Good guy. Steady. A friend. Just what they’d need when…
A dark blur flew over the volcano’s rim.
“Heads up.” Vee leaned forward, squinting at the sky and ignoring the camera. “They’re coming in.”
The kite rode ahead of the winds, guided by a competent mind. T’sha resisted the urge to turn loops in the sky to say “Over here, over here.” They knew where she was, and they were heading there at full speed.
“We will meet down beside the transports, T’sha,” D’seun said through her headset.
T’sha whistled her assent.
The dirigible slowed its forward progress and descended toward the crust. T’sha pulled in her wings and deflated, settling further and further into the thickening air. There was no real wind this far down, just faint strugglings in air that was so solid you could perch on it. It was grossly uncomfortable, but T’sha had done plenty of deep work in her time. She could accommodate herself to it.
The New People’s transports still waited side by side. They made an amazing amount of noise, all high squeals and long snores. But if they were speaking to each other, T’sha could make no sense out of it. A piercing metallic smell surrounded them, reminding T’sha sharply of the scents in the World Portal complex.
D’seun launched himself from the dirigible’s gondola, leaving Br’sei, D’han, and P’tesk to drop the moorings and wrestle out the toolboxes.
D’seun didn’t even acknowledge T’sha. He flew straight to the New People’s display. He hovered around it for a long time, looking at the images from every possible angle.
T’sha glanced at the transports. What were they doing in there right now? Were they pleased? Bored? Worried?
“Grow the viewer,” said D’seun to the engineers. “Make sure it faces the transports, not this screen. I don’t know if this thing can see.”
The engineers flew to obey. While Br’sei tore open a dish of growth medium, P’tesk opened the stasis cover on a box of seed crystals. Br’sei laid the seeds into the jellylike medium. The seeds responded instantly, fusing and replicating until the jelly swelled up out of its dish, forming a glistening bubble. The bubble grew until it was nearly the size of the New People’s screen. P’tesk poured the neutralizer into the dish. Br’sei rooted a works box onto the side, running through the standard checks. The crystal was good. The medium was adequately conductive. No flaws in structure.
D’seun, meanwhile, pulled two cortex boxes out of the portable caretaker. He weighed them in his forehands and put one back. He laid the one he selected onto the works box, letting its sensors reach into the works and twine around the neural net. D’seun fanned his wings and backed away.
He spoke rapidly in the cortex’s command language. T’sha was not surprised to find that she did not understand a word of it. The crystal lit up and a set of symbols printed themselves across its surface. D’seun looked toward the transports and the New People’s screen.
“What are you saying?” asked T’sha.
“I am stating our purpose,” D’seun said. His voice was slurred, suspicious. “Now we will see what they will do.”
Inside the scarab, they watched the aliens arrive, watched their transmitter grow as if by magic, and saw bright-red letters coalesce inside it
WE SERVE LIFE.
Vee had to swallow before she could force any words out. “It appears,” she said slowly, “that they’ve been watching us a lot longer than we’ve been watching them.”
“So it would seem,” agreed Josh. “Now what?”
Vee looked to Dr. Failia. The older woman had set her coffee down. She watched the aliens, her hands on her knees, immobile and yet at the same time incredibly alive. Every line of her body sang with eagerness. She was looking out onto something magnificent.
Vee knew exactly how she felt. She thought of the portrait file waiting in her briefcase. She’d have to start all over. She didn’t do their beauty, their grace, their sheer otherness justice, not by light-years.
Dr. Failia cleared her throat, coming back to the everyday acknowledgment of her fellow human beings reluctantly.
“Well, since they’re chatty, let’s try the basics. Ask who they are.”
“Cross your fingers over your connections, Josh.” Vee’s hands hovered over the keys while she remembered how they had this all coded in. Mentally crossing her own fingers for the solidity of their improvisation, she typed in a set of commands. The introductory images vanished and the holotank showed the words, Who are you?
The aliens stayed as they were. Helen reached across the command board and punched up the zoom on the camera. Now they could see the muzzle moving on the smallest of the group.