None of them are observers. These are the species who live in this galaxy, and some others. All are friends of Kiint.
“Oh. Right.” Jay walked over to the edge of the avenue. It was guarded by a tall rail, as if it were nothing more than an exceptionally big balcony. She stood on her toes and peeked over. They were above a compact city, or possibly a district of industrial structures. There didn’t appear to be any movement in the lanes between the buildings. Right in front of her, spacecraft swished along parallel to the peninsula’s crystal roof as they vectored in on their landing sites.
The Congression was high enough above the land to lose fine details amid the broader colour swathes of mountains and savannahs. But as though to compensate, the curvature of the horizon could be seen, a splinter of purple neon separating the land and the sky. A coastline was visible far ahead. Or behind. Jay wasn’t sure which way they were travelling. If they were.
She contented herself with watching the spacecraft flying past. “So what are they all doing here, then?”
Different species come here to perform exchanges. Some have ideas to give, some require knowledge to make ideas work. Corpus facilitates this. The Congressions act as junctions for those who seek and those who wish to give. Here they can find each other.
“That all sounds terribly noble.”
We have opened our worlds to this act for a long time. Some races we have known since the beginning of our history, others are new. All are welcome.
“Apart from humans.”
You are free to visit.
“But nobody knows about Riynine. The Confederation thinks Jobis is your homeworld.”
I have sadness. If you can come here, you are welcome.
Jay eyed a quartet of adult Kiint walking along the avenue. They were accompanied by what looked suspiciously like spectres of some slender reptilians dressed in one-piece coveralls. They were certainly translucent, she could see things through them. “I get it. It’s sort of like a qualifying test. If you’re smart enough to get here, you’re smart enough to take part.”
Confirm.
“That’d be really helpful for us, learning new stuff. But I still don’t think people want to spend their life philosophising. Well . . . one or two like Father Horst, but not many.”
Some come to the Congressions asking for our aid, and to improve their technology.
“You give them that, machines and things?”
Corpus responds to everyone at a relative level.
“That’s why the provider wouldn’t give me a starship.”
You are lonely. I brought you here. I have sorrow.
“Hey,” she put her arm round the baby Kiint’s neck, and stroked her breathing vents. “I’m not sorry you brought me here. This is something not even Joshua has seen, and he’s been everywhere in the Confederation. I’ll be able to impress him when I get back. Won’t that be something?” She gazed out at the fanciful craft again. “Come on, let’s find a provider. I could do with some ice cream.”
Chapter 03
Rocio waited a day after the Organization’s convoy returned from the antimatter station before he abandoned his routine high orbit patrol above New California and swallowed out to Almaden. Radar pulses from the asteroid’s proximity radar washed across
In turn, Rocio focused his own senses on Almaden’s docking ledge. Each of the pedestals had been struck by laser fire, spilling a sludge of metal and plastic out across the rock where it had solidified into a grey clinker-like puddle with a surface badly pocked by burst gas bubble craters. The nutrient fluid refinery and its three storage tanks had also been targeted.
Rocio shared his view with Pran Soo who was back at Monterey. What do you think? he asked his fellow hellhawk.
The refinery isn’t as badly damaged as it looks. It’s only the outer layers of machinery which have been struck. Etchells just ripped his laser backwards and forwards over it, which no doubt looked spectacular. Lots of molten metal spraying everywhere, and tubes detonating under the pressure. But the core remains intact, and that’s where the actual chemical synthesis mechanism is.
Typical.
Yes. Fortunately. There’s no practical reason why this can’t be returned to operational status. Providing you can get the natives to agree.
They’ll agree,rocio said. We have something they want: ourselves.
Good luck.
Rocio shifted his senses to the counter-rotating spaceport, a small disk whose appearance suggested it was still under construction. It was mostly naked girders containing tanks and fat tubes, with none of the protective plating that spaceports usually boasted. Three ships were docked: a pair of cargo tugs and the
Rocio opened a short range channel. “Deebank?”
