Explorer

“One fears they didn’t feed him near enough, nadiin-ji,” Bren murmured. “Or perhaps the station food disagrees with his stomach. We shall endeavor to better that. Advise Bindanda.”

“Yes,” Asicho said smartly, and did that.

In subsequent scenes their robe-clad guest drank multiple cups of water, five cups, as Asicho commented, before testing the bed gingerly and lying down.

Evolved in conditions of more water, rather than less. More vegetation rather than minimal, one might then guess. High water need. Heavy skin, the evolutionary value of which eluded his meager study. He wished he’d borne down just a little more on the theoretical end of his biology classes, back in his monofocussed youth. If a fact hadn’t applied to atevi, in his youthful arrogance, he hadn’t been interested. Now he was extremely sorry.

“Narani-nadi has discreetly estimated his size for better tailoring, nandi,” Asicho said sotto voce. “Bindanda is attempting to construct suitable clothing as quickly as possible.”

“A very good idea,” Bren said, with a mental image of their guest in atevi court attire. But who knew? Being dressed like his hosts would surely be a psychological improvement over the prison garb, an evidence of better fortunes.

“He seems in many points like us, nandi.”

“That he does,” Bren said. Four limbs, a similar musculature to move them, an upright stance and the spinal curve and gait that kept a bipedal creature from falling over. A not exclusively vegetarian dentition, Banichi informed him: meat was likely, then, on his menu.

And jaw curvature and fine control of tongue and throat for articulate speech? In that broad face, yes, likely so. In that large head and that ship waiting out there for six years, definitely a brain and a sense of purpose, however he communicated.

Eyes, two. Nose, useful to any species, short, broad, positioned above, not below, the mouth, a sensible design, in a human’s estimation.

A bullet head that sat down onto huge shoulders. Broad grasping hands, flat, broad feet that certainly weren’t going to fit into any boots they owned—nature of the toes wasn’t clear.

Huge rib cage. One assumed it protected the breathing apparatus and that digestion fit rather lower into the frame, the finish of that process as far from the intake as anatomy could manage, simply to give chemistry as much time to work as feasible… again, a reasonable arrangement, as seemed.

Sex indeterminate in folds of skin, if the location of the distinction was involved neither with respiration nor digestion, and the young, co

And while gravity and the need for locomotion, perception, and manipulation of the environment (wasn’t that what his professors had said?) might make biological entities look rather more alike than not—gravity had nothing in particular to do with the mind, the language, or the attitudes of a long cultural history, which could be damnably soft, mutable, and difficult to predict.

His professors would be highly useful right now. He wished he had the whole resources of the University on Mospheira, and their labs and their committees, to back him up.

He wished they were safely back in orbit around their own planet and he could take years doing this.

But they weren’t, and he couldn’t. He gathered himself up with a deep breath. “Do not hesitate to notify us, Asi-ji,” he said to Asicho, “if there should be any word from Jase or the dowager on any account.”

“One will be closely attentive, nandi,” Asicho assured him softly.

He left, Banichi and Jago close on his heels…

And outside, he discovered Cenedi. So the dowager was interested, and not entirely patient.

And with Cenedi and his two men came a very unofficial presence, Cajeiri, tagging the dowager’s men at a safe distance, looking as inconspicuous as possible. And—one should note, who hoped for quiet and sanity—Cajeiri stood eavesdropping, toy car in hand.

“The dowager inquires,” Cenedi said.

“I am proceeding immediately,” Bren said.

Cajeiri noted that look. “Might one just see this foreigner, nand’ Bren?”

Cenedi bent a stern look aside and down.

But, it flashed across Bren’s mind—in the naivete of that question: in the extreme pressure of time, to convince another species that one was not a warlike, ravening enemy—dared one think?

Dared one remotely think a child might be useful?

“Perhaps the dowager might permit him, Cenedi-nadi. What if we were to work on this foreigner what we worked upon Becker-nadi? What if this foreigner were to see we have young children and elder statesmen aboard?”

His own staff looked at him, appalled. Cenedi looked decidedly uneasy. “Hurrah!” Cajeiri cried.

Yet was it not the case, the paidhi asked himself? The fragile, troublesome side of every intelligent species must be its young—young in an intelligent species requiring a prolonged learning phase. Young who were apt to do any damned thing. Young who routinely made naturally forgivable mistakes.

How best, without words, to demonstrate one’s pacific intent, than to show one’s softer side? The dowager had rarely come under that description. But she could manage a grand graciousness. The ship’s crew venerated her.

“Perhaps, Cenedi-nadi, we shall invite our guest to the dining hall for refreshments—tired though our guest may be, he would surely like to know his situation, and perhaps we can demonstrate our hospitality. Perhaps the young aiji might indeed come and bring his toy. Though it is a very adult business, and the young aiji must bear extreme tedium with extraordinary patience. Perhaps the dowager herself would come and observe.”

Cenedi looked worried. “One will certainly relay this invitation, nandi.”

An invitation unwritten, testing the limits of atevi courtesy: but Cenedi clearly had no doubt the dowager would be amenable, and laying her own schemes on her next breath.

“Shall we speak to this foreigner, nadiin-ji?” Cajeiri asked.

“Perhaps,” Bren said, “we may convince him even our youngest are civilized and polite.”

“A subterfuge,” Cajeiri said with restrained excitement. “A subterfuge, Cenedi-nadi?”

“His new word,” Cenedi said, and to the offspring: “If mani agrees, you may be present and you may speak, young lord, but judiciously , and one does not believe the paidhi-aiji intends civility as a hollow subterfuge.”

“Yes, Cenedi-nadi!”

“We shall ask your great-grandmother,” Cenedi said—indeed, ask the dowager, who thought a headlong ride down a rocky mountain was sport, at her age. Cajeiri worshipfully tagged Cenedi down the corridor toward the dowager’s door.

Bren looked at Banichi and Jago, knowing— knowing that he was about to test the limits of reasonable risk and his staff’s resources. He would assuredly have his own fragile neck at risk, and if he showed a potential enemy their softer side, he also showed that enemy a softer target—not even figuring it might go all wrong and he might offend or disgust the individual they had to reach. There were no certainties. The fact was, there were no facts to work on: they had the what, but not a shred of the why.

“Safeguard the dowager and the heir at utmost priority. I insist, nadiin-ji. They would be the soft target, if I make any mistake. You will give me an opportunity to retreat. And I assure you, I promise you, I promise you twice and three times—I shall run.”

“One agrees,” Banichi said—viscerally as hard for his own bodyguard, that promise to abandon him, as a leap off a cliff. All instincts warred against leaving him. But they were not slaves to those instincts. They understood him. “Yes,” Jago said flatly.