Lawrence Schoen - Barsk - The Elephants' Graveyard

“That is the secret the senate has guarded, Chieko Castleman. That is the shame of all our races, Jorl ben Tral. And if perhaps at some level, the Eleph and the Lox with their lack of fur, their naked skin, have touched some racial memory and reminded us of our crime, perhaps now you better understand the reasons you are loathed and despised by the rest of the galaxy.”

Sighing, Bish pivoted left then right, surveying his fellow senators. Some looked away, their faces reflecting the shame of their knowledge. Others stared back, aghast at what they’d just learned. “So my young historian, you see now that this revelation of yours is not news. It cannot be used to affect your release or preserve your precious Compact. It does not matter and makes no difference. The senate has kept this secret from our earliest beginnings. The Committee of Information will not spread it further. That one, self-important Fant has learned of it changes nothing. But you have made one thing simpler for me. You’ve demonstrated that you’re too well informed to survive. We are done, Jorl. This ends now.”

Jorl crossed his arms and lowered his head. He spread his ears wide and allowed his trunk to hang down and curl up at the end, nubs closed tight like a third fist.

“On that we agree, Senator, but you’ve gotten everything else wrong. You’ve been interpreting dozens of different prophecies that all converge on this moment in time. You’ve correctly identified it as a turning point, and you’ve acted on that knowledge. But no one, not your precognitivists nor Barsk’s own Matriarch, has been able to scry just what will occur. A decision will be made, some action taken, yes, but no one knows what form any of that takes. You’ve decided it has to be either shattering the Compact or destroying my people and planet. But I believe it’s something else. Margda started all of this with her own prophecies a generation after every Lox and Eleph on an Alliance world were rounded up and moved to a single planet. She foretold something she called the Silence, and warned that all of Barsk would be at risk when it came. You’re the obvious source of the danger she saw, and now I understand that the Silence was the secret you’ve kept hidden. This will end, but not by killing me or anyone else. It stops by sharing the truth with the rest of the Alliance!”

Bish chuckled. “I give you full points for arrogance, but there’s only bluster and no bite to your words. You’re out of tricks. The tableau you’ve created is impressive, but it accomplishes nothing. Regardless of the illusion you’ve crafted here, I know where you really are, locked in a room on the station where my personal ship is docked. In the time you’ve had us here I could have walked there. The only reason I haven’t is because you’re keeping me here. But how long can you manage this trick? Soon you will grow tired and this mass summoning will come to an end. And when it does, I will make my way to your room, relieve the guard on duty outside your door, and step inside to wring the life from your worthless body with my own hands.”

Castleman stepped in front of Jorl and didn’t stop until she was nose to nose with Bish. “Is that your only answer? To commit murder rather than face your own truth?”

The senator took a step back, not because the human had startled him, as Jorl first thought, but to give him room to raise an arm the better to backhand Castleman across her face and send the woman stumbling. Blood trickled from her mouth and as she righted herself, the human spit out a tooth.

“You are already dead, and by your own testimony you’ve been so for longer than my own race has existed. I won’t be instructed by someone who is less than the memory of dust. When the Speaker here is gone, you will be as well.”

“You’re wrong,” said Jorl. “I am like no other Speaker. I can summon the living from across the vast expanse of the Alliance and bring them together in one place. You’ve seen that there can be as many of me as I choose to create. But you haven’t thought it through. Chieko Castleman has already been summoned. The particles that define her construct have already been gathered together from millennia of dispersion. Even if you kill me, any Speaker with knowledge of her could summon her back with ease.”

“How fortunate for us all then that no others know about her.”

“Give me a little credit for being a historian. While I was sending out constructs of myself to gather the members of this committee, still other versions of me went out and visited Speakers, both on Barsk and throughout the worlds of the Alliance. The experience gave them all quite a shock, as it violated two of the rules of our order. But when I told them about a summoning I’d performed, reaching all the way back to the Before, I captured their imagination. I told them of Chieko Castleman, and I promised I’d return within a day to share what I had learned. You can kill me, but when they don’t hear from me, those other Speakers will give in to temptation and attempt to summon her. And they’ll succeed. One way or another, the Silence comes to an end. And so do you.”

“Do you think I care what a handful of Speakers does or doesn’t know? This committee knows the precise location of every Speaker in the Alliance, and we control their access to koph. All you’ve done is create some extra work for my staff, tracking down the ones you’ve contacted and eliminating them as well. But Speakers on Barsk are another matter. They’re too plentiful and unregulated, but I planned ahead in case of more drastic need. The moment I wake from this dream of yours, I will have Druz open a communications channel to the Resolute Purpose . It’s already en route to clean up Krasnoi’s mess, but that no longer matters. Nonyx-Captain Selishta is utterly loyal to me and will not hesitate to follow the orders in the contingency plan I left her. She will utilize the full firepower at her disposal to begin destroying all life on Barsk, one miserable and sodden island at a time.”

Castleman turned to the other senators, screaming. “Is this how it happened before? One madman choosing to wipe out an entire race? Are you going to just stand by and let it happen again?”

“There’s nothing they can do to stop me,” said Bish. “By the time they act, it will already have begun. They can’t even censure me, without admitting to their own part in everything that has come before. This entire event will become just one more thing that no one talks about. Now, wake up, Jorl. It’s time to end the game.”

The Yak launched himself at Jorl, tucking his chin to his chest and turning at the last moment so that he struck the Fant with the tip of one horn, goring him through the chest. Jorl fell to the floor and the senator pulled his head back, grinning as blood dripped into his shaggy fur and dark robe.

“Very realistic. I would never have thought it would work if I hadn’t seen the effect when I struck your human friend. That’s a mortal wound I’ve given you, Jorl. There must be so many questions that have never been asked because of your Speaker’s Edict. Can the nefshon construct of a living Speaker die in his own summoning dream? Better you should wake up than find out.”

Gasping, Jorl put a hand to the hole in his chest. An instant later he had healed it.

“Nefshons are particles of memory. That’s what all of this is. All I have to do is bring to mind the memory of being whole.”

“Impressive. Obviously you weren’t out of tricks. But you felt the pain of it, and that’s a memory now, too. You may have repaired the damage, but look at you. This make-believe body of yours is reeling. You’re about to go into shock. I wonder how it will work if I tear off your head.”