I was really, really sick of being jerked around, Ash. Two years without you, and then this drama with Goliath, and then that letter, and I didn’t even know if Davy was joking, or serious, or just delirious. And CenGov picks now to attack. I was one second away from losing it, and then I would be an unraveling ball of screaming rage, likely to punch out anyone unlucky enough to head in my direction. Twenty years ago, that’s exactly what I would have done. But it wasn’t going to help matters one bit, and it certainly wasn’t going to inspire confidence in the government in the middle of a crisis. Unfortunately, I tend to have more wisdom than impulse control.
I’d done it again. Poor Davy. I yelled at him because I was confused about your intent, Ash, and Davy’s never good at communication even during the best of times, and he was really ill.
Everyone on the bridge was staring at me. I thought they might be waiting for my reaction to the news. Then I realized it was because I was holding a flower pot containing a single gilded lily.
Davy – not good at communicating? He makes flowers for me. What else does he need to say?
“Malachi switched to Davy,” I said. “I’m going to go see if he’s capable of emanating Ailann yet.” And then I left the bridge quickly because I was afraid I would break into tears.
It wasn’t a lie: I needed Ailann. I needed him to fix this mess. I needed him to save the Domha’vei from the invading fleet. But most of all, I needed him to make a public appearance, inspire the troops, and basically do the thing he does best – look godly. Look dignified and assured and calm everyone the fuck down.
You made him so perfectly, Ash. One of the reasons my reign has gone as smoothly as it has – well, let’s just say it could have been so much worse – is that Ailann looks exactly like people expect a god to look. Handsome and regal and somber and wise. Whereas I’ve never looked quite like a ruler. The 5th Matriarch, with her steel grey hair and disapproving stare, looked much more suited. Honestly, I look like a hot mess. I look like I should be the captain of an antigrav roller derby squad.
Ailann looks like a god, but he drinks like a fish. The first thing he did once he had emanated was pour himself a double-scotch. “Cillian said to ask if they’re stopping to take Dumati, or if they’re pressing straight for Eirelantra.”
“It’s hard to tell. Right now, they’re still accelerating.”
“Then I have time to have another.”
“Ailann!”
“It won’t make things any worse, Tara. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to these mushrooms.”
“Are you still ill? Davy was starting to look better.”
“Oh, no, I’m not ill. Just tripping. Or rather, Atlas and Goliath are tripping. Do you have any idea what it’s like, being a tree on psychedelics? But we’re starting to get it sorted out – the perception into three universes.”
“Three? You mean that Cuinn’s plan is actually working?”
“Worked. We can communicate directly with Goliath now. A few more hours, and the roots will have grown together firmly enough that we’ll be able to access each other’s branches.”
I flopped back on the bed. “At least something is going right!” I was so relieved that I felt like crying, but even in private, I’d used up my quota of tears for the month. My mother was a Skarsian battlequeen. She wasn’t called “The Terror of Nightside-Elsinore” because she got weepy at sad movids.
“How many ships?”
“About six-hun…” I stopped up short. “Ailann, don’t you know?”
“If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that there were over twelve-hundred ships, which seems a little excessive, even for CenGov. But I’m pretty certain I know what is happening – I’m seeing double. That is, I’m getting sensory data from both Atlas and Goliath at the same time. That, and the borders of the universes are bleeding into each other. ” He blinked rapidly. “There’s a sort of parallax – the way that the two eyes or two ears on my human body function. Once I get used to it, it could actually be quite useful. Especially when it comes to time-perception.”
Suddenly, Ailann dropped onto the bed, doubled over, his head between his knees. Instinctively, I threw my arm around his shaking shoulders. Before I could say anything, he muttered, “One thousand, four hundred and fifty-six years.”
“What?”
He looked up at me, his eyes shining with tears. “That vision Malachi had is one thousand, four hundred and fifty-six years from now. And what Davy meant, and utterly failed at explaining, is that in order for you to become Her, certain things have to happen first, like this war. It isn’t that your destiny is to rule the galaxy – it’s that you have to rule the galaxy on the way to becoming your future self.”
It made sense, but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. “Isn’t there another way? I hate politics.”
“Really? You came back to Dolparessa because Jack created a situation where you were politically necessary. I can hardly believe that you aren’t interested.”
I suppose he had a point. It was complicated, and not something I’d really thought through. “I feel responsible – especially for the Nau’gsh. But having power doesn’t make me happy.”
“And what does?”
This conversation was the last thing I wanted at that moment. We were in a crisis, and I had Ailann back. I wanted him to hold me. I suppose that would have been the best answer to his question, but I was starting to get annoyed. “Spending money and getting wasted,” I said crossly. “Lying on the beach of Dolparessa.”
“Indeed,” said Ailann, taking me more seriously than I’d intended. He handed me a drink. “But that’s more your hobby than your vocation, Tara.”
“My vocation is science, I suppose.”
“Like Rivers?”
“No, not exactly.” Clive was interested in science for its own sake. He insisted on truth, no matter how unpleasant. On the other hand, I saw science as a means to an end. An interesting tool I could use to get what I wanted. Just like being Matriarch. And if I didn’t like the truth, I changed it. It didn’t matter if I had to move mountains – or if I had to lie, cheat and steal. “The truth is I just like to get my own way,” I said, taking a large swallow of my drink. “This is all too much honesty on the edge of a battle.”
“Isn’t it a bit pointless to win if you don’t have an actual goal?”
“Why are you asking me this now?”
“Dermot says he can explain everything,” said Ailann, “but he wants you to answer the question first. What are your priorities, Tara?”
“Obviously, our survival,” I snapped. “We can think about the rest once we’ve dealt with the situation.”
The truth is, I already knew the answer. In fact, I had told you before – in a way. The future self I would not become had told Patrick, “I could’ve lived in a thatched hut in Merenis Port-of-Call with Daniel and thought myself queen of the universe.” Somehow, even after everything that had happened, or maybe because of all that had happened, I couldn’t say it. Hadn’t I told Ari, “Don’t find the meaning of your life in other people, or you’ll be left with nothing for yourself?”
There have been times in my life when I’ve had nothing – when I lived with Tenzain Merkht, for example, or when I was on the run during the coup. There have also been times when I’ve had everything – a career, power, money, fame, the opportunity for endless diversions. But there’s only one thing I’ve ever truly wanted – and once I understood your nature, I realized I wasn’t worthy of you.
What annoyed me most is that I was certain that you already knew the answer, Ash. Were you testing me again?
*****
Clive was staring at the screen as the intelligence reports came in. He was stone-faced, and barely seemed to move. He had always been like this – facing victory and defeat with equal sang froid, and yet never failing to press forward with his cause. There was no hope in him, no despair – perhaps these faculties had been burned out from the years of abuse he had endured. Nothing was left but sheer stubbornness. It was the core trait of his personality, and probably the reason why years of indoctrination starting in his childhood had utterly failed. Stubborn, just like me. No wonder I had found him attractive. But there was no warmth in him, and I had turned instead to sweet Prince Patrick, not knowing that he was really the personification of the tree I had planted as a child, not realizing that at his core was a being twice as stubborn as and even more inscrutable than Clive Rivers.
“How far can those elite troops travel under their own power?” I asked.
“It’s widely publicized that they can fly the entire distance from Earth to Luna. Therefore, I’ll guess that they can go at least twice that distance.”
“Then we have to stop them before they get that close to Eirelantra. How about Naveeta’s fleet?”
“She’ll be pulverized,” said Clive. “Can’t Ash just travel through the power grid?”
“I’m still sensing double,” said Ailann. “It would be like trying to walk a straight line when you’re drunk. Except that if I fall off the line, I could potentially blow out a few crystals and cut off power transmissions to several major cities. Probably not the best idea during an enemy attack.”
“Perhaps better than losing the largest part of your fleet.”
“Also, Ari is against it. He doesn’t think I should leave Tara alone in the middle of hostilities.”
“Tell Ari that I’m not a child. I can take care of myself,” I protested.
“Actually, Cillian is telling him that, and Ari is telling him where to stuff it. It’s rather amusing, like watching two Tacsean wildebeests butt horns.”
“That’s absolutely fascinating,” said Clive, yawning. “In the meantime, do you have an actual plan, or do you just intend to make comforting public announcements while the Domha’vei goes down in flames?”
“I do have a plan. We’ll just let them take Eirelantra.”
“What?”
“We’ll tell the people not to resist. It will buy us time – and once the elite troops have boarded the station, I’ll shut them down. That way, I can do it without killing them.”
“If there’s no serious resistance, they may not send all the elites,” Clive warned. “They’ll send an advance party and then dock a shuttle full of standard Cybrid troops, keeping the elites in reserve for a real battle. Look, I don’t think you’re taking this seriously. You’re not going to get through it without some loss of lives.”
“That’s unacceptable,” Ailann said dismissively.
“It’s a war.”
“I don’t kill, and I won’t allow my people to be harmed.”
In a situation like this, it’s very difficult to tell if Ailann’s stubbornness is a good or bad thing. Or maybe it’s just self-belief. The concept of losing is alien to you – the few times we have lost have taken your emanations completely by surprise. And even so, in the end, things fell into place no matter how disastrous they seemed. Finally, I understand why. You may need to improvise the short-term details, but you’ve always been guided by a star some 1400 years in the future.
However, that did not necessarily fill me with confidence. Your concern is single-mindedly with me. You don’t necessarily share Ailann’s concern for the people of the Domha’vei. For all I knew, you could have been deliberately pushing Ailann to a terrible defeat so that I might come back stronger for the experience. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was a possibility I could not dismiss. Trees grow back more vigorously after being pruned. That’s exactly how you would think.
“They’re spreading out,” said Clive. “And decelerating.”
“So they’re cutting us off from our supplies of cercrotic acid. That seems a waste of time. It will be a while before it starts to hurt us.”
“No,” said Clive. “They’re decelerating too soon for that. They seem to be taking positions just outside the orbit of Dumati.”
“What are they waiting for? More ships?”
“Not necessarily. They may have something entirely different in mind – if they keep us within the range of our inhabited worlds, we can’t evoke wormholes. That’s why they needed so many ships. Alienated from the rest of the galaxy, we’ll face an immediate economic impact in lost trade income and the inability to obtain certain resources. Over time, the situation will get worse. The internal economy will recover, but we’ll lose the ability to take advantage of technological innovations, especially from the commercial sector of the IndWorlds.”
“You’re saying we could survive an extended blockade, but it would suck.”
“I’m saying that we could survive it until someone outstripped Nau’gsh alchemy with technology and decided to attack us. It might not even be CenGov. Eventually, our people will be so interbred with the Cu’enashti that the Domha’vei will be considered an alien system. There will be little ethical objection to eradicating us. By that time, we’ll be in bad shape because the population will have exceeded the capacity of the four worlds to support. Of course, maybe Ashtara could terraform the outer worlds.” He turned to Ailann. “That could buy us another thousand years – presuming that you live that long. What’s the lifespan of a Cu’enashti?”
“That’s a good question,” Ailann replied, “with no easy answer. First, trees don’t have a set lifespan. We don’t have the sort of biological clocks that animals do. When we die it’s because we’ve been attacked, or fall prey to pestilence, or run out of resources – a drought, for example. There are bristlecone pines and olive trees on Earth that are over seven thousand years old. We’ve found Arya we think are ten thousand – but strangely, no Cu’endhari older than maybe thirteen, fourteen hundred years old. However, I use the term Cu’endhari very loosely. Those are squirrel trees. Trees capable of human emanations didn’t happen until colonists arrived on Dolparessa, around nine centuries ago. The Cantor Tree dates to that time.”
“No wonder she doesn’t take you seriously. By Nau’gsh reckoning, you’re an impudent child. A baby given the powers of a god.”
“Our current prediction is that the average Cu’endhari could live three to four thousand years, and that I could prolong myself indefinitely by using the power grid.”
“So you plan to be immortal. Lucky you.”
As Clive sniped, one of my officers signaled me. “Incoming communication,” he said, “from the CenGov armada.”
I motioned him to accept the call. General Panic’s form dominated the central viewer. From the neck up, she was more-or-less the same as I remember. From the neck down, her body was an impressive construct of shining metal. It had a certain aesthetic, but it was clearly built for utility, roughly humanoid in design, but with a complete lack of concern for any pretense of naturalism. It was intended to intimidate – and to provoke, since she was well aware of the cultural taboo against Cybrids in the Domha’vei. She was flaunting her abandonment of the flesh.
“So we know exactly where it stands. Ashtara can’t go past Dumati. Unless you have the balls to deploy your fleet, we can blockade you indefinitely. It won’t be long before your people realize that your omnipotent Living God is completely helpless. But really, Ash, how boring! What a boring resolution to our little drama. And I’m so nostalgic over how much you amused me. In fact, I was so amused that I made a recording of Ross while he was my guest. It was such a shame to keep it to myself, I released it to the media. So, for the sake of amusement, I’m advancing my ship just inside of Dumati’s orbit. Come and face me, Ashtara – mano-a-mano. Or would that be roboto-a-treeo?”
“Mano-a-mano doesn’t actually mean man to man, it means hand to hand in the original Spanish,” said Ailann coolly. “So it would be more like branch to mechanical grasping apparatus. If you Terrans hadn’t destroyed your own culture, you’d know that.”
“Indeed. Well, this contest isn’t about who has hands – it’s about who has balls. It’s to show the public – I already know that you’re my bitch, Ashtara.”
Wisdom didn’t even make an attempt to curtail impulse. I stood there staring at the tip of my gun while the communications officer called for repair. “I’ll take care of it,” said Ailann. “It’s simple. The screen is made of a uniform material.”
“Discharging a firearm inside of a spaceship isn’t exactly intelligent,” said Clive drily. “You do realize that she was trying to provoke us into a futile attack?”
I don’t remember exactly what I said next, only that it is probably best not to repeat in polite company. “Is she still capable of feeling pain?” I asked. “Because her death would be an anticlimax. I want her to suffer…”
“It’s clearly a trap,” Clive said. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“Issue a decree that anyone who broadcasts that recording of Ross will be sentenced to death!”
“So much for freedom of speech,” said Clive.
“This isn’t a democracy, Clive, it’s an autocracy, and I’m the autocrat.”
“Patrick says no,” said Ailann, calmly using alchemy to mend the melted monitor. “Let them broadcast it.”
I couldn’t believe it. Clive raised an interested eyebrow.
“Patrick says that she’s probably released it in the IndWorlds too, and we can’t stop it there,” Ailann continued. “So if we ban it in the Domha’vei, it will become a commodity on the black market. Better to get it over with and allow the interest value to die out.”
“Great,” I said. “That’s great for Patrick to say. What does Ross say?”
“Ross says that he thinks our legal system needs to develop more creative and appropriate penalties than execution. Like attaching Panic’s head to a sewage maintenance bot.”
“It seems that reason is prevailing,” said Clive. “So what do we do next?”
“I go to face her, roboto a treeo.”
“It seems I spoke too soon. You do realize that it’s a trap?”
“Yes,” said Ailann. “My trap.” He smiled. The effect was both regal and sadistic, and it was clear he had something up his sleeve – maybe a plague or two of locusts.