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Returning our headgear, Duff ordered us to "cover our ugly-ass faces", then the Frairies marched us out of the cellblock and through an arch to the top of a broad stone stairway. The air flowing up past us so cold I could see my breath in puffs of vapor.
We descended maybe forty steps before my spacer muscles rebelled against gravity and the repetitious movement. After the third stumble, the Frairy on my left, who kept catching me, gave me his shoulder for support. Saura didn't seem any better off, though she continued under her own power. Her ears were turned down and out in a nearly horizontal line, letting me know my display of weakness did not please her. I didn't care as long as someone got me off those freaking, seemingly endless stairs.
When we finally reached a broad, flat area with multiple passages branching off, my aide unceremoniously abandoned me to cope with gravity on my own. After a short rest and water break, we continued through a large stone archway into a vast chamber buzzing with the activity. My Human height gave me the advantage of seeing over most of the heads around me. Frairies, Carquetchians, Brktar, and even the hulking profiles of a few Xix moved through the mix of people pushing carts, carrying sacks of food, talking, strolling, or walking with purposeful intention. Children ran, laughing, shrieking, and dodging through the organized jumble of what I imagined was pleasantly typical of daily downsider life here.
Bright, consistent light emanated from somewhere above, and the air was pleasantly cool. Far across the chamber, in narrow gashes of brightness, I saw faint movement, as if a street or walkway lay beyond the arched wall of the place. The space was vast.
"What is this?" I asked Duff.
"A market. A community center. Whatever is taking place at the moment."
I glanced up at the massive pipes channeling through the heights above us. A familiar-looking shaggy, dense green moss swathed them, only now reversed to the outside surface of the pipes. In fact, the moss grew on a lot of the surfaces around us—almost everything above three meters from the floor, and right down to the floor in some obscure areas.
"What's the green stuff?"
"The green stuff," he said, "is one of the inhabitants of this world, Human." He sounded as if I should know something I clearly did not.
"A plant—"
"A being," he corrected sharply. "It is the Cheel."
I exchanged a look with Saura. She shrugged.
As we walked deeper into the space, Duff's men on our left pressed closer. We moved over a few steps to go around a large block jutting up out of the floor. Rows of uniform holes perforated its sides.
Holy crap! I recognize that setup! There must be more of them out there, hidden by the flow of bodies. Someone had isolated and cut a massive water storage cistern out of the city's system. We should have been swimming right now and the pipes gushing outward with liquid.
"How did you bypass a pump station this huge?" I asked Duff.
He shrugged. "It is not cut out. It is contained, sort of like a false bottom. Happened when the Endar first began working their way into the role of security over the Trade Consortium. While they were too busy to notice, the residents of Rhom rearranged a few pieces of infrastructure..."
"Whoa," I said. "Whoa, stop!"
Our whole group stopped. Duff stared up at me.
"You said Rhom. The real Rhom?" The MoMo were rumored to be from Rhom. If this was their original homeworld, someone could tell me where they had gone after leaving here.
"Keep your freaking voice down!" he ordered.
His men closed in tighter as we began to walk again.
"Yeah, but, I mean, the original Rhom?" I dropped my voice to a whisper.
"What do you know about Rhom?" he demanded.
"It is the original homeworld of the Oulunsk, or MoMo. It is not on any star map the EA has, and the MoMo abandoned it for another world."
"Well, they aren't the only original residents." He poked me in the armor covering my solar plexus with his finger. "The rest of us are still here!" He sighed. "And the MoMo didn't abandon this world. They were forced out. They were the ones who decided this world would be the perfect place to establish the Whooex Trade Consortium with the Endar Primacy and the Jhampoon Coalition, damn their stupid jelly asses! They didn't see what was coming until everything spiraled out of control and the Endar forced them out because they were telepathic, and then Rhom got devoured by their creation."
"But—"
"But what? Let me give you a little sitrep, Flygirl." That tag was beginning to wear on my nerves. "You Humans think this is a happy place where everyone shares in the bounty of Whooex Union Trade. The Moneyworld! All razzle-dazzle! Fortunes to be made! Well, that may be true in the big chunk of real estate at the center of our city called the Trade Consortium, but not for the rest of our world. This is a city-world of losers. The non-native population outnumbers the natives two-to-one. Our resources are strained to breaking, and the Consortium members don't want to contribute any of their profits to help fix the problems—which is one of the main reasons they caved to Endar control of their security. Let the Sat Quar police their Zones and keep them safe. Let them ruthlessly enforce the law, allowing trade members to continue the business of making money. Unfortunately, not all the bright-eyed entrepreneurs flocking here end up inside the Zones. Who's in charge of the failed, destitute, get-rich-quick-schemers that end up in our city? They came here with a focus on making money. Do you think they give up that dream when their schemes fall through? Hell no! They spend all their time trying to make an easy buck. Crime is rampant, and we don't have the resources to fight it. Sometimes the Endar herd up the ones loitering around the Zone and send them off-world, to auction their services out. We don't like the solution, but they're not from our world, and our share of that money helps our strained resources. It also creates a huge problem with people hiding out in the city."
Yeah, without my wetware to ensure a useful position on a ship, I faced that same fate when I got back into EA space.
"We thought the MoMo wanted to keep the location of Rhom hidden," I said.
"The Whooex Union Trade Consortium keeps the location hidden from non-members. But they like the name Humans have given the place. It eclipses an ugly bit of history they want to forget," Duff said bitterly. "You'd be wise to forget, too. The MoMo have found their own way over the past two thousand years. They use Frairies and other members to represent their interests here, and, yeah, they keep the location of their new homeworld hidden from everyone, including us.
"Meanwhile, we cope with the fallout here. Especially after the Endar took over Whooex Trade Consortium security two hundred years ago. To us, it seems common sense that no one group should have that much control over a multispecies assemblage like the Whooex Union Trade Consortium. But," he shrugged, "we are only one member among many. This is, however, our world. We occasionally have to remind others of that. The Endar want to extend their authority beyond the Zones, out into the surrounding city, T'lek T'la. We are determined that will not happen."
I had already sensed that peeling back the clawed fingers of the Primacy, once they locked their grasping intent on something, would be nearly impossible. That's what scared me about Saura being here.
"It's an ongoing battle," Duff said. "The Endar hate to be thwarted or embarrassed. They aspire, always, to become more powerful."
"So, this thing with them not having jurisdiction outside the Trade Consortium, does that cover me?"
"No. Although we constantly have to remind them there are lines they can't cross, we cannot, in turn, give them a reason to think they should. Illegal is illegal."
We resumed walking in our loose formation, with Saura and me at the center.
"So, how did cutting this place out of the city's water supply change things?" I asked.
"It cut down on noise transmission," he said.
"Hunh?" This place was an echoing chamber of noise.
"You'll see." He nodded at a massive green column that dominated the center of the space.
We walked for several more minutes before we arrived at its base.
The lush green cylinder sat atop a circular, elevated platform of mottled, pale yellow stone. The growth stopped at the bulging base of the column, leaving the richly carved yellow platform clear. The floor beneath our feet was a finely finished mosaic pattern of gray and white stone. It was old, worn, and beautiful.
A cadre of spiny, blue, red-robed beings kneeling at the base of the platform discreetly moved away at our approach so we could take their place.
Saurubi's ears twisted with uncertainty as we exchanged looks.
Above the clamor of activity around us, I heard the sound of giggling children. It grew closer. Several young Frairies and Carquetchians ran past. One, a small Frairy dressed in what appeared to be children's play clothes, stopped. She turned, then wove between us to climb the steps. Her playmates paused for a second to watch, then ran on as if their friend's behavior was not unusual.
The child walked to the column and put her hand in the moss up to her shoulder. She stood there, her head tilted. After a long moment, she turned and came back to the edge of the platform in front of us.
Her eyes locked on me. "The Cheel asks why you are here," she said.
"Don't play, Piika," one of the nearby Frairy guards scolded.
The child drew herself up in tiny, indignant composure. "I do not play, Papa. This is my day to speak for the Cheel."
"Speaker," the Frairies around me said with uncharacteristic respect. They dipped their heads to her.
She nodded acknowledgment to them. Then she looked at me again. Did she have any idea what hid inside the Tabi armor and headgear? Did she sense a difference in me? "The Cheel asks why you are here."
I had expected the Frairies to drag me before their leader and throw me at his or her feet. Instead, I found myself speaking with a child.
I didn't want to complain when things were simple, but maybe this was a bit oversimplified. "I do not mean to disturb you," I started.
The child smiled widely. "I am not the Cheel."
"So, it's not speaking to me now?" The idea of a creature hijacking a child at play and channeling through them disturbed me. It felt wrong.
"It speaks to me. I speak to you. You speak to me and the Cheel hears what you say. It asks why you are here."
Okay... "There is a child on this world. She doesn't belong here. She's alone and in danger. I want to find her and take her to a safe place."
She tilted her head and considered me. I had a sense there was a far greater presence behind her action.
"Is she telepathic?' I asked Duff.
"Don't be an idiot!" he snapped. "There are no telepaths on this world. Young children simply happen to be able to speak with the Cheel."
"Sorry." What the heck was this Cheel, to put small children forward to communicate for it?
Piika studied me. "You fear for her safety. Why?"
"Because she is alone. I fear someone will harm her." Apprehension twisted hard inside me. I stopped talking.
"Why do you care?"
"I—" I turned to Duff. "This is wrong. I don't want to go into all this with another kid."
"Life is painful," the Frairy child declared solemnly from the platform.
Jeez! She was a little kid! "Yes, but—"
"People die," she continued.
Yeah. Sometimes horribly, like the people who had traveled with the kid. This little one didn't— I finally found my voice. "This child does not need to hear this."
The Frairy girl glanced at the column, then back at me. She shifted her attention to Duff. "The Cheel wishes to meet with her."
"Well, Flygirl, looks as if you've earned some sort of a dispensation." Duff grasped my arm and pulled me away from the platform, into the bustling crowd. "Don't get excited. It could just be a quick death," he added.
The child descended the three steps to follow us.
Duff looked down at her. "Now?"
"We will wait for the others," she answered. She did not elaborate.
Duff turned to his squad. "Form a loose perimeter. You," he growled at Saurubi, "stay with us."
The guards melted into the crowd.
The child, Piika, moved to stand silently beside me. She was a painful reminder of what I should be doing instead of idly standing around this place. At least she and the Cheel-thing had not denied the kid existed.
I tried to ignore the thorny little bit of reproof at my side by looking closer at our surroundings. High above us huge pipes divided off from the massive green column, similar to branches of a tree. They ran in every direction out into the shadows of an unseen ceiling. I had a sudden flash of insight: every one of those tubes had the same moss lining as the drainpipe that had dropped me into this underworld. There were probably pipes all over this city filled with the stuff. And, if this chamber was any indicator, it covered homes, alleys, and pavers, too.
I gave in and looked at Piika. "May I ask: what is the Cheel?"
"Life." A small hand gestured at the column, though she was too short to see it from her place in the crowd.
"I saw a similar plant growing somewhere else."
She nodded. "Cheel."
"In the pipes?"
She nodded. "Cheel."
"So it grows everywhere?"
"It is one. It is the Cheel."
One? I studied the moss, rising green, serene, and immense in this place. I remembered the plants growing in the darkness of the mechanical spaces we'd pass through to release Saura from the SAC. "One type. Grows everywhere?"
"One."
Oh, come on! Did they all have a twisted sense of humor that made the Human the butt of every joke? I took a deep breath and cautiously made a circular motion with my hand to encompass the area around us. "One?"
"One." It was in the way she said it. She wasn't joking.
An image of earth ants and certain fish schools flashed in my mind. One: as if the Cheel were a colony of individuals?
I pulled free another bit of the moss caught on the wrist of my armor and stood with it pinched between my fingers, not sure what to do with it.
"It grows everywhere, except," she frowned, "in the Consortium."
Did her expression indicate stress? I reminded myself not to equate Human emotions with alien ones. Most times, they did not correlate.
"Why not there?"
"The Endar destroy it."
Oh. Defoliation. "That upsets—angers—you?"
"It does not anger you?" Her little mouth tightened, thrusting her lower jaw forward and I was pretty sure I wasn't violating any protocols by interpreting that as anger.
"I'm trying to understand. Why do the Endar want to keep the Cheel out of the Trade and Diplomatic zones? Is there a—guest—who is allergic to it?" Sometimes the simplest explanation was the right one.
"No. They want to limit what it can see."
"The Cheel sees?" I said after a pause.
"The Cheel sees everything." The glare turned defensive. "It does not interfere."
Yeah. It sounded dangerously close to a word Humans had. Omniscience. We had fought wars over that kind of thing. "You worship it?" I hoped with my whole being the word translated correctly. If this was some type of religion, I should shut up and sit down before I started a holy war.
"No." The forward thrust of the jaw came back, along with a crease between the little brows. "Cheel is Cheel. Frairy is Frairy. Frairy is many. Cheel is one."
"It—" I stopped. Closed my eyes. What I thought she was saying...
After a long moment, I opened my eyes. "Cheel is one? Many parts? Parts all see as one?" That was—
"You got it all figured out now, Flygirl?" Duff asked.
"She says the Cheel is one being—"
"All the parts are linked into a shared intelligence. It sees what they all see. Yep."
A being who saw nearly an entire world? It made my knees feel a little weak.
Duff glanced down at my gloves. "Every strand is a part of the whole," he said.
I looked at the moss gripped between my fingertips. "What about if it's not attached to anything?"
"If it establishes contact with a viable surface it will live and share its presence with the whole."
"Oh." Now what the heck was I supposed to do with it? I couldn't simply drop it.
I definitely had to go through full decontamination before I stepped back on a Human ship.
"Put in pocket," Saura hissed. "Fix later."
I stowed it in an empty pouch. "Sorry," I mumbled, half to it, half to Saura.
I leaned closer to her. "Are you hearing the same thing I'm hearing; that this Cheel thing is a hive organism? That it knows everything its parts see."
"Heard," she nodded. "But only sees; does not share thought."
"Does your embassy know about it?"
"Do not know what embassy knows. Host world not astrogator business. But would be very effective policing mechanism."
I felt pretty sure the Frairy had that one down.
"You could have told me all this and made it simple," I told Duff.
"And let you miss the chance to interact with the locals? Believe me, you Humans need to up your social experiences. If the Earth Alliance gets through their admission vote unscathed by your actions, your people will have opened the floodgate on complicated interactions with other species."
And if I blew it, the whole Human race would be left sitting in our little, isolated area of space all by ourselves for another hundred years or more.
That was too much to think about. "How much does this Cheel interact with the other peoples of this world?"
"You mean, is it a dominant force? No, it doesn't command Frairy armies. Is it influential? For us, very. Why shouldn't we use every resource we have? It watches, and it knows. The trick is to ask it the right question. "
"It knows everything that is going on?"
"The Cheel sees everything within its range. Knowing is a different thing altogether. It sees you. It doesn't know why you are here. It wants to find out. I bring you in for it to ask. Simple, yes? Should be, but it's not. There's a big hole in the Cheel's overall vision. You see, the Endar know what the Cheel is, too. They have been here since the unfortunate day the newly formed Whooex Trade Consortium decided to make our world its cozy economic center. After they succeeded in pushing the MoMo out, they went after the Cheel. By that time, we were a bit smarter. They claimed it uses telepathy. It doesn't. It's indigenous to our world. It's a citizen. We gave them one concession for their crap argument: permission to defoliate the Zones. Now they keep the Diplomatic and Trade Zones swept clear of all plant life. No one can bring a plant into the area. The bastards would eliminate the Cheel altogether, but they can't." He gave me a slightly amused look. "You could say they've kept the Zones swept clean of Humans, too."
The kid and I were the means to continue that policy if the Endar found us here. Which led to the question. "What happens next?"
"The Cheel will decide." He turned attention to the Frairy girl. "Why are we still standing here, Speaker?"
His tone seemed a bit rough for addressing a child. "That's—"
"Shut it, Zant!" he snapped.
Piika smiled up at him despite his scowl. "They are here," she said serenely.
"Who?" Duff twisted to look out across the crowd toward the sunlit openings. He swore. "Are you kidding me? The assassins?"
"The who?" I strained to see where he was looking. Deep in the chamber, amid the mix of bright colors and bustling activity, I saw familiar black. My heart skipped a beat when I realized the garb was similar to what Saura and I wore.
Two Tabisee in full body armor plowed their way toward us.
"As-sas-sins. As in 'you're dead'," Duff growled. "This could get ugly."
"Tabisee assassins?" I looked over at Saura. "Is he right?"
"It is possible," she said.
"Who uses assassins on a diplomatic world?" I heard my voice raise a pitch in panic.
"Do not know." She watched the two weave through the crowd toward us. "But are definitely working."
To me, the words 'assassin' and 'working' did not safely belong together. "Saura, you are my dear friend and partner, but I can't go back inside a Tabisee cell." I took a step back, away from her.
"Am good friend," she agreed. "And you should not try to leave. Frairy escort has hard eyes and hands on weapons."
I saw two of Duff's green-overhauled crew regarding me from the crowd. They did not look friendly.
And now there was this being who could watch me wherever I went—except the Zones, where the Endar seemed to call all the shots.
"All right," I stepped back to her side. "Let's find out what the assassins want." From the variation in their height, I was willing to bet it was Shoff and Meeroush.
They didn't waste time on stealth; they sliced straight toward us, coming to a stop in front of Duff. The shorter one brushed at a patch of dust on its upper arm.
"Excellent timing," Duff greeted them affably.
"We will take them from here."
Yup. Meeroush.
"The game is bigger than that," Duff replied.
"This is Tabi business," Shoff hissed. She moved a hand toward her hip.
There was a subtle but distinct stir in the crowd around us. The press of everyday Frairy bodies oozed back a bit.
The green-clad Frairies appeared more numerous than I had first thought.
I could visualize Shoff's ears, rigid with irritation inside her headgear.
"You should come with us," Duff told them.
"We do not—"
"Yeah, I kinda think you do. Take a breath and relax. You'll get her back. But the Cheel wants to speak with her first. Besides, it would be good for you to come along." He stared up at the two of them steadily. "We insist."
"It is time," the child, Piika, announced cheerily.