. It’s not just for
you—you heard George, most likely he and the medics and now me, we’re all going
to be stuck in orbiting pods, too, if we let them do this to you.”

Arne looked a little more
energetic. In the Sudan, Philippe remembered, Arne had always worked best when
fired up to combat some injustice.

Philippe hoped that that was still
true. “Once they decide to isolate everyone who gets stationed here, you know
that no one will agree to come. If we let them, they will destroy the
diplomatic mission on this station. They will simply destroy it.”