“So you say you’ll leave him alone,” Ingray said, emboldened by the ambassador’s frankness, “but you won’t leave him alone. You’ll just ask us to chase him for you. I think you should send what you just said in a message to him, and he can listen to it or not. And then just leave him alone, unless he says he wants to talk to you.”
Silence. Ingray realized that she was clutching at a handful of her already creased and grubby skirts, still tucked up from being in the suit. And, she realized, she was exhausted. And hungry. And she needed a bath. She’d left her hairpins with the vacuum suit; she’d been so miserable and so relieved to be free of it. Garal, quiet beside her, was very likely in similar shape, though she knew em well enough by now to know e’d never give any sign of it if e could help it.
The ambassador said, “I do not like to hear this, Ingray Human. But I will think about it. I will think. Garal Ket, you are Geck. If you wish to stay outside the world, you may. I will have to explain it somehow, back in the world, and there is no way to think about doing that, but we will have to think about doing that, for the sake of the hatchlings at the edge of the world.”
“Thank you, Ambassador,” e said.
“But do not break the treaty!” insisted the ambassador. “You must study the treaty, and never break it. The treaty keeps aliens out of the world. Ingray Aughskold, I do not understand what is happening on this station, but I think it would not be safe for you to leave the ship at this moment. There is food and water here that is safe for you to eat and drink. There are places for you to sleep. I will think. Later we will talk again.” And the green blob pulled itself back into the water, and was gone.
15
A spider mech showed them to a room where one or two of the ridges rising out of the floor seemed somewhat tablelike, and then scurried off—not quite as gracefully as Tic would have, but far more so than the ambassador. A few moments later it returned with three of its arms full of packets and dumped them on a table. “Here is food,” the spider mech whistled.
“Thank you.” Garal seemed far more self-possessed than Ingray thought possible. “Is there hot water somewhere?”
“You’re going to eat?” asked Ingray, exhausted and incredulous. The spider mech gestured vaguely toward one end of the room, and left. “With everything that’s going on?”
“There’s food here now,” said Garal. “Everything will be going on whether we eat or not. And it’s easier to think things through when you’re not hungry and thirsty.”
Ingray frowned, and opened her mouth to argue, but then she remembered Garal on the trip to Hwae, saving food. Talking about how difficult it could be to get something to eat in Compassionate Removal.
“You haven’t eaten in way too long,” Garal said.
She didn’t trust herself to answer but went to the back of the room, in the direction the spider mech had indicated. She found a niche in the wall with a basin of body-warm water in it. Gingerly, she scooped up a small handful and tasted it.
“It’s plain warm water.” Ambassador Tibanvori’s voice. Ingray turned to see her come into the room. “They won’t make anything hotter, even if you ask.”
“What do they eat, then?” asked Garal, sitting down on an extrusion beside the table.
“Raw things,” Tibanvori said, with utter disgust. “Or rotted ones.” She gestured at the packets on the table. “This is your kind of food, though. We took it on board at Tyr Siilas. I have no idea what any of it is.”
“Nutrient blocks,” said Ingray. “Those are mostly yeast with flavors.” Ambassador Tibanvori wrinkled her nose.
“Noodles,” Garal added. “You add hot water to them. I guess warm water will do.”
“It won’t,” said Tibanvori with disdain, sitting down next to Garal.
“And there’s serbat.” Garal looked over at Ingray. “Instant serbat.”
“I could do with some serbat,” Ingray said. “Are there any cups or bowls or …” She trailed off, unable to quite complete the thought.
“Touch the wall above the basin,” said Tibanvori. Ingray did, and the surface of the wall contracted away from her fingers, exposing a cavity underneath that held a stack of shallow bowls, some small cups, and a few large, deep spoons.
“It’s disgusting, isn’t it,” said Tibanvori, behind her, and she had to agree at the very least that there was something disturbing about the way the wall had reacted, how it felt. Like a muscle, or at least something biological, not a nice, solid, dependable wall. Tibanvori continued. “Those spoons are only for scooping up water. They eat with their fingers.” She shuddered. “What’s serbat?”
“It’s a hot drink,” Garal said. “It’s serbat.”
Ambassador Tibanvori gave em a sideways, disapproving look and then sighed, rose, and came over to where Ingray stood. “Here.” She took a stack of bowls and cups out of the cavity and handed them to Ingray, then scooped a few cupfuls of warm water out of the basin. “Whatever serbat is, it can’t be worse than poick. The salt water I was telling you about before,” she added, to Ingray and Garal’s exhausted incomprehension. “The noodles you just have to let sit longer. I don’t know about the sort you’re used to, the ones I’ve had are generally not very good cold, but it’s better than live sea worms or algae paste.”
“I like algae paste,” said Ingray, following Tibanvori back to the table. “And I like fish, cooked or not. I don’t know about worms, though.”
“Trust me, they’re horrible.” Tibanvori took the dishes out of Ingray’s hands. “Sit down.” Brusquely, but, Ingray realized, she had been standing there clutching the stack of bowls, unable to form any idea of what to do with them.
“I’m sorry,” Ingray said. “I’m very tired.”
“Apparently,” Tibanvori agreed, tearing open a serbat packet and peering at the contents. “You mix this with water, I take it?”
“Yes,” Garal agreed, as Ingray sat. And stared as Tibanvori poured lukewarm water onto noodles, and into cups of serbat powder.
“And I need to know what’s happening on the station,” said Ingray.
“Not bad,” the Radchaai ambassador said, after a sip of warmish serbat. She sat at the table. “Not tea, but not bad. I wonder if I can get some of this shipped back to the Geck homeworld. Tea is hopeless when you can’t get hot water. Real tea, the way it should be drunk, I mean.”