Fire with Fire(145)

Trevor was nodding. “Yup. That’s how it would play out, for them. So they’d be happiest if we play dumb and go along with the charade.”

“And thereby keep the peace.”

Downing shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Risky business, giving the Arat Kur any info they want.”

Caine shrugged. “Except, if we’re right, the Arat Kur came here expecting to cause an incident, not actually gather intel. So if they try to interrogate us without a prior investigatory game plan, we’re likely to learn more from them than they will from us.”

Downing’s eyebrows went up. “Yes, that’s probably true.”

Visser was looking back and forth between them. “I do not understand.”

“Caine is quite right, Ambassador. If we do not tip our hand—if we ‘play dumb’—then the Arat Kur will want to keep asking more questions. But each one of their questions tells us a great deal about what they already know about us—and what they don’t. With some careful analysis, we might even be able to reconstruct what sources of information on Earth they had access to—or at least those they didn’t. The more questions they improvise today, the more we learn about them and their intelligence operations.”

Caine nodded. “And it puts the ball back in the Arat Kur court: they’ll damn themselves with their own actions.”

Durniak nodded. “Da. And if the Arat Kur act like brutes, the undecided powers should be more likely to side with the Dornaani. But I wonder: are the Arat Kur alone in this?”

Caine rubbed his chin. “Maybe, but it’s also possible that they’re the patsies of one of the other two powers.”

Trevor looked up. “What about the Slaasriithi? I find it pretty suspicious that they refuse to show themselves.”

“Yeah, but so far, they’ve been affable, even if they’re shy and cautious. It could all be an act, I suppose, but they seem pretty temperate: not as likely to be the movers and shakers in this club.”

“And the Ktor? What about them?”

Caine looked across the amphitheater at the wheeled water tanks. “What about them, indeed. The wild cards.”

“And what about them?”

“Who?”

Hwang pointed to the left. “The other new kids on the block.” Caine turned, looked into the now-transparent gallery that had been assigned to the other candidate-race.

Rough brown-gray fur covered most of their pebbly hides. They were upright but digitigrade, standing at least two meters tall even without raising up on their long rear legs. A thick, round, pointed tail sent a faint line of lighter fur up the spine. It thickened into a crest where it divided the blocky haunches, mounted the barrel-shaped back between arrestingly large shoulders, and then ran along the ventral ridge of a neck that was the shape and thickness of a small pony’s. As Caine’s inspection reached the head, he heard Durniak gasp and Trevor mutter, “Christ.”

The head was hardly a separate object; it was a seamless, curved continuation of the neck, which ended in three pronounced nostrils arrayed as the vertices of an equilateral triangle. On either side of that nose, two glinting obsidian eyes were mounted under bony ridges that flared out from whatever skull might be extant beneath the sheath of flesh and muscle that blended back into the neck. The rounded “head” was long, rather like a cross between that of a sloth and an anteater, but the underslung jaw was vaguely reminiscent of a sperm whale’s. The spinal fur was heavier and thicker on the head, rising into a high, tufted crest. Caine’s eyes met those of the—creature? It was hard to think of it as a person, just yet.

“Do you think they’re part of the Arat Kur plot?” pressed Hwang.

Trevor exhaled emphatically. “Good God, I hope not,” he said, staring at the short, wide swords that swung from each one’s back-slung baldric.

Caine stayed silent, surveyed the group’s reactions: Durniak seemed to be having the most profoundly xenophobic reaction—odd since her xenophobia index had been one of the lowest. But tests and reality are two very different things. Hwang and Thandla evinced almost spiritual detachment, whereas Wasserman seemed too contentious and self-involved to be affected. Elena looked captivated, not terrified. Visser seemed rigid, but was still coping. And Trevor’s outburst struck Caine more like a means of purging anxiety rather than a declaration of it. All in all, the delegation was doing pretty well handling the sight of such profoundly different—and potentially ominous—exosapients.

The one who was looking at Caine raised a four-fingered hand—a thumb on either side of the palm—in what seemed a gesture of greeting, or maybe threat, or even warding. Caine raised his hand in response—