Earth Song: Twilight Serenade

by Mark Wandrey

  When she introduced Lilith, P’ing-ro came forward in a close approximation of Tog excitement.

  “Your daughter?”

  “Yes,” Minu said. Lilith’s bot walked closer and the Legate effected a perfect zero-gravity bow.

  “I’m honored to meet you, P’ing-ro.”

  “And I you,” hse said and returned the bow. “Forgive me for being forward, it is a condition of our people, but you have been modified by a starship of the Lost to act as its combat intelligence?”

  “I was modified from birth,” Lilith told them.

  “Fascinating,” P’ing-ro said, hser big eyes taking in Lilith’s every detail.

  “When do we get full network access?” Bjorn asked.

  Minu flinched, afraid he'd pushed things too far and too quickly, but P'ing-to only nodded in understanding.

  “I've instructed Z'kal to remove all limitation to your access authority on Concordian network access. You will of course have to make your own financial arrangements with the Concordia Data Directorate.”

  “We understand,” Minu said, giving a brief glare in Bjorn’s direction.

  “P'ing-so will go over the details of the coming ritual before the Grand Concordia.”

  An hour later the group had been fully briefed on what to expect and what was expected of them. Minu already knew the details, having read a file given to her by P'ing when she'd announced their intention to petition for release. A more complete meal came in and as everyone was investigating the fair, P'ing-to took Minu aside to speak with her. [][]

  “You are sure this is the best plan for humanity?”

  “We believe so,” Minu told hser. “We're grateful for what you have done for us, but we must go forward on our own now as allies, instead of dependents.”

  P'ing-to stared at her for a long moment with hser big almond eyes before giving Minu an all too human nod. “It will be as you say then.” Minu turned to rejoin the others for lunch but felt a hand on her shoulder. “There is one final thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “It was one hundred forty years ago, by your calendar, when we came to your people on Bellatrix.”

  “We remember, it was the formation of the Chosen.”

  P'ing-to nodded again.

  “But if you did not hold us in your debt, why did you say that was the case and demand our service to you?”

  “It was what is expected, and required if you were to be our clients and have the protection you needed. We had no wish to make you our clients.”

  “I don't understand. If you didn't want to make us your clients, then why did you rescue us from Earth?”

  “When I arrived on Bellatrix all those years before, my progenitor actually since I was yet to be born, I found myself standing in the center of a city spreading for kilometers in all directions. It was quite a surprise.”

  “Did you not expect us to have advanced? We'd made quite a lot of progress in those four hundred years. Not back to where we were before the disaster, but still.”

  “You don't understand, Minu Groves.”

  Minu shook her head slightly, not getting hser meaning.

  “I was surprised because we'd just acquired the leasehold for that world only a scant dozen years earlier and were planning to conduct a survey for its use.”

  “But if you just acquired the leasehold, how could you have placed us there four centuries before after rescuing us?”

  “That is the point. We did not place you there. Until that day, I had never laid eyes on a human being in any of my lives.”

  Chapter 37

  December 31st, 535 AE

  Planet Nexus, Core System, Concordia

  The aerocar they took from the Tog mission to the city center was spacious and luxurious by human standards. The Tog tended toward utilitarian by their nature, despite being a prestigious member of the higher order species in the Concordia. They did like roomy spaces and vehicles, though. This was a special occasion where putting on a good display was important.

  Minu sat quietly and tried to digest the latest in what seemed like a lifelong series of never ending gut punches. The others knew something had happened between her and P'ing-to, and also her older friends knew better than to push their leader for details. Aaron called it her 'moody danger face'. He said it with a laugh, but few except her closest friends would push in when she had that look.

  Of all the times to get hit with something like that, she thought as the aerocar negotiated ever increasing air traffic towards the center of the city. The coming hours were pivotal for her, and likely humanity as a whole. And what does P’ing-to do an hour before that epic moment? Drop an overloading beamcaster in her lap and laugh. Well, hse didn't laugh. Minu didn't think the Tog were capable of laughing. More like a fun little parting gift before humanity left for the long haul.

  “Son of a bitch,” she silently cursed, her hands balled into painful fists.

  The more she tried to tear herself away from the thought, to more it kept pulling her back. She'd seen drawings in the Bellatrix planetary archives. One came from the Plateau Tribe ancestors of the United States. A man named Victor witnessed the portal being delivered. It was in ink and very old, but it looked strikingly like P'ing. The other was a digital image from a security camera belonging to the ancestors of the Summit Tribe who'd come from Rio De Janeiro. It had less detail than the drawing, but left little question it was a Tog. Even perhaps the same one.

  Minu honestly didn't think she'd ever been that frustrated in her life, and frustration made her mad. Usually when she got that mad, she wanted to start breaking things. The sound of something crunching made her look down in surprise at her right hand and the now-crushed ornate moliplas handhold on the door. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Okay,” Cherise said from the other side of the car. Minu realized that everyone else was crowded on the far side of the aerocar leaving her the entire chair in the circular passenger compartment to herself. P'ing-so was in the forward compartment to leave the humans their peace. Her car only carried the council, Aaron with Mindy in a carrier, Faye, and Sergeant Selain.

  Cherise came across to sit next to her, concern etched on her face. They'd been together from the beginning, bled together, cried together, and buried friends together. That battle when Cherise had broken under pressure, back before Minu was named First, had been the hardest time for the two. And still Minu had turned to her and named the woman to command the logistics branch, one of her Legates. She still trusted Cherise more than any woman except perhaps her daughter, just not in combat.

  “Talk to me.”

  “This isn't the time,” Minu said darkly.

  “Minu, you've planned for this moment for years. Probably since the Rasa Vendetta. Then when you first tried to get the Council to pull the trigger after P'ing told you we owned them nothing. I remember the profound disappointment you felt.”

  She put a hand on Minu's thigh in a manner only an old lover would, the touch holding more meaning in the act than could be conveyed in minutes of talking. She leaned closer.

  “You’re here now, at the culmination of all your plans and you’re madder than I’ve seen you in… forever! Talk to me, sister.”

  Minu sighed and hugged her friend, putting her head on Cherise's shoulder. “It's all a lie.”

  “What? I don't understand? The ritual before the council?”

  Minu looked up at them all in turn before she spoke. “P'ing told me that the day hse came to Bellatrix over a hundred years ago was the first time any Tog had ever seen a human being.”

  The car flew on for an entire minute in stunned silence. Everyone except Selain stared at her, completely dumbfounded. Selain and Dram.

  “What?” Gregg snorted and smiled. Minu stared at him and his smile died. “You're serious?”

  “As a fucking heart attack.”

  Bjorn's jaw was bunched, muscles clenching, his eyes wide in surprise and confusion as he scratched his chin absently. It was the most lucid she’d se
en him in some time. The rest looked more disgusted or disbelieving than anything.

  “Interesting,” Lilith said.

  “I want you to understand,” Minu said to them all, “I think a lot more than our freedom is about to happen here. Before we left, Var'at sent a message to me. He said good luck in the ritual. He said it was a transformative moment for the Rasa. Initially I put it down as a translator moment, now I don't think so.”

  “The Awakening,” Ken said, almost to himself. “It’s such a loaded word.”

  “It’s not a coincidence,” Dram said, “why else would they chose now to tell us this?”

  Of all the terms that had caused Minu the most consternation over the last years it had to be 'awakening'. It haunted her every attempt to find out information from every species she'd encountered. From their benefactors the Tog, to the Rasa that had become their closest allies, and even the outlaw Squeen. None of them would share critical information, and it was always because of the Awakening.

  Of them all in the car, Minu knew Ken the least. He'd been her personal trainer for a few years but they’d had very little personal interaction and was the youngest of the council members, so it was ironic that he was the one who summed everything up with one sentence.

  “I feel like we’ve been living in a dream, and we're about to be rudely woken up.”

  As the vehicle fell into a tense silence, Bjorn took out a tablet and began writing a program.

  The aerocar descended out of the high-level traffic pattern as they neared the center of the city. The center was a restricted zone that required them to pass through scanners before entering. Minu was pulled out of her reverie as they went under the scanning devices. Massive flying crab-bots floated nearby, ready with beamcasters placed on their dualloy carapaces. They were instruments of death, relic war machines from a bygone era though still ready to kill. Open topped aerocars flanked the bots, their passenger compartments full of soldiers in combat suites from various species.

  The Agreements of Concordia spoke of each species sending ‘such military as is necessary and appropriate to securing the freedom of the body politic’. Minu remembered being struck by the vague and unusual wording of that document.

  Once inside the central cordon they were only a few minutes from their destination. Already the skyline was dominated by the huge moliplas and dualloy dome that rose two kilometers into the sky and spread three kilometers wide. It was opaque and slightly reflective, shimmering in the morning sun. No human had ever set foot inside.

  Around the domes perimeter were one-kilometer-tall obelisks. Cut from a single piece of obsidian, they were spaced equally every half kilometer except for a gap where there was a massive cathedral like entrance. A total of nineteen obelisks seemingly guarding the dome.

  She’d tried to find out the significance of those structures beyond serving as office spaces for member species but couldn’t find anything definitive. One of the leading guesses was that there was one each for the founding species of the Concordia. Twenty avenues entered the central cordon, one each directly to an obelisk except the widest avenue that led to the entrance. They made for one of the obelisks near the entrance.

  “Maybe we should call this off,” Gregg said suddenly as the aerocar banked in. It hadn’t been obvious from the distance but each obelisk’s top was ringed with four landing pads. Minu glared at him.

  “Someone had to say it, damn it! We’re all in a difficult place now and you more than any of us. Do you really want to go out there in front of the whole galaxy right now?”

  “He has a point,” Dram said gently in his deep bass voice. Aaron just sat with their daughter in his arms and observed her. The baby was almost asleep, lulled into dreamland by the gentle movements of the aerocar.

  “Maybe you should wait,” Lilith said. Minu looked at Jasmine, the only one who she’d expected to say something that hadn’t.

  “I just don’t know,” the woman admitted. “Maybe it’s all part of the game.”

  “What do you mean?” Minu asked.

  “Dropping something like that on you, just before your freedom ritual, or whatever this is. It’s to scare you off, test your metal?”

  “So you think the Tog lied to her?” Gregg asked. Jasmine just shrugged.

  “Remember the Trials,” Jasmine said. Everyone nodded at that, even Minu.

  “What kind of a hit do we take if we don’t go through with this?” Cherise asked.

  “I don’t know,” Minu admitted, “I didn’t see anything about a species backing out on their own Awakening ritual. There are proscribed periods that your application must wait before you will be seen. I do know that P’ing waited till the last second to drop this on me, on us rather. Hse could have mentioned it over a year ago and decided not to. For the life of me I don’t know why.”

  They continued in silence as the aerocar finished its approach and came in for a landing on one of the obelisk’s landing pads. A pair of Tog with a squad of Beezer in ceremonial military garb met them, opening the aerocar’s doors wide and standing aside.

  Minu looked at them all in turn then took a deep breath. If she’d never read about a client species getting cold feet, that likely meant it had never happened. Did she want to set that kind of a precedent? Of course not.

  “We do this,” she said with that Minu Groves resolve anyone who knew her would recognize. Everyone nodded. The decision was made. There was no going back.

  Whatever purpose the pyramids had once served, they were mostly unused now except as meeting rooms and quarters for the ceremonial guards. They were escorted down a spiraling tunnel until they were shown a large square meeting room that obviously took up most of the area at that level of the obelisk. P’ing-so had taken a different route because hse was waiting for them.

  “Imperator Groves,” hse said, “as the designated representative of your species, you will be the only speaker for humanity.”

  “I understand, master.”

  “You will need to get used to not saying that soon,” hse reminded Minu. “You have all the lines ready?”

  Minu confirmed she did.

  “Your fellow leaders and an honor guard are allowed by Concordian tradition.” Hse held up a tablet showing the layout of the grand audience chamber. “They will flank your entrance here. There is not much business today. One senior species is announcing they are adopting a young species, the call to order will be made for a species that has withdrawn as well. This is an old species which has retreated and is no longer in contact. They will be called continually for a century until they will be withdrawn from the rolls.”

  Minu considered that and filed it away as she examined the maps and made additional mental notes. Everyone was examining their uniforms and mentally preparing themselves for the biggest event in human history since earth was destroyed. It would be broadcast on Bellatrix live as well.

  “It is nearly time,” a voice announced over a PA system.

  P’ing-so moved over to the door and gestured with a bow. “Are you ready, Imperator?”

  “Ready?” she asked as a chill ran up her spine. “I’m prepared, is that good enough?”

  “All any young species could be.”

  They filed out and took a large drop tube down to the base of the obelisk, then slightly below ground. A short corridor led to a massively armored door. It appeared out of place to Minu, as if it were designed to keep people out of the council chamber. Armed people. Heavily armed people. A pair of combat armed crab bots waited, rising up on their legs at the party’s approach.

  “Who approaches the Concordian seat?” The voice was in one of the older script language and accompanied by a visual display across the machine’s carapace as well. To her surprise, Minu found her mind not only translating the written script, but when it was spoken as well!

  “We, the Tog,” P’ing-so spoke and gestured in hser native language, “are among the higher order and demand entrance.”

  “You are granted presence,�
�� the machine replied, then pointed at Minu, first in line of the humans. “This being is not recognized.”

  “I am Minu Groves, representing humanity, clients of the Tog. I come to be recognized.”

  The bot hesitated. Minu had no reason to be nervous until she saw P’ing-so’s movement. Hse reached casually to hser belt where a tablet was hooked. It appeared to be active, unlike a normally stored tablet, and hser finger was resting just above an icon.

  The time ticked by, the bot sat motionless, as if they’d never approached. Deep inside its shielded brain orders were being processed. Finally it spoke. “The Tog representative will stand by.”

  “Is this normal?” Minu asked.

  “There is nothing to concern you,” P’ing-so said.

  Minu considered herself an expert in Tog mannerisms. She liked to say it was an easy job, because there weren’t very many of them. It was like judging the mood of a statue in most cases. If a Tog was upset, it would tell you. Or it wouldn’t tell you. She’d only seen them agitated a few times in her years of dealing with them. P’ing-so wasn’t showing agitation. It wasn’t showing calm. It was frozen completely still. Was this how a Tog showed it was terrified?

  She thought about what that would mean for a species like theirs. She knew they were not the strongest species on their world. Like humans, their homeworld had species that were not only stronger, but had hunted them in the past. They were closer to being grazing herbivores, where humans were hunter/gatherers. When a hunter was scared or ready to pounce, it twitched, paced, or made noise. What did an herbivore to in response to danger? It froze. Oh shit, she thought.

  Minu decided to break protocol that called for her to wait quietly to be summoned. “Hey Gregg,” she said.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Remember the Rasa Vendetta?”