Inheritance

them were speaking to someone else Reese recognized: Dr. Brand. Most of the Imria were dressed similarly, in gray or navy suits. Some of the women wore skirts; some did not. Amber was wearing a sleeveless charcoal-gray dress that made her look as if she was going to a business meeting. Her short blond hair was swept back, and she kept her eyes trained on her hands, folded in her lap. Reese found herself feeling slighted by the fact that Amber didn’t acknowledge her, and then she was irritated by the seesaw of her own emotions.

She was relieved when a tall, dark-skinned man approached the podium, giving her something else to focus on. “Welcome,” the man said. He had short, straight black hair, and he moved with a fluid elegance that belonged on a stage, not on a windswept beach in the middle of San Francisco Bay. “I am Akiya Deyir, designated ambassador of the Imria, and I am very glad to convey my people’s greetings to you.” His accent was slight but noticeable, giving his formal language a foreign lilt. When he said the word Imria, it seemed to have more syllables than the letters called for.

He continued: “We are grateful to the state of California for allowing our ship to land here on Angel Island, where we shall remain as talks continue with the leaders of your world. We regret that our presence above the city of San Francisco has led to congestion in the streets, though we are happy that you are interested in knowing more about us. We realize that you have many questions, and we will do our best to answer them as well as we can from now on. To begin, today we are pleased to announce that we will address the nations of your planet during the General Debate at the United Nations on September fifteenth, approximately one month from now in New York City. We look forward to the opportunity to open a truly universal dialogue about cooperation between our peoples.”

As Akiya Deyir spoke, Reese began to notice the similarities between him and Dr. Brand and Amber. They all had an alertness to their features, a precision to the way they moved, that made humans seem a bit sluggish in comparison.

“Twelve days ago,” Deyir said, “when our ship touched down in Nevada, our goal was simply to retrieve the members of our Earth-based team who had been mistakenly detained by the US government.”

Reese was surprised by his explanation. The night before she and David had escaped from the underground bunker, Amber had told her that the US was going to execute her and the other Imria. Reese didn’t think there had been any mistake about it, and she wondered why Akiya Deyir was spinning the story to put the US in a positive light.

“We’ve been working with the US government since 1947, when we first made contact with the Truman Administration and subsequently drafted the Plato Protocol, which outlined the terms of our cooperative research agreement. We’ve had researchers stationed in Nevada since then, but in June there was a misunderstanding between our researchers and their US counterparts. We decided that we should remove our researchers and reconsider some of the agreements we had made with the United States. However, during the retrieval operation, one of our own people, Amber Gray, was shot.”

Amber did not look up at the sound of her name. Reese wondered if Amber had been told to be as unobtrusive as possible, because it seemed abnormal for her to be so demure.

“Our first priority was making sure that Amber recovered from her wound, so we left Earth to focus on treating her,” the ambassador said. “You may remember that President Elizabeth Randall stated that she thought we were gone—and it’s true, we were gone for a short while. However, it was always our intention to return, as we hadn’t fully resolved our misunderstanding with the US government, and we also were concerned about Reese Holloway and David Li, the two teens who were detained by the government after our departure.”

Hearing Akiya Deyir say her name made Reese stiffen. She inched over in her seat so that she could touch David’s arm with her own. What do you think he means by “misunderstanding”? she asked him.

I think he’s hiding something, David thought. The birds, maybe?

Because the government was using Imrian DNA on the birds?

Exactly. The government was stealing Imrian DNA and using it in a way the Imria didn’t like.

“Before I address what happened to Reese and David, let me say that we Imria appreciate President Randall’s offer to begin our relationship anew,” Deyir said. “We agree that the shooting of Amber Gray was an accident and we do not intend to press charges. We also wish to begin our relationship anew, and this time, in a public manner involving all the peoples of Earth.” The ambassador paused and smiled. “Now, allow me to introduce you to Evelyn Brand, who has been working with the United States government for almost two decades and has been our primary point of contact with your people until today. Evelyn will be explaining the details of the research she has been directing, and she will announce a special project that we hope to launch very soon.” He turned to Dr. Brand as she rose. “Evelyn?”

She took Deyir’s place at the podium, and he sat down in an empty seat nearby. “Thank you, Akiya. And thank you,” she said to the audience, “for coming here today. I’d like to especially thank David Li and Reese Holloway and their parents for joining us. I met Reese and David through a very unfortunate situation, when their car crashed near my research facility. We Imria have a saying, nig tukum’ta nu nig tukum’ta, which translates roughly to ‘there is no coincidence.’ I’m certain that if that accident hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here today telling you about our research, which we believe will be life-changing for all of humanity.”

Reese braced herself for the wash of attention as everyone turned to look at her and David. Beside her she heard David take a quick, short breath. The Imria looked too—including, at last, Amber—but unlike the curiosity Reese felt from the humans, she sensed nothing from the Imria. The quietness of their collective gaze was somehow more unsettling than the humans’ interest.

Dr. Brand continued: “Since my arrival on Earth, I have carried on the research that my predecessors began, cooperating with the United States government under the Plato Protocol. That research focuses on awakening latent abilities of the human brain. Humans and Imria are biologically similar in many ways, but humans do not possess the ability we have to share our consciousness with another. We call this susum’urda, and it is vital to our society.” Dr. Brand pronounced the word soo-sum oordah. “It allows us to have true empathy. True connection. And we would like for humanity to have this ability to connect as well.”

A reporter asked, “How does it work? Is it like telepathy?”

“Telepathy might be your best word for the ability, but susum’urda—this sharing of consciousness—is not about reading someone’s mind from afar. We accomplish the shared consciousness through physical touch. When your hand touches something warm, your brain is able to understand the difference in temperature. Similarly, when one Imrian touches another, they are able to understand the other’s interior temperature, so to speak.”

David nudged Reese with his knee, and thought: But we didn’t have to be touching when we were at Plato.

She glanced at him. We haven’t really been able to do that since then, though. Do you think that was a fluke?

I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound like the Imria can do it. There’s also the crowds thing. Dr. Brand hasn’t mentioned anything about that.

“Developing a procedure to give this ability to humans has been very difficult to do, even though we believed that humans could be perfectly capable of it if certain neural pathways were opened to allow it,” Dr. Brand said. “Some human children actually have similar abilities at birth, but because they’re not developed during childhood, the brain naturally closes off those neural pathways during adolescence. It was only this past spring that we perfected what we’ve come to refer to as an adaptation procedure, which enables the human body to adapt to the addition of Imrian DNA. It is this DNA that opens up the neural pathways in the brain that allow for susum’urda. After the initial procedure, in which Imrian DNA is added to human DNA, the subject is placed into an adaptation chamber. This chamber is very much like an incubator. It helps the human body to accept the Imrian DNA, and takes over regulating many common body functions during recovery.”

“Is that what happened to the teens? An adaptation?” one reporter asked.

“Yes. When David and Reese were discovered after their car accident, they were brain-dead. I knew that unless we performed the adaptation procedure on them, they would not survive.”