Wormhole Cultivation [Book 2] - Chapter 10: Friendship With Interest (Patreon)

Three years ago, before that first meeting with Master Aoran and his colleague Master Tardom, whose name I could barely recall, Novak had also burned through his precious Fern Bloom for the sake of a beautiful gesture, to show his guests just how seriously he took the meeting. Now he was burning through those same resources again, but this time for a different gesture, to draw a parallel between then and now, to underline through that same tea just how much the relationship between Earth and the Ka Federation had changed.

As though the meeting place itself hadn't already made that point on its own.

I probably should have paid more attention to the tea and less to the symbolism, because I ruined the first cup. The greenish-yellow infusion hadn't yet reached the right depth of colour when I rushed to drop the mineral in. The tea stayed pale, nearly unusable, and I found myself grateful that this time Novak had actually let me practise the brewing properly, without cramming me into the tight constraints of limited resources.

Naturally, no one was going to thank me for the waste.

Once the tea reached the right colour, it needed to be poured into a special thermos designed to preserve its qualities for longer, and then brought to Bulsara, so he could treat the colleagues he was working with on my astonishing breakthrough, or rather on what had happened after it, discussing plans for reinforced chamber shielding, or changes to the breakthrough protocols for the fourth stage. There had to be some line somewhere between effectiveness and budget.

For now, I was still the only case they had, but word had already started spreading, and more and more cadets would probably start trying to repeat what I'd done, so they had plenty to think about.

On my second attempt, I let the tea steep too long, dropped the granule in once the infusion had already begun darkening on its own, and the colour came out a muddy brown rather than the clean red it was supposed to be. Pure diarrhoea in a cup. Still, even this batch wasn't a total write-off. It was meant to go to a different doctor, one who loved chemistry and brewing elixirs, Robinson.

Maybe he could pull something useful out of it.

By the third attempt, I finally found my focus.

The third cup finally came out right. The infusion took on that same rich, deep shade from the recipe's picture.

I'd already forgotten what it had looked like three years ago.

After that, things got easier. I only ruined two cups out of ten, and long before lunch I'd learned to judge the brewing by smell and the thickness of the steam, rather than by watching a stopwatch.

I even managed to deliver the thermoses. A full one for Bulsara, a barely-filled one for Robinson.

Tardom arrived with xeltar-like punctuality. But the heavy, confident footsteps announcing him from down the corridor screamed urdan long before he appeared. Novak went to meet him at the door personally.

The precise timing was probably down to the fact that Aoran was travelling with him.

The Federates hadn't bothered drawing any parallels this time and were dressed nothing like the first meeting. Aoran wore a black-and-green robe, and this time the urdan had on a dark blue shirt under a pinkish-brown waistcoat. Only the same odd cut remained the same.

Novak greeted him with a ceremonial warmth, not as a Federation representative, but as an old friend of his own master.

Which meant plenty of bowing, from both of us.

Urdan, apparently, didn't fall for the display and rolled his eyes in a thoroughly human way.

"Right, right, right! I'll skip the fake ceremonial rubbish. I've got all this formality sitting in my throat like a rock!" he said, pointing at his own neck. "Let's just get some tea already!" he said, letting himself into Novak's apartments. "Where do I sit?"

"Please," Novak said, gesturing towards the tea table.

The urdan resolutely walked straight past it and dropped into the host's chair, which gave a pitiful creak under his weight.

I froze, surviving a brief existential crisis, while the urdan, acting like nothing had happened, tossed at Novak, "You've grown a fair bit, by the way. This little one too," he said, glancing at me. "So, tea coming, or what?"

"Jake, brew," Novak said, clearly shocked himself that someone would dare drop into his seat with that much shamelessness!

Aoran was practically glowing, he loved this so much. Might've even been his idea.

He, incidentally, took the chair to Tardom's right, leaving Novak the one on the left.

As usual, I got stuck with the worst spot, the one with its back to the window.

I served the tea, this time without a single hitch, without any excess trembling in my hands, though a bit of quiet during the brewing wouldn't have hurt. The urdan was just as loud and emotional as I remembered him.

While I kept my eyes on the tea, trying not to miss the right moment, he kept complaining.

"Three years! Three damn years I lived in a tin can the size of your living room, chasing the bastards you handed me!" he accused Novak.

"The gift was sincere," Novak noted, unshaken.

"May you get gifts exactly like that for the rest of your life!" the urdan wished on him. "The ceiling of my cabin's burned itself permanently into my memory! I see that cursed plastic every single time I close my eyes!"

"And the Forge…" Aoran said.

Tardom's tone shifted abruptly. The heaviness gave way to something closer to predatory satisfaction.

"We got them. Finally! O-o-oh…" he drew out with relish.

I suspected that ‘o-o-oh’ meant nothing good for the praxi, only something good for one emotional urdan.

He leaned back in the creaking chair, arms crossed over his chest.

"Three years they led me around by the nose. Three years I honestly thought they might just slip away for good.

"They didn't. They literally ran out of supplies.

"The ones we took looked more like skeletons than living creatures. Most of them had already been in stasis for a while, to save resources, but keeping that up drained their energy too, and that had to come from somewhere.

"We took them alive. Every single one.

"I've now earned myself at least that many years of not having to set foot on one of those flying tin cans again!"

"Tardom has a strong preference for solid ground under his feet," Aoran explained, and the urdan nodded.

That happened to coincide with the serving of the tea, so Novak raised his cup to the success.

"Congratulations!" and his voice sounded genuine.

"Thanks," Tardom nodded, accepting it as his due, took a sip, and then his face turned serious. "You can congratulate me," he said. "You can congratulate the Federation. But not Earth.

"While we were chasing the praxi across the galaxy, they had no way to replenish their resources normally, so they traded instead.

"Going by the logs, a few months back, information about Earthlings was sold to a ship heading into Clan Union space. They'd been trying to get there themselves, but couldn't slip past our blockade.

"It cost us dearly, but we bought you a bit less time than we'd hoped for."

Novak set his cup down on the table.

"So they already know?" he asked.

"Not necessarily," Tardom spread his hands. "The ship that bought the information might already have passed it along, or it might sit on it for months, waiting for a better moment to trade it on. On top of that, the Clan Union's a confederation. They might still be arguing over which clan gets to buy that intel."

"It was bound to happen sooner or later," Novak said, shrugging.

"Sooner or later, everything happens," Tardom agreed. "But what I'm actually curious about, specifically in this situation, is whether you've managed to get yourselves ready or not. Have you actually made use of the praxi and their technology, or are you still stuck at the planning stage?"

I listened and thought about how strange this whole scene would look from the outside.

Three years ago, this urdan had nearly killed me with a single breath of his own aura; now he sat in the host's chair, complaining about the plastic ceiling of his cabin, and all of it, despite the urdan's usual dose of personal aggression, or maybe even because of it, was supposed to look like warmth, friendship, progress in the relationship between Earth and the Federation.

Supposed to.

But behind the polite bows, the tea, and the jokes about a tin can in space, I could still feel that same calculating, cold logic that had governed our first meeting. Tardom hadn't come here because he'd missed the company. He'd come because he needed to see with his own eyes exactly what the Federation had spent three years of attention on, what had earned us a whole ton of forgiven resources.

He, or his superiors, needed certainty.

Not that we were grateful. Not that we were likeable allies, pleasant enough to share a cup of tea with, but whether Earth, when it actually came down to it, was capable of dealing the demons enough damage to justify every resource the Federation had poured into us, forgiven on our behalf. Three years of patience, diplomacy, the attention of people like Aoran, and god knows what else I didn't even know about.

This wasn't friendship for friendship's sake.

This was a friendship both sides were trying to squeeze more out of than they were putting in.

"Is Earth ready?" Tardom asked outright, right in step with my own thoughts.

"As ready as it's possible to be, for a people who had no idea what a warp drive or a wormhole even was a few years ago," Novak said, in no hurry to give a concrete answer.

Tardom grunted, but didn't push.

"We've got a plan called 'The Wall,'" Novak decided to pull the curtain back a little. "There are already a few military bases stationed near the wormhole, and we're preparing to meet any attack right there, rather than in Earth's orbit. There, we can just tear apart anything that comes through the wormhole, no restraint necessary. A few thousand nuclear missiles would do a number even on cultivators."

"They would," Tardom turned his cup in his thick fingers. "But what if the wall doesn't hold? What if you burn through your strength in the first few waves, and more just keep coming after them?"

"Then we've got Plan Praxi," Novak said, with a bitter smile. "Evacuating part of the population into space. Ships, routes, priority lists, all of it's already in the works."

"You'll turn into wanderers? What about evacuating into the Federation instead?"

"That means giving up sovereignty and changing citizenship," Novak noted.

"But it keeps people alive," Tardom said.

I noted to myself just how delicately that offer had come out, for an urdan. The Federation clearly wanted our people.

"We're prepared to send transport ships for an evacuation at the first signal," urdan said.

"How about sending a combat fleet instead?" Novak asked, with a smile.

The urdan stayed quiet, though his eyes didn't waver.

"Your path is your path," he said. "But think about the lives of ordinary mortals. They'll simply be wiped out. No glorious death in battle waiting for them."

"There are other plans too," Novak said. "Bigger ones, outside my authority and my clearance. I know they exist, but I don't have the details, and honestly, I'm not pushing to get them."

Tardom raised an eyebrow.

"Everyone should do what they're good at, and stay out of everyone else's way," Novak said.

"And what if it turns out these plans conflict with each other?" Tardom asked.

Novak shrugged.

"If experience is anything to go by, at the end of the day, we're all just improvising and trying to survive."