Reaper's Crossroad (The Hunter Imperium Book 3) Page 3

  "No?"

  "No."

  I gave him a half nod, turned, and stepped back through the rift, closing it behind me. By the time I was seated, everyone else was standing.

  Right on a count of five, he appeared on the bridge in front of me. Had this been six hundred years earlier, there would have been the sound of a lot of guns having a round chambered all at once. Since it wasn’t, there was no sound at all, but he found himself looking down the business end of a gun in the hands of every female on the bridge. Syrinx was the only one without a gun, and a few seconds later, a magical lasso appeared around his knees. The shield he attempted to put up around him failed.

  "What is this?" he demanded.

  "I believe they all want an answer to my question."

  "Which question?"

  "Actually there are two questions now. Why you would refuse to allow any member of my crew to accompany me into your throne room? And why you would call a female magician a witch?"

  His mouth fell open a little, but he had control back quickly.

  "Are you serious?"

  "Boss," said BA, "these people are not worth saving. I say we throw him back."

  He threw a look at her, seemed to note the colour of her skin, which of all of us was the closest to his own, and smiled in her direction. BA almost lost it, and I could see just how much effort she was putting into not shooting him.

  "Yes," I said, pretending to have not heard BA. "I'm very serious. We've already had contact with five other human societies, all of differing colours, and none of them had any concern for colour of skin, or the gender of anyone in the parties meeting."

  This wasn’t true. But I wasn’t telling him that.

  "Why are you?" I finished.

  "We're not."

  "So you asking me not to bring a white female to meet with a black male, is not any kind of problem for you?"

  "Why should it?"

  "That’s what I'm asking you."

  He looked again at BA, and he must have seen something in her eyes and facial expression which made him change his mind.

  "Fine. Our history tells us we were once at war with a matriarchy of female mages." He nodded towards Syrinx. "She is radiating the power, so must be a mage. It has been passed down from one mage king to another to not trust female mages. We've had few, and those have always chosen exile from our society."

  "So you've chosen to hold a grudge against all female mages for more than three thousand years?"

  The guns were still pointed at him, Syrinx was still suppressing his personal shield magic, and I could see he knew he couldn’t block all of them if they fired at the same time. The arrogance was beginning to leave his face.

  "A grudge? I wouldn’t call it that."

  "What would you call it?" asked BA.

  "Healthy suspicion based on past experience."

  BA shot him.

  Six

  This time when I woke up, I sat up in bed and face palmed.

  Aline and Angel hadn't woken this time, and after due consideration of my palm, I quietly rose and began my day early. This wasn’t the first time I’d had nested dreams about the same thing, and probably wouldn’t be my last. But I wasn’t going to tempt a third one by going back to sleep for one more rem cycle. Instead, I went to one of the training courses, and was hot and sweaty by the time the rest of the team showed up. No-one commented at all, although I'm pretty sure the twins had seen the second nightmare as well. They just followed me into the next course.

  Greer and Sato threw the pods through the jump point on the other side of the system, and by the time they'd returned, the worst of the debris field had been collected. The nav map showed the destroyer on the other side, now trying to collect all the pods together. On the other side of that system were three more ships heading towards them.

  I opened a rift back to Redoubt, the salvage droids and their loads went through, and the fleet followed. The debris went through to Haven, while the ships all docked with Redoubt. I hosted the captains for lunch, and congratulated Miriam on her strafe tactic. It had worked a lot better than I'd expected, and having proved a viable tactic, we discussed how to make it better. The main problem for me was turning off the main engines, which was the only way of being able to turn the ship without changing the direction of travel. We needed a way of strafing which didn’t involve the engines. The fighter pilots all agreed to work on it more.

  Once alone back in my office, I pondered how to approach the mage king. I sent off a message to Thorn, but he didn’t respond. Finally I called in David Tollin. He listened to my idea, made a few suggestions, and I left him to set it up.

  We met in the brand new small council chamber on Terminus, and when everyone was seated at the table, I opened a rift to the throne room on Kelewan. Nodding to Mage Celestine, she grinned, and the mage king was suddenly sitting in the designated chair for him at the table. I closed the rift.

  "Welcome," I said, not letting him get the first word in. "I'm glad to see all of you were able to make it on such short notice, with this council chamber having just been completed for us to use. Most of us have met before, with the exception of the mage king there, but this is our first formal meeting as a potential council of leaders." I looked at the mage king. "As the new member here, perhaps you would care to introduce yourself and your people."

  He gave me a studied look, but nodded.

  "I am Mage King Parsengnon, ruler of Kelewan. Ours is a society where mages are the ruling class."

  I held up a finger to silence comment before anyone spoke further.

  "Thank you Mage King. Let me outline some history, as I understand it." There were nods all around the table. "The origin of Humans is not known, but some thirty one hundred years ago, there were humans on at least two planets in the galaxy. My people came from a planet out on one of the spiral arms, isolated from the rest of the galaxy by a pulsar cluster. The rest of your people were on a single planet not too far from here, spatially speaking. It was divided up into five warring kingdoms, and to escape an unsurvivable ice age, each kingdom was moved to its own planet. Over the next three millennia, none of you have had any contact with the others."

  There were nods all round, but the mage king was frowning.

  "Six hundred years ago, my people spread to the stars along the arm in both directions. We fought a war with an alien species which ended only a few short weeks ago, and in ending it, we changed the galaxy in ways only a few of us are aware of. My people number considerably less now, around one hundred billion or so," there were surprised looks all around the table, "but I am not their leader, and we do not in fact have any contact with them now. But they are out there. David Tollin there," I pointed to him, "currently runs the administration for those of us cast adrift here from our people." David nodded around the table. "And we will be having elections in the near future to set up a new government."

  I could see most of them were having trouble with the word 'billions', which is why I’d thrown it at them. We might be a society of only thousands now, but I wanted them all to know their societies combined were only tiny next to where we'd come from.

  "Admiral Jen is here as the representative of your planet of origin. The society is little more than eighty years old, and contains some mages."

  Jen nodded. She was in full uniform.

  "Prime Minister Shanto next to her is from a parliamentary democracy which dates back to the exodus. Her people own a cluster of systems adjacent to those owned by Jen's people. Next to her is Council Leader Tranallo, whose people own another adjacent cluster of systems. Neither of these societies have any mages. But these are also the biggest population groups among us. And both have significant militaries."

  I omitted the fact they were also very obsolete.

  "Mage Celestine is part of the ruling council of Solidario, who have recently abandoned their planet to the Trixone, and moved to one of the planets in the small group my people now claim. They are currently rebuilding, and all
help, both mundane and magical, would be appreciated by them."

  Celestine nodded gravely. But I could see the twinkle in her eyes.

  "Matriarch Ainsline rules the planet Karn." The mage king actually shuddered. "While their planet is still closed as far as visiting it is concerned, we use some of their mages in our fleet now, as a means of retrieving pilots whose ships have been destroyed, and for some ways of protecting ships engaged in combat. We'll be wanting to expand on this as mages become available for more training in space combat situations."

  "Fleet Admiral Jane represents a small society of Artificial Intelligence, still in the process of building themselves a city here. And lastly, Councilor Morn represents several thousand refugees of differing species, who have settled with us."

  He was one of the dwarves with the dog looking faces. I'd had several discussions with him now, and apart from the furry face and big nose, he was as human as the rest of us.

  I looked around the table.

  "I am here as the admiral of the fleet which is currently protecting all your people. Most of you have the Keerah on your doorsteps, but Karn is in Ralnor space. Our refugees come from Trixone space, and we expect to be getting more of them over time."

  I paused, this time looking at each of them in turn.

  "Make no mistake. Whatever you thought you knew last month is gone. The Keerah now live for battle. The Ralnor want to impose their own kind of order on everyone. And the Trixone just want new eating grounds. And all of them have reasons for hating humanoids in general, and humans in particular."

  "We have an opportunity right now to build an alliance which might change the balance of power in this galaxy. Three species have dominated for a time longer than any of us know. They spread out across the galaxy, before finally grinding against each other, with us in the middle. Now they view us as a real threat for the first time. Why doesn’t matter. But here we are, and now is the time to decide if we stand alone, or come together."

  I chuckled for a second, as a thought popped in.

  "I find it ironic that five societies at war with each other, should three millennia later came back together for the same reason they split into six societies on different planets in the first place."

  "And what is that?" asked the mage king.

  "Survival!"

  Seven

  "So," I said into the silence, after all but two had left.

  The mage king and the matriarch were looking at me, and making it very obvious they were not looking at each other.

  "How does a grudge get held for over three millennia, without any contact between you?"

  Both of them frowned. Neither ventured an opinion.

  "Are you even aware of it?"

  The frowns got deeper. I looked at Ainsline.

  "You sent two male mages away before you even talked to me."

  I looked at Parsengnon.

  "You told me not to come back with the witch. Now apart from that being a sexist slur in my book," I paused. "No, that is a sexist slur in my book, and that’s all there is to it."

  I looked at both of them.

  "Both of you told me you didn’t want to be around a mage of the opposite sex. That tells me we have a serious problem. Before we can go any further, I need to know why."

  Both of them actually sighed, so I face palmed. Which brought on a thought. I looked at them again.

  "You know what you two look like to me? An old married couple doing one last counselling session before getting a divorce."

  Now they both looked furious, but before they could strike me down or whatever came to mind, there was a booming laugh from one corner of the room. All three of us jerked our heads around to see who was there. No-one.

  I was just about convinced it was Jane using a different voice, when Thorn appeared. He walked over and took a seat next to me, still laughing. We waited for him to stop.

  "Finally something makes sense."

  "What sense do you see, reaper?" grated out Ainsline.

  "Do neither of you have any idea what started your societies?" I asked.

  They both shook their heads.

  "But you as leaders have passed down instructions in case you meet the other again?"

  Thorn looked surprised, but quickly nodded. Reluctantly the other two nodded as well.

  "That makes things easier."

  "How?" asked Thorn.

  "So far I've seen no animosity from any other magic user against another. Except for these two. If this is the case, we really don’t have an issue, just an unfortunate circumstance about leaders which can be easily fixed."

  "Fixed how?" asked Parsengnon.

  "Back up," I said, looking at Thorn. "You said this made sense to you. How?"

  "No-one knows how the matriarchy and patriarchy mage societies came about. But what if they were one society back around say thirty three centuries ago, and the ruler was a mage queen. Now what if she was required to have a consort in order to rule?"

  "And the consort was also a mage, and over time he became more powerful than her, and tried to take power away from her."

  "It would split a society down the middle."

  "And so whoever lost, is exiled, but takes a good chunk of the population with them, and now we have two societies ruled by a single mage sex."

  "And over time, as they exile or kill mages of the wrong sex, their dna stops producing mages of the other sex, or so infrequently, the odd one can vanish one way or another. A few centuries later, and they grind against each other in perpetual war for space, each feeding the other side with mages who didn’t fit in. And then I took them to different planets. Where all contact ceased."

  "Which means they both have some sort of passed down leader notes warning of the other society in case they ever do meet again. How the hell does something like that last three thousand years in both societies?"

  Stable government was my only guess. Which in itself boggled the mind.

  Neither of them spoke up.

  Thorn closed his eyes, and we sat there watching him do nothing. After a few minutes, a woman and a man appeared, and next to each was a tome. Both suddenly looked terrified.

  "So," I said. "Each of you has a set of instructions for each new leader, and at least one keeper of it. True?"

  The two nodded.

  "Simple then. We destroy the instructions. The animosity dies with the two of you."

  They both flinched.

  "Jon didn’t mean you both die with the tomes," added Thorn hastily.

  "Of course not. It’s a last resort if you can't get past your own indoctrinated sexism."

  They flinched again.

  "But let's try other things first. Like it or not, to join this little alliance we have going here means you give up things like sexism. Things like a person's sex and colour of skin were put aside by my people centuries ago, and as far as I can see, the other groups did so as well. I mean people of my colour meeting people coloured orange must have been a big shock, but they got passed it."

  "Actually, I had something to do with that," said Thorn. "And it was centuries ago. Actually it's ironic the two most sexist groups also become the widest apart colour groups as well."

  "You didn’t plan that?"

  "Hell no. I had a very vague idea of why orange should be a skin colour, but I still don’t know why black or white would happen."

  "Get Carter to explain it to you."

  "Would I understand it?"

  "Probably not."

  He grinned at me.

  "Are you two quite finished?" asked Ainsline.

  "Not quite," I said. "I see several choices. You two can change the way you think, and we don’t have a problem. You two can rule on your own planet, but have nothing to do with what your people get up to out here, including not stopping them leaving. Or we can do something a little more drastic if neither of those work."

  They cringed.

  "But consider the advantages. I'm sure you both have people who'd prefer to li
ve under a different political landscape, and there are undoubtedly mages who'd prefer to live under yours. Open borders allows them to leave where they're not happy, and go where they think they will be. This solves any potential problems of serpents hiding in the undergrowth of your societies."

  Both of them seemed to lighten up a bit at this idea.

  "All we do need to do is destroy those tomes, and give the keepers another job."

  "Or we could do that," added Thorn, "and mind wipe the four of you."

  The four of them shuddered this time.

  "Your choice. I think the options so far seem to be pretty good to me. Once we get this alliance going properly, I'm sure there will be clauses about sexism, bigotry, colour intolerance, speciesism, and other petty things we don’t want turning up again. Anyone trying to hold onto such things is likely to find themselves being sanctioned."

  "Sanctioned how?" asked Parsengnon.

  Thorn looked at me as if he knew.

  "There is one magical sanction which will solve all problems, but I really don’t want to go there. I don’t think anyone but people with a phobia about anything not of their planet will want it."

  I left it at that.

  "So, choice time?"

  I looked at Ainsline.

  "I'll try to change."

  I looked at Parsengnon. He sighed.

  "The same."

  Both the tomes burst into flames, and the keepers vanished.

  "Backups?" I asked him.

  "I didn't find any, but I included them in the intent."

  "Good."

  "Are we done?" asked Ainsline.

  "You are. I need a few more minutes with Parsengnon."

  "Good day then."

  She rose, and left the room. I looked at an unhappy man.

  "That went well I thought."

  "I should have known. One of my more discredited seers told me a week ago I’d be having a meeting which would undermine everything I stood for. Damnit!"

  "What?" asked Thorn.

  "Now I have to get him out of the dungeon I tossed him in, and make it up to him."

  "Send him to work for Jon."