Even so, there was something furtive about Tr’es, or at least there was when she was around other people. Here, though, alone with her maze of microcosms, caretakers, and simulators, she was intent and confident. Reverse engineering, that was Tr’es’s specialty. Find something that existed and track it back through all its previous stages. Take it apart until you understood it and put it back together again.
Rather like what I’m trying to do here. T’sha poked her muzzle into the room. The gesture did not catch Tr’es’s attention. The engineer just hovered in front of her simulator, talking nonstop in a specialized command language and watching patterns that might have been wind currents on the nightside, or neurochemical diffusion, flow across its surface.
T’sha flew all the way into the room, careful not to touch any of the microcosms or their connecting tubules.
The shadow of her movement crossed the simulator’s surface, and Tr’es whirled around, startled.
“Oh, ah, good luck, Ambassador T’sha.” She raised her forehands. “I didn’t…I—”
“You were absorbed in your work.” T’sha glided carefully between the tools, both living and nonliving. “I know how it feels.”
Reassured, Tr’es inflated slightly. “Is there something I can share with you, Ambassador?”
“I hope so.” T’sha finally spotted a pair of rods that she was fairly sure were perches and settled onto them. “I understand it was you who did the initial work on the raw materials D’seun took from the New People.” She had listened to the caretaker of the reports for an entire dodec-hour and had practically had to be carried into the refresher, she was so exhausted. Fear had kept her listening. Fear and suspicion, because of what she could not find.
Tr’es dipped her muzzle. “He wanted me to map neural branching and chemical diffusion patterns to see if we could link that and the gross physiology to the transmissions we were receiving and make a start on the language translation.”
She seemed about to go on, but T’sha interrupted. “And you have made great progress, I see.”
Tr’es shriveled a little, embarrassed. “We have done our best. The New People are complex. They have at least as many command languages as we do, and those patterns are all bound up with their person-to-person speech. Teasing them apart has not been easy.”
T’sha whistled her appreciation. “No, it would be extremely difficult. Your good work will make your birth city proud.”
At that, Tr’es puffed up fully. “How does Ca’aed?”
“Very well.” T’sha whistled more approval at the warmth with which Tr’es spoke of her blood home. “You have been here a long time, haven’t you? Perhaps a trip back to Ca’aed is indicated.”
Tr’es cocked her head first to one side, then the other. “I’d like that, Ambassador T’sha, if Ambassador D’seun would agree….”
T’sha decided to spare her from having to go on. “We can leave the discussion for later if you think that would be better.” This was a rough wind. T’sha had some authority over Tr’es, as ambassador from her birth home, but if Tr’es’s loyalties weren’t all promised to D’seun, she was the only one on the team, except possibly for Br’sei. Br’sei, however, was older, much more complicated, and much better at hiding what he really knew, so T’sha had decided to tackle Tr’es first.
Tr’es had swelled even further. She was almost her normal size now. “Yes, that might be best.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” T’sha stretched her wings. The child…Tr’es was as relaxed as she was going to get. Now was the time to ask the real question. “Tr’es, how did the New People’s raw material come into our possession?”
“I was not there,” said Tr’es, just a little too quickly. “Ambassador D’seun said there was an accident and all that remained of the New People who suffered was raw material, which he collected for study.” She shifted her size uneasily. “For me to study,” she added like an admission.
T’sha dipped her muzzle. “That study sounds as though it was arduous,” she said, carefully keeping the touch of judgment from her words. “How did you deal with the extreme cold?”
“Carefully,” said Tr’es, with a flash of engineer’s humor. T’sha clacked her teeth. “At first we used only nonliving tools. Then, working from the New People’s material, we were able to grow some specialized microcosms that were able to keep their liquid transfer media intact and yet perform useful work.”