The End of All Things #2: This Hollow Union (3 page)

“The Colonial Union’s coming here without presence,” Oi said. “That’s interesting.”

“They want to indicate their openness,” I said.

“That’s one interpretation,” Oi said. “Another is that they don’t think they have time to do their usual sneaking about before this blows up in their faces. And another will be that this is simply a move in a long-term game to maneuver us to where they can strike us most effectively.”

“That’s not been my experience of Colonel Rigney or Ambassador Abumwe.”

“Which doesn’t matter much because
officially
you haven’t had any experience with either Rigney or Abumwe, have you?” Oi said, and raised tendrils to pause my reply. “It’s not about what you or I think, Hafte. It’s about how Unli Hado and those around him will interpret the Colonial Union’s move here.”

“You think we shouldn’t meet with them.”

“I don’t have an opinion one way or another,” Oi said, lying diplomatically. “That’s not my job. But I do suggest that you talk with the general about it and find out what he and you want to do. And that you do it sooner than later. ‘Immediately,’ would be my suggestion.”

“I have another meeting first,” I said.

*   *   *

“You know that the nations of Earth would never condone or participate in any action that would bring about the destruction of the Conclave,” said Regan Byrne, the envoy to the Conclave from the United Nations, a diplomatic corporation that was not actually the government of the Earth, but which pretended to be for situations like this.

I nodded, minutely, to avoid hitting my head on Byrne’s ceiling. Byrne’s offices were former storage units that had been hastily cleared out when it was decided that it would be beneficial to have an Earth presence of some sort at the Conclave headquarters. These storage units were amply tall for most Conclave species, but then, again, Lalans were tall and I was taller than most.

I stood because there was nowhere for me to sit; Byrne usually came to visit me, not the other way around, and her office did not have a stool that would accommodate me. Byrne had the grace to look embarrassed by this fact.

“I assure you that no one in the Conclave has suggested that this new information has cast the Earth in a suspicious light,” I said, choosing not to mention that Unli Hado, in point of fact, had accused the planet of being full of traitors and spies. “What I am interested in knowing, prior to my meeting with General Gau, is whether the Earth has received this information, and what their response has been to it.”

“I was about to call Umman when he called me to set up this meeting,” Byrne said. “I received a skip drone from the UN this morning with the information, to give to you in case you did not already have it, and the denial of involvement that I just offered you. Done up much more formally, of course. I will have all of it sent to your office.”

“Thank you.”

“I have been also told to tell you that we’re sending a formal diplomatic party to brief the Conclave on the Earth’s definitive response to this new information. They will be here in less than a week. The diplomatic party is under the aegis of the UN but will consist of representatives of several Earth governments. That information is also in the data packet I am sending along.”

“Yes, fine,” I said. This meant that we were about to be in the rather awkward position of having diplomatic representatives from both the Earth and the Colonial Union at the Conclave’s headquarters at the same time. This would have to be managed. I frowned.

“Everything all right, Councilor Sorvalh?” Byrne asked.

“Of course,” I said, and smiled. Byrne offered up a weak smile in return. I remembered that my smile looked rather ghastly to humans, in no small part because it was offered by a creature who was close to twice their height. “This will all be of great use to me when I meet with the general.”

“That’s good to hear,” Byrne said.

“And how are you, Regan?” I asked. “I’m afraid I don’t see you or other members of your mission as often as I would like.”

“We’re good,” Byrne said, and I was aware that I was once again being lied to diplomatically. “I think most of the staff are still getting our bearings and learning the map of the station. It’s very large. Larger than some cities back on Earth.”

“Yes it is,” I said. The headquarters of the Conclave was a space station carved into a large asteroid and was one of the largest engineered objects ever made, not counting some of the more impressive bits made by the Consu, a race so technologically advanced above the rest of the species in this area of space that they should not be included in an estimation, simply out of politeness to everyone else.

“It would have to be,” I continued. “We have to house representatives from four hundred worlds, all their staff, and many of their families, plus a great number of the Conclave’s own government workers and their families, plus all the support workers and their families. It adds up.”

“Is your family here, Councilor Sorvalh?”

I smiled, more gently this time. “Lalans don’t quite have the family structure that humans and many other species do. We are more communally oriented, is the best way to put it. But there is a strong Lalan community here. It’s very comforting.”

“It’s good to hear,” Byrne said. “I miss my family and other humans. It’s lovely here, but sometimes you just miss home.”

“I know what you mean,” I said to her.

*   *   *

“If the Conclave must end, at least this is a pretty place for it to begin,” General Tarsem Gau, leader of the Conclave, said to me, standing next to where I sat in the Lalan community park. The park, one of the first created on the Conclave’s asteroid, was large enough for all three hundred of the Lalans stationed at Conclave headquarters to meet, relax, deposit eggs, and monitor the hatched young as they grew.

Tarsem spotted some of the Lalan young, playing on a rock on the far side of the park’s small lake. “Any of yours?” he asked. Jokingly, because he knew I was too old for further egg-laying.

But I answered him seriously. “One or both of them might be Umman’s,” I said. “He and one of the diplomats were in phase not too long ago and she laid her eggs here. Those young are just about the right size to be theirs.”

There was a sudden squawk as an older youth emerged from behind the rock, wrapped its jaws around one of the two youth sunning themselves, and began to bite down. The trapped youth began to struggle; the other one scuttled away. We watched as the younger youth fought to survive, and lost. After a moment the larger youth stole away, younger youth still in its jaws, to eat it in privacy.

Tarsem turned to me. “That still always amazes me,” he said.

“That our young prey on each other?” I asked.

“That it doesn’t bother
you
that they do,” he said. “Not just you. You or any Lalan adult. You understand that most intelligent species are fiercely protective of their young.”

“As are we,” I replied. “After a certain point. After their brains develop and their consciousness emerges. Before then they are simply animals, and there are so many of them.”

“Did you feel that way when they were your own?”

“I didn’t know which were mine at the age of that unfortunate youth,” I said. “We lay our eggs in common, you know. We go to our local common ground, to the laying house. I’d lay my eggs into a receiving basket and take the basket to the house supervisor. The supervisor would put them in the room set up for the eggs the house received that day. Thirty or forty women would lay eggs at a house each day. Ten to fifty eggs each. Fifteen of our days to hatch and then another five days before the outside door to the room was opened to let the surviving young out into the park. We didn’t see the eggs again once we left them. Even if we went back the day the outside door was opened, we wouldn’t know which of the survivors were our own.”

“But I’ve met your children.”

“You met them after they grew into consciousness,” I said. “Once you’re an adult, you’re allowed to take a genetic test to learn who your parents are, provided they had consented to be placed in the database. The two you met are the ones who decided to find out. I may have had others who survived but they either didn’t take the test or chose not to contact me. Not everyone asks to know. I didn’t.”

“It’s so—”

“Alien?” Tarsem nodded. I laughed. “Well, Tarsem, I
am
an alien to you. And you to me. And all of us to each other. And yet, here we are, friends. As we have been for most of our lives now.”

“The conscious parts of it, anyway.”

I motioned back to the rock, where the youth who had run away had returned. “You think the way we cull our young is cruel.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Tarsem said.

“Of course you wouldn’t say it,” I said. “You wouldn’t say it because you’re diplomatic. But it doesn’t mean you don’t
think
it.”

“All right,” Tarsem admitted. “It does seem cruel.”

“That’s because it
is,
” I said, turning again to Tarsem. “Terrible and cruel, and the fact that adult Lalans can just watch it happen and not weep in agony over it means that
we
might be terrible and cruel as well. But we know a story that other people don’t.”

“What’s the story?”

“The story is that not too long ago in Lalan history, a philosopher named Loomt Both convinced most of Lalah that how we culled our young was wrong and immoral. He and his followers convinced us to protect all of our young, to allow them all to grow into sentience, and to reap the benefits of the knowledge and progress so many new thinking individuals would give us. I imagine you think you know where this is going.”

“Overpopulation, famine, and death, I would guess,” Tarsem said.

“And you would be wrong, because those are obvious things, to be planned for and dealt with,” I said. “We did have a massive population boom, but we’d also developed spaceflight. It’s one reason why Both suggested we stop culling our youth. We populated colony worlds quickly and grew an empire of twenty worlds almost overnight. Both’s strategy gave us a foothold into the universe and for a time he was revered as the greatest Lalan.”

Tarsem smiled at me. “If this is meant to be a cautionary tale, you’re doing a bad job of it, Hafte,” he said.

“It’s not done yet,” I said. “What Both missed—what we all missed—was the fact that our pre-conscious life is not wasted. How we survive our culling leaves its traces in our brains. In point of fact, in a very real sense, it gives us wisdom. Gives us restraint. Gives us mercy and empathy for each other and for other intelligent species. Imagine, if you will, Tarsem, billions of my people, emerging into consciousness without wisdom. Without restraint. Without mercy and empathy. Imagine the worlds they would make. Imagine what they would do to others.”

“They could be monsters,” Tarsem said.

“Yes they could. And yes we were. And in a very short time we tore each other apart and tore apart every other intelligent species we met. Until we had lost our empire and almost lost ourselves. We were terrible and cruel, and in time we wept in agony over it and everyone we had doomed to a conscious death.” I pointed again to the youth on the rock. “What happens to our young on their way to consciousness is pitiless. But it strengthens us as a people. We take our pain and our risk early, and as a result we as a people are saved.”

“Well,” Tarsem said. “This is not what I was expecting when I suggested we meet here. I just thought it was a pretty place to talk.”

“It is a pretty place,” I said. “It’s just not
nice.
”

“Tell me what you think about the news today.”

“About the Ocampo data?” I asked. Tarsem nodded. “I think it means very bad things for the Conclave. Ristin Lause is right, Tarsem. The Conclave is in a fragile state because you’ve been pushing things too hard, including bringing the humans of Earth into the Conclave. I’ve warned you about that.”

“You have.”

“And you haven’t listened.”

“I’ve listened,” Tarsem said. “I have reasons not to agree.”

I gave Tarsem a look that expressed my disapproval, which he took without complaint. I continued. “She’s also right that if you lose a confidence vote, it could fracture the Conclave. You already have dozens of species wanting to bolt and either go it alone or form smaller alliances they think they will be able to control. If you give the Conclave an opportunity to crack, it will crack.”

“That’s independent of the Ocampo data.”

“But the Ocampo data feeds right into that,” I said. “It seemingly confirms that the humans can’t be trusted and that they mean us harm, the Colonial Union portion of humanity, in any event. If you try to bring Earth into the Conclave after this, Unli Hado will use that to suggest that you’re letting the enemy through the front door.”

“So we hold off on admitting Earth into the Conclave.”

“Then Hado hits you with leaving it available to the Colonial Union to retake. Make no mistake, Tarsem. Hado is going to use Earth against you no matter what you do. And if you take the unspeakable third option of attacking the Colonial Union without direct provocation, Hado will use your first military defeat as an opportunity for the confidence vote he’s looking for. Every option leads to the assembly voting to remove you. And when that happens it all falls apart.”

“This used to be easier,” Tarsem said. “Running the Conclave.”

“That’s because you were building it,” I said. “It’s easier to be the aspirational leader when the thing you’re building doesn’t exist. But now it exists, and you’re not aspirational anymore. Now you’re just the chief bureaucrat. Bureaucrats don’t inspire awe.”

“Do we have time to finesse this?”

“We might have had, if both the Colonial Union and the Earth weren’t sending full suites of diplomats for discussions,” I said. “Having one set of them would be bad enough. Having them both here, posturing over the Ocampo data, means that Hado and his partisans are going to have real live targets for their ire and might use that to push a confidence vote sooner than later. If you think they’re going to miss an opportunity to trim down your reputation, with real-life human diplomats, then you’ll be playing right into their hands.”