Slip Point Page 11
The small room was quiet. Quynh’s gaze had softened and grown more thoughtful.
“I promised to get you back to your wife,” Shayalin said. “It was just a job at first, but some of us should get to be with the ones we love.”
Quynh reached over to squeeze her shoulder briefly. At the touch, Shayalin knew she’d convinced the other woman.
“Come on,” Shayalin said. “Next stop is Albarz, I promise. No more running around.”
An alarm started blaring. One of the soldiers must have broken away long enough to trigger it.
“Okay, maybe a very fast walk,” Shayalin said, but then the commander’s voice came on the ship’s speakers.
“Battle alert. All pilots to their ships.”
That seemed like overkill for Jayce and Shayalin, especially since they were still aboard the Paradigm. Perhaps the Atian fleet was trying to break through the barricade. Could straits be so dire?
The door opened, and Jayce staggered in. Between her earlier head-slam and whatever those soldiers had done to him, his face was mottled and bloodied.
She didn’t waste time asking if he was all right. He was alive and moving, and that was all they needed. But Quynh gasped, hand flying to her mouth. Jayce said something to her rapidly but in comforting tones, and Shayalin felt relieved by the words of reassurance she couldn’t even understand.
“What held you up?” he demanded of her.
“We were just leaving,” she said.
“Then let’s go.”
“Get these off of me first,” she said, turning around to present her restraints to him. The ruse was useless now, and her wrists itched abominably.
Jayce keyed in the release code, and she flung them to the floor before they hurried out.
The other room had been upended, its contents flung about. One of the soldiers was lying still on the ground. Keaton was sitting near him, back propped against a table leg and hand pressed to her side. Blood welled between her fingers.
“Keaton—” Shayalin didn’t know what to offer. She wasn’t sure she wanted to take the doctor with her, nor leave her behind.
Keaton shook her head. “Go.”
She and Jayce must have already exchanged words, for he didn’t say anything as he led the way out. Quynh paused for a moment to hear the doctor say something in her language, but she only bent her head in acknowledgement before following Jayce.
Shayalin would have been lost within moments—the largest ships she had been on devoted most of their space to cargo holds, not infinite identical passages—but Jayce was clearly more familiar with carriers than she. He took them through the maze of corridors to the ship’s hangar.
Pilots were pulling on helmets and scrambling into their Katana- and Needle-class ships, getting waved on through to the launch tunnels as soon as their hatches closed. The thin whine of so many engines revving made for a ghostly background hum.
“What’s going on?” Shayalin breathed.
Jayce, heedless of his appearance, grabbed the nearest pilot and repeated the question. The man looked at Jayce but didn’t really seem to see him.
“Aliens, I heard—a ship right on this side of the barricade!”
Quynh gasped and put out a hand. Shayalin steadied her, feeling off-balance herself.
“Attacking us?” Jayce asked.
“Not yet, but we’ve got to be ready for them. I need to get ready!”
The man spun off, leaving them as the only unmoving people in the chaos of pilots running to their ships.
Jayce turned woodenly back to them. “Come on. They’ll never miss us in all this.”
He was right—most people were too busy to notice them. One woman did snap at them to get back to their quarters, but Jayce gestured to Quynh and said, “Her husband’s a pilot and she needs to wish him luck,” and the woman looked at Quynh’s belly and relented.
They made it to the Swallow and took off without further challenge. They were just another ship launching, after all.
Once they were clear of the Paradigm, Shayalin checked the sensors and saw the alien ship. It hung on the screen, out of place and oddly quiescent for such a threat.
“So much for the quarantine,” Jayce said after a moment. His voice was not quite as flippant as she suspected he was trying for. “They don’t seem to be attacking. At least, not yet.”
“The premier told me they stated their intentions were peaceful. But they must have gotten tired of waiting,” Shayalin said. “I don’t blame them—the Senate takes forever to decide anything—but people are going to panic.”
“They’d better get the Speaker out of her bunker in Albarz,” he said grimly. “Every spoke’s military will be mustering, and without any communication, who knows how the Bellers will interpret that.”
“Will the Albarzi even know what’s happening, with the data quarantine?” Shayalin asked. “Can we just go get her?”
They stared at each other.
“You’re supposed to know where she’s hiding,” Shayalin said.
“As long as they haven’t moved her. Can you calibrate the compass for this ship?”
“What? You can’t fly in circles around the barricade ships?”
“Blindfolded,” he said. “But the quicker we move, the less likely things will get out of hand over here.”
“The calibration will take time too,” she said. “I don’t know which way will be faster.”
“All right,” he said. “Get started while I try to fly in.”
“Jayce,” Quynh said from behind them.
They both turned around. She stood with her hands cradling her belly.
Jayce started to explain to her what had happened, careful to keep a calm tone, but she interrupted him. His brow furrowed, and he asked her a question. Her answer was distinctly more impatient this time.
“Unbelievable,” he murmured.
“What did she say?”
“She says she can speak to the aliens.”
Shayalin stared at the other woman. “How?”
Quynh smiled tightly and patted her belly.
“But the child’s not born yet.”
This time the weight of Quynh’s annoyance pressed directly into her mind. Don’t you think I know that?
Shayalin jerked back and bit off a curse. “Did you just…?”
Quynh nodded.
She forced herself to breathe evenly and not scrub at her forehead as though she could wipe away any trace of Quynh’s mental intrusion.
“What happened?” Jayce asked, and then he too flinched.
“That,” Shayalin said.
“Telepathy?” He looked stunned.
She pieced it together—slowly, her thoughts grasping at the enormity of it. “The mysterious mutation that allows the Speaker to, well, speak with the aliens.”
Quynh did not deny it.
He shook his head, more in awe than in disbelief. “And the fetus too. Quynh must share the ability while she’s carrying it.”
Shayalin looked at Quynh. “That’s how you understood me, back on the Paradigm. You were reading my mind. Or the baby did and told you, or something like that.”
Quynh nodded.
She chuckled. “No wonder you didn’t fall for the spider.”
“Spider?” Jayce asked, bewildered.
“That’s another story.” She dismissed it with a wave of her hand and pressed her knuckles between her eyes. “All right, so we have to get Quynh over to one of the alien ships. And get a senator to come with us.”
“We can’t tell anyone about this,” Jayce said with finality.
“How else are we going to get official sanction for our talks?”
“Think about it, Shay. Telepathy. They kept it secret for good reason.”
She thought about what her father would do if he had Quynh in his control and sank into her seat, understanding. “We still have to take Quynh to where she can speak to them. It could mean interstellar war if we don’t get them to stand down.”
Quynh said something, drawing her palm down over her face.
“Can’t you…?” Shayalin gestured vaguely, trying to indicate her telepathic ability.
“It was pretty uncomfortable for me,” Jayce said. “I imagine it was for her too.”
Quynh nodded emphatically.
Shayalin remembered the sudden foreign presence of Quynh’s thoughts within hers and didn’t protest. “Okay. Something about your face?”
“She said no one’s going to see her. For all they’ll know, she’s the Speaker.”
“And even if they did it wouldn’t mean anything,” Shayalin said, suddenly feeling cheerful. “The Speaker’s image has never been broadcast.”
He turned the Shdai toward the alien ship. “All right. Hail the Paradigm, would you?”
Shayalin reasoned out the purpose of the controls—they were more densely clustered than on an Aequitus, since the pilot usually handled all functions—and keyed in the communication request. She was rewarded by a furious woman’s voice.
“Get your ship out of this space immediately. This is a potential battle zone.”
“If you shoot at me, Commander, you’ll be aiming in their direction,” Jayce said. “It may provoke them.”
“What the hell are you trying to do?”
“Going to talk to the Bellers, like civilized people.”
There was a long pause.
“You have a way to speak with them?”
“Yes.”
“Is the Speaker on board?”
“Commander,” Jayce said, “sitting next to me is the finest smuggler in the eight spokes of the Wheel. Don’t doubt what she can do.”
“I need proof, Pilot.”
“If I could send you a genetic sample, Commander, I would.”
And it would be a perfect match too, Shayalin reflected.
“Instead,” Jayce went on, “we’re going to board the Beller ship and initiate talks. We’ll ask them to do something, like turn around in a circle three times. Will that serve?”
“Even approaching them might be interpreted as an aggressive act,” the commander said.
“And what is sending out dozens of fighter spacecraft from your carrier?”
A long pause. “Pilot, if you’re shitting me in any shape or form—”
“I swear to you I am giving us our best chance at peace. If you can manage to contact the Atian Premier and mention my name, you’ll get confirmation.”
The commander barked orders to someone near her without bothering to mute. “I’m going to try to get the Senate convened as well. Pilot, I want your communication channels wide open the whole time you’re there, and you are not to say a word I don’t approve.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The military response seemed to appease her. “I’ll patch back in momentarily.” She cut out.
Jayce let out a long breath then said, “Well, that went better than I’d expected.”
“This is why I spent the last ten years avoiding authority,” Shayalin said.
“You’re the one who took the premier’s commission,” he pointed out.
“No, that was my father,” she said, then reflected on how she hadn’t perhaps escaped all forms of authority.
His mouth quirked as though he’d had the same thought. But Quynh said something inquisitive, and he only said, “Let me fill her in.”
“She didn’t catch all that?” Shayalin felt her stomach begin to twist into a knot. If this telepathic talent was unreliable…
“Only my end of it,” Jayce said. “Proximity matters. Electronic communications can’t be mind-read, apparently.”
“So we really will have to board.”
He and Quynh spoke for a few minutes while the alien ship loomed closer, a flat disc of dull-colored metal stippled with geometric shapes. Shayalin gazed at it, hardly believing that a vessel so unremarkable could hold something so extraordinary. But as she started to better make out those markings, they resolved into a labyrinthine pattern that compelled the eye with a subtle, unexpected beauty.
Jayce broke into her thoughts, saying, “Yes, the Speaker always met in person with the Bellers.”
“What if they won’t let us in?” Shayalin asked, just as an opening began to dilate in the side of the ship. “Never mind.”
Jayce guided them into the dark hold. The sensors only showed a cavernous space and the wall closing up again behind them. The Swallow glided to a smooth stop. Jayce powered down the ship and turned to look at her. “Coming, Shay?”
She bared her teeth. “Just try and keep me away.” But as she contemplated the stark space of the alien ship’s hold, she added, “Is there any real worry about biological contamination?”
“Suits should take care of that.”
“Do you have enough?”
He nodded. “I made sure to stock three for this trip. You’ll fit into Keaton’s.”
The suit that had been hastily supplied for Quynh had been intended for a burly soldier, about the size of Creeds. Shayalin helped her struggle into it. Although its girth was just sufficient, her limbs were swimming in the long sleeves and pant legs. The helmet, too, was oversized, and Shayalin could barely make out her features through the face plate.
“Well, we don’t need to worry about anyone recognizing you,” she said to Quynh. “No one will be able to look past the suit.”
Quynh might have given her a sour look, but it was hard to tell.
Shayalin suited up as well, a process that took time and much cursing no matter how much practice one had or how well-tailored the suit was.
“Checking the comm system,” came Jayce’s voice through the helmet’s speaker.
“I hear you fine,” Shayalin said, and he and Quynh went through the same exchange.
“I’m hooking in the commander.”
After a moment, the commander said, “I have four senators listening in with me. We’ve agreed to treat this as a military operation under my command, do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jayce said.
“Hold on, there’s one more person joining us—”
Then a welcome voice said, “Nat Perra here.”
It startled a “Sir!” out of Shayalin. She couldn’t say any more, not with others listening. She didn’t even know if he was still pretending to be the senior deputy, or if he had officially taken on his position as the Atian Premier.
He chuckled, although he sounded more tired than amused. “Don’t let me hold you up. Do carry on.”
“We’re ready,” Jayce said.
“Good,” the commander said. “Now, we’ve agreed we should open with this statement…”
Jayce began to translate to Quynh. The hatch opened. Tall shapes waited for them.
They climbed out of the ship and went to forge peace.
Chapter Seven
Afterward, Shayalin remembered much of the historic meeting as an interminable blur. Part of it was that it took place in the darkened shuttle bay with few visual cues to latch on to. The aliens had been as obscured in their suits as much as the humans had been in theirs, so she still didn’t have a clear image of them. And every sentence had to be painfully relayed from Quynh to Jayce to the commander and the Senate, who would then confer on how to reply, and then the echoes would go down the chain in the other direction.
The buzz of the commander’s voice in their helmet speakers had been harsh and intrusive. “Ask them for assurances of peace,” she’d said, and, “Tell them we see their presence so close to our ships as a threat.”
Quynh had conveyed their responses: “They say they’ve already given assurances,” and, “They saw the Speaker’s absence as a thre
at of silence. They are content now in speaking with us again.”
Amidst the formalities and negotiations, Shayalin had not dared say a word, but the desire to know more had wrung her into a mess of unanswered questions she would forever regret not asking. Instead, the talks had stretched into discussions about biological necessities and hazards, acceptable levels of interaction and definitions of aggressive behavior. She perked up at the end when trade goods were briefly mentioned, but at that point everyone seemed to have reached her level of impatience, and a tentative treaty was ratified with “a few blanks to be filled in,” as the premier had put it.
And despite all the tedium and how few other details she could recall, Shayalin could recite the most important part of the treaty: The Bellers and the Senate of the Wheel do hereby declare peaceful intentions toward each other, to be observed through earnest and diligent efforts for mutual understanding and agreement not to undertake deliberate action for harm or damage… There would be no war, and humanity would have an unprecedented chance to expand its knowledge. Shayalin couldn’t even conceive of what they might learn, but she looked forward to discovering the worldview of another intelligent race—and who knew, maybe their end of the universe as well.
Once the formalities had been wrapped up, Perra had spirited away Quynh to fulfill his promise to the Speaker, at last able to return to his home planet and sort through the chaos there. He’d insisted that Shayalin also come to Albarz to be placed into protective custody.
Peacetime, it turned out, made Shayalin stir-crazy. Going from meeting aliens to being cooped up in a tiny bunker with instructions to stay put and not contact anyone was a steep comedown. Even if she hadn’t gotten to truly see the Bellers, she still remembered the crisp, electric edge of their presence, like a sound outside of what she could register yet still resonant. Those, she knew, had been their thoughts, exchanged with Quynh and spoken aloud in her soft voice, then translated by Jayce.
He had stayed with her, her only solace. He bore her moods patiently, even when she woke him in the mornings to wonder aloud if the meeting area had been kept dark out of some sort of courtesy or safeguard, or because light was unimportant to them, or what kind of material their ships were made of. Then she turned to fretting about the Adannaya or the state of Albarz.