There seemed no real reason for us to hang around at the site of the battle. Now that you were whole again, and able to navigate the grid, and could extend your range even beyond Dumati, Panic would’ve been a fool to bring in her armada. They’d just stay put until they ran low on supplies and then head back to Tasea on a rotational basis. The other option – that they’d go to their base in Sector 15 – was unlikely since Governor Tellick was there. Tellick and Panic had never seen eye-to-eye. Panic thought he was a weasel, and Tellick thought she was a psychopath. They were both right. However, Tellick had signed the treaty of alliance with me, and he had been a big beneficiary of the peace between our two governments. That meant he was a big loser now, and would love to see Panic fail.
So we had two lines of attack open – encourage the resistance on Tasea, and collude with Tellick. Neither one necessitated that we be on Eirelantra, and I wanted to go home. I issued the edict that I would convene my court on Dolparessa this year due to interplanetary security. Eirelantra station was our furthest outpost of real civilization, and as such, closest to the CenGov fleet. It was a plausible lie. You could protect us as easily in either location. The truth is that I just wanted to lie on the beach and look at the blue trees.
Oh well. It’s an autocracy, and I’m the autocrat.
Of course that’s a joke. It’s the punch line to the joke about marrying a tree. Just listen:
“You want to what?” I said to Ailann. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It does have advantages,” said Clive. “We could interrogate them before we kill them.”
“We aren’t going to kill them,” said Ailann. “That’s the point. But we can’t bring them anywhere within the Domha’vei. Cybrids are subject to punishment by death. The only place they’re legal is Eirelantra – and could you imagine a thousand enemy troops relocated to Eirelantra?”
“So you want to convert one of the old Tasean rebel bases on the fourth moon of Rimbaud to a prison camp? Honestly, Ailann, do you have any idea what it will cost?”
“Do you have any idea what it will cost us in the long run if everyone starts to believe that the Cu’enashti are willing to kill humans?”
“I admit the point, but you’re missing one. Namely, that most of the people in the Domha’vei don’t consider Cybrids to be human anymore. No one really worried about Cillian eliminating the Microbials.”
“Tara, no matter what Cillian’s attitude is, most of us deeply regret the necessity of doing that. The galaxy is irreparably poorer for having lost a sentient species.”
“The galaxy would’ve eventually lost all of its other sentient species if those bugs weren’t stopped.”
“In any case, I don’t think it will hurt for God to appear merciful.”
“In that case, God had better make a statement about those recordings of Ross.”
“I thought we were going to remain tastefully silent.”
“You haven’t been following the news,” said Clive. “Especially after our victorious first sally against CenGov. Most of the reputable media outlets decided not to carry the recordings, but a few of the sleazier ones did. It grossly offended the devout. In particular, a group of fanatics calling themselves the Church of the Holy Martyred Ross has firebombed the headquarters of CelebWatch and Vega Vids Inc. Also, there are general protests. Yesterday there was a near-riot as the faithful took over Media Square in G’praniss City and burnt an effigy of the president of NGMS.”
“I need a drink,” said Ailann.
Ah, the media. The 5th Matriarch ran her autocracy by using the power grid as a lever to blackmail the rival worlds into cooperation, but even she had troubles with the media – which is why Whirljack’s insurgency by folksong was an effective tactic. Me, I’ve got the power grid, plus a Living God and a legion of PR people. It works pretty well to control the aristos, but the media? Forget it.
CenGov doesn’t have this problem because the only media source is run by the government. The IndWorlds don’t have this problem because the media corporations are either owned or being bought off by government officials. It’s only in the Domha’vei, where a culture established over the course of a millennium dictates that engaging in commerce is common, that the ruling class has no control over the media.
Of course, I’ve never been so delicate. I surreptitiously own RR-labs, manufacturer of RootRiot and fine contraband recreational substances. And RR does have subsidiary enterprises, namely Big Tree, which owns the mines on Dumati, and No Beans About It, the wildly popular javajuice franchise. There is absolutely no reason why RR couldn’t buy out, say, Vega Vids. Serve them right for showing that recording. It occurred to me that they’d probably sell cheap since the corporate director has gotten death threats from CHMR.
“In better news, anti-Earth sentiment is at an all-time high – as you might expect in the middle of a war. Even the IndWorlds are coming down on our side. They had an emergency council meeting and issued a statement that CenGov should’ve dealt with the bioweapon issue using diplomatic means. I note that the statement was issued after we won the first battle.”
“The IndWorlds are nothing if not pragmatic,” I said. “And Tasea?”
“The largest part of the CenGov armada moved out of their system to the Domha’vei. According to reports from Cara, an uprising is starting in earnest.”
“Well, looking at the bright side, I don’t expect we’ll have trouble from Taseans in the near-future,” I said. “What should we do now?”
“We still have some four-hundred CenGov ships in various orbits at the edge of the system. They aren’t in an attack formation – they’re poised to intercept anything that tries to get far enough away from the sun to evoke a wormhole,” said Clive.
“Aran can’t handle that many, especially since they’re so far apart from one another,” Ailann added. “And we’re losing our advantage of strength. Because the inner worlds orbit much faster than Dumati, Eden will catch up with Sideria in approximately 47 days. At that range, Aran won’t have that much more strength than I have, and both worlds will be even farther from Dumati.”
“If only we had some way to extend the power grid,” I said. “I know – Cuinn’s working on it.”
“The 5th Matriarch should’ve bothered to get the secret of the crystals from the 4th Matriarch before killing her,” said Clive drily. “But hindsight is a bosonscope.”
*****
I went to bed with Ailann, and I woke up with Ross. It wasn’t entirely a surprise – I had been expecting either Ross or Dermot to eventually put in an appearance. But what did surprise me was that Ross was smiling. It was a gorgeous smile, warm and full of light. I hadn’t seen him smile since the day he had first emanated.
“Hey,” I said, rolling onto my side next to him. “You look happy.”
He touched my hair gently, so gently I could barely feel it. He is such a handsome man, and yet not intrusively so, not painfully beautiful like Dermot or heartbreaking like Patrick. Ross’s handsomeness is utilitarian, lending to the overall impression that he is successful, brilliant and competent. He had begun life as an expert in corporate law because I needed a lawyer, but he had become the authority on laws concerning the Nau’gsh. As far as I know, only one other Cu’endhari is a lawyer.
Women always look at Ross. It’s funny – they look at Patrick too, but not seriously. He is a handsome prince, a creature from a fairytale, a fantasy. But Ross is marriage material. Ross is a trophy. They look at him that way even when they know his tragic circumstances.
“Are you all right?” I asked. I was hesitant to break his mood. “The recordings, I mean.”
“I saw Malachi’s vision. We all did,” he said, his smile broadening, as if that explained everything. I must’ve looked confused, for he continued. “What happened to me doesn’t matter. Or rather, it does. It had to happen in order for you to eventually become Her. I never violated my n’aashet n’aaverti. Everything that happened was in service to you – to that vision of you.”
It was a line of thinking similar to one I had once advocated – that Ross’ loyalty to me had not been broken because he had suffered in my service. But at the time, I had thought him the victim of unfortunate and unavoidable circumstances. Now, I was horrified by the thought that he had been tortured, raped and the subject of vivisection as a result of your attempt to influence my future.
And yet, he was happy, and I had never seen him anything but miserable since he returned from Dumati. I had to remind myself that although he looked and acted exactly like a human, he was not. The things that happened to him would’ve been a violation of any human’s sense of personal integrity. But Cu’enashti emanations have no sense of personal integrity. They have only n’aashet n’aaverti – impassioned loyalty. They don’t exist for themselves. They exist so that the root self, the tree/mothman “I and I” can manipulate the human Chosen into being an anchor for its fragmented view of the universe. Ross had long since dismissed his physical agony as irrelevant. He had blamed himself for being raped because he saw it as a betrayal of me. And now, for his sake, I had to let go of my human reactions.
I kissed him. “I never doubted your loyalty for a minute. You were a hero in my eyes.” And that much is absolutely true.
But it was another moment when I didn’t know what to feel. I hated you for what you had allowed to happen to Ross. And yet – Ross is you. You did it to yourself. And the look on Ross’ face – it was like some kind of religious revelation. I thought of human beings with similar notions – that suffering was all part of some divine plan that was beyond the scope of our understanding. Ross quite literally had seen the plan and came to an understanding that his suffering had meaning.
When looked at that way, Ross is incredibly lucky.
“Ross, please stay with me for a while,” I said. “I’m really getting worn out by this game of musical emanations. I’d like some stability – and you’ve never wanted to stick around much before. Let me get to know you.”
“Of course I’ll stay. I want to learn to enjoy life. And also – I have a lot of work to do.”
He took me into his arms. I just wanted to stay like that, my face pressed against his shoulder, smelling the forest, smelling you. I wanted to cry with relief that the conflict between the trees was over, with frustration that the war was not. But it was Ross, and I couldn’t.
“While you’re at it, I have some work for you to do also. I want to buy Vega Vids.” I pulled him on top of me. “Now enough of pleasure. Let’s get down to business.”