This hadn’t been what Roveg had in mind, and part of him wanted nothing more than to make a polite exit. But given how badly his efforts to calm himself down had failed, perhaps company would do the trick. Company, and a strong swallow of kick. ‘Why not,’ he said. ‘So long as I don’t have to talk about said thoughts.’ He sat beside her, tucking his legs beneath his abdomen.
‘I don’t want to talk about mine, either, so … we have an accord.’ She drained the cup, refilled it, and offered it to him.
He considered the curved drinking vessel, with its wide brim and strange handle. ‘I think the bottle might work better for me,’ he said. ‘That’s not quite the right shape for my mouth.’
She retracted one arm and extended the other, handing over the bottle. As she did so, sunlight fell across her scales. They were no longer merely silver, but faintly iridescent, like the skin of a soap bubble. ‘Ah, Captain,’ Roveg said warmly. So that was what was different about her. ‘Congratu—’
‘Don’t.’ The word snapped from Captain Tem’s talkbox, unhampered by delay. She shut her eyes and took a breath, and with this, her artificial voice softened. ‘Please don’t congratulate me.’
Her reaction surprised him, but he took it in stride. ‘Is that what we’re not talking about?’
‘Yes.’
‘Noted.’ He examined the bottle now held between his toes. The glass was frosted, so there was no good way to see what awaited him within, and the label was one he’d never seen before. He did, at least, recognise the alphabet. The dizzy patterns of concentric rings were unmistakably Laru. ‘What is this?’ he asked.
Captain Tem drank from her cup, and the slightest of winces appeared around her soft eyes as the beverage hit her tongue. ‘I have no idea,’ she said.
Roveg wrapped his mouth around the pour spout and gingerly took a sip. The Laru kick shot down his oesophagus like a ship on fire, tasting of ash and bitter herbs. ‘Ho!’ he said with a hoarse laugh. ‘Oh, stars, that’d strip paint. Oof.’ He turned the bottle this way and that, as though it were a scientific specimen. ‘Ouloo’s private stash, I take it?’
‘Yep.’
‘I have to admit, I would’ve thought her more of a sugarsnap fan. Or something with a big skewer of fruit stuck in it.’
‘We all have days,’ Captain Tem said. Her cheeks became dabbled with yellow and orange; Roveg recognised this as embarrassment. ‘This isn’t the way I typically deal with mine.’
‘I didn’t have the impression that it was,’ he said. He angled his head toward her in a sympathetic way. ‘But, as you said: we all have days.’
She took another sip from her cup. She did not wince this time. ‘What kind of impression do you have of me?’
Roveg’s forelegs flexed in thought. ‘Honestly?’
‘Honestly.’
Roveg took a second swig of the caustic stuff, letting it shake his thoughts loose. ‘You strike me as someone practical. Someone smart. Someone who – normally – knows how to manage her fear within the context of what I assume is a very stressful job. You hold yourself together extraordinarily well, given the circumstances.’
‘Which circumstances are those?’
‘The circumstances in which you’re a cargo runner, and your shuttle has military permit insignia stamped on the hull,’ he said. ‘I imagine that you’ve lost friends, been injured.’ He paused. ‘It’s likely you’ve killed people.’
She glanced at him. ‘Does that bother you?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Though that doesn’t mean I approve, either.’
‘Fair,’ she said. She ran her thumb over the rim of the cup. ‘The kid keeps asking me about it.’
‘Tupo?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s hardly surprising. Xe is a kid, after all. Xe doesn’t understand what xe’s asking about. Or, xe’s trying to understand, and that’s why xe won’t drop it.’
Captain Tem thought about this. ‘Do you raise your own kids? Like Ouloo does?’
‘My species, you mean? Not exactly like Ouloo does, but our children stay with their parents until adolescence, yes.’
‘I can’t imagine,’ Captain Tem said. ‘Do you have any?’
Roveg took a long pull from the bottle, letting the kick take up any space that words might inhabit. He did not reply.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Captain Tem watching him, her cheeks orange with sympathy. ‘Is that what we’re not talking about?’
Roveg looked at the bottle’s label once more. The flavour of the stuff bordered on a treaty violation, but against his will, it was growing on him. ‘I have another question for you about Humans, if I may.’
Captain Tem’s inner eyelids flicked sideways, and the orange in her cheeks subdued. She seemed to understand. ‘All right.’
Roveg looked at her with staged seriousness. ‘Waterball. Do you understand the rules?’
The Aeluon laughed, her face flooding green. ‘I actually do.’
‘Good, because I saw a game once, and all it appeared to be was a zero-G tank full of sapients tearing around in rocket boots, trying to drag a big glob of water around with sticks.’
‘I mean … that’s basically it, plus a lot of complicated bullshit tacked on.’
‘Not a fan, I take it?’
‘I’d say I have a … distant respect for it.’ She sighed, then flexed her hand toward Roveg, indicating she wanted the bottle back. He refilled her cup. ‘Okay. You have two teams of six, but only three play at a time.’
‘And they can’t touch the water with their hands, correct?’
‘Well … okay, you’re getting ahead of yourself. They can, but only under special circumstances.’
‘This is already a mess.’
‘I know. Stay with me. The object of the game is to get the waterball into the goal, which is called the bucket. It’s not actually a bucket – it’s this thing that measures the volume of the water to see how much was lost as they crossed the box. Now, the starting players are chosen as follows …’
PEI
Pei still didn’t know what Ouloo’s kick was called or what it was made of or how long they’d been drinking it, but it had to be good, given how much of it they’d knocked back. Roveg was drunk – merrily so – and Pei was well on her way there. She wasn’t sure how they’d started with waterball and ended up at colour opera, but whatever the trajectory, Pei was enjoying the ride. This Quelin was a lot of fun. She’d almost forgotten why she’d started drinking her feelings in the garden in the first place.
Almost.
Pei’s implant buzzed to the left, and she registered the clanking sound of the Akarak’s suit, in motion and headed their way. Speaker appeared moments later, coming around the corner and looking … surprised, maybe? Who knew?
‘Oh,’ Speaker said. ‘Sorry, I was looking for Roveg. I didn’t mean to disturb.’
‘Nothing to disturb,’ Pei said lightly.
‘Ah, Speaker, please join us!’ Roveg said. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve gotten a little … frivolous.’
Whatever the Akarak’s original intent had been, she seemed to discard it. ‘I think I’ll leave you to it,’ Speaker said, ‘since I can’t partake.’
‘Oh, come now,’ Roveg said, ‘we’re not that sloppy, are we? I may not be able to pour you a drink, but I assure you, I can still provide the most scintillating conversation.’
‘I’m sure.’ Speaker laughed. ‘But I really don’t want to interrupt. I’ll find you later.’
Pei’s cheeks stippled with yellow. She’d had enough of Speaker dancing around her, of couched replies and things clearly left unsaid. ‘Have I done something?’ Pei asked.
The Akarak tensed. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘Have I done something to rub you the wrong way?’ Pei asked. She wasn’t mad. She didn’t care what Speaker thought of her one way or the other, and she wasn’t looking to pick a fight. She was simply asking a question. ‘It’s fine if you don’t like me, I
just can’t figure out why.’
Speaker cocked her head. ‘I don’t know you well enough to dislike you,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ Pei said. That was an answer she could respect, but it didn’t satisfy the question. ‘So what did I do?’
‘You didn’t do anything.’
‘So you just don’t like my species, then? Or what?’
‘Captain,’ Roveg said.
‘I’m not upset about it,’ Pei said. ‘I just want to know.’
Speaker placed her hands in her lap and folded them together. ‘You really want me to answer this?’ Speaker said.
‘Yes,’ Pei said. She really did.
Sounds did not resonate with Pei the way they did with other species, but all the same, there could be no mistake that every syllable hitting her implant was delivered with the quiet accuracy of someone choosing her words with care. ‘I don’t know you,’ Speaker said. ‘And I like Aeluons the same as any species.’ She paused, gathering herself. ‘What I don’t like is your job. And if that has bled into my interactions with you, then I apolo—’
‘What about my job?’ Pei asked. The yellow darkened.
‘The … spheres in which you operate. I …’ Speaker clicked her beak and inhaled. ‘I believe you and I have differing opinions on the Rosk war. That’s all.’
Roveg laughed at this. ‘You should’ve been a diplomat,’ he said. ‘Or a parliamentarian.’
Speaker did not laugh. ‘I’m good where I am,’ she said with glacial calm.
Pei’s eyes narrowed. She hadn’t cared what Speaker thought of her before, but now she did. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re … you’re kidding, right? Do you have any idea what’s happening out there?’
‘Not as well as you, I’m sure,’ Speaker said.
‘They’re bombing civilians,’ Pei said. ‘Whole settlements, from orbit. What possible opinion could be had about that?’
Speaker opened her palms upward in a crass approximation of what an Aeluon would do if they were trying to back down. ‘Captain, I—’
‘No, really, I want to know.’ Pei was not going to back down, and was not about to let Speaker do the same. Speaker hadn’t seen what Pei had seen. She hadn’t seen the limbs, the char, the craters where towns once stood. Differing opinions. Pei had carried the gory corpse of her crewmate – her friend – out of an alleyway on what should’ve been a safe world because of differing opinions. She’d spent two days cleaning out her mine-riddled ship – her home – because of differing opinions. No, she wouldn’t stand for this. Her cheeks seethed purple, and it had nothing to do with the kick or the hormones. This whole turn had started because Pei had wondered if she’d somehow insulted Speaker, but now the opposite was true. Even on her best days, she would not let this slide.
‘I don’t agree with what the Rosk are doing to the Aeluon civilians,’ Speaker said. Her words remained obnoxiously placid. ‘It’s horrific. I’m not arguing that. But I do think, simultaneously, that it’s worth asking why they’re doing it.’
The limbs. The char. The craters. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does. Nobody bombs civilians from orbit without cause. My understanding of the situation is that the Rosk believe planetary colonisation is abhorrent, and they’ll do anything to stop it from happening in their territory.’
The purple deepened to the cusp of black. ‘We’re not in their fucking territory. They can do – or not do – anything they want on their side of the map.’
‘Yes,’ Speaker said. ‘But who drew the map?’
Roveg sighed softly from where he sat between them. ‘Oh, stars,’ he said to himself, and took a hefty drink.
SPEAKER
If the Aeluon wanted to make Speaker angry, she was doing a fantastic job of it. Speaker was trying to keep her head cool, she really was. She didn’t want to fight, and she wasn’t at all comfortable doing so with a species outside of her own, but for fuck’s sake, Captain Tem had asked. What was the point of asking for an honest answer if you didn’t want to hear it?
Captain Tem slammed her cup down in the grass, the kick inside sloshing over the edge. ‘The colonies my government are protecting are at the border,’ she said. ‘Not across the border. At it. If the Rosk don’t want to settle off of their own planet, fine. They do not get to dictate what happens in the systems next door. And even if they did, murdering people would not be the answer.’
‘I’m not saying it is,’ Speaker said. Calm, calm, she told herself. Be the reasonable voice. ‘But you – your government – is murdering them in response, and I’m sorry, but I can’t accept a lesser evil for the sake of it being lesser.’
Captain Tem glared. ‘Your people kill people, too. You can’t tell me that’s not for the sake of your own interests.’
‘And I wouldn’t. I don’t agree with them, either. But I do understand why. I sympathise with the reasoning even if I disagree with the action taken. And in that, I can simultaneously feel sympathy for the Aeluon settlers and for the Rosk who don’t want them there. Who I don’t feel sympathy for are … well, the people killing over it. On either side.’
‘Could we perhaps—’ Roveg started.
‘What else are we supposed to do?’ Captain Tem said over him. ‘They won’t negotiate. They won’t compromise. They won’t listen to anything else.’
‘Did you ever consider leaving?’ Speaker asked. ‘Do you need yet another planet so desperately?’
‘It’s their home,’ Captain Tem said.
‘No,’ Speaker said. ‘Sohep Frie is your home.’
‘Sohep Frie nearly wiped us out. You know this, right? You seem to know a lot.’
Speaker bristled, but let it go. ‘You had a population crash of some sort in your pre-spaceflight era. But I don’t know the details, no.’
‘The details boil down to a lot of fucking volcanoes, all of which popped off at once and killed almost everybody. It’s the greatest luck in the universe that we’re not extinct. That’s why we built our first ships and went in search of other planets, so we wouldn’t be tied to the fate of just one.’
‘Stars, that is lucky,’ Speaker said flatly. ‘That would be a terrible way to end up.’
The sound of Captain Tem’s talkbox came out distorted around the edges, a sign that its operator was punching thoughts through it. ‘We’re not like the Harmagians were,’ she said. ‘We were never like the Harmagians. The Rosk border – nobody was on those planets, when people settled them. There was nothing sapient there. We’ve never taken a world from someone, not once.’ She stared as though Speaker had lost her mind. ‘You know we stopped the Harmagians, right? Back in the day? You know the whole reason you’re free of them is because of us, right?’
That was it. The last load-bearing support in Speaker snapped, and there was no chance of hoisting it back up. ‘How dare you,’ she said.
‘Speaker—’ Roveg interjected.
‘No,’ Speaker said. Her voice shook, and she could not find a way to make it stop. ‘No. How fucking dare you. You think I’m talking about history. You think I’m talking about something that’s over. You think that because you have your accords and your treaties and your fucking licences, you can keep doing the same shit as always with a clear conscience. Oh, yes, it’s all so civilised.’ She heard the words leaving her mouth, and she was afraid – afraid of what this angry alien might do, afraid of getting into trouble, afraid of all the unpleasant situations she’d spent her whole life teaching herself to avoid. But stars, it felt good to just say what she wanted to say, and she had no intention of putting the lid back on this box, not now. ‘Just because there’s no one living on a planet does not mean it’s yours for the taking. Do you not see how dangerous that mindset is? Do you not think that treating the galaxy as if it is something to be endlessly used will always, always end in tragedy? You think you’ve broken the cycle. You haven’t. You’re in a less violent period of the exact same cycle, and you don’t see it. And the line of what you find to be justifiable c
ause is going to keep slipping and slipping until you end up right back where you started. You haven’t fixed anything. You put a stamp and a permit and a shiny coat of paint on an idea that has been fundamentally damaged from day one. You engaged in bloody theft and you called it progress, and no matter how much better you think you’ve made things, no matter how good your intentions are, that will always be the root of the GC. You cannot divorce any of what you do from that. Ever.’
‘So, what?’ Captain Tem said. ‘We’re all supposed to pack up and go back to our homeworlds? Now isn’t that a fucked idea. No more mixing, no more learning from each other. Each species to themselves.’
‘That’s not what I’m saying.’
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying stop expanding, stop going places where you’re not invited, and stop treating the galaxy like a free-for-all. You’ve gone far enough. You’re no longer in a bottleneck. There’s no reason for you to keep doing this. It can only end badly.’
The Aeluon flicked her eyelids sideways. ‘You’re talking about things you do not understand.’
‘If I am, then so are you. And the fact that you don’t see that about yourself is why I’ve decided I don’t like you, Captain Tem.’ Speaker took a breath, squared her shoulders, and unclenched her fists. She looked at Roveg, who she hoped was still a friend. ‘I’m sorry we spoiled your afternoon,’ she said to him. She pushed controls and turned her suit around, intending to leave.
Instead, she found herself facing Ouloo and Tupo, each holding a tray of cakes.
ROVEG
Roveg had never been happier to see a pair of Laru offering dessert.
He was too drunk for this. Whatever it was Ouloo had given Pei, it had melted his brain, and he had neither head nor heart for a conversation of this sort. He did not want the galaxy to be a mess, but he didn’t want to talk about it, either. He had problems enough without arguing over ones that he could not solve. The only solution he wanted was one for his own mess, and if he couldn’t have that, he wanted to forget about it for a while. And since that was apparently out of the question as well, then if nothing else, he wanted some of that cake.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Page 19