Stone in the Sky (28 page)

He stood there, staring at me. Waiting for me to speak.

“I won't thank you,” I said. “I'll never thank you for what you've done to me.”

“We have too much work to do.” Myfanwy stepped in, doing her best to refocus the discussion. “All eyes are on us. There's to be an audit.”

“The Imperium has demanded to see an Earth colony. I need you to perform for me,” he said.

“No,” I said. “Send them to one of the other colonies.”

Killick. Kuhn. Marxuach. Andra. Beta Granade.

“I can't do that,” Brother Blue said. “There are issues there.”

“What issues?” I asked.

“Pandemic on Andra. Power problems on Marxuach. Terraforming mishap on Beta Granade. Lack of proper receiving buildings on Killick. Light skip block to Kuhn…” Myfanwy rattled off the familiar excuses.

I laughed.

“You can drop the act,” I said. “Why should we help you?”

“They can't know that this batch of alin has been ruined.”

He put his hand on my shoulder as though he were being sincere with me. I shuddered, remembering the last time he'd touched me. Remembering his fists on my body and the cold hard floor of Docking Bay 12.

“You have us marked as your property.”

“I'll free you,” he said. Then he made a motion to Myfanwy who produced a key from her pocket and started undoing the armbands that had marked us as slaves.

“We work the land, we get the profits,” I said.

“A quarter of the profits,” he said.

“Earth Gov needs funding,” Reza spoke up. “Some profits should go there.”

I was glad that Reza had remembered to take care of that Earth was represented in this negotiation.

“Impossible,” Brother Blue said. It was so easy for him to wave off billions of people. “If I'm going to get the Imperium to stop breathing down my neck, then we need funding.”

“You mean
you
need funding,” I said.

“Helping me keep the Imperium from sticking its nose into our affairs is helping Earth Gov,” he said.

I nodded. I hated that he was right, but he was.

“We are the true pioneers here. We're full of hope and possibility. We're doing great things for Humanity. We are coexisting peacefully with our alien neighbors,” I said.

I laid out my terms and told him my plans and vision for our colony, and made him agree to housing, medical support, schooling, grains. He agreed to it all.

I realized that I'd heard these words before, the speeches. They were what Brother Blue had said to us on Earth and on the
Prairie Rose
. I was saying the same thing, and I believed what I was saying.

Was it the same with Brother Blue? Had his intentions started as purely as mine?

No. We were nothing alike. Or were we?

I shook my head in assent to indicate my agreement.

“Now that we're partners in this venture, you'll see that I always had Humanity's best interests at heart,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked. “Why is there no one living at the colonies?”

Brother Blue closed his eyes for a moment and then spoke.

“Killick, the first colony, went fine for five seasons,” he said. “And then the weather, the insects, the floods, the soil turned toxic, everything changed. But by then I'd already started a movement. And I liked being the Human mover and shaker in space. I still like it. I liked adding planets to my collection. The other four planets I just sent skeleton crews to, as placeholders. I had every intention to do what I was saying. Things just got complicated.”

The only thing I could think of as he told his story was that he did not look like a monster. He looked like an ordinary man.

“It wasn't until Beta Granade that I thought I would start again in earnest with a real colony. But then the League of Worlds fell, and I didn't have time to put actual people on it. I had to get rid of those colonists for the good of all Humans. But now we have a real chance to make it right.”

Everyone in the room was looking at me expectantly. I felt as though I was holding all of our fates in my hands. Suddenly I understood about the hard choices that one had to make for the sake of the bigger picture.

“I think I see,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it.

I now knew what it was like to sleep with a devil.

 

43

When the inspectors of the Imperium came, Brother Blue and I were of one mind. Make them believe that Humans were the kind of species they said they were.

Brother Blue stepped forward to welcome the delegation. I cringed at how he turned on the charm, greeting the aliens each in their traditional ways. I saw that he had interacted with them in the same way that I did with aliens when I bartered. Mimicking them in order to get what I wanted.

I looked at the alien speculators who tried to stand with their own kind to put on the appearance of species separation. But it was clear they were mingling with each other as they watched the arrival. A Per was laughing with a Moldav at some joke. Two Nurlock, a Freng, and a Kao were sharing food with the crowd. Two groups of younger Brahar and Hort were kicking a ball around.

It surprised me how much a part of life on Quint mixing had become.

We had grown together through helping each other. We didn't know how to separate. We were a community.

“Why are you mixed together?” the Brahar inspector asked.

“Stand with your own kind!” the Per yelled.

All the aliens looked at each other, confused, and I realized it was because they thought that they were apart. They couldn't see that we were all starting to bleed into each other, even when we were trying to look separated.

A Kao inspector stepped out and examined the aliens in the crowd. His red round face looked over the crowd with disgust. Perhaps fear. It was not difficult to see that we had all adapted to each other's styles.

We were stronger that way, which is why the Imperium wanted us to all go back to our corners. The galaxy was easier to control when aliens were separated and fighting one another for planets, resources, and the ability to expand.

“Let me show you my jewel of a settlement, Brother Blue said sensing the disapproval of the inspectors. He spread his arm to point out various landmarks to distract their attention as the aliens in the crowd reorganized themselves to be more separated.

He did it so smoothly that even I had made sure to step away from the two aliens next to me, and fell into place next to the other Humans.

“Shall we?” he asked when he noticed that we'd all reordered ourselves and led the inspectors by the crowd and out toward our claim camp.

Hendala took the first step toward following him, but she made eye contact with me as she passed me by, rotating her antennae toward me in a stealth greeting. Forming a long line out of town, the Imperium snaked down the road toward our claim camp.

“What's that?” a Dolmav inspector asked.

“No concern of ours,” Brother Blue said. “That's not our claim.”

“But there are different kinds of aliens working in the field together,” the Brahar inspector said. They could understand that there would be mixing in town, just like on a space station or somewhere like Bessen where there was bound to be mixing, especially in the upper power classes. That was not punishable, just undesirable to the Imperium. But working together was a whole other thing.

I looked out at the countryside and could see that a large group of mixed aliens were carefully sowing seeds into a freshly tilled field. We had all helped each other to sow and plow at some point or another. It was tiring work and went so much more quickly if everyone gathered together. I'd forgotten that today there had been a call from a Kao claim for help.

“Are they working together?” the Imperium general, a Brahar barked.

“No, I don't think so,” Brother Blue said, trying to move them all along. But the entire party had stopped and was looking at the field. The guards were waiting for orders. The inspectors were talking among themselves.

“We're here to inspect the Humans,” Hendala said, trying to move the delegation along.

“Whose idea was it to start working together?” the Imperium general asked Brother Blue. “Was it yours?”

“Not at all,” Brother Blue said trying to smooth things over. “We Humans stay on our own land. We don't mingle at all. If you'll notice there is not one Human working that claim.”

I looked again to make sure that he was telling the truth, and he was. We had all stayed at our claim for the inspection. I could see now how Brother Blue did what he did. He could convince you of one thing because one day it was true. It didn't matter if it wasn't true the next.

The Brahar refused to move on right away. He called to the guards.

“Separate them,” he said. He gave a signal to the Imperium troops. They went up the hill into the field and forced everyone into their own species group, shoving those who wouldn't cooperate into place with the butts of their two-shot guns.

I felt for the Kao speculator, whose field was getting trampled. He would have to start his work all over again.

Brother Blue stepped closer to the general. He was distancing himself from us, and just like he'd done so many times before, moving over to the side that he thought would win. The Imperium was life, and we were death.

“Pers and Dolmavs should not be helping a Kao,” the general said. His scales shifted colors as he yelled. They flicked from gold to green.

The Per inspector scolded the Per speculators. The Dolmav inspector scolded the Dolmav speculators. I noticed that Hendala was standing in front of the Loor that had helped the Kao, but she was not scolding them.

“It is unfair for a Kao to benefit from the work of others,” the general explained. “It muddies the claim, the value, and the currency.”

He spoke as though we were all children. Or stupid.

The Kao was trying to clean up the mess as he listened to the general.

“Here is one thing we can all do together,” the Brahar general said. “We can ensure that this Kao gets no benefit from having been helped. We must completely destroy the claim.”

He then took a hoe that had fallen to the ground and began destroying and uprooting anything that he could. After a moment of hesitation, all of his guards followed suit. The inspectors, including Hendala and Brother Blue, urged us all to trample the Kao's field.

I did not stamp the ground. I just swayed back and forth in the crowd so as not to be singled out. But when Brother Blue saw me, he grabbed my arm in a menacing way and hissed at me under his breath.

“You will help to destroy this field, or I will destroy you.”

“Enough,” the Brahar general shouted when the field was ruined. “Let that be a lesson to you all.”

“I don't know how one of my own kind would get such an idea,” the Kao inspector said.

“It has the smell of Humans behind it,” the Per inspector said.

“Likely how they get such good harvests and such good profits,” the Dolmav agreed.

We couldn't help but overhear what they were saying about us.

“No, no,” Brother Blue said. “Not Humans. Just one Human.”

Then he did it. He raised his hand and pointed at me.

“It was her,” he said. “Tula Bane. She's been organizing the aliens to work together. I've tried to stop her, but she's persistent. I do not like to punish my own kind, but she's left me no choice.”

The inspectors turned to examine me.

I stood up taller. I wouldn't deny it.

“No,” Reza said behind me. “It started in my fields. I was the first one here.”

The Brahar general stepped up to Reza.

“This is a hard planet, and the alin is tricky to cultivate,” Reza said. “I taught everyone here all that they know, and we've all done better by working together.”

“Is that true?” the Brahar asked all of the aliens gathered together. “Have you been helped by this Human?”

The aliens looked around at one another and then they all looked at me. No one said anything, but it was clear that they were waiting for me to answer. Their faces looked frightened, worried that the inspectors would come and destroy their fields next. This was what so many of them had run away from.

I put my hands out to comfort the crowd and implore the Brahar general to see our point of view.

“We're very few that live here, and we are all far away from home,” I said. “Things are hard to get, and so we have to work together, much like you do.”

The Imperium inspectors let out various forms of gasps. The Brahar opened his eyes very wide to show me how enraged he was.

“I told you. Tula Bane is the real instigator,” Brother Blue said, stepping in front of me.

“Pack up now and leave immediately,” the Brahar general commanded to the aliens still gathered in the field. They didn't need to be told twice. They left the Kao with his ruined field.

“I don't need to see anything else,” he said.

Brother Blue followed the general down the road, babbling away in an attempt to charm. To me he looked like a dog begging for scraps.

*   *   *

News of what happened during the Imperium audit traveled fast. And within a few days, murmurs in the eatery and the entertainments spots were brimming with frightened aliens ready to take the first ship out of here. Some of the larger speculators gathered at Reza's to discuss how to help the Kao whose field had been trampled.

“We can't let them scare us,” I said. “They've done their inspection, but now they are gone.”

“We can go back to our way of life,” the Nurlok who ran the eatery said backing me up.

“They'll kill us,” a Freng said. “My species is not even Minor.”

“Or they'll go after our homeworld to punish us,” a Calwei said.

“They won't really do that,” I said.