“What am I interrupting here?” asked D’seun as he gave himself up to the drafts of the wind-guides and let them carry him through a corridor of story tapestries.
“Ambassador Z’eth has called a hiring fair,” replied K’est.
D’seun dipped his muzzle. Such things had been rare once, but with the massive numbers of refugees and indentures that circled the world, the ones who held the promises were gathering more and more frequently to review the skills they held promise to, and to exchange those skills and the persons to better serve the cities and the free citizens.
Conversations touched D’seun at every turn, about medicines, about refugee projections, and the health of the canopy. Adults and children, both free and with the hatchmark of indenture between their eyes, passed him on every side. Tentacled constructors and spindly, broad-eyed clerkers trailed in their wakes.
Finally, the wind-guides opened out into a pearlescent chamber that could have easily held two or three hundred adult females. The voices of a quartet rang pleasantly off its walls. Here and there, clusters of ambassadors and speakers hovered, deep in conversation with each other. The archivers hovered in their own clusters, off to the side, waiting until they were needed.
Z’eth herself was easy to spot. She drifted from cluster to cluster. She’d listen to a conversation for a moment and then move on to the next. D’seun could not feel any words from her. She just listened.
Good. Perhaps she’ll just listen to me.
Perhaps the city spoke to Z’eth, or perhaps she was just waiting for him, because as he flew through the portal, Z’eth lifted her muzzle and rose above the conversation where she hovered. D’seun flew quickly to her, deflating just enough to make sure his eyes were below hers.
“Good luck, Ambassador Z’eth,” he said as they touched hands. “Thank you for agreeing to see me. Please accept a guesting gift, which I found on my journeys.” As he spoke the formal words, he held out a palm-sized eyepiece. It lifted from his palm and hovered between himself and Z’eth. Inside, a delicate, biped drawn in shades of red raised her hand in greeting.
“Lovely!” exclaimed Z’eth. “One of your New People, is it not?”
“It is, Ambassador.” He did not even attempt to pronounce the name they called themselves by. “They are what I have come to speak with you about.”
Z’eth lifted herself and closed her right forehand around the eyepiece. “The members of the High Law Meet speak of nothing else. Their cogent method of contact with Ambassador T’sha has convinced many that they are a whole, sane people and should be treated as such.”
“I wish to urge you, Ambassador Z’eth, to believe no reports from Ambassador T’sha and her followers.” D’seun spoke earnestly, but softly. The touch of his words was for Z’edi only. “I see the tapestries they weave to show the New People as whole beings, complete in intellect and soul who live intricate lives and wish to exist with us in community.” He swelled as far as he dared. “This is not true. They do not know even the first principles of life. Community with them is impossible.”
Z’eth’s crest ruffled and spread. She touched her muzzle to his, and D’seun felt all her gentle mockery. “You are so certain, Ambassador, you must have been paying close attention to them.”
“Very close, Ambassador.” What did it matter what she knew? Either he would succeed, in which case she would be with him, or he would fail. If he failed, nothing else mattered. New Home and Home would both be lost.
“Your attention has been closer, I think, than your commission allowed, and for much longer,” Z’eth went on.
“Yes,” agreed D’seun. He had been supposed to supervise the seeding of the world and leave. He had left, but when he had returned for a monitoring stint, he had left behind some special tools. Each monitoring stint after that had brought him new data. He had all but mortgaged his future for the analysis of it.
“And you have shared none of this illicit information with the Law Meet?” Z’eth inquired. “How discreet of you. Why have you kept this to yourself?”
“At first, I feared T’sha and those like her would fear the New People.” He aimed his words right at Z’eth, not wanting her to miss a single one. “So I kept what I knew a secret until I knew how the New People could be controlled or eliminated.” Preferably eliminated. New Home had to be kept pure for life the People created and understood. “But, instead, she has fallen in love with them and their dead things.”
“Are you so sure they need to be controlled?” For the first time, the mockery left Z’eth’s voice. “Why not let them flourish beside us?”