Quiet Invasion(86)

“What Ambassador D’seun has been doing with his team.” Br’sei finished her words and pointed his muzzle toward the doorway. “The New People’s home is near. Will you come with me to see it?”

Eagerness and caution both tugged at T’sha. “Can we do so in safety?”

“If we keep our distance, we can, but we will need a dirigible.” Br’sei spoke a few command words into his headset. “It will meet us at the mooring point.” He glided out the door. T’sha rattled her wings to the empty air and followed.

They reached the fat white dirigible without encountering D’seun. T’sha felt a bit like a child breaking curfew. It occurred to her to wonder if Br’sei had made sure D’seun was away before he came to her. Br’sei was cautious enough to think of such a thing.

The dirigible opened its doors and waited for them to fly aboard.

T’sha settled herself on one pair of perches while Br’sei spoke in the dirigible’s command language. The dirigible gave its confirmation, closed its doors, and began to rise.

They flew straight up into the shifting clouds, far up past the temperate zones to where the air was cold and thin and the gases themselves began to freeze into liquids. T’sha stroked one of the dirigible’s tendons in sympathy. It had been bred for harsh conditions, but this could not be comfortable.

Br’sei said nothing during the flight. T’sha let the silence float between them. He was making decisions, that much was obvious. She needed to give him room. He was not some overawed child who needed to be alternately coaxed along and reminded of his responsibilities. Br’sei had been declared adult before T’sha had even been born. Whole cities owed their lives to his work, and if he was successful here, the whole world would too. D’seun would take the credit for it, as ambassador. But T’sha at least would know who had grown the life, who had really spread it.

And I will make sure that others do too, she vowed silently. You have my promise.

“There,” said Br’sei suddenly.

T’sha let go of her perches and floated up beside him. Through the dirigible’s eyes she saw a sphere of silver with its wings and tail spread wide to catch the winds. Thick tendons connected an elaborate exoskeleton to dull-gray skin.

“It’s a city!” T’sha clacked her teeth delightedly. “Clearly, that is a city. Why did no one say!”

“It’s not alive.”

T’sha turned one eye toward him. “What?”

“It’s not alive,” he repeated slowly and forcefully, allowing each word to sink into her skin. “None of their cities are. They’re metal.”

T’sha pulled in on herself, almost unwilling to understand. “Ca’aed has metallic extensions, Engineer. That doesn’t mean—”

“I don’t mean metallic extensions, Ambassador.” Br’sei swelled and spread his wings. His hands all grabbed a perch to keep him from bumping into the ceiling. “I mean metal. The shell, the tendons, the bones. That was built, not grown. It is not alive. None of their cities are.”

“That’s…” T’sha stopped, searching for words.

“Morbid? Disgusting? Frightening?” suggested Br’sei, clenching and unclenching his posthands in his agitation. “I have thought all of these things.”

T’sha struggled. To live encased in metal, to not even try to emerge. How must that be? “I would not be able to tolerate it,” she said slowly. “I would go insane. But I have a friend, Technician Pe’sen, who would be fascinated by this.”

Br’sei clacked his teeth once, sharply. “Technicians always are a bit morbid, aren’t they? To give yourself over to the science of the never-living, I suppose you must be.” He whistled. “I have thought we might need one or two technicians on this team before we are done.” He gazed at the distant silver sphere again, clenching his hands around his perches. “But, I ask myself, as a good engineer must, because their environment would make me insane, does it follow that they must be insane? There are many creatures in the canopy who eat what would poison a person.”

T’sha remained silent, feeling the pattern of his words with care. Where did these questions come from? Were they wholly his own, or had someone said something to him to lift the questions up? Someone who might be Ambassador D’seun?

“Have you found an answer to this question yet?” asked T’sha carefully.

“No.” He faced the graceful, lifeless sphere that held all there was of the New People on this world. “I have seen what there is to see of them, and of us, and my thoughts have swung back and forth until I’m no longer sure what wind blows them.” He deflated. “I was hoping that your thoughts would be steadier than mine.”