Indowy quarters were about a fourth the size of quarters for a normal human. It wasn’t that they were agoraphobic, exactly. It was just that they felt much more secure in groups. Still, Aelool had made the sacrifice of having a room by himself because of the necessity of occasionally entertaining humans. Even in Chicago Base, most of the Indowy would rather not deal with carnivores unless the meeting was necessary, except for the few human children apprentices in Sohon whose families had been carefully selected even among the Bane Sidhe for adaptability. The human children were vegetarians. It wasn’t exactly their fault that they had been born in a species that hadn’t abandoned its carnivorous roots yet.
His solitary quarters also seemed more comfortable for human visitors, who tended to be okay in duos or small groups, but had an unfortunate tendency to react badly to crowds. The few scholars who had studied their history, despite a natural distaste for the violent subject matter, were about evenly divided, after observing human behavior in crowds of their own species throughout history, about whether humans were pathological loners or closet xenophobes. He tended to lean towards the former hypothesis, and acted on it. It had worked well for him so far. Honestly, so long as you kept them out of crowds, many humans were basically okay people.
At the moment, he was preparing for his most frequent visitor, Nathan O’Reilly, who had been entrusted with the care of the main base of Bane Sidhe operations on Earth. Although most information gathering and other operations were best handled through a cell system, once you got above a certain level of complexity, a certain bureaucracy was inevitable. O’Reilly’s particular philosophical discipline required that he not marry and bear offspring, so he had no clan to speak of, but his learning and position equated to a sort of senior elder. Aelool respected him. They had a mutual passion for logic games, and Father O’Reilly had been teaching him chess. It would take at least a century to master. Perhaps then he could return the favor and teach his friend aethal.
Proper hospitality towards human visitors required the ritual preparation of a bean broth highly prized among their species. He had learned the art from the best expert he could find. A perfectly clean pot and apparatus, a tiny pinch of salt, run the beans, which could be purchased dried and preroasted, through a coarse grinding machine, bottled spring water, add the components to the right parts of the machine, and it prepared the soup perfectly every time. He did not understand how water could have a season, but when he ordered it from Supply, they always knew what he meant, so he chose not to argue.
Aelool had learned that some chess sets were more abstract than others. The one he had chosen had pieces of wood, carved in intricate detail. He liked the horse. He had met them a couple of times. They weren’t quite sophonts, but he would like to have one in his quarters-group some day, if they could be bred small enough.
When everything was ready for his guest, he sat quietly for a few minutes, working on the design for his latest project. When the light shifted slightly yellow-ward, announcing the scholar’s arrival, he put the project away quietly and keyed the intercom.
“It’s open,” he said.
“Aelool, how are you this afternoon?”
“I’m fine,” he offered the ritual greeting. “May I get you some coffee?”
“Yes, please. Black.”
The Indowy placed a cup of coffee and a glass of water, with an olive, on the tray. Actually, the coffee was not black. It was a dark brown. And adding fat and nutrient-fortified mammalian sweat did not make it white, but more of a light brown. He had noticed humans tended to exaggerate such things.
They began their chess game. He had white — which was, in this case, actually white — so he opened the game. Currently, he was learning the variations on the knight’s gambit. As they played, O’Reilly updated him on the current state of Earth operations.
“Worth won’t be easy for them to replace. Most of the combat vets around are used to killing Posleen, not fellow humans. Sure, they still have the professionals he recruited and trained, but the Darhel have always tended to rely on data mining and hacking for intelligence more than actual sophont operatives or agents. Their training systems are weak, and any loss hurts.”
“I am more concerned about the leak. We need concealment. The plan is very long term, and premature exposure could defeat it.”
“Team Isaac has an impressive success rate.”
“They had better.”
Chapter Four
It was a few minutes before six and the edges of the scattered clouds were a brilliant pink when Cally got off the city bus at the Columbia gate of the Wall. She had her backpack, one rolling suitcase, and had teamed an old pair of cutoff shorts with a T-shirt, complete with garish beach sunset, and a bright yellow Folly Beach visor. She wore an expression of slightly desperate hopefulness as she scanned the vehicles lining up for the morning convoy. She started towards a rather battered white van, but one scowl from the female driving it had her looking for another. Towards the end of the line she spotted a VW van that must have been damn near eighty years old. The tie-dyed patterns painted on the panels showed different degrees of fading, but had also clearly been carefully touched up over the years. The skull with roses coming out of the top was absolutely perfect, as was the lovingly painted legend that she knew even before she got far enough past the other vehicles to see all the words.
Before approaching, she took care of the buckley, turning voice access and response off and running the emulation all the way down to two, tucking it back into her purse. Wouldn’t do to have him saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
The driver had long, blond hair and a full mustache and well-combed beard. He was built like a small bear. As she approached, she could detect a faint whiff of oak leaves and patchouli over the salt and fish from the tanks in back. The music from his cube player reached a good way from the open window and his fingers were tapping to the beat on the sill. ”… gotta tip they’re gonna kick the door in again. I’d like to get some sleep before I travel…”
“Hey, bitchin’ shirt. You surf?” He noticed her as she dragged the suitcase up.
“I’ve caught a coupla waves here and there. But I usually head out to L.A. for that. For the waves here, I didn’t even bring my own board. Didn’t have the cash or the time to go out that far this trip.”
“Bummer,” he sympathized. “Too much of everything’s about money, man. But you gotta make a living, so what can you do. You ridin’ out on the bus?”
“Well, actually, I was kinda hoping I could find somebody I could hitch a ride with. I spent a little too much and I could afford the ticket, I just, you know, would have to go real light on meals till I got back to campus.”
“Oh man, that sucks, say no more.” He leaned over and unlocked the passenger side door. “By the way, I’m Reefer. Reefer Jones.”
“Marilyn Grant. Thanks, dude.” She lugged her suitcase around the front of the car, stowed it behind the passenger seat, tucked her pack in the floorboard under her feet, and got in, carefully not wrinkling her nose at the salty, fishy smell.
“Oh, we’ve gotta figure out some way to square you with the paperwork,” he grimaced apologetically. “Sorry, but my boss can be a pain in the ass about hitchhikers. Hey, I don’t suppose you can shoot, can you?”
Cally fumbled in her purse and handed him a very sincere range certification from a local Charleston range, dated a few days ago, rating Marilyn Grant an expert, non-resident.
“I went on a lark. Hadn’t shot in years, but my mom made me learn, you know?” she said.