I leaned back against the shed’s cool, smooth surface. “Wouldn’t your mom notice that you’re gone?”
She shook her head. “It doesn't matter. She notices everything, but if we were ho, I’d be living on my own, so she’s got no right to stop . Besides, we do it all the ti after parties. Sure, we’ve got the force fields, but so of the small animals that sneak in are as bad as the big ones. Walking ho in the dark isn’t safe, so no one complains.”
I thought about it. “I don’t see a problem then. I know we’ve got more beds than we’re using, but you’ll have to talk to Jaclyn and Cassie to know for sure if they’re okay with it. The thing is, it’s not going to be a party. You know about Katuk. So that’s going to be going on in the background. Also, if you want to help make our suits mute commands, well, that’s not going to be fun, but we could work on it tonight.”
Her eyes flicked between the shed, the cluster of egg shapes that was the farmhouse, and field around us. “We should start back. The underweasels live out here around the edges. They’re not very big, but they co out after dark.”
“Then we’d better go.” I’d let my stealth suit absorb my helt while we talked, but I reford my glasses out of the helt mass around my collar. When I put them on, I didn’t see anything like a pack of weasels hiding in the soil around us, but I did see a number of warm bodies hanging in the trees off to the side of the field. None of them were larger than a small dog, but there were too many to count.
We started walking back toward the main road. I set my glasses to give a 360 degree view of my surroundings, noting that Kals continued to check around herself in a way that gave her 360 degree awareness as well. She did it subtly too, not turning completely around to look, but instead turning to talk to and then glancing behind her.
I didn’t see it as ominous. I’d been taught to do the sa thing by Lee. It just ant that the Human Ascendancy taught their motivators basic martial art skills. Given that the Human Ascendancy appeared to use them as leaders, soldiers, and secret agents, I’d have been more surprised if they hadn’t.
We managed to avoid getting attacked before reaching the main street. As we walked, she said, “I might be able to help you with Katuk.”
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I turned my head toward her. “Does your voice work on Xiniti too?”
Her eyes darted from one side of the street to another before she said anything. “I’m not sure. We learned techniques for different aliens, but I never got to try it on any of them.”
I searched my implant. The Xiniti didn’t have any recorded incidents where the Ascendancy’s motivators had been controlled, but they also recorded mysterious incidents where units of Xiniti had disappeared. So maybe it did work. Paying attention to Kals again, I nodded. “Okay. They’re not saying he’s gone crazy, but if that does happen, do what you can.”
When we did walk through the door at the Council’s building, we found Cassie, Jaclyn, Marcus, and Tikki eating so kind of at and vegetables. The at had the redness of a steak, but a texture that looked a lot like sushi. Crawls-Through-Desert sat next to a window, unmoving, leaves pointing toward where the sun would rise in the morning.
I glanced toward our room. The air on Katuk’s side of the room was warr than the other side. Alright, Katuk was there. Maybe I’d be able to talk to him when I went to bed? Then the sll of the food hit , a mixture of cooked at, spices, and vegetables. I decided that Katuk ranked lower than supper and sat down at the table along with everyone else. Kals sat down along with . It didn’t matter. The heaping bowls ant that there was more than enough.
Eating ant that I didn’t say anything for a couple minutes. Kals recovered sooner than I did, stopping to ask, “Did he say anything more before disappearing into his room?”
Cassie shook her head. “Nope. It’s all still the sa as ever.”
Marcus stopped eating long enough to add, “But I learned sothing interesting. If you go through the Xiniti files in your head, you’ll find out that the mission groups that the Xiniti form every fighting force around? They use the sa word for them as they do marriages.”
I blinked. “That makes a lot of sense. If the Xiniti spend most of their lives in an asexual state, marriages wouldn’t quite an the sa thing. I could see how they might be the sa thing as a military unit in that situation.”
Cassie used her implant and I could feel Jaclyn, Marcus, and even the more distant presences of Kals and Tikki. “What I don’t get is why he’s freaking out now. He’s been with us for a week now. And sure we ignored him a little today, but was that more clueless than the rest of the stuff we’ve said? We’ve got a Xiniti implant sure, but we know almost nothing about Xiniti really.”
Jaclyn thought at us, “I know. I’ve been looking through his personnel files, trying to find out if there’s anything there we need to know. There’s sothing encrypted in them and the implant won’t decrypt it.”
“No kidding?” I opened the files myself, ignoring everything until I found the encrypted information.
Then I passed it over to Hal.
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