Chapter Eleven
THE MOORING HOOK TOOK the ligaments the dirigible let down for it. As soon as the gondola opened its door, T’sha gathered up the cortex boxes they’d used to cope with the New People’s shelter and flew straight for the base’s main portal. She wanted to get into D’seun’s way before he could take his anger out on any of the engineers.
As she had guessed, D’seun was there in the main analysis chamber, quivering with rage. T’sha glided past him into the chamber, making him turn away from the door and its view of the corridor beyond.
“I’ve heard what you did,” he said.
“I am not surprised.” She set each of the cortex boxes into their caretaker unit, which would determine whether they needed soothing, debriefing, or reprogramming.
“Why would you do such a thing?” demanded D’seun. “Why would you come into contact with them? It is not in your commission!”
T’sha wrapped her posthands around a perch and settled down to face him. She had to remain calm now. His anger was justified. She had completely ignored the presence of another ambassador while taking an action that could affect all the People. She had deliberately overflown her commission, and there was no going back.
“They were dying, D’seun,” she said softly. “What should I have done?”
D’seun swelled. T’sha held her own bones in tight control. She could not rise to this. Not now. “We had our mandate. We were not yet ready to greet them properly.”
“This was not a greeting. This was an emergency.” It had been too. Even knowing as much about them as she did, T’sha had been stunned when the cortices reported on the frigid temperatures the New People maintained for themselves and how deeply sheltered they were from the press of the air around them. Their own kind only limped to their aid. They showed all the soul of family members, surely, but they would have been far too late. There would not even have been raw materials to recover, so much would have boiled away.
“You may have jeopardized everything,” D’seun shouted. “How can we show we have proper claim to New Home at this stage? They could legitimately call question to what we are doing.”
T’sha clacked her teeth, “I could legitimately question what we’re doing.” Her body tried to swell, but she held herself rigid. “D’seun, you are making assumptions for which you have no evidence. We have no idea how they see us. We haven’t asked them. We may not even have a way to ask them.” There had been the one who’d stood so still under her stare. What was going on in that one’s mind? What was passing between it and the others? Had they known the People were there to help? Had it feared they would take the raw materials of their companions’ bodies before they were ready to be used?
D’seun leaned as far forward as he could without releasing his perch. He swelled up so huge he looked as if he was about to burst. “You did this deliberately. You did not get your way in the High Law Meet and so you are forcing the issue.”
Despite all her self-control, T’sha’s wings beat the air in simple frustration. “Did I cause the New People’s equipment to fail? Did I make sure you were away from the base when it did?”
D’seun towered over her, rude and showy with his tattoos and his dyed crest, and did not answer. Not one of the other team members had come into the chamber, T’sha noted. Intelligent.
“I will take this back to the Law Meet,” said D’seun, deflating only slightly.
T’sha dipped her muzzle. “I’ve already done so, D’seun. I sent D’han back through the portal with my complete report of the events.”
“Your interpretation of events,” said D’seun. “I’m sure, once I’ve spoken to them the engineers will have their own stories to tell.”
That was enough, more than enough. T’sha inflated, swift and sudden. She spread her wings out until she was all D’seun could see.
“If I find you’ve intimidated even the lowest engineer on this team, I will take you before the Law Meet and I will bring up the question of your sanity!”
D’seun shriveled. “You wouldn’t.”
She cupped her wings to surround him. “Feel my words, Ambassador; feel my life. You know I have cause.”
D’seun was so small and tight he would have sunk like a stone had he not been sitting on a perch. It was then T’sha knew. She had not been certain until that moment, but now she was. D’seun had not taken raw materials from the New People. He had taken a life.
Realization rocked T’sha back on her perch.