Since arriving in Antyra, he had only had one contact with a ship of the natives, which left them with the holotheater and the instructions for how to use it. The meeting was surprisingly short, and the only useful thing he was able to notice was that the Antyrans didn’t seem overly excited by their arrival. They had asked him to stay at the periphery under the pretense that their presence could trigger internal turmoil, but the reason was surely just a veiled attempt to limit their movements. He had to accept the situation for the moment. Yet if he wasn’t able to progress, Omal knew that the Federation had other ways to break their bark. The sarken beacons were already en route, and soon they’d triangulate the position of the object that made the distortion. After they’d found it, the invisible kralls would take it by force if necessary.
The backup plan seemed simple, but it would take time to apply it. And time was a luxury they didn’t have. The others saw no reason to hurry, but the sound of alarm in his head made him believe that Antyra’s secrets had to be quickly clarified: no newly discovered world would behave so strangely with an advanced civilization that came to visit it—unless they had something important to hide. The ambassador could only hope that today’s meeting would finally break the ice and bring the much-expected answers.
He learned that the ruler of Antyra’s name was Baila and that he never went anywhere—the only way of seeing him was through his hologram, which would be appearing shortly in the Antyran holotheater installed on his ship. Ancient technology, yet ingenious, said their linguist. It would cause a stir on Rigulia IX in a spiral of curiosities. It wouldn’t be bad if they managed to keep it after the mission was over.
Sirtam had no idea what he was going through… Daily migraines and unrelenting waves of shivers prevented him from focusing, while Sirtam was enjoying the fabled hot Lacrilian mud. He was probably thinking the whole story was just a mud bubble. We give them a handful of sweet, smelly mud, and they give us the distortion device. Huh.
Omal didn’t have the slightest idea what, exactly, the Antyrans needed most. What’s your key? he thought. Everything boils down to a hunting party, even when you do it against a highly intelligent being, and you can never be sure who’s the hunter and who’s the hunted. And that’s what’s making things more interesting. Even with all the hormones tormenting his flesh, he loved his job and did it according to the protocols.
A white flash announced that Baila was about to materialize in the holotheater.
“Greatest Baila,” Omal welcomed him, spinning his palm up and down as the linguist had taught him.
“Ambassador,” Baila said, nodding slightly as a sign that he noticed him. “I hope I’m not late. Some urgent matters delayed me.”
The prophet was perched on a throne carved in stone. He was dressed in an outlandishly red outfit whose symbolism eluded Omal, as he was uninitiated in the mysteries of the Book of Creation Inrumiral—and even more so because he was a Rigulian and lacked the habit of wearing clothes, even on special occasions like this one. Behind the prophet, Omal could see the massive basalt walls of an underground room dug deep inside the heart of a mountain.
“We’ve made good progress in learning your language,” Omal said, pointing at the floating Corbelian sphere that provided the translation. “From your holofluxes—”
“You’re getting them from such distance?” Baila asked, surprised. He had personally ordered that all fluxes emit only low-power transmissions in local areas, to avoid being received by the visitors…
“We’re too far,” admitted the ambassador. “We have records from the first days, but we want to learn more about your world. We want to help you.”
“Help us?” The prophet frowned. “And why would we need your help?”
The question was undoubtedly a trap designed to amplify the meeting’s hostility. Yet Antyra’s problems were visible even from the system’s periphery, so he decided not to avoid it this time. Sirtam would be mad about this!
“What’s with the desert planet, Antyra II?” asked Omal. “We see a giant cyclone destroying your cities!”
Baila pretended he didn’t hear the question, tapping his fingers on the throne’s arm. His tension was so obvious—he looked like a naughty child who wanted to go out and play in the dirt. He didn’t know how to hide it, and he obviously wasn’t a diplomat—he was an individual used to giving orders.
“We Antyrans have friendly natures. We welcome our guests in peace and feast them with acajaa flour. But tradition asks our visitors to respect our dignity and habits,” he chided Omal.
“Greatest Baila, we are the ambassadors of the Galactic Federation, a union of nineteen worlds! We want to help you,” he insisted. “Our resources are huge and—”
“The gods tore down the wall of fire,” exclaimed Baila, giving him a hostile look. “It’s a gift from them, not a punishment! I want you to understand this. No matter what you believe, it’s their divine will, and we gladly obey it!”
His first offer, even if unspoken, was clearly understood and undoubtedly rejected by the Antyran. What’s going on in the freak’s mind? wondered Omal. The creature in front of him was dangerous, and he betrayed a primitive thinking, in complete dissonance with the A2 fusion technology around him. The prophet wasn’t at all concerned about the terrible suffering of so many Antyrans who direly needed help. Divine will to let your subjects be blown away by a planetary tornado?
He would have given anything to understand the implications of the large Zzrey factor. Was Baila speaking on behalf of all the natives?
“The Galactic Federation is highly advanced. We can help you, but you have to ask,” he said, making another try, hoping that Baila wouldn’t read any trace of the hormonal desperation ravaging his body.
The protocols didn’t help him at all. He had slipped too abruptly into the midst of the problem, yet he had no choice; the neutral approach forced him to do it because when you don’t know anything about your companion’s species, the risk of blunder is greater than the advantages of socializing.
He could try to change the subject to something harmless and then quietly bring it where he wanted, but such traps wouldn’t work with Baila; he seemed far too skilled to fall victim to conversational tricks. A dark foreboding told him that he wouldn’t find the origin and location of the device today, as it became clear that this was the reason the Antyran looked so tense.
Omal 13 knew all too well what this meant, even though the meeting had just begun: his hibernation would not happen anytime soon!
“Why do you have different sizes?” the prophet asked him absently while he avoided Omal’s eyes, as if that was the most important thing he wanted to clarify.
“Different sizes?” Omal repeated, confused by the question.
“You’re small, while the other two from your ship were double your stature,” he muttered, sketching an imaginary line in the air.
“In the past, we only stopped growing when we died. Some sixteen hundred years ago, we defeated aging, so the ones alive back then kept growing, until we found the blocking hormones. The older generations are the tallest.”
“Immortals?” exclaimed Baila. “How’s that possible?”
The prophet was horrified by the lack of scruples of those foreigners who dared to crawl on the skies of Zhan the Life-Giver and steal his prerogatives. He felt so hopeless… The arrival of these aliens, instead of the Antyran gods, spelled nothing but trouble. His victory was hanging on a lousy contact that had failed to arrive to this day, and this… this ambassador just told him, grinning, that they had usurped the most sacred attribute of the gods, immortality. Such sacrilege won’t go unpunished, no matter who you are! he promised himself with hidden fury.