Ally

  “Which are?”

  “As before, sever all ties with off-worlders, and join the rest of the states to rearm and remove the wess’har from this system once and for all.”

  “And you want Asht—Bezer’ej—back too.”

  “We have indeed had this conversation before.”

  “And your colleagues across Umeh know that you have no hope whatsoever of launching any credible assault on Wess’ej, and that once you start down that path, we will remove you from this system.” Esganikan had her misgivings about Tasir Var. “Is your satellite’s administration involved in this?”

  “In the event of war, we would expect their full support.”

  “I have no more patience left, Minister.” Esganikan couldn’t take any more of the indecision and maneuvering. There would be a clear course of action at the end of the day. “Here are your options. Cooperate globally—reduce your population by three-quarters. Cooperation between the Northern Assembly and us—reduce the global population by three-quarters. Unite, declare war on Wess’ej and attempt to invade Bezer’ej—we will exterminate you all. Choose.”

  Shomen Eit said nothing. Without eyes to focus on or scent to guide her, Esganikan felt unsettled. But the choice was made: the Northern Assembly couldn’t get cooperation from the rest of Umeh, so its only option was to stand alone and accept Eqbas military intervention.

  Nobody would choose to fight in those circumstances.

  The Northern Assembly could survive with a single choice, and its neighbors would not.

  Esganikan felt time dying; every day now, she was more aware of the empty minutes and the time she would never be able to relive. It was more than impatience. She felt robbed.

  It was time to decide. The choice was obvious. “You agreed to our restoration. We offered you nonlethal methods of reducing your numbers. I have no more time to give to this when I have other worlds with more pressing needs.”

  Shomen Eit was completely still.

  “Then,” he said, “I regret that I must join my fellow isenj and prepare for war.”

  The communications officer, Hayin, following the English conversation with difficulty, bent down to catch a translation from Aitassi. He bobbed up again and tilted his head in amazement. “Insane,” he said.

  Esganikan had almost expected it, given the isenj history of fighting when guaranteed defeat. But it still surprised her. It was, as Hayin said, an insane choice.

  But they had made it.

  “Then we have nothing further to discuss,” said Esganikan.

  She closed the link. Nobody offered an opinion. The command center was silent except for the occasional tick of monitoring systems and the sigh of air from the vents.

  “For a race of engineers, they appear extraordinarily unable to grasp reality,” she said.

  “I think the Skavu made up their minds.” Hayin ran his hands over the console and checked channels. “What happened to Minister Rit?”

  “Either she’s been forced to abandon her coup, or she’ll contact us very soon.”

  At least Esganikan had a clear objective now. She’d never done the full erasure of a world before: there had been so very few in history. She might need a little advice and information from Surang, but she had the bioweapons, and it was simply a matter of organizing their distribution and delivery.

  Then she could focus on Earth, on talking to the Australian hosts, refining and modeling the Earth mission. There was surprisingly little time left before the main task force reached the rendezvous point: less than five years, during which she also had to ensure Bezer’ej wasn’t heading for disaster. Infected bezeri. A complication, but not a disaster, not caught this early. “At least the Skavu’s journey won’t be wasted.”

  The mood in the command center was somber, and she understood that. She looked around at the disappointed faces, and inhaled the agitation scents she expected. Nobody enjoyed erasing a planet. It was an admission of defeat for professional restorers, and it also meant billions of deaths.

  “In generations to come,” she said, trying to soothe them, “we may have a world on which to revive the Earth gene bank. Shan Frankland doesn’t trust humans to look after the first one well.”

  “Full erasure and repopulation has only been done once,” Aitassi said.

  “Depending on how the Earth adjustment mission goes, it may have to be done twice.” Esganikan walked to the door. “I was wrong to try to reconcile two objectives. Security for Wess’ej and Bezer’ej were the priorities, the isenj request for help distracted me. Isenj will resent wess’har as long as they exist. Their genetic memory ensures it. I apologize for my lack of clarity.”

  The air group commander, Joluti, opened the link to the Skavu fleet and stood waiting with an expectant expression on his face. The silence of the command center vanished and was filled by the hum and trill of voices.

  “You still haven’t spoken to them yet, chail,” said Joluti. “Now would be advisable.”

  “They’re far too keen,” she said. “I should talk to Canh Pho. I haven’t had a conversation with the Australians for some time.”

  It was simply the past demanding too much attention. The past couldn’t be changed, and so had to be learned from and then put away, and only allowed to touch the present if it could improve it. Memories of the war on Garav didn’t improve Esganikan’s present day at all.

  “And Shan Frankland has called for you twice,” Hayin said. “She wants to know if we can transport the personnel from Umeh Station. Under the circumstances, we must.”

  Shan. There was always that bright obsessive light in her face that was also in the eyes of the Skavu. They might find some common ground, but they would need to have c’naatat explained to them carefully, and be ordered not to interfere.

  “Yes.” It was one less complication to consider on Umeh, anyway. “Tell her she has to be ready to do it as soon as we’ve briefed the Skavu.”

  Sooner or later, she had to face them again. Perhaps this was how Aras Sar Iussan felt when he met Minister Ual. It was hard to look at the present and not see the faces from the past.

  “You want them to land?”

  Esganikan thought of infected bezeri, and discussions not had with Earth, and work not done, and more time wasted. At least she hadn’t taken any casualties. The list of tasks was growing and intertwining. Yes, the Skavu might be a blessing after all. She let herself feel guilty relief.

  “Give them permission,” she said. “And deploy a remote to look for signs of the bezeri on land.”

  She wandered the passages of the Temporary City to ease the kinks in her muscles, passing groups of ussissi who had far too little to do at the moment before seeking refuge in Shapakti’s laboratory. He was huddled over a table deep in conversation with Mohan Rayat, apparently oblivious to the ear-splitting screeches of the two macaws who had been penned temporarily in one half of the room with a sheet of mesh. They liked company.

  “Umeh has declared war on us,” she said.

  Rayat looked up. “Will you notice?”

  “I don’t do this lightly, Doctor.” Did he even understand what it meant? “They’ll all die.”

  Rayat blinked. Shapakti was watching him, not her, evidently fascinated.

  “You believe in clearing the decks, then.”

  “You have seen the condition of Umeh?”

  “Oh yes. I was at Umeh Station for a while. Until Minister Ual had me abducted with Commander Neville so he could offer us to placate the wess’har.” Rayat pushed a pad of composite towards Shapakti. It was covered in symbols: they seemed to be exchanging writing systems. “Don’t forget that Ual traded us as war criminals for Wess’ej’s help to make Umeh a nicer neighborhood.”

  Rayat didn’t reveal information randomly. He wasn’t the chatty type, Shan had said. Esganikan needed to discuss his future with Shapakti when the current operation was finished.

  “You appear to be a man in demand, then,” she said. “You seem to be working.”


  “I’m very motivated to remove this parasite,” said Rayat. “As long as I carry it, I’ll always be something of a commodity.”

  At least Shapakti smelled content for the moment. He missed his family: he was one of the few Eqbas here who had one, and he would have been home long ago had his survey ship not been diverted to go to F’nar’s aid. It was good to see him distracted by something that he relished.

  “It’s remarkable to work with a scientist from so different a world,” he said. “We make a good team.”

  “I won’t delay you, then,” said Esganikan.

  “I’ll never be short of time.” Rayat grinned, an expression that always seemed hostile and predatory. “You know, if c’naatat had been something humans could have used responsibly, it would have been very useful for deep-space missions. Imagine. No longer confined by our lifespan.” He turned back to the sheet of eqbas’u lettering, showing no sign of being a man either on a military mission or worried about his future.

  Esganikan thought over his comment as she walked back to the command center.

  I know what you’re doing.

  You want to interest me in c’naatat for some reason.

  Esganikan tried hard to grasp human motivation but without an interpreter—Shan, Eddie, even Aras—she could only make wild guesses, based on the oblique nature of human speech. Rayat was more oblique than most: he would try to fool her. She had no idea why or how.

  But he was pushing her towards something.

  She’d work it out. She would do it herself, too, with no help from Shan. She needed to understand humans better before she reached Earth, humans who weren’t almost wess’har in outlook, like Shan, or completely open, like Ade Bennett.

  When she stepped into the command center, Hayin was waiting anxiously, wafting agitation. He tapped his console and pointed at the main communications screen.

  “She’s been waiting,” he said. “I told her you would be back soon.”

  Minister Rit’s distinctive amber beads shimmered on the tips of her quills: her ussissi interpreter, Ralassi, was at her side.

  “Commander,” he said. “The Minister urges you to think again. Help her remove Shomen Eit, and restoration will happen.”

  The island known as Chad, now called the Dry Above Where We Do Not Wish To Be

  Leaving the ocean for the land wasn’t a matter to be rushed.

  Lindsay wondered if she’d placed too much faith in c’naatat’s capacity to transform. She watched Saib, Keet, and two of the more adventurous bezeri who’d accepted c’naatat via a lump of her blood and skin, struggling with the novel concept of construction ashore.

  She hacked away at branches with one of the razor-edged pieces of hard slate, finding it tough going. Chad’s vegetation didn’t behave like trees on Earth; the large plants were remarkably similar to the efte trees of Constantine island at the top of the chain, whose trunks made of layer upon layer of core like a mille-feuille pastry. They grew as fast as fungus and at the end of the season their sticky, silver fronds and flosslike seed-bodies drooped to the ground and the whole tree decomposed and rotted down to liquid, leaving a dark patch in the soil that sprouted again the next season.

  It was a useful tree. The Constantine colonists set aside time in autumn to gather the peeling bark and harvest the trunks before the annual rot set in, and turned the fiber into everything from fabric, twine and paper to felted material and hard laminate bonded with the natural glue from the efte’s own seeds. Maybe this plant would be the same. Lindsay peeled off long strips and considered weaving a shelter rather than building one from timber.

  “Is hard,” said Keet.

  “Not hard enough, I’m afraid.” She rapped the strips with her knuckles, producing silence. “Let’s rethink this. No rigid structures.”

  “Mud,” said Keet.

  Lindsay stared at his mottled dark mantle, looking for recognition of a person. Will that be me one day? Will I find that attractive? “Yes, you’re used to mud.”

  It was like talking to a haiku. Did he mean the wood needed to be hard, or that the task was difficult? Was he saying he preferred building from hardened mud or that they could use mud here?

  “Wattle and daub,” she said, thinking aloud.

  Saib and the others—Carf and Maipay—swung on crutch-legs between the trees and broke off stalks, mimicking her attempts to cut branches. Maybe if she showed them, they’d get the idea and make a better job of it than she could. Her camping skills ran to field exercises and pilot survival training. Bezeri were highly skilled engineers and artisans, and it wasn’t beyond them to learn the technique—or even devise a new one.

  Lindsay sliced strips of efte bark into wide ribbons and laid them on a clear patch of soil as the warp and then wove narrower ones through them as the weft. It made a loose lattice, and she beckoned the bezeri over to see it.

  “Weaving,” she said.

  Then she pounded soil and water in a large shell to create mud, and smeared it across the woven strips. Their collective gasping and belching of air indicated either surprise or revelation. Saib was a sudden kaleidoscope of deep purple and amber lights pulsing across his mantle, easily visible in the dappled shade of the clearing.

  “We understand,” he announced in that grave, bubbling voice. “We do this.”

  Whether it was a statement of intention or an indication that bezeri knew how to weave, or that they used wattle and daub techniques—and how their hard mud cities underwater were made, she had no idea—wasn’t clear. All she knew was that the four of them began clambering over the vegetation, pulling down branches and fronds, tentacles thrashing.

  It became clear very soon: they’d worked out how to build shelters, although their solution was more spider than squid. They began stringing the branches they could reach with strips of bark, knotting them together with rapid and remarkably precise tentacle movements and lacing them across spaces. The structure began to look like webs.

  Carf—still translucent, with none of the dark mottling that marked Keet—shuffled to the base of one of the trees and launched two tentacles into its branches, getting a grip and testing them. Then he hauled himself aloft, hesitant at first and then climbing the tree, which creaked under his weight and bent slightly. He settled near the top and appeared to be looking around at the view.

  “Far,” he said. “Far and clear. And bright.”

  Lindsay tried to imagine how brilliantly lit and sharply defined the word of the Dry Above was to them after a lifetime moving between filtered sunlight and pitch black. Their ancestors had risked death, sometimes with the certainty of it, to beach themselves to gain glimpses of the dry land and report back on what they could see. Bezeri could flop onto dry land by riding a strong wave and usually get back to the water, but the further they went, the more likely they were to be stranded. It was a hostile environment, a world of strangeness and novelty, not one to be lived in. It was like space to them. Now they were walking unaided in the unknown void, and still alive.

  Just like Shan Frankland.

  Lindsay imagined those who beached too far inland and knew they had undertaken a suicide mission. They would have light-signaled their information back to those waiting and watching in the shallows. She imagined them not panicking and screaming green in their final moments, but relaying all the impressions they could before they died, thinking it a worthwhile sacrifice.

  They were just curious. They never knew they’d have to do this for real one day.

  The four bezeri were mixing mud now, slapping it on the mesh of woven bark and working it smooth with a skill that told her they were expert plasterers. So this was how they shaped their mud cities. They’d made the transition, although it was one they didn’t have ambitions to make. It wouldn’t be long before others decided to choose c’naatat, if only to stay with the last of their comrades, and then they’d be able to begin building a new civilization. For all she knew, c’naatat might even make them fertile again. It seemed able to fix pretty wel
l anything.

  “You know what we’re going to do?” she said. Three of the bezeri stopped weaving and plastering, but Carf seemed obsessed with his task and worked feverishly. “We’ll go back to Constantine and find the memorials your ancestors erected on the beach. The ones to the memories of the land pioneers.”

  “Memory of the First, Memory of the Returned,” said Saib. Those were more or less the inscriptions on the rocks they’d made and somehow moved up the incline to the beach to mark the places where the first bezeri explorers had left the water—one to die in the attempt, the other the first to return.

  “Exactly. Maybe you need a memorial here, too. To the Changed. Except you’ll always be alive to see them.”

  Lindsay wasn’t sure if they fully understood that c’naatat would keep them alive indefinitely. She wasn’t even sure herself, because despite the prodigious feats of repair that the parasite had managed so far, the most she knew was that Aras had survived a little over five hundred years. Whether that boded immortality or not—she’d take that as it came.

  The bezeri were changing before her eyes, though. Their bulky bodies were wobbling less each time they thudded to the ground, as if their mantles were strengthening and thickening, making them more rigid and more suited to a land animal. They were getting faster and more agile. Even Saib could loop his way up a tree now, looking for all the world like an obese glass gibbon.

  Lindsay was so absorbed by the spectacle of tree-climbing squid that the two years of misery on this planet had been pushed to the side of her mind, if not to the back. She stood back to contemplate the mud-daubed orbs of bark webbing they’d strung from the trees: no, not spiders—these reminded her of warblers and their little basket nests threaded precariously on reeds. It was a truly bizarre image.

  I’ve seen the birth of a new civilization. Now that’s something. That really is.

  It occurred to her that the unspoiled clearing was now very spoiled indeed, with broken and crushed undergrowth from the bezeri’s clumsy progress and the debris of their first construction attempts. This wasn’t an idyll that the wess’har would admire. They built discreetly, anxious not to be seen, never wanting to intrude too far on the natural landscape if at all. She’d started to change the face of the planet itself, and it was a dubious honor.