Grail - Elizabeth Bear [87]
—ALDOUS HUXLEY, Brave New World
When the door slid open on another of the generation ship natives—the Conn family, as they called themselves, and Danilaw was starting to understand that, indeed, they shared familial links as close as those uniting the First Families of Fortune—Danilaw laid his fork down somewhat reluctantly beside his plate. The strange food was, well, strange—but it was interesting, stimulating, and delicious, once he chose to ignore his genetic predisposition to fear novelty. Strange things, after all, could be poison, but he was reasonably certain that these strange people had more to gain by keeping him and Amanda alive, and he had the Captain’s assurances that everything on the table was safe.
He was beginning to trust the new people’s medical technology. That seemed far more advanced than anything Earth or Fortune had to offer—although he knew it came at a cost of illegal bioengineering.
This alien, like the others before, was attenuated and androgynous, straight hair falling in locks over white-clothed shoulders. It—she—paused within the door, allowing the hatch to spiral closed behind her with a fine, practiced sense of drama and how to frame herself for best effect. Danilaw wondered if she had a secondary as an actress.
He was amused to notice that he was already treating each new incursion of the Conn family into his presence with a wary, even jaundiced, eye and a sense that some fresh hell had found him. From the way both Perceval and Tristen looked up warily from the dinner table, he thought, in this case, it might not even be the culture shock talking.
“Aunt,” Perceval said, without rising. “I must admit, your presence is unexpected.”
“Of course,” said the newcomer. “I planned it that way. I hear there was an explosion.”
“Indeed there was,” Danilaw said, hoping he had understood the way the Jacobeans did not stand on ceremony. “Someone apparently sabotaged our scull. I am Danilaw Bakare, Administrator of Bad Landing. This is Captain Amanda Friar.”
“Cynric Conn,” she said. “I’m the head of bioengineering. I imagine I’ll be working closely with your ecologists in order to adapt our people as closely to Fortune as possible.”
She didn’t call his homeworld Grail—even though she spoke so casually of engineering her family, as if they were machines.
On the other hand, that flexibility might lead them to accept rightminding without too much trouble.
That’s my Dani, his mother would have said. Always on the bright side. She’d never known how much of that was effort and pretense.
Cynric extended her hand and he accepted it, startled when she gave a little squeeze. She was of a sameness with the other Conns—tall, planar, pale, and blue-featured. The jewel that flashed in her face reminded him of Amanda’s, but he thought it was a piercing rather than an implant. No Free Legates here.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.
If she noticed how noncommittal he was, she accepted it without a ripple. She let his hand drift out of hers and turned her attention to the people behind the table, touching Amanda lightly as well. After that, though, she folded her arms and stood before the table in her long robes like some attenuated representation of a wingless angel.
“Captain,” she said. “I suppose you’re wondering how I managed to walk between the raindrops when I came in.”
“Passing Nova unnoticed is a feat,” Perceval agreed. “I presume you wouldn’t mention it if you didn’t mean to explain.”
Danilaw spared a moment to reflect on whether this discussion of business in front of new guests was honest indifference to what he learned of his hosts’ capabilities, or saber rattling for his and Amanda’s benefit.
Cynric smiled, showing the tendons around her mouth. “I learned it from what Mallory and Tristen uncovered among the Deckers.”
“The parrotlet,” Tristen said. His studied impassivity dropped away, leaving the traces of a smile that startled Danilaw a little. It looked so human amid the alien architecture of his face. “Which begs the question. Was it a miscalculation that it survived, or did