“I think she will agree,” Irnv says. “It will take time. We can’t rush.”
“Of course,” Flur answers, still feeling the pulse of warmth on her arm, though by then Irnv has removed her hand. “We go,” the Cyclops says, sliding the scarf back over the bottom of her face as she stands.
They are not the first ones back into the meeting room, but it is still half-empty. Tsongwa and Slanks aren’t there yet, and Flur wonders what they might be talking about in the men’s room. She decides to put her time to good use.
“Irnv,” she says gently, getting her attention from a conversation with another alien. “That—that face there?” Flur nods at the first one in the series, the two-tone blue and lavender portrait. “Is that like the fountain in the middle of the city?”
Now that Flur has seen Irnv’s mouth she finds she can better interpret the movement of the muscles around it, even with the mask covering it. She is pretty sure Irnv is smiling. “Yes, yes,” she says, “you are right, that is another example. She is the founder of our city. After starting this city she was visited by very great tragedy. In her sorrow she wept, and her tears, different colors from each side of her eye, became the canals that we use to navigate and defend our city.”
Flur is trying to figure out how to phrase her follow-up questions—does she probe whether Irnv understands it as a myth and exaggeration, or take it politely at face value?—when she notices Tsongwa has come back in with Slanks, and nods to them.
“It is in her honor,” Irnv continues, “that we now make the tear tracks on our faces, to represent her learning, sacrifice, and wisdom.” She runs her fingers along the deep grooves in her face.
“You… do that? How?” Flur asks, trying to sound interested and non-judgmental.
“There is a plant we use,” Irnv says. “But when one has really suffered, you can see the difference. As with her,” she adds in reverential tones as the president enters the room, and Flur can see that it is true, the wrinkles in her cheeks are softer and have a subtle shine to them.
“That’s… impressive,” she says, feeling that admiration is the correct thing to express, but then the president begins to speak.
“Very regretfully,” she begins, her eye not nearly as moist as Flur had expected, “the time our visitors have with us is limited by their technology, and unfortunately we will not be able to settle this question on this visit.”
Flur’s hammock shudders with her urgency to speak, even as she catches Tsongwa’s warning look.
“However, we look upon it favorably,” the president goes on. “We will take the time to discuss it here among ourselves, and converse again with our good friends soon.”
Flur is about to say something, to ask at least for a definition of ‘soon,’ a deadline for the next communication, some token of goodwill. It is the Mission Director’s voice in her ear that stops her. “Stand down. Stand down, team, let this one go. We were working with a tight time frame, we knew that. And it’s not over. Great job, you two.”
The positive reinforcement makes Flur feel ill. Irnv’s face, as she turns to her, seems to hold some wrinkles of sympathy around the mouth-covering mask and her cosmetic tear tracks, but all she says is, “We should get you back to your ship as soon as possible.”
The return trip, indeed, seems to pass much more quickly than the journey into the city. Less constrained by the idea of making a good impression, Flur takes as many hyperphotos as she can, possibly crossing the borders of discretion. Noticing that they are taking a different canal back (unless they change color over time?) she scoops up another sample. She even pretends to trip in the forest to grab some twigs, or twig analogs. Irnv says little during the walk, although Tsongwa and Slanks appear to be deep in discussion. Probably solving the whole diplomatic problem by themselves, Flur thinks miserably. When they find their ship—it is a relief to see it again, just as they left it, under guard by a pair of Cyclopes—Flur half-expects Irnv to touch her arm again in farewell, but all she does is make the double-hand gesture of welcome, apparently also used in parting.
“Irnv,” Flur asks quickly. “How old are you?”
“Eighty-five cycles,” Irnv says, then looks up, calculating. “About thirty-two of your years,” she adds, and Flur catches the corners of a smile again. Meanwhile, Tsongwa and Slanks are exchanging some sort of ritualized embrace, both arms touching.
The return beam is less difficult than the landing, and once they are out of the planet’s atmosphere and waiting for the Mission Crawler to pick them up, Tsongwa takes off his breathing apparatus and helmet, removing the comms link to Mission Control.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Fine,” Flur says, trying for a why-wouldn’t-I-be tone. “You?”
Tsongwa nods without saying anything.
“I just wish we could have gotten the stupid thing signed,” Flur says finally.
Tsongwa raises both palms. “It’ll happen. I think.”
“The president seemed so…” Flur shakes her head. “It’s a shame that we caught a weak leader.”
“You think she’s weak?”
“Well, grief-stricken, maybe. But it comes to the same thing. For us, anyway.”
Tsongwa leaves a beat of silence. “What did you talk about in the eating room?”
“Personal stuff, mostly… names, families. Oh, that’s something,” Flur sits up in her chair. So different from those hammocks. “Irnv told me she’s named after our planet, but after our word for it. Earth, I mean.”
Tsongwa is stunned for a moment, then laughs. “Well, that’s very hospitable of them.”
“Tsongwa, she’s thirty-two. Thirty-two in our years!”
Another pause. “Maybe her name was changed in honor of the visit?”
“Or maybe…” Neither of them says it: Maybe the Cyclopes have been listening to us longer than we have been listening to the Cyclopes.
“What did you talk about?” Flur asks finally.
“Family, to start with.” Tsongwa says. “Personal history. It’s very important to them.”
“What do you mean?”
He arranges his thoughts. It occurs to Flur, looking at the lines in his face shadowed by the reflected light from the control panel, that she has no idea what he might have told them about his family, because she doesn’t know anything about him outside of his work.
“They wanted to know if I’d suffered.”
“Suffered?” Flur repeats, in the tone she might use to say, Crucified?
Tsongwa sighs; the English word is wrong, so dramatic. “They wanted to know if I’d… eaten bitter, if I’d… gone through hard times. If I’d experienced grief. You know.” An alert goes off; he starts to prepare for docking as he speaks. “They think it’s important for decision makers, for leaders. It stems from the myth of the founder—you heard about that? They believe that people who have suffered greatly have earned wisdom.” He twitches a control. “Now that we know this, we can adjust the way we approach the whole relationship. It’s a huge breakthrough.”
“But… but…” Flur wonders, with a pang, whether this means she won’t be included in the next mission. Can she somehow reveal all the hardship and self-doubt she has so painstakingly camouflaged with professionalism, dedication, and feigned poise? “But come on! The president has suffered, okay, but she didn’t seem any the wiser for it!”
Tsongwa shrugs. “They believe it, I said. That doesn’t mean it’s true. They aren’t perfect, any more than we are.”
And Flur thinks of the Mission Director, his careful multidisciplinarity and his pep talks, or the president of her country, a tall, distinguished-looking, well-spoken man who has failed by almost every measure yet retains a healthy margin of popularity. By that time they are docked, and scanned for contaminants, and the airlock doors open, and then they are swarmed by the ops team, shouting and congratulating them, slapping their shoulders and practically carrying them into the main ship where the Mission Director, his emotion apparent but held in perfect check, shakes hands with each of them and whispers a word or two of praise in their ears. Flur tries to smile and nod at everyone until finally, though it can’t have been more than five or ten minutes later, she’s alone, or almost, stripped to a sterile shift and lying in a clinic bed for the post-visit checkup.