Диана Дуэйн - A Wizard Of Mars

Nita smiled a grim half-smile. “No problem.” They headed over toward Mamvish.

Irina was making her way toward the Throne, where Iskard still stood, and to which Rorsik had just slowly returned. The baby, apparently asleep, took no notice of any of this. The yellow parakeet, however, glared at the two Shamaska, rustled its wings, and made an angry scolding sound as its mistress stopped and folded her arms.

“My name is Irina Mladen,” she said. “I am the Planetary Wizard for Earth. I speak for our world, but also for the system’s other Planetaries, who vest their joint authority in me at this time as presently the system’s most senior among equals. In the Powers’ names and the name of the One they serve, I greet you with reservation, and with regret at the sanction I have come to impose.”

Her voice was chilly, and Nita shivered all over at the sound of it. “What sanction?” Rorsik said. “What are you talking about?”

Iskard had gone pale even for someone of the Shamaska’s stony complexion. Now he put out a hand to try to stop Rorsik from saying anything further. But Irina merely gave Rorsik a look, then turned her attention back to Iskard.

“Regardless of being a wizard for much of your lifetime and fully cognizant of the responsibilities the Art requires of its practitioners,” Irina said, “you have allowed your people in general, and other wizards and talents under your management in particular, to enter into courses of action that have recklessly endangered the conduct of life on an entire neighboring world.”

She turned that cool regard on Khretef, who along with the faint and miserable Aurilelde he was half carrying had now come up alongside the Throne. “In your case, you must be clear that we do understand the terrible urgency of hwanthaet that you’ve been experiencing. The condition can cause irrational responses in even the most stable species when it becomes acute, and we are therefore willing to consider it to a limited extent as an extenuating circumstance for you personally—”

“What’s hwanthaet?” Kit muttered under his breath.

Nita shook her head.

“But this consideration does not exonerate you for your own errors of judgment and lapses in wizardly conduct,” Irina said. “And we have yet to determine whether further sanctions need to be taken against you personally and, if so, what form they should take.” She turned away from Khretef and Aurilelde, glancing just briefly at Kit and Nita as she did so.

“Meanwhile,” she said to Iskard and Rorsik, “as rulers of this city, immediate responsibility for the actions of its inhabitants falls on you. You—” and she indicated Iskard— “were the deviser of the superegg-based conditional stasis and revival routines, called by you the Nascence, which induced matter/spirit hibernation for you and the City of your kindred the Eilitt, and then brought them out of stasis again. Your actions since then have all flowed from a desire to destroy that other City.”

“They have been trying to do the same to us!” Rorsik cried. “They have been trying to destroy us since the First World was young!”

“And you haven’t been making any serious attempts to stop that trend,” Mamvish said. “Rather, you’ve been intent on keeping it going. You have repeatedly failed to question your own motives and assumptions as the Art requires.”

“By irresponsible use of both wizardry and science,” Irina said to Iskard, “you’ve seriously damaged the normal developmental progress of this planet. If major intervention had not taken place, you would have caused significant psychological damage to the inhabitants of the third planet as well. And though you’ve been the aggressors here, it’s not realistic to assume, bearing in mind the past actions of your enemies, that they wouldn’t eventually try to do something very similar if the opportunity arose.” Irina let out an aggrieved breath. “Therefore sanction will be imposed forthwith upon both your cities generally, and upon the major actors personally.”

A terrible silence fell in the room.

“You have two options,” Mamvish said. “You can elect to be rafted to another solar system and resettled on a new world. There the Art will be withdrawn from you, and you will be left to your own devices until the One sees fit to release wizardry into your world once more.”

“Why should we go to any other solar system? This one is ours!” Rorsik shouted. “We were the First People, the originals. We are the true Masters of this system, whatever power you may claim! All of this only comes now because you weaklings desire the use of this world for yourselves, for your—”

And Rorsik suddenly fell silent. His face got quite dark gray, his mouth worked, but not another sound came out of him.

Irina raised her eyebrows. “Or,” she said, “if a majority of your people have come to agree with this being, then you may elect to be locked again into the same state of stasis in which you lay until your recent revival. Your dormancy site will be guarded and spell-locked until all other species in this system for whom your discovery would be an issue have reached a sufficient level of cultural maturity for the discovery of your presence no longer to be problematic. At that time your stasis will be broken and your suitability for settlement on this planet will be reevaluated.”

The silence in the room, if possible, grew even more deadly. “Even the first option will require that you return to stasis for a while,” said Mamvish, “because though there are thousands of planets that might suit you, coming up with the best match will take time— and there’s no chance whatsoever that we’ll leave your species at large on this planet or anywhere in this system until your new home is found and prepped.”

Iskard stood quiet for some time, considering. Finally, still looking pale, he lifted up his head. “We cannot and will not leave this system,” he said. “We are the First People, and you have no right to force us to leave for some strange new home elsewhere.”

“It may not seem that way to you,” said Mamvish. “But the Powers That Be see it differently. Primacy of development doesn’t imply either moral or spiritual primacy in any species, in any system. I’ve seen many come and go. And rarely, I’m sad to say, have I seen a people less considerate of other species, or more hate-filled toward its own, as you folk. By your recent actions you’ve forfeited the right to live your lives as you’ve been living them. You will therefore continue them somewhere else, or you will not continue them at all until far into the future.”

Nita was watching Iskard’s face, waiting for him to see sense. But no change showed there at all. “Do what the Powers command you,” he said at last. “But never hope to get us to agree to it.”

Irina glanced over at Mamvish and exchanged a long look with her. Nita felt something itching at the back of her mind, but the sensation passed. To Kit, she said silently, You getting the same feeling from these guys that I am?

They’d sooner be dead than do it anybody else’s way, Kit said. So sad.

Nita looked at him with some surprise. They just did to you what they did, she said, and you can still be sorry for them?

Kit shrugged. It’s not so much them, he said. I was one of them for a little. Maybe I get it…

He stepped out into the middle of the gathering. “Irina,” Kit said.

She looked at him in surprise.

“They can’t help it,” he said. “The stasis was terrible for them; I could feel it when I was inside Khretef. It wasn’t just like being asleep and not dreaming: they could feel it all. Time didn’t go by faster to them: it went slower. They could feel every minute, every second.” He looked over at Khretef.