Post by Lorpius Prime on Mar 4, 2010 1:10:59 GMT -5
Task Force One was four days out from Mars when the Tadpoles issued their invitation.
"We would like to host some of your representatives aboard our ship for a brief visit," Ambassador Rokden droned. "We make this offer to demonstrate our trust and gratitude to your people, as well as to begin a tradition of interaction and exchange which we hope to continue."
"Don't say anything about it to Onadunwe," Dr. Vurk told Pascual later, in private, "but we got the idea from Operative Yaheek. He told us about the Bats' first meeting with Humanity as we toured the Discovery."
Pascual chuckled, "The ship they first met us on was also called the Discovery. It was much smaller, though."
The Bats had made first contact in 2046 by parking a ship in Low Earth Orbit almost directly on top of the United States' last operational space shuttle. The Americans had been shocked, to say the least. Still, that hadn't stopped them from seizing the opportunity to convince the Bats that theirs was foremost among the Human nations. It had been a sore point for most everyone else that the Bats had first opened their embassy in Washington, DC.
"Yes, though Rokden hopes that by performing a similar ceremony, we might establish the same sort of amiable relationship Humans have with the Bats."
"Well, I certainly hope our future relations are friendly and fruitful, Doctor. But I think that will have more to do with the substance of our interactions, than with how we dress them up."
Vurk looked at Pascual for a moment before asking, "Are you not pleased by our invitation? I could advise Rokden to rescind it."
"Oh no!" Pascual said quickly, and held up his hands. "That's not what I meant. Substance is certainly the most important. But ceremony can't hurt."
The Tadpole nodded slowly. "I am glad to hear it."
Xi Feng was too embarrassed to admit that she was excited about the visit. She certainly wasn't going to let any hint of her eagerness to get off the shuttle and onto the Tadpole transport show on her face. It helped some that her adjutant, Lieutenant Muyskens, was quite obviously giddy about the whole event. The look of strained patience Xi Feng gave the younger woman was only partially simulated. Muyskens self-consciously stopped tapping her foot against the floor, and though she couldn't stop fidgeting entirely, she did so more quietly.
The Tadpoles had cobbled together an ugly adapter outside of one of their ship's airlocks to allow Earth Fleet's personnel shuttles to dock. It was very much a makeshift component, however, and Taffy Eleven's pilots were having trouble confirming an airtight seal on this particular run.
"How about now?" Chief Engels asked his copilot.
"No," was the reply.
Engels made some adjustment that Xi Feng couldn't see.
"Now?"
"Still no, Chief," Spacer Apprentice Mohammed said.
"Hmm," the pilot murmured for a moment, and then touched a control.
CLANG. The entire vessel shuddered. Xi Feng tensed, Lieutenant Muyskens yelped.
"Okay, I think that did it," the copilot said calmly.
"Christ, I hope so."
"Should I pressurize?"
"I dunno," Engels turned around in his chair to look at his passengers. "Would you folks like to get off the shuttle now?"
The situation seemed to call for a bit of wry wit, but before Xi Feng could summon any, Muyskens ruined the moment.
"Yes, please!" the Lieutenant begged.
Engels chuckled, "I think we can pop the hatch, Spacer."
Mohammed dutifully rose from his chair and worked his way up the aisle to the hatch—Taffy Eleven had docked nose-first this time. While he manipulated the hatch, Chief Engels took a small piece of cloth from a pocket and place it on his face with the aid of an elastic band.
"Do you two have your masks?" he asked. "The Tadpoles like their air really… ah, musty."
Xi Feng and Muyskens both readied their own facemasks as they walked down the aisle. Spacer Mohammed pulled open the shuttle hatch to let them into the short tube which dilated significantly before joining with the airlock of the Tadpole ship. The Chief Petty Officer preceded them through the hatch. Once all three of them were inside the chamber, Mohammed sealed the way behind them, isolating Taffy Eleven from the foreign atmosphere.
"Right," Engels said. He fiddled with a control panel on the exterior of the Tadpole hatch for a moment, letting the Tadpoles on the other side know that they were ready. Indicator lights blinked, and Engels announced, "Okay, they're going to let us in, you might want to stand back."
The airtight hatches on Earth Fleet's personnel shuttles were simply designed: heavy metal doors which swung open and locked mechanically into sockets. The Tadpole hatch, on the other hand, would have matched well with a film producer's idea of space-age technology.
A large circular doorway split open in the middle and the two halves and slid neatly into recesses on either side of the hatch. The motion was smooth, and accomplished by means of power motors rather than simple muscle.
And if Xi Feng had been watching it on film, she might have appreciated the aesthetic contrast.
Instead, she was distracted by the blast of oppressively hot and moist air which assaulted her.
"Ulgh," Muyskens spat into her mask beside the Commodore, "feels like home."
"Where are you from?" Chief Engels asked, tugging at the collar of his shirt. His face was already beginning to bead with sweat.
"Colombo."
Engels shook his head, "And I complained about summers at the Academy."
The Tadpoles had said they were going to lower the ambient temperature of their ship during the visit so that the Humans would be more comfortable. Since the air here now had to be nearly 35 degrees, Xi Feng didn't want to contemplate the Tadpoles' idea of "room temperature".
Still worse than the heat, though, was the humidity. Xi Feng was sure that her uniform would be soaked before she left. Though she had grown up in the equatorial climate of Singapore, she had spent more than a decade in the completely controlled, mild atmospheres of Earth Fleet ships.
Taking a deep breath of the sultry air, she forced herself to ignore the discomfort and strode forward to the end of the airlock.
Two Tadpoles were waiting for them inside the ship. Xi Feng still had trouble recognizing individual members of the species. They didn't quite all look the same—there were subtle but noticeable differences in their statures and features, but she had yet to confidently match those features with individuals. Nor did it help that none of them seemed to wear any distinguishing clothing or other markings.
Xi Feng stopped at the edge of the airlock. Short even among her fellow Humans, she had to crane her neck upwards to look the aliens in their eyes. In such situations Xi Feng relied on a stern expression to keep others from believing they could intimidate her. But now, with her face hidden behind a breathing mask, she had to let her eyes do all the work—or hope that the Tadpoles simply didn't share the conventions of Human body language.
"Hello, Commodore Lee," said the slightly stockier Tadpole on her right. Xi Feng thought she recognized the voice of Ambassador Rokden. "Thank you for coming, please allow me to introduce Captain Karel, commander of this vessel."
"Welcome, Commodore," the other Tadpole's voice had a noticeable buzz. "I hope you will be satisfied with my ship. Yours is the first foreign species to visit."
Xi Feng bent at the waist in a slight bow, "Captain, on behalf of Earth Fleet, I'd like to thank you for your invitation. I am honored to be aboard." She half-stepped to the side and gestured behind her, "This is my assistant, Lieutenant Colleen Muyskens."
Muyskens imitated Xi Feng's bow, "I am also honored to be here. And excited!" she squeaked.
Both Rokden and Karel nodded to the Lieutenant, but did not address her. The Tadpole ship captain stepped backward to clear the way out the airlock.
"Please," he hummed, "come inside."
Xi Feng gave Chief Engels—who would be returning to the Uruguay a parting salute, then she and Lietuenant Muyskens stepped forward to follow Captain Karel.
Almost immediately, Xi Feng found more reason to be grateful for her facemask. She was unable to keep herself from gaping slack-jawed at the interior of the Tadpole transport.
It was not like any spaceship Xi Feng had ever been aboard, or even imagined. The decks of Earth Fleet ships were constructed of simple metal plate, and almost entirely unfurnished. It was a practical design strategy: not warm or comfortable, but cheap to build and easy to maintain. From what Humans had seen of alien vessels, the Bats, Charterlings, and Kyhyex followed similar principles. The Tadpoles, apparently, did not.
To begin with, the surface Xi Feng found herself walking on was not rigid. For a moment, she feared that she might have plunged her soft Fleet-issue boots into actual mud. But though the gray-brown floor was pliable, it did not seem wet. Rather, it was more like some sort of sponge, perhaps even a very dense grass.
Grass certainly would not have been out of character, as it was quite clear that other things were growing in the hall around them. The walls—which angled outward rather than rising perpendicular from the floor—were covered with some sort of plant or fungus that bristled with thousands of wispy, finger-length filaments. Xi Feng could not feel the flow of air in the hall, but there seemed to be one as the many stalks appeared to ripple in breeze. Or perhaps they flowed of their own power, like cilia.
As they walked, Xi Feng noticed more signs of life. Yellow-green splotches of a lichenous growth dotted the ceiling and floor. Occasionally, patches appeared in the wispy growths along the walls; these were occupied by squat, gray mushrooms. Xi Feng began to suspect that animal life might be contributing to the movement of the tendrils when she saw some sort of many-legged worm creeping along the surface of a mushroom.
Xi Feng watched Lieutenant Muyskens run her fingers through the stuff on the wall in wide-eyed delight. Her hand came back covered in a grayish powder, which Muyskens smeared on her pant-leg. She glanced sheepishly at the Commodore, and then moved to walk closer to the center of the hallway.
It was like they were walking through a garden, or a greenhouse, and not a functional vehicle.
The little group was still moving down the corridor, with Captain Karel leading the way and Ambassador Rokden behind the two Humans. The Tadpole ship was smaller than the Earth Fleet cruisers, but still quite large. And although the habitable sections appeared to be similarly wrapped around a central shaft containing the engines and propellant, the Tadpoles generated their own artificial gravity, rather than relying on acceleration to maintain their footing. The hallway was thus oriented so that "down" was toward the ship's core. The passage was long and straight—possibly running the entire length of the ship, rather than merely the circumference as on an Earth Fleet design. Xi Feng didn't know their destination, but they could still have a long walk ahead.
She decided to break the silence first.
"Is the entire ship like this?" she primarily intended the question for Karel, but she gave Rokden a brief glance as well. "The climate alone would give us horrendous corrosion problems. How do you prevent all this…" she searched for a word, "biomass from interfering with your systems?"
"The ship did not contain this ecosystem when it was first constructed," Captain Karel said, without looking back or changing his pace. "At first it was entirely sterile—and compartments housing delicate cargo or equipment still are. The rest of the ship was converted into living space for the population during our voyage. We needed the extra space, and the increased maintenance was worth the improved comfort which we get from such an environment."
"How long did it take you to get here?" Lieutenant Muyskens asked. She was creeping closer to the wall again, holding out her arm.
Neither Tadpole spoke for a moment, then Rokden said, "Almost three thousand years."
"What?" Muyskens spun to face Rokden in astonishment. But although the Tadpole ship had artificial gravity, it was less than a tenth of Earth standard. The force of Muysken's rapid turn, as well as her outstretched arm, sent the Lieutenant into a violent spiral, and she smacked the back of her head against the bottom of the wall.
"Ow!" she yelped, and began frantically trying to brush away the cloud of gray powder which was settling into her hair.
Xi Feng had better controlled her reaction, but even she was now staring at Rokden.
"Three thousand years? Just to get here?"
"We don't have the ability to travel faster than light," Karel said, having stopped and turned himself. "And even our sublight warp is less efficient than the models used by the Charterlings or Bats now."
"Even so," Muyskens said from her seated position, "you couldn't have found somewhere closer to home?" She was now scrubbing at her brow with the back of her hand, but having little success removing the powder from the wall plants which had now congealed with her sweat.
"Our mission was to establish ourselves at a safe distance from Kyhyex territory," Rokden said. "This was the nearest system on the far side of Charterling space which was judged likely to have habitable planets."
"Oh…" Muyskens crawled cautiously back to her feet, "so you weren't expecting to find, well, us here."
"No," Rokden said, "though the presence of the Kyhyex is much more disturbing than your own. Still, that is part of the reason that we hope Humanity will assist us in establishing a secure colony."
"Once you saw the situation here, why didn't you just keep going?" Xi Feng asked.
Karel replied, "Our ship had already decelerated. Just getting back up to a decent relative velocity again would have taken years."
"We lacked the resources," Rokden explained. "Our population grew faster than anticipated during the voyage. Even with all the supplies we'd brought and the ship's recycling systems, we were very near the limit of what we could sustain. We needed a colony, even on a sub-optimal planet, just to survive. That same problem is why we are so desperate now. Our colony is uninhabitable and our ship can't support our numbers. We're facing famine and population collapse."
"Or a civil war," Karel's voice sounded no different as he made this grim comment.
Xi Feng noticed that the black bulge on the top of Rokden's head seemed to swell for a moment before he nodded. "Yes."
After about twenty minutes of walking, the Tadpoles ushered them through a side door and into a large circular chamber. There they joined Ambassador Molinas, Lieutenant Commander Donaldson, and Dr. Gerald Poplawski. Poplawski had been NMC's project manager on the colony staff; he currently had a temporary Earth Fleet commission at the rank of Commander, which paid a salary slightly smaller than his annual tax bill had been with NMC. The three Humans were accompanied by the Tadpoles Vurk and Onadunwe, whom Xi Feng understood were doing their best to learn how to operate the technology they were acquiring.
Xi Feng noted that Molinas in particular looked worse for wear in the Tadpole climate. The fool was still wearing business attire—as if that was all he'd brought with him, and he looked to be suffocating beneath his coat and jacket. Still, his eyes were smiling; and when he saw Lieutenant Muyskens' smudged face, he showed her his own slime-covered palms in sympathy. Muyskens chuckled and Xi Feng stepped past the Ambassador with a curt nod.
Rokden shuffled around the little crowd to address them from the center of the room.
"Thank you for agreeing to join us," the Tadpole ambassador said in his low, gurgling voice. "Although the traditions of both our cultures indicate that we should now offer you a meal, our scientists have advised against it. In the end, I decided not to poison you."
Rokden paused. If he hadn't been an alien, Xi Feng would have been certain that the Ambassador was joking. But if he was, the delivery was so deadpan that his Human audience just stared uncomfortably.
"Instead," Rokden continued after a moment, "I have chosen to share some of our history with you. We have already acquired some broad summaries of Human history from the Charterlings. But we know that you are still mostly ignorant of our own people. Therefore, I had the colony translate and prepare some of our own educational presentations to serve as an introduction."
"Cool," Lieutenant Muyskens half-whispered.
Ambassador Molinas spoke more loudly when he said, "That's a great idea!"
Only Dr. Poplawski seemed somewhat bored by the plan. Xi Feng supposed that his scientific curiosity was limited to his own field of expertise.
Rokden stepped to one side and turned around. A video image appeared on a far section of the wall behind him. Xi Feng couldn't tell if she was looking at a purpose-built monitor, or if the Tadpoles were just able to project images wherever they wished.
Whichever the case, the video on display showed a planet or planetoid of indeterminate size observed from high orbit. Yellow-tinted clouds swirled lazily above a brackish green surface.
"This is our planet of origin," Rokden said. "We believe it appeared much differently during our early history. But there was a fairly dramatic shift in the climate around five thousand years ago, and we only achieved space flight after the change."
"What happened?" Muyskens asked.
"There was a mass extinction. Most of the planet had been covered with large plant growth—they looked something like a tree on Earth, but there was only a single dominant species. They were all wiped out in a few decades, and since they were a major component of the planetary ecosystem, lots of other species went with them. We very nearly died out ourselves, most of our historians mark the crisis beginning of our technological civilization as we were forced to adapt. And the surviving plant life had a fundamentally different nature, which gradually altered the chemical equilibrium of the atmosphere. Not enough that we couldn't survive, but enough to have an impact on the appearance."
Rokden shared a glance with Captain Karel, and Xi Feng decided to interpret the gesture as a mutual sigh.
"We developed the technology to finally leave our atmosphere about five hundred years before our colony ship departed. Our technical capabilities didn't evolve as quickly as we understand yours have. But even so, we established a large permanent presence in space before our first encounter with alien life."
The video recording of the Tadpoles' homeworld was replaced by a flickering slideshow of still images. The pictures seemed to be various pieces of space infrastructure, and each was overlaid with blocky English-language labels proclaiming each to be things like the "First Orbital Laser Station", "First Asteroid Mining Facility", and "First Private Space Residence". Without scale references, it was impossible to tell how big anything actually was, but the sheer number of installations the Tadpoles claimed to have constructed certainly seemed impressive.
Xi Feng was still trying to figure out what an "Orbital Reclaiming Nursery" might be when Rokden started up again.
"We met the Charterlings a little over two hundred years after our first spaceflight," the Tadpole said.
The picture of the mystery construct was replaced with a new video image, this time showing a Charterling ship approaching a ring-shaped Tadpole station in planetary orbit. Unlike the Bats, it did not appear that the Charterlings had been overly concerned about frightening a newly discovered alien civilization. The Bats had brought a small (by Bat standards) transport to Earth for the first time. The Charterling ship Xi Feng was looking at had the spherical shape of one of the aliens' faster-than-light ships, and Earth Fleet had never observed one of those with a diameter less than five kilometers. As if to confirm the vessel's enormity, a tiny speck just barely recognizable as another ship detached from the sphere's hull and arced toward the Tadpole station.
The video changed again to show a trio of Charterlings standing indoors, apparently speaking to a group of Tadpole representatives. Rokden narrated, "They were from a newly established and still very small clan colonizing nearby systems. As such, they were eager to trade with us, since we could provide them with large amounts of simple manufactures that would let them devote more of their own resources to producing more valuable trade goods. We were also able to sell some small quantities of biological compounds from the planet that proved modestly valuable."
Xi Feng watched the front most Charterling on the screen clapping its forearms together. The motion looked aggressive, and Xi Feng probably would have been frightened to see it performed in front of her, but the Tadpoles did not seem concerned. It was quite a contrast to the similar recording of the first meeting between the Charterlings and the President of Russia in 2059. The President had been visibly intimidated by the aliens' imposing size. An embarrassed Russian state media had tried with little success to bury the recording after going to such an effort to play up the opening of Russian-Charterling diplomatic relations.
"During the next few decades, our space infrastructure and our economy grew rapidly," Rokden went on. "Still, there was growing frustration with the Charterlings, as they refused to sell us any 'strategically significant' technology. It was a situation I'm sure you can appreciate."
He nodded at the Humans. Dr. Poplawski snorted, and while no one else audibly agreed, Xi Feng was sure that all of them shared the engineer's feelings.
"We couldn't do anything except tolerate the situation," Xi Feng thought Rokden might have shrugged, but she couldn't be sure. "We were a useful trade partner, but not so valuable as to give us any real political leverage even with the local clan. So our scientists had only just begun to develop our own gravity generators when the Kyhyex first arrived in our system."
The video switched to an image of another spherical FTL ship orbiting a different planet—one lacking in atmosphere and pockmarked with impact craters. Without any apparent cause, the giant ship broke apart into tiny pieces which began to rain down on the planet's surface, kicking up great whorls of dust.
"They never responded to any of our communication attempts, so we didn't know anything ourselves. Our best guess is that this group was rather more," Rokden paused a moment, "feral than the Kyhyex you have observed. When our Charterling trade partners found out about them, they scrambled a militia fleet, and attacked without even consulting us."
The planet changed. Or rather, it looked to Xi Feng as if it was replaced by an entirely new planet whose cracked and molten surface glowed an angry orange.
"Is that…?" Dr. Poplawski's question trailed off.
"The bombardment lasted several days," Rokden answered. "We thought they might actually be intending to outright destroy the planet. And afterwards we realized that they could have, but it wasn't really necessary. Still, it was a frightening display of aggression in response to little apparent provocation. And one backed by a power that we couldn't possibly hope to resist. It set off quite a panic."
Xi Feng certainly felt unsettled. Humanity knew that the aliens they faced possessed weapons with destructive power far beyond Earth's capabilities. In 2053, the first Kyhyex to visit the Solar System had destroyed a Charterling colony on Io. They'd apparently done it with a laser that, if Earth Fleet's estimate was accurate, could have boiled Earth's oceans away in seconds. But reading estimates like that was one thing; seeing an entire planet actually reduced to uninhabitable slag… it gave the numbers frightening context.
She glanced at Donaldson, who'd remained thoughtfully silent throughout the presentation. Both he and Ambassador Molinas were looking at the video with eyebrows clenched in contemplation. Xi Feng supposed that all of them were going to have some rather interesting reports to make once they were finished here.
Rokden continued. "Not long after that incident, however, our system received a squadron from the Royal Navy, which actually improved our relations with the Charterlings considerably."
The ruined planet was replaced by a straight-on shot of a new spacecraft. It might have been another FTL ship based on the round shape, but that may also have been merely a trick of the angle. Xi Feng certainly didn't recognize it as one of the designs catalogued by Earth Fleet. She needn't have wondered, though. After a pause, a label was thrown up, identifying the ship as the "Royal Navy Heavy Cruiser Seventh Conviction."
"The Navy was much more generous than the local clan had been. They provided us with significant technological transfers and a number of weapon systems in exchange for provisions and spaceyard facilities for their vessels. We're not really sure what the internal political machinations of the Charterlings were; but my belief is that the Royal Navy saw us as an opportunity to establish a self-sufficient outpost against the Kyhyex for only a small initial investment. This would have been preferable to the larger and ongoing costs of leasing facilities from their own population in the region. Alternatively, the local settlers might have just been on poor terms with the Royal Family, and the Navy was snubbing them."
Rokden's shoulders twitched. A shrug?
"We were too grateful for the sudden shift in our fortunes to question the gifts, but the feeling didn't last long. Even with the new weapons, we only just survived the next Kyhyex incursion. The second wave arrived less than a year after we signed our treaty with the Royal Navy. For the next two years, the Kyhyex sent a new wave of transports almost once a month. The transports were all unarmed, but there were eight ships in each wave, and instead of outer planets, all of them accelerated directly for our homeworld.
"Destroying them was not difficult, but the wreckage was more than we could clear, especially from the second and third waves when some of the transports made it all the way into orbit. By the time the first incursion was over, our population had been cut in half, and the remainder were starving. We had watched our entire space infrastructure be destroyed—and been forced to rebuild it—nearly a dozen times over. The Royal Navy provided some reinforcement but even so, the cost of maintaining our defenses nearly crushed us.
"The waves were coming from a nearby system which had been thoroughly 'saturated' with Kyhyex. In order to relieve population pressure, the Kyhyex had constructed an extensive shipyard facility, the entire output of which was travelling directly to our system. The waves only stopped when a squadron of Royal Navy dreadnoughts infiltrated the system and destroyed the shipyards.
Rokden's head turned slowly as he glanced at each of the Humans, but none of them said anything.
"The Charterlings had led us to believe that the Kyhyex weren't capable of the political organization necessary for such an operation, that all of their starships were ad-hoc, and unique constructions. And indeed, we found out that the Kyhyex had not built the shipyard facilities on their own. They had been purchased from another species, one we had never encountered. That was the first we learned of the Bats."
Xi Feng was sure that Ambassador Molinas intentionally exaggerated his sigh.
"Rokden," he said, "we can appreciate that there is some bad history, a lot of bad history, between your people and the Bats. But Humans have to make our own policies based on our own experiences and judgments. We consider the Bats to be friends, and we won't be happy if you start trying to drive a wedge between us. I'm sorry."
"I don't expect to turn you against the Bats, Ambassador," Rokden said. "Despite my own biases, I understand that your experience with them has been different, and I would not presume to suggest that you should ignore that history. I am willing to admit, reluctantly perhaps, that you may even be better off to choose sides as you have. Just because my own people did not have the opportunity to make such a choice is not a reason to deny it to yours."
Molinas nodded and looked like he was about to say something, but he was cut off by Commander Donaldson.
"Hey, I have a question," the Intelligence Officer announced.
Several heads turned to him.
"Yes?" Rokden asked.
"Er, sorry if this is a bit of a departure," he said, "but talking about the Bats reminded me I had a question about you and them."
"Yes?" Rokden asked again.
"When Ambassador Hyarahek attempted his little, uh, intervention…" Donaldson glanced nervously at Dr. Poplawski. It was public knowledge that the Bats had replaced their ambassador to Earth. But Earth Fleet and the OES hadn't released the full story behind the change, even if most people had figured out that it probably had something to do with the Tadpoles. Nothing Donaldson knew was actually classified, though, and Poplawski was technically a part of Earth Fleet now. The Lieutenant Commander seemed to make up his mind to go on. "Well, it seemed like you found out about it a good while before we detected their ships departing. We aren't aware of any sensor systems which can work faster-than-light, so I'm wondering if you can tell us just how you were alerted to the Bats' movements so quickly."
All the Humans looked at Rokden. Xi Feng raised an eyebrow. Donaldson was being more direct than Xi Feng would have, but there wasn't anything exactly wrong with the approach. Especially because it was still such a mystery. Earth Fleet had nothing more than guesses as to the answer.
Rokden did not answer immediately, though. Instead, he turned his head and locked eyes with Captain Karel. The Tadpoles stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time without speaking or even, so far as Xi Feng could tell, making any sort of meaningful gestures.
It was Karel that finally spoke, without taking his gaze away from Rokden.
"Before we departed, the Charterlings gave us user access to their sensor network around your planet. The Bats' communications signals are difficult to detect, but they don't actually encrypt message traffic between Earth and their colony. We intercepted Governor Shyankyang's message to Hyarahek approving his request for a detachment of warships."
Karel turned his back to the Humans, but Rokden looked directly at Ambassador Molinas.
"You realize that this is a sensitive security matter," the Tadpole said. "The Bats were likely to discover the sensors on their own, eventually, but I did not wish to lie to you. Still, I hope you will be discreet about the way you share this information."
Not for the first time, Xi Feng could see that all of the Humans would have some very interesting reports to make once they had returned to their ships.
They were not the only ones.
Hyong was no longer really paying attention to the image in his monocle as Rokden's narration started up again.
He had fussed for several hours before deciding to go ahead and take the risk of planting his spy drones on Pascual Molinas' jacket. They were part of the equipment stock Hyong had brought with him from Karee, much smaller and less clumsy than the ones Hyarahek had deployed to the OES Foreign Ministry. But even though Hyong was sure the Humans would never notice them, he was considerably less confident about the Tadpoles. Based on the colony's records, it seemed unlikely that the Tadpoles had the sort of sophisticated counterintelligence technology which could detect the drones. But almost all of the Bats' information about the Tadpoles was second-hand. No one could be certain.
After what Hyong had just heard, however, he knew it had been worth the chance of discovery. Still using the monocle interface—since he assumed the Humans were watching him with their own cameras—Hyong began drafting his report to Ambassador Goyeharg.
"We would like to host some of your representatives aboard our ship for a brief visit," Ambassador Rokden droned. "We make this offer to demonstrate our trust and gratitude to your people, as well as to begin a tradition of interaction and exchange which we hope to continue."
"Don't say anything about it to Onadunwe," Dr. Vurk told Pascual later, in private, "but we got the idea from Operative Yaheek. He told us about the Bats' first meeting with Humanity as we toured the Discovery."
Pascual chuckled, "The ship they first met us on was also called the Discovery. It was much smaller, though."
The Bats had made first contact in 2046 by parking a ship in Low Earth Orbit almost directly on top of the United States' last operational space shuttle. The Americans had been shocked, to say the least. Still, that hadn't stopped them from seizing the opportunity to convince the Bats that theirs was foremost among the Human nations. It had been a sore point for most everyone else that the Bats had first opened their embassy in Washington, DC.
"Yes, though Rokden hopes that by performing a similar ceremony, we might establish the same sort of amiable relationship Humans have with the Bats."
"Well, I certainly hope our future relations are friendly and fruitful, Doctor. But I think that will have more to do with the substance of our interactions, than with how we dress them up."
Vurk looked at Pascual for a moment before asking, "Are you not pleased by our invitation? I could advise Rokden to rescind it."
"Oh no!" Pascual said quickly, and held up his hands. "That's not what I meant. Substance is certainly the most important. But ceremony can't hurt."
The Tadpole nodded slowly. "I am glad to hear it."
* * *
Xi Feng was too embarrassed to admit that she was excited about the visit. She certainly wasn't going to let any hint of her eagerness to get off the shuttle and onto the Tadpole transport show on her face. It helped some that her adjutant, Lieutenant Muyskens, was quite obviously giddy about the whole event. The look of strained patience Xi Feng gave the younger woman was only partially simulated. Muyskens self-consciously stopped tapping her foot against the floor, and though she couldn't stop fidgeting entirely, she did so more quietly.
The Tadpoles had cobbled together an ugly adapter outside of one of their ship's airlocks to allow Earth Fleet's personnel shuttles to dock. It was very much a makeshift component, however, and Taffy Eleven's pilots were having trouble confirming an airtight seal on this particular run.
"How about now?" Chief Engels asked his copilot.
"No," was the reply.
Engels made some adjustment that Xi Feng couldn't see.
"Now?"
"Still no, Chief," Spacer Apprentice Mohammed said.
"Hmm," the pilot murmured for a moment, and then touched a control.
CLANG. The entire vessel shuddered. Xi Feng tensed, Lieutenant Muyskens yelped.
"Okay, I think that did it," the copilot said calmly.
"Christ, I hope so."
"Should I pressurize?"
"I dunno," Engels turned around in his chair to look at his passengers. "Would you folks like to get off the shuttle now?"
The situation seemed to call for a bit of wry wit, but before Xi Feng could summon any, Muyskens ruined the moment.
"Yes, please!" the Lieutenant begged.
Engels chuckled, "I think we can pop the hatch, Spacer."
Mohammed dutifully rose from his chair and worked his way up the aisle to the hatch—Taffy Eleven had docked nose-first this time. While he manipulated the hatch, Chief Engels took a small piece of cloth from a pocket and place it on his face with the aid of an elastic band.
"Do you two have your masks?" he asked. "The Tadpoles like their air really… ah, musty."
Xi Feng and Muyskens both readied their own facemasks as they walked down the aisle. Spacer Mohammed pulled open the shuttle hatch to let them into the short tube which dilated significantly before joining with the airlock of the Tadpole ship. The Chief Petty Officer preceded them through the hatch. Once all three of them were inside the chamber, Mohammed sealed the way behind them, isolating Taffy Eleven from the foreign atmosphere.
"Right," Engels said. He fiddled with a control panel on the exterior of the Tadpole hatch for a moment, letting the Tadpoles on the other side know that they were ready. Indicator lights blinked, and Engels announced, "Okay, they're going to let us in, you might want to stand back."
The airtight hatches on Earth Fleet's personnel shuttles were simply designed: heavy metal doors which swung open and locked mechanically into sockets. The Tadpole hatch, on the other hand, would have matched well with a film producer's idea of space-age technology.
A large circular doorway split open in the middle and the two halves and slid neatly into recesses on either side of the hatch. The motion was smooth, and accomplished by means of power motors rather than simple muscle.
And if Xi Feng had been watching it on film, she might have appreciated the aesthetic contrast.
Instead, she was distracted by the blast of oppressively hot and moist air which assaulted her.
"Ulgh," Muyskens spat into her mask beside the Commodore, "feels like home."
"Where are you from?" Chief Engels asked, tugging at the collar of his shirt. His face was already beginning to bead with sweat.
"Colombo."
Engels shook his head, "And I complained about summers at the Academy."
The Tadpoles had said they were going to lower the ambient temperature of their ship during the visit so that the Humans would be more comfortable. Since the air here now had to be nearly 35 degrees, Xi Feng didn't want to contemplate the Tadpoles' idea of "room temperature".
Still worse than the heat, though, was the humidity. Xi Feng was sure that her uniform would be soaked before she left. Though she had grown up in the equatorial climate of Singapore, she had spent more than a decade in the completely controlled, mild atmospheres of Earth Fleet ships.
Taking a deep breath of the sultry air, she forced herself to ignore the discomfort and strode forward to the end of the airlock.
Two Tadpoles were waiting for them inside the ship. Xi Feng still had trouble recognizing individual members of the species. They didn't quite all look the same—there were subtle but noticeable differences in their statures and features, but she had yet to confidently match those features with individuals. Nor did it help that none of them seemed to wear any distinguishing clothing or other markings.
Xi Feng stopped at the edge of the airlock. Short even among her fellow Humans, she had to crane her neck upwards to look the aliens in their eyes. In such situations Xi Feng relied on a stern expression to keep others from believing they could intimidate her. But now, with her face hidden behind a breathing mask, she had to let her eyes do all the work—or hope that the Tadpoles simply didn't share the conventions of Human body language.
"Hello, Commodore Lee," said the slightly stockier Tadpole on her right. Xi Feng thought she recognized the voice of Ambassador Rokden. "Thank you for coming, please allow me to introduce Captain Karel, commander of this vessel."
"Welcome, Commodore," the other Tadpole's voice had a noticeable buzz. "I hope you will be satisfied with my ship. Yours is the first foreign species to visit."
Xi Feng bent at the waist in a slight bow, "Captain, on behalf of Earth Fleet, I'd like to thank you for your invitation. I am honored to be aboard." She half-stepped to the side and gestured behind her, "This is my assistant, Lieutenant Colleen Muyskens."
Muyskens imitated Xi Feng's bow, "I am also honored to be here. And excited!" she squeaked.
Both Rokden and Karel nodded to the Lieutenant, but did not address her. The Tadpole ship captain stepped backward to clear the way out the airlock.
"Please," he hummed, "come inside."
Xi Feng gave Chief Engels—who would be returning to the Uruguay a parting salute, then she and Lietuenant Muyskens stepped forward to follow Captain Karel.
Almost immediately, Xi Feng found more reason to be grateful for her facemask. She was unable to keep herself from gaping slack-jawed at the interior of the Tadpole transport.
It was not like any spaceship Xi Feng had ever been aboard, or even imagined. The decks of Earth Fleet ships were constructed of simple metal plate, and almost entirely unfurnished. It was a practical design strategy: not warm or comfortable, but cheap to build and easy to maintain. From what Humans had seen of alien vessels, the Bats, Charterlings, and Kyhyex followed similar principles. The Tadpoles, apparently, did not.
To begin with, the surface Xi Feng found herself walking on was not rigid. For a moment, she feared that she might have plunged her soft Fleet-issue boots into actual mud. But though the gray-brown floor was pliable, it did not seem wet. Rather, it was more like some sort of sponge, perhaps even a very dense grass.
Grass certainly would not have been out of character, as it was quite clear that other things were growing in the hall around them. The walls—which angled outward rather than rising perpendicular from the floor—were covered with some sort of plant or fungus that bristled with thousands of wispy, finger-length filaments. Xi Feng could not feel the flow of air in the hall, but there seemed to be one as the many stalks appeared to ripple in breeze. Or perhaps they flowed of their own power, like cilia.
As they walked, Xi Feng noticed more signs of life. Yellow-green splotches of a lichenous growth dotted the ceiling and floor. Occasionally, patches appeared in the wispy growths along the walls; these were occupied by squat, gray mushrooms. Xi Feng began to suspect that animal life might be contributing to the movement of the tendrils when she saw some sort of many-legged worm creeping along the surface of a mushroom.
Xi Feng watched Lieutenant Muyskens run her fingers through the stuff on the wall in wide-eyed delight. Her hand came back covered in a grayish powder, which Muyskens smeared on her pant-leg. She glanced sheepishly at the Commodore, and then moved to walk closer to the center of the hallway.
It was like they were walking through a garden, or a greenhouse, and not a functional vehicle.
The little group was still moving down the corridor, with Captain Karel leading the way and Ambassador Rokden behind the two Humans. The Tadpole ship was smaller than the Earth Fleet cruisers, but still quite large. And although the habitable sections appeared to be similarly wrapped around a central shaft containing the engines and propellant, the Tadpoles generated their own artificial gravity, rather than relying on acceleration to maintain their footing. The hallway was thus oriented so that "down" was toward the ship's core. The passage was long and straight—possibly running the entire length of the ship, rather than merely the circumference as on an Earth Fleet design. Xi Feng didn't know their destination, but they could still have a long walk ahead.
She decided to break the silence first.
"Is the entire ship like this?" she primarily intended the question for Karel, but she gave Rokden a brief glance as well. "The climate alone would give us horrendous corrosion problems. How do you prevent all this…" she searched for a word, "biomass from interfering with your systems?"
"The ship did not contain this ecosystem when it was first constructed," Captain Karel said, without looking back or changing his pace. "At first it was entirely sterile—and compartments housing delicate cargo or equipment still are. The rest of the ship was converted into living space for the population during our voyage. We needed the extra space, and the increased maintenance was worth the improved comfort which we get from such an environment."
"How long did it take you to get here?" Lieutenant Muyskens asked. She was creeping closer to the wall again, holding out her arm.
Neither Tadpole spoke for a moment, then Rokden said, "Almost three thousand years."
"What?" Muyskens spun to face Rokden in astonishment. But although the Tadpole ship had artificial gravity, it was less than a tenth of Earth standard. The force of Muysken's rapid turn, as well as her outstretched arm, sent the Lieutenant into a violent spiral, and she smacked the back of her head against the bottom of the wall.
"Ow!" she yelped, and began frantically trying to brush away the cloud of gray powder which was settling into her hair.
Xi Feng had better controlled her reaction, but even she was now staring at Rokden.
"Three thousand years? Just to get here?"
"We don't have the ability to travel faster than light," Karel said, having stopped and turned himself. "And even our sublight warp is less efficient than the models used by the Charterlings or Bats now."
"Even so," Muyskens said from her seated position, "you couldn't have found somewhere closer to home?" She was now scrubbing at her brow with the back of her hand, but having little success removing the powder from the wall plants which had now congealed with her sweat.
"Our mission was to establish ourselves at a safe distance from Kyhyex territory," Rokden said. "This was the nearest system on the far side of Charterling space which was judged likely to have habitable planets."
"Oh…" Muyskens crawled cautiously back to her feet, "so you weren't expecting to find, well, us here."
"No," Rokden said, "though the presence of the Kyhyex is much more disturbing than your own. Still, that is part of the reason that we hope Humanity will assist us in establishing a secure colony."
"Once you saw the situation here, why didn't you just keep going?" Xi Feng asked.
Karel replied, "Our ship had already decelerated. Just getting back up to a decent relative velocity again would have taken years."
"We lacked the resources," Rokden explained. "Our population grew faster than anticipated during the voyage. Even with all the supplies we'd brought and the ship's recycling systems, we were very near the limit of what we could sustain. We needed a colony, even on a sub-optimal planet, just to survive. That same problem is why we are so desperate now. Our colony is uninhabitable and our ship can't support our numbers. We're facing famine and population collapse."
"Or a civil war," Karel's voice sounded no different as he made this grim comment.
Xi Feng noticed that the black bulge on the top of Rokden's head seemed to swell for a moment before he nodded. "Yes."
* * *
After about twenty minutes of walking, the Tadpoles ushered them through a side door and into a large circular chamber. There they joined Ambassador Molinas, Lieutenant Commander Donaldson, and Dr. Gerald Poplawski. Poplawski had been NMC's project manager on the colony staff; he currently had a temporary Earth Fleet commission at the rank of Commander, which paid a salary slightly smaller than his annual tax bill had been with NMC. The three Humans were accompanied by the Tadpoles Vurk and Onadunwe, whom Xi Feng understood were doing their best to learn how to operate the technology they were acquiring.
Xi Feng noted that Molinas in particular looked worse for wear in the Tadpole climate. The fool was still wearing business attire—as if that was all he'd brought with him, and he looked to be suffocating beneath his coat and jacket. Still, his eyes were smiling; and when he saw Lieutenant Muyskens' smudged face, he showed her his own slime-covered palms in sympathy. Muyskens chuckled and Xi Feng stepped past the Ambassador with a curt nod.
Rokden shuffled around the little crowd to address them from the center of the room.
"Thank you for agreeing to join us," the Tadpole ambassador said in his low, gurgling voice. "Although the traditions of both our cultures indicate that we should now offer you a meal, our scientists have advised against it. In the end, I decided not to poison you."
Rokden paused. If he hadn't been an alien, Xi Feng would have been certain that the Ambassador was joking. But if he was, the delivery was so deadpan that his Human audience just stared uncomfortably.
"Instead," Rokden continued after a moment, "I have chosen to share some of our history with you. We have already acquired some broad summaries of Human history from the Charterlings. But we know that you are still mostly ignorant of our own people. Therefore, I had the colony translate and prepare some of our own educational presentations to serve as an introduction."
"Cool," Lieutenant Muyskens half-whispered.
Ambassador Molinas spoke more loudly when he said, "That's a great idea!"
Only Dr. Poplawski seemed somewhat bored by the plan. Xi Feng supposed that his scientific curiosity was limited to his own field of expertise.
Rokden stepped to one side and turned around. A video image appeared on a far section of the wall behind him. Xi Feng couldn't tell if she was looking at a purpose-built monitor, or if the Tadpoles were just able to project images wherever they wished.
Whichever the case, the video on display showed a planet or planetoid of indeterminate size observed from high orbit. Yellow-tinted clouds swirled lazily above a brackish green surface.
"This is our planet of origin," Rokden said. "We believe it appeared much differently during our early history. But there was a fairly dramatic shift in the climate around five thousand years ago, and we only achieved space flight after the change."
"What happened?" Muyskens asked.
"There was a mass extinction. Most of the planet had been covered with large plant growth—they looked something like a tree on Earth, but there was only a single dominant species. They were all wiped out in a few decades, and since they were a major component of the planetary ecosystem, lots of other species went with them. We very nearly died out ourselves, most of our historians mark the crisis beginning of our technological civilization as we were forced to adapt. And the surviving plant life had a fundamentally different nature, which gradually altered the chemical equilibrium of the atmosphere. Not enough that we couldn't survive, but enough to have an impact on the appearance."
Rokden shared a glance with Captain Karel, and Xi Feng decided to interpret the gesture as a mutual sigh.
"We developed the technology to finally leave our atmosphere about five hundred years before our colony ship departed. Our technical capabilities didn't evolve as quickly as we understand yours have. But even so, we established a large permanent presence in space before our first encounter with alien life."
The video recording of the Tadpoles' homeworld was replaced by a flickering slideshow of still images. The pictures seemed to be various pieces of space infrastructure, and each was overlaid with blocky English-language labels proclaiming each to be things like the "First Orbital Laser Station", "First Asteroid Mining Facility", and "First Private Space Residence". Without scale references, it was impossible to tell how big anything actually was, but the sheer number of installations the Tadpoles claimed to have constructed certainly seemed impressive.
Xi Feng was still trying to figure out what an "Orbital Reclaiming Nursery" might be when Rokden started up again.
"We met the Charterlings a little over two hundred years after our first spaceflight," the Tadpole said.
The picture of the mystery construct was replaced with a new video image, this time showing a Charterling ship approaching a ring-shaped Tadpole station in planetary orbit. Unlike the Bats, it did not appear that the Charterlings had been overly concerned about frightening a newly discovered alien civilization. The Bats had brought a small (by Bat standards) transport to Earth for the first time. The Charterling ship Xi Feng was looking at had the spherical shape of one of the aliens' faster-than-light ships, and Earth Fleet had never observed one of those with a diameter less than five kilometers. As if to confirm the vessel's enormity, a tiny speck just barely recognizable as another ship detached from the sphere's hull and arced toward the Tadpole station.
The video changed again to show a trio of Charterlings standing indoors, apparently speaking to a group of Tadpole representatives. Rokden narrated, "They were from a newly established and still very small clan colonizing nearby systems. As such, they were eager to trade with us, since we could provide them with large amounts of simple manufactures that would let them devote more of their own resources to producing more valuable trade goods. We were also able to sell some small quantities of biological compounds from the planet that proved modestly valuable."
Xi Feng watched the front most Charterling on the screen clapping its forearms together. The motion looked aggressive, and Xi Feng probably would have been frightened to see it performed in front of her, but the Tadpoles did not seem concerned. It was quite a contrast to the similar recording of the first meeting between the Charterlings and the President of Russia in 2059. The President had been visibly intimidated by the aliens' imposing size. An embarrassed Russian state media had tried with little success to bury the recording after going to such an effort to play up the opening of Russian-Charterling diplomatic relations.
"During the next few decades, our space infrastructure and our economy grew rapidly," Rokden went on. "Still, there was growing frustration with the Charterlings, as they refused to sell us any 'strategically significant' technology. It was a situation I'm sure you can appreciate."
He nodded at the Humans. Dr. Poplawski snorted, and while no one else audibly agreed, Xi Feng was sure that all of them shared the engineer's feelings.
"We couldn't do anything except tolerate the situation," Xi Feng thought Rokden might have shrugged, but she couldn't be sure. "We were a useful trade partner, but not so valuable as to give us any real political leverage even with the local clan. So our scientists had only just begun to develop our own gravity generators when the Kyhyex first arrived in our system."
The video switched to an image of another spherical FTL ship orbiting a different planet—one lacking in atmosphere and pockmarked with impact craters. Without any apparent cause, the giant ship broke apart into tiny pieces which began to rain down on the planet's surface, kicking up great whorls of dust.
"They never responded to any of our communication attempts, so we didn't know anything ourselves. Our best guess is that this group was rather more," Rokden paused a moment, "feral than the Kyhyex you have observed. When our Charterling trade partners found out about them, they scrambled a militia fleet, and attacked without even consulting us."
The planet changed. Or rather, it looked to Xi Feng as if it was replaced by an entirely new planet whose cracked and molten surface glowed an angry orange.
"Is that…?" Dr. Poplawski's question trailed off.
"The bombardment lasted several days," Rokden answered. "We thought they might actually be intending to outright destroy the planet. And afterwards we realized that they could have, but it wasn't really necessary. Still, it was a frightening display of aggression in response to little apparent provocation. And one backed by a power that we couldn't possibly hope to resist. It set off quite a panic."
Xi Feng certainly felt unsettled. Humanity knew that the aliens they faced possessed weapons with destructive power far beyond Earth's capabilities. In 2053, the first Kyhyex to visit the Solar System had destroyed a Charterling colony on Io. They'd apparently done it with a laser that, if Earth Fleet's estimate was accurate, could have boiled Earth's oceans away in seconds. But reading estimates like that was one thing; seeing an entire planet actually reduced to uninhabitable slag… it gave the numbers frightening context.
She glanced at Donaldson, who'd remained thoughtfully silent throughout the presentation. Both he and Ambassador Molinas were looking at the video with eyebrows clenched in contemplation. Xi Feng supposed that all of them were going to have some rather interesting reports to make once they were finished here.
Rokden continued. "Not long after that incident, however, our system received a squadron from the Royal Navy, which actually improved our relations with the Charterlings considerably."
The ruined planet was replaced by a straight-on shot of a new spacecraft. It might have been another FTL ship based on the round shape, but that may also have been merely a trick of the angle. Xi Feng certainly didn't recognize it as one of the designs catalogued by Earth Fleet. She needn't have wondered, though. After a pause, a label was thrown up, identifying the ship as the "Royal Navy Heavy Cruiser Seventh Conviction."
"The Navy was much more generous than the local clan had been. They provided us with significant technological transfers and a number of weapon systems in exchange for provisions and spaceyard facilities for their vessels. We're not really sure what the internal political machinations of the Charterlings were; but my belief is that the Royal Navy saw us as an opportunity to establish a self-sufficient outpost against the Kyhyex for only a small initial investment. This would have been preferable to the larger and ongoing costs of leasing facilities from their own population in the region. Alternatively, the local settlers might have just been on poor terms with the Royal Family, and the Navy was snubbing them."
Rokden's shoulders twitched. A shrug?
"We were too grateful for the sudden shift in our fortunes to question the gifts, but the feeling didn't last long. Even with the new weapons, we only just survived the next Kyhyex incursion. The second wave arrived less than a year after we signed our treaty with the Royal Navy. For the next two years, the Kyhyex sent a new wave of transports almost once a month. The transports were all unarmed, but there were eight ships in each wave, and instead of outer planets, all of them accelerated directly for our homeworld.
"Destroying them was not difficult, but the wreckage was more than we could clear, especially from the second and third waves when some of the transports made it all the way into orbit. By the time the first incursion was over, our population had been cut in half, and the remainder were starving. We had watched our entire space infrastructure be destroyed—and been forced to rebuild it—nearly a dozen times over. The Royal Navy provided some reinforcement but even so, the cost of maintaining our defenses nearly crushed us.
"The waves were coming from a nearby system which had been thoroughly 'saturated' with Kyhyex. In order to relieve population pressure, the Kyhyex had constructed an extensive shipyard facility, the entire output of which was travelling directly to our system. The waves only stopped when a squadron of Royal Navy dreadnoughts infiltrated the system and destroyed the shipyards.
Rokden's head turned slowly as he glanced at each of the Humans, but none of them said anything.
"The Charterlings had led us to believe that the Kyhyex weren't capable of the political organization necessary for such an operation, that all of their starships were ad-hoc, and unique constructions. And indeed, we found out that the Kyhyex had not built the shipyard facilities on their own. They had been purchased from another species, one we had never encountered. That was the first we learned of the Bats."
Xi Feng was sure that Ambassador Molinas intentionally exaggerated his sigh.
"Rokden," he said, "we can appreciate that there is some bad history, a lot of bad history, between your people and the Bats. But Humans have to make our own policies based on our own experiences and judgments. We consider the Bats to be friends, and we won't be happy if you start trying to drive a wedge between us. I'm sorry."
"I don't expect to turn you against the Bats, Ambassador," Rokden said. "Despite my own biases, I understand that your experience with them has been different, and I would not presume to suggest that you should ignore that history. I am willing to admit, reluctantly perhaps, that you may even be better off to choose sides as you have. Just because my own people did not have the opportunity to make such a choice is not a reason to deny it to yours."
Molinas nodded and looked like he was about to say something, but he was cut off by Commander Donaldson.
"Hey, I have a question," the Intelligence Officer announced.
Several heads turned to him.
"Yes?" Rokden asked.
"Er, sorry if this is a bit of a departure," he said, "but talking about the Bats reminded me I had a question about you and them."
"Yes?" Rokden asked again.
"When Ambassador Hyarahek attempted his little, uh, intervention…" Donaldson glanced nervously at Dr. Poplawski. It was public knowledge that the Bats had replaced their ambassador to Earth. But Earth Fleet and the OES hadn't released the full story behind the change, even if most people had figured out that it probably had something to do with the Tadpoles. Nothing Donaldson knew was actually classified, though, and Poplawski was technically a part of Earth Fleet now. The Lieutenant Commander seemed to make up his mind to go on. "Well, it seemed like you found out about it a good while before we detected their ships departing. We aren't aware of any sensor systems which can work faster-than-light, so I'm wondering if you can tell us just how you were alerted to the Bats' movements so quickly."
All the Humans looked at Rokden. Xi Feng raised an eyebrow. Donaldson was being more direct than Xi Feng would have, but there wasn't anything exactly wrong with the approach. Especially because it was still such a mystery. Earth Fleet had nothing more than guesses as to the answer.
Rokden did not answer immediately, though. Instead, he turned his head and locked eyes with Captain Karel. The Tadpoles stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time without speaking or even, so far as Xi Feng could tell, making any sort of meaningful gestures.
It was Karel that finally spoke, without taking his gaze away from Rokden.
"Before we departed, the Charterlings gave us user access to their sensor network around your planet. The Bats' communications signals are difficult to detect, but they don't actually encrypt message traffic between Earth and their colony. We intercepted Governor Shyankyang's message to Hyarahek approving his request for a detachment of warships."
Karel turned his back to the Humans, but Rokden looked directly at Ambassador Molinas.
"You realize that this is a sensitive security matter," the Tadpole said. "The Bats were likely to discover the sensors on their own, eventually, but I did not wish to lie to you. Still, I hope you will be discreet about the way you share this information."
Not for the first time, Xi Feng could see that all of the Humans would have some very interesting reports to make once they had returned to their ships.
* * *
They were not the only ones.
Hyong was no longer really paying attention to the image in his monocle as Rokden's narration started up again.
He had fussed for several hours before deciding to go ahead and take the risk of planting his spy drones on Pascual Molinas' jacket. They were part of the equipment stock Hyong had brought with him from Karee, much smaller and less clumsy than the ones Hyarahek had deployed to the OES Foreign Ministry. But even though Hyong was sure the Humans would never notice them, he was considerably less confident about the Tadpoles. Based on the colony's records, it seemed unlikely that the Tadpoles had the sort of sophisticated counterintelligence technology which could detect the drones. But almost all of the Bats' information about the Tadpoles was second-hand. No one could be certain.
After what Hyong had just heard, however, he knew it had been worth the chance of discovery. Still using the monocle interface—since he assumed the Humans were watching him with their own cameras—Hyong began drafting his report to Ambassador Goyeharg.