The Expanse - J.M. Dillard [37]
Mallora’s tone was impassioned. “It could simply be a coincidence.”
Beside him, Guruk looked down on him with condescension, narrowing opaque yellow eyes with vertical slits for pupils. Reptilians’ expressions were unreadable, masklike—with all the animation of a lizard sunning itself upon a rock, Degra thought—but the contempt in Guruk’s tone was unmistakable. “You’re being naive. Their planet is fifty light-years away. It’s not a coincidence.” Guruk was alarmingly tall, even for his race; his voice was low, emanating from deep within his chest, and his sibilants were marked by a slight hiss. He shifted his weight, causing the faint light to ripple across the scales covering his face and muscular arms; the effect was prismatic, throwing off glints of amber, ruby, emerald.
Of all the races, only the reptilian and the primate tended to intermix. Degra had always thought it was because of the striking beauty of the reptilian skin. He had been told it was softer than it appeared, though he had never himself touched it. The notion of embracing a creature with a darting forked tongue, scales, and vestigial tail disgusted him; and then there was the matter of a cloaca. Old prejudices died hard.
Mallora did not appreciate Guruk’s tone or his words. He countered forcefully. “How do you know your contacts gave you accurate information? The ship may not be from Earth.”
At that point, Shresht, the head insectoid at the table, let go a shrill blast caused by rubbing his darkly gossamer wings together. It was a request for attention; the others faced him at once. Like Degra, they did not possess the equipment to reproduce the insectoid language, but they understood it. Their mastery of the language was not out of deference to Shresht’s race, but the fact that its members lacked the teeth, tongue, and palate necessary to articulate primate speech, which had, after centuries of primate domination, become the planet’s official language.
Even the aquatics—by nature serene and emotionally removed from conflict—turned swiftly in unison inside their tank, their soft, translucent dorsal fins flowing delicately above them. Their names were Qam and Qoh; beneath their pale, moon-shaped and -colored faces, gills released bubbles that ascended slowly to the surface of their private sea. Degra had never been able to tell the two of them apart, nor was there a clear distinction as to which one held more power, or even as to whether they were male, female, or a mixed pair. Aquatic politics were based on equality and consensus, a concept foreign to the land-based species.
Judged by the standards of any other Xindi group, insectoid behavior seemed manic. Degra had endured a great deal of cultural training which enlightened him to the fact that, since insectoids were shorter-lived and lacked the protection of an internal skeleton, they had developed mannerisms based on a sense of urgency.
But the torrent of clicks and chirps Shresht unleashed on this particular day was more hysterical than usual.
It’s the beginning of an invasion! Hundreds of other ships will follow them!
Degra translated the outburst silently in his head, and, once again, left Mallora to do the speaking for him.
“They have no way of knowing that we launched that probe.”
Shresht only grew more agitated. We must destroy the vessel!
Guruk listened with great focus and stillness—a stillness, Degra knew, hid a reptilian penchant for sudden, deadly strikes. At last, the reptilian asked, “How many humans are aboard?”
Shresht’s chirps grew so high-pitched Degra longed to cover his ears. It doesn’t matter! They’ve come to find the weapon! They must be destroyed!
Beneath his glistening black carapace, his thorax began to pulse and twitch in agitation; he flailed his slender, fine-haired limbs. Beside him, his aide followed suit, in a display of insectoid outrage and fear.
Degra said nothing,