Bedivere didn’t attend any of the meetings. She hadn’t seen him since confronting him in that bare, cold room and she was glad of the reprieve. She knew he was still in the city, because Brant and the others would refer to him in passing in casual conversation. No one avoided talking about him in front of her. No one went out of their way to speak of him directly to her, either.
From references and implication, she knew that Bedivere was spending a lot of time on the
Aliza
, investigating the very few leads they had about the aliens—the Periglus, they had been named by someone with an ear for the ancient languages. Catherine recognized the roots of the word.
Danger
. It was a fitting name for the aliens. Even Yennifer had stopped insisting that perhaps they were not as dangerous as everyone supposed.
Connell travelled with Bedivere on many of his trips and was frank about their discoveries. Most of the new information they had about the Periglus came from their jumps to Kashya, where they would float among the abandoned ships and once or twice, enter one of them.
“These things are big,” Connell said. “Everything is made for someone at least twice as high as us. Maybe three times. We can’t figure out if they sit, or not. If they do, then they’re even bigger than we thought. Wider, too.”
Zoologists, who had spent their lives studying non-sentient animals, were suddenly faced with analyzing a new sentient race based on circumstantial evidence alone. One of the best of them, Draven Tucker, went with Bedivere and Connell on a handful of tours to Kashya. His report to the village mayors and reeves and the planetary governors who travelled to hear him speak had been stiff, formal and inconclusive, but what he had said after the evening presentation had ended and he’d been plied with Brant’s brandy, had been the stuff of nightmares.
“Oh, they have DNA, yes,” Tucker had said expansively in response to someone’s question. “Of course they do. It’s the basic building block of the universe. We also believe they’re warm-blooded, that is, if we understand some of the equipment and facilities on the ship. They are
very
big. The biggest a warm-blooded species can evolve to, on a world with near-Terran gravity. As that is the type of world they chose to terraform, we must conclude that is the type of world they come from.” He tugged at the bottom of his jacket uneasily. “Consider the cockroach, which has accompanied humans onto every single planet we’ve ever settled. We can’t rid ourselves of them despite every effort we’ve ever made. They even survive a vacuum, so exposing a ship to space doesn’t do the trick, either. We stamp on them, poison them, trap them, train pets to eat them. We’ve tried to hybridize them into a sterile state so they can’t reproduce and they found a way around that, too.”
Everyone around the table shifted uncomfortably.
“Are you saying, Tucker,” Devlin said in his best diplomatic tone, “that we are just cockroaches to these aliens?”
“The scale is wrong. The attitude, though, just might be right,” Tucker said slowly. “To a Periglus, we would appear bigger than a cockroach looks to us, but we might be just as much of an irritant. How many times have you opened up an unused room, only to find it overrun with cockroaches who have chewed their way through even the plasteel structures and completely ruined the room?”
There was some clearing of throats. Catherine could understand their discomfort. Tucker was used to thinking in terms of survival while it was difficult for a non-professional biologist to consider themselves as merely another species in the food chain.
“You mean, when they finally pop out of the gate and find a world overrun with humans, they’re just going to….” Lilly began.
“Exterminate us? Quite likely,” Tucker said. “There’s nothing on their ships that says they understand the concept of coexistence. No evidence of pets, or knowledge of other species or cultures.”
Brant looked a little ill. “So, there’s no negotiating with them at all?”
“If you can figure out how to communicate with them in the first few hours after they emerge from the gate, you might get them to pause long enough to consider the novel idea that spring cleaning a planet and getting rid of the vermin might not be such a good idea. Only, we don’t even know if they have vocal cords, yet. Maybe they use telepathy or wiggle their ears…if they have ears. There’s too many unknowns and not nearly enough data.” Tucker looked around the table, only just realizing the impact of his insights. “I mean, this is all sheer speculation,” he added hastily. “We’re behind a closed door and…well….” It was his turn to clear his throat. “Perhaps more of that brandy?” he asked Brant, pushing the glass toward him.
Tucker’s wild hypotheses were not made public, which was a good thing, for the fear and speculation about where the Periglus would emerge from the gates was building with each passing day. The longer they took to emerge, the more extreme the theories grew.
“Of course they’re not going to make it across the galaxy!” Connell had said in exasperation when Yennifer had mentioned one rumor. “It took them ninety years to get from the Last Gate to Kashya!
Ninety
years! Do the math, Yennifer. If that’s as fast as they can go, even travelling through a short wormhole will take time. It’ll take them a lot longer than any human ship still using the gates. Even the slowest human ship can get close to light-speed.”
However, there were not many ships still using the gates. Everyone was afraid to use them, even though experts, scientists and even Devlin had tried to explain that no one could possibly meet the Periglus inside a wormhole.
“Each wormhole is unique, formed at the time of the jump, between the start gate and the end gate. It only forms long enough for the ship to pass through, then disappears,” Devlin had explained in a clip that had spread around the feeds faster than gossip. “In fact, it closes up behind the ship and opens up in front of it, as the ship travels from gate to gate, which is why one ship can use the gate for one destination and a second ship can use the gate for an entirely separate destination straight after the first ship has departed.”
Saying so didn’t assuage gut fears and instincts. Traffic through the legacy gate system dwindled, which put the developing Varkan transport system under pressure to fill the gap.
Connell went back to piloting in between his research with Bedivere and Catherine heard that Bedivere was jumping passengers and freight all over the known worlds, too.
Devlin encouraged any of the Varkan still aboard the
Hana
who had found Interspace to take up some of the slack, including Cleon and Wayna, his two official pilots. He asked the silent Mael Maedoc to stay, and while the
Hana
was in dock, to train new Varkan and guide them to find Interspace for themselves.
“The Varkan are finally coming into their own,” Devlin told Catherine in a private moment on the flight deck after discussing training schedules with Mael. He looked out the windows at the observation deck of the docking bay, where there was always dozens of people observing the ship. “Instant transport was just a luxury. Now, it’s becoming a necessity and Varkan are finally finding themselves useful and needed.”
“They were useful before,” Catherine pointed out. “That’s the reason they woke. We needed them.”
“As computers, yes. Now they’re coming into their own as a race with a purpose…something humans have looked for throughout history.” He gave a small smile. “I almost envy them.”
He was teasing in his low-key way. Devlin was the most goal-oriented man she knew.
She looked at him across the cleared table, as she reflected on how busy all their lives were now. He didn’t look tired or stressed. The overload of decisions and crises didn’t impact on him. He thrived in such an atmosphere.
“You said there was something you wanted to talk through,” she reminded him.
Devlin nodded. He put both hands on the table and pressed his fingers together. A tiny furrow appeared between his brows, then smoothed itself out. He was debating something in his mind.
“Out of curiosity, I looked up when you first moved onto the
Hana
. It will be ten years next month and I confess it feels like only the other day.”
“Time subjectivity,” Catherine said. “You’ve packed a lot into that ten years.”
“So have you,” he replied. “Tell me, have you achieved everything you hoped to when you came aboard?”
She stared at him. “It’s your agenda, Devlin. Your ambitions. I just follow you.”
Devlin smiled. It was one of his warm smiles, that made his eyes dance. “You have not followed another leader your entire life, Catherine Shahrazad, so I will assume that you are merely trying to flatter me and will accept the compliment as such. You didn’t agree to work
with
me because I convinced you what I was doing was so important. You had your own reasons for joining up with the
Hana
and the Varkan who work here. I don’t know what those reasons were and I didn’t pry at the time, although I made some rough guesses. Now I know I was wrong on at least one count.”
“Bedivere?” she asked. “You think I used you as some sort of recovery program because he left?”
“The timing was right,” Devlin said easily. “I didn’t mind, back then, because it was an opportunity to work with you.” His smile was brief. “Your reputation as someone who can get things done, no matter the obstacles, was so great that I would have welcomed you no matter what motivated you.”
“You didn’t mind back then, but now you do?”
Devlin’s hands tightened together. “Now, I find myself weighing possibilities. I’m not used to being uncertain, especially about personal matters and it’s an uncomfortable feeling.”
Catherine tried to read his expression, his posture, as faint alarm touched her. “I promise I won’t tell anyone I saw Devlin Woodward in a quandary,” she said lightly.
His smile was fleeting. “I think you’re one of the very few people in the known worlds who could put me in one.” His voice was low.
Her heart skipped a beat, then hurried on. “Devlin...” she began, then halted. What if she was wrong? Misinterpreting? Trying to redirect him before she knew for certain would be presumptuous.
He held up a hand. “No, let me finish.”
The sinking sensation in her belly told her she was right. How could she avert this? How could she avoid the hard feelings and the hurt that would absolutely end this moment? She didn’t want to hurt him….
“I can tell from your face that you’ve already guessed what I’m going to say. The shape of it, anyway,” he said. “Before you rush in to say no, give me a fair hearing.”
“That’s what you tell the people who sit on the other side of the table from you in negotiation sessions.”
“Then you know what I’m going to say next.”
“That I should put aside all my prejudices and beliefs just for the next few minutes and listen as if I was hearing everything for the first time.”
He drew in a breath. “Exactly. You’re carrying around a very long lifetime of opinions and experience and they shape your reactions, which in most circumstances is a good thing. It’s what has allowed you to adapt and survive yet it leaves calluses in places you’re not aware of.”
“Calluses.”
“It’s not a romantic analogy, but neither you nor I would tolerate insincere flattery and poetics.”
“I’m more flattered by action,” Catherine admitted. “Behavior speaks far more clearly than any words.”
Devlin nodded. “Exactly. Your behavior over the last few weeks tells me you have turned some sort of corner in your life and I saw you after you spoke with Bedivere that last time. It has also been weeks since you staggered onto the flight deck under the twin burdens of a hangover and shame.”
Catherine drew in a breath, trying to calm her heart, which was thundering. “I have…settled some things,” she said, prevaricating.
“So have I,” Devlin said. He got to his feet. “Stand up for a moment.”
“Why?”
“A demonstration. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to be so crass as to try and kiss you.”
That had been exactly what she had been thinking. She could feel her cheeks heating as she got to her feet. Devlin picked up her hand and drew her away from the table. His hand was cool in comparison to hers.
Then he let her hand drop. There was a meter of space between them. “Look at me,” he said, his voice low.
She made herself look him in the eye. His eyes were almost totally black and surrounded by thick lashes.
“You’ve spent hundreds of years with just one man and you haven’t yet started to think about what it would be like with anyone else in your life. I want you to put aside all that old thinking and consider the possibilities for a moment.”
“Devlin—”
“No, let me finish. Remember?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
He reached out toward her. “Don’t panic,” he said softly. “I want to show you something.”
Her heart tried to climb out of her chest as he drew his arm around her waist. He moved closer and closer still, until their bodies were very nearly touching and his arm was firm across her back. “Breathe,” he told her.
She tried. His proximity was firing off all sorts of alarms in her mind and body. She was holding back the need to dump him on his back and add a kick or two by sheer willpower, because he had asked her to. She swallowed.
“I mean that literally,” Devlin said gently. “Breathe. Relax. This is all I’m going to do to you.”
It took even more discipline to draw air into her lungs in deep, controlled breaths. Slowly, though, the worst of the reaction subsided until she was just standing there, looking at him.
“See?” He gave her a small smile. “You didn’t melt.”
Catherine pressed her lips together. “Is melting in your arms not what you want, then?”
“Eventually,” he said frankly. “For now, I want you to think about possibilities and I have to move you past your own history to do that. This is a small taste of what it would be like in my arms. Let down your internal shield just for a moment or two and absorb it.”
She tried, only because it was Devlin who was asking. Her resistance was huge. He watched her struggle with it for a moment, then shook his head. “Stop trying,” he said softly. “Stop thinking. Feel, instead.”