Visitor: A Foreigner Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

kyo time frame? How much time before they get here?”
    “Unchanged in their approach,” Bren said. “Their messaging began with pings. Then, right after we came aboard, they shifted to voice and began requesting the dowager and the young gentleman and myself. We advised them we’re here and kept that message cycling. Yesterday a voice that sounded like Prakuyo indicated they want to talk. I told them come in, and that invitation and their response,
Prakuyo come,
have been cycling back and forth ever since. That’s the limit of the exchange. We’re expecting them to arrive in three days, last calculation at their current rate of approach. But that’s subject to change and the kyo’s intention. And we don’t know whether they’ll dock or expect to link with
Phoenix,
which is currently standing off from the station under Captain Riggins’ command. He’s a new man. I don’t know him, but Ogun appointed him and I assume he’ll take Ogun’s orders.”
    “The shuttle picked up the kyo transmission and played it for me. Scary feeling, being out there in that speck of a shuttle, knowing that ship was bearing down on us. Gives you a whole new sense of perspective in the universe. And makes you sympathize with the Reunioners. You say
sounded
like Prakuyo. Straight answer again, Bren. Are we sure it’s the same kyo?”
    “Straight answer, I’m
not
wholly sure. We don’t know even if Prakuyo is a name, or a title. Whoever’s in charge, they know our names, they know enough to communicate as if they
are
the ship we dealt with. Prakuyo an Tep, or someone claiming to be him, requested a meeting. I invited him to come aboard. And the Prakuyo voice accepted it.”
    She cast him a wry glance. “Let’s hope it
is
him, then.”
    He winced. “Gut instinct said it was, and gut instinct extended the invitation.”
    “So far, your gut’s been pretty smart. I trust it. Final question: what’s your sense of what they’ll be looking for? What’s their interest in being here—if it’s not warlike?”
    “If they aren’t here to establish a base, I can only speculate. They’ll wonder what sort of resources we have, whether we have a large presence in space—which we don’t—whether we’re armed—which we aren’t—and whether we pose a threat to them, which we also don’t. We hope we live too far apart to be a threat or even a relevant fact to each other, even in trade—but what they call too far may differ from our concept. All I can say is, so far, so good. I
am
encouraged. Let me stress that. But I have to be careful of the other possibilities, and I can’t say they won’t exist.”
    “Fair enough.”
    “There’s something else, something I’m going to try and clarify before this meeting, and not just because it’s important to understanding the kyo. It’s also one of the keys to the unrest between the Mospheirans and Reunioners. Tillington has led the Mospheirans to blame the Reunioners for attracting the kyo’s attention and getting blown up.”
    “Blowing up the kyo envoy’s ship will do that.”
    “True, but that was four years
after
the first attack. Among the ship’s crew, which you know as well as I do, there’s a suspicion that Braddock himself did something to touch off the kyo the first time. They believe he must have
done
something to bring an attack down on Reunion. To this day there’s no substantiation for that. Braddock being Pilots’ Guild doesn’t make him popular with the ship, but we still don’t know, as an issue of pure fact, what the trigger was.”
    “Ramirez was sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. He got caught snooping, and tried to run away. He tried to run a diversionary route, but the kyo didn’t bite. Instead, they traced
Phoenix
’s backtrail and took a shot at what they found. When the station failed to respond in kind, they backed off to watch what might happen next.”
    “That’s certainly what we’ve pieced together from the few records Ramirez