by John Scalzi
“Please close the door,” I said to Hickory, who was the closest to it. It did.
“Thank you,” I said, and threw up all over my shoes. Dickory was over to me immediately and caught me before I could fall completely.
“You are ill,” Hickory said.
“I’m fine,” I said, and then threw up all over Dickory. “Oh, God, Dickory,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
Hickory came over, took me from Dickory and guided me toward the strange plumbing. It turned on a tap and water came bubbling out.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It is a sink,” Hickory said.
“You’re sure?” I asked. Hickory nodded. I leaned over and washed my face and rinsed my mouth out.
“How do you feel?” Hickory said, after I had cleaned myself off as best I could.
“I don’t think I’m going to throw up anymore, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing left.”
“You vomited because you are sick,” Hickory said.
“I vomited because I just treated one of your leaders like it was my cabin boy,” I said. “That’s a new one for me, Hickory. It really is.” I looked over at Dickory, who was covered in my upchuck. “And I hope it works. Because I think if I have to do that again, my stomach might just flop right out on the table.” My insides did a flip-flop after I said that. Note to self: After having vomited, watch the overly colorful comments.
“Did you mean it?” Hickory said. “What you said to Dock?”
“Every word,” I said, and then motioned at myself. “Come on, Hickory. Look at me. You think I’d put myself through all of this if I wasn’t serious?”
“I wanted to be sure,” Hickory said.
“You can be sure,” I said.
“Zoë, we will be with you,” Hickory said. “Me and Dickory. No matter what the council decides. If you choose to stay behind after you speak to General Gau, we will stay with you.”
“Thank you, Hickory,” I said. “But you don’t have to do that.”
“We do,” Hickory said. “We would not leave you, Zoë. We have been with you for most of your life. And for all the life that we have spent conscious. With you and with your family. You have called us part of your family. You are away from that family now. You may not see them again. We would not have you be alone. We belong with you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I said.
“Say you will let us stay with you,” Hickory said.
“Yes,” I said. “Do stay. And thank you. Thank you both.”
“You are welcome,” Hickory said.
“And now as your first official duties, find me something new to wear,” I said. “I’m starting to get really ripe. And then tell me which of those things over there is the toilet. Because now I really need to know.”
TWENTY-THREE
Something was nudging me awake. I swatted at it. “Die,” I said.
“Zoë,” Hickory said. “You have a visitor.”
I blinked up at Hickory, who was framed as a silhouette by the light coming from the corridor. “What are you talking about?” I said.
“General Gau,” Hickory said. “He is here. Now. And wishes to speak to you.”
I sat up. “You have got to be kidding me,” I said. I picked up my PDA and looked at the time.
We had arrived in Conclave space fourteen hours earlier, popping into existence a thousand klicks out from the space station that General Gau had made the administrative headquarters of the Conclave. He said he hadn’t wanted to favor one planet over another. The space station was ringed with hundreds of ships from all over Conclave space, and even more shuttles and cargo transports, going between ships and back and forth from the station. Phoenix Station, the largest human space station and so big I’ve heard that it actually affected tides on the planet Phoenix (by amounts measurable only by sensitive instruments, but still), would have fit into a corner of the Conclave HQ.
We had arrived and announced ourselves and sent an encrypted message to General Gau requesting an audience. We had been given parking coordinates and then willfully ignored. After ten hours of that, I finally went to sleep.
“You know I do not kid,” Hickory said. It walked back to the doorway and turned up the lights in my stateroom. I winced. “Now, please,” Hickory said. “Come to meet him.”
Five minutes later I was dressed in something I hoped would be presentable and walking somewhat unsteadily down the corridor. After a minute of walking I said, “Oh, crap,” and ran back to my stateroom, leaving Hickory standing in the corridor. A minute later I was back, bearing a shirt with something wrapped in it.
“What is that?” Hickory asked.
“A gift,” I said. We continued our trip through the corridor.
A minute later I was standing in a hastily arranged conference room with General Gau. He stood to one side of a table surrounded by Obin-style seats, which were not really well designed either for his physiology or mine. I stood on the other, shirt in my hand.
“I will wait outside,” Hickory said, after it delivered me.
“Thank you, Hickory,” I said. It left. I turned and faced the general. “Hi,” I said, somewhat lamely.
“You are Zoë,” General Gau said. “The human who has the Obin to do her bidding.” His words were in a language I didn’t understand; they were translated through a communicator device that hung from his neck.
“That’s me,” I said. I heard my words translated into his language.
“I am interested in how a human girl is able to commandeer an Obin transport ship to take her to see me,” General Gau said.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“Give me the short version,” Gau said.
“My father created special machines that gave the Obin consciousness. The Obin revere me as the only surviving link to my father. They do what I ask them to,” I said.
“It must be nice to have an entire race at your beck and call,” Gau said.
“You should know,” I said. “You have four hundred races at yours. Sir.”
General Gau did something with his head that I was going to hope was meant to be a smile. “That’s a matter of some debate at this point, I’m afraid,” he said. “But I am confused. I was under the impression that you are the daughter of John Perry, administrator of the Roanoke Colony.”
“I am,” I said. “He and his wife Jane Sagan adopted me after my father died. My birth mother had died some time before that. It is on my adopted parents’ account that I am here now. Although I apologize”—I motioned to myself, and my state of unreadiness—“I didn’t expect to meet you here, now. I thought we would come to you, and I would have time to prepare.”
“When I heard that the Obin were ferrying a human to see me, and one from Roanoke, I was curious enough not to want to wait,” Gau said. “I also find value in making my opposition wonder what I am up to. My coming to visit an Obin ship rather than waiting to receive their embassy will make some wonder who you are, and what I know that they don’t.”
“I hope I’m worth the trip,” I said.
“If you’re not, I’ll still have made them nervous,” Gau said. “But considering how far you’ve come, I hope for both our sakes the trip has been worth it. Are you completely dressed?”
“What?” I said. Of the many questions I might have been expecting, this wasn’t one of them.
The general pointed to my hand. “You have a shirt in your hands,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, and put the shirt on the table between us. “It’s a gift. Not the shirt. There’s something wrapped in the shirt. That’s the gift. I was hoping to find something else to put it in before I gave it to you, but you sort of surprised me. I’m going to shut up now and let you just have that.”
The general gave me what I think was a strange look, and then reached out and unwrapped what was in the shirt. It was the stone knife given to me by the werewolf. He held it up and examined it in the light. “T
his is a very interesting gift,” he said, and began moving it in his hand, testing it, I guessed, for weight and balance. “And quite a nicely designed knife.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Not precisely modern weaponry,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Figured that a general must have an interest in archaic weapons?” Gau asked.
“Actually there’s a story behind it,” I said. “There’s a native race of intelligent beings on Roanoke. We didn’t know about them before we landed. Not too long ago we met up with them for the first time, and things went badly. Some of them died, and some of us died. But then one of them and one of us met and decided not to try to kill each other, and exchanged gifts instead. That knife was one of those gifts. It’s yours now.”
“That’s an interesting story,” Gau said. “And I think I’m correct in supposing that this story has some implication for why you’re here.”
“It’s up to you, sir,” I said. “You might just decide it’s a nice stone knife.”
“I don’t think so,” Gau said. “Administrator Perry is a man who plays with subtext. It’s not lost on me what it means that he has sent his daughter to deliver a message. But then to offer this particular gift, with its particular story. He’s a man of some subtlety.”
“I think so, too,” I said. “But the knife is not from my dad. It’s from me.”
“Indeed,” Gau said, surprised. “That’s even more interesting. Administrator Perry didn’t suggest it?”
“He doesn’t know I had the knife,” I said. “And he doesn’t know how I got it.”
“But you did intend to send me a message with it,” Gau said. “One to complement your adopted father’s.”
“I hoped you’d see it that way,” I said.
Gau set the knife down. “Tell me what Administrator Perry has to tell me,” he said.
“You’re going to be assassinated,” I said. “Someone is going to try, anyway. It’s someone close to you. Someone in your trusted circle of advisors. Dad doesn’t know when or how, but he knows that it’s planned to happen soon. He wanted you to know so you could protect yourself.”
“Why?” General Gau asked. “Your adopted father is an official of the Colonial Union. He was part of the plan that destroyed the Conclave fleet and has threatened everything I have worked for, for longer than you have been alive, young human. Why should I trust the word of my enemy?”
“The Colonial Union is your enemy, not my dad,” I said.
“Your dad helped kill tens of thousands,” Gau said. “Every ship in my fleet was destroyed but my own.”
“He begged you not to call your ships to Roanoke,” I said.
“This was a place where he was all too subtle,” Gau said. “He never explained how the trap had been set. He merely asked me not to call my fleet. A little more information would have kept thousands alive.”
“He did what he could,” I said. “You were there to destroy our colony. He wasn’t allowed to surrender it to you. You know he didn’t have many options. And as it was he was recalled by the Colonial Union and put on trial for even hinting to you that something might happen. He could have been sent to prison for the simple act of speaking to you, General. He did what he could.”
“How do I know he’s not just being used again?” Gau asked.
“You said you knew what it meant that he sent me to give you a message,” I said. “I’m the proof that he’s telling you the truth.”
“You’re the proof he believes he’s telling me the truth,” Gau said. “It’s not to say that it is the truth. Your adopted father was used once. Why couldn’t he be used again?”
I flared at this. “Begging your pardon, General,” I said. “But you should know that by sending me to send you this warning, both my dad and my mom are absolutely assured of being labeled as traitors by the Colonial Union. They are both going to prison. You should know that as part of the deal to get the Obin to bring me to you, I can’t go back to Roanoke. I have to stay with them. Because they believe that it’s only a matter of time before Roanoke is destroyed, if not by you then by some part of the Conclave you don’t have any control over anymore. My parents and I have risked everything to give you this warning. It’s possible I’ll never see them or anyone else on Roanoke again, because I am giving you this warning. Now, General, do you think any of us would do any of this if we were not absolutely certain about what we are telling you? Do you?”
General Gau said nothing for a moment. Then, “I am sorry you have all had to risk so much,” he said.
“Then do my dad the honor of believing him,” I said. “You’re in danger, General. And that danger is closer than you think.”
“Tell me, Zoë,” Gau said, “what does Administrator Perry hope to get from telling me this? What does he want from me?”
“He wants you to stay alive,” I said. “You promised him that as long as you were running the Conclave, you wouldn’t attack Roanoke again. The longer you stay alive, the longer we stay alive.”
“But there’s the irony,” Gau said. “Thanks to what happened at Roanoke, I’m not in as much control as I was. My time now is spent keeping others in line. And there are those who are looking at Roanoke as a way to take control from me. I’m sure you don’t know about Nerbros Eser—”
“Sure I do,” I said. “Your main opposition right now. He’s trying to convince people to follow him. Wants to destroy the Colonial Union.”
“I apologize,” Gau said. “I forgot you’re not just a messenger girl.”
“It’s all right,” I said.
“Nerbros Eser is planning to attack Roanoke,” Gau said. “I have been getting the Conclave back under my control—too slowly—but enough races support Eser that he has been able to fund an expedition to take Roanoke. He knows the Colonial Union is too weak to put up a defense of the colony, and he knows that at the moment I am in no position to stop him. If he can take Roanoke where I could not, more Conclave races could side with him. Enough that they would attack the Colonial Union directly.”
“You can’t help us, then,” I said.
“Other than to tell you what I just have, no,” Gau said. “Eser is going to attack Roanoke. But in part because Administrator Perry helped to destroy my fleet, there is no way I can do much to stop him now. And I doubt very much that your Colonial Union will do much to stop him.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because you are here,” General Gau said. “Make no mistake, Zoë, I do appreciate your family’s warning. But Administrator Perry is not so kind that he would have warned me out of his own simple goodness. As you’ve noted, the cost is too high for that. You are here because you have nowhere else to turn.”
“But you believe Dad,” I said.
“Yes,” Gau said. “Unfortunately. Someone in my position is always a target. But now of all times I know that even some of those who I’ve trusted with my life and friendship are calculating the costs and deciding that I’m worth more to them dead than alive. And it makes sense for someone to try for me before Eser attacks Roanoke. If I’m dead and Eser takes revenge on your colony, no one else will even try to challenge him for control of the Conclave. Administrator Perry isn’t telling me anything I don’t know. He’s only confirming what I do know.”
“Then I’ve been no use to you,” I said. And you’ve been no use to me, I thought but did not say.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Gau said. “One of the reasons I am here now is so that I could hear what you had to say to me without anyone else involved. To find out what I could do with the information you might have. To see if it has use to me. To see if you are of use to me.”
“You already knew what I told you,” I said.
“This is true,” Gau said. “However, no one else knows how much you know. Not here, in any event.” He reached over and picked up the stone knife and looked at it again. “And the truth of the matter is that I’m getting tired of not knowing, of th
ose whom I trust, which is planning to stab me in the heart. Whoever is planning to assassinate me is going to be in league with Nerbros Eser. They are likely to know when he plans to attack Roanoke, and with how large a force. And perhaps working together we can find out both of these things.”
“How?” I asked.
General Gau looked at me again, and did that I-hope-it’s-a-smile thing with his head. “By doing a bit of political theater. By making them think we know what they do. By making them act because of it.”
I smiled back at Gau. “‘The play is the thing in which I shall catch the conscience of the king,’” I said.
“Precisely,” Gau said. “Although it will be a traitor we catch, not a king.”
“In that quote he was both,” I said.
“Interesting,” Gau said. “I’m afraid I don’t know the reference.”
“It’s from a play called Hamlet,” I said. “I had a friend who liked the playwright.”
“I like the quote,” Gau said. “And your friend.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I do too.”
“One of you in this chamber is a traitor,” General Gau said. “And I know which one of you it is.”
Wow, I thought. The general sure knows how to start a meeting.
We were in the general’s official advisors’ chamber, an ornate room, which, the general told me beforehand, he never used except to receive foreign dignitaries with some semblance of pomp and circumstance. Since he was technically receiving me for this particular meeting, I felt special. But more to the point, the room featured a small raised platform with steps, on which sat a large chair. Dignitaries, advisors and their staff all approached it like it was a throne. This was going to be useful for what General Gau had in mind for today.
In front of the platform, the room opened up into a semicircle. Around the perimeter stood a curving bar, largely of standing height for most sentient species in the Conclave. This is where advisors’ and dignitaries’ staff stood, calling up documents and data when needed and whispering (or whatever) into small microphones that fed into earpieces (or whatever) worn by their bosses.