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“That is surprising,” said the
Little Swimmer. “Although your people did not know what it would be like to
meet aliens, they did know that someday they would meet aliens.”

“I don’t want you to
misunderstand,” said Philippe. “My people imagined that one day they might meet
aliens—they thought that it
could
happen—but they had no sure knowledge
that it
would
happen. It was purely a subject for fiction.”

“There were no prophecies,” said
the alien.

“No, no prophecies, nothing like
that,” said Philippe. “Just imagination.”

“Since your people had no idea
other than ideas created in fiction regarding what to expect, how did they
react to discovering the aliens?”

“People were split,” Philippe
replied. “On the one hand, some people thought that the aliens would be hostile
and would attack us. There was another group who thought that the aliens would
solve all of humanity’s problems and answer all of humanity’s questions. And
there were a lot of people who didn’t know quite what to think.”

“Well, we wanted to know,” said
Philippe. “There were very few people who were so fearful that they would
rather not know. We’re curious people.”

The alien asked Philippe about his
reception on the station, which gave him an opportunity to praise the Swimmers
and the role they played.

It was also, he decided, an
opportunity to ask some questions of his own. “If you don’t mind my asking,
what was
your
purpose in coming aboard this station? What did you or do
you hope to accomplish?”

The walls of the chamber began to
vibrate, and a very deep rumbling began.
I guess the studio is answering
that question,
thought Philippe, as his earplant began to speak.

“For an extremely long time, our
people fought each other,” rumbled the Big Swimmer. “The Big Swimmers and the
Little Swimmers were engaged in a competitive relationship. Each people wanted
more room in which to live, and each encroached on the other’s territory. Each
developed technology to drive the other out, and in the most shameful period of
our history, each attempted to enslave the other for the sole benefit of one
people.

“There was one positive aspect of
this disgraceful time—it was the time of the development of our translation
technology. Initially developed to help one people command the other, it became
the means for us to truly communicate, and through communication, to develop
understanding and eventually respect for one another.

“This ushered in a new period in
our history, a period of symbiosis. We realized that by working in cooperation
each people could flourish beyond what was hoped for before. Our technology improved
dramatically, so much so that we were able to greatly expand our joint
territory, assuring plentiful resources for each of our people, and to travel
into space.

“When we were contacted by the
Hosts, we were delighted to join them in their station. We hope to draw many
more people into symbiotic relationships, enabling them to communicate and live
securely. By doing so, we believe that we will better their lives and our own.”

“Thank you,” said the splotched alien.
“While we have had success in assisting auditory communication, non-auditory
communication remains technologically unassisted, which is a source of concern
for us.”

“What do you mean?” asked Philippe.

“Watch me, and tell me what you
think I am communicating,” said the splotched one. It suddenly thrust all its
tentacles outward as its orange spots turned red and its violet background
turned indigo.

“You’re startled,” said Philippe.

“You are incorrect, I am sorry to
inform you,” said the splotched one, returning to its normal color and shape.
“That is a greeting that one might use with a friend. Do you have a
non-auditory way of greeting a friend?”

He could hear the SFers sniggering
into his earplant. “It
can
be one,” Shanti muttered.

They wound up the interview with
more thank-yous and flattery, and the Big Swimmer extracted Philippe from its
maw, gently putting him down exactly where it had picked him up. It swam away
slowly, disappearing into the black.

Philippe paddled up to the surface
of the water and hauled himself onto the platform. No one was there, and his
tether was trailing over the edge of the ramp. He followed it, walking over to
the ramp and pulling off his hood.

The four SFers and Max were
standing on the floor, cramped around a small device Max was holding. When
Philippe stepped onto the ramp, the soldiers began applauding, Shanti slowly
and with a wry smile, the men enthusiastically.

The noise startled Max, so Philippe
asked them to stop.

“Guy, you’re a star!” said Patch.

It turned out that Max had whatever
the Host equivalent of a scroll was, and that the interview had been broadcast
all over the station as it was conducted—an experience the SFers all agreed was
“weird” because the interview was broadcast in universal translator code, so
they were getting Philippe’s actual words over the com mike and his translated
words at the same time.

“Anything that didn’t translate?”
Philippe asked.

“Shhh!” they all said, and burst
into laughter. Max looked very confused.

“Oh, yeah, one other thing,” said
Bubba. “The marine animals—that didn’t farking work. You’d say like, ‘A
dolphin, which is a kind of marine animal,’ and it would come through, ‘a
dolphin,’ I mean, ‘a marine animal’—”

Nobody had, so he wound up shaking
himself dry as best he could and putting his suit on over his wet lonjons. Max
had understood enough of his question to realize that there was a problem
involving the lack of a certain piece of cloth, and Philippe had to repeatedly
assure him that it was nothing of any great import.

“You have really done so much for
us, I don’t see how we could possibly repay you,” he said as they walked back.

“Repay?” said Max. “There is no
need for repayment. Your presence on this station is a tremendous gift to us. I
merely am attempting with no expectation of success to repay you for such a
significant gift.”

“That is an extremely kind thing to
say,” Philippe said. “Nonetheless, I insist that you refrain from escorting us
to every meeting. This one was quite long, and it makes me feel bad to think
that you might spend this much time at every meeting.”

“I wish only to assist you,” said
Max.

“And you are a tremendous help to
us,” Philippe assured him. “You help us with so many things, and we are so
grateful for it. I fear we will exhaust you, and I would feel terrible were
that to happen.”

“I accept your request,” said Max.
“I will no longer escort you to and from meetings.”

They stood for a minute, slightly
uncomfortably. Philippe had simply been trying to be considerate, but he was
beginning to wonder if he had pushed too hard and had caused the alien offense.

Max suddenly looked excited. “We
shall repay you in another form,” he said. “I heard you say to the Swimmers
that your people are curious and came to this station seeking knowledge.”

“That is true,” said Philippe.

“We could help provide you with
some of our knowledge. I will go consult with my people and find out what
knowledge might be best for you to have and most easily transmitted to you. I
shall contact you again soon.”

And with that, Max peeled off from
the group, surrendering his role of escort a bit sooner than Philippe had
expected. Fortunately they had already returned to their floor, so they were
able to find their living area with no problem.

Philippe went into his office and
saw two widgets on his desk. He ignored them and went into his bedroom, where
he changed out of his wet dress suit and lonjons into dry lonjons and casual
clothing, in the process pulling off his translation and com mikes and putting
them onto his desk.

He hung the lonjons and suit. The
lonjons would dry without any problem, of course, but Philippe was not so sure
about the suit. It was a travel suit and not very wet, so it might be all
right, but eventually he would have to get it cleaned, and he doubted that
whatever process the SF used on their uniforms would be kind to his clothing.
The travel suits always took a beating, of course—the Sudan was hardly the place
to keep a wardrobe pristine—but Philippe liked to keep the creases crisp for as
long as possible.

He went back out to his desk and
picked up one of the widgets, which was about two centimeters across and fit
nicely in the curve of his index finger. He pointed it at the memory base and
pushed the widget’s button with his thumb. He had set the station to ping once
the memory was transferred; it did so, and Philippe repeated the process with
the second widget. He sat down and opened his office folder.

“Oh, dear,” he said.

He had over a thousand messages. A
quick glace showed messages from Space Authority, DiploCorps, Union
Intelligence, Special Forces, Union Police, and a half-dozen other branches of
the Union government, plus queries from several national governments as well.

It was ridiculous—scanning the
subject headings, he could see that many of the queries were repetitious or
impossible to answer, and others seemed to be about things mentioned in the
soldiers’ reports.

He closed his office folder and
opened his personal folder. There were twelve messages, all of them from Kathy.

The volume of messages made him
hesitate about deleting them. Even Kathy wouldn’t send him a dozen messages for
no good reason, right?

But it was hard to tell. He had met
Kathy several months before in Ottawa, where he had been sent after the
Guantánamo fiasco. The cushy assignment to DiploCorps headquarters was supposed
to be a combination of a break and a reward, but after what he had been
through, Ottawa, with its endless lavish receptions and trivial trade disputes
between wealthy partners, revolted Philippe. Diplomatic work there struck him
as inherently self-indulgent and meaningless, and the DiploCorps staff seemed
to gleefully embrace the decadence: Most of them were unapologetically more
interested in scoring free champagne at parties than in making the world a
better place.

Perhaps he would have seen things
differently under different circumstances, but Ottawa disgusted Philippe, and
his feelings were shared fully by Kathy. She was support staff—a highly
intelligent, highly educated woman who spent her time as a glorified
receptionist in an era when a receptionist was an anachronistic affectation,
like a handlebar mustache or a tie. She was a striking brunet, whippet-thin,
with a face like a fox. She had a biting wit, especially when it came to the
pretension and hypocrisy of the DiploCorps.

It took a while before he realized
how utterly consumed she was by bitterness and rage; how she held on to a job
she genuinely hated because she so desperately needed to hate everyone and
everything, every moment of every day. For a brief while, he was content to be
her whipping boy, but eventually whatever underlying need he had had for
punishment had been fulfilled, and he broke it off. Her fury had been epic.

But twelve messages in one day
seemed excessive even for Kathy, and it raised the possibility that something
had happened—a family emergency, something he could help with.

Philippe shut his personal folder
without deleting them. He would look at them later.

He decided to write a report on his
meeting with the Swimmers. It occurred to him that he’d probably get another
thousand messages asking for the interview broadcast if he didn’t include it,
so he decided to ask Shanti how much the SFers had been able to film.

He stepped out of his office.
Shanti’s door was open, but he could hear voices. Philippe looked in.
Five-Eighths was standing in front of Shanti’s desk, while she was standing on
the other side of her desk, in front of her chair.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to
interrupt,” Philippe said.

“Come on in. This will just take a
minute,” said Shanti, in a pleasant voice.

She turned to Five-Eighths and her
eyes hardened. She snapped, “I can’t believe you’re asking this. If I asked
you, I would never be MC again.”

“I’m not trying to command anyone;
I just think that we need to add to the diversity of the roster,” Five-Eighths
replied. “And it’s not like you’re a Moe anymore.”