Quiet Invasion(18)

“No,” she admitted. For a moment she thought of telling him he did not need to know, but that was not true. To design a truly effective promise, he needed to know the ultimate goal, especially if the promise were complex, as promises dealing with cities ultimately were. Trying to integrate the wrong person could jeopardize the entire balance. “I want to be sure Gaith is studied, and studied immediately. If I leave it free for D’seun to take over, he’ll fly the village’s bones all around the world and show everyone what horrors we are exposing ourselves to if we don’t all flock to New Home immediately.”

“He’ll still try to use Gaith’s illness to overfly you,” said T’deu.

T’sha shook her wings. “I won’t let him. All D’seun’s attention is fixed on a single point. If he will not voluntarily see the whole horizon, he must be made to see.”

T’deu dipped his muzzle again. “As my Ambassador Sister says. I’ll start growing your promise.”

“Thank you, Brother. Good luck.” She brushed her muzzle against his briefly and launched herself back toward the entrance.

And now there are only a thousand meetings to arrange. The district speakers must hear all of this of course and be brought around. That could be expensive. I’ll have to organize the pollers for a citywide referendum, but their schedule should be light right now, except for the poll D’seun has so thoughtfully called for. T’sha emerged from the tunnel into the filtered light of the city. She turned her flight toward the city center and her family’s district where she kept her workspace. “Ca’aed?”

“Yes, Ambassador?” answered the city.

“Ca’aed, I have a case to put to you. It concerns your well-being, so I cannot move without you.”

“What is it?”

As T’sha flew, she told Ca’aed her plan to bring Gaith to the city to allow Gaith’s own citizens to effect its resurrection in return for sharing their knowledge with Ca’aed’s engineers, thus saving the Kan Gaith years of potential indenture for their food and shelter in some other city.

Ca’aed was silent for a moment. “We have the room to bring the Kan Gaith here,” it said finally. “Our binding of promises with them is not strong or detailed, but there is some exchange that could be worked out.” Again, the city paused. T’sha suspected it was mulling over the conversation T’sha had held with T’deu. “We do need to know what infects Gaith,” Ca’aed went on. “Yes, bring it here. I agree. I will start working on precautionary plans so we can implement this action as soon as you have secured the people’s votes.”

“Thank you, Ca’aed,” said T’sha earnestly. “This is not just to further my cause with the High Law Meet. There is good for all concerned here.”

“Yes,” answered Ca’aed. “I do comprehend the good in this.”

Something in the city’s voice kept T’sha from asking what else it comprehended.

T’sha’s workspace was a small coral bubble in her family’s compound. The veins holding her records twined all around its insides, spreading out crooked tendrils of blue and purple. It was not as grand or complex a space as many ambassadors had, but T’sha preferred to work on the wing and conduct her meetings and requests in person.

This time though, that would be impossible. She needed all of her specially trained cortex boxes to organize a meeting of the city’s thirty district speakers and coordinate their schedules. Each speaker, in turn, would have to reserve time with their chiefs and the pollers because this was a voting matter. The entire process would take dodec-hours.

T’sha was not even halfway finished when the room told her D’seun waited outside.

“Let him in,” she said, reluctantly. She was not quite ready for him yet, but she had no polite way to delay.

D’seun drifted into her workspace. He looked shriveled and settled at once on a perch.

“Good luck, D’seun. Can I offer you some time in the refresher? Surely whatever you have to say can wait an hour or two until you are restored.”

“No, it cannot wait.” He lifted his muzzle. “I must hear you say that you now understand that we cannot wait to find another world to be New Home. I must hear you say we will work together in this.”

Shock swelled T’sha. That really was all he thought about. There was no swaying him, no changing the focus of his mind.

“I understand that we are not always as wise as we think we are,” she told him fiercely, leaning forward from her own perch. “I understand that we might not know all the rules of life, and that if we act like we do, we are breeding disaster, for ourselves and for these New People.”