Текст книги "Orion's Hounds "

Автор книги: Christopher Bennett

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

So after careful thought, and with considerable embarrassment, she’d gone to Jaza and retracted what she’d said to him in bed. She’d asked him to treat it as a one-time thing, with no strings, no hard feelings and no future. He had taken it as well as she could have hoped, expressing regret but telling her he understood, and promising to respect her wishes. It had just made her feel guiltier about reversing course on him like that.

She shook herself, returning her focus to the matter at hand. Reviewing her memory, she was pretty sure Riker had just asked Jaza, “You think the Pa’haquel made them?” or words to that effect.

Now Troi was shaking her head. “They insist that the jellies have been the same since the dawn of their history. If someone did engineer them, it must have been some earlier race.”

“History can be rewritten,” Keru interposed. “People can forget their true past, or have it deliberately hidden.” I guess a Trill would know,Vale thought.

“True,” Jaza said. “If the Pa’haquel did create the jellies, that makes this an internal matter, and the Prime Directive would apply.”

“Would it?” Troi challenged. “Whatever their origins, the jellies now live free, and have a life, a society of their own, separate from the Pa’haquel. These jellies don’t even know that their hunters arePa’haquel. They’re a separate culture.”

“That’s open to debate.”

“That’s right, it is,” Riker said. “But that doesn’t change anything.” He paused, his gaze taking in everyone at the table. “We all understand the risks of intervention. That’s what the Prime Directive is for—to make sure we consider those risks, and remember our own limitations. Many of us have seen firsthand what can go wrong when we grow overconfident and meddle too much.” He and Vale exchanged a significant look. They both knew the horrific costs of ex-President Zife’s clandestine interference on Tezwa. “But we’ve also seen whole worlds die because we refused to help them—because we thought that somehow a disruption of their worldview was a worse fate than total annihilation. There was a time when I supported that policy myself. But I’ve seen too much death and devastation in the past decade not to question that. And I think that adhering too slavishly to the letter of the Directive can be an excuse for inaction—for not wanting to deal with the responsibility and the tough decisions that come with trying to help.

“Now, I still believe in the Prime Directive, and I’m still bound by my oath to defend it at all costs. But I will not see it used as an excuse for taking the easy way out, for letting injustices thrive because we decide they aren’t our problem. Not on my ship. Not in my crew. Because I trust that this crew can handle that responsibility, can make those tough decisions.”

After a moment, he went on. “Either way, what we need to do now is learn more about the situation. We’ve met with the hunters, now it’s time we met with the prey. Mr. Jaza, your first job is to scan for star-jelly life signs and find us the nearest school. Your second job, once we find them, will be to study their biology and learn what you can about their origins.” He turned to Troi. “Counselor, hopefully you can do the same. Work on making contact with them, getting more from them than just emotions. Maybe they have long memories, and can give us some answers. But your main job is to learn whatever you can from them, work toward establishing a dialogue—one in which we can hopefully include the Pa’haquel. Try to find a way the two species can coexist peacefully.” Troi nodded.

“Mr. Tuvok,” Riker went on. The tactical officer looked up sharply. “Your job is to work on recalibrating the shields so they can handle the Pa’haquel’s bio-energy bolts more effectively. And work on tactics for defending the jellies from armed attack without resorting to deadly force.”

“Acknowledged.” Tuvok seemed relieved, Vale thought—probably at not being asked to work with Troi on communicating with the jellies.

“Dr. Ree,” Riker said, “your job is to administer telepathic blockers to those crewmembers who can’t resist the star-jellies’ emotions on their own. I don’t want any of our people out of commission when we may need them.”

“There is an herbal medicine from my world which I think would do the trick,” Ree said. “Some of my people are empathic—though not I, obviously—and there were times in our history when the ability was seen as an aberration, which a drug was devised to ‘cure.’ With some refinements, it could be adapted to other species.”

“Very good. That’s it, people—let’s go to work.”

Chapter Four

Tuvok stepped through the doors of stellar cartography to find the Horsehead Nebula blocking his path. “Oh, there you are,” came Commander Jaza’s voice from beyond it. “Never mind that, just step on through.” Tuvok did so, adjusting his gait to the lowered gravity of the catwalk, and reminding himself that this seemingly flamboyant mode of presenting data did have its practical value for visualizing spatial relationships. Still, the crew members who spoke of their experiences with the free-fall environment of the holotank tended to describe it in the terms one would use for a recreational contrivance—a “thrill ride,” he believed his old crewmate Tom Paris would have called it.

Once he cleared the simulated dust cloud, Tuvok saw Jaza and Lieutenant Pazlar beyond it. Both of them were hovering in freefall, outside the observation platform’s localized gravity field. “Feel free to come up and join us, Commander,” Jaza said, blithely disregarding the inapplicability of the word “up” to his own current frame of reference.

“No, thank you, Commander. I would prefer to remain here.”

“Of course,” Pazlar observed. “Vulcans do everything with such gravity.”

Tuvok ignored the remark, addressing his comments to the commander. “You wished to see me, Mr. Jaza?”

“Yes, Tuvok, we could use your input,” the Bajoran said. “We’ve been unable to detect any star-jelly schools within sensor range, and we’re having trouble tracking the warp trail of the one we encountered before. Something to do with the organic nature of their drives, I suppose.”

Tuvok’s gaze sharpened. “If you wish me to attempt to sense them telepathically—”

Jaza shook his head. “Don’t worry, nothing like that. You see, I realized that the star-jellies can’t exist in…well, I was about to say ‘in a vacuum,’ but that would’ve been a poor choice of words.”

“You mean,” Tuvok interpreted, “that as living beings they must logically be part of an ecosystem.”

“Yes. And I realized the same must be true of all spacegoing creatures—cosmozoans, to use the technical term. Starfleet vessels over the past two centuries have observed hundreds of such organisms, but their reports have usually described single individuals or monospecies groups in isolation, rarely interactions between multiple species. That’s understandable, given the vast distances of interstellar space. But there must be a big picture we’re only seeing isolated pieces of.

“So we’ve been going through all the reported contacts with cosmozoan life-forms, looking for patterns and connections among them. We noticed that Voyagerencountered more than its share of such creatures in the Delta Quadrant, so we wanted to consult with you about them. Perhaps learning about the cosmozoans in a different quadrant—essentially a separate ecological region—could help us see some larger patterns.”

Tuvok frowned. “Could you not simply have consulted Voyager’s logs?”

“We have, but I like to get a more personal perspective when I can. The evidence always comes first, of course, but it can be informative to compare multiple interpretations of the evidence.”

Tuvok raised a brow, acknowledging Jaza’s logic. “Very well. I will tell you what I can. Keep in mind, however, that my analyses of the cosmozoans Voyagerencountered were shaped more by tactical considerations than scientific curiosity.”

“That’s a useful perspective as well. If politics can be a science, as my friend Cadet Dakal would have it, then surely tactics can be as well.”

Lieutenant Pazlar smirked. “I’ve certainly known enough people who treated scientific debate as a form of combat.” She entered a set of commands into her handheld padd, and the holographic field of view began to move with disorienting speed. She and Jaza moved to hover alongside him, and the three of them ended up facing a projection of the Delta Quadrant, positioned as though they were looking “down” from galactic north. A familiar jagged line appeared, one which Tuvok had seen many times in debriefings, lectures and documentaries about Voyager’s seven-year ordeal: a representation of the starship’s course through the quadrant, beginning at the outer rim of the galactic disk in Kazon territory and progressing through leaps and bounds to the Borg transwarp hub in the Three-Kiloparsec Arm, adjacent to the Central Bulge.

They proceeded through Voyager’s cosmozoan contacts sequentially, beginning with the nebular life-form encountered on stardate 48546, not long after Voyager’s arrival in the Delta Quadrant. “It was sevenAUs across?!” Pazlar asked in amazement when he recounted that fact.

“That is correct. At first it appeared to be a fairly ordinary nebula aside from the presence of omicron particles and certain organic compounds. Once inside the cloud, we discovered an internal anatomy and biochemistry which indicated it to be a living organism.”

“No reason a spacegoing organism, particularly a nebular one, couldn’t be that large or larger,” Jaza observed. “It’s been theorized for centuries that the organic molecules inside the right kind of nebula could potentially be triggered by EM radiation or electrical discharges to organize into life; so the size of such a creature would be largely a function of the size of the original nebula. Seven AUs is tiny as nebulae go.”

Tuvok proceeded to the next account, the discovery of a photonic-matter life-form in a protostar on stardate 48693. “I’d discount your ‘Grendel’ as a cosmozoan,” Jaza said. “That species seemed native to its protostar the way we are to planets. We have no evidence it could exist in interstellar space. Let’s move on.”

Tuvok spoke with some reluctance. “The next relevant encounter was shortly thereafter on stardate 48734. The Komar, a race of trianic-based energy beings inhabiting a dark-matter nebula.”

He paused, until Jaza filled in the gap. “According to the reports, one of these beings took you over personally, Commander, and attempted to hijack the ship so its people could feed on your neural energy.”

“That is correct,” Tuvok admitted. “Fortunately, the Komar inflicted no permanent harm.” Despite my own failure to protect my ship,he thought.

Pazlar stared. “How could they have a name?”

“Excuse me?” Tuvok asked.

“They were energy beings, right? No mouths. Where’d the name ‘Komar’ come from?”

“I cannot say. I was not privy to the entity’s thought processes. Perhaps some earlier race they contacted gave them the name. Is this relevant, Lieutenant?”

“No. Just curious.” She turned to Jaza, and gratifyingly returned to the topic. “But they were native to the nebula, right? So shouldn’t we rule them out like the photonic creatures?”

“I don’t think so,” Jaza said. “The gravity of stars and planets somewhat insulates them from interaction with the interstellar biosphere. The same wouldn’t apply to nebular life. I’d count it.”

Tuvok recounted what little more he knew about the Komar, and then moved on to the swarm of flagellate organisms encountered on stardate 48921. These creatures, comparable in size to Voyager,had employed a form of magnetic propulsion, with their flagellating motions creating the dynamo effect that drove it. But Jaza was more interested in their behavioral patterns. “These were the only cosmozoans in which Voyagerobserved complex social behavior,” he explained. “Please tell me all you can remember.” Tuvok complied as best he could, while trying to respect the privacy of his then-protegée Kes, in whom the flagellates’ EM emissions had induced a premature reproductive cycle.

But Pazlar provided a distraction—fortunately, perhaps, but still annoyingly—by her interest in the creatures’ own reproductive behavior. “The big creature thought Voyagerwas trying to matewith its partners?” she laughed.

“Correct. It reacted to us as a reproductive rival. We managed to pacify it by mimicking the submissive behavior of its species.”

Pazlar laughed harder. “No wonder I never heard that story. Who’d want to admit a Starfleet ship backed down from a fight?”

Tuvok merely looked at her icily until she subsided. Mercifully, the list was nearing its end. Voyagerhad not encountered any further cosmozoans until the fifth year of its journey, when on stardate 52542 it had been briefly ingested by a two-thousand-kilometer creature which lured in its prey by telepathic projections of their greatest desires. Then in the seventh year there had been two encounters: a gaseous life-form that Voyagerhad inadvertently removed from a J-class nebula on stardate 53569, and the dark-matter entities encountered in a cluster of class-T substellar bodies on stardate 53753.

“That is all I am able to tell you,” Tuvok said when he was done. “I am not sure if it will be helpful in tracking the astrocoelenterates.”

“It might be,” Pazlar said. “Look.” She manipulated the padd so that markers appeared at the locations of each of the encounters Tuvok had described: three close together at the outer rim, one in the Crux Arm near the Devore Imperium, and two in the Three-Kiloparsec Arm near the quadrant border. “Look at the regions where you encountered all those creatures. See any common pattern?”

Tuvok studied the display, but was unable to see what she was getting at. “No, I do not, Lieutenant.”

She worked the padd to generate three insets which magnified the regions under discussion. “There. See it now?”

He examined the insets, but again had to say no.

“You’re kidding. Come on, it’s staring you in the face!”

He glared at her. “Clearly it is doing nothing of the kind, Lieutenant, as I do not see it. I suggest you explain.”

Shaking her head, she highlighted a cluster of blue stars near Voyager’s starting point. “The star-formation region. See? You spent much of your first year in the DQ passing through a long, narrow OB association. It formed a sort of border between Kazon and Vidiian space. A star-formation region that far out on the rim, away from the arms, it’s surprising to find. I can’t believe you missed it!”

Tuvok was beginning to find her impatience and condescension tiresome. He strove to remain stoic. “As I remarked, Lieutenant, my training is not in the sciences.”

“And of course down here in the Three-K Arm, deep in the inner disk—that’s the busiest region of star formation in the galaxy. And out here in Crux, where you found that ‘pitcher-plant’ creature…not only star formation, but subspace ‘sinkholes’ and ‘sandbars,’ chaotic space—that’s got to be the craziest region of space I’ve ever seen.”

“I see,” Tuvok said. “And we are also currently in a region of active star formation.”

“Well, near one,” Jaza said. “The Vela OB2 Association isn’t too far away. And this is the common thread of most of the other cosmozoan contacts—they all took place in the approximate vicinity of star-formation regions or other turbulent zones. The star-jellies first encountered by the Enterprisewere at Deneb—very far from here, but close to a stellar nursery called the Pelican and North American Nebulae.” He manipulated his own padd, and the field of view moved to highlight it. “It’s actually one nebula with a dark cloud subdividing it as seen from the Federation core worlds. A later survey by the Hooddetected a few more jellies near there, though they didn’t seem interested in communicating.

“Back in the twenty-third century, the Intrepiddiscovered several cosmozoans in its survey of the Scorpius-Centaurus Association—and was ultimately destroyed by a cosmozoan resembling a giant amoeba, although that’s generally believed to have been extradimensional in origin. Others have been detected near the Orion Association, the Taurus Dark Cloud, you name it.”

“So what is the nature of the connection?”

“It’s about what life needs to survive, and to come about in the first place. It needs energy, it needs matter. And it needs a certain amount of turbulence—enough to provide the dynamism and change that an ecosystem needs to form, but not enough to destroy its constituents. On a cosmic scale, star-formation zones are the most turbulent regions, full of intense energy and churning interstellar gases.”

“Are they not generally hazardous to life for that reason?”

“To tiny, fragile life-forms like us, yes. But to creatures tough enough to live in interstellar space, powerful enough to journey across light-years? A biosphere made of such creatures would need the kind of energy and rare elements that would be most abundant in those zones.”

“So you believe we can find more of the coelenterates if we proceed toward the Vela Association.”

“Not just the coelenterates,” Jaza said. “I’m hoping to find a whole ecosystem! Something that will reveal more about the common threads tying the known cosmozoan life forms together, the greater processes underlying their creation.”

Pazlar appeared skeptical. “But if ecosystems like that exist, why haven’t we seen them in other star-formation regions that have been surveyed?”

“We haven’t surveyed more than a fraction of the Sco-Cen Cluster, and certainly not its most active region around Rho Ophiuchi.”

“But the Betelgeusians have surveyed the Orion and Horsehead Nebula region in detail. There have been isolated cosmozoans found there, but no large-scale ecosystem.”

“True. All the more reason to go to Vela and see what we find.”

“Keep in mind,” Tuvok told him, “that our mission is to find and contact one specific species, not merely to investigate an abstract scientific riddle. What if we do not find the astrocoelenterates at Vela?”

Pazlar shrugged. “Then maybe we can stop and ask for directions.”

Tuvok sighed, and for a moment was almost nostalgic for Mr. Neelix.

Captain’s Log, Stardate 57148.2

Repairs to the ship’s major systems are now completed, without requiring assistance from the Pa’haquel hunters. On recommendation from Commander Jaza, Titanhas set course for the Vela OB2 Association. The star cluster is over two weeks distant at warp seven, but Jaza advises that if one star-jelly school was found this far from it—not to mention the hunters who follow their migrations—we are likely to encounter others as we draw nearer. He also considers it likely that we will encounter other forms of what he calls “cosmozoan” life, and I have authorized him to use our high-resolution wideband sensor net in his search for such organisms. Perhaps we may discover some nonsentient relative of the star-jellies which the Pa’haquel could be persuaded to hunt instead.

Ranul Keru was a big man, big enough to be intimidating. That was something he did his best to downplay in his personal life, but readily made use of in his security work. And right now, as he loomed over Torvig Bu-kar-nguv—one of the four Academy seniors serving their work-study tours on Titan—he wanted to be intimidating. It should’ve been easy; the Choblik was diminutive in comparison, a meter-high biped built something like a short-furred ostrich with an herbivore’s head, a short neck, and a long, prehensile tail. If not for his bionic arms and sensory organs, the joint enhancements on his legs, the small bionic hand at the tip of his tail, and the polymer-armor plating over his vital areas, Torvig would’ve looked like the kind of small woodland creature who would dart for the under-growth at the first sign of a big, bearish omnivore like Keru. Instead, despite all of Keru’s best looming and glowering, the engineering cadet merely studied him with the same wide-eyed, analytical curiosity he seemed to apply to everything. If anything, Keru found himself intimidated by that stare—or by the cyber-enhanced eyes that did the staring.

Abandoning the staring-contest idea, Keru went for a more overt confrontation. “The access logs clearly show that your codes were used to tamper with the replicator. Do you know what we found?”

“No, sir,” the Choblik said in his flattish, synthetic voice.

A likely story.“We found it had been infested with nanoprobes.That it had been programmed to infuse those nanoprobes into the crew’s food. Nanoprobes that were designed to latch on to their intestinal walls and remain there indefinitely, doing who knows what once they got there.”

“I know what, sir.”

Keru did a double take. “You do?”

“Oh, yes, sir. After all, I did design them.”

A pause. “Then you admit that you did put them in the replicator.”

“Of course, sir. It was the best delivery system for the test.”

Test?All in due time. “So why did you just say you didn’t know what we found?”

Torvig tilted his head querulously. “I didn’t, sir. I knew what was there for you to find, so I hypothesized that they were probably what you found; but I didn’t know for a fact that you had found them until you told me—nor did I know how you might have interpreted the discovery. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, sir.” His words didn’t have the pedantic tone a Vulcan might have used; rather, he sounded more like an eager student reporting on his research methodology.

“All right, then,” Keru went on. “What exactly was it that you were testing for?”

“Exactly, sir? Would you like me to retrieve my detailed notes from my quarters?”

Keru winced at the Choblik’s literalism. “All right, approximately, then. What were you testing?”

“Gut feelings, sir.”

“Gu—what?!”

“Last week Ensign Panyarachun suggested that I was too analytical in my approach to engineering problems, and told me that humans and other species tend to rely instead on their gut feelings. I didn’t understand what relation the gut would have to cognitive decision-making, so I decided to investigate the question.”

Keru blinked a number of times. “Um…Cadet…you do know that’s only a figure of speech, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, sir, but I was curious about its origins, and I wondered whether it might have a factual basis. The nanites were designed to monitor for neurochemical activity in the humanoid digestive tract.”

It would’ve sounded like a ridiculous excuse to Keru if the cadet didn’t already have a habit of formulating such cockamamie hypotheses and means of testing them. He was a devout empiricist, taking nothing for granted, giving fair consideration to any idea no matter how bizarre, and ruling nothing out until he’d tested it for himself. It would be an admirable trait in an explorer, if only he could focus it better. “But why nanoprobes,Cadet? Why break half a dozen regulations to deliver them in secret? Why not just, I don’t know, ask for volunteers?”

“I figured that since I was investigating the cognitive process, it might contaminate the results if my subjects were aware of the investigation. For all I knew, sir, that could’ve been the reason why a correlation between intestinal activity and problem-solving had not been verified in earlier studies.”

Keru glared at him. He just wasn’t getting it. “Didn’t it occur to you, Cadet, how people might feelabout being contaminated with nanoprobes? After all the Borg have inflicted on us over the years, all the grief they’ve caused,” he went on, his voice rising, “did you really think people would take that in stride? That they wouldn’t feel outraged, violated, if these probes of yours had actually managed to get into their systems?”

“They would’ve done no harm, sir. They were made of biodegradable polymers and carbon—”

“That’s not the point! This isn’t about cold facts and analysis, it’s about people’s feelings!Can’t you understand how much people still fear the Borg? How upsetting it would be for them to discover something like this had been done to them, especially by—”

He broke off. Torvig gazed at him for a long moment, then nodded to himself. “I see. By a cyborg like me. Thank you for confirming my secondary thesis, sir.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s clear that you’ve been uncomfortable with me since I came on board, sir. I’ve found that such reactions are often due to prejudice arising from my species’ coincidental similarity to the Borg. Many of us have faced that kind of prejudice, and we’re curious to understand the mechanisms behind it. So intolerance is an area of study in which I have an ongoing interest.” Keru was aware that Torvig had engaged in discussions and debates about humanoid chauvinism with other members of the crew, including a wager with Lieutenant Eviku that Titanwould be given a human motto—a wager he’d lost when Riker had chosen the Vulcan creed of “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations” to grace the ship’s dedication plaque. But Torvig’s eager-student mien rarely wavered, so it was hard to tell whether it reflected a genuine fear of persecution or a simple intellectual curiosity. Keru found himself realizing that, in some odd Choblik way, it might be both. “Aside from their other advantages, the use of nanoprobes allowed me to test how you and/or the rest of the crew would react to their discovery—and therefore what factors shape your reaction to me. Sir.” The cadet’s voice, while slightly more subdued than before, hadn’t wavered from its matter-of-fact tone.

But Keru paused before answering, trying to keep his own tone under control. “You mean you deliberately did this…in order to experiment on me?To gauge my reactions, my feelings about the Borg, like some amoeba in a test tube?”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it that way, sir. For one thing the methodology for examining an amoeba would be completely different.”

“Shut up! Just—just tell me why.Why experiment on me?”

Torvig looked up at him. “Because you are a crewmate of mine and I want to get to know you better, sir.”

Keru’s anger deflated, and embarrassment threatened to take its place. But luckily a modicum of irritation remained, though it was more tempered now. Stepping away from Torvig, he took a moment to formulate his words. “Look. I appreciate your interest in learning about your crewmates. But I don’t appreciate being learned about by being experimented on, and I doubt anyone else around here does either. If you want to learn about us, there are better ways. Talk to us, socialize with us.”

“Better in what sense, sir? I assume they’re more comfortable for species like yours; but I’m more comfortable with a practical, empirical approach, with hard, codifiable data. It’s what I’m good at.”

“But not everything can be codified or empirically explained. Gut feelings, for example. Relationships, for another.” Or fears and resentments.

“I disagree, sir. You can never conclusively say that something can’t be explained—only that it hasn’t been explained yet. Well, there is the Incompleteness Principle, of course, but that allows a system to be fully explained within a broader system.”

Keru rubbed his temples; this was giving him a headache. “Look. The bottom line is, you broke regulations. You admit it, and you’re unrepentant. There will have to be penalties, and there will be a mark on your record for this.”

Torvig nodded. “Of course, sir. I anticipated that as a probable outcome. I’m curious to find out what form my discipline will take. There are so many interesting ways of going about it—I hope the captain or Commander Vale will choose one I haven’t experienced yet.”

Keru couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that. “Look. Just…for now, you’re confined to quarters until further notice. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

The Choblik turned and strode gracefully from the security office on his long runner’s legs, his bionic joints working without a sound. His tail deftly shot forward to avoid the closing door behind him. Keru just stared at the closed door for a moment, then shook his head. I guess I can’t fault him for his enthusiasm, at least,he thought. Still, he found himself giving a shudder of relief now that the cyborg was gone. He knew, of course, that the well-meaning young Choblik had nothing to do with the monsters who’d killed his beloved Sean.

But how could he convince his gut?

Dr. Huilan Sen’kara, assistant counselor on the U.S.S. Titan,reached up to signal at Crewman K’chak’!’op’s door and waited. Then that door opened, the Pak’shree emerged, and Huilan still waited. K’chak’!’op—whom most people on the ship called “Chaka,” more as a phonetic convenience than an endearment—looked around her and made a rising creak sound with her stridulating mouthparts, which her voder interpreted as “Hello?”

“Down here,” Huilan said patiently.

K’chak’!’op moved back a bit, lowered her large round head until the lower pair of her black cabochon eyes could see him, and then began waving the squidlike tentacles which extended from the sides of her head, six on each side. “Oh, Counselor Huilan, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you!” Or so her voder interpreted her tentacular motions, plus the quick stridulation she added to represent his name. The Pak’shree used audible stridulations as their animal forebears had done, to convey things like names, greetings, emotional expression, danger calls and the like, and had later evolved the use of sign language for more sophisticated communication. Huilan’s xenoethology studies had shown that many sentient species, including most humanoids, had gone through a similar phase in their evolution, only to shift to spoken language later on. He supposed the Pak’shree had retained their dual system owing to the limitations on stridulation as a form of speech, or simply owing to the sheer versatility of their tentacles.

But none of that was what he was here to discuss. Evolutionary behaviorism was his specialty, but he had come to counsel K’chak’!’op, not to study her. “That’s quite all right,” he said. “It happens all the time.” It was indeed a common occurrence for a not-quite-meter-tall S’ti’ach on a ship full of giants.