Quiet Invasion(10)

Come now; time to play your part. You want the truth; you need to go collect it. T’sha banked, curving her path back toward her team. You’re doing no good drifting out here sniffing and brooding.

A waver in the air currents over her shoulder made her glance back. A new orange kite sailed on the wind. T’sha turned in a tight circle to read the signal lights flashing on its frame. Her bones bunched briefly.

What does D’seun want here?

Like T’sha, D’seun served as an ambassador to the High Law Meet. She respected him as a close reasoner and an even-minded legislator. His birth village had died when he was still a child, but, against great odds, he had risen to become ambassador of his adopted city. She had wished many times they did not hover on opposite sides of every debate concerning the search for New Home. D’seun could only be here to check up on her team. The samples they were analyzing would help measure how critical the ecological breakdown here on Home was and so help determine how much time they had to make decisions regarding the new world.

She considered heading straight back to the survey team. But then she decided that keeping D’seun at a distance from her people might be advisable.

Let them get as much done as possible without him fluttering behind and making suggestions. The circumstances here might not be as bad as they seem.

T’sha fanned her wings, letting the wind proceed without her and waiting for D’seun’s kite to approach.

His kite was a pleasant hybrid with sails of orange skin and gold ligaments. Startling green scales dotted the shell-strip struts. Its engine was shut down, and it coasted on nothing more than the power of the wind. D’seun balanced half-inflated on the kite’s perches. He raised both forehands in greeting to her.

T’sha spread her forehands in return. As D’seun and his kite drew near her, T’sha stilled her wings and let the wind pull her along so she could keep level with him.

“Good luck, Ambassador T’sha,” he said pleasantly, shifting sideways to make room for her on the perches. “Will you join me?”

“Good luck, Ambassador D’seun. Certainly, I will.” There was no disagreement between them so great that courtesy could be disregarded. T’sha cupped her wings to lift herself up slightly and wrapped all twenty-four fingers around the kite’s perches. Then she deflated herself until her back and crest were level with D’seun’s. They touched forehands formally.

D’seun was even younger than T’sha was. The bright gold of his skin sparkled strong and clear in the daylight, leaving his heavy maze of tattoos, both official and personal, in dark relief. His white and blue crest, which marked him as an Equatorial, streamed all the way down to his shoulderblades. T’sha suspected both the crest and the skin were enhanced. Fully inflated, he was only slightly smaller than she was, something T’sha was ashamed to admit she found disconcerting. Even her birth father was only three-quarters of her size.

D’seun spoke to the kite in its command language, softly ordering it to change its drift so they angled away from the survey team’s distant sails. Disquiet gathered in the pockets between T’sha’s bones.

“What brings you out here?” T’sha asked, deliberately keeping the question conversational.

“I had to call into the High Law Meet to finish some reportings.” D’seun settled his weight back on his posthands, leaving his forehands free to stroke the kite’s ligaments. “So I was there when the Seventh Team returned.”

The Seventh? Oh, no. T’sha’s mother had still been a child when ten worlds had been selected as candidates for New Home. T’sha had heard the memories of the raging debate as to whether Number Seven, which had…complications…, should be included in the roster of test worlds. Ambassador Tr’ena, one of T’sha’s predecessors in the ambassadorship of Ca’aed, had lobbied hard against its inclusion. He had lost. T’sha had had to deal with the consequences of that loss.

D’seun, on the other hand, had risen to the rank of ambassador on the strength of what he and the Seventh Team had accomplished on that same world.

D’seun turned his gaze from the kite’s ligaments. “The seedings have taken on their candidate. The life base is spreading. We have found New Home.”

“They have taken on this candidate.” T’sha pushed her muzzle forward. “What about the others?”

D’seun swelled, as if he carried the best of news. “None of the other seedings were successful. It is Number Seven, or it is nothing.”

“There are other worlds out there. Millions of them.”