“Well, all I know is, there was some shooting on the docks a day or so ago, and we’ve been left alone.”
A person came through the door, the first person they’d seen besides Tibanvori. Dripping wet. Tall, broad in an odd way that Ingray couldn’t quite make sense of, their head rising straight out of their shoulders as though they had no neck whatever. They seemed to be wearing a very tight-fitting greenish-brown suit of some sort, with a series of dark almost-horizontal lines on either side. Something about their face was just barely familiar, but Ingray couldn’t think why. “Ingray Aughskold,” the person said in a quiet, strangely breathy voice. “Garal Ket. Come with me. The ambassador would like to speak with you.”
“Of course,” said Garal, as though this were merely a courteous social invitation. E rose, and Ingray did as well, and, with a polite nod to Ambassador Tibanvori, followed the person out. Not into a corridor exactly—there seemed to be no corridors on this ship, just a number of strangely shaped compartments. Ingray remembered Tic saying he’d had his own ship refitted—had it been like this on the inside, when he’d stolen it?
But she would have to remember not to say that here. Had to remember that as far as she knew, Tic had bought his ship quite legally.
At length, the person brought them to a room like any of the others, except for a pool of dark water, about three meters wide, with four curved and snaking seats around it. “Sit,” said the person. “Do not get in the water. Some of what’s in it is not good for you. The ambassador will be here in a moment.” And the person dived into the pool. In the brief instant they were visible below the surface of the water, Ingray saw those horizontal lines flare open, and she realized with a dizzying shock that the person had not been wearing any sort of suit at all, and those lines had been gill slits.
“We might as well sit down,” said Garal. Ingray turned to look at em. “Sit down, Ingray,” e repeated.
“That person had gills,” said Ingray.
“Yes,” agreed Garal, as they both sat on one weirdly curving bench. Ingray thought about saying So that was what Tic wanted to be. What he’d thought he was going to be when he grew up. What he still resented not being, it seemed. She opened her mouth to say it but stopped and closed her mouth again.
She flinched as something green and glistening surged up out of the still-sloshing water. It rose, dripping, a smooth and shining blob that leaned over and … oozed onto the margin of the pool. A hole appeared in it, one that stretched wide and then pursed. “Garal Ket,” it whisper/whistled. “Ingray Human.” There was more of it below the water, a massive, dark shadow. This must be the ambassador herself, then. One of the aliens that no one Ingray knew of had ever actually seen. Well, besides Tic, of course.
This was important. She had to think straight. And tired and confused as she was, Ingray knew how to handle this. “Ambassador. Thank you for …” She wanted to say for inviting us but of course there had been nothing like an invitation. “Thank you for having us here.”
“You are Tic’s friend, I think,” said the green blob, as though that were a reply that made sense. “Garal Ket, you have no legal status as a human, yet you are a human, and you have claimed to be Geck. It only remains for the Geck to accept your claim. You have done this in fear of your life; I have heard many things and seen many things and so I understand this. Tic Uisine intended that this should remove you from danger. I know you are not clutchmates, you cannot be even by the standards of humans. I have known many humans. I understand humans. Not everyone understands humans so well; humans are difficult to understand, even when they are Geck. And Tic Uisine …” The ambassador hesitated, then made an odd, sighing sound. The green blob had shifted somehow to a bluish color. “Tic Uisine is not Geck anymore. I do not wish to say it, but it is clearly so. Still, I understand him well. You are Tic’s friend, I think. We are considering what to do with you, Garal Ket.” The blob flared a brighter blue for just a moment, and then turned pale green.
“I thank you for your patience, Ambassador,” said Garal. “And Captain Uisine will be pleased to hear you’ve recognized his status as human.”
“Yes,” whistled the ambassador. “Yes. I had not believed he would be, but I think now he will. Ingray Human, I have caused you some trouble. I have broken the treaty by assaulting your clutchmate, the brother Danach.”
Beside Ingray on the bench, Garal turned to stare at Ingray. “What?”
“I’ll tell you later,” said Ingray. “It doesn’t matter right now. Ambassador, you didn’t hurt him, and everything came out fine. I took him home, and all of that is straightened out now.”
“Still,” replied the ambassador. “I should not have done these things. And I admit to you that I am not glad that the brother Danach was not hurt, but I should still not have done it. I have thought since then, and I have not done well. I have not. I have done things I should not have done. I must say to you, I apologize, Ingray Aughskold. Those are the words. I say them.”
Silence. The water in the pool still sloshed, little waves breaking at Ingray and Garal’s feet and against the once-again-darker-green blob, as the rest of the ambassador moved under the water. Or Ingray assumed so, she couldn’t quite see what the rest of the ambassador looked like, or how much of her there might be. “It’s all right, Ambassador,” Ingray said after a moment.
“It is not all right,” insisted the green blob. “It is not. I will tell you a thing. I will tell you. When humans first appeared, many things died. So much died, and the humans were bad to eat. Many wished to remove them, but some said, no, they are very strange and things die all around them, but they are like people in some way. And they have come here to live, how could they live outside the world? Nothing could. Imagine being outside the world, it is a terrible thing. Do we kill these strange, so very strange maybe-people for that? When we might instead help them live? And so we changed them, and now things do not die all around them, and they can live in the world.”
“Most of them,” Garal said.
“Be more patient, Garal Ket,” said the ambassador. “This is the next thing I am going to say. The change is not perfect, and some cannot live in the world. But this is the way of eggs, and hatchlings, is it not? One spawns thousands upon thousands, but only a few survive. I myself, my clutchmates numbered in the thousands on the day I hatched. Hundreds, days later, and only twelve of us lived to maturity, and of those two failed to swim down.”