All right, this is a council of war, and we are on the clock. Synchronize watches.
I’m good at synchronization, says Mickey. So we have until morning to flush out the traitor.
No no no. What do you think is happening right now?
The Quicknodes are planning their next move, suggests Constantine.
They may know we’re already onto them, says Valentin.
That scene in Tommy’s room is turning into a drunken orgy, says Ace.
Ace gets the gold star. We don’t have until morning. We have about five minutes or we’ll miss all the action.
So how do we get the Quicknodes to tip their hands? asks Wynne.
They don’t have hands, says Davy.
It’s a metaphor, moron.
The problem is that there is so much we don’t know, says Valentin. We don’t know if they have a history with CenGov, we don’t know their possible motivations…
We don’t even know they did it, says Cüinn.
Yo, genius, did you miss the meeting?
Nope. You’re falling into a logical fallacy. We know that the Quicknodes do have the capacity to communicate with a ship in a wormhole. Do we know for a fact that no one else does – say the SongLuminants or the Eer-gaaani?
This is not making this meeting go faster.
He has a point, says Valentin. The Floatfish hid teleportation technology from humanity, and we know they were collaborating with Tellick.
Maybe Sweet Blonde Suzanna was using the Thoughtful 45 app on her datapad to have Rivers murdered, Suibhne suggests. Would anybody blame her?
Suibhne, we do want to think outside the box here, but let’s confine our ideas to ten-dimensional spacetime.
I think Claris is more pissed at Clive than Suzanna is, says Cüinn.
I think that there are a lot of people who want Rivers dead because he’s a fucking asshole, but it was a bloody CenGov ship.
It could’ve been stolen, suggests Davy.
Has anybody here heard of Ockham’s razor?
Ockham’s razor would suggest that for a government in chaos, a government struggling under the economic burdens of war, following a terrorist like Rivers to another galaxy to kill him is excessive, especially since they had every reason to believe that he would be dead of evictium poisoning in a matter of weeks, says Dermot.
Your point?
We’ve been assuming that the target was Rivers for two reasons. The first is because Rivers thinks so – but Rivers is a paranoid egomaniac. The more persuasive reason is Lens’ reaction when Rivers boarded Neliit’s ship. However, consider that if Rivers hadn’t asked Tara to accompany him in examining the nul-chasm, Tara would never have been in danger. Perhaps the true target of the attempt was Tara after all.
In a way, it would make more sense, says Mickey, except for the objection voiced earlier – that CenGov would be provoking a major incident with the Domha’vei.
Not if the ship was stolen, says Davy.
Who would want to set up CenGov?
It’s obvious, says Davy.
Mickey glances at Davy, frowning. The same people who would want to set up the Quicknodes, he muses. The same people who want to get rid of the Cu’enashti because they knew that’s what Tara’s death would effectively accomplish. The same people who know this whole thing will bollix the station, maybe leading to the Eer-gaaani resigning from the Combine and the Denolin Turym being eradicated.
You’ve been reading about the Kennedy assassination again, haven’t you?
JFK was killed by aliens, says Davy, but Mickey has a point.
What aliens, asks Valentin?
Probably Floatfish, Davy replies. Anyway, who would have a motive to do all that?
Somebody evil, says Lugh. Somebody without morals at all.
Lorcan’s reformed, though, says Cüinn.
Lorcan always had a highly developed sense of morality, says Dermot, even when he chose to deny it. But I believe that Lugh is exactly right – somebody without any sense of morality.
All this time, Lens has been emanated. He’s been handling Rivers’ treatment for today, only half paying attention to the conversation. Neliit knocks softly on the door. She’s holding a sign which says “There’s yummy pie at the commissary.” At least, that’s what it says in Lens’ right eye. In his left, it has something written underneath. It’s hazy, and he has to squint to focus. It says “The Champions of the Skylight Spin.”
Aren’t the Champions of the Skylight Spin the SongLuminant faction in charge of species erasure? asks Cüinn.
Not anymore, says Mickey. What they are is unemployed.
It makes sense, I conclude. They’ve got the most to lose from the Combine reformation.
If they’re real reactionaries, says Valentin, it would make sense that they would want to continue with the policy of erasure, which includes the Denolin Turym, and get rid of the new influences, which include the Nau’gsh, the Humans, the Hreck and the Eer-gaaani.
And even the Quicknodes, adds Mickey. Remember that there was a controversy about whether synthetic intelligences should be allowed into the Combine? That could be why the Quicknodes are being framed.
Great theory, I say, but other than Neliit flashing that weird sign, we don’t have any proof. And we can’t investigate whether the CenGov ship was stolen because it was destroyed.
Yes, we can, says Till. Mind if I emanate?