Renegade

by Joel Shepherd

  “And then I hear what the chah'nas have done to some tavalai in their battles,” he murmured. “And I wonder if we aren’t fighting the wrong people.”

  “Now that,” said his father, “is something you should definitely keep to yourself. Come on, we should head back inside. I think your mother’s about to give a speech.”

  Alice Debogande was indeed about to give a speech, and someone had even brought an elevation for her to stand on, and be seen above the crowd. That wasn’t all that had been brought in. Erik saw a pair of chah'nas towering by a wall, double arms crossed, in the coloured leathers that passed for formal wear among their kind. One of them saw Erik looking, and raised a glass in his direction — irony, because chah'nas metabolised alcohol so fast it was impossible to get them drunk on anything less than jet fuel. Four-eyed with a massive underbite and protruding lower tusks, there was nothing gentle about chah'nas to the human eye. Erik nodded back.

  “Who’s that?” he asked his father. Chah'nas were usually as bored with human social life as human parades. Most were direct to the point of rudeness, their social graces only saved by an abrasive yet undeniable sense of humour.

  “E’tu’kas,” said Walker, standing at his side. “One of the new ambassadors.” On Homeworld, there were several. One to the Spacer Congress, one to the Worlder Congress, and one to Homeworld itself, plus all their staff. Then all the military attaches, and their staff. It had occasionally been remarked to chah'nas that they should sort out exactly who was in charge, and give that person a title. The chah'nas reply, with appropriate humour, was ‘look who’s talking’.

  Being accused of multiplicity by the chah'nas was ironic indeed. Chah'nas had dozens of castes, the purpose of which left most humans baffled. Together they made a maze of ascending qualifications and specialities that chah'nas would spend their lives navigating and climbing. What was certain was chah'nas used genetic engineering to differentiate specialities among themselves, like animal breeders selectively isolating desirable traits. They did not try for species purity, but rather species complexity through caste competitiveness — which meant they tried to strengthen castes against each other in endless competition, as though to improve their species like some giant professional sporting league. Certainly the chah'nas loved their sports to a degree that even humans found unhealthy. Most were violent. Erik had tried explaining golf to several, and been met with gales of laughter.

  Against an opposite wall, Erik glimpsed the big, wide ears of a kuhsi… then a glimpse of the face, a short muzzle too canine to be feline, but too feline to be canine. A flat, wide head, made wider by those amazing ears that went far more sideways than upwards. They weren’t as tall as chah'nas, usually a touch shorter than humans, and so didn’t stand out in crowds… until you saw the ears.

  Kuhsi were humanity’s contribution to species uplift — they’d been found near human space, on the verge of their own FTL flight, and so humans had hurried them on a little, needing all the friends they could get. Certainly the kuhsi had been pleased to be ‘discovered’ by humans and not krim, and humans had been good with them — letting them have their space, not interfering with local politics, giving them useful tech without asking anything but friendship in return. And kuhsi had reciprocated, not so much as to participate in humanity’s latest war, but to offer moral and trading support, and even a few irregular volunteers.

  “Friends,” said Erik’s mother above the crowd. She wore a red gown, her hair pulled back to a tasteful braid. One hundred and two years old, middle aged by the current human standard, though she barely looked it. Only a few crinkles about the eyes, which she could have vanished with treatments, yet kept for ‘character purposes’. When you were one of the regularly voted ‘ten most powerful’ people alive, she’d told him once, you had to have a few wrinkles or they wouldn’t take you seriously.

  Now she smiled at them all. In all honesty, Erik didn’t think she was a particularly great smiler. He’d seen her real smiles, and they were small, honest, private affairs. A careful amusement, well guarded and never abused. This was a big, ‘I love you all so much’ smile… and sometimes, when you knew someone this well, you just couldn’t buy it, because you knew it was false. He didn’t doubt that a lot of the others present also knew. The difference was that they didn’t care.

  “This truly is a fortuitous day,” she said through that big smile. “It has brought my beloved son Erik back to me.” Now the smile turned to him. Erik forced one of his own, all eyes temporarily upon him. “And it has brought a celebration of victory. A final victory, we hope, for all humankind, and for our valued allies.”

  She raised a glass at the chah'nas, who raised one back. Then at the kuhsi… Erik guessed he must be an ambassador of some sort also. A glass raised back. Hopefully the big-eared ambassador wouldn’t drink too much — unlike chah'nas, kuhsi did get drunk, often alarmingly so.

  “I’m sure our non-human guests are aware that it is customary on such grand occasions for the head of a family, or an institution, to recall the Great Journey. As I am both head of institution and of family — sorry darling,” with a glance at her husband by Erik’s side.

  “No she’s right,” Walker conceded to the room, who laughed obligingly.

  “Then this solemn retelling shall fall to me,” Alice continued. “In the name of all that has been so that all may yet come, as we build the glorious future, amen.”“Amen,” echoed the crowd. There was no shortage of Destinos symbols among those gathered, the circle-and-crescent in earrings, pendants or on ties, the crescent rising behind the circle like a sunrise upon a planetary horizon, and pierced by a single line rising up to infinity. Many of the Debogande family’s charities were Destinos charities. More a Spacer religion than a Worlder one, it was a statement of identity through faith for many Spacers, not to mention a networking opportunity through such institutions.

  “Once upon a time,” Alice began, “there was a race of people called humans. We lived upon a beautiful planet called Earth, and it had supported us as a species for more than three million years. Eventually we evolved to venture from our homeworld, but no sooner had we learned how to do so than our efforts were noticed, because faster-than-light travel is detectable far and wide. Humans learned that we were directly alongside the territory of a powerful race called the krim.

  “We hoped that the krim could be our friends, but the krim were an evil and brutal race, who lived only to inflict pain on others. Krim invaded our beautiful world, and ravaged the resources of our solar system. In desperation the humans called out to the other civilised peoples of the galaxy, whom they had only just learned to also exist. Humans fought bravely to save their homeworld, but they did not have the technology to match the krim spacecraft and weapons.

  “But the galactic peoples were run by a greedy race called the tavalai. They and their allies cared for nothing but their own peace and happiness. The krim were powerful, and the tavalai agreed that each people should be allowed to do whatever they chose in their own area of space. The human area of space was deemed to be krim space, and so the krim could do as they pleased, while the tavalai counted their money, and congratulated themselves on being such a peaceful and civilised people, that they avoided such trouble with the krim.”

  Alice read this line from her visual with scorn, and there were grim chuckles from the audience. Human-tavalai bad blood was old indeed… though nowhere near as old as that between chah'nas and tavalai.

  “Meanwhile the krim slaughtered the brave humans in their thousands. But one of the galactic peoples did listen. One honourable people did not think that it was right that the krim could rape and pillage a world that was not theirs. These brave people took it upon themselves to defy the Tavalai Confederation, and smuggle arms and modern technology to the embattled humans.”

  Alice raised her glass again to the chah'nas. “Our friends, the great Chah'nas Continuum. Long may you prosper.” Loud assent from the crowd, and glasses were raised and sipped from. T
he chah'nas looked pleased.

  “With their new weapons, the humans fought back against the krim, and began to do damage. Humans left their home system and struck against the krim in the krim’s own territory, now having the ships to do that. This caused the krim great consternation. For two hundred years did humans fight this guerrilla war from and around their occupied system, while the chah'nas argued the case for humanity with the Tavalai Confederacy.”

  She was taking liberties, Erik knew, by calling it that. There had been no Tavalai Confederacy — most species in the Spiral called it the First Free Age, and the tavalai claimed not to have been in charge of it at all. It had been the first equal time, they said, when all the sentient races could do as they pleased without having to answer to one powerful overlord. And to some extent, they were right. But allowing freedom of action had allowed the krim to make war on humanity without consequence. And for that, humanity would never forgive or forget.

  “Finally the Tavalai Confederacy agreed to intervene. But instead of demanding that the krim leave humanity’s home system, they sent a force of peacekeepers, to keep the peace between humans and krim.” Again, the sarcasm was dripping. Old and often repeated history though it was, Erik could feel his blood boil at the telling. “But they found, of course, that there was no peace to keep. Humanity did not want peace with the krim — they wanted justice, and the krim to leave Earth, and Sol System, and all humanity alone forever. But the tavalai thought to make a deal between us, thereby to legitimise the krim occupation.

  “This the humans could never accept, and so a new war began, the war between humans and the tavalai peacekeepers. Soon the tavalai tired of fighting these brave freedom fighters in a distant corner of the galaxy, and returned to their own worlds. The krim took this admission of tavalai defeat as an opportunity to end humans once and for all, free from tavalai interference forever. They destroyed the human home, the beautiful Mother Earth, and left none upon its surface alive. Humanity was cast adrift, a people without a home, and with no purpose left for living. No purpose, that was, except revenge.

  “Once again, humanity’s chah'nas friends nurtured us. Barely one hundred million strong, out of so many billions before, only those humans living off-Earth at the time had survived. Humanity rebuilt its industry, in a hundred years of tireless work, out in the dark, in habitations of steel and stone, we rebuilt ourselves for the purpose of war, and steeled ourselves for battle.

  “This time, when the humans struck the krim, we were finally at and past their military level. With nothing to defend, we knew only attack, and we drove the krim from one system after another. What we occupied, we turned to engines of industry to power our war machine, as the galaxy watched on in amazement. Again the tavalai intervened, right at our moment of triumph, to dissuade us from final victory. But by now humanity was too strong, and the tavalai dared not strike. The krim race ended there, killed to the last living vermin we could find, and today not a trace of them remains. Humanity made a statement, to all who would make genocidal war on us — we shall deal with you in kind. The galaxy heard us, and those who would make war on the weak and innocent have trembled.”

  Odd, Erik thought, that this telling had never bothered him before. This cheerful endorsement of genocide, this utter annihilation of an entire species, down to the last living child… to be sure, the krim deserved it, and that was no crude human propaganda. Nearly every species had been pleased to see them go — an evolutionary mistake, most agreed… with the possible exception of the sard, who were perhaps another such mistake themselves. But it did not change the fact that of all sentient species in the galaxy today, only one was responsible, and indeed happily revelled in, the successful genocide of another race. It was one thing to cheerfully recall that tale in the blood-curdling joy of just deserts. It was another thing to have seen mass killing in person, and to realise what it must have actually meant to do it.

  “For five hundred years, we built our new spacefaring civilisation upon captured worlds and new technology,” Alice continued. “But still the tavalai made us trouble. They blamed us for upsetting the old balance, with our new ships and weapons. They demanded that we disarm, as though we had not nearly been exterminated for that lack of weapons. They denied us membership of the ruling bodies. They blocked our trade routes, and intercepted our trading missions. They harassed our shipping, and destabilised our worlds. Their vicious allies, the sard and the kaal, launched many raids against us and our friends.

  “Obviously this could not be allowed to continue, and so once again we joined with our chah'nas allies, and with our newest allies, the wise and powerful alo, to win our freedom and secure our rightful place in the galactic order.”

  Erik glanced around to see if there were any alo present, but predictably there weren’t. Alo were not sociable, and their manners made chah'nas seem paragons of etiquette. They thought humans smelled bad, in more ways than one, but their combined wealth and knowledge was said to be more than all of human and chah'nas space combined.

  “We three formed the Triumvirate Alliance, and today, one hundred and sixty one years from its commencement, this grand project has finally succeeded. Let us raise our glasses in a toast. A toast to humanity. A toast to victory. A toast to friendship. The human race has been in space for fourteen hundred years, and we’re just getting started!”

  3

  The next morning Erik awoke to silken sheets and a distractingly comfortable bed. He was back in the family Homeworld residence — there were numerous, on all of humanity’s major worlds, but this one was home, the place of all his childhood memories. The far wall was glass, so clean it seemed invisible. Beyond, a view of Shiwon from the high hills that surrounded it, a tall and gleaming city before a glorious blue harbour. Above the ocean horizon, Balise’s huge crescent filled the sky, pale in the glare of daylight.

  Erik lay for a moment and contemplated this change of circumstance. It didn’t feel real. His life here, or his life on Phoenix — one of them had to be a dream. He just wasn’t sure which. Why would anyone leave this? His shipmates had asked often enough. Exchange this room, and this house, for ten years of cramped Fleet quarters, dreary food, fake sunlight, and a final three years with the very real possibility of sudden death. Fleet hadn’t desperately needed him, there was no conscription. He could have stayed here, like his sisters, and run the various family businesses in luxurious safety.

  ‘What, can’t rich people be idealists too?’ he’d joked whenever one of his shipmates had pressed on it. It was a good way to deflect the questions, but even then, he hadn’t been sure he believed it. An idealist about what? The need for human victory? Everyone was that, and five hundred years of war against the krim had pretty well ironed all the pacifist delusions out of the human race a long time ago. Humanity’s spacefaring age had been born in fire, and the inability to fight well at the established galactic level had at one point cost ninety-nine percent of the human race their lives. They were all descendants of the survivors of that Holocaust, and when such descendants said ‘never again’, they meant it.

  But Family Debogande had appearances to upkeep. A long tradition of military service, among the men of the house. No one had told him he had to go, but he’d felt it, that needling expectation. And so he’d gone, and could not now for the life of him say whether it was a genuine passion for the cause, or the desire for the family to think well of him. Was that truly bravery, or cowardice — the seeking of favours and approval? Or was this onset of melancholy doubts just that he was tired, and no longer so enamoured of the war as he had been? And what kind of thinking was that anyway, to be doubting this last phase in humanity’s war of survival just because it hadn’t been as brutally hard as the first phase, and humanity had been winning for a change?

  He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and rolled from bed to do his exercises. Then he went for a run, and the family security staff tailed him out the gate in big dark cars, but no one on these high, exclusive hill-top roads notic
ed or cared. He ran past mansion after high-walled mansion, up and down slopes, happy just to be out in the open air. Some spacers reported mild agoraphobia after too much time in space, but Erik loved the open sky, and the sense of freedom every time he rounded a corner to a beautiful, unobstructed road ahead, flanked by lovely green trees and alive with birdsong, was indescribable.

  Time to get out of Fleet, perhaps? The war was over now. But there were vast new territories to patrol, and the defeated races weren’t going to accept their new status easily. Some enforcement would be required for a long time to come. The new colonial age was beginning, and colonial ages required large fleets. A man with important friends and a strong service record could progress far in such an age… and the truth of it was, as much as he knew he must be insane for leaving this life, he truly didn’t find the world of corporate management all that inspiring. It didn’t matter, not like service mattered.

  Or like politics mattered, he had to admit. If he wanted to go in that direction, Mother would back him all the way, and those pockets ran indefinitely deep. The way Spacer Congress politics worked, he’d need a longer and more distinguished service record than he had now. Three years on Phoenix was a start, but he’d held no combat command, and won no battles. Captain Pantillo was not in the business of career planning for his underlings, but he had let slip occasionally that he thought Erik could go far in Fleet, if he chose to. Another ten years in service, perhaps even twenty… and then a political run? With lifespans at two hundred years, he’d have plenty of time to enjoy the big houses and open roads when he got back.