Elena studied the walls as they moved forward. “Any idea where we’re going?”
“Nope. The Dornaani simply asked us to—”
“Please,” interrupted a new voice, apparently speaking from the ceiling, “continue forward for twenty meters. You will find another portal. Place your hand on the round panel beside it.”
Visser cocked her head to one side. “What accent is that? And what gender?”
Downing smiled faintly. “I can’t make out the gender. And I would say there is no accent at all. Does sound a little nasal though, so I’m guessing that he—or she—was taught by a Yank.” Downing shot an amused glance at Caine.
Who wasn’t really in the mood to smile at any of Downing’s jokes. “There’s the portal.”
This iris valve was somewhat smaller in diameter—just sufficient for average human height, so Caine stooped a bit as he grazed his fingers across the saucer-sized pad. The panels scalloped away from the center point, retracting back into the walls, floor, ceiling. Visser glanced at Caine, crinkled her eyes slightly, then stood slightly straighter and briskly stepped over the threshold. Caine followed, resolved to be ready for anything.
Chapter Forty-One
ODYSSEUS
The one thing Caine hadn’t been prepared for was the anticlimax of the moment. The room was a plain white ovoid, all the fixtures of which reprised a curvilinear motif—except for one gray rectangular table furnished with four black chairs. Across from it was a crescent-moon table. Standing squarely between the two tables was, evidently, a Dornaani.
Caine, having girded his loins for a profoundly alien being, had not been prepared for yet another conventionally arranged biped. The Dornaani—not quite one and a half meters tall, raised long arms and long fingers into the air slowly. “Please feel free to look at my form: be certain you are comfortable before you come closer.”
“Should we? Come closer?” Caine had spoken before he realized he should measure his words carefully now: he wasn’t flying by the seat of his pants in the jungles of Dee Pee Three anymore: he was an official negotiator. Whatever that meant.
The being’s fingers widened further. “You may approach if you wish. Indeed, with the exception of this meeting, you may elect not to see, or even directly hear, any exosapients at all. It is our intent to minimize any shock that might arise from your first encounters with alien species.”
Caine inclined his head slightly. “We thank you for that accommodation. However, our delegation was selected, in part, for our receptivity to unfamiliar situations. Accordingly, we look forward to having as much direct contact with other species as is possible.” And gather more intel in the process.
The Dornaani inclined its own head in response. “We welcome this. It is not our custom to shake hands, but we know that it is yours. If it will make you feel more comfortable to do so, I am happy to comply.”
Caine was surprised by the next voice: Elena’s. “What is your customary greeting?”
The Dornaani’s upper arms drew in somewhat, the forearms went out at right angles from the body: the fingers—three very long tapers directly opposed by a rather stubby digit—splayed wide, like rays emanating from the ends of the sinewy arms. “‘Enlightenment unto you.’ It is an auspicious beginning, that you ask of our ways. However, we shall use your ways and language, for now: whereas we are accustomed to sentient species other than our own, you are not.”
Elena seemed ready to add something—possibly what she read about my experiences with Mr. Local on Dee Pee Three—but Downing put a hand on her arm and responded. “That is very considerate.”
“It is simply prudent. You may call me Alnduul, you may gender me as male, and you are free to ask any questions. You may also approach and inspect my form in greater detail, if you wish.”
Caine approached, reflecting that, after the Pavonians, the Dornaani hardly seemed alien. The two large, slightly protuberant eyes appeared pupilless at first—until Caine realized that a nictating inner eyelid was currently in place. The diminutive mouth seemed set in a permanent moue—until Alnduul lifted a wide-mouthed bottle of water to it. The mouth everted into an unsightly sucking protrusion, seeking the neck of the bottle much the way a tapir’s short trunk would snuffle after fodder. Caine repressed a shudder as small cutting ridges reminiscent of a lamprey’s clicked lightly against the container. Alnduul’s nose was almost nonexistent; a single nostril perched over the bony promontory that housed the mouth.
At the base of the almost pelicanate mouthflap and jaw arrangement, about where a human’s Adam’s apple would be, there was a set of slits or gills, above which there was a triangular flap: probably a foldable ear. The cranium itself—for there most definitely was one—was very rounded and smooth, and seemed to have a rearward extending shelf, so that if seen from above, the outline of the head would present as a teardrop.