NOVEL NEXT The Empire Makes a Routine Inspection
Chapter 11: The Empire Makes A Routine Inspection
“There has to be something we can do here,” Amanda said.
The lobster clicked his mandibles in annoyance. “I’m sorry ma’am, there is not. You have twelve hours to chart a course out of our Hill sphere or we will begin prosecution.”
“You self-righteous,” Dr. Erobosh made a noise that I think is profanity, “we already told you why we’re here. If we don’t get those repairs we’re going to die out here!”
“That is none of my business,” said the lobster officer, before shutting off the stream.
I let go of the ceiling and started drifting down to the floor. A pervasive numbness soaked into my carapace.
“So what are we going to do now?” asked Miri.
Amanda looked down, her knuckles turning white as they held onto the piloting couch. “Not sure. I’ll have to think about it.”
Miri bit her bottom lip. “Is there anywhere else we can go to get the repairs done?”
Dr. Erobosh shook his head. “This is the only colony within the star system. The hypersail would never last long enough to get us to the next nearest one, not in the state it’s in.”
My elytra bumped into one of the walls, and my lower right arm instinctively grabbed on to hold me in place. “Why? Is my species so awful that we can’t even be allowed to set foot on the surface of the planet? Why are they doing this?”
Stephanie sighed. “Cowardice. Absolute cowardice.” She drifted along the side of the command room towards me. “The Order’s hatred towards the Emissaries isn’t a secret to anyone, nor is their habit of killing anyone who tries to protect an Emissary from them. A lot of places won’t allow Emissary refugees out of fear of attracting the attention of the Order’s fleet.”
Stephanie put her hand on my shoulder, and started to pull me in for a hug. I didn’t want it, especially not from her, and wrenched out of her grip and flew across the room towards the ramp. “And now we’re all going to die because of me,” I muttered.
“We aren’t going to die here,” said Quinn. “There has to be something we can do! Maybe we could sneak Alex onto the planet or something, stick him in a hidden compartment.”
“This isn’t a smuggling ship, idiot,” said Dr. Erobosh. “The port authority is going to be far too thorough for any tricks like that.”
Quinn rubbed his face. “Okay, if you don’t have any place to hide it from the cops, then you hide it in plain sight, right?”
My parents, thinking on the same wavelength, both looked at him like he was crazy. “Hide… Alex… in plain sight?” asked Stephanie.
Quinn shrugged. “Yeah, you know, with a disguise or something.”
“Are you being serious right now, Quinn?” I said. “I’m not going to pass for a human, I’d never pass for a human!”
“No, you wouldn’t,” said Amanda. She wasn’t particularly focused on me, which meant that she was thinking. “But humans aren’t the only species who’d be passing through a place like this.”
Stephanie smiled, her eyes lighting up. “Are you suggesting we try to pass him off as one of the other arthropodal species? It’d be difficult, and we don’t have much time.”
“Yes, but it's better than the other option where we all run out of food and die,” said Dr. Erobosh.
“There are other bug species out there?” I asked.
Miri shrugged. “Makes sense. Most life on Earth is insects, so why not in space?”
“An Ember,” said Amanda, apropos of nothing.
“Remember what?” I said.
“I think, if we’re clever, we could pass you off as an Ember,” said Amanda. She turned to Stephanie. “You know how they have those mute clerics you sometimes see at humanitarian missions and things. Those are Embers.”
“Oh, that would absolutely work,” said Stephanie. “We wouldn’t even have to come up with an explanation for his accent…”
“I’ve always wanted to dress up as a space bug D&D character,” I muttered. The adults were already busy figuring out how to pull off this disguise, drifting towards the ramp down to the common room and discussing various elements of it.
“You have always been a fan of dressing up,” Quinn said.
My antennae folded flat against my head. “Yeah, but not in front of other people. And not with my parents doing it!”
Miri put her hand on my shoulder. Part of me wanted to shake her off, but that part was overruled by the fact that I was getting physical contact with another person. “It’s going to be quick, right? And I’m sure that they wouldn’t put you into anything too embarrassing.”
“Especially compared to some of the things I’ve seen you wear,” Quinn added.
“Yeah… you’re probably right…”
It may sound ridiculous, but I had it in my head that the disguise for a “mute Ember cleric” would involve something embarrassing. Like a pretty pink princess dress, or one of those outfits that bad game writers like putting female villains in because it’s edgy. This idea was, of course, vastly unlikely on a whole host of different levels, but I couldn’t get myself to stop worrying about it anyway.
I coasted down the ramp after my parents and Dr. Erobosh, with Miri and Quinn following behind me. “I could… help you with it,” said Miri. “If you have to put on any makeup or weird stuff.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks.” I said, not looking back at her. “That’s not a mixed message or anything.”
“I’m just trying to help,” she said.
“Then figure out how to make me human, so that we can get out of this mess. Or find another spaceship and go back to Earth. I don’t really care.”
I retreated to my cabin and watched a movie while my parents and Dr. Erobosh figured out the disguise. From what I heard through the door, they approached the whole situation somewhat like an engineering problem, with me as a machine they needed to make work differently. After that it was a little less than an hour of printing out everything they needed from the polyfac before Amanda and Stephanie knocked on my door to help with the process.
It was not comfortable. In fact, if I had to describe it at all, the words that come to mind are “profoundly embarrassing,” or “deeply uncomfortable.” They explained all of the external differences between Embers and Emissaries that the disguise was going to have to account for and explained a whole cavalcade of disguise gear that I was going to have to use. The only good thing about all of this was that both of them were able to read the room and left me alone after they’d explained everything.
Embers have a different mouth structure to Emissaries, so I had to tuck some of my mandibles back in an awkward position, holding them in place with tape. More tape held my antennae back against my scalp and out of the way, to be covered up by the hood of the long robe I had to wear. I had to keep my lower arms pinned under my shirt, because the second pair of limbs on an Ember is vestigial, and tape some soft padding to my abdomen to make it look right.
The easiest part of the whole thing was the makeup. Apparently Embers are more of a grey-to-black color, as opposed to my vibrant whites and purples, which could be corrected with the application of some grey foundation. My forays into makeup had always been short and strictly private, but I had had enough practice that putting it on was no challenge. Once that was done, I put on the dark brown monk robes and went out into the common room.
Everybody else was there waiting for me. Dr. Erobosh was anxiously fiddling with a few auxiliary controls on the polyfac, while Stephanie floated against the wall with her Ariel, and the rest of the crew hovered around the table.
I spun around for everyone’s appraisal, making the hem of the robe flare out. “So, how do I look?” was what I tried to say. It came out more like “Sha, har uu ah ruh?” My mouth was already not designed for speaking English, and having parts of it taped together was not making that any easier.
“Are you okay?” asked Miri.
“Yah,” I said, mandibles clicking together as I tried to figure out how to talk again.
“Here, let me help you with that,” said Stephanie, entering my personal space. She pulled back the hood on my cleric robe, and in a move that distinctly reminded me of the time I’d gotten lice in middle school, she grabbed my mandibles and started moving them around.
With a lot of “How does this feel?” and “What about now?,” we figured out an arrangement of tape and jaw-parts that would let me speak, at the cost of being really sore once we were done.
“Owwwww,” I said, rubbing my jaw. “You could have been a bit more gentle.” My Emissarine accent, which was bad already, somehow became worse. Good thing I wasn’t going to be talking very much. “So what I was trying to say was: how do I look?”
“Like a mute Ember cleric, I would hope,” said Stephanie.
Amanda folded her arms and furrowed her brow. “Almost,” she said. “Hunch over a little bit and raise your abdomen.”
I did as she said, even if it was a little bit uncomfortable.
“Alright, feet together, and when you walk, you sort of have to roll with it,” said Amanda. “Don’t say anything in front of any government officials, and when someone mentions you or does something nice, clasp your hands and do a little bow.”
I did a little bow. “This is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do,” I muttered.
“I’m sorry, kiddo,” said Stephanie, wincing. “But it’s the only way. We’ll be off the planet as soon as the hypersail is repaired, I promise.”
“And how long will that be?” I asked.
Amanda and Stephanie both turned to Dr. Erobosh. He shrugged, saying, “A day. Maybe two.”
“That’s not too long,” said Amanda. “And you only have to maintain the deception while there are Imperial officials around.”
“It’s honestly pretty impressive,” said Quinn. “If I didn’t know it was you… well, for one, I’d be kind of creeped out. And I’d think you were a complete stranger.”
If he didn’t know it was me, he’d probably have the same reaction to my undisguised form. But I didn’t say that out loud. “Thanks. So what do we do now?”
A few minutes later, we had all gathered back into the command room, clustered around the holo-display. The screensaver was back on, and my heart was hammering against my breastplate. Suddenly, the view switched back to the looming head of the lobster customs man.
“State your name and—“ he clicked his mandibles in annoyance. “You again. The law is the law, and the law states that no Emissaries may be allowed within Nahoroab Dominion territory.”
Amanda rolled her shoulders and took a shallow breath in. “We believe there has been an error. One of our companions had a mistake in eir translation software. Ey are, in fact, an Ember, not an Emissary.”
I pulled myself closer to the holo-display, until the lobster official’s clusters of eyes locked onto me. I clasped my hands together and did my best approximation of a bow.
The official’s eyes narrowed slightly as he let out a quick chortle. For a second, I was sure that he’d seen through my pitiful little disguise. “Fascinating. Don’t make that mistake again.” He stopped to do something outside of our view, presumably pressing some buttons from the sound of it. “Landing vectors will be transmitted to you in a few minutes.”
As it turned out, landing the Helium Glider was a process only slightly less stressful than taking off. Really, the main difference was that this time, at the end of it the ship was sitting still on a landing pad instead of careening through the void of space with a G of acceleration. That, and after landing there was a mad dash to reattach some tape to my mandibles that had been snapped in half by the stress of the landing.
We waited a few minutes after that, my parents assuring us that it would only be a matter of time before the spaceport authorities were ready to receive us. While the others messed around with their Ariels or just waited, I tried to stim the anxiety away. Unfortunately, with everything taped and bound into place, that proved difficult, so I had to revert to tapping against every exposed surface that I could get my grubby hands on.
We all jumped when a heavy metal clacking struck the side of the ship. A short while and a lot of clicking later, the door slid open with a short hiss and the rush of fresh air. I had to cover my eyes for a second while they adjusted to harsh sunlight, and when I uncovered them, I froze. There were two aliens standing in the doorway.
They were the same species as the customs official we had spoken to earlier, judging by their big neckless heads. They were a sort of centaur, about the height of a human, which was tall compared to me, but with their humanoid torsos attached to a longer, more animal-like part. Instead of traditional clothing, they wore only two garments; a sort of harness across the chest with several pouches and pockets, and a thin robe laid across the rear part of the body.
One of the crab people took the lead, gesturing towards us while saying something in the native language. I suddenly reconsidered my choice of which language to learn during the trip. It produced a weird electronic tool from one of the pouches by its hip, clutching it with its four narrow, double-jointed pincers, and stood aside to let us pass through the door. The other alien, while trying not to draw attention to itself, drew a small truncheon.
Dr. Erobosh was the first to pass through. The alien examined him with the tool, which produced a low buzzing but no other sound, then let him pass. He gave the alien a curt nod and walked past. Quinn was next, followed by Miri and Stephanie. That left just me and Amanda.
“You next,” said Amanda, giving me a quick nudge on the shoulder.
I gave her a look of intense concern.
“It’s going to be fine,” she whispered. “They’re only looking for weapons and illegal drugs. I’ll back you up if anything happens.”
With the gait I’d been practicing, I slowly walked across the common room, the alien with the scanner following me with its eyes. When I reached it, I stopped to clasp my hands and bow. It scanned me up and down, not entirely unlike the people with the metal detectors at the entrance to a baseball game. Once it had scanned me up and down at least twice, it said another phrase in its language.
I had no idea what it was saying, so I clasped my hands and bowed again. The alien repeated his statement.
Amanda stepped in, resting her hand on my shoulder and straightening her back. “Ey’re a cleric, and swore an oath of silence years ago. There won’t be any trouble with em, I assure you.”
The alien said something, this sentence shorter and angrier than whatever they’d asked me.
“If it were something illegal, it would have set off an alarm on that machine, wouldn’t it have?” said Amanda. "I promise you that I can vouch for eir lack of interest in illegal activities.”
The alien looked disdainfully down at me, to which I wittily responded by clasping my hands and doing a little bow. With a grunt, the alien slapped me on the back and shoved me forward, before turning its scanner on Amanda.
Helium Glider had been attached to a long umbilical walkway, about thirty feet long and completely covered with glass. I moved slowly down the walkway, nearly spinning in circles to see everything around. The ship had landed on a solid concrete pad, and was one of at least a dozen other ships here, ranging from other skiffs to huge corporate freight traders the size of a small football field. They were all connected via similar umbilicals to a huge building that looked like it was made out of plastic.
I couldn’t spend too long on the walkway, examining the environment, because of all the light. It was blindingly bright outside, and must have been searingly hot as well, judging from all the heat lines. Even with all but two of my eyes shut, I couldn’t block out enough light. A quick glimpse of red stone off in the distance, maybe a cliff or a small hill, gave me everything I needed to know about the environment before I hustled inside the spaceport.
It was like the most crowded airport I had ever set foot inside, except magnified by a million and full of aliens. There were all kinds of businesses scattered in small stalls around the place, most of which I couldn’t identify on account of not being able to read the signage. A bunch were clearly restaurants, some were electronics stores, and a few appeared to be places to charter spacecraft, but besides that it was incomprehensible. The one thing that was definitely lacking compared to a typical airport were souvenirs and bookstores.
I had never seen that many other aliens in one place at one time, and that was with me keeping my head down and trying not to stare at anyone. Over half of the folks around were the same crab-lobster species as the staff, but I counted at least fourteen other species. There were other insects like me, though no Emissaries or Embers to make things difficult. There were a few other Architects like Dr. Erobosh, a large group of raven-like people who were about three feet tall, several robots of various designs, a few odd-looking bat-octopus things, and those were only the aliens I managed to notice in the twenty feet between the umbilicus and the corner where everyone else had gathered.
“Alex, we’re over here,” said Miri.
I blinked, remembering to pick my mandibles up off the floor. Before the flush of embarrassment could hit me, I hurried off to sit with the rest of the group. Comfortable, like all of my friends sitting in one corner of the campground on a school trip.
For a minute, we remained silent, the humans taking in our surroundings. Dr. Erobosh found the whole thing endlessly pedestrian. “This is… a lot to take in,” said Quinn, finally breaking the silence.
“Yeah…” said Miri, staring intently at a single point somewhere in the far part of the spaceport. “Wow. It’s just… everything, everywhere, all the time and all at once. And this must just be normal to you, right?”
“Extremely,” said Dr. Erobosh.
“Am I allowed to talk?” I asked at a whisper.
Stephanie nodded. “I don’t think anyone is paying attention. And even if they are, mute clerics have to bend their vows around friends, right?”
That didn’t really make sense to me, but I wasn’t going to complain. “So what are we going to do now?”
Stephanie looked like she hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Erm, honey, what are we going to do now?” she said, looking over my shoulder at Amanda, who was just arriving.
“Well, you and I are going to head out into the city and look for hypersail repairs, spare parts, consumables, and so on. Dr. Erobosh is going to remain here and keep watch on the…” Amanda paused. “Young adults.”
Dr. Erobosh mumbled something under his breath in Architectine.
“How long do you think we’re going to be here?” Miri asked.
Amanda shrugged. “About a day, if I had to guess. Could be longer if things become difficult on the outside.”
Quinn folded his arms. “And we’re going to spend the entire time, my first time on another planet… in the airport?”
“Yeah,” said Stephanie. “You are. This isn’t a tourist destination, it’s a mining planet. The spaceport has accommodations; it’s meant for people just passing by. Like us.”
“I’m tougher than you think I am, you know,” said Quinn.
Stephanie raised an eyebrow. “For some reason I don’t believe that. It’s not just about being tough, is the thing. You also have to… know your way around. Before I had Alex, I spent most of my life in places like this.”
“Please just trust me,” said Amanda, using the phrase that elicits the least amount of trust possible. “Alex’s mother knows what she’s talking about.”
“Is Dr. Erobosh going to have to translate for us?” I asked. “Because you’re the only people I’ve heard so far who’re speaking anything I can understand.”
My parents both facepalmed in perfect unison. “I knew I’d forgotten something,” said Amanda. “Mind helping me grab the things?”
Stephanie nodded, standing up.
“Be back in a minute!” said Amanda, already leaving. Stephanie followed, leaving the four of us still sitting on that bench.
“Well, that was weird. What do you think they left behind?” Miri asked.
Quinn and I shrugged.
“I have an idea,” said Dr. Erobosh. “Though I might be wrong. Your parents can certainly be very unpredictable.”
“I’m going to pretend that that’s a compliment,” I said. “D’you think the food here is any good? I’m a bit sick of nutrifac fare.”
It was hard to tell under the breathing mask, but I could have sworn that Dr. Erobosh smiled, even if just a little. “Good? No. But tasty, quite possibly.” He stood up and waved for me to follow. “Let’s find out.”
Miri and Quinn stayed behind for when my parents showed up, while Dr. Erobosh and I wandered the spaceport in search of food. Apparently, finding food that I could actually digest was more difficult than you’d expect.
“That’s the disadvantage of trying to find food for you, in particular,” said Dr. Erobosh. “All of the other kinds are marked, but not you because of the… illegal thing.” He suddenly stopped right in the middle of a pathway, which nearly got me bumped into by one of the larger lobster-crab people. “What color is your blood?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” I said, staring up at Dr. Erobosh. “Why in the universe are you asking me that?”
“I find it hard to believe that you do not know what color your blood is,” said Dr. Erobosh, moving forward.
“I’ve only been like this for…nine days? I haven’t seen any of it yet.”
“Nine days?” Dr. Erobosh muttered to himself. “What are you— Ah, yes. It’s been too long, I had forgotten about the Emissary life cycle.”
I folded my arms in a suitably cleric-esque matter, looking down at my feet. “Emissaries must be pretty rare.”
“Yes.” Erobosh paused, looking off into the middle distance. “I can only imagine how that must be, growing up with the knowledge that you are not the same species as your friends and family. It must be a very… separating experience.”
“Can we just get something to eat first?” I snapped.
“Of course, of course,” Dr. Erobosh said with a nod. “I saw a good Sanviospite restaurant a few stalls back. We could get some plor bread, but there’s about a thirty percent chance that you have a lethal allergic reaction.”
“I think I’ll pass,” I said, not sure if he was joking. “Not envying interplanetary dinner planners, now.”
“There is a good reason we haven’t been using the nutrifac’s full range of options, after all.”
I hadn’t even thought of that. The whole time I’d been able to eat with everyone else, all together, and it hadn’t even crossed my mind that my biology could have made that difficult. A boil of ugly sickness flared up in my stomach thinking about it. Had I put myself in danger just by sharing potstickers with Miri and Quinn?
“Well, if you only need a snack, I think I know something that’ll work for you,” he said.
“Assuming I’ll be able to eat it with my mouth taped together,” I said, unconsciously rubbing at the tape.
“I think you’ll manage,” said Dr. Erobosh.
What I ended up eating was the most delicious paste that I have ever shoved into my clicking maw, and I’ve eaten several varieties of paste. The tape did indeed make things slightly difficult, though really it was no worse than trying to eat while you have a mild toothache. It was served in an edible pouch by a half-deaf and definitely non-sapient robot mounted into the wall, which I got the impression was the space equivalent of a poorly maintained vending machine. Apparently it was a guilty pleasure of an old Ember work associate of Dr. Erobosh’s, and I could see why.
“We should probably head back,” said Dr. Erobosh.
I made a series of unseemly noises as the last of the delicious goo was rapidly transferred into my stomach, where it belonged.
“On account of me being put in charge of your and your friends’ safety.”
“Ugh,” I said, scratching at the tape around my jaw. “Are you really just going to babysit us while they go out and get to see a whole alien city?”
Dr. Erobosh resignedly adjusted the sleeves on his shirt. “Your parents just want to protect you. Personally, I think they are taking it too far, especially given your age, but I won’t disobey their request.”
“They just want to protect me, huh?” I lowered my voice to a soft whisper, not sure if I even wanted him to hear me. “That was the same excuse they gave for not telling me I was an Emissary.”
Dr. Erobosh made a soft gurgle in the back of his throat. “They didn’t tell you?”
“They gave me vague warnings after I started feeling sick, but I had no idea what was going to happen until I crawled out of the chrysalis.”
“What possible reason could they have for doing such a thing?” said Dr. Erobosh. His voice was completely monotone. “You must have been terrified.”
“I was,” I said, unsure why I was admitting all this to him. “But they said they wanted to protect me. Protect me from having to live with the knowledge that I was hunted, and that people hated me.”
“You don’t protect someone by leaving them ignorant, by telling them that nothing is wrong. They should have told you how to be safe; they should have told you that you were going to be safe,” Dr. Erobosh said, a growl audible through his mask.
I shrugged, tapping against the wall against my back to distract from the pain rising up in my chest. “But they didn’t.”
Dr. Erobosh started walking. “Come with me.”
We walked back across the spaceport to where the others were waiting. Amanda and Stephanie were each carrying a large backpack, and were helping Miri and Quinn to put on something vaguely electronic. They didn’t notice we were there until Dr. Erobosh took the initiative to tap Stephanie on her shoulder.
“Ah, there you are. Where were you two?”
“Food,” I said.
“Oh, good, good,” Stephanie responded. “Now, could you move your cloak back a bit so I can clip this onto you?”
She pulled an Ariel, my Ariel in fact, out of her bag. The case had been changed to something thick and rugged with a large clip on the back. I did as she asked, and she clipped the Ariel onto the belt of my cleric outfit.
“What is this for, exactly?”
She didn’t answer. “Alright, now normally there’d be an earpiece and a monocle that clips onto the nose, but that isn’t going to work for you.” She retrieved something from her backpack that looked like an overbuilt pair of goggles. “You have to line them up so that the speakers on the back of the arms are right over your auditory canals, and then press in.”
I did as she asked, thankful that I’d gotten bored enough three days ago to actually bother finding my auditory canals. Once I had it lined up, I pressed in, and to my surprise it stuck there, in spite of there being no glue or adhesive anywhere on them.
“What is this about, exactly?” I asked. “Is it going to show people’s power levels?”
Stephanie, Amanda, Miri, and Quinn all looked varying shades of disappointed, with Amanda going so far as to do a full facepalm. Dr. Erobosh just looked somewhat confused.
“Just open up your Ariel and turn on the translation tool,” said Stephanie, with a tone like she was regretting allowing Amanda to adopt me.
The Ariel slipped out of its case relatively easily, and I was able to pull up the translation with ease. It had already connected automatically to the goggles, thus saving me about half an hour and three Internet searches, and there were a few options I had to pick, none of which were really notable.
“It’s asking me if I want auditory or visual translation,” I said, squinting at my Ariel. “What does that mean?”
“It’s asking if you want sub or dub,” said Quinn.
I instantly pressed “visual”. With that done, I slipped the Ariel back into its little sheath and waited for something impressive to happen. Nothing did.
At least, it didn’t until Dr. Erobosh said something in his native language, at which point words started floating just in front of my eyes, reading, “I sincerely hope this works, it was an absolute bitch finding a HUD that would work on a species with no ears or nose.”
“It is good,” I said in Emissarine. I was probably pronouncing it wrong, but evidently it translated, because everyone got a very surprised look on their face. Amanda and Miri looked downright impressed, while Dr. Erobosh looked more like he had had his expectations exceeded.
“Don’t know much,” I added. “Am practicing.”
Stephanie folded her arms. “Good job, kiddo. I assume, then, that it’s all working?”
I nodded.
“Alright, then. Dr. Erobosh, take good care of them all. We’ll check back in in the evening.”
“I will keep a very close eye on them all,” said Dr. Erobosh with a nod.
My parents walked off into the crowded spaceport, leaving us to our own devices. While I tried to listen in on the conversations of the people around us, purely to test the range of the Ariel’s translation, of course, Dr. Erobosh watched them go. Once they were out of sight, he turned back to us, rubbing his hands together.
“Alright, who wants to go with me to explore the city?”
