Элизабет Бир - Ancestral Night

She turned her head. I could tell it was all the effort she could muster, but she looked up at the underside of Cheeirilaq’s mandibled face. I could have told her its brain wasn’t in that tiny head, but I suppose addressing yourself to the sensory equipment is polite across species.

“You saved me,” she said.

I saved us all.

“They… detonating.”

They were going to sacrifice you. Yes.

“This is Defiance hailing Commander Farweather. Commander Farweather. Please respond if you are able.”

Farweather nodded. Slowly, wincing. She touched a stud on her glove. The green light of the telltale inside her helmet reflected in her corneas.

“This… Commander Farweather,” she creaked. “Hey… Defiance . Fuck your mother.”

Well. That wasn’t going to get us picked up as potential friendlies, I guessed.

My fox. My fox was in halfway functioning order again. I could… I could use it. I was injured. Badly. But I wasn’t dying right this second , thanks to Cheeirilaq’s intervention.

There were emergency protocols.

Overrides. I could use them to juice myself with a nice, big jolt of adrenaline, for example.

Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

I sat up in Cheeirilaq’s arms.

It hurt. I mean, I guessed it hurt? But it didn’t hurt nearly enough. Nearly as much as it should have.

Friend Haimey. This is unwise.

“Necessary,” I told it.

Friend Haimey! This is unwise!

I hooked my left arm—the one without the gun it its hand—around the Goodlaw’s neck. A gross violation of its personal space. It didn’t seem to mind, and I needed the support.

I hoped they were listening hard on the suit frequency they were using.

I tuned my com to it. I took as deep a breath as I could manage, and I tried to think. All I had was the standard trade creole. Farweather spoke it like a native.

Maybe the Jothari knew how to translate from the human trade language, if it was something the Freeporters used.

I had to hope.

“Jothari ships!” I said. I tried to enunciate and speak slowly. I’m not sure I managed more than a mumble. “Jothari people. You do not have to live as outlaws. Listen to me. I am Haimey Dz, chief engineer of SGV I Rise From Ancestral Night , and I am a duly appointed representative of the Synarche of Worlds.” Stretching a point, but I was in Singer’s chain of command, and frankly there was no one else out here who could negotiate except for Cheeirilaq, who didn’t appear to have thought of it.

Silence fell into my hand.

I nerved myself. “The Synarche acknowledges that it has a debt to the Jothari species. That mistakes were made in contact, and that reparations are owed.”

Their crimes are terrible, Cheeirilaq said, but I thought it spoke only to me.

They have committed crimes. It’s likely that they owe reparations too. That is a matter someone with a higher diplomatic ranking can assess.

That would be…

Yes. Anyone. Hush.

I strained my ears, which was silly, because any answer would come over my suit radio and com.

Eventually, after what I could only assume were intense private negotiations, a metallic translated voice reached me. “Your Synarche destroyed us.”

By the Well. They were talking. They were talking.

Cheeirilaq’s tiny head pivoted on its narrow neck, its multifaceted main eyes regarding me. It did not speak.

“It was long ago and we were young,” I said. “Please. I know you cannot forgive us. Please accept that the Synarche acknowledges that a terrible wrong has been done and wishes for peace between us, and to make reparations.”

That wave, that wall, was still coming. It ached in my sinuses like dropping pressure. The pain was blinding.

Around it, I heard the Jothari—who had not given me a name or a rank—speak.

“Reparations.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll punish us.”

“We wronged you.”

“You will find it wrongful that we harvest the star-dragons.”

That was where it got sticky. “You would have to stop that, yes.” But you should stop it anyway, because it’s wrong!

I kept my mouth shut. Sometimes a thing can be true, and not for immediate sharing. That was, Connla had assured me more than once, how diplomacy worked.

“You will punish us.”

“That is not for me to decide. The Ativahikas will probably want reparations from you, the same as you will, I expect, want reparations from us. I request only that you open diplomatic relations with the Synarche. You do not have to choose to accept our justice.”

Cheeirilaq twitched.

I tapped it with my heel.

“You will take our knowledge and harvest them yourselves.”

Cheeirilaq twitched again. This time I didn’t argue.

“If you talk to us, there can be peace. Negotiation. Trade. You could come out of hiding. We could find your people a world to settle on. A world of your own.”

“So you could own us. So we would have a vulnerable heart once more, just begging to be destroyed.”

“No—”

“So you could own us. That is not reparations. Synarche, we are not interested in your lies.”

The com connection died. I pushed my hand against my helmet because I couldn’t reach my aching forehead. It was the hand with the gun webbed to it, so I used the back.

“Bugger,” I said.

It took me a moment to identify the terrible bubbling sound coming over my com as Farweather laughing at me between swallows of blood. I resisted the urge to smash her fucking helmet in, but only barely.

“Guess… they don’t want… charity.”

“You shut up,” I said. It was our fault. It was our fault, or at least some of it was, and I wanted to fix it. But the immediate situation was her fault, as much as it was anyone’s. And I wanted somebody to blame.

I looked around. The Jothari vessels remained in position, interspersed with Freeport ships. The thing was, I was pretty sure we did owe them reparations. But getting the Synarche to agree might be easier than getting the Jothari to believe.

They had committed crimes; it was true. But they were driven to those crimes by our own crime of having destroyed them, even if it was indirectly. And accidentally.

It was a morally complex equation. But I knew in my bones that some kind of reconciliation was the right choice to pursue. Horrible crimes were committed by them, and by us—against each other and against unrelated others.

I hadn’t quite been emotionally prepared for them to just utterly spurn my offer.

Although.

I hadn’t accepted it when Farweather—representing Niyara’s people, after all—had wanted me back in her fold. But that was because she was untrustworthy, and just wanted to use me. Use me more.

The Synarche wouldn’t use the Jothari again, would they? We had learned some things in the intervening centuries. Some things about being a pluralistic society without bringing colonial force to bear.

Hadn’t we?

…If we had, I had to let the Jothari walk away. And determine their own direction.

I didn’t have to let them have possession of the Baomind, though. And I didn’t have to let them hand it over to—or even share it with—the Freeporters. Who were assholes.

Especially since the Baomind had asked us—or Singer, at least—for help.

The problem was, my resources currently included one representative of Justice, one half-dead pirate who wasn’t on my side anyway, and one engineer who was in a race between suffocation and bleeding to death. I was steadfastly refusing to look at my ox meter. Let it be a surprise.