Nomad (6 page)

Speaker Tlatoani led the way to a separate chamber, one without shelves or podiums. A single, unfolded book lined the walls like a horizontal tapestry, every page of it visible at once.

Gabe read the translated writing:
Here is told how the people of maize and bonemeal and the blood of Quetzalcoatl came to travel nomadic between suns.

The floor was a mosaic of small tiles, and also a map of a single planet. Gabe instantly recognized the shape of its continents.

A bright set of tiles marked central Mexico.

“This is the Chamber of the Homeworld,” Speaker Tlatoani announced. “Here is told that history of several suns ago, and here we meet as a gesture of kinship. We who left to become Kaen were among the first city-makers. We were the best astronomers, and the very best mathematicians. The Kaen came visiting on their long migration and were impressed by our accomplishments, by our skills at math and stargazing, and by the play of our magnificent games. A sense of play is needful to establish communication.”

“We know,” Kaen said quietly. “We're ambassadors.”

The Speaker went on as though Kaen hadn't said anything. “First the fleet offered trade in objects and stories, in the sorts of communication and cooperation that complex life and civilizations all depend on. Then they offered us membership within the fleet, and we accepted. Our oldest cities emptied into orbit to become Kaen.”

Mom might not be so pissed about this after all
, Gabe thought.
Aliens never built our pyramids. Aliens don't take the credit for ancient human accomplishments. They were impressed by what we had already accomplished.

“Thank you for sharing this history, Speaker Tlatoani,” Gabe said.

“None of it should be news to you,” said the Speaker. “The homeworld should remember us. Your academy should hold and preserve the shape of such remembrance.”

“They don't have an academy on the homeworld,” said Kaen. She didn't say it in an insulting way, but Gabe still felt the sting of embarrassment at his lack of galactic education.

“This is astonishing,” said the Speaker. “It also explains much.”

The Envoy turned mortified shades of purple.

“Terrible things happened to each and every human academy I tried to build,” it explained. “They burned in Tenochtitlán, and in Baghdad, and in Alexandria, and in the fires of Qin. Human academies do not last. Inhuman academies sometimes last longer. The descendants of elephant ambassadors maintained their mobile school for many generations, and they might well be teaching history and diplomacy to each other at this very moment. I hope so. But I don't know for sure. I have not selected an elephantine ambassador for some time.”

“What's an elephant?” Kaen asked.

“A very big mammal,” Gabe told her, relieved to be the one answering a question rather than asking it. “Large ears, prehensile trunks for noses. Migratory, like the Kaen. They're supposed to have very long memories, but I don't know if that's really true.”

“It is,” the Envoy said. “And their epic marching poems are very impressive.”

The light inside the chamber dimmed.

“We will now take council with the other captains,” said the Speaker.

“All of them?” Gabe asked. He had seen a great many Kaen ships outside, and he didn't think representatives of every ship would fit inside this room.

“No,” said the Speaker. “Four captains will meet here,
two of them projected to join us remotely. We four take actions pertaining to snake blood and shields.”

“Translation?” Gabe whispered to Kaen.

“They make emergency decisions,” she told him, “especially those related to conflicts in general, and our evasion of the Outlast in particular.”

Gabe understood what that meant. “These are the four captains who decided to kill me. Who turned my entanglement device into a house-swallowing black hole. Who sent ice-mining drones to shoot me down.”

“Yes,” said Kaen.

“Oh good.” Gabe cracked his knuckles. “Should be a fun conversation, then.”

Two glowing projections flickered and took shape inside the chamber. One of them had a beak, a large head crest, and long hair—though the hair looked more like anemones than anything hairy or feathery. Visual translation flickered on and off again. It transformed the projection into a male and humanlike figure, blond and frowning.

“Captain Qonne,” the Speaker said as both a greeting and an introduction.

The other captain was a tree. Once translated, the tree looked androgynously human, and also like some sort of guru: seated, serene, and hovering above the floor.

“Captain Seiba,” said the Speaker.

The fourth came physically into the chamber. He had to crouch down to pass through the doorway. This captain was tall, black-skinned, and potbellied. Untranslated he looked more like a massive metal suit. Mechanical arms and legs stuck out from the sides of a transparent sphere. An aquatic creature swam around in that sphere. The captain's potbelly was really a fishbowl.

“Captain Mumwat,” said the Speaker. “Thanks to you all for joining us here.”

“This the hatchling?” Captain Qonne demanded. He looked down at Gabe in a bird-like and predatory way. “This the larval thing endangering us?”

“This is Ambassador Gabriel Sandro Fuentes,” said Kaen. Her face looked chiseled out of seriousness.

Gabe tried to stand with equal dignity. He was grateful that she came to his defense, though he also realized that she wasn't just standing up for him. She was standing up for his office, his title, his job—the one that she shared.
Not everyone respects ambassadors, apparently,
he thought.

“Greetings, Captains,” Gabe said. He tried to say it as though speaking to peers—adult, alien, powerful peers.

The four captains watched Gabe without answering.

“Could kill it,” said Qonne. “This thing could sleep
and trance, could still betray us in the dreams shared by all hatchling diplomats.”

Mumwat spoke, his voice a deep rumble. “We have new understanding. Only accidentally did he interact with the Outlast.”

Qonne was not mollified. His frown became a scowl. “Ignorance and blundering endangers us yet. Sedate it, if not kill it. Damage it into coma. Keep it from the dreams.”

This is not going well
, Gabe thought. He held the cane close, and wished the sword inside it were a useful defense against a holographic projection of the bird-shaped captain.
I thought that Kaen and I had finished this argument already.

“The Terran ambassador now offers us guest gifts,” Tlatoani pointed out. “He offers hospitality, and rights to the ice we have taken unasked. And I offered guest gifts in return when I welcomed him aboard the
Calendar
.”

Qonne threw his words at everyone. “Endanger the remaining fleet to a hatchling, blundering and ignorant?”

Shame spread inside Gabe. Anger followed, and they fed on each other. He didn't try to ignore or suppress either feeling, and he probably couldn't have if he did try. Instead he held them close, held them still, and tried to stay calm.

Say something
, he demanded of himself.
Talk your way out of this. Words are your weapons, the only ones you've got—except for the sword. Start talking.

The Envoy spoke up before Gabe could.

“You cannot kill
me
.” It kept its voice low, though furious shades of purple rioted across its skin. “I can scatter my own molecules at will. I can escape and subsequently regrow. I can steal one of your ships. I can build my own. I can launch myself through the vacuum of space without any ship at all, and still survive. You cannot kill me, or prevent me from returning to the planet that is my responsibility. If you harm this ambassador I will select another, and I will teach them that the Kaen are our enemies. I will teach them that the Kaen betray their own laws of hospitality and welcome, that the Kaen cannot now or ever be trusted. The new Terran ambassador will spread this knowledge throughout the Embassy, and throughout the galaxy. Kaen will become pariah, forever shunned, forever unwelcome in every sun, every system, every world. I will do this, and you will be powerless to prevent it, if you harm Ambassador Gabriel Fuentes.”

Silence.

The Great Speaker smiled a tight-lipped smile.

Mumwat's suit creaked as he crossed metal arms. “I
move to honor the treaty negotiated by our own ambassador,” he said.

“Agreement,” said Seiba the floating guru-tree.

“Conditional agreement,” Tlatoani said. “If his ignorance endangers us, then we should address that ignorance. During his time with us he should take housing in our own academy, and accept tutelage there.”

I need to get home
, Gabe thought, but did not say. The thought was a lump in his throat. He swallowed it.
But I also need to survive long enough to get home.

Everyone in the room turned to look at Qonne's glowing projection.

“Three captains are agreed,” he said. “This makes the decision. My voice is not required.”

“I remain curious to know if you agree,” Tlatoani said.

Qonne's projection disappeared.

“That answers that,” Gabe said quietly.

Kaen gave a hum of agreement. “His people don't teach language at all until adulthood. It's what marks adulthood for them. So they never send children to the academy, and never become ambassadors. They don't respect ambassadors much.”

Gabe knelt on the floor to be closer to his Envoy, whose skin still flowed in furious shades of purple. It clearly hadn't calmed down yet.

“Thanks,” said Gabe.

“You are most welcome,” it told him in his mother's voice.

The remaining three captains spoke among themselves.

“I go to stretch leaves in a window bubble and taste the outside light,” said Seiba.

“We all hide inside an ice cave,” Tlatoani pointed out. “You will have very little light to taste.”

“A little always trickles in,” Seiba said, and disappeared.

Speaker Tlatoani turned to Mumwat. “Will you stay aboard?” she asked. “You are welcome to swim in the irrigation lakes of Day.”

“For now,” he answered, and then addressed Gabe. “Welcome to the fleet. Pleased we are that we will not kill you, or damage your brain with deliberate intent.”

“Thank you,” Gabe said. “Likewise.”

Mumwat crouched through the doorway and left.

Gabe stood to face the last remaining captain.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Great Speaker.” He sharpened those words to very fine points.

Tlatoani smiled again. “Thank you for your own, and for henceforth avoiding the dangers of Outlast attention. I trust that you will make productive use of our academy, lacking one as your world does. And while in the academy you should hold conference with that other stray
ambassador we found, the very pale one. When first I saw her I feared that volcanoes had covered up the old world's skies with ash, and that the only people to thrive below the ashes had become as pale as cave fish, desperate to absorb nutrients from whatever weak sunlight could still find them.”

“The
other
ambassador?” Gabe asked. “What other ambassador?”

“That little mouth who names herself Nadia.”

Nadia Antonovna Kollontai went walking blindfolded through the streets of Night.

Rem the pilot and Dromidan the doctor went with her, though only Rem actually walked. Dr. Dromidan sat perched on Nadia's shoulder. The doctor tugged on her earlobe to warn her about bumping into things, and tried to convince her to take off the blindfold. Small, clawed hands reached out and tugged on the knot that kept the cloth in place.

Nadia stopped moving and shoved Dr. Dromidan off her shoulder. She heard wings flap around her head. The doctor landed on Nadia's other shoulder and punched her in the ear.

“Ow,” Nadia said.

“Are you in pain?” Rem asked.

“Only from my doctor's care.” Nadia rubbed her ear.
Dr. Dromidan untied the blindfold knot. Nadia didn't try to stop her this time. “Are there lots of people around?”

“A few dozen at least,” said Rem.

“And we're near a translation node?” Nadia asked.

Of course we are
, she thought an instant later, but she was nervous.

Rem added cheerful scorn to his voice. “No. We're nowhere near a public translator. You can't understand me at all. I'm free to point out just how silly you look with a piece of cloth wrapped around your face.” Sarcasm usually translated poorly, but Rem understood it well. He could employ near-Muscovite levels of derisive mockery when he wanted to.

“Dr. Dromidan, would you go perch on
his
shoulder and punch the side of his head?”

“No,” the doctor said, and continued to untie Nadia's blindfold.

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe in a calm and steady sort of way.

The blindfold came off.

“Look,” the doctor said.

“Just a moment.” Nadia stood and breathed.

“Look,” the doctor said again.

Nadia opened her eyes.

She saw movement. She saw pale lights that she
knew were probably streetlamps. She saw the distant and reflected glow of Day above them. But nothing that she saw made any sense to her—especially not the other people out walking through the streets of Night. Translation tried to give everyone a familiar, humanlike appearance that Nadia could understand, but Nadia no longer understood
any
visual information. Her eyes worked fine, but they refused to communicate with her brain. She scrunched them shut. Then she took the blindfold back from the doctor and tied it in place.

“No improvement,” she reported.