Quiet Invasion(154)

“Could you pursue that line of research?” asked D’seun, swelling slightly. “If we need it, we will need it soon.” He gazed around her ordered chaos. “I will see you are granted help and more space.”

“Thank you, Ambassador.” There was gratitude in her words, but still she deflated where she clung. “Are they really insane, Ambassador?”

“Some of them are,” he said, kindly. He could tell her more later, if that became necessary. “Only some. As are some of us.”

“Then it will be a kindness to the rest if we do this.” One of her forehands hovered over the specimen sphere.

D’seun was tempted to clack his teeth at her piety, but he did not. Even after all she had seen, Tr’es still believed that life truly did help life, on all levels and in all ways. It was one of the qualities that made a good research engineer. If she needed to justify what she was about to help do to the New People in order to work well and quickly, he would willingly help her.

“A true kindness, because the insane family is threatening to cut the sane off from the resources they need to live.” That startled her. She had not heard this part. She stared at him, horrified. D’seun dipped his muzzle. “It’s true. You’d best get to work, Engineer.”

“Yes, Ambassador.” She started speaking in a command language so specialized, D’seun understood only one word in three. A number of tools detached themselves from the caretakers inside the crystalline racks and began creeping toward the gray-filled microcosm.

D’seun left her to her work.

New Home’s world portal had no securitors, no recorders, no gates. But it had no privacy either. The entire base knew when it was in use and exactly who was going through. Br’sei had spent the past dodec-hour engineering a need for fresh monocellular templates, because there were still some mutations around Living Highland 98 that he didn’t like the look of and he did not want them to work their way up the chain when there was a chain for them to work their way up, of course.

He had not asked Ambassador D’seun for permission to return to Home. He had asked Ambassador K’ptai instead while she was on the way to the grand debate D’seun had called. She had quickly granted his request and vanished into the new debating chamber that his people had grown for them.

For now we have ambassadors again, and we must do nothing without their official notice, thought Br’sei as he waited in the center of the portal for its light to reach for him. Oh yes, we all have a voice, and we all have a vote, but what does it mean, unless those who overfly us all approve?

They were bleak, cynical thoughts, but he did not even try to disperse them as the portal’s light enfolded him and carried him back to Home.

T’sha had been an engineer. T’sha saw the patterns of life. T’sha would not let this happen without a hearing.

T’sha did not owe D’seun her future.

Br’sei rose from the light into the vast metal cage of struts and supports that held the World Portals of Home. The technicians fluttered and fussed about drain of generators and danger to delicate connections. Br’sei apologized to them all and flew out of there at the lowest possible height to show his shame at having put them through any trouble. It was quicker than trying to assert his rank, and the whole sky knew he’d had enough practice at humility lately.

Out in the open air, he returned to his proper size and flight path. Several public-use kites were moored to the portal cluster’s chitinous outer frame. Br’sei picked the closest and settled himself onto its perches.

“Take me to Ca’aed,” he said in the kite’s command language. “The flight is urgent.”

But the kite hesitated. “Ca’aed is under strict quarantine. I cannot take you there.”

Br’sei pulled his muzzle back. Of course. Ca’aed was ill. In all his turbulent worry and need, he’d almost forgotten why T’sha was no longer on New Home.

I have flown in a dead world too long. I’ve forgotten what it is to be part of the greater balance of life.

But nothing had changed. The debate on New Home was forging ahead, whether Ca’aed was sick or well.

“Take me as close as you can,” Br’sei ordered the kite.

The kite’s ligaments trembled, but it was a lawful order and the kite could not refuse. It unfurled its sails and tails and lifted itself free of the mooring clamp.

The canopy sped away under them, filling the wind and Br’sei with rich life. He felt pleasantly dizzy drinking in the living air, but he could not make himself relax. He kept watching the colors rushing away underneath him, looking for gaps in the canopy’s growth, or worse, the telltale grays, browns, and blacks that indicated an untended patch of disease.