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The three humans walked casually
into the Host living area, where Max greeted them. Just as casually, they
walked through the living quarters to the loading dock. George had told them
that they should wear their protective hoods while they were on an alien ship
or an alien planet, so they pulled the hoods over their heads.

The dock’s doors opened and
Philippe saw open space. He recoiled for a moment before realizing that he was
looking through the transparent body of the Hosts’ ships. He had seen their
ships before, on video—they looked vaguely like glass-topped cake holders—but
actually stepping out onto one was a little unnerving. He felt exposed,
especially after living in an enclosed space for so long. He wondered briefly
why a species would build a station with no windows whatsoever and then build
ships that were nothing but.

“You are welcome to my family’s
ship,” said the merchant.

“Thank you for your hospitality,”
replied Philippe. “This is a beautiful ship. What is its name?”

The merchant looked at him,
puzzled. “I do not think that question translated correctly. I apologize, but I
believe that we must hurry. Please follow me,” he said, walking over to some
cargo containers.

The gray containers were arranged
in two groups, so that there was a long, narrow aisle between them. “I believe
that if you wish to make a discreet visit to our planet, you should stand
here,” he said, gesturing at the aisle.

Philippe began to step in, but
Shanti grabbed his shoulder and gestured the doctor in first. He walked up and
down the aisle, and then nodded. She gestured to Philippe to get in and
followed him.

“Was that necessary?” Philippe
whispered, putting his hand over his translation mike.

“Just getting you in the habit,”
she whispered back. He glared at her mike, and she shrugged and put her hand
over it. “I know it’s been a while since you took your security seriously, but
you might want to be a bit more cautious if you’re going to run off and visit
strange planets.”

It’s just the Hosts,
Philippe thought to himself, but he wasn’t going to argue about his security
with the head of security. He looked around.

“Is this going to be enough cover?”
he asked.

Shanti shrugged. “Well, the Union’s
not looking for us, so I’d say as long as we don’t draw attention to ourselves,
we should be fine. Just don’t, like,
wave
when we pass one of our
satellites.”

Philippe turned his head to look at
her. The merchant’s nephew was standing at her end of the aisle. He didn’t look
particularly happy.

Shanti stared at the alien for a
moment, her face hardening.
She’s just never going to let things lie,
thought
Philippe.

“Actually, in my case, it wasn’t,”
she snapped. “In
my
case it was part of a long-term strategy to
repopulate the planet after a catastrophic war.”

The Host gave her a puzzled, but
still unfriendly, look and walked away.

“That was strange,” she said,
looking at Philippe. “What? I didn’t cuss.”

Philippe realized that he was
staring at her. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. It’s just—you know, I forget sometimes about
what a hellish upbringing you must have had, and then you say something like
that.”

She smiled. “It wasn’t that bad—I
mean, yeah, we were raised with a bunch of lies, but it was all very positive
for us, you know. We thought that we were going to be the heroes, that we were
going to save everyone from the bad things. So we were pretty upbeat—we used to
meet secretly at night and try to figure out how to stop that big war that was
supposed to happen. It didn’t get really weird until we were 12 or so and the
Old Man got rid of our teachers.”

Philippe wondered whether or not he
should ask how exactly “the Old Man” had accomplished that, but then Max
appeared at the end of the aisle. “Are you all comfortable?” he asked.

“It is a translation device for use
with Hosts who lack translation gear, which as you know, is a group that until
recently contained all Hosts who were not priests. It operates on a similar
principle as our translation gear, translating our spoken language into
universal code, which is then broadcast to your translation gear. When you
speak, and your gear broadcasts universal code, this machine translates that
code into Host speech, which it broadcasts through this speaker.”

“Oh, that’ll be useful,” said
George.

“Do you have any questions about
anything?” asked Max.

Why not?
wondered Philippe.

“I was curious to know about the
clear portion of this ship,” he said, pointing up to the transparent roof. “Is
that a force field?”

“I am uncertain if that translated
correctly,” Max replied. “I do not know what a field composed of force would be
like, so I believe the correct answer to your question is no. The clear portion
of our ship is composed of a composition.”

He stepped away, and soon Philippe
could hear the Hosts thrumming rhythmically. The portal—or at least the markers
indicating the portal’s location—drew closer and closer. They went through.

In the blink of an eye, the
starscape before Philippe changed completely. A bright blue sun shone before
them, momentarily dazzling him. He held up a hand to block the light.

Only then did he notice the massive
planet. It was covered in white clouds, which formed familiar patterns of
stripes and whorls. Through the gauzy haze Philippe could see something bluish
green in color. Was it water? Vegetation?

He peered closely and spied another
gap in the clouds. This time something reddish showed through. Was it desert?
Would the sky over a desert be so cloudy? There was a dark ribbon cutting
through the red—a river? Wouldn’t a river be too small to be seen from space?
Maybe some kind of geological formation? A mountain range?

Philippe’s curiosity was suddenly
overwhelmed by a brief but sharp stab of homesickness—the planet was beautiful,
and it was also strangely familiar.

“That your planet?” asked Shanti,
stepping out from the aisle. George tapped Philippe on the shoulder and
gestured for him to follow.

Philippe’s gaze followed her
finger. He hadn’t noticed the station—as big as it was, it had been dwarfed by
the magnificent planet and brilliant sun behind it. But it was there, between
the portal and the planet, and indeed, what looked suspiciously like the barrel
of an enormous cannon was pointed right at them.

“No,” said Max. “That is new.”

“A big
new
gun,” said
Shanti.

“Yes, it was recently built to
replace the previous defense station,” replied Max.

“That is
fantastic,
” she
said, in a tone that conveyed rather the opposite sentiment to the humans
present.

“We must wait a few minutes,” said
the merchant. “There is a ship of meditation that is scheduled to pass through
the portal next. But we will not have to wait a long time here, and we will not
have to wait even a short time on the other side of the portal.”

“What’s going on?” Shanti asked.

“It’s a religious thing,” Philippe
replied quickly. “The Hosts like to make several passes through the portal in
order to contemplate it. We’re only going back and forth once.”

“OK,” she said. “Uh, I guess we
should get back with the cargo crates then.”

“Good idea!” said Philippe, eager
to ward off any discussion of the precise reason for their itinerary. He
grabbed George, who was staring intently at the planet, clearly fascinated.
They went back to the aisle, George still peering around them to look at the
planet before them. The brightness of the sun didn’t seem to bother him at all.

Philippe noticed that George’s eyes
were now a silvery-gray, which gave him a nasty start. Then he remembered that
the SFers had artificial corneas.

Behind George, Philippe saw
something move. “Oh, hey,” he said, pointing. “It’s the meditation ship—they’re
going through the portal.”

“You know, they’ve got a shitload
of satellites, and they all look nasty,” muttered Shanti. “I mean, that looks
like a whole fucking defense grid around their home planet. We don’t have
anything like that around Earth.”

“Well, they’ve had almost a
thousand years to develop it,” George muttered back.

They were both staring at the
planet—or, more likely, at the defenses surrounding it. But Philippe had never
actually watched a ship go through a portal, so he decided to look at the
larger cake dish—this one loaded with Hosts, their orange and red bodies
clustered together like autumn leaves—as it passed through.

It was a little spooky—the front
end of the ship just disappeared, as though it were passing behind an invisible
door, and soon the whole thing was gone.

Then their ship began to approach
the portal, which was encircled by an elaborate and brilliant filigree of
lights. It was a spectacular marker, much bigger than the one on the other
side, made up of lights that appeared to move and change color.

They celebrate the portal,
Philippe
thought.
Their attitude is so different from Earth’s
.

As they got closer and closer, Philippe
became more and more fascinated by the lights. The pattern of the filigree
somehow looked both angular and flowing. It was unfamiliar but beautiful, and
Philippe wondered if it was totally unlike anything on Earth, or if the
possible shapes and combinations of shapes in the universe were finite, and if
you looked through the entire history of human art you would find this exact
pattern decorating a silk brocade or a wooden icon or a clay pot.

He strained his neck looking up at
the pattern of lights as they traveled under it. He realized that the filigree
was three-dimensional, with parts of it looping out and behind the main plane
directly above him.

Then he realized something that
sent a shock of cold through his body: He could still see the filigree. It was
still sunny.

They were still
there
.

“The hell?” said George.

“Fucking portal’s fucking broken,”
said Shanti, her voice just a tiny bit higher and faster than normal. She
pointed her finger in the direction of the planet. “And what the fuck’s that?”

Chapter 18

Philippe looked in the direction she was pointing. In the
dark space on the far side of the planet from the sun, several round discs of
yellow light were fading.

“Human diplomat, how is this
possible?”

It was Max. Philippe looked at him
blankly for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Why are you fucking asking him?”
asked Shanti, annoyed, as she stepped out from the cargo containers. “Holy
fuck, it’s not like it’s his fucking portal.”

The barrage of obscenities snapped
Philippe’s attention into focus. “I apologize to you for my companion’s harsh
language,” he said to Max, earning an eye roll from Shanti.

“It is of no significance,” said
Max. “Copulation, while not sacred in our culture, is highly valued. But have
you no insight to offer regarding the portal? Such an event has never before
been recorded that I have knowledge of, and I have studied the portals my
entire life. If the portals fail to operate, I believe that would be a
tremendous disaster to many people.”

“I’m afraid—” Philippe began, but
he was interrupted by the horrible shrieking. He was suddenly hauled backward
and dragged among the cargo containers by George. Shanti followed him. Weapons
materialized in their hands.

The shrieking cut out and a loud
chirping began. “What is it?” Shanti yelled.

“An alarm,” said Max. “We have been
instructed to come to the defense station.”

Do they think we’re responsible?
Philippe wondered.

Philippe looked where she was
pointing. The discs had faded, but he thought he saw a flash or two, like
far-away lightning in a cloud.