Quiet Invasion(38)

“Ambassador D’seun.”

Startled, Br’sei’s wings flapped on their own, lifting him and turning him. Ambassador D’seun flew over a ridge in the highland’s wall and deflated until he was level with Br’sei and the tools.

“Good luck, Br’sei,” said D’seun amiably. He spoke to the tools in a command language that Br’sei couldn’t even recognize the roots of. The constructor touched the ambassador’s headset. Br’sei realized with a start that he must be using a chemical link, something Br’sei hadn’t seen in years.

“I would ask you what you’re doing here, Br’sei,” said the ambassador, “especially as this is Highland 76, not 45. But I imagine you feel you have the right to ask me that question first.”

“I don’t wish to presume, Ambassador.” Br’sei sank diffidently. “But yes, I do wish to ask that question.”

The constructor drifted away from Ambassador D’seun, who spoke another few words of his convoluted command language. The constructor headed back to the crevices of the highland with the two overseers crawling after it.

D’seun watched them go until the tools could no longer be told apart from the crust. “At the moment, the tools are monitoring the patterned radio wave transmissions between the New People and their transports, as well as their transports and their base.” He swelled, just a little. “We need to refine our translation techniques. It still takes even our most adept engineers four or five dodec-hours to achieve what we think is an approximate translation of any given message.”

Br’sei stared at the ambassador, framed there by the living highland. “It is difficult to accomplish such a work from a distance.” He fought to keep his voice mild. “But you have said repeatedly that you do not want any tools within a mile of the New People, wherever they are.”

Ambassador D’seun deflated slowly, as if he were too tired to keep his size and shape anymore. “I have wrestled with a great dilemma since we originally dropped the wind seeds onto this world, Br’sei. Now, you have the dubious honor of sharing it with me.” He turned to face Br’sei. “But perhaps we should speak somewhere more comfortable?”

“If you wish, Ambassador.” Patience, he told himself as his bones twitched. The only way you’re going to get your answers is by waiting him out.

Br’sei had been helping to design the seeds for the candidate worlds when he first met D’seun. Br’sei was young for an adult, having been fully declared in his eightieth year.

Back then, there were still debates raging over what the nature of the seeding should be. Should it be a wide variety of organisms, both useful and strictly supportive, to make sure the candidate world would accept a range of life? Or should it be a single organism so that when it did begin to spread, there would be fewer interactions to calculate when the overlaying began?

Br’sei had been of the opinion that broad-seeding was the correct method, and his experiment house was working with two dozen different microcosms to show the differences in effect between broad-seeding and mono-seeding.

Then D’seun had flown up to the door without sending advance notice and asked for a tour and an appointment with Br’sei. Because D’seun was a speaker then, he got both.

The experiment house was an old, wise workplace with heavy screens and thick filters to keep its interior air absolutely sterile. Its cortices were complex and well grown, each able to monitor its crystalline microcosms for hours without supervision or correction, leaving the engineers free to work on projection and innovation.

Br’sei led D’seun from cosmos to cosmos, showing him the hardiness of the broad-seeding in the miniature ecosystems as opposed to the flimsy strains of mono-seeded cultures.

“The broad-seeding provides its own support system, you see, Speaker,” said Br’sei as they paused to study yet another microcosm. The sphere’s lensing sides allowed them to see through to the microscopic organisms thriving in the simulated cloud.

“Yes.” D’seun pointed his muzzle at Br’sei. “But that is not truly the point, is it?”

Br’sei remembered how his crest had spread at those words. “Forgive me, Speaker, but that is the entire point.”

“Forgive me, Engineer, but it is not,” D’seun replied. “The point of the initial seeding is not to establish life, but merely to establish that life is a possibility. First we establish that life can exist on a world; then we survey that world carefully, understanding it thoroughly in its pure, prelife state. Then, and only then, can we start laying out the basis for a new canopy, one we design and supervise in its entirety.” He turned his gaze back to the microcosm, deflating a little as he did. “We have acted too often without understanding. We must not do that with our new world. I fear we will have only one chance to make this plan of ours work.”