NOVEL NEXT 5.15 The Storm
The Storm
(Starspeak)
He waited briefly, likely waiting to see if I was going to add something scathing. But, no. I was at least somewhat self-aware of the friction I had with different Vorak.
Tox rounded back to our police escort, getting the attention of one of the officers waiting by the car doors.
“Excuse me, some of our Human friends are somewhat unclear on protocol in this case: the building’s private security detail, something we need to be worried about?” Tox switched to Tarassin, affecting as friendly a demeanor as one could put on a snake wearing an otter’s skin.
The rak he addressed glanced inside the vehicle to their fellow officers, exchanging quick words I couldn’t catch.
“…No? Should be…yeah, fine then?” the Vorak turned back to Tox. “We can escort your party into and through the building if you’d like. Protocol is flexible.”
He actually winced at that insult.
Seriously? Calling him ugly? I thought that had been a weak offering.
But Tox rebounded with positivity.
Eight Vorak police officers ultimately joined our little march into Cadrune’s skyscraper. I took the opportunity to peek at their psionics, but didn’t find anything impressive. Default transceivers for all of them and Ballet buildplates for the few with the experience to wield them.
Tox continued to take the lead as our gaggle rolled through the lobby toward the desk. It was getting late into the evening, the sun beginning to set. Some poor secretary at the front desk might have been about to get off shift. Or maybe the night shift had just begun to arrive.
Surely a gambling town like this didn’t sleep. What little I knew of Vorak cultural development told me being active at night wasn’t some new idea. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled Farnata culture shock surrounding the concept of night life; most cultures on that planet produced schedules even more diurnal than other aliens’.
In any case, we were a beluga whale sized situation that would surely be this poor Vorak’s problem to handle.
Tox was chatty with the secretary, breaking forward from our gaggle so they wouldn’t feel crowded. The only words I caught of their conversation were Tox’s first words.
“Pardon our greeting” he said. “We do not have an appointment, and yet I believe we will be worth bothering the owner.”
The Vorak replied nervously with a snippet in a language I didn’t recognize, paused to shift to Tarassin, only for Tox to beat them to it.
Too smoothly, he launched through a series of sentences in the same clipped words the secretary had used, and there was even recognizable tone to the first exchange.
Tox’s energy and intonation was almost unmistakable; ‘what you speak this language? What a coincidence? So do I!’
The secretary responded positively to Tox revealing their shared tongue, and the initial confusion and nervousness wore off quickly. Their conversation seemed like it was becoming more amicable with each sentence, but I couldn’t be sure.
Sid, on the other hand, seemed like he was following along too. Was this one of the languages he’d picked up in Sinnesana?
He wore a deepening frown as their conversation relaxed. The words going back and forth between them brought to mind the rhythm of poetry or singsong tunes.
<[Is he…are they flirting?]> Sid asked.
Now I frowned too.
<[Both of them. I think,]> Sid said.
“Hey.”
I dropped my voice an octave, trying to sound intimidating. True to form, the secretary winced, some of their previous nervousness returning as I gruffly reentered their awareness.
Tox at least followed suit. Apologizing profusely, giving motions like he couldn’t do anything about me. ‘Sorry, sorry, it’s just my friend here is so agitated…’
I actually scowled at my own imagination of Tox’s words. He and I were not friends.
Tox did succeed though, and a moment later the secretary directed us toward…not elevators like I expected, but a semi-enclosed waiting room with frosted glass. The room did have an elevator though, an ornate one with long leaves carved into the bronze with silvery red trim peeking out from under each leaf.
Even if this was made by a skilled Adept artisan, just the door was exorbitantly expensive. The interior of the room’s frosted glass was similarly carved. Just running a finger across the seats confirmed that they were upholstered with something silky and fine.
It was the wooden statues that finally nailed the point home for me.
“[Oh f—]” I flinched.
The smallest of the wood statues was a life-sized likeness of an old enemy of mine: an Uyakar hound. The damn thing was on a small dais, so the carved fangs were right at eye level.
My reaction to the animal was not subtle, but the real surprise was the wood itself. Because the hound was one of the small ones.
Good dense wood was just about the most expensive material imaginable out in space. On a homeworld with longtime plantations dedicated to lumber production, you’d find wood for much cheaper...on anywhere but Kraknor. Their planet had an abundance of water, but not so much land.
Wood was almost as expensive on this planet as in the depths of space. For a statues the size of these? These were the Vorak equivalent of fancy marble.
Tox caught my gaze.
There was too much contrast between the riches on display in this building and the strange austerity in town hall. Was there some Vorak civic connotation of humility that I was unfamiliar with? Was Cadrune an exception or a rule?
The secretary shut the glass divider behind us, and whirring started behind the elevator doors.
“They said Harpe Cadrune will be down shortly,” Tox relayed.
<…Were you really flirting with them?>
Good grief…
There was some surprise when the elevator doors finally opened, allowing two bodyguards to step out, inspecting our crowd.
A casual inspection didn’t seem to perturb them, even outnumbered seven-to-one. But their gaze did pause on us humans.
<…worth a gander, yes,> one of the guards sent.
I almost missed the transmission, so on the spot I resolved to redouble my efforts to hone my psionics and keep my cutting edge.
A confirmation signal was confirmed, and just a second later, the elevator doors opened again. It hadn’t come down all the way. Were there two carriages in the single elevator shaft?
Whatever questions I had about Voraki skyscraper engineering were obliterated when the rak themselves stepped out the doors.
Wearing fluffy mint green robes, casually fastened by a leather sash covered in an intricate branding. A number of fine silver bracelets wrapped around their wrists. Jeweled studs woven into what little fur they had.
This must be Cadrune.
And they had to be the oldest Vorak I’d ever seen.
He was bald. Like, properly. They were the first otter that didn’t look like, well, an otter. Their fur wasn’t thick, wavy, or bushy. It was wiry and thin, completely absent near their eyes and cheeks. Even where there was fur, it was translucent, doing next to nothing to hide the wrinkled skin underneath.
Cadrune wasn’t an otter, they were a naked mole rat.
They lit up setting eyes on me, Jordan, and Sid.
“Hello! Hello!” the old Vorak hobbled forward. “Take a gander, indeed!”
I couldn’t place their vibe. Jovial? Too shifty behind the eyes. Too calculating? Hostile? No, too genuinely interested. Their expression was hard for me to read, especially for a Vorak.
“Uh…Harpe Cadrune. My name is Caleb Hane,” I introduced myself. “I don’t suppose you’re fluent in Starspeak, are you?”
“Never learned to speak anything off-planet,” the rak shrugged. “I’d say sorry, but I make it a habit to never apologize. But you Humans! If anyone could tug a ‘sorry’ out of me, it’d be you. Tell me right now: how can I help you?”
They had a lot of energy for an old guy. Gal? Even more than normal I couldn’t tell. They were that old. All the facial features I might normally use to tell were indistinguishable on their face.
“I only have one question—” I bit my tongue on the word.
This language was so damn hard!
“Please, Harpe Hane, I am at your disposal. Ask me whatever questions you’d like.”
“One question,” I reiterated. “Where is Ingrid?”
The jovial face faltered.
“…Anything but that,” they said.
I began to open my mouth but didn’t know the language well at all. So far, I’d picked from a number of phrases and translations I’d prepared psionically, but this was unexpected.
I doubled checked my psionic dictionary, just in case I’d misheard Cadrune’s Tarassin.
“Sorry, could you repeat that?” I asked.
Tox reiterated my request without hesitating.
“I will not be divulging the whereabouts of Ingrid May,” Cadrune said steadily. Their tone had flipped. Cheerful to frigid in an instant.
“Will not?” I asked, trying to keep a handle on the Tarassin. ‘Will’. Not ‘can’t’ or ‘shouldn’t’.
Will not.
Tox and Sid picked up the inference too, and they could follow it better.
This was the hardest part of being in charge and the part I was worst at. Every nerve in my body was screaming at me to press, but the cold unapologetic reality of the situation was there were people better equipped than me to get what we wanted. The best thing I could do was get the hell out of their way.
Easier said than done. I knew it, managed to recognize it, consciously, at least on some level. But I still gave one more push before finally reining myself in…two more.
“Three humans, a squad of police, and two more aliens on the wrong planet all come in looking for Ingrid, and you’re digging in your heels?”
“This building is Harpe Cadrune’s property,” one of the bodyguards said toughly, interposing themselves. “We’re under no obligations here whatsoever.”
“Decency is your obligation—” I said, cutting myself off and repeating the phrase in Tarassin. Almost. “Decency is the obligationer. If you know anything about Ingrid and where she came from, you—”
Nai put a hand on my shoulder. I clapped my mouth shut just out of habit. It was enough for me to take my cue. I backed away, and the cops gave me a wide berth. Even they couldn’t mistake my body language.
“Explain,” Sid said, much more simply. “We are from the Terran Flotilla. Humans are our business, and you don’t seem be denying knowledge of Ingrid.”
“I will confirm Ingrid is in my care, but—”
No sooner than the words were out of their mouth did I reach for a psionic broadcast. Nai and Jordan both slapped me down though, noticing before I could sound the psionic klaxon.
“—but she is not on the premises, and I will not confirm her whereabouts.”
I let them because, once again, they were right.
Chill, Caleb, I told myself.
It was because Ingrid was alive. I didn’t get this heated over the corpses. I couldn’t. But a living person was whole different animal.
Hours later, when I was honest with myself, it was because of a lot of things. Halax. Tox. Lightbringer. Whatever update Jordan was sitting on from the Flotilla…
Dang, I really do need this vacation.
“Why?” Sid asked. “We’re not playing games, and our Flotilla aims to help humans: everywhere. Why stand between us and Ingrid?”
“Because I was asked,” Cadrune said.
That was enough of a slap to throw even Sid and Tox. A moment later Jordan and Nai displayed their own shock as the words translated.
“…Ingrid asked you to screen humans in search of her?” Sid asked
Good. Confirm information, even if it made us seem a little slow. We couldn’t miss a single detail here.
“She asked me to screen everyone in search of her. She was not specific as to who, and entirely emphatic. I agreed to her request, and I don’t plan on breaking my word.”
Sid exchanged an unsure look with me. We’d expected at least some bother finding Ingrid, but we hadn’t accounted for the fact that Ingrid might not want to be found.
But why?
Christine had said…
She was dying.
That was our in.
He didn’t hesitate to start, and it couldn’t possibly be overstated how much goodwill he bought back with just that small gesture.
“Apologies, Harpe,” I said, stepping back into the conversation. “I lost my composure. Not the first time, surely will not be the last either. Our concern is her safety. We were referred here by another human with knowledge of her medical condition: specifically that she’s ill. We can respect your resolve to follow Ingrid’s wishes, so we hope you can respect our own resolve. We are going to reach her, whether she or you like it or not. If you aren’t willing to cooperate with us, then we’ll go to the Organic Authority and file for whatever medical intervention is within reach.”
I’d actually written more, but Tox cut off the translation more, and I put together why as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
The threat was a lot more effective if we just let it hang, ominously.
“…I meant what I said,” they explained carefully. “I am fully at your disposal. I will abide entirely by Ingrid’s wishes, but beyond those, I will aid you in any way I can.”
“Is Ingrid alive?” Sid asked, again keeping it simple.
“Yes.”
“Is she healthy?” I asked.
“As far as I understand her condition, yes.”
“Why only ‘as far as you understand’?” Tox said.
“I am not informed of her exact diagnosis or prognosis,” Cadrune explained innocently. “I have no right to access. That information is confidential with her physician—”
Ah, an opening.
“Who is her physician?” Sid asked.
“I will not disclose that,” Cadrune said.
“Did you hire the physician?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I had the broad strokes of a theory forming, but it would be unfair to pursue it further without talking to Ingrid in person.
“When did you meet her? How?” this time it was Jordan, taking her time putting together the Tarassin in her head.
“…I am willing to answer that, but I believe I have a proposal that might suit you?”
“We’re listening.”
“Come to my estate in the morning,” the old rak offered a simple psionic map file with untranslated street address attached to it. “It’s public record. I own several properties, but this one is on the north end of the city on the bluffs. I’m sure any one of these officers would be able to navigate there. A great deal of my reticence is from surprise. I was unprepared for your visit. Allow me the night to contact Ingrid myself, and I’m sure all involved can reach a solution.”
On the one hand…the words ‘flight risk’ were running through my head. If Cadrune was as wildly rich as I suspected, they could very viably disappear and we’d never see them again. They were here, right in front of us, refusing to share information.
On the other hand, we had come here without an appointment, without announcing ourselves, without any real information about Ingrid’s situation. This visit was supposed to get us exactly that. In a sense, it had.
But still…
“The weather is taking a turn for the worse,” Cadrune said, nodding toward the frosted glass. Further outside the mini-waiting room, beyond the lobby’s windows, the sound of raindrops was growing more intense as the clouds from earlier began to rain. “It’s plain sense. Retire for the night, we can read up on each other and come a little more prepared for a civil discussion tomorrow.”
“…Fine.”
·····
“[I flew of the handle again,]” I admitted.
An hour later, Jordan and I were in the Jack’s captain’s chambers, preparing.
“[Yeah…but I don’t think it was a bad thing. Mmm, well, maybe it is. But I’m not the right person to tell you that, or think it at all, really.]”
“[Why’s that?]”
Surprise struck her enough to be visible on her face.
“[You can be really aggressive when it comes to helping abductees, but I have a hard time really dissuading that; it saved my life. You saved my life. You, Tasser, and Nerin killed aliens that were keeping me and Elaine in cages. Maybe Cadrune isn’t that kind of scumbag. Maybe they are. At a certain point, I don’t care. Because you’re helping people.]”
“[Well I could have been smarter about how I went about it,]” I said.
“[Hey, like I said. You take us personally. It’s why you’re in charge. Besides, you came back from it really well. The Organic Authority threat? Those were some choice words. Didn’t even realize why it worked for a whole minute.]”
The whole city of Pudiligsto seemed like some strange tourist trap with a seedy underbelly. Half the reason Cadrune might have reacted the way they did was our police escort. No one liked cops dissecting your life and affairs, even if you weren’t some kind of criminal.
Calling up the Organic Authority and rightly giving them the green light to investigate Cadrune would be annoying for anyone.
“[Well I’m glad you liked it at least,]” I said. “[I need to get better at recognizing when my compartmentalization fails. Little bothers have mounted up, and I’ve let them get the better of me.]”
“[You know if you need anything, right?]”
“[Yeah,]” I nodded. “[There is something you can do for me: what’s the update from Hashtin?]”
“[…I think it won’t help you,]” she admitted.
“[Too bad,]” I said. “[Is it important?]”
“[Yeah.]”
“[Non-critical?]”
“[Non-critical. Non-urgent. Both. Those are the same thing. Right?]”
“[…Give me the cliff notes,]” I compromised.
“[First—read my tone here—no one got hurt. Everyone’s fine. Second, Madeline and Serral crossed swords with CENSOR.]”
“[CENSOR? Not ENVY?]”
“[They seemed pretty confident,]” Jordan confirmed.
“[But still somehow non-urgent?]”
“[Situation’s resolved. Nothing time sensitive remaining. All that’s left is to comb the wreckage and glean as much information as they can. They’re capable. They don’t need you for that. Serral was explicit; you stay here. Vacation.]”
“[Finefinefine, just stop saying the word.]”
“[Just like that?]” Jordan blinked, surprised again. “[I was expecting way more push-back.]”
“[Hey, I said I’m trying.]”
“[Oh. Yeah, good…you should call Madeline anyway.]”
That actually appealed to me.
“[Why?]” I frowned at Jordan.
“[She handles stress better after she talks with you,]” she said. “[And you enjoy talking with her. So why not?]”
“[…Are you trying to play matchmaker?]”
“[I would never,]” she said solemnly. “[…Tasser put me up to it.]”
Ah, there it was.
“[Buzz off,]” I said, and she ducked out toward her own quarters.
I was tempted to take her up on the offer. Food had greatly curbed my crankiness, and the prospect of a conversation with Madeline made me smile. I probably more than liked her. But I just didn’t feel in a position to do anything about it right now.
Maybe that was a new hardest part of being in charge. She was basically a direct subordinate.
The rain on our drive back to the spaceport had only intensified, and even now the droplets pelted the Jack, our floating launch pad, and the reservoir we were moored in. It was moody weather that deepened the temptation for a moody conversation.
But I shelved the idea for now.
Instead, I fell back in bed and spun up my psionics, tapping into the Jack’s computer. Psi links more than most psionics felt like cheating. With just a couple grams for psionic sensitive switches, computer control interfaces were changed forever, and with someone like Shinshay doing the heavy lifting in the design stages, our hardware was better than any other ship flying today—and likely would stay that way for at least a decade.
Not just processing speed, the Jack’s new computers had superior storage too, and Peudra had taken advantage.
It’d taken some convincing and a sweet new deal for computer hardware of their own, but the Ogi Grand Imperial Library had psionically transmitted us a complete copy of their catalogue in exchange for us converting that catalogue to digital using our superior computers and superior psionics, and then sending that digital/psionic catalogue back there way once we’d landed.
It had tied up Jordan’s psionic broadcasting potential for the better part of twelve hours, but it left us with pretty much every book, periodical, magazine, journal, article, who-cares-what-format? All in searchable form.
I remember reading once that the entirety of Wikipedia and all its sources could fit into a terabyte or two. This felt like that.
It didn’t even occur to me that I never got Cadrune’s last name because I already had so many keywords to go on.
Just to smooth things along at even greater speed, I spun up my superconnector on minimum instensity while I jacked into the Jack and her computer.
‘Cadrune’. ‘Kaleidoscope building’. ‘Bluffs’. I had the address in my back pocket to add in case I didn’t like my first results.
19,143 results from our burgeoning database.
God, we might end up building an interstellar internet at this rate. Cadrune was right about one thing. I was definitely going to read up on them.
·····
The next morning I was soaking three steps from the Jack’s hatch.
It was still raining.
For once Coalition ponchos wouldn’t have been uncalled for. Yet they would have been entirely useless. The scene recalled Vietnam in Forrest Gump: rain coming down, sideways, upside-down.
Thank goodness Adepts never needed to kill anyone over socks.
Our police escorts’ seats were soaked even before we sat down, but it was still dryer in the vehicles than out.
“Drive slow?” I suggested.
The Vorak at the wheel barked something unintelligible. Just the noise from the raindrops drowned it out, but the gist was clear.
‘No shit’.
Dark clouds and rain might have filled Pudiligsto’s canals, threatening to flood, but I was undeterred. Even more than that? I was intent.
I was bringing our full lineup of Adepts too, just to really show up in force.
Sleep was important, and both Nai and Jordan had double checked to make sure I didn’t stay up all night reading about Cadrune, their business, their whole damn life.
But in the two hours I’d been allowed, I knew I’d put together a far more complete picture of them than they could of me.
I was eager.
I was ready.
So of course, I was to be denied.
The wheels of the Voraki car going six inches into water was our first clue something was wrong. The canals were not threatening to flood. They were. Actively.
It probably said a lot about me that my first instinct was to power through. Water was dangerous and to be respected. But we were a handful of some of the most capable Adepts around, driving an alien SUV. If anyone could make it through a small flood, we could.
We did, even.
Six inches of water wasn’t enough to stop us. The vehicle rolled along toward the north end of town at a walking pace.
My exact thought had been just that. ‘we can make it through a small flood’.
If you want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.
This was not a small flood.
“This is insane,” the Vorak driver said. “What’s going on?”
We had to pull over because of the strengthening winds spraying more water. I traded some concerned glances with Nai and Sid. Tasser leaned forward to tap at the vehicle’s radio, switching it from the police band to the civilian one.
It was shocking there wasn’t a disaster siren going off already. This kind of a storm didn’t just come out of nowhere. Why weren’t announcements being made?
“[Oh shit,]” Sid said. “[This is the hurricane.]”
He put it together just a few seconds before Tasser caught something on the radio. The Vorak officer had just been about to swat Tasser’s hand for messing with their equipment, but the announcement unfolding just then demanded everyone’s attention.
“-ssued a shelter in place order. Extreme storm winds and flooding are imminent. Stay indoors, stay to high ground, do not attempt to—”
The Vorak redialled the radio, going back through official channels, getting mostly dead air. Finally they connected with one.
Sid translated for me.
“What happened?”
“Storm shifted direction in the night! It’s making landfall early, here! It’s more than three-hundred miles north of the expected point.”
“Why don’t we have an alarm?”
“Not sure. Disaster calls are going out, but the rak down at the gate port think the storm knocked over some towers.”
That was the last straw, for both us and our Vorak police escort.
“You’re not getting to Harpe Cadrune’s estate today, sorry,” they said, hauling the vehicle around.
“We gathered,” I nodded.
This time, Nai didn’t stop me from flipping on the psionic klaxon.
Surprisingly, I got a response.
<[Don’t.]>
Female voice. Human.
<[Ingrid,]> I said.
<[Yes. You’re Caleb?]>
<[That’s me,]> I confirmed. <[What’s going—]>
<[Don’t go back to the spaceport,]> she said. <[Get the police to take you to the port.]>
<[Why?]>
<[Because Harpe Cadrune said you and your allies were skilled Adepts, and people are going to die in this storm. I was talking to the air-traffic controllers earlier; a ton of radio towers and stuff like that are completely broken. Barely any of the ordinary storm preparations got done.]>
<[How do they fail to see a hurricane coming?]> I asked, bewildered.
<[It changed course at the last minute and sped up,]> she answered. <[It’s a massive one too, supposed to be the biggest in fifty years.]>
Great. And we’d managed to put ourselves right in the middle of it.
<[We’re here for humans,]> I said honestly. <[We can get you off planet in a couple hours. I don’t care what kind of storm is coming down.]>
<[Don’t,]> Ingrid warned again. <[People are going to die. Less will if you help them. Please?]>
‘Because I was asked’.
Cadrune’s eccentric choice in hills to die on came a bit more into focus. How could you argue when she put it like that?
“<…Yeah…yeah, okay.>” I said, nodding to Sid.
“Forget the spaceport for now,” he asked the driver. “We can help.”
The Vorak didn’t even bother objecting, risks be damned.
I could only cradle my head in disbelief. I was supposed to be on vacation, quietly asking around about some corpses.
Instead, here we were about to fight a hurricane.