Grail - By Elizabeth Bear Page 0,19
it had once been. “If that is your objective, it is my opinion that we should hail them. Have you thought about what you’d like to say?”
Perceval’s smile was patently cosmetic. “I have some ideas. Where are my officers?”
Nova knew without checking. The location of her crew was never far from her awareness. Because her officers were also Conns, they grieved for their sister and plotted vengeance. Also because they were Conns, they spent that grief in work until they could find revenge.
“Tristen is with Mallory.” A frequent occurrence since they had traveled together to bring down Arianrhod, and an association Nova thought generally beneficial to them both. Tristen had been alone so long that the affectionate proximity of another organic chipped at his rough edges, like wear smoothing a rusted bearing, and what was left functioned better than the grief-etched surfaces of before.
“They’re organizing an inventory of potential trade goods and knowledge.”
Nova hesitated—not because she needed to but because it would cue Perceval to brace herself. “They are also generating a list for your consideration.”
“A new Chief Engineer.”
“Yes.”
Perceval sighed, grimacing, but nodded. “That will be useful.”
“Cynric and Benedick are together. They are reviewing data in order to present you with a suite of options if hostilities do commence. Shall I send for any of them?”
“Tristen,” Perceval said, stepping back from the wall. “He must be my hound once more. He and Mallory.”
Nova reached out to her First Mate and felt his affirmation. She passed it to Perceval while Perceval continued.
“Just him for now, unless he feels like Mallory needs to be here. It is he and I who will need to run the contact.” She glanced sidelong at Nova’s avatar. “People expect that if you’re coming to them hat in hand, you do it in person, with dignity appropriate to their station. If the importunings of Captain and First Mate cannot flatter them, we’ll have to reconsider.”
“They may not have much to give,” Nova said.
The Bridge door chimed and irised wide, revealing the pale form of Tristen Conn. Nova’s sensors told her everything about him, but she turned her avatar to acknowledge him anyway. When dealing with evolved rather than designed intelligences, it was good to remember that their behaviors were infiltrated by all the baggage, improvisational solutions, and inconsistencies of millions of years of evolution.
Part of communicating with meat people was managing their behavioral triggers, and the social niceties were a protocol for handling just that. With an elder Conn like Tristen, centuries Exalted, it mattered less. Their endocrine systems were as well managed as one could expect, and they were quite accustomed to dealing with virtual persons. But it still mattered.
Tristen Conn was lean and white. Born a Mean, he had suffered congenital achromia and—once Exalted—had never bothered to repair the cosmetic damage. His colony’s blue marker glowed unchecked through translucent skin, making him appear ethereal and luminescent when Nova adjusted her sensors to approximate human perception. He was tall, even by Conn standards, and he wore his hair long and flowing across his shoulders—a fluffy, cloudlike mass that appeared far softer in texture than it actually was to the touch.
When Nova wasn’t trying to see him as an Exalt might, she observed the way light refracted through the hollow strands, making them seem frosty when in actuality they broke available light into every color of the spectrum. Tristen’s face was angular, his expression concerned. Clad all in white as samite, he made an imposing figure.
He ducked to get through the door before it finished opening, and he didn’t quite straighten up when he stepped inside. “Hey,” he said. “How is my favorite niece holding up?”
The light touch was the right touch, in this case. Perceval straightened.
“Freaked out,” she admitted. She stepped toward Tristen, meeting him halfway across the garden of the Bridge deck while Nova allowed herself to fade back into the landscape. Literally faded into the landscape, vanishing by inches like the Cheshire cat. Making her withdrawal ostentatious would accomplish the opposite of her desire, which was to allow Perceval and Tristen the freedom for a tolerably private and comfortable conversation. But she could soften her edges, shift herself out, and blur into the background, until they did not notice she had left them more or less alone.
Perceval might still be his favorite niece—his only niece, in the aftermath of Arianrhod and Ariane’s destruction of much of the Conn family—but Tristen had come to accept that she was a woman of maturity and authority, and