Caine looked down at the Dornaani delegation. They were all-all-facing toward the human gallery. Eyes unblinking. Caine nodded at Alnduul, who made no movement in return.
Visser cleared her throat behind him. “Mr. Riordan-Caine-”
Caine felt all the Dornaani eyes looking directly at him, kept looking back at them as he spoke: “Here’s what we do: we tell the Arat Kur-and the Accord-the truth. Everything. We deny them nothing. Give them every sordid detail they want to pursue.”
“And when it becomes obvious that the Arat Kur have illegal advance knowledge?”
“We let someone else point it out. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Why?”
“Because the Dornaani already know what’s going on.”
“What? How-?”
“They monitor us-legally. So they know about recent events on Earth, too: how else did they know about Nolan? So they already know that the Arat Kur have illegal access to information. But the Dornaani aren’t pointing fingers, so I’m thinking that they’d like this to play out nice and calm. Which means that right now-oddly enough-the fate of the Accord and their Custodianship could be in our hands. Whether we publicly prove the Arat Kur, or ourselves, to be liars, is equally harmful to the Dornaani: both outcomes indicate that they have failed as Custodians, and it weakens the Accord.”
Trevor was nodding. “Yup. That’s how it would play out, for them. So they’d be happiest if we play dumb and go along with the charade.”
“And thereby keep the peace.”
Downing shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Risky business, giving the Arat Kur any info they want.”
Caine shrugged. “Except, if we’re right, the Arat Kur came here expecting to cause an incident, not actually gather intel. So if they try to interrogate us without a prior investigatory game plan, we’re likely to learn more from them than they will from us.”
Downing’s eyebrows went up. “Yes, that’s probably true.”
Visser was looking back and forth between them. “I do not understand.”
“Caine is quite right, Ambassador. If we do not tip our hand-if we ‘play dumb’-then the Arat Kur will want to keep asking more questions. But each one of their questions tells us a great deal about what they already know about us-and what they don’t. With some careful analysis, we might even be able to reconstruct what sources of information on Earth they had access to-or at least those they didn’t. The more questions they improvise today, the more we learn about them and their intelligence operations.”
Caine nodded. “And it puts the ball back in the Arat Kur court: they’ll damn themselves with their own actions.”
Durniak nodded. “Da. And if the Arat Kur act like brutes, the undecided powers should be more likely to side with the Dornaani. But I wonder: are the Arat Kur alone in this?”
Caine rubbed his chin. “Maybe, but it’s also possible that they’re the patsies of one of the other two powers.”
Trevor looked up. “What about the Slaasriithi? I find it pretty suspicious that they refuse to show themselves.”
“Yeah, but so far, they’ve been affable, even if they’re shy and cautious. It could all be an act, I suppose, but they seem pretty temperate: not as likely to be the movers and shakers in this club.”
“And the Ktor? What about them?”
Caine looked across the amphitheatre at the wheeled water tanks. “What about them, indeed. The wild cards.”
“And what about them?”
“Who?”
Hwang pointed to the left. “The other new kids on the block.” Caine turned, looked into the now-transparent gallery that had been assigned to the other candidate-race.
Rough brown-gray fur covered most of a pebbly hide. They were upright but digitigrade, standing at least two meters tall even without raising up on their long rear legs. A thick, round, pointed tail sent a faint line of lighter fur up the spine. It thickened into a crest where it divided the blocky haunches, mounted the barrel-shaped back between arrestingly large shoulders, and then ran along the ventral ridge of a neck that was the shape and thickness of a small pony’s. As Caine’s inspection reached the head, he heard Durniak gasp and Trevor mutter, “Christ.”
The head was hardly a separate object; it was a seamless, curved continuation of the neck, which ended in three pronounced nostrils arrayed as the vertices of an equilateral triangle. On either side of that nose, two glinting obsidian eyes were mounted under bony ridges that flared out from whatever skull might be extant beneath the sheath of flesh and muscle that blended back into the neck. The rounded “head” was long, rather like a cross between that of a sloth and an anteater, but the underslung jaw was vaguely reminiscent of a sperm whale’s. The spinal fur was heavier and thicker on the head, rising into a high, tufted crest. Caine’s eyes met those of the-creature? It was hard to think of it as a person, just yet.
“Do you think they’re part of the Arat Kur plot?” pressed Hwang.
Trevor exhaled emphatically. “Good God, I hope not,” he said, staring at the short, wide swords that swung from each one’s back-slung baldric.
Caine stayed silent, surveyed the group’s reactions: Durniak seemed to be having the most profoundly xenophobic reaction-odd since her xenophobia index had been one of the lowest. But tests and reality are two very different things. Hwang and Thandla evinced almost spiritual detachment, whereas Wasserman seemed too contentious and self-involved to be affected. Elena looked captivated, not terrified. Visser seemed rigid, but was still coping. And Trevor’s outburst struck Caine more like a means of purging anxiety rather than a declaration of it. All in all, the delegation was doing pretty well handling the sight of such profoundly different-and potentially ominous-exosapients.
The one who was looking at Caine raised a four-fingered hand-a thumb on either side of the palm-in what seemed a gesture of greeting, or maybe threat, or even warding. Caine raised his hand in response-
— just as the privacy screen reasserted. Caine turned; Visser had given the signal to Thandla. “We must resume our conversation with the Arat Kur; they are waiting.”
Caine nodded to Thandla, then cleared his throat. “My apologies, Zirsoo. There was some debate as to how much detail we should use when responding to your question regarding the relationship between the World Confederation and the United Nations.”
“You have finished your deliberations?”
“Yes. Please feel free to ask any question you wish.”
And so began the dull recitation of the sad facts-which, in retrospect, read like the decline and fall-of the United Nations: its lack of efficacy; the interminable deadlocks in the Security Council; the self-interested posturing and dickering in the General Assembly; its successes in the areas of social welfare and education; and its dismal failures at ensuring, or even increasing, peace, security, and economic parity. As the questions became more specific, Visser and Durniak had to intervene more frequently to provide precise data. After receiving Durniak’s long-and to Caine, baffling-answer regarding the accounting procedures used in the calculation of each nation’s per capita productivity, the questions stopped. Everyone waited.
The yellow quatrefoil pulsed steadily, but no further queries came forth.
“Are there further queries regarding the legitimacy or authority of the government represented by the human delegation?” Alnduul folded his hands, waited. “Very well. If any delegation wishes to formally contest the legitimacy of the World Confederation of Earth, they must do so at this time.”
A brief pause, then Zirsoo’s simulated voice: “The Arat Kur delegation must contest the human government’s legitimacy. The covering dossier claims that it enjoys the approval of seventy-eight percent of the human population and that its leading nations control ninety-two percent of all global productivity. However, the approval percentages were not generated by universal one-person/one-vote polling, but by extremely disparate national surveys and referendums. Furthermore, we are concerned that the human delegation has not shared all the relevant facts regarding the legal creation of the World Confederation.”