She had a point, because the next one formed on Molly’s lips, like a reflex: “What are they keeping us from?”
“Not keeping, Mollie. Protecting.”
“Fine,” she said. “What are they protecting?”
“Us.”
••••
“My grandfather served on this Circle for two full cycles,” Counselor Yur said from the Light of Speak. “He was adamant about the danger posed by the existence of Humans. Even when the first signs of the so-called prophecy came to light, he recognized this as mere coincidence. People finding what they sought. It’s increasingly clear that my grandfather was correct. The existence of a race of people with such incredible resemblance to the Bern makes it impossible to perform our duty of policing this galaxy. We have allowed a dangerous forest to grow as we try to guard against individual trees.
“The decision is not an easy one, I agree. It never should be easy to wipe out an entire species. But when not doing so will lead to many thousands of races going extinct, the choice is much simpler. I will be voting, as I always have, for the extermination of the Humans. The argument that we cannot guard the Great Rift while also launching an offensive against their fleets ignores our success at holding this arm of our galaxy while doing the same. Our Navy is more than up to the challenge of warring on both fronts.
“I defer the rest of my time and give up the Center to my good friend Counselor Bodi.”
Yur bowed slightly, turned around, bowed again, then headed for the wooden bridge. He had not chosen to address any of the other Counselors and give them a chance to speak, a tactic that would not win him any favor. However, his arguments had been heard before and were unlikely to sway anyone on the Circle. Bodi, and others who planned to change their vote for war, represented the new wind. They were the ones etching away at canyon walls from unexpected directions—eroding new paths for Drenards to walk.
Anlyn watched her ex-fiancé take the Center of Speak for the second time. He refrained from looking at her, probably fearing she’d usurp him again. As much a bumbling fool as he could be, as thorough as he was at discovering and making mistakes, he rarely repeated them.
“Thank you, Counselor Yur, for the remainder of your time.” Bodi bowed in his direction before turning to face the largest concentration of Human sympathizers. “Fellow Counselors,” he began, “as I was saying just a few hours ago, our duty to this galaxy is being forgotten.”
Several Counselors stiffened at this accusation, the remembrance of duty being one of the five Great Virtues of any good Drenard citizen. Bodi let the insult hang in the air before continuing. He placed one of his pale blue hands on his own chest, fingers splayed out across the colorful regalia on his tunic.
“I am also to blame,” he said. “And the lapse is easy to forgive once it is understood. There is an inherent tension between two of the Great Virtues: remembering our duty to protect the galaxy and remembering our duty to our neighbors. For too long, we have placed the latter virtue ahead of the former. We have tried to balance both, living on the fine line that exists between them, but I fear our grip on the scales is slipping. We have put the entire galaxy in danger in order to protect the Humans.”
Anlyn cringed from the mixture of metaphors. She couldn’t understand what her father had seen in this man.
“And what have the Humans done? Despite numerous envoys who have assured them complete freedom in the rest of the galaxy, they demand to know what lies in our corner. They attack, and their reason for attacking again is that we have defended ourselves. Upheld one of our Virtues.
“I respect our forgiving nature. I do not call for us to live in the full sunlight of war, but neither do I think we should move to the dark and allow ourselves to freeze due to the coldness of our compassion.
“We are a race born on the edge, squeezed on either side by two different dangers, and that is where we find ourselves today. Perhaps that is why we have grown too comfortable with the fire of Humans on the one side and the black hole in space that we defend on the other.
“The vote has always been one of holding this line with the Humans or of pushing out to extinguish them. I find this decision to be untenable. There is an alternative that has been discussed much in the past but soundly rejected—even by myself.”
He paused and scanned the crowd, lifting his arms and splaying his stolen tunics for effect. “We should tell the Humans about the Bern threat,” he said. “We should let them look amongst themselves for signs of infiltration. The vote I submit to the Circle today is this: either we tell the Humans about the Great Rift, and the nature of the Bern Empire, or we whittle their numbers down until the Bern can no longer hide among them.”
“Second,” cried Yur.
The Drenard beside him nodded. “Third,” he said.
Anlyn froze, disbelieving. Five more Counselors cast their votes, putting the decision—if such a biased dichotomy could even be considered a “decision”—before the Circle.
Bodi had just succeeded in changing the nature of the vote. No longer would it be between war and peace; rather, it would be between a massacre they controlled or a rebellion they fomented.
Anlyn reached over and groped for Edison’s hand, her plan unraveling before her eyes. The decision would now come before the end of the day.
And either way, it would spell the end of the Humans.
••••
“They’re killing us to protect us? That’s crap, Mom. What are they really hiding?”
“Sweetheart, the universe is bigger than you know—”
“No more riddles, Mom. And you have seven minutes before I go look for Cole.”
“No riddles, just facts.”
It was eerie for Molly to hear an artificial voice fighting to remain calm, but that’s what her mother seemed to be doing.
“Humans have had a hard time accepting changes in scope,” Parsona said. “First, realizing the Earth was round, then that the stars are more suns, finally that the nebulae were entire galaxies. In many ways, being the dominant technological race in our galaxy has been a detriment to our growth, not the boon that we are—”
“Six minutes, Mom, and you still haven’t told me anything.”
“Our entire galaxy is at risk, Mollie. And other galaxies. All at risk of being invaded and completely taken over by a force of evil you can’t comprehend. They are known to many other races, the Drenards included, as the Bern. They control most of the universe, perhaps all except the Local Group. For many years, they’ve been trying to invade and add us to their territory. The Drenards guard the hole in the Milky Way through which the Bern have been trying to enter—”
“Then why not just tell us this? Why keep it a secret?”
“Because the truth is, and this is something I shouldn’t tell you: the Bern look a lot like humans. Or vice versa. We’re almost identical to them. Now, can you imagine the witch hunt if this were common knowledge? It would tear us apart quicker than the Drenards could. Besides, there’s a good chance the Navy is riddled with them, that the Navy is being run by people without our best interests—”
“Byrne,” Molly muttered to herself, the pieces falling in place.
“Mollie. Where have you heard that name? Tell me this instant.”
“He was on Dakura. He was in your—in the other Parsona’s head. He came for me, Mom. Had me tied up in his ship . . . ”
The Wadi flicked out her tongue, jumped from the dresser to the bunk, and ran up to Molly’s chest.
“That’s why we were fleeing Dakura, why we had that other ship airlocked to you. I’m sorry, but there wasn’t any time to tell you—”
“Where is he now?” Parsona asked.
“Was he a Bern?” Molly thought about him standing in the hangar, smiling in the vacuum of space.
“Yes, one of the very worst kind. Do you know where he is? Did he talk to—did he get a chance to talk to the other Parsona?”
“Yeah. Oh, Mom, they had me strapped to a dentist chair, there was nothing I could—”
“It’s okay. It’s fine. We need to get to Lok, sweetheart.”
“Yeah. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m reading too much into those bands. Cole’s probably gonna get there before me and start to worry.”
Molly stopped petting the Wadi and glanced at the clock by her bed.
“Drenards,” she said. “We shoulda jumped out of here two minutes ago.”
She threw the pillow aside and ran toward the cockpit.
••••
Anlyn sank in her seat as Lord Vahi cast his vote for war. She and Edison hadn’t voted yet, and it wouldn’t even matter. Not that there had been a viable option, but her choice to abstain would have meant something different before the subject was already decided. Any formal complaint would now be registered as indecision.
The cooing in the crowd grew, nearly drowning out Lord Yesher’s vote. Several Counselors slapped the table for order. The Counterclockwise door flung open, and several spectators from the balcony spilled out to relay the news. Others took this as a sign that the proceedings were over and began pushing their way to the aisles.
They were hoping to get out before a throng formed.
But they just became the throng.
Two more Counselors cast a vote for Bodi, becoming part of another mob, one protecting its political legacy by moving with the crowd. The member beside Edison voted the same and had the audacity to stand, preparing to race out after votes from the least senior members. The entire Pinnacle thrummed in anticipation. Males felt an urge to return home to families and prepare for the next step, the step the Circle had voted for:
War.
Edison growled “Abstain,” but nobody heard. Only the Keeper of Time seemed to notice, moving the Light of Turn to Anlyn.
She stared at the circle of sunlight on the marble before her. Her peripheral vision vibrated with movement. The balcony doors opened and shut like organ valves, pumping hysteria into the streets and throughout the city. The noise had become a persistent roar, a growling fervor.
“Minority Position,” Anlyn said to herself.
Louder: “Minority Position.”
The Keeper of Time mistook her moving lips and ushered the Light of Turn onward, ending her chance to speak.
Anlyn watched the spot move away, a shock of resignation coursing through her. She rebelled against it. Wouldn’t stand for it. She stood up in her chair, jumped to the top of the table, and grabbed Edison’s lance. Fumbling with the switches, she wished she’d paid more attention to his demonstration. Several Counselors scrambled for her, ready to pull her down. Edison pushed them back as several Drenards in blue scrambled down the aisles, wading through the frantic crowd.
“I invoke Minority Position!” Anlyn yelled, as loud as she could. She rested the butt of the large lance on the table, ducked her head, and pulled the trigger.
The tip of the lance erupted in a shower of light. Dozens of hues pulsed out in a spray of pyrotechnics, the charged plasma deflected by prismatic filters into harmless sparks of fire. The blossom radiated upward, arcing to the ceiling, bouncing off and exploding into even smaller slivers of flame.
Anlyn covered her head to protect it from the shower and squeezed the trigger all the way. The lance hummed, casting out Edison’s favorite note at 349.229 hertz. It was “F” below middle C. The precise sound wave that creates supernovas, vibrating out from the core of collapsing stars and throwing entire solar systems apart.
It was the note of nebulas. The sound of destruction and creation.
Those that remained in the Pinnacle froze, including the Counselors and the guards. They shielded their eyes, but couldn’t turn away. Thousands of tiny bones, deep in hearing canals, resonated with the pure note, that lone chord of the cosmos.
Anlyn released the trigger and stood upright in the remnants of the plasma falling to the floor.
“I invoke Minority Position,” she said, loud and confident. “I vote for telling the humans about the Bern threat, and I demand to give voice to the dissenters.”
She looked down at Edison, needing another dissenter, an abstainer to change his vote.
“I second,” he said.
The few that had not voted for war early on threw in their assent. The Keeper of Time, gathering his wits from the control booth, returned the Light of Turn to Anlyn.
The Light of Speak, meanwhile, stood empty in the center of the Circle. Throughout the beam, a shower of fine ash could be seen descending from the ceiling. The spectators that had not yet fled into the Apex stopped. They watched Anlyn.
And waited.
35
It was nighttime on the frontier side of Lok. Molly brought her ship down through the atmosphere, descending toward the darkness of her abandoned, childhood village. She leaned forward to get a better visual through the carboglass, disturbing the Wadi in her lap. It flicked its tail, claws skittering on the polished plate that moments ago had held Molly’s leftover lasagna.
SEE?_ Her mother typed.
Molly checked the SADAR; a ship the size of a Firehawk sat right outside the commons. Cole had beaten her there. She didn’t take her hands off the flight controls to respond to her mother, but she thought about the red band in her chest pocket, considered popping off her helmet to try it out, to see if she could contact him. Instead, she focused on a soft arrival, pointing her thrusters away from the other ship and using the old commons as a landing pad.
Parsona settled to the dew-covered grass. Her belly opened, the cargo hatch lowering to the soft soil.
Molly popped her helmet off and set it on the rack. “Don’t touch anything,” she told Walter. “I’ll be right back.” She stroked the Wadi on the head and moved the creature from her lap to the back of the chair. Peering into her water bowl, she made sure it was topped up, then headed through the bowels of her ship and out into the crisp night.
