by Bob Blanton
“How were you treated?” Samantha asked.
“There was some physical abuse, but not much. I think the Fazullan women did things to protect us, but I’m not sure.”
“That is consistent with what we’ve been told,” Samantha said.
“Was there anything else of significance that you can remember?” Catie asked.
“Not really, except there did seem to be three classes of Fazullan men on the station. The first was treated just a little better than the women. They seemed to be like a lower caste, or common people. The other two classes were treated like aristocracy. But within it there seemed to be two classes; the head of the station and others like him were the most cruel. They seemed to actually enjoy tormenting their women and the first class I mentioned. The second class seemed to be less cruel, almost like they were pretending to be cruel. The cruel ones seemed to think the second group wasn’t cruel enough, as if that were a requirement to reach the elite class.”
“I suspect that those were the men who were planning the revolution with the women. Apparently, the history of their culture wasn’t based on cruelty,” Samantha explained. “We’re still learning as we go.”
“Now, Maggie,” Marc interjected. “We have a final question for you today.”
“What is it?”
“What do you want to have happen to you and your crew? We’re returning you to Onisiwo because we think that’s what you would want. But you may prefer something else.”
“What else can we do?” Maggie asked.
“You could delay your return to Onisiwo. You could stay on the Roebuck, or go to Artemis or even Earth,” Marc said. “We don’t understand your culture well enough to know the impact your return will have on you and your children.”
“I’ll talk to my crew,” Maggie said. “This is a lot to absorb.”
“Don’t hesitate to ask me questions,” Catie said. “Or ADI. We’ll do everything we can to help.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Liz, Kal, thank you for sitting in. If you have any thoughts or questions, please let everyone know,” Marc said once Maggie had left Catie’s office.
“Okay, I guess we’ll talk later,” Liz said, wondering why they were being kicked out of the conference.
“Daddy, what’s up?” Catie asked, clearly wondering why Kal and Liz had been dismissed.
“We need to talk,” Marc said.
“Well, should I be worried?”
“No!” Samantha said. “But there are some big decisions that we have to make.”
“Okay, what?”
“It is going to take months to get the Fazullans and the Paraxeans separated, not to mention the Aperanjens.”
“I realize that,” Catie said wearily.
“I would like you to stay at Onisiwo and run the resettlement efforts,” Marc said.
“That’s going to be a long time.”
“I know, but I think it needs to be one of us. I could come there and do it, but I’d rather not uproot Allie, and I think Artemis still needs me here,” Marc said.
“And Uncle Blake has to run Delphi,” Catie said.
“Right, so that leaves you.”
“I guess I can do it. Are you sure Captain Clements or Captain Vislosky couldn’t do it?”
“I think it has to be a McCormack.”
“But we need to keep at least one or two carriers here until we’ve resettled the Fazullans.”
“You’re correct, that brings up the second issue.”
“What would that be?” Catie asked, struggling to see where this was going.
“In order for you to be in charge of the mission, you have to be Princess Catherine, not Captain McCormack,” Marc said.
“I still don’t understand.”
“You can’t be captain of the Roebuck.”
“Now I really don’t understand!”
“Catie,” Blake said. “The captain of the Roebuck cannot give orders to Captain Clements, but Princess Catherine can.”
“Plus, it would make things easier with the Onisiwoens,” Samantha added. “It would mean we had a state presence there to negotiate the transition and help them adjust to being part of the league.”
“Just think,” Blake said, “it would kind of make you my boss.”
Catie laughed at that.
Afterword
Thanks for reading Delphi League!
I hope you’ve enjoyed the tenth book in the Delphi in Space series. If you would like to join my newsletter group, click here, Delphi in Space News. The newsletter provides interesting science facts for SciFi fans, book recommendations based on books I truly loved reading, and notification of when the next book in my series is available.
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The story will continue in Delphi Embassy.
Acknowledgments
It is impossible to say how much I am indebted to my beta readers and copy editors. Without them, you would not be able to read my books due to all the grammar and spelling errors. I have always subscribed to Andrew Jackson’s opinion that “It is a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word.”
So special thanks to:
My copy editor Ann Clark, who also happens to be my wife.
My beta reader and editor, Theresa Holmes.
My beta reader and cheerleader, Roger Blanton, who happens to be my brother.