“It wasn’t changed, this is an emergency session,” I explained. Aroo blinked, which was especially noticeable on Saeli with their multicolored triple eyelid. “Are you aware that a human spaceship is in orbit?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said at once. The Saeli have been in contact with us for twenty years. They have a fascination with Plato, and have been closely allied with us. Lots of them live here, and many of them have, like Aroo, taken oaths of citizenship. I like them, and have put effort into studying them, especially recently, because of Hilfa. But sometimes they’re infuriating.
“We know the human spaceship has been in contact with the Saeli ship in orbit,” I said.
“Yes,” Aroo said again, but this time to my relief she kept talking. “They seem highly surprised. They have not met Saeli before. The only language we have in common is Amarathi, which is slow and uncomfortable. We have asked to learn their language. They seem to be hesitating about allowing this.”
“I know an older form of their language, which they can comprehend. I will teach it to you according to our existing agreements about exchange of information,” Crocus said immediately.
Aroo’s pink markings grew darker, which I suspect is a sign of approval. “Good,” she said.
“Perhaps you should offer a class,” I said. “Many of us might need to learn English now. Though probably we can’t manage it at Aroo’s speed.” A few people laughed. The Saeli skill at languages was legendary.
Aroo looked at me for permission to continue, and I waved my hand. “Communication was limited by language difficulties. They seem extremely interested in learning the location of our planets, for what they state are purposes of wholesome trade. They have also expressed interest in immediately purchasing fuel from us for their spaceship. We have not made any hasty decisions. And although the captain of our ship in orbit is an independent agent and not bound by me or by decisions made on Plato, he has agreed to take my advice for the time being, in consideration of existing agreements and negotiations soon to be concluded.” She meant the new trade agreement, of course.
“If they need fuel for their spaceship, does that mean they have run out?” Jasmine asked. Jasmine was a younger Worker, one of the ones brought to the Republic by Porphyry after the Relocation. “And does their spaceship work the same way yours does, so that you could sell them fuel, or would it be like putting a battery for a train into a Worker?”
“I believe their ship must use the same fuel,” Aroo said. “Excuse me, it is difficult to convey this in Greek. This fuel is not like electricity. We and the Amarathi know only one way to be drawn up to what you might call the second hypostasis and come back down again elsewhere, thus evading the necessary barriers of light. We do it by using a fuel that comes from the heart of exploding stars. This must be the same for the space humans, for this is the fuel they named, using the Amarathi term.”
“We don’t need to go into either the physics or the metaphysics of that right now,” I said, cutting off all the people whose hands shot up to ask for clarification. “We’ll simply accept for today’s argument that you use the same fuel. Does your ship have enough of this fuel to spare that it can sell it to the space humans, if you decide to?”
“Yes,” Aroo said. “Though that might be a difficult negotiation. It is precious. It is hard to imagine what they might give to us of a comparable value to make this a mutually beneficial trade. We could better make them a gift of it to establish a long-term friendship, but this they have not asked, and we have not offered, as we were waiting for discussion with you. Such an offer could be made, but it would draw them into the established matrix of ongoing friendship and communication between us on Plato and the Saeli League.”
“We should know more about them first,” Diotima said.
I nodded. “Do you have thoughts on the other part of Jasmine’s question, Aroo? Might they have exhausted their fuel coming here, like a fishing boat draining the motor to avoid rocks?”
“It is possible, but they did not say that this was the case.” Aroo came back and sat down, as expressionless as ever.
“We were about to vote on the established plan to tell the new arrivals of our divine origins in such a way as they will believe them to be a myth, and believe that this planet was truly settled by spaceships.”
Aroo looked down. We had followed the plan when we met the Saeli, but those of them who lived here had inevitably seen things that couldn’t be explained away. Aroo was a Gold. I wondered what she believed about Pytheas and the Relocation. The Saeli have their own gods, and a little closed circular temple down in the harbor district. Permission to build temples in the other cities was one of the terms of the new agreement. But they didn’t like to discuss religion. It always seemed to make them uncomfortable.
“I have no new information, and no objection,” she said, her eyes veiled behind her lilac and beige outer lids.
We voted, and to my relief there was a clear majority for following the plan. Aroo abstained. I set up the committee on investigation of other cultures, then formally closed the session for the day. Halius proposed an emergency meeting for the next morning, when we’d have more information from the ship. We voted, and it passed overwhelmingly. I knew I could count on Crocus to count the votes and analyze them, but I could tell at a glance that these votes cut across our usual party lines.
So we were to follow the plan, and the plan called for us to squeeze out as much from the humans as we could before they came down. Crocus rolled down to join me and Dad where we were talking with Klymene and Aroo.
“I’m going back to talk to the ship,” Klymene said. “Will you come out to the spaceport?”
“I think that we should go to Thessaly first,” Dad said, including me in his glance.
“I ought to go to Thessaly to pay respects too,” Aroo said. “First I will hurry home, and tell our ship that you will teach us the space human language. Perhaps I can find a volunteer to begin learning it immediately. Then when I have dealt with that, I will go briefly to Thessaly, and then out to the spaceport.”
“We’ll call for you on our way,” Dad said.
“Thank you,” Aroo said, giving a Saeli sideways head-bow, and left.
“Who can we send to take a message to Porphyry?” I asked Dad.
“He’ll be here already, at Thessaly,” he said.
Here for Pytheas’s wake, of course. “We should go and talk to him now,” I said. I was tired but excited.
“You did well in the chair,” Dad said. I glowed in his approval.
“Can this really be human recontact, at last?” I asked, hardly able to believe it even now.
“It’s wonderful,” Dad said. “We’ll have so much to learn from each other. So much history to exchange. And we’ll be able to visit Earth, and their new planets. All that art!”
“No art raids on Earth!” I said, smiling at the impossibility.
Dad gave a little laugh. “I wouldn’t put it past the Amazons if they had the means. Art exchange, now—wouldn’t it be something if we could get them interested in joining in!”
“They might want to join in the Olympics and other athletic contests, and be prepared to put some of their art in as prizes,” I said, excited at the thought. “It’s something we could suggest. It’s such a great way of having it circulate.”
“And it keeps the young hotheads focused on competing instead of killing each other,” Dad said, soberly. He remembered the art raids, of course, and had lost his mother and friends to them. It was hard to keep in mind, when they seemed to me like old history.
“We should bring up such participation in negotiations,” Crocus said.
“They might even have made some new art in the centuries since. They must have. I wonder what it’s like?” I asked.