by T. J. Berry
“Those are the Winsok. They live in the farthest edges of Bala space. Fragile things that keep to themselves. Their bodies are prone to breaking in planets with gravity and strong winds. I’m surprised they decided to come.”
A Reason tank drove up to the Winsok ship and stopped. The driver popped her head out of the top and shouted into her loudspeaker.
“Come out with your hands up,” she said. “Or your tentacles, or whatever you have.”
A spindle snapped with a crack and came crashing down onto the tank. The driver took cover. Shards flew through the gate area, spearing a soldier in the leg. Two others ran for him as he went down screaming.
“Another one of those projectiles will be considered an act of aggression,” announced the soldier, speaking from the protection of the tank.
“They’re not doing it on purpose,” said Unamip.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Findae. “The humans will shoot regardless.”
The door to the ship opened and fell off into the dirt. A dozen delicate creatures with urchin-like spines tumbled out behind it. Another spindle cracked and the Reason soldiers opened fire. The Winsok bodies shattered like glass. Their ship collapsed on top of them in a pile of jagged shards.
“Guess the Winsok will be late to the party,” said Jim, picking his teeth with a stick that looked suspiciously like one of Kaila’s smaller branches. If Jenny had been in nullspace, Jim would have been a smoldering wreck.
“He is intolerable,” said Findae, speeding up to walk next to Gary. “But I imagine you know that already.”
“He’s had a difficult life.”
“Haven’t we all,” mused Findae.
He looked older than when Gary had seen him last, which was odd, given the lengthy life span of unicorns. His spine sagged and spots on his flank were bare from the rubbing of straps and bridles. It pained him to think of his father pulling carts. Findae followed his gaze.
“I was the household unicorn for a wealthy family for a time before stasis. They were not intentionally unkind, but I was treated like a pet. They ignored me, even when I spoke to them. It was both luxurious and terrible. But I’m sure your time in prison was far worse than anything I endured.”
“It was not pleasant, but there were times when I had quiet moments to think. When others slept and no one was attacking.”
“And what did you learn in those moments?”
“That I am far from the man I wish to be. That humans, at their core, are neither good nor evil, but genuinely afraid of everything they encounter. They crave familiarity and security and pleasure. They can hardly go a moment without self-gratification.”
“Indeed.”
They turned the corner to a huge “Welcome Delegates!” sign hung across the road. Befitting the current bureaucratic climate, that hospitality was only being extended to human envoys from Reason-controlled planets.
Findae was quiet for an entire city block.
“I had hoped these people would see you for the man you are,” he said, finally.
Another empty bottle sailed out of the celebrating crowd and hit Gary in the head. He was dazed for a second, then fine.
“I believe they already do,” he said.
The Reason had chosen the base conference center for the location of the Summit. Banners representing every Reason planet and station hung on the walls of the brutalist building. Bala banners were conspicuously absent.
“Such a warm welcome. I feel right at home,” said Findae. He’d picked up a love for sarcasm from Gary’s mother.
At the entrance to the building, a pair of soldiers trained their firearms on the group. Lady Nashita stepped forward, hands raised and visible.
“I’d like to know why you’ve chosen to point your weapon at me and my guests,” she said.
“Ma’am, all unidentified persons must be processed.”
“Indeed, yes. Processed like bad cheese. You’ll find my paperwork quite in order.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lady Nashita Naveen, Reverend Mother of the Sisters of the Supersymmetrical Axion.”
The soldier scanned down the names on his tablet, slowly turning beet red.
“You’re on the list, but your horses have to wait outside,” he said.
Findae bent his head so the sharp tip of his horn brushed against the man’s uniform jacket.
“Call me a horse again,” he growled.
“Place your finger here please, ma’am please,” the soldier stammered, stepping back and holding the tablet out as far as he could.
Lady Nashita walked past and the group followed into the building. The lobby was cavernous and sparsely furnished. Hooves clopped on the marble floor. A sign posted at the entrance said that the WELCOME PARTY COCKTAIL HOUR would be taking place on the roof. Lady Nashita looked perplexed.
“I’m sorry, this is awkward, but I should have guessed they wouldn’t prepare for any Bala guests. We’ll have to split up to take the elevators,” she said, counting them off in small groups. Gary was assigned to ride with Unamip, Kaila, and Jenny. The doors pinged open and Unamip walked in and turned himself around. Kaila pushed Jenny in and did the same. Gary squeezed into the corner. Lady Nashita reached in and pushed the button for the roof.
“Have a good ride!” she said.
The doors closed and wordless music drifted over them.
“Have you ever attended a Summit?” Unamip asked Jenny.
Her brow furrowed. “They’re once every hundred years,” she said.
Unamip didn’t seem to understand.
“I’m only forty-five years old,” she said.
Unamip looked at Gary in horror. “No wonder they make so many mistakes, they’re practically babies.” He leaned down to Jenny conspiratorially. “Summits are great fun. The Pymmie arrive and ask everyone questions, then there is cake. It is delightful.” His face darkened. “Except you never quite know what kind of mood the Pymmie are going to be in. The last time they came for a visit, they foisted humankind onto us.”
“Are you really the Unamip that lives in the nullspace orb?” asked Kaila.
“That is one of the places I inhabit,” replied Unamip.
“I prayed to you a couple of times,” said Jenny. “For my wife’s safety.” She patted a thin branch on her shoulder. “I got her back today. Thanks for that.”
“I don’t grant the prayers. I simply hear them and pass them up the line. Like triage,” said Unamip.
“Did you pass mine up?” asked Jenny, which was a rather impertinent question to ask a demigod.
“Definitely. Yours were often quite selfless and heartfelt,” said Unamip.
The elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the blazing Jaisalmer heat. Even the black tar roof felt sticky.
“It wasn’t this hot on the street,” said Jenny, fanning her face. She looked up and ducked into her chair. An immense dragon hovered above the building, billowing fire above the heads of everyone assembled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Century Summit
The dragon was the size of a troop carrier. Jenny shoved Kaila to the ground and crouched in her chair. Jim stumbled to his knees. Everyone else hit the deck then lifted their heads to stare. Not least because the fire seemed to be coming out of the dragon’s ass.
The dragon ship pointed itself toward the sky, then eased down onto the roof rear end first. People scattered to make room. Smoke and coolant fogged the roof. Jenny heard the hiss of an airlock door. A pair of figures stepped out of the dissipating mist. They were grey bipeds, tiny like human children, but with dark oversized eyes that you couldn’t look into without feeling a deep existential dread.
“The Pymmie like to make an entrance,” said Gary, helping Kaila to her feet.
“It’s a ship,” said Jim from the ground, rubbing his knees.
“It’s not as if dragons are real,” said Gary.
“Of course not, that would be absurd,” said Jenny, rolling her eyes. “Not
at all like arriving on a distant planet to find unicorns.”
Lady Nashita came back to check on them.
“Everyone all right? No one hurt? Good. The Pymmie are waiting. Come.” She ran off toward Findae and Unamip who were conferring quietly near the dragon ship. Jenny maneuvered her chair across the sticky tar. Kaila offered to push, but Jenny waved her away.
“I’ve got it now, Sap.”
As they passed near Unamip, the unicorn leaned close to Jim and narrowed his eyes. “I voted for you last time. Don’t expect me to make that mistake twice.”
“What does that mean?” Jim asked. Unamip turned away with a whinny and waited for the Pymmie to descend from their ship. One of the two Pymmie took a step down onto the ramp.
“Who has come to represent the Bala?” asked the Pymmie. Their high voice carried past the roof, out into the city.
The pair of unicorns stepped forward.
“We have come,” said Findae.
“I am Commander General of the Reason Space Force,” said a man whose uniform was covered in colorful ribbons and pins. He pushed through the crowd, tilting Jenny’s chair precariously as he shoved his way toward the ship. She smacked his hand away from her armrest. The Pymmie looked down at him.
“We did not ask for the human representative yet,” said the other Pymmie, with a voice like sandpaper. They lifted a hand and the commander flew back into the crowd. A patter of gunfire ricocheted off the dragon ship. The Reason had snipers on the surrounding rooftops and they had opened fire at the attack on the commander general. The Pymmie were not amused. They raised their hands in unison and around Jenny time stopped.
Sniper bullets hovered mid-trajectory above her head. The Reason soldiers standing around the perimeter of the roof had frozen in the midst of pulling out their service weapons. Dignitaries were stuck as they ducked at the sound of gunfire. She’d heard that the Pymmie were adept at controlling their environment, but she hadn’t realized that included time itself. One of the Pymmie stepped down the ramp and into the crowd.
“Jenny, come with me. And Kaila too, of course.” The Pymmie slipped a tiny hand into hers. She felt that odd sensation of an FTL jump, that jumpy energy that made her apprehensive.
“You too, Jim,” said the Pymmie, though they didn’t hold his hand.
A second Pymmie approached Gary.
“And, of course, Gary.” They pulled him along by the hand as well. Both Pymmie stopped near the unicorns.
“Enough of them?” asked the first Pymmie.
“Enough,” replied the second.
“The right ones came,” said the first Pymmie.
“With the exception of one,” replied the second.
“We’ll speak to her later.”
The Pymmie led their little group up the ramp and into the belly of the dragon. One of them got behind Jenny’s chair and pushed, but she didn’t dare protest. Only Kaila and omniscient beings were afforded that consideration. The unicorns followed after the humans. Lady Nashita waved from the roof.
“You’re not coming?” called Jenny.
“We are only the escorts. You’ll be safe inside. We’ll be here when you come out.” The Sisters were already standing on each other’s shoulders, collecting bullets from out of the air and repositioning them around the rooftop.
The Pymmie pushed Jenny into their ship. The airlock was a small octagonal room lined with paintings. A woman with an umbrella. A man with his arms folded. Everyone packed into the tiny room, tails and manes swishing into faces. The door thudded shut.
“Welcome, foolish mortals…” began the first Pymmie. “There’s no turning back now.”
The room began to stretch higher, the portraits becoming longer. The new images revealed an alligator trying to snap off the umbrella woman’s feet. And the man with folded arms was about to drown in quicksand.
“What in the hell?” said Jim. He tried to shove his way through everyone back toward the door, which was no longer there.
“This does not look good.” Jenny grabbed her wheels and turned as well, snatching hold of Kaila’s arm.
“Stop it,” said the second Pymmie to the first. The lights came up and the sides of the room vanished. They were standing in a banquet hall – spacious and smelling like food. Jenny’s stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since before they’d gone into FTL and she was starving. “I was merely trying to use Earth humor to lighten the tone of the meeting,” said the first Pymmie. Jenny couldn’t tell them apart.
“You’re using humor from the wrong time period. That joke is a hundred and ninety-one years too old,” said the second Pymmie.
“Ricky would have gotten it,” said the first Pymmie, with the slightest petulance. “We should have asked her to come as well.”
“Not yet,” said the second Pymmie. “We’ll need her next time. No more jokes.”
“I only want them to understand that this can be fun. It doesn’t all have to be devastatingly sad,” the first Pymmie answered.
“It might have to be,” said the second Pymmie, turning to the group. “Everyone, please join us at the table.”
Jenny rolled up to a spot that seemed to have been prepared just for her. There was no chair, but at the place setting was a plate of what looked like her kuia’s pork and pumpkin boil-up. She had to take a moment to compose herself as the scent of it hit her. Kaila sat on her left where there was a pot of rich, dark soil on the floor and a glass of water on the table. The unicorns went to open spots across from Jenny that had trays piled high with dormant trisicles. Jim sat at the foot of the table in front of a plate of golden, buttery grilled cheese sandwiches. After the Pymmie took their spots at the head of the table, there were two empty chairs left: one next to the unicorns and one next to Jenny. Gary stood undecided for a moment, then took the spot to Jenny’s right, set with a pile of steaming samosa.
“Hmm,” said the first Pymmie, watching with interest. She didn’t know why, but Jenny felt better having Gary on her side of the table.
“To begin, introductions,” the second Pymmie said. “We are the Pymmie.”
“Well, not all of them. There are many more of us, but they’re tending to the remainder of existence while we’re otherwise occupied,” said the first Pymmie, who turned back to the second one. “Do we want to be the brothers or the couple with the snake this time?”
The second Pymmie sighed and their enormous black eyes rolled upward.
“They’re both so overdone.”
“Then I know which ones we should be.” The first Pymmie raised their spindly arms in an expansive gesture.
“I am Eon,” they said.
“And I am Cole,” added the second. “And who are each of you?”
Jenny thought the formality was odd. Given their omniscience, the Pymmie should have known everyone already.
“We like to ease into things,” Eon said, answering the unspoken question in Jenny’s thoughts.
“I am Findae. He of Reverberating Snort. King of the House of Cobalt,” said Gary’s father with the confidence of someone used to formal introductions.
“I am Unamip. He of Lengthy Strides. Father of the House of Azure,” said Unamip.
Everyone waited for Gary to take his turn. He looked painfully uncomfortable.
“I’m Gary,” said Gary.
“Say your full name,” urged Findae. Gary looked like he wanted to disappear into the floor.
“I’m Gaganvihari Prancer Ramanathan. He of Two Worlds. Prince of the House of Cobalt.”
“Prancer,” chuckled Jim, a string of cheese stretching from his mouth to the sandwich in his hand.
It was Jenny’s turn. She figured it couldn’t hurt to play along.
“I am Geneva Waimarie. She of the Ngāi Tahu. House of Perata.”
Heads nodded. She nudged Kaila, who was gulping water as fast as the glass refilled itself.
“Kaila of Salix, daughter of Gymnoverium,” she said between mouthfuls.
“I’m Jim. From Wyo
ming,” said Jim, biting into another sandwich.
“The rest of you, please eat,” said Cole. The sound of crunching echoed off the walls as the unicorns dug into their piles of trisicles.
Jenny took a bite of her boil-up. The pumpkin was tender and sweet. It reminded her of Sunday afternoons with her family and friends.
“There’s a reason they call it comfort food,” said Eon, answering her thoughts again.
“Every civilization has the custom of gathering for meals during a time of crisis,” added Cole.
“Is this a time of crisis?” asked Jenny.
“It will be soon,” said Eon.
“Have some tea,” said Cole, passing her a steaming cup with a delicate grey hand. She took it and sipped. It warmed her insides. Her muscles relaxed. It was probably drugged or made with magical ingredients to make her more calm and pliable.
“No, just tea,” said Cole. “Shall we begin?”
Both unicorns began to speak at once. Eon raised a hand to quiet them.
“We would like to hear from Gary.”
Gary looked up mid-bite.
“Yes?”
“We have convened to assess the human-Bala relationship over the last century,” said Eon.
“You agreed to work together last time we checked in. How is it going?” asked Cole.
“You know how it’s going,” said Unamip, spitting a trisicle claw onto the table. “They’ve massacred us.”
“You weren’t all daisies and fireflies,” said Jim. “We lost people too.”
Unamip stepped back from the table, pounding his hooves on the floor. “We are not the ones enslaving hundreds of species. We fought you to stop the atrocities,” he said.
“You have both had a hundred years to find a way to work together,” said Cole.
“Humans are incapable of cooperation. They swarm through the universe, subjugating everything in their path. Even their own people,” said Findae, with a glance at Jenny.
“I asked to hear from Gary,” said Eon quietly, leaning toward his side of the table. “Based on your experience, are humans and Bala capable of living together peacefully?”
Gary let out a long breath. He looked from his father back to Jenny. She knew the answer just as well as he did, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear out loud.