Read Online Ambassador 4: Coming Home by Patty Jansen - Free Book Online Page A

why were all those Aghyrians so tall? He towered more than a head over me.
    I gestured him to the couch, and we sat down. “How can I help you?”
    “The captain wants to know if, since it is obviously not possible to see the excavation of the old ship, it would be possible to visit other sites. He wants to see Asto, even if we’re told we can’t land on the surface. He wants to see other artefacts that are preserved in this area. He understands that there are other items preserved in a place called Miran.”
    “I am aware of all the places you need to visit. I have to beg for your patience. None of those sites are easily accessible. Many have cultural significance and belong to local people. We need their permission to bring you there.” For example, there were some incredible murals preserved from the time after the Aghyrians had landed in Barresh, but the site belonged to Pengali tribes, and held great significance for them. Many of those sites also were so well preserved because they weren’t easy to reach; in one case going there involved a dunking in ink-black water inside a cave in order to duck under a wall. I needed Pengali permission to visit places like this. Visiting Miran was on another level of complexity altogether.
    “My captain says you keep telling him the same story. He says he wants to hear a different story.”
    “I wish I could tell him something different, but unfortunately, I can’t. It will take time to arrange the permissions.”
    “Is that necessary just for a visit?”
    “It is, I’m afraid.”
    “My captain says he doesn’t see the need for all these useless rules.”
    Was he even allowed to have his own opinion or did they all have to repeat what the captain said?
    “I’m guessing there would be no need for permits on the ship.” Especially not if the vast majority of the crew was in stasis. “But we’re dealing with many different peoples and different nations. We can’t just turn up, the same way that people wouldn’t be able to visit your ship without getting your permission.”
    “Yet you turned up like that at our ship.”
    “I could not have entered the ship without your knowledge and permission.” I still didn’t think he understood the concept of borders or different people, or culture for that matter. “Look, I’ll see what I can do, but I really do have to beg for your patience.”
    “We have travelled from outside the galaxy. Do not try to teach us about patience.” He sounded miffed.
    “I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure you understood.” This wasn’t going well. One way or another, our conversations seemed to always butt up against a wall of wrong interpretations and misunderstandings. “I think we fail to understand your point of view. It’s hard for us to comprehend the vastness of the universe when we have only travelled through such a small part of it. But feel free to explain. We are eager to learn.”
    “I don’t know what there is to learn. There is a lot of empty space out there.”
    “Surely the ship jumped most of that?”
    “Most, but not all.”
    “Did you . . . find anything that wasn’t open space?” They’d been to the Andromeda galaxy, after all—what Coldi called the Renzha galaxy.
    “We found interesting things, most of them of scientific nature.”
    “Any habitable worlds?”
    “The Renzha galaxy is not a system as you would know it.” Some small part in me still hoped that he didn’t mean you to sound as condescending as it did.
    “So—what then? Gas clouds and force fields?”
    “Something like that. It is a very strange system.”
    “Surely the whole galaxy is not like that?”
    “It’s very hard to comprehend for someone who has not experienced it.”
    “Try me.”
    He gave me a penetrating, almost insulted, look. “You ask so many questions.”
    “Am I not allowed to ask questions?”
    “Where do you get all these questions?”
    “Where do I—what do you mean?”
    “When the captain says that