Brokering Trust - Hetero Edition

It had something comparable to a pronounced waist that was about as narrow as his thigh, tapering into a chest and shoulders that also appeared small and dainty. Its torso was smooth and featureless, save for a subtle indent that ran down what he could only describe as its belly. Instead of arms, it had four more tentacles that were different from those it was resting upon, each one ending in a leaf-like shape that reminded him of a squid. Were those its hands? The limbs curled through the water like rubber hoses, seeming to lack any bones or supporting structures.

Higher still was a slender neck that supported a large, bulbous head. Like the mantle of an octopus, it was longer than a human skull, the light reflecting off smooth skin that was patterned with more burgundy mottling. Wrapping around its head was a thin frill of skin that resembled the wings of a cuttlefish, a gentle wave passing through the structure, its surface patterned with vibrant blue and orange tiger stripes.

It was a mesmerizing display that drew his gaze to its face, where he was met with a pair of large, expressive eyes that were ringed with little frills resembling lashes. Black pupils stood out against the white sclera, horizontal in shape and larger at either end - clearly eyes evolved to see through water. It had a pair of prominent lips where a human's mouth would have been, and the way that its mantle tapered down between its eyes gave the appearance of a nose. Maybe it was simple pareidolia talking - his mind searching for familiar shapes - but there was something about it that put him more at ease. The thing was cute - almost ethereal.

As it turned in the water to face him, limbs floating behind it serenely, he saw more strange appendages. It had another six smaller tentacles arranged around its face, coming down from beneath its mantle almost like dreadlocks, and they were tipped with little suckers. A thin membrane of skin was stretched between them - one on each side - trailing behind the alien like two halves of a cape that reached almost to the ground. When it raised those face-tentacles, the blanket flared out, revealing breathtaking colors and patterning as it billowed in the water. The colors faded from a rich orange near the creature's face to a cold blue, flowing stripes running along the length of the structures. Like a monarch butterfly, they were dominated by a pair of massive, orange eye spots.

It spoke, its lips moving, a clicking sound like two pieces of flint being struck together emanating from it. It was joined by high-pitched whistles and low, thudding pulses, the sound reminding him of dolphin song. There was more clicking, like it was trying to communicate in Morse code, then the alien paused.

Using one of its leaf-shaped hands, it reached for its neck, where it wore a thin band that looked like a choker. There was some kind of device enclosed in a small, white capsule attached to it, the alien giving it a tap.

"Do you understand me now?" it asked. He could still hear the clicking, whistling song in the background, but a distinctly feminine voice now filled his helmet. This wasn't the cold, robotic synthesis of the proxy suit and the ship's pilot - it was flowing and natural, with all of the right inflections. It...she, sounded like a young woman. Did Brokers even have genders? Was the voice a deliberate choice or merely coincidental?

"Y-yes," he replied, still dumbfounded by the bizarre sight before him.

All this time, those robotic proxies had been housing living, breathing Brokers. Every time they had left their system - every Security Council meeting attended by one of their representatives on the Pinwheel, they had been separated by only a few inches of metal. This alien stood a head shorter than he was - at least in this posture - and she had a diminutive build small enough to cram herself inside the proxy. Like an octopus squeezing itself into a bottle, perhaps they enjoyed confined spaces.

The other species of the Coalition were alien, but they were at least humanoid. Borealans, Valbarans, Krell - even the insectoid Jarilans had an ostensibly human body plan if one was willing to discount the extra pair of arms. This was...something else.

"You must carry your luggage from here," she added, gesturing to his cases with one of her tentacle arms. "It is too heavy for me without my exoskeleton."

"The suit, you mean?" David asked. "Is that the only way you can venture onto land? Is that what they're for?"

"No," she replied, not elaborating further. "Come - you are expected."

"Whoa, whoa," David said as he raised his hands to stop her. "This is a historic moment. A human has never seen a Broker face to face before - don't you want to...I don't know, say something? Are we really just going to rush past this like it's nothing?"

"You are not a novelty to me," she replied. Her tone was neutral - matter-of-fact, as though she was just going through the motions. "I have studied your species extensively as part of my assignment."

"I can't say the same!" he protested, unwilling to mask his annoyance. "I'm supposed to be making history here - this is the first meeting between our species without one of those robots acting as an intermediary. Will you at least tell me more about yourself and your species?"

David balked as the tone of her skin suddenly shifted - her burgundy coloration darkening and her tiger stripes taking on a yellow hue, enhancing their contrast. Those shimmering speckles that he had seen weren't scales, they were chromatophores - pigmented cells that could be controlled using muscle groups to change their color and reflectivity. The texture of her glistening skin changed along with it, taking on a rougher, almost prickly appearance. Like a cuttlefish or an octopus, she must have some level of conscious control over them, or perhaps this was a form of alien body language used to signal emotion.

"There will be ample time for that later," she replied tersely. "Please follow me, or we will be late."

She turned, those incredible blankets fanning out behind her, and she made her way over to a nearby door. Her gait was that of an octopus walking on the sea floor, a dozen tentacles all working in tandem to make her glide along the floor, their coordination fascinating him. The suckers seemed to give her more purchase, the little cups sticking to the flat deck beneath them. Her upper body remained paradoxically still, the two colorful membranes trailing behind her.

Now that her back was to him, he could make out some subtle musculature and something that almost looked like shoulder blades. Maybe the Brokers weren't completely boneless? There were also two vents beneath her mantle - about where the ears on a human would have been - the orifices expanding and contracting as they appeared to cycle water. Was that how she breathed?

There was a control panel beside the door, and she lay her leaf-shaped hand over it, using her suckers to interact with it in the way that a human would have used their fingers. The door slid open, and beyond, David saw a long tube made from a transparent material. It curved down and out of view, leading into deeper water beyond the shelf created by the reefs.

He lifted his cases, and seeing that he was cooperating, the Broker's coloration returned to its usual shade of burgundy. Perhaps she wasn't being forthcoming, but others might be, and he got the feeling that he'd be staying on the planet for a good while. Her task might just be to bring him to whoever was going to brief him.

She scuttled into the tube, and he followed after her, the panel sliding shut to seal them inside. Now, he could see the path ahead curving down into the darkness below, going straight off an underwater cliff like some kind of nightmarish water park attraction. It was too murky for him to make out any details beyond a hundred meters or so.

"Figured we might be taking one of the trucks," he muttered. "I wasn't joking about these new boots, you know..."

CHAPTER 3: THALASSOPHOBIA

A sudden rush of water lifted him off his feet, David flailing reflexively, the Broker having to lean away to avoid being clocked by one of his cases.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, her hue darkening again. "Be still and let the current carry you."

She splayed out her tentacles to stabilize herself in the water as the flow began to carry her away. David only had four limbs, and he settled on an awkward reclining posture that at least prevented him from being turned end over end. He expected to shoot down the tube like a bullet, but the current was relatively gentle, pushing them along at a little more than walking speed. The curving tunnel carried them down, the rate and pressure such that there was little chance of him being dashed against the glass. The Broker turned in place, looking back at him with an expression that he could only interpret as disapproval as he floundered.

His limbic system blared more protests as he coasted deeper, the dappled light that reflected on the ocean's surface diminishing as twilight enveloped the pipe. The instinctual fear of dark, open water was hard to suppress, but he kept reminding himself that he was protected behind the glass. Like falling off a cliff in slow motion, the sheer rock face scrolled past behind him, the corals and sponges thinning out as less light was able to reach them. They must be in the mesopelagic zone now - some four or five hundred meters below the surface.

As the pipe began to level out somewhat, the slope becoming less pronounced, he concluded that they weren't heading to the ocean floor proper just yet. It was more likely that they were still on the raised shelf surrounding the island chain - the foothills, if one was to imagine that the islands were the peaks of an underwater mountain range.

While the visibility was only getting worse the deeper they went, he found that he could make out more features now. The tube had support rings that were spaced out at intervals, and they emitted a soft glow, providing enough light to illuminate their immediate surroundings. Across the barren, rocky terrain, David could make out more such tubes some distance away. They emitted a similar glow, snaking their way up and down the slope like an underwater highway system. There were other opaque tubes and insulated cables that were likely carrying power and other resources to and from the island, the Broker civilization spanning from the shore to the seabed.

As they coasted along, he spotted some kind of bulky ROV hovering over an adjacent pipe, a set of extensible manipulator arms reaching out to repair the structure. It looked something like one of the crabs he had seen in the reefs above, its white hull rounded and streamlined, and there was a cluster of cameras on its front face. It was clinging to the pipe with a set of six mechanical legs, bright blue flashes lighting it up as it operated a welding tool. It must be another drone. He watched as it lifted off, its spindly arms and legs folding neatly into compartments beneath its belly, coasting away with no visible form of propulsion.

More lights appeared in the distance, their glow cutting through the gloom, and David was treated to yet another breathtaking vista.

Ahead of them was an underwater city - not merely a collection of small structures and domes, but towering buildings that rose a hundred stories from the sediment. They were cylindrical in shape with flat tops reminiscent of giant vases, and they were covered in innumerable windows. In a way, they somewhat resembled some of the tubular corals that he had seen in shallower water, as they appeared to have a hollow aperture at their apex like a chimney. Though, there was nothing about their texture or color that suggested the resemblance was intentional. They were made from the same white, porous material as everything else, and they were too deep to serve as habitats for corals.

There must have been a dozen of them, and that was just what he could make out, the light that bled from the windows of each one illuminating its immediate neighbors. They were linked by tubes that formed walkways between them, tying them all together into a single dense, contiguous network. It wasn't too unlike the kilometer-tall skyscrapers of Earth's cities, where it was more convenient to link buildings above street level using bridges and maglev systems rather than taking a trip to street level and back.

David had seen sunken cities off the coast of the United States, where rising sea levels had swallowed entire neighborhoods, the husks of buildings now playing host to sea life. There were underwater museums there now, where tourists could walk along the sea floor and view the ruins, and the sight dredged up old memories of past visits. The sheer scale of everything was a little intimidating when coupled with the limited visibility of the dark water, making the cityscape look like a pod of sleeping sperm whales. There was more infrastructure occupying the sea floor between them - a carpet of machinery and cables dense enough that it resembled the tangled roots of a forest floor.

The Broker didn't even react - this was as normal to her as seeing the Toronto skyline was to him, and she seemed to show no interest in how he was reacting. If she was supposed to be his guide, then she was doing a poor job of it.

Following the contours of the sea bed, the pipe carried them down towards the city, one of the towers looming larger and larger as they neared. While it wasn't as tall and lacked the enormous footprint of some human structures, it still looked big enough to have housed tens of thousands of people, if indeed it was intended to be some kind of apartment block. David craned his neck as they approached, seeing the building's facade rise up above him, then the pair coasted inside.

The flow of water slowed as they emerged into a kind of terminal, the tube branching off in several places to allow the passengers to exit, while the main pipe continued deeper into the structure. Apparently, getting off at the correct stop was done manually, the Broker swimming through the water with a push from her tentacles. She had neglected to inform David of that fact, and he coasted past, completely oblivious. The alien noticed in time, and he felt one of her four arms reach out to grab him, the rubbery appendage coiling around his wrist. For something that looked so flexible and gelatinous, it was surprisingly strong, firm muscle flowing beneath the colorful skin like a liquid. He could feel the suckers latching onto his suit, the Broker pulling him back out through the correct tube, the water flowing slowly enough that it wasn't much of a struggle.

He was deposited on the floor outside, glancing around the terminal. Just like every other structure he'd been inside, the walls were matte white, and all of the edges were rounded. He'd only been on the planet for about an hour, and he was already starved of visual stimulation. A potted plant, a piece of wall art - anything to break up the monotonous white. He noted that there was a gentle current, not nearly as strong as the one that had carried them down here, but enough to ruffle the Broker's blankets. It was noticeably warmer here than it had been in the pipe, too. Maybe it was some kind of filtration and heating system - like the Broker equivalent of A/C. They would have to cycle in clean oxygenated water in a closed environment like this one.

"Where are we?" David asked, walking in slow motion. The room was about as large as a subway station, but it was deserted. There wasn't another soul in sight. Lining the far wall were several doors that must lead deeper into the building, each one marked with Broker text.

"Administration," the Broker replied. "You have an appointment."

"I do? Good to know!"

The alien's chromatophores darkened again, providing further evidence that it was a sign of displeasure, her stripes standing out prominently against her skin.

"You know, I was kind of expecting more fanfare," he added as he followed behind her. "Maybe not a red carpet, but a little media attention, maybe an entourage waiting to welcome me to the city. Shouldn't this be a bigger deal? After all, am I not the first human to ever set foot on a Broker planet?"

"You will soon be meeting with the administrator and the head staff," she replied, lifting a hand to interact with one of the door panels.

"Are they...important?" David inquired. "They sound important."

The door slid open, and they proceeded through another corridor. This one finally had a little visual interest rather than just sterile white metal. The entire length of the left wall was taken up by a long fish tank filled with colorful corals, a UV light bathing the artificial reef to give it a violet hue. There were schools of fish swimming along, their bodies making an odd, undulating pattern as they used their frills to propel themselves through the water. It struck him as odd that they would need aquariums underwater, but he surmised that the conditions within the tank were very different from those in the building. Not only that, but polyps, spores, and escaped fish could make a hell of a mess in an inhabited area. They'd have tube worms growing in the ventilation system within a week.

The right wall was covered in more Broker text, square symbols of various colors and sizes adorning what looked like a map of the building, or maybe of the tube system. It bore a close resemblance to a subway map - something familiar enough to be recognizable.

They emerged into some kind of reception area - a crescent-shaped room that hugged another large fish tank, something akin to moon jellies floating serenely up and down its tubular length. There was a desk in front of it that extended from the floor, and sitting behind the glowing displays was something that gave David pause. It was some kind of robot with a long, rounded head that seemed to be a facsimile of a Broker's mantle, a pair of large, dark eyes peering back at the pair. Its chassis was completely smooth, with no other facial features, made from the white material that he had come to expect. Like the exoskeleton that his guide had ridden in, it had four hose-like arms made from segments of chrome metal, each one tipped with a leaf-shaped hand.

His companion made her way over to the desk and had a short exchange with it in her clicking, whistling language, only one side of which was translated for his benefit. It was a secretary of some kind, clearly automated, the machine checking its displays briefly before directing her to a side door.

David marveled at the fluidity of its movements. If it was operating on some kind of program or neural net, then it was an advanced one. It couldn't be AI, surely. Humanity had not yet succeeded in creating a sentient machine, and he doubted very much whether the Brokers had either. As far as he knew, their drones were simply running on algorithms - albeit complex ones. What could a people who had achieved so much need of him? He might be an expert in his field, but he must be one or two centuries behind the Brokers, at least.

His guide did as the mechanical secretary directed, David hurrying a little to catch up as she led him through yet another corridor.

"What was that?" he demanded. "That was another drone, right? Like the trucks and the repair bot we saw on the way in?"

"It is an interface device intended to relay messages and orient visitors," she explained, keeping her eyes ahead. "Yes, it is automated."

"A robot secretary," he marveled. "So, it's like a virtual assistant, but more advanced? Tell me - why give it a physical body? Why not a simple kiosk with a map? Why not just have a computer with a speech synthesizer? You seem to be in no shortage of those."