Earth Song: Etude to War (6 page)

“He likes to knock on it like a door when I put him to bed.”

“That's cute,” she said.

“Yeah, except it makes me a little dizzy.”

“Why don't you cover that thing up with prosthetic flesh?”

“It’s part of who I am.” Minu just nodded. Her right hand still only had four fingers. It too was part of who she was.

“Who knows how many species have starships? It really changes the dynamics of politics in the Concordia.”

“Only from our perspective,” Pip reminded her. “Jacob came to me last year talking about a mission to Enigma to get more of those ships.”

“That would be foolhardy at best, insane at the worst.”

“Exactly what I told him. Even though I wasn't conscious for the first part of the mission, I knew that the system carried a heavy T'Chillen presence. The only reason things have been so quiet is because the snakes blamed the Rasa for pilfering one of their toys.”

“A fact that I am not proud of.”

“The Rasa don't blame us for that. I've talked to Var'at enough to know it. They, the Rasa, have always played the Concordian game hot and hard. He said they'd almost been obliterated a dozen times in their history. It's the price you pay for wanting power in the Concordia. There are only so many seats at the top.”

“And lots of room at the bottom.”

A short time later he was showing her to the door. “Be careful, Minu. The Tog might seem to be our benevolent protectors, but they're still a higher order species of the Concordia. Remember what the Rasa probably went through trying to get there.”

“It looks like the Tog have been there all along.” Minu thought that she already knew the Tog were not guilt free. The memory of being told that her mother and father were forced to marry was never far from her thoughts.

As Pip opened the door it revealed Cynthia standing there, her hand frozen in reaching for the bell.

“Hi,” Minu said.

“Hello, been a while.” Minu nodded and looked uncomfortable. “I was coming to get Leo. Pip said he had to go work on a project.”

“Something is going on,” Minu told her, “I'm sorry I can't talk about it.”

Cynthia had grown up in the five years they’d been gone on their rescue mission, and continued to mature in the six years since they'd returned. Now a twenty-eight year old woman, she'd left her young soft body behind.

There were still traces of the acne that had haunted her, and she still had short mousy hair, but she was a good-looking woman in her own right with a well-shaped full figure. She wore the now common loose cut jumpsuit civilian designers had modeled after the Chosen uniform, well accessorizing it with a colorful sash and a ribbon in her hair.

She took in the fact that Minu wore her jet black uniform and nodded in reply. “I understand. I was married to a Chosen, if only for a short time.” She didn't try to hide the bitterness from her voice, but it didn't drip like it had in years gone by. Minu had brought back Pip as she'd asked, but it wasn't the same shy and retiring kid she'd expected. Minu was at the wedding when things seemed to be going so well. And saw him after the divorce only a year later.

“Well I better go. Take care.”

“Good bye, Minu.”

As she went down the short flight of stairs towards where she'd parked her car, Minu could hear Leo yelling. “Momma! The pretty lady gave me strawberries!”

Chapter 5

Julast 17th, 533 AE

Human Liaison Office, Capital City, Herdhome, Tog Leasehold

It had been three weeks since she'd last set foot in the little office on Herdhome, and nothing had moved from where she'd left it. Out the window in the distance was one of the seemingly endless plains of swaying grassy marshes only dimly visible under the bluish anemic sunlight.

Herdhome had almost no axial tilt, producing a growing season that never ended. Armed with the information she'd learned from Lilith, now she understood a little better that this wasn't just a perfectly suitd leasehold for the Tog, this was where they'd evolved. It was their home world.

The planet was once bathed in perpetual gloom from cloud cover and volcanic action. When they'd learned science and climbed from the swamps the Tog altered their world into a bountiful paradise. And then joined the Concordia on an equal footing, not as refugees like the humans they'd rescued.

Now in her office once again, she sat in the comfortable seat and started to put together a list of questions she'd ask. Planning the strategy she'd use was one of the hardest parts. It was something she'd been working on for almost every waking moment since she'd decided to come here. The plan Jacob had provided was carefully stored in a garbage can back on Bellatrix. Her own plan was more intricate, and more dangerous. Unfortunately she wouldn't have time to think on it any more.

“Welcome back, Chosen Alma.”

Minu looked up to see a Tog standing in the doorway. She'd naturally seen thousands since coming through the Portal Spire an hour ago, but this one was instantly recognizable by its color patterns and way hse cocked hser head in an almost human expression.

“Thank you, P'ing, but it is Groves now.” The head tilt became more pronounced. “I have not seen you in my duties here in years. I have since married.”

“Oh, this is good news. Our Chosen fail to reproduce far too often. It is a good thing that they reproduce.”

Minu felt her face turning red and coughed. Oh, she'd reproduced alright. “I'm glad you came by, I was hoping to talk to you.”

“Of course, that is why you are here days ahead of your schedule.” Hse gestured with a single finger at the two stars on her sleeve. “Your new rank ended your assignment here, we were informed by our First, yet you continue to come back for years now and have not requested a replacement.”

Minu looked into those almond shaped black-on-black eyes and tried to ken what was going on in that powerful brain. Some words from her father's journal came back to her. “Never for a minute assume you know what a Tog is thinking!”

“I am indeed here for a specific reason, but first I'd like to ask you a question.”

“You have been a powerful servant to the Tog, please ask.”

Interesting qualifier, she thought. “How old are you?”

P'ing was silent for a moment and Minu wondered if she'd crossed some cultural taboo. Almost nothing was known of Tog culture, or if they really had one at all. Then hse answered. “I am six hundred, ninety two years in reference to your world.”

Naturally Minu was stunned. But the ancient Tog wasn't done.

“In this body.”

“This body? I'm sorry Concordia master, I don't understand.”

“There is a basic fact of our species that you have never been told of. There are only two hundred, fifty five unique individual Tog. We reproduce through a process known as budding. Two individuals exchange genetic material, which includes chemically coded memory engrams, and one then gives birth to the new young Tog. A very long time ago as we became fully sapient, and perhaps as part of that process, those parings were more carefully limited to increase and pool memories and abilities. By the time we joined the Concordia, there were only some four hundred individuals left. That number slowly decreased to where it is now.

“The vast number of Tog you see are versions of these individuals, each with small unique qualities that will eventually be folded back into the line through selective reproduction. Some lines have many thousands of individuals, some only a few. Often a line is specialized in an area of work or social function such as science, agriculture, or diplomacy.”

Suddenly, through the confusing shock, something made sense to Minu. How accounts of how her father spoke of P'ing seemingly in two places at once. It was not only possible but likely that just such a thing would happen if there were multiple copies of that very individual running around. “What is your specialty, P'ing? And how many of you are there?”

“Our specialty has long been diplomacy in dealing with client species such as yourself. Also we are historians and the keepers of the collective records of our species going back to the beginning. There are seven of us right now.”

Hse'd said some lines were many thousands. Yet P'ing was only seven. Lilith said the ancient records which referred to the Tog called them P'ing. “You were there, at the founding of the Concordia, with The Lost.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember, I mean yourself, as an individual? Can you see in your mind those first species with yourself who created this galactic empire?”

“Yes.”

Minu burned to ask more questions, to push the boundaries of human knowledge back much farther, but P’ing had other plans. “Now you have asked more than one other question. Tell me why you have returned.” Minu nodded and took out a tablet from its sheath on her belt. P'ing's head moved down and instantly locked on the machine even before she turned it on. “Where did you get that?”

“This? It is just a tablet.”

“No, it is not, and you are very aware of that!”

Minu was taken aback by the rare display of emotion from the normally stoic Tog. It wasn't until she looked down at the machine that she realized it was different from the many thousands of others on Bellatrix. This one was from the Kaatan.

“I forgot,” she said silently and cursed herself for not thinking about it. The machine was noticeably slimmer than a normal tablet and made entirely of the same crystalline material as the bots on the Kaatan. She'd carried one since returning from the rescue mission and often got compliments on it back home. Usually some admirer asked where they could obtain one, or where it had come from.

“We found a number of these machines during a mission on the frontier.” The truth. P'ing came even closer, lowering hser head on its flexible torso, front set of legs bending slightly to allow the maneuver.

“This is a special tablet. We would like one, and also to know where they were located.”

Minu gritted her teeth. She was losing control of this. “I will pass along the request.”

“With thanks.” P'ing straightened up, and Minu turned on the tablet. She'd set up the presentation in advance. It started with images of their operation on Remus, the massive floating settlements and the machines harvesting the algae. “So this is what you have been doing to generate extra credits? This is admirable!”

“We thank you. Now we were hoping you could tell us about this.” She keyed the tablet which produced another image. Recorded by Lilith and heavily modified, the image of the Tog ship was manipulated to look like it was taken from a telescope. Even with that, P'ing jerked like hse was poked with a kloth prod. “We were told by you that the Concordia abandoned starships eons ago. Why were we lied to?”

“This image is recent?”

“Days ago.”

The Tog removed hser own tablet, a narrower model with grooved edges to assist the three fingered species in holding it with a firm grip. Hser fingers tapped in rapid sequence and Minu burned to see what was going on. Then, quite suddenly, hser head jerked up to spear Minu with a powerful gaze. “You are being deceitful,” hse accused.

Minu swallowed and remained calm. This was a game of cards with stakes far higher than she was accustomed to. “I don’t know what you mean?”

“Don’t you?” P’ing spun hser tablet around for Minu. It was her time to look in surprise at an enhanced shot of the Kaatan, obviously taken from an extreme distance, in profile. The stars around it were blurred, suggesting great speed. “Does this clear your mind?”

“So we’re both holding back the facts.”

“Facts? Minu Groves of our Chosen, you and your people are playing in a game in which you do not understand the consequences.”

“How many species still have starships?”

“Many, but not all.”

“Why are we being lied to by our protectors, our benefactors? Humanity has treated you like our parents, and this is how you repay that trust?”

“It is the rules were are forced to operate under, they control us as much as you.”

“Then explain them to me.”

P’ing put away the tablet and lowered hser head. “I cannot.”

“Why are you spying on us from the edge of the solar system instead of just coming through the Portal or sending official inquiries?”

“I cannot say.”

“WHY?” she practically screamed, not believing that she was yelling at a Tog, especially P’ing.

“Because your time of Awakening has yet to arrive.”

Minu felt her anger become a living thing. In almost a decade as Chosen she’d come a long way in learning to control that seething monster living in a cage just down the hall from the little room. The occupant of the room, also quiet for some time, flippantly suggested she just let the damn thing out. She resisted the urge, but only just.

“Awakened. I’ve had that thrown in my face one too many times. By you, by the Squeen, and even by the damned computer. I
know
it means more than just allowing full access to the Concordian computer network. Will you either explain yourself, or tell me how to become ‘Awakened’ so I can finally get some fucking answers?”

“You should not wish for such a terrible thing.” Hser words made Minu shiver unconsciously.

“That tablet, this vessel we have seen pursuing our reconnaissance ship, they all point to the fact that you are deeply embroiled in events which are quickly spiraling out of control. The T’Chillen lay claim to the only surviving examples of starships made by the People, like that ship, and here is one spotted near the Bellatrix star system. Just as the tablet is another example of their lost technology, I further suspect many of your recent technological ‘discoveries’ that have made your fellow Humans much more successful and popular among the lesser species of the Concordia are similarly linked.

“And I now know where you obtained your medical codex, though I had secretly suspected as much from the beginning. Being a hominid is dangerous enough without all the rest of this. It all points to a fact that, were it to become public knowledge in the Concordia, would likely result in either complete societal collapse, or all out galactic war. And that is something which has not occurred in millions of years.” A shiver ran up hser back, starting at the horse-like rump and finishing between the shoulders.

Minu felt like she was drowning. Any such grandiose proclamations would be summarily dismissed, were they to come from almost any being other than a Tog. They might be able to lie with the best of them, but flights of fancy or melodrama were completely beyond them. If a Tog seemed mad, it was mad. If a Tog appeared excited, there must be something exciting going on. And if a Tog acted scared, you’d best seek cover.

“At the very least, you have to tell me what this Awakening is.”

“It is the removal of all computer blocks to your species, allowing complete unfettered access to the Concordian data network. It is the ability to engage in any venture or contract with another species regardless of the implications to your guardians. It is the release to seek leaseholds and to pursue war as you wish. And that is because your guardians are no longer your guardians.

“And finally it means you will discover certain truths that only Awakened species are allowed to know. Secrets that are kept from all un-Awakened species that are the deepest most sacred law in the Concordia. As I said, this isn’t something you might wish for. Humanity is a fragile species, if also powerful and brave. Many young beings such as yourself do not survive their Awakening. And that is the reason it is our highest law, that only the species' guardian can bestow that blessing, that curse, that horrible gift of freedom and set you loose upon the galaxy. Or… set them loose upon you.’

She took it all in without blinking. “What if I were to demand Awakening?”

“That is a most unwise decision.” Minu was about to continue when hse cut her off. “It is the purview of the clients' guardians, ourselves of course, to make the determination that you are ready. None other can make that decision, not even the ruling council of the High Concordia on Nexus could take that from us, unless our light were somehow put out from the universe. However, it is not without precedent that a species demands its own Awakening, and Concordia law supports this decision while simultaneously cautioning against it in the strongest of terms.”

‘And what about the debt we owe to you, our guardians, for rescuing us from our fate.”

“There is no debt.’

“What?”

“I said there is no debt. It is part of the Awakening. For some species, there is a debt registered with the Concordia for a rescue, but it is up to the guardians to decide this. No formal law exists. We have never registered a debt against Humanity.”