Trang (14 page)

The waiting was killing him, so he
went out. He found Shanti, Patch, Bubba, and Raoul in one of the armories; they
were sealing up the pockets in their uniforms, which were bulging with
particularly ill-concealed weaponry.

Shanti started. “What? Oh, OK. Tell
him we’ll be there in a few minu—as soon as we can. Say ‘as soon as we can,’
OK? ‘Minutes’ doesn’t translate.”

They walked through the no man’s
land, pausing as the outer door opened. Max was standing next to the two
guards. As they came out, he began to thrum.

“Greetings, Max,” said Philippe. “I
am so happy to see you.”

“I apologize profusely,” said Max.
“We did not agree that I would escort you to the Swimmers, but I became
concerned that you might be expecting an escort and might not know the way, so
I took it upon myself to escort you. I hope my presence here is not unwelcome.”

“Your presence is always welcome,
and I thank you for your consideration,” Philippe replied.

Max still looked worried. “I know
you are probably wondering why Moritz is not here as well. Unfortunately, his
religious order requires his participation in a ceremony at this time.”

“I hope that you are not missing a
religious ceremony on our account,” Philippe said.

“I belong to a religious order that
has fewer ceremonies,” Max replied. “Despite his not being here, I wish to
assure you that your people and their happiness are very important to Moritz.”

“Hello. I am afraid that we must
leave you now to meet with the Swimmers,” said Philippe to the Pincushions. He
noticed that the blobs stuck on the backs of the Pincushions were blue and
gray. “But we look forward to meeting with your people as well.”

“Bring the scaled one,” said
another Pincushion.

“Cannot translate. Please excuse
that remark, I ask you in a truthful manner,” said the first Pincushion.
Philippe was confused for a moment, but then he realized that the first remark
was the translator speaking for itself. “It is extremely accurate to say that
we would be happy to meet with any representatives you choose.”

“The scales on her main body,” said
Max. “The Pincushions are fascinated by them; they consider them both very
beautiful and quite intimidating. They also say that the other humans in your
party do not have such armor.”

“
Oh,
” said Shanti. “I get
it.”

Philippe didn’t. “You have scales
on your body?” he asked.

“It’s a long story,” she replied.
“So, Max, the Pincushions can see through clothing?”

“Yes, the Pincushions have
unusually good vision. They can see a very broad range of light, and their
brains incorporate the reflection of the sound waves that their bodies give off
into their vision, so they also have excellent depth of vision. The Swimmers
have attempted to adapt some of those processes into their drones, but even
with their best technology they cannot see as well as the Pincushions do. We
and the Swimmers know of your scales only because the Pincushions have told
us.”

Shanti looked impressed. “Shit,”
she said. “Oh, sorry—shoot.”

“Here is the Swimmers’ living
area,” said Max.

The doors opened as they
approached, courtesy surely of one of the nearby drones, and the small party
walked in. There was not much room—roughly two meters separated the doors,
which were now closing, and the glass. The ramp, which began at the lower right
corner of the window and sloped up to the left, was itself less than a meter
wide.

Philippe took off his suit jacket
and pants as Bubba pulled out the harness. He stepped into it, and Bubba
tightened it up. The tether attached to the harness was coiled, but it looked
long enough to give Philippe freedom of movement. Bubba pulled on Philippe’s
hood and sealed it, checking his gloves as well.

“Unless you’ve turned on your body
mike? Your only working translation mike is in there,” said Shanti, who stopped
fiddling with her own mike to point at his suit jacket on the floor. “Anyway,
if it’s small, we’ve got the tether. If it’s big, we’ll have an incident. Don’t
you trust us?”

Philippe chose not to answer that
question, instead walking up the ramp with Bubba and Patch behind him. Behind
the glass was the water, dwindling away to darkness, and the massive figures
moving vaguely in that dark. Suddenly, something white drifted into the light.

“They’re a damned nui—” Bubba
began, before a look from Philippe stopped him. “OK, they’re a
darned
—
Hey!” Patch, blessedly insightful, had smacked him.

Philippe walked to the top of the
ramp, which turned out over the water to make a platform. He got on all fours
and crawled out onto the edge of the platform. He could see the roof of the
living area over the water for a few meters before all was lost in the
darkness.

“Unless something comes up, we’ll
just let you have your lead,” said Bubba, his voice echoing. “But stick near
the glass and stay in the light.”

“OK,” Philippe sat down, his feet
in the water, then slid the rest of the way in.

He quickly sank down to the bottom
of the tank.
I guess it’s not salt water,
he thought, as his feet hit
the bottom of the chamber.

“Can you hear me in there?”
Shanti’s voice broke in.

“Yeah, clear as a bell,” said
Philippe. He turned toward the glass and waved at the three figures standing
there. “The suit seems to be working fine; I don’t feel like I’m suffocating.”

“Good. Max says they should be
along any minute,” said Shanti.

Philippe turned the other way,
facing the darkness.

Chapter
7

It looked like a torpedo coming
straight at him, big and gray, with stripes of darker gray radiating out from
its pointed front. The torpedo slowed as it came near him, and Philippe noticed
that it had long, vibrating fins on either side of its body. It stopped and
gradually sank down until the point of its front end was about level with
Philippe’s chin and what Philippe assumed was its belly was resting on the
floor.

The front of the creature suddenly
opened up. What had seemed to be a striped head was actually a mass of feathery
tentacles that the alien had been holding together as it swam. It moved closer
to Philippe and began touching him with its tendrils.

Its touch was incredible. The
feathery tentacles were each covered with little finger-like nubs—Philippe
could feel them through his lonjons. Each nub was vibrating, relaxing the
muscles under Philippe’s skin.

He closed his eyes as the
creature’s tentacles surrounded him, embraced him. He barely noticed as they
tipped him forward.

I should probably open my eyes,
he thought.

The tentacles were still around
him, but he realized that he had been drawn in and was facing the
creature’s—face? Closed eyelid? Some sort of fissure in the creature’s main
body. It began to open, and Philippe had just enough time to feel a surge of
panic before the tentacles gave a mighty shove and he was inside.

“
Hey!
” a voice screamed in
his ear.

“Trang! Trang!
Trang!
”

“Holy fuck!”

“
Trang!
Oh, shit, Trang!”

“I’m OK,” Philippe said.

“Fuck!”

“Trang!
Trang!
”

“I’m OK! I’m OK!” Philippe yelled.
“
For fuck’s sake, don’t DO anything!!
”

His outburst quieted the SFers. A
phrase favored by one of Philippe’s mentors floated into his head:
Talk to
people in their own language.

He hit his translation mike,
turning it on.

“You say you’re OK?” Shanti’s
voice.

“I’m absolutely fine,” said
Philippe. “I’ve got my translation mike on, and I am really happy to be here
and meeting what I assume to be the Little Swimmers.”

“You are correct in your
assumption,” said his earplant, as the creature emitted a whistling sound.

Philippe was in what he hoped was
not the belly of the whale. But he was definitely inside
something,
presumably one of the Big Swimmers, who was still holding on to him with its
vibrating tentacles.

Around him, everything was glowing.
The walls were giving off a faint and even light interrupted by gnarls of
brightness.

The brightness was enough to
illuminate the Little Swimmers, who were positively gaudy. Some were striped,
some were spotted, some were splotched, but all were a riot of intense color:
yellow, red, green, blue, and purple. They had tentacles too, surrounding
round, fat bodies. They crawled along the walls like octopi, pushing and
pulling themselves with their tentacles, but when they sat still, they rested
with their tentacles in the air, making them look more like sea anemones.

The one that had spoken to Philippe
was sitting directly in front of his face, but it turned over and crawled away.
Another, with orange splotches on a vivid violet background, took its place.
Philippe noticed that both had black, wiry growths on their bodies, which he
didn’t see on any of the other Little Swimmers—with the exception of one, with
green-and-yellow stripes and a prominent black growth, who promptly crawled
over to where Philippe was as well.

Was the growth some kind of badge?
A weapon? A fungus? Just a coincidence?

“Greetings, human diplomat,” said
the one with the orange splotches. “We thank you for agreeing to come here in
order to speak with us. We hope that this conversation will help the people of
our planet learn more about you.”

“On behalf of the humans, I thank
you for wanting to speak with me,” said Philippe.

“Let us begin. Please tell us about
yourself, and the position you occupy within human society.”

He was being held sideway, in
water, inside an alien, outside the Milky Way, but still it wasn’t hard for
Philippe to fall into the familiar routine. “I am, as you mentioned, a
diplomat. I have spent a long time traveling around my planet, trying to settle
disputes among different people so that they do not have to resort to warfare
and violence.”

The questions continued. He was
asked if by “different” people he meant different species or different groups
within the same species; he explained that, alas, war had not been eliminated
on Earth, although he hoped one day it would be; he mentioned that there were
marine animals on Earth as well and that some of them were fairly intelligent,
although they did not build space ships.

The style of the questions felt familiar,
and Philippe realized that this chat was an interview—quite possibly a media
interview. One apparently aimed at people who knew literally nothing about
Earth.

Were the black growths
cameras?

Whatever was going on, Philippe
became even more careful in his answers. The splotched Little Swimmer asked
several questions regarding humanity’s relationship to other species on Earth,
so Philippe answered them in the most positive way possible—he might annoy
animal-rights activists on his own planet, but he didn’t want the Swimmers to
think that humans were dedicated to the extermination of other species.

“Were your people expecting to find
this station?” the Little Swimmer asked.

Philippe was momentarily
distracted—he had noticed that there was also a White Spider sitting in the
chamber—but he quickly answered in the negative. “For a long time, people had
wondered what it might be like to meet aliens, but the reality of it was quite
different.”