Voice of the Chosen (Spirit of Empire, Book Three)

by Lawrence White

  A broad smile lit his face. “His instructors, anyway. My men and I are almost done. We’ll begin training on this mock-up in two weeks.”

  “I thought you were visiting sector headquarters, preparing them for the arrival of your men.”

  “I was. We have a third brigade now. One is here. The other two are out in the sectors. Chandrajuski and Veswicki have taken over my advance work.”

  She nodded. “As long as someone is doing it, I approve. I do not want your men going in unprepared as they were in the first two sectors.”

  Waverly nodded grimly. “They won’t. Chandrajuski has detailed a lot of ships to support us, and our preparations with sector headquarters are getting better each time. We’ve cleared four more sectors already, maybe six by now since I’ve been gone for a couple of months.”

  “So I’ll have the ten sectors promised by Veswicki when I address the senate?”

  “I think you’ll have more than that, Your Majesty. We still have six months.”

  “And you’ll be training all that time?”

  He nodded. “We have a lot to do.”

  She turned to Josh. “I’m told you are in charge. Can you walk me through your plan?”

  Josh shook his head. “Not entirely. Our plans are not firm yet. You might be interested to know that we’re considering asking the Chessori to help us.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Surely you jest.”

  “Remember the six Chessori Val recruited?”

  “They’re here?” she demanded.

  “They are.”

  “Can you trust them?”

  “We do trust them, Your Majesty.”

  “What if you’re wrong? We know they’re telepathic. They could alert Struthers’ forces to your presence, to my presence.”

  “It’s not a perfect world, Your Majesty, but we’re pretty good at reading people. They have cooperated with us in everything we’ve asked. Admiral Korban’s people studied them extensively attempting to find a way to reduce the effects of the scree, and these Chessori were completely cooperative.”

  She frowned. “Did Korban have any success?”

  “No, Your Majesty. How the scree works is a complete mystery to us. It might be to the Chessori, as well. Captain Forg, their leader, has no idea how it works.”

  “He and his men are traitors. How can you trust them?”

  “They’re not traitors, but they are in rebellion against the ruling Chessori who have overstepped their bounds. Forg is personally offended, he’s mad, and he’s afraid for the future of his people. He knows we’re going after them, and he knows we’ll go after them hard. He’s asked us to hold off. Instead, he wants us to help him establish a rebellion when we’re done here.”

  Her lips firmed. “There’s a lot at stake here. I must know if his words are true, and so must you. Take me to him.”

  Otis padded up to her. “We’ve considered this, Your Majesty. There are too many unknowns. It’s too dangerous to Test him.”

  She stared at Otis with her hands on her hips, a pose he knew well. He slowly lowered his haunches to sit at attention in his ‘listening to Ellie’ pose. Josh and Waverly stepped back in awe as powerful gazes locked. Invisible thoughts filled the space between them. Few had the nerve to stand up to her like this.

  Ellie ended the stalemate by breaking out laughing. She stepped up to Otis and put her arms around his neck. “You know me too well. I’ve missed you.”

  “I have missed you as well,” he growled.

  “Testing a Chessori could be dangerous, I agree, but Otis, you know as well as I do that Testing them is the right thing to do. I’m Chosen. It’s what I do. Besides, I’m curious to know the enemy. Aren’t you?”

  “These six are not our enemy.”

  “Let’s take the guess work out of it.”

  Ellie boarded a shuttle with Otis, Waverly, Josh, and her normal Protection detail. They landed in the front yard of a small hotel, the only hotel on the planet for offworlders, and proceeded to the conference room. She stopped just outside the door and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. To her, thoughts of the Chessori began and ended with the scree. To her, the Chessori stood not just for pain, but for agony. They were every child’s nightmare made real. Untold thousands had died as a consequence of the scree. In fact, Struthers’ ability to carry out the coup was largely based on the existence of the scree. Her whole family was dead, close friends had suffered horrible deaths, and her loved ones, including Alexis, Mike and Krys, had suffered mightily at the hands of the Chessori. She deeply feared the Chessori, and rightly so.

  But she was a Chosen. Her duty here was clear. She opened her eyes, took one more deep breath, then nodded. Her Protectors entered the conference room and spread out around its edges, then Ellie stepped confidently, much more confidently than she felt, into the room.

  One Chessori stood alone at the far end of the room to her left, facing her. A table filled most of the space between them. His diminutive form showed no expression that she could read, but she sensed disquiet from the creature. She was glad for the barrier the table represented, and she wondered if the Chessori felt the same way. The room was deathly silent.

  She stepped up to the table, not around it as she ordinarily would have done. She, a Chosen who had traveled the galaxy Testing thousands, she the only Chosen ever to have entered a ship’s net to fight, she the Chosen who was now Queen, needed the table between herself and this creature.

  She placed her fingertips on the table and leaned forward to study him. Her gaze bored hard into those huge, glassy eyes, eyes that telegraphed no clues to his thoughts. She hesitated to break the silence, but it was time.

  “You are here of your own free will?” she asked.

  He bowed, breaking the invisible tether between them. “I am, Your Majesty.”

  “Why are you here?”

  He straightened up. “A question of multiple possible meanings, Your Majesty.” His gaze locked on her own again, those enormous elliptical eyes glistening. “Do you mean why are my people here? I can’t answer that to my own satisfaction let alone yours. Do you mean why is my crew here?” He paused, then said, “We are traders, nothing more. I began negotiations with Sir Val two years ago. Those negotiations have not yet ended, nor have they been consummated. Do you mean why am I personally here? I am here because I will not give up on our negotiations. I cannot. The stakes are too high.”

  “For what do you negotiate?”

  “In the beginning, a replacement ship. Now . . . our futures. More precisely, I am negotiating for a relationship based upon cooperation rather than conflict.”

  “A difficult negotiation. Maybe impossible. We have no common currency.”

  “Not so, Your Majesty.” He took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the table. He lifted his chin and said, “We have truth.”

  The hairs on the back of her neck rose. Of all the words he might use to entice a Chosen, he had found just the right one. Their gazes held. She asked, “What do you call truth?”

  He did not hesitate. “I call it truth when I say you do not understand the Chessori. I call it truth when I say I don’t either. I call it truth when I say you have, alone among all civilizations, found a way to combat the scree. I call it truth that this discovery, if not negotiated properly, could result in a terrible war and the possible extermination of one side or the other.”

  “Just as you attempted to exterminate others?”

  His chin dropped and his shoulders sagged. In a near whisper, he said, “I fear they are not the first.”

  A general shuffling sounded from around the room as others stared at him aghast. She followed their example, stepping first away from him, then back toward him, her hands balled into fists.

  “Not the first? And you hope for a relationship with my Empire? You do not know us.”

  His chin lifted. “But I am learning, and yes, I have hope. I cannot say with certainty that they are or are not the first, I only suspect. What I do kn
ow is that commerce is much different within your empire. At first I was appalled, but now I am observing with open eyes. There are troubling aspects and there are intriguing aspects. None of that is the issue. The issue is the survival of our peoples. I will not settle for failure.” He looked around the room at the other participants, each of them returning grim expressions, then he focused back on her. “Please give us a second chance.”

  Such simple words. She imagined Mike beside her, and she knew exactly what he would be thinking. In every single encounter with the Chessori, the Chessori had managed to throw him a surprise that he was completely unprepared to deal with. This diminutive, all-white Chessori before her had done it again.

  She turned to Otis, her closest advisor for many years, and she saw that the Chessori’s words had given him pause, as well. Her gaze found its way back to the Chessori. “You speak wisely, Captain.”

  “I have been incarcerated for two years, Your Majesty. I’ve had plenty of time to think. I made an agreement with Sir Val that if he could keep the door from closing between our peoples, I would be a window through which you might learn more about us. I make the same offer to you. Test me, Your Majesty. Know the truth of the Chessori.”

  “I cannot compete against your scree. I would be at your mercy at a time when I am completely vulnerable. The risk is too great.”

  “Val, too, felt vulnerable during our negotiations, but he chose to risk, Your Majesty.”

  Her thoughts turned inward. Val had chosen to risk in more ways than this Chessori knew. Val had chosen to die for her. Was it time to repay that debt? Was this meeting between a Chosen and a Chessori that important to Val? She knew in her heart that it was. He had set this meeting in motion two years ago when he met Forg, but he had really set it in motion as a young, sixteen year old beggar with one leg. He had answered the call to duty and made the ultimate sacrifice. Now it was her turn.

  A sudden thought came to her. The Leaf People had named Val the Right Arm. Everyone assumed he was Mike’s Right Arm since Mike’s right arm had been missing when the two of them met, but now she wondered. Ever since she’d known Val he had been setting the example for others to follow, and now he had single-handedly begun the process of bringing two great civilizations to the bargaining table. Was he her Right Arm, too? Was he the Right Arm for others, as well?

  Her thoughts returned to Forg. She feared a Testing. Forg could be a plant by either Struthers or the Chessori. What would happen to her if he activated the scree while she was deep within his mind? She shuddered, knowing that she would not only be at his mercy but that she would be locked within a tomb from which there might be no escape.

  But she suddenly knew something else, as well. Two major empires were in the process of meeting for the first time, and the result was war. The very existence of these two civilizations begged the question: were there others? If there were, what she learned now might set the example for then. The day would come when a third major civilization entered the picture. Would her Empire and the Chessori empire approach it as separate, warring civilizations, each bargaining for advantage, or could they approach it as one entity?

  Resolving conflicts between great civilizations lay at the very heart of what the Chosen were all about. She had been bred and educated for this very purpose. As Queen, her people relied on her to envision the future, not just to deal with what lay before her eyes.

  Her mind went back to her meeting with the Leaf People on Lianli: so many years ago, and so, so much had happened during those years. The speaker for the Leaf People had called her the mother of future generations. In a harsh tone he had said, “You Test for truth, but who tests the tester?” Then his voice had softened, and he had said, “The answer lies in your people. Do not fail them. Heed their call, for you have been called as no other Chosen before you has been called.”

  She had a sudden inspiration. This Chessori was calling her for help. Could he be one of her people too? Could all the Chessori? Was that why she had been called as no other Chosen before her?

  Had she been thinking too small? Was her job to unite civilizations, not just her Empire?

  “The answer lies in your people. Do not fail them.”

  She shuddered, fearing the scree at the most fundamental level of life itself: instinct. But she knew her duty. She opened her eyes to the Chessori.

  “Your wish for Testing is granted.”

  She sat while Forg approached her. All her senses came to a peak. His skin had the appearance of eggshells. She did not detect a body odor from him. Maybe he wasn’t as afraid as she was? Her hands shook as she raised them. She stared into those enormous, shining eyes as she placed her hands on his head. His skin was soft and warm, a surprise. She turned a switch in her mind, and she was in.

  She knew his fear, and it was as great as her own. In horror, she sensed the scree hiding slightly below the surface, ready to be released at a moment’s notice.

  “It’s only instinct, Your Majesty. I have it under control.”

  “What?”

  “I will not harm you under any circumstances.”

  “My Touch is one-way. How can I hear you?”

  “Have you ever Tested a telepath?”

  “Yes. Please tell me you can’t read my mind.”

  “I have not tried to read your mind, nor will I. This is how we Chessori communicate.”

  “Not with thoughts?”

  “Sometimes with thoughts, but that can be burdensome. Mostly we communicate with words.”

  “Do you know what I risk here?”

  “I know that you never reveal to others what you learn during a Testing. I will not breach that trust. I have no interest in previous Testings, only my own. However, I release you from that promise as it regards me. The stakes are far too high, and your men need to know what you learn.”

  “I Test for truth. Are you giving me permission to Test for more?”

  “I told you I would be a window to my people. The answer is yes.”

  She dove in slowly, knowing instinctively where to go in her search for truth. She found it, and Forg was true. She sighed in relief, came back up long enough to let him know she knew, then wove her way back in.

  She sensed his admiration, even adulation, for Val. She moved beyond that to one of his strongest memories, that of losing his ship. The ship had been taken by a K’tiri who had claimed scree’Tal, or death-right. She learned instantly what that meant. K’tiri, and only K’tiri, formed the highest guild among the Chessori. Their decisions could be argued, but once scree’Tal was claimed, discussion ended.

  Chessori guilds were really an agglomeration of sub-species within a species. In most cases, differentiation between species was minor, but the K’tiri boasted a major difference. Their scree overpowered the scree of all other Chessori. A single K’tiri could bring any non-K’tiri Chessori to their knees if they were within a dozen arm-spans. If within a single arm-span, the scree of a K’tiri could kill another Chessori. Scree’Tal had been an effective court of final appeal for the K’tiri since the very beginning of Chessori civilization.

  The K’tiri ruled with an iron fist, brooking no exceptions to their ultimate rule, but short of going head to head with a K’tiri, the rest of the Chessori enjoyed complete freedom. Guilds flourished, and the K’tiri encouraged and supported guild freedoms and responsibilities.

  Not so for other worlds, other species. Non-Chessori were seldom allowed to leave their home worlds, and when they did, it was only in a Chessori ship. Inter-world commerce between non-Chessori worlds flourished, but all transactions and transportation were conducted by the Chessori.

  Within living memory, no one within the Chessori domain had ever known otherwise, and until coming to the Empire, Forg had not questioned those values. He had seen nothing unusual with the restrictions placed on non-Chessori worlds, and he had profited from those very restrictions. The people he dealt with had not seemed unhappy. It’s just the way things were.

  Trading within
the Empire had been confusing at first: as far as he could tell, no one was in charge. It was every species and every individual for himself. He was uncomfortable with such looseness in society, but his business was to turn a profit and he was doing just that. He was proud of the trading skills of his people.

  Until a K’tiri confiscated his ship.

  Prior to that, he had turned a blind eye on K’tiri activities within the Empire. He had been interested only in his own well-being and the well-being of his guild. The moment he became shipless, the veil before his eyes dropped. During discussions with Sir Val his eyes had opened further, and Val’s explanation of the Rebel-Chessori partnership had completed the process. Forg learned exactly what the K’tiri were up to, and he could not condone such activities. Though the K’tiri were his own species, they had gone too far. In fact, he now wondered if they had gone too far eons ago.

  It took Ellie only moments to sense all this. Forg understood that a relationship with the Empire might entail serious change within the Chessori domain, and those changes might be too severe to succeed, but they were not his concern. His focus was the K’tiri. They had confiscated ships under contract, many of them, and more important, they had used the scree in a way that violated the most fundamental Chessori laws. The scree was a secret weapon only to be used in extremis and to disable prey. The K’tiri used it indiscriminately, and he suspected they had been doing so for a long time. Worse, he believed their activities had been sanctioned at the highest levels. The K’tiri no longer deserved to rule.

  He could not put them in their place, nor could his people, but the Empire might be able to do it. He would help if he could.

  She came back to him. “You want the K’tiri removed from power. That might not be all I want.”

  “I know. You are not hiding your thoughts from me. I cannot speak for my people. I only speak against the K’tiri.”

  “Your hopes are reasonable. We are fighting the K’tiri and we are winning, though I suspect there are many, many more of them within your realm. I don’t know if we can deal with all of them. Things could get ugly in your empire if we try.”