Fifteen

 

Jin Rastigan had never seen the Peyti Investigative Guard in action. They swarmed over the forested area near Sunbeam Gallen’s habitat. Rastigan had spent eight years on Peyla, most of them as the head of human-based security for the Earth Alliance at the Alliance’s headquarters, and not once had she seen anything like this.

The Peyti moved as if they were in a panic. Usually Peyti walked upright, their stick-figure bodies almost comical in their awkwardness.

But now, half of them crouched, running on all fours, stopping and plunging their long twig-like fingers into the dirt where Gallen had said she had seen bits of bodies fall, burning, to the ground.

Rastigan stood inside Gallen’s habitat, along with one Earth Alliance diplomat, a lawyer, and a mental-health counselor, all from the human-based section of the Alliance headquarters. Gallen had sent for help through her human contacts. The Alliance, in turn, contacted the Peyti, and Peyti help had arrived first.

But the Peyti did not have the kind of equipment that allowed them inside the habitat. In addition to permission, they needed breathing apparatus.

The Peyti hadn’t seen the habitat as the issue. They’d found something on the grounds, something that had disturbed them so greatly that they weren’t talking about it.

Rastigan wanted to know what that something was.

She had arrived shortly after the first Peyti officials had, along with her team. She had no idea what she would find, or even if she would find Gallen alive.

Rastigan had come in first, laser pistols in both hands, only to find Gallen cowering under one of the tables. No one—and nothing—else was in the habitat, so Rastigan had beckoned her team to come inside.

She had gotten the story from Gallen in bits and pieces. Gallen was both scared and afraid she’d be banned from this part of Peyla. Rastigan got her to focus on what actually happened—and what actually happened sounded strange.

Peyti flying backward through the air as if catapulted? Peyti hit with some kind of weapon, glowing, and disintegrating?

Rastigan hadn’t heard anything like it before.

She finally managed to palm Gallen off on the other three, letting them deal with the woman’s worries. She’d already sent them a private message, letting them know that Gallen wouldn’t be able to stay here. She was going to have to go back to headquarters, at least for the short term, maybe longer.

It all depended on what the Peyti decided. This was their land, after all, and their problem.

Rastigan informed the others that the moment they could get Gallen out of here, they should. They shouldn’t wait for Rastigan.

She needed to download the security vids. Gallen wanted her research as well, and while Rastigan let her take all of the computerized information, Gallen also wanted dirt and beakers and stuff in some kind of frozen unit. Until Rastigan knew exactly what happened here, she wasn’t bringing any part of the soil or anything else physical to headquarters.

She wasn’t going to explain that, either. That was why she had brought a counselor as well as a lawyer. Initially she had figured the lawyer would deal with everything, but it was becoming clearer that the mental-health professional was the important one here.

Rastigan wasn’t sure if Gallen was just at the edge of her very short rope or if she was slightly crazy.

Considering how far away from everything Gallen actually was, Rastigan was voting for crazy, and maybe not so slightly.

Rastigan had long ago shut out the conversation, filled as it was with Gallen’s sobbing and terrors. Instead, Rastigan had gone to the nearest desk and examined the computer setup. The science part of the setup had been added, and looked awfully complicated. But anything to do with the habitat was standard issue and easy to understand. Rastigan had worked with systems like this her entire life.

She tapped a few icons, and had the security feeds sent to her links. Then she stood near the window where Gallen had seen the so-called attack and watched the feeds superimposed over her left eye.

It was a strange experience. One eye saw Peyti swarming the ground in front of her, investigating in crouches, their long fingers deep in the dirt, and the other saw Peyti propelled backward, hands open in panic, then turning orange and dissolving.

Gallen had said they screamed as they died. Rastigan shuddered.

She understood why.

She turned around to ask Gallen a question, and realized that her entire team had left. Somehow they had gotten Gallen out of the habitat.

Rastigan was relieved about that. She had thought it would be harder.

She sighed and was about to leave when a Peyti came into the habitat. The Peyti held a mask over her features with one long-fingered hand.

Most humans had trouble recognizing individual Peyti, but Rastigan didn’t. She could see the subtle differences around the eyes, the changing patterns of gray in the skin tone, all of the things that Peyti saw when they looked at each other.

Even with the mask, she knew that the Peyti before her was Uzvot, who had come from Alliance headquarters to act as both liaison and as translator if need be.

Rastigan spoke Peytin fluently, but sometimes—particularly in moments of stress—the Peyti preferred to talk with their own. That was why Rastigan always brought a translator with her to any event that might later become important.

“You have to see this,” she said to Uzvot.

Uzvot, to her credit, didn’t say a word. She just moved closer to Rastigan.

Uzvot was tall for a Peyti, but still shorter than Rastigan. Rastigan always felt large around the Peyti, even though she was considered delicate by human standards. She used her delicacy to her advantage with humans; they rarely saw her as a threat. The Peyti were more willing to accept her because of her slight frame and large eyes. More than once, she’d been told she was as close to Peyti as a human could get.

Uzvot had never said those things, however. Uzvot and Rastigan had an understanding. They didn’t need to explain much to each other.

Rastigan tapped a few places on the desk and called up the security feed, this time as a miniature hologram that she ran near the only solid wall.

Uzvot turned a slight blue—a sign of distress among the Peyti.

“This went on until your people arrived,” Rastigan said.

The Peyti had responded to the distress call quickly. But, because Gallen had gone through human channels instead of Peyti ones, the arrival had taken three times longer than normal.

Still, Rastigan felt that Gallen’s decision to contact the humans through her links was the smartest thing Gallen had done. Gallen had no way of knowing if whatever—whomever—was murdering the Peyti monitored Peyti emergency links. By avoiding those links, Gallen had protected herself in a very difficult situation. More importantly, she—and her habitat—hadn’t been noticed.

Rastigan didn’t watch the killings again—at least, not closely. Instead, she looked at that bare ground through the windows. How long had this type of killing been going on? Once the bodies disintegrated, there was no evidence that they had even existed.

Or did the Peyti have a way of figuring that out? Was that what the hands in the dirt signified? Or were there chips on those Peyti’s fingertips that read something in the soil’s composition?

Even though Rastigan was an expert on the Peyti and the Peyti culture, there was a lot she didn’t know.

Uzvot waved her free hand. “Shut it off.”

The area near her right eye had turned turquoise, something Rastigan had heard about but had never seen in all of her years on Peyla.

That turquoise color, she had been told, was the Peyti equivalent of tears. Unlike human tears, which served many functions, the turquoise color showed up only in moments of great distress.

Uzvot bowed her head and adjusted her mask so that she didn’t have to hold it in place.

“Give me a minute,” she said.

Rastigan would have preferred to leave the hologram frozen, but she shut it off like Uzvot requested.

“We will need that,” Uzvot said.

“I know,” Rastigan said. “I’ll make copies.”

“It would be best if copies did not get out.” Uzvot raised her head. The turquoise had faded, but her skin remained a light blue.

“I won’t let any copies out,” Rastigan said.

“I know, but this is important. It could cause unrest.”

Rastigan’s breath caught. “Among the Peyti?”

“Yes, among the Peyti,” Uzvot said.

Rastigan shook her head. “I didn’t think such a thing was possible.”

Until a few moments ago, Rastigan had thought the Peyti had all the difficult emotions under control. Within the Earth Alliance, the Peyti were known as the most peaceful of the species. They never had civil unrest, hadn’t had a war in more than a century, and always—always—preferred negotiation to violence.

It was a private joke among diplomats: If you wanted war, don’t let the Peyti into a planning session.

Of course, the flip side remained true as well. If someone wanted peace, the Peyti were the best allies to have.

“We have our history, like you have yours,” Uzvot said. “Only unlike you, whenever we are faced with the violent among us, we do not shrug and say that it is part of our character. We believe that with thought and self-control all things can be conquered, even the dark impulses.”

Rastigan knew that. She also knew that the Peyti all struggled with what they called their dark impulses. But she had thought—apparently mistakenly—that they had conquered one dark impulse almost completely. She thought that the Peyti had weeded out the violent among them so long ago that they had bred themselves into pacifists.

Apparently not.

“I’m confused,” Rastigan said. “I’ve been in here investigating. Your people have been dealing with everything outside. The death of these Peyti—it was caused by other Peyti?”

That turquoise color returned, but this time Uzvot did not turn away. She brought her head down, and then back up, the Peyti equivalent of a nod, learned only by the Peyti who had interactions with humans.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“They were using each other as target practice?” Rastigan raised her voice, not because she was angry, but because she couldn’t quite believe this.

Peyti didn’t behave like that.

“Your phrase ‘target practice’ is simplistic. We do not know what has happened here. Only that we have many dead, a true tragedy.”

“Caused by Peyti,” Rastigan said, feeling surprised. Somehow she had believed that some other group had caused this, or something had malfunctioned.

“Yes,” Uzvot said.

“And you consider this murder,” Rastigan said.

Uzvot bowed her head. “It is murder, yes.”

“Wow,” Rastigan said softly. “Wow. I didn’t think such things happened here any longer.”

“They don’t,” Uzvot said with emphasis.

“And yet this has,” Rastigan said. “Is that why you don’t want the information leaked?”

“No,” Uzvot said.

Rastigan glanced outside, feeling horribly off balance. She hadn’t contemplated any of this before.

The Peyti still crouched in the dirt seemed frantic, their movements quick and forceful. Two Peyti stood to one side, conferring.

“I’m confused,” Rastigan said. “Are you asking me to bury this vid?”

“Yes,” Uzvot said.

“Because of the murders,” Rastigan said.

“No,” Uzvot said.

Rastigan sighed. She couldn’t destroy the vid even if she wanted to. She was being foolish to consider it. But she was curious. She had no real idea what was happening here.

She turned. The color in Uzvot’s face had receded to a light blue.

“You do realize that parts of this are out of my hands, right?” Rastigan said. “The Earth Alliance has already been notified. We’ve been involved from the start. We got the distress call. We don’t silence our people, no matter what species they belong to. Any crime here will be prosecuted by Peyti law because this happened on Peyla, but the Earth Alliance will be involved. Gallen ensured that just by being here. This is not a strictly Peyti matter.”

“Can’t we do something to fix that?” Uzvot asked. The blue in her skin seemed darker. “Perhaps tell the Earth Alliance that there was a mistake?”

Rastigan shook her head. If she got caught lying to the Alliance about something this important, she would lose her job.

For a brief second, she thought of lying to Uzvot. The lie was easy: She could say that security information from all habitats got uploaded onto a special network. But that was too easy to check.

She supposed she could also lie and say that she would tell the Earth Alliance it was all a mistake. While that would work with some species who contacted the Alliance as little as possible, it wouldn’t work with the Peyti, who followed the minutia of all Earth Alliance activities.

“You know we can’t,” Rastigan said. “I’m sorry. This is on the record.”

Uzvot tilted her head back. A hand went to her mask to hold it in place. But Rastigan could still see that the turquoise color had returned.

“Forgive me,” Rastigan said, lapsing into diplomatic speak, “but why don’t you want this out?”

Uzvot shook her head. She turned away slightly, as if she were embarrassed by her emotional reaction.

“Then what?”

“You did not notice anything strange about that incident?” Uzvot asked.

“I think the deaths are strange,” Rastigan said. “I honestly did not think that was possible here.”

Uzvot tilted her head slightly, the human equivalent of a sad smile. “Not all of us control our dark impulses every moment of every day.”

In other words, murder did happen here, and the Peyti did not discuss it with outsiders.

Which was fine. Outsiders didn’t need to know anything about Peyti-to-Peyti relationships.

“You’re referring to something specific, aren’t you?” Rastigan asked. “You saw something in particular.”

“I did.” Uzvot walked to one of the side windows.

Rastigan joined her. On a far hillside, another swarm of Peyti were barely visible. Rastigan squinted. They seemed to be encircling some buildings.

“We are different,” Uzvot said, and Rastigan waited. Of course the two species were different. It was obvious on more levels than Rastigan wanted to consider.

“I know,” Rastigan said.

“No,” Uzvot said sharply, “you do not know. Your people think we know nothing about the jokes, about how difficult it is to tell a Peyti from a twig, let alone a Peyti from each other. But we are different. Each of us—like each of you—is unique.”

Rastigan’s face warmed. She hadn’t realized—she doubted anyone had realized—that the Peyti were aware of the jokes. But of course they were. It should have been obvious from the beginning. The Peyti paid attention to the smallest of Earth Alliance details. Of course they would notice something as prevalent as a joke.

But Rastigan didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to derail Uzvot.

“The Peyti out there,” Uzvot waved an arm toward the window they had abandoned, “the ones who died. They were not unique.”

Rastigan frowned. She wondered if she had understood properly. She repeated the same sentence in Peytin, repeating the Peyti word for “unique.”

“Yes,” Uzvot said in Standard. “Your eyes did not deceive you. Those Peyti did look the same.”

Honestly, Rastigan hadn’t noticed. She had been so shocked by the deaths that she hadn’t looked at the faces of the individual Peyti, except to see their sheer terror.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Unlike so many other species, we do not have the phenomenon of twins or naturally occurring duplicates. Those Peyti, they were cloned.”

Rastigan frowned. “Cloned?”

Uzvot nodded.

“So someone was killing off its own clones?” Rastigan asked.

“I don’t think so,” Uzvot said, her turquoise color nearly neon now, “since the original has been dead for more than a century.”

“You recognized the clones?” Rastigan said.

“No Peyti could have missed it,” Uzvot said. “We have our PierLuigi Frémonts as well. Only we teach about them, tell children how horrible they are, what monsters they were—monsters that lurk in our own skin, monsters that we must always control. And we use faces of real monsters to illustrate our point.”

“So this is—?”

“Uzvekmt,” Uzvot said, “destroyer of the Qavle.”

The worst genocide on Peyla in the last three hundred years. Maybe the worst genocide on Peyla ever. Rastigan had learned that, just like she had learned that it was in response to Uzvekmt that the Peyti had developed the program they now used to get rid of the so-called “dark impulses.”

“So someone is killing clones of Uzvekmt?” Rastigan asked.

“Let us hope that is all which is occurring,” Uzvot said, “because it could be so much more.”