Jorl shook his head. “No, another trip onto the beach.”
“I don’t understand. I thought this island was deserted.”
“No, this island doesn’t officially exist. And tucked away in the rainforest of this nonexistent island is an equally unknown city, identical in many ways to any other Civilized Wood on any island, but also critically different, too.”
“So you found people there? Other Fant.”
“I did. And tomorrow I have a meeting with their leaders. It shouldn’t take too long. I’ll be back before day’s end and then we can return to Keslo.”
Rina tugged on his arm. “Papa, can’t we stay a few more days? Abi is teaching me all about the Procy. If I go back tomorrow, she won’t be able to finish.”
“I think there’s much more to know about her people than she can manage to share even if we were to stay here another tenday. Nor would that be fair to your mother; we don’t want her to worry. Besides, don’t you have oratory the day after tomorrow? You wouldn’t want to miss that.”
Rina rolled her eyes at him in a manner that would have made her instructor proud, saw it did no good, and subsided.
“And your plans for me, Senator?” All this time the Raccoon had silently continued assembling pieces. Now she got to her feet.
“Much depends on this meeting. By this time tomorrow, I may have something concrete to share with you. Possibly much more than either of us might have imagined just a couple days ago.”
“Does that mean we get to have dinner here, Papa? Dinner on a spaceship?”
“I suppose it does at that.”
“Would you like me to prepare a dinner for the two of you in your room, Senator?”
“No, please, let’s all just eat together in the galley, if that’s all right. Rina can grab a bite with me any time she likes, but who knows how long it will be before she has the chance to share a meal with people who aren’t Fant.”
“I’ll be in the galley then, if you need me.” She paused and waved to Rina. “Would you like to help?”
“Can I, Papa?”
“On this ship, you can do anything Druz says you can do.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Rina offered her hand to the Sloth then glanced back to the Raccoon. “Are you coming too, Abi?”
“I’ll be following right behind. I remember the way from when we had snacks earlier.”
“Good snacks, too,” said Rina, and hand in hand with Druz skipped out of the room.
Abenaki stepped forward, and to his amazement clasped Jorl’s hands in hers. “Senator. Thank you. For anything you manage. For your willingness to attempt anything. And for hearing me.”
Jorl met her gaze. “I could hardly do otherwise for the most compelling proposal any constituent has ever brought my way. At the moment, I have only the glimmering of an idea. We’ll see in a day if it goes anywhere. Now, let’s join the others for dinner.”
* * *
LATE the next morning, he returned to the beach and found Regina waiting for him.
“What’s the plan?”
“If you would, I’m to escort you back to the Civilized Wood. The Full Council is in session discussing your … situation. Councilor Klarce invites you to attend.”
“This is the council that runs the Caudex, and purports to have thousands of agents spread out across the planet?”
Regina’s mouth tightened but otherwise managed a neutral face. “The Full Council exists to ensure the ultimate welfare of all Fant everywhere. But this is the first time, since its creation, that a Speaker from the outside has been invited to attend and give testimony.”
“I’m honored, of course,” said Jorl, privately chiding himself for tweaking the younger woman. “I apologize if I gave any other impression. Please, lead the way.”
The walk back through the unnamed island’s Shadow Dwell and up to its Civilized Wood gave him time to reflect. Klarce had been surprised, possibly even upset, at the notion of reuniting Fant with any of the Alliance’s other races, which was no more than he’d expected. But she hadn’t rejected the notion out of hand. Her need to convene the Caudex’s Full Council had to be a good thing. Surely the worst that could happen was that they’d dig in deeper and insist on maintaining the status quo of the past eight hundred years. If so, then he’d be no worse off than before he came here. But the possibility that he might have stumbled upon a powerful ally, one who shared his own desire to protect all Fant, gave him hope. Then again, he reminded himself, Margda had defended her own machinations with that same logic, the continued well-being of her people justifying any and all action.
Regina led him down a different boardway than he’d walked the day before. With the exception of the detour to the sweet shop, his escort had taken him by less-used routes. Today they strolled down the main thoroughfares of the city. The layout and design of the place were familiar enough, but everywhere he noted examples of technology eschewed by the rest of the planet: artificial lighting in lieu of elaborate arrays of mirrors, the occasional automaton that whizzed by scooping up litter or fallen leaves, vid displays in shop windows. Trivial things that spoke of a commonplace acceptance of goods and services that he’d had to learn to endure when he’d been in the Patrol and then let go of again upon his return.
They arrived at an unassuming building, entered into a spacious rotunda, climbed a stair, and strode through a wing of offices until arriving at their destination. Regina paused and handed him a small packet.
“You’ll need this, sir.”
Curious, Jorl opened the packet to find a simple tablet of koph. He smiled. “What’s this for?”
“The Full Council meets in a shared mindspace. You’ll understand why in a moment.”
Jorl feigned putting the tablet in his mouth, all the while secreting it in his trunk. As Regina turned to knock on the door, he slipped it into a pocket and then followed his guide inside.
A large circular table occupied most of the room, with eight seats. Three Fant had spread out like three points of a compass, each with their arms folded in front of them on the table, their heads resting upon them as if asleep. Each had an empty chair to either side. Regina guided him to the remaining compass point.
“Where’s Klarce?” he asked her as he settled into the chair.
“She’ll join you shortly. This is her spot. She wanted you to have it.”
In addition to the four of them at the table, a set of four hammock seats hung along the wall, one behind each of the empty ones at the table; in each of these slumped a young Fant, likely—given the koph that Regina had supplied—caught up in summoning someone. Jorl sat and, with a thought, switched on his perception of nefshons and found a fully realized construct of the room waiting for him. He added himself to it and Speakers occupying the hammocks along the wall vanished just as the empty seats at the table filled with elderly Fant. He was far from an expert on fashion, but the summoned quad all appeared to be dressed in garb different from one another and from the current trends and styles. Moreover, he recognized three of them from his own reading of history. As for the three Fant he’d seen slumped upon their arms when he came in, all were sitting upright now, listening intently to one of the elders—could that truly be Nirl?—who’d held the floor but broke off as Jorl’s own construct manifested. She waved her trunk in his direction and the others turned toward him. A voice spoke from behind and he turned in his seat to see Klarce standing there.
“Councilors, may I present our guest, Jorl ben Tral, lately of the island of Keslo in the western archipelago. He is a history professor at large, associated with the university on Zlorka. As you can see, he bears an aleph, the fifty-seventh to wear that mark, foreseen by Margda before her death. In her words, he is the ‘one who had gone out and come back, and though of the present would look into the past.’ He is one of only a handful of Fant to reject the Compact’s perpetual military deferment and serve in the Patrol, the first in six hundred years. And he is the first Lox to be admitted to the Alliance senate, where he
serves as a junior member of the Committee of Information.”
She paused and Jorl took the opportunity to raise his trunk in a salute and execute a quarter bow to the councilors around the table.
“Jorl, allow me to introduce the Caudex Council. The living members you would have seen when you first arrived are, from your left, Melko, Sind, and Kissel. With myself, they make up the ‘Quick Council.’ The summoned members of our group are, again starting on the left, Genz, Nirl, Marsh, and Soosh.”
“So you’re Margda’s chosen,” said Nirl. “I must say, you don’t look particularly special. And that surprises me, because like you I was a student of her madness. Every other of her prophecies sparkled in some way. I see nothing dazzling about you.”
Klarce glared at the dead Speaker. “Please, Jorl is here as a guest.”
Marsh snapped the nubs of his trunk for attention. “No, I believe the better starting point is to describe him as a concern. It’s on him to convince us whether he is to be considered an ally and not reassessed as a threat.”
“Be that as it may, we can reach some conclusions without antagonism.”
“It’s fine,” said Jorl. “Being a part of Margda’s prophecies was certainly not something I wanted. And as it happens, my role in them was more about someone I knew than about me.”
Nirl smiled. “See? He admits it. I’ve said nothing that wasn’t true.”
Jorl flapped his ears. Was this council already at odds, or was this a performance for his benefit? Klarce to be his innocent advocate and Nirl his aggressive interlocutor? Though just the day before Klarce had demonstrated she was anything but innocent. Fine. As a veteran of endless faculty meetings he could handle this.
“I wouldn’t go that far. But then, you’re that Nirl. Nirl of the island of Moreb? Maybe things have changed for you here in this place since you sailed away, but in life you weren’t exactly known for truth.”
Nirl was on her feet, ears down and back, trunk slashing in front of her. “I was the premiere scholar of my day. A polymath beyond compare.”
Jorl smiled at that and shrugged. “I’m just a historian, but I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. While what you say is true, you’ve left out that you were also a thief and a liar.”
Marsh and Kissel both turned toward Nirl and then back to Jorl.
Sind pounded the table with a fist. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing that you can’t confirm for yourself, if you know where to look. Two generations after Nirl’s death, one of her granddaughters came forward with proof that all of her published papers, all of her celebrated ideas, were the work of others.” He turned to first one of the councilors and slowly included them as his remarks flowed in an arc. “It’s true, she began as a credible scholar and scientist, and truly gifted as an orator. I’ve been in her presence for just moments and I can already feel her charisma. No surprise then that she surrounded herself with brilliant and talented students. She nurtured them, encouraged them, and then took credit for their insights, stealing their accomplishments and applying her name to them.”
Sind waved that away and motioned for Nirl to resume her seat. “The past we’re concerned with is yours, Jorl. We have been informed that you claim responsibility for our inability to Speak with Margda for the past seven years.”
“That’s true.”
“And shortly prior to that, you say she, uh, Spoke with you?” added Kissel. “How was that possible?”
“It actually all goes back to why she singled me out in one of her visions to receive the aleph.”
“Fine,” said Sind. “Start there.”
He sighed. “As you wish. Briefly then, Margda wanted me to have the aleph as part of a plan she’d put in place to defend against an Alliance threat she had seen, one that could have meant the end of all Fant on Barsk.”
He’d expected a reaction when he said that, gasps of surprise, exclamations of disbelief. Instead, all around the table the councilors, both living and dead, nodded as if he’d confirmed what they already knew.
Soosh addressed him next. “What was the nature of this threat?”
“A ranking member of the senate viewed the current state of exports from Barsk as holding the Alliance hostage, particularly with regard to koph. He began abducting the Dying on their way to your island, believing their absence wouldn’t be noticed and thus allowing him time to interrogate them.”
“This doesn’t explain how Margda could Speak to you.”
“Part of her vision included knowing that when these events came to pass, a Speaker from another world—an Otter who was also a telepath—would have cause to break the first rule of her Edict and summon her. Margda was able to appropriate her mental abilities and imprint herself in the Lutr’s mind.”
“That’s not possible,” Nirl sputtered. She turned to Melko. “Is that possible?”
“It’s … conceivable.”
“It happened,” said Jorl. “Margda basically lived again in the body of the Otter. By that point, I’d set out to find your island and learn what was happening to so many Dying who had left seasons before yet somehow never died. Along the way, I was abducted as well and soon after Margda herself broke the second rule of her Edict by summoning me.”
“And this was all in service to a threat she saw to all Fant.”
“That’s correct.”
“But that was seven years ago,” said Soosh. “What is the status of this threat now?”
“Oh, it’s been resolved. I ended it.”
“And I suppose in recognition of your service, they made you a senator?” Nirl’s question served as a vehicle of her contempt.
“Indirectly,” said Jorl. “There were other factors, but that’s the upshot, yes.”
“And you would have this council believe that you, a simple historian, saved all our people and wooed the Alliance of a senate seat?”
“Oh no, not at all.”
“Ha!” Nirl was on her feet again. “You admit this is all fabrication then!”
“No, everything I’ve said is true. I was responding to your question, not your implication. Frankly, I don’t care if you believe me or you don’t. But I’m not surprised if you don’t. As I noted before, you built your entire career on lies. I suppose it’s only natural for you to assume other people must be fabricating their own actions.”
“Councilors!” Genz had leapt up and stared at Nirl until she sat back down. “Councilors, I choose to take Jorl’s remarks at face value, because their underlying pattern reveals that we share common cause.”
“And what would that be?” asked Jorl.
“Saving our people. Our founders were Margda’s contemporaries. While Margda practiced politics and drafted the Compact, they looked at the result and saw it as a temporary solution at best. For more than seven hundred years, we have been working in secret, studying nefshons in ways she never considered. We have drawn the best and brightest minds of Barsk to these shores to help us. While the rest of the planet has turned their backs on most technology, we’ve pushed its limits.”
“Toward what end?”
“Our salvation. You may wonder why Klarce is not physically here in this council chamber along with her peers on the Quick Council. It is because she is no longer on Barsk.”
“Excuse me? If not here, then where?”
“Would it surprise you to learn that yours was not the only spacecraft on Barsk this morning?” said Klarce.
He nodded. “The Fant stopped being a space-faring people when we were moved to Barsk. There’s nowhere you could go that the Alliance wouldn’t notice. Believe me, I’d know.”
“You’re wrong. Not long before this council session began I arrived at Ulmazh. The Alliance doesn’t monitor our activity there.”
“You’re on one of the moons?”
“More accurately, I am inside one of the moons. Ulmazh is the proving ground for our technology. We’ve learned how to take a lifeless planetoid, scoop a portion of it out, and c
reate a viable city within. There’s a Civilized Wood here, Jorl, populated with ten thousand Eleph and Lox. Generations of people who have known no other home.”
“That’s astonishing!”
Nirl was sneering at him again. “So you can see, we didn’t need you to save us. We would have survived your scenario.”
Jorl spat. He’d had enough. “Forgive me if I nonetheless take some comfort in my efforts to spare the lives of five and a half million Fant.”
“No,” said Sind, “forgive Nirl her foolishness. She’s been dead so long, she’s lost track of the value of life. Our goal isn’t simply to ensure Fant continue to exist at all, but to preserve all of our people, wherever they are. Which is why we oppose the petition that brought a Raccoon to you.”
“I don’t follow.”
“It’s not a question of whether or not turning Barsk into a mixed world would be beneficial,” said Klarce. “Arguments can be made on both sides. But long before that question could be tested, it would doom our other efforts.”
“Simply put, we cannot risk the scrutiny that greater Alliance interest in Barsk would bring.” Genz glanced at each of his fellow councilors and received nods in response.
Jorl saw the problem at once. “You’re worried the Alliance would discover that you’ve, in effect, colonized another world. You want to keep what you’ve done on Ulmazh a secret.”
“In part,” said Soosh. “But we’ve done a great many things on Ulmazh. You’ve been in the Patrol, you no doubt are familiar with the time it takes to push portals and establish new routes between distant points in space.”
“Of course, it’s one of the main tasks of every Patrol ship.”
“Indeed. Would you be surprised to learn we’ve been doing this ourselves for several centuries? That we have our own, improved portal technology?”
“That’s impossible,” said Jorl. “You couldn’t possibly have ships traversing the galaxy. Other Alliance vessels would detect them.”
“Not if they only traveled where the Alliance never goes,” said Marsh.
Klarce stepped closer, seating herself on the edge of the table to his left. “I said that Ulmazh has been a proving ground for us. Remember, the Caudex’s purpose is to ensure not just our people’s survival but their continuance. The things we’ve learned to do here were never meant to end here. This city in the moon is a wonderment, yes, but it is also a proof of concept. One that we have re-created elsewhere in the galaxy. Not once, not twice, but more.”
The Moons of Barsk Page 26