“You see anyone else sitting where I’m looking? Let’s go get dinner. And don’t get any ideas. I’m just hungry, is all.”
Karam must have risen and left with her. At some point the others did as well.
Riordan didn’t see or hear them leave; all he could see was Elena.
* * *
Mriif’vaal accompanied Yiithrii’ah’aash to the flight operations section of the Third Silver Tower. They approached the waiting shuttle in silence. Yiithrii’ah’aash sent forth a thin wave front of amity pheromones, and turned to board and begin his journey back to the Tidal-Drift-Instaurator-to-Shore-of-Stars and, ultimately, human space.
“Yiithrii’ah’aash, a question, if I may.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash turned back toward Mriif’vaal. “Of course. You have been most silent today, and I have not wanted to distract you from your thoughts.”
“They are not thoughts so much as they are concerns. Anxieties, even.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s interlaced his tendrils, made sure that his posture was relaxed. “Please share these with me; perhaps I may help.”
“My gratitude, Yiithrii’ah’aash. The events surrounding the humans, and particularly Caine Riordan — I am not sure I understand all the consequences of the choice we made to preserve his life by applying the ancient theriac.”
Ah: Mriif’vaal is both subtle and wise. He will be an excellent Prime Ratiocinator, when his day comes. “What consequences do you fear or foresee?”
“My reservations are not specific, but general.”
“Please elucidate.”
“Gladly, Yiithrii’ah’aash. I have never before encountered so many safeguards against the use of any resource that is at our disposal, and so many limiting protocols for its application. Even our employment of nuclear weapons has fewer, or at least less narrow, constraints. And yet, the danger one would presume to necessitate such extreme precautions is nowhere evident in the action of the theriac itself.”
Clever. Excellent. But I may not fully satisfy your curiosity, and so apologize for the lie of omission that I must now employ. “The consequences of the theriac are difficult to foresee; they may take different forms, it is said. However, we created these potential problems by acting hastily in bringing the humans to us.” That we had no good alternative to that haste is a separate matter. “What I commend to your further consideration is this: what problems we may have made for ourselves, and for Caine Riordan, by raising him from near-death with the theriac are in the future. Obversely, we had to act to solve urgent problems that beset us in the present. And Caine Riordan was, and remains, the key to their solution. In short, there was no choice. Besides, Mriif’vaal, beyond his utility to our purposes, Caine is also a great friend to our species and will prove even more so in the years to come, I foresee.”
Mriif’vaal buzzed faintly. “And you are fond of him.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s neck wiggled. “And I am fond of him. But beyond any personal feeling in the matter, there is the need for our two species to be Affined. A powerful need.” Yiithrii’ah’aash paused, let that pause alter the tenor of the conversation as he resumed with a casual, almost speculative tone. “I, and others, have been contemplating how the humans both problematize and adorn our macroscopic perspective of the universe, and how that points toward a long-term solution to our current problems. In contemplating the humans, I find myself unfurling tendrils of logic into the fibers of the cosmos as it is revealed to us through our challenges.”
“And what does this reflection show you?”
Yiithrii’ah’aash was silent for a second, elected to answer Mriif’vaal’s question with one of his own. “It is odd, is it not, how each of the sapient species in this region of space has a special talent?”
“I am not sure I perceive your meaning.”
“It is as though the way our own species has distributed our need for different skills over our taxae and subtaxae recalls and resonates with the cosmos’ own distribution of special talents and abilities among the other species we have encountered.” He sent a final wave of affinity pheromones at Mriif’vaal. “You might contemplate this, in quiet moments.”
Not daring to say more, Yiithrii’ah’aash dipped his neck in farewell, turned and boarded the waiting shuttle.
Chapter Fifty-Five. DEEP SPACE and BD +02 4076 and SIGMA DRACONIS
Brenlor glanced at Ayana Tagawa, the only Aboriginal who was still on the bridge of the Arbitrage. “Your shift-plot is sufficient. Leave us.”
The small Asian female nodded her way into a reasonable bow that never did become fully submissive, Nezdeh noted. She is the best of them and the most dangerous. And having lost one of our two Intendants and two near-Evolved, we need her even more than before. That does not bode well.
Arbitrage’s preacceleration burn caused them all to lean slightly toward the aft bulkhead; in eight hours they would terminate thrust and engage the shift drive to the system designated as G-22-26. But after that…Brenlor had not announced their subsequent course, which made Nezdeh nervous. His decisions had improved recently, but he had closeted himself over the matter of their further destinations and ultimate objective. Thus shielded from counsel, Brenlor would decide their fate. Possibly disastrously.
Brenlor Srin Perekmeres crossed his arms, leaned over the star-plot, shrank its scale to show more stars in the same volume. “Our mission to disrupt the establishment of an alliance between the Aboriginals and the Slaasriithi has failed. While our loss of Terran equipment and clones is negligible, we shall continue to feel the loss of our own team members. However, we still have a way to achieve our primary objective: to undermine any postwar stability between the various powers. We must ensure that the Aboriginals’ recovery from the war is problematic and that they are unable to fully capitalize upon both the spoils of their victory over the Arat Kur and the benefits of any alliance with the Slaasriithi. And in so doing, we shall implicate House Shethkador as providing woefully insufficient leadership in this area of space.”
So we will achieve the same ends with far fewer means — including the inestimable advantage of surprise? This, thought Nezdeh, should prove most interesting.
“Firstly, our defeat in this system provides our foes with no decisive forensic evidence, so it is unlikely to register with the Autarchs as more than a nuisance. Because Jesel and Suzruzh were not the product of optimized genelines, we left no definitive genetics. The Catalysites were expended and hence, deliquesced. We did not lose any of our own technology on their mission. In summary, any accusation against the Ktoran Sphere will be circumstantial and unsubstantiatable. The incident will become at most a cavil, not a decisive argument, against us, either within the Sphere or the Accord. Indeed, all the evidence we left behind is of Aboriginal origin.”
Idrem nodded, folded his own arms. “Yes, but the Aboriginals still lack the shift range, to say nothing of the astrographic charts, to make their way to this system. So the question will be asked: how did they get there?”
“To which every responsible party must presently answer: ‘Who knows?’ Every power of the Accord will deny involvement, especially our own Sphere. And so, discord is sown. Let them concoct whatever hypothetical plots they wish. It shall not point back to the Ktoran Sphere or our patrons.”
Sehtrek rubbed his chin. “And yet, Srin Shethkador, the Autarchs and the Hegemons will all know—know—who did this.”