T’sha cupped the soft box in her forehands, stroking its skin, inhaling the calm scents it gave off and murmuring in its recording language.
“I have no pictures to show them. I could subpoena the raw materials Tr’es is examining, I suppose, but how else am I going to show how fragile the New People are? How brave they are being here? Their needs must be very great for them to come to a place that is so hazardous to them.” The box mistook her tone of bewildered wonder for distress and plumped itself up soothingly under her restless fingers, letting its gentle cooings drift across her fingertips. “Of my worst assertions, I still have no proof. I—”
“Ambassador T’sha?” Br’sei hovered in the threshold. “You wanted to speak with me, Ambassador?”
“Yes, I did.” She spoke the Off command to her box and tucked it back into the caretaker’s folds.
Br’sei drifted into the room. He looked alert but calm, with his purple crest only partly raised and his bones relaxed under his skin. T’sha found herself surveying his tattoos afresh. Br’sei was not just a senior engineer, he was a master engineer. He was also a freed indenture and a survivor of D’dant village, where a yeast had turned their home’s bones to a froth that had broken in the wind.
“How are the researches on the New People’s raw materials going?” T’sha asked.
Br’sei shook his wings noncommittally. “Tr’es is practically flying in circles in her excitement. She swears she’s making new discoveries by the minute.”
“Which you will confirm, I trust?” T’sha’s own crest lifted, just a little.
“The review will be rigorous,” Br’sei said blandly. “Was there anything else?”
T’sha glanced toward the door. She could hear no one in the corridor, but that could change momentarily.
“Will you come with me, Br’sei?” she asked. “I need your help deciphering a few new sightings.”
Br’sei hovered where he was, watching her steadily for a long moment. Then he whistled his assent.
T’sha took her camera eye out of the caretaker. Its tentacles wrapped comfortably around her right posthand. She led Br’sei out of the chamber and into the open air beyond the base’s sails. Several of the team saw them, but that didn’t matter. They would also see the camera and assume T’sha needed some help for a survey, just as she’d said.
“You know that Ambassador D’seun and I will be leaving soon to address the High Law Meet,” remarked T’sha as the winds carried them away from the base. She spoke a little command language to the camera. It focused its eyes to record the passage of the crust under her. Every bit of data helped.
“I know,” said Br’sei. “There is a great deal of speculation around the base as to which of you will be coming back.”
“Which would you prefer, Engineer Br’sei?” It was an unfair question, but she needed to know which way his priorities flew.
Br’sei inflated himself, rising just a little higher. “Truthfully, Ambassador?”
T’sha dipped her muzzle.
Br’sei did not look at her. He watched the wind in front of them. They were fully on the dayside now. The wind was clear and smelled only faintly of ash and acid. “Truthfully, I wish you both would go back to your cities and leave us alone to do our work. If the New People don’t like what we’re doing, they can protest, and we can sort it all out with them.” Only then did he cock his head toward her. “But I’m not likely to find this wish returning to me, am I?”
“No,” said T’sha, deflating. “I’m sorry.”
“I believe that you are.” An air pocket dropped them both down. Br’sei recovered smoothly and sailed on. “I believe that you would leave this all alone if you could. I believe that you are like me. You want to do your work and go your way knowing your family is safe, now and forever.” He wheeled in front of her so that T’sha had to pull herself up short. They faced each other, hovering, eye to eye, wing to wing, exactly matching in size and height. “Am I right, Ambassador?”
T’sha dipped her muzzle.
Br’sei deflated, breath and energy flowing out of him together. T’sha wondered how long it had been since he refreshed, since he had been home, since he had flown with his own family. Who were they? She didn’t know, and her ignorance shamed her.
“Tell me what I can do to help you, Ambassador,” he said.
So many responses filled T’sha at that moment that she did not know which to choose. She was almost grateful when her camera tapped her postarm, interrupting her. She looked down and she saw only crust, wrinkled, rust red and yellow here for the most part.