Free Edward M. Lerner by A New Order of Things

in tow. The hulking visitors, despite their bulky pressure suits, kept pace without difficulty. The carefully planned route threaded featureless corridors and elevators. Crew streamed back and forth, as ordered—and as ordered, none spoke to the humans. The doors they passed were secured. Gravity increased toward K’vith standard as they trended “uphill,” away from the spin axis. K’vith standard was a bit below the Earth norm, possibly enough to confuse their reflexes.
    This is not the time to dwell on petty tactical advantages, Mashkith chastised himself. This is a moment for boldness.
    As though reading his Foremost’s mind, Pashwah-qith netted to him, “The die is cast.”
    Mashkith still marveled how openly the humans revealed themselves on their infosphere. The die is cast: It was the declaration of an ancient Earth warlord leading his legions across the river Rubicon to invade Rome. He had cast the die for Arblen Ems twenty long Earth-years earlier. Let another quote from Caesar’s War Commentaries now be his guide.
    I came. I saw. I conquered.
    Over his real-time vision Mashkith had superimposed an augmented-reality overlay: what lay behind each door, what was controlled by each switch, anything that might evoke inappropriate curiosity in their guests. Translucent icons that characterized radio chatter hovered in the corners of his enhanced vision. Besides the open channel to which all had agreed, the humans communicated over a fluctuating number of encrypted bands—prudent, not impolite. His mind’s ear did its best to sort out real-time translations of the open channel, and of everything relevant the ship’s sensors managed to overhear through helmets. Intuition and AI assistants sought in their separate ways to filter from the flood of data that which was most significant and time-sensitive.
    “…and behind this door is a bank of fuel cells, providing emergency backup power on this deck. Not very interesting, I think. Standard Leo technology, the same as humans now use.”
    Pashwah-qith’s commentary rumbled unintelligibly in human frequencies, the clan-interspeak version scrolling up the virtual display in a corner of Mashkith’s mind’s eye. He had no certain way to know an agent’s translation was accurate, but doctrine had an answer for that.
    Mashkith and an AI had worked on interspeak drafts until he was confident the lecture disclosed nothing critical about the ship, and the AI had assured him the vocabulary and its connotations were wholly unthreatening. His only choices had been interspeak or the language of a Great Clan—trade agents were not burdened with the “minor dialects.” It grated—but after this quest succeeded, Arblen Ems would be a great clan. The greatest clan.
    “These double doors open into storage holds. They contain such items as spare parts, chemical supplies, emergency seeds for restarting aeroponics, sheet and bar metal.”
    “Excuse me.” (“Arthur Walsh, chief technologist of their Interstellar Commerce Union,” read a pop-up icon in Mashkith’s augmented vision.) “I’m approximating from the distance between doors, but that fuel-cell room is clearly quite narrow. Judging from the gravity, we’re fairly near the ship’s surface. So that’s a shallow room, too.”
    At least that was what Mashkith believed to have been said. Just as three agent clones had independently translated the prepared speech back to interspeak as a check, three clones monitored everything now being said to and by the humans. Lothwer would switch translators the instant two or more AI observers questioned anything being said to the humans or about the accuracy of the translations.
    “Foremost, my apologies. Dr. Walsh, as a reminder, you will recall we agreed earlier that as a courtesy to our hosts we would gather, organize and prioritize our questions.” (“Ambassador Chung. Voice stress analysis indicates annoyance.”) Pause, then, “You will not bring your customary lack