by Mark Henwick
“The ones that died after their early successes in the Frontier suggest it’s not a cycle,” Shohwa says.
“But they might be a gestalt entity?” Xing suggests, his eyes glancing at the far wall. “Like the Dowreth? Individuals are expendable.”
“Possibly, but that’s not addressing the core of the question,” Shohwa says, and highlights again the graphic representation of the progress of the Hajnal with a timeline. “There is a direction and a purpose in that movement.”
“To weaken humanity,” Raul says. “To cripple planets within the Inner Worlds, and panic others. To destroy us, and if that didn’t quite fully succeed, to soften us up for an attack.”
“I think Raul has the key,” Shohwa says. “I believe the microorganisms are evidence of a sophisticated biological weapon designed by an alien race to exploit the political weakness evident in the haphazard colonization of planets. The Dowreth’s analysis is that the destabilization of Inner Worlds would have been sufficient for humanity to destroy itself under the pressure of the next Expansion.”
They’ve all accessed the analyses. No Self-Actuated Entity full understands the data projection processes of the Dowreth in ‘large’ problems, but no one doubts their abilities.
“Our best projections suggest the next Expansion might not happen for a hundred years,” Xing says. “Is this really some external entity’s plan that would run for over a hundred and fifty years?”
Shohwa shrugs. “Our concept of the passage of time need not be universal. Or the impact of the Hajnal succeeding on Inner Worlds might precipitate the Expansion earlier.”
There’s a long silence as they each measure the implications of the data and analyses they share.
Finally, Xing asks the question they’re all wondering about: “And now we’ve stopped it... what happens next?”
They’re all staring at the same information: lists of possible attacks—biological and physical, with details and estimates of probability, each with a selection of plans for defense.
But it’s clear there isn’t enough information.
There is a flood of frustrated sensations from the Dowreth, gradually tapering away to nothing.
“We don’t know,” Shohwa says, eyes bleak and focused far beyond the confines of the ship.
A chill passes through Hwa.
We will have to find out.
Chapter 72
Zara
My first day off, and it’s been a good one to take.
I’m sitting on a windsurf board, about a kilometer off the beach, which itself is twenty kilometers from Iruña, with the sail down in the water. I have a lovely ache in my muscles that is going to be agonizing tomorrow.
There’s been far too much office work over the last couple of months.
Morgen’s sitting on her board a few meters away. We’re watching my husband racing with my daughters. Rhos and Alexis’ shrieks of joy carry over the water. Bleyd is grinning like a maniac. He’s determined to win, the spoilsport. He’s good, but if truth be told, Morgen would beat all of us, even with a head start of a whole lap of the bay.
She reaches down into the water and lets a decopus climb up her arm. I shudder.
She’s not wearing one on her head today, but with her shaved scalp and deep eyes, she still gives off that air of other-ness.
I lift my legs out of the sea and sit cross-legged rather than dangle my toes. There are more of them around us, because of her. They’ve never bitten me, and rationally, I know they won’t. Still. They have very sharp beaks.
Morgen laughs, sensing exactly what’s going through my head, and the decopus slithers back down into the water.
I look toward shore, where Talan and Danny are walking hand in hand. Beyond them, I see guards and the whip aerials of tactical comms equipment. There are more guards in boats about a hundred meters further offshore. I bet there’s an aircraft overhead.
No argument of mine has been good enough to get rid of the guards, but I’ve stopped noticing them so much now.
It’s only for a little while longer.
I’ll look back on this as a holiday once I get back to Kernow. There’ll be so much to do on the estates.
Bleyd has been back, but only to attend functions in the new government. He’s determined that he will not be prime minister of Kernow this time next year, just as I’m determined I will not be Irana of Newyan.
If it’s solely down to us.
Kernow and Newyan are now members of the Xian Hegemony, and the Hegemony has indicated that we must leave the government well established and in capable hands.
Not such a problem in Kernow, but here in Newyan, it’s trickier.
I’ve done what I could and spent all the good will I’d gathered.
I didn’t like taking the offer to join the Hegemony, but I preferred it to joining Earth’s new Commonwealth of Humanity, and it was one or the other, given the state of Newyan—financially as well as administratively broken. Simply put, we couldn’t afford to lift ourselves out of the hole we’d gotten into.
Once my signature was on the agreement, so many of the problems disappeared. With the backing of Xian, Newyan was immediately accepted into the Inner Worlds. You would have thought that would have bought me some good will back, but it hasn’t. People aren’t like that.
The Newyan and Kernow agreements with Xian have had wide-reaching effects. They’ve precipitated a competition between Xian and Earth to be nicest to every viable system in human space. If they don’t bankrupt themselves, it looks as if there will eventually be the Commonwealth, the Hegemony and a scatter of independent, unaligned systems in the depths of the Frontier.
The truth of the Hajnal invasion has been that much of a shock to humanity.
Within days of the terrifying analysis on the Hajnal being given to the Terran Council, the Hajnal-affected planets had been put into quarantine, and all Commissions of Enquiry replaced with military occupation.
Every system, everywhere, has mandated testing of their government’s officials.
The Hajnal have achieved the opposite of what it appears they intended. Humanity has coalesced. Attitudes to vulnerable outlying systems have changed. Political parties have risen and others have fallen.
The existential threat has galvanized humanity.
To a lesser extent, so has learning about the Dowreth. There are now new shoals here on Newyan and on Xian, as well as the old shoal on Kernow. Many Xian ships are carrying small shoals.
And desperately eager scientists have been arriving from Earth by the shipful, some of them shaving their heads and offering to become symbionts.
All of which has conveniently diverted attention away from Self-Actualized Entities, to the relief of Shohwa and the rest of the Xian SAEs.
Bleyd makes the final turn, a couple of lengths in front of Rhos, and even further in front of Alexis. One more lap and then it’ll be time to pack up for the day and head back to Iruña and the day-to-day reality of running the planet.
“Why, Morgen?” I ask.
I don’t need to be completely specific with her. It’s creepy, but she will almost always know what I mean. She claims she can’t actually read my mind, but she certainly senses the direction of my surface thoughts. I want to know why the Dowreth are so eager to work with humans.
“The same reason the Xian Self-Actualized Entities need humans,” she says, her voice quiet. “On the obvious level, humans have this presence in the above-water world the Dowreth benefit from. But that wouldn’t have been enough to wake the Dreamers from their cycle. The equivalent physical world presence wouldn’t be enough to engage the SAEs. No, it’s the moral view that we humans have. The incalculable, unquantifiable...” she waves her hands in frustration, “messy, complex, ethical feeling that we, I mean humans, have. The Dowreth lack that. They value it.”
“That’s enough?”
“It’s huge. It’s difficult for you to see it, ’less you go linking with them again, because it doesn’t easily fi
t into words.”
She grins. I smile in reply and hide a little shiver. I will no doubt link with the Dowreth again, but I’m in no hurry to do it.
“An example,” Morgen says. “They, I mean both the Dowreth and SAEs, they’re obsessed with something you did without so much as thinking about it.”
“What?”
“You remember when you were working for your grandfather, you had to spend time on the Bourse? You remember the deal you witnessed for a big shipment to the Quallis system?”
“Of course I remember it. Grandfather put me in charge of the project for the delivery.”
“Yes. You went by ship to Quallis and made the delivery, and then shook hands with the client.”
“Mmm.”
I look at her, wondering where this is going.
Beyond her, over her shoulder, I see Bleyd is having a mysterious problem with his sail, allowing Rhos to sneak up and steal his wind. Then, equally inexplicably, their sails foul and Alexis streaks past with a scream of triumph. They’ll never catch her now.
I smile.
Cleverly done, both of you.
Morgen smiles with me, then turns serious again.
“All done on a handshake,” she says, meaning the delivery I managed for my grandfather.
I shrug. “It’s laziness really, I guess.”
She laughs. “It is not. Understanding that ability for us to accept my-word-is-my-bond is part of that ideal that the Dowreth hunger for. And the SAEs.”
“But the Dowreth operate on the whole being greater than the individuals—”
Morgen’s eyes do that thing where they seem to go darker and deeper.
“They have to, as a gestalt entity. Humans choose to act for the greater good. Not always, but when they do, it’s a choice. An individual decopus doesn’t have that.”
I watch as Alexis finishes the race, vainly pursued by Rhos and Bleyd. There’s lots of shouting and complaints and more laughter.
“There’s another reason, one peculiar to the Dowreth and Newyan, but that interested the SAEs when they understood it,” Morgen says.
I turn back to her and raise a salty brow in question.
“The guilt about the Atsekabe,” she says.
Everyone knows now. Although the extracts and recordings from Justinian should have been sufficient, the Terran Council made a request for access to the system to verify them. Recordings can be faked. Justinian’s holographic and quantum encrypted databanks cannot. I couldn’t refuse, and so the envoy from the Council got full access—including the truth about what happened in Berriaren. The truth that the people of Newyan, led by Xabat Abarran Aguirre, managed to kill an entire sentient species, the first that humanity had ever met.
“Didn’t you wonder about the statues and ruins of buildings on the Arvish shoreline?” Morgen says.
I shake my head. The coast around Stormhaven on Kernow is littered with signs of some intelligent race who seemed to have faded away five thousand years ago. She can’t mean...
“The Dowreth formed a symbiotic relationship with the first tool-users who emerged on the Arvish coast thousands of years ago. Except it wasn’t symbiosis. It wasn’t beneficial to both. The Dowreth killed them, Zara. They didn’t mean to, but they did. They bear the guilt.”
“A fine pair we make then.”
She purses her lips. “They don’t think so. The Dowreth as a gestalt entity bears the shame, because it’s the same entity which caused the death of their hosts. That’s the nature of gestalt entities. What the Dowreth don’t understand is how you think guilt passes down through generations of discrete individuals. They don’t think the actions of Xabat Abarran Aguirre and the others present at that time are anything more to you than a lesson in history to be learned. Any more than your father’s failings and your grandfather’s attitude should dictate how you live today.”
In the course of our conversation, I sense I’ve gone from talking to Morgen to actually communicating with the Dowreth below us.
I’m about to suggest we head in to shore, when Morgen suddenly looks up at the sky.
“Shohwa,” she says.
Then her face clears, she frowns and shrugs. “I get those from time to time. A feeling through the Dowreth that something’s happening on the Shohwa. Another crisis maybe. Like as not, we’ll find out soon enough.”
She glances over her shoulder at Bleyd and my daughters, tacking towards the beach.
“Race you back,” she says, and has her sail up out of the water before I’m even standing.
I chase, making plans to take her on the inside, more in hope than expectation. The wind is picking up and my arms and shoulders are already sore. I don’t care. I’ve got the rest of the day with my husband and my daughters to look forward to. Tomorrow can look after itself.
You are nothing without me, the wind whispers. But my grandfather’s ghost has lost his power. I can barely hear his words any more.
Enough. You’re wrong, Grandfather. Thank you for the discipline and tough love and protection, as long as it lasted. Thank you for molding me. Thank you for the wisdom. But enough.
I am my own woman now. Duchess of Kernow and Irana of Newyan, for heaven’s sake. A wife. A mother of two wonderful daughters, who are leaping up and down on the beach, shouting encouragement.
Now, if Morgen extends that tack just a little more, I’m going to cut inside of her, then I’ll ride the surf in. I’ll show her, too.
Our boards slice through the blue waters.
I feel laughter, tremendous laughter, bubbling up from a deep well of joy inside me.
Chapter 73
Kat
Summer has reached its peak and the sun beats down on Iruña’s Plaza Nagusia. The windows are wide open, every cool breath of the distant sea welcomed.
There are guard rails across the little balcony now, of course, though they call it a balustrade and they’ve made it in keeping with the style of the rest of the Bureau of Justice.
It’s nearly lunchtime, and Kattalin Espe Aguirre-Tremayne can see people are drifting into the square. The restaurants have put riotously colorful umbrellas over the outside tables. It looks like a fiesta is about to break out.
What I’d give to be leaning back in one of those shaded chairs, sipping an apéritif and quizzing the waiter on the day’s specials for lunch.
“Just one more please, Ministro. If you could turn this way, just a little.”
Kat schools her face and obediently looks back into the room.
Click, click, click.
She has an idea of how they’ll want her to look. She’s wearing a charcoal-grey skirt and jacket, a pale shirt with no ruffles, no jewelry, low heels. Minimum of makeup. Her hair is tied back. At their suggestion, she’s holding a pad on one hand, its discreet maroon sheath the traditional color for the Bureau’s departmentally provided InfoPads.
She isn’t even really the Ministro. Zara, damn her, saddled Kat with this position before swanning off on other ‘urgent’ business with the Shohwa. Along with Hwa, Xing, Raul, Morgen and the rest of them.
She’s temporarily the Ministro.
Elections for government positions have been delayed, again, but they are going to be held next year, and she will not be putting her name forward.
It’s not as if she has nothing else to do. The Aguirre-Tremayne estates have been returned. The workers have flooded back. Repairs and rebuilding are underway. Re-planting. Re-stocking. She’s needed there, but she’s stuck here.
Goddess calm me. Of course, it’s important, this work in the Bureau of Justice.
Something of her mood shows on her face. The photographer and his assistant gather their equipment and flee, no doubt driven by the hugely exaggerated rumors of the Ministro’s volatile temper.
These media sessions are important, too. Everything is appearance. The old Bureau of Information has been taken apart and there are now a dozen competing media channels. Which is good, except that Kat has had to give a dozen intervi
ews, suffer a dozen photo sessions. Every one of which ghoulishly required her to stand in front of the fateful window from which Ministro Sánchez tragically ‘fell’.
That’s just background, though. Their focus is on her.
It’s not like I know what I’m doing, she wants to yell at the media. Despite what you want to imply, I didn’t turn back the invasion single-handed. I certainly didn’t mean to end up here.
But the media wants its heroes and heroines, and they need them to be Newyan. A little coloring of the truth, someone said to her.
Sánchez and Yarritu, Yion and Natalia, Commander Benat, Training Company Bravo, the Rangers of the high sierras, the doctor in the little village. Give us the human angle, say the media. Individuals. Bravery against the odds. Principles. Crippling internal conflict. Love. Tragedy. Pathos.
Stories.
The new channels compete to tell the most riveting tales of how close other systems came to succumbing to the Hajnal invasion, but they focus on what it meant here, to the people of Iruña, Cabezón, Valdivia, Sainte Engrâce, Lourdios and other cities.
Sometimes the stories seem to overtake the facts or bypass them entirely.
Kat is one of the stars, unfortunately.
By her reckonings, she should be hugely unpopular; it was at her insistence that the defeated Syndacian mercenaries were offered forgiveness and the chance to stay. But that detail was lost in the story when someone, Zara probably, leaked the details of her quixotic mission. Kat had given her word to a dying mercenary, and the Shohwa helped her honor it. She’d visited Syndacia, and found the crumbling ice-rink stadium in the snow-choked city of Kulita, as she’d promised. Somehow she’d ended up talking, not to the sports fans who might remember one of their own, but the whole city. And after that, to the whole region. Then the whole world of Syndacia.
The Goddess must have given her the words.
Another Xian merchanter had arrived in orbit. And another. By the end of the month, Syndacia was empty. Another month after that and the same had happened to a dozen other systems. Places where the communities were struggling. Worlds where mercenary companies found easy recruiting. Where people looked out at the stars in the night sky and worried about what might be coming for them next.