Barsk (37 page)

Surely that was what the Matriarch had seen. Not the specifics, just that a weapon existed that could put an end to ignorance that had endured for millennia. And it fell to him, a simple Speaker, to tell the truth and end the long Silence.

With no more effort than breathing, he summoned himself again. An instant after closing his eyes he was regarding a nefshon construct scant moments younger than the one which represented himself. His double knew his intention and together they each summoned him again. The four repeated the process, as did the resulting eight, continuing several more times until his numbers were sufficient for the work Jorl had in mind.

He dismissed his replicas from his attention and concentrated on his next task, confident each of the others were doing likewise. After the challenge of summoning Dr. Chieko Castleman, reaching out to Senator Bish held no more challenge than flexing the nubs of his trunk. The Yak's nefshons resisted for just a moment, but with a mental tug a stream began flowing toward him, a golden tether between where the living Bos was in the real world and the imaginary space Jorl had created, where he now gave shape to his conversant.

For this final interview Jorl had envisioned a vast and featureless room, lit with the diffused and filtered sunlight of Barsk. Bish, the senior senator from the Committee of Information stood in front of him in a pale blue robe and dark slippers, presumably what he was wearing in his room on his nearby ship. He paused in mid-gesture, as though he had just been in conversation with someone else. And of course, he was, only now he was also here, and his awareness had been pulled to this place and time.

“Greetings, Senator. Welcome.” Jorl spoke softly, just enough to focus the Yak's attention upon him.

“You! How did you get out of the cabin? After your fiasco in my lab, I left orders for the Ailuros to keep you locked in until Druz completed her review of your work.” He paused, looked around the summoning venue. “Where are we? And where did that boy get to?”

Jorl paused. Boy? Had he meant Pizlo? But no, he could not allow himself a distraction now, or everything would fall apart. “
Here
is not where you think it is, Senator. I'm still very much a prisoner on the station, right where you left me, just as you are still wherever you were a moment ago. But we're both also in this place that I've created for the occasion. I promise to explain it all shortly, but we need to wait for the others to arrive.”

Before Bish could respond, Jorl felt a nudge on his awareness, followed by another, and then several more. Most of the other versions of him had completed their tasks and now clamored for admittance to his attention. He opened his perception to them all, and one by one they returned the favor, bringing themselves and their respective conversants into the venue of his making.

Jorl allowed himself an ironic smile. Even with Arlo's drug, few other Speakers could have done this; summoning required knowledge of the conversant, names and words and details. He'd been an academician before his first Speaking, and in the publish-or-perish world of the university it had made sense to research the names and preferences of the senators who oversaw funding for all academic journals. He'd never imagined he might meet them.

Another Jorl appeared standing alongside a gray-furred Cynomy, Welv, second only to Bish in seniority on the committee. Two more of his doppelgangers arrived, escorting a Feln and a Lep, and these were followed by a pair of Marmo senators, and then a Geom. The arrivals continued until two dozen duplicate Jorls had silently faded in, each in the company of a different sapient being gathered from throughout the galaxy, the other twenty-four senators who comprised the Committee of Information. The other Jorls positioned their conversants into a semi-circle facing the first Jorl, with Senator Bish at its middle. Together these men and women controlled the flow of knowledge and discovery throughout all the worlds of the Alliance. They represented both the larger races and the smaller ones, and they were all furred.

“Senators, please excuse the manner in which I have brought you here. My name is Jorl ben Tral, and as I am sure you can guess, I am from Barsk. The twenty-five of you comprise the Committee of Information. I realize you're not currently in formal session, but I have brought you together because I have valuable information for you and your committee head, Senator Bish.”

He paused, allowing the conversants to glance around and recognize one another as they tried to make sense of the situation. That wasn't a likely outcome, so he pressed on.

“I know you are all aware of the Compact that defines Barsk's relationship with the rest of the Alliance. For eight hundred years this one-sided document has permitted you to take from us, giving back little other than indifference and, at times, even contempt. Yet despite this extreme bias, members of your committee feel the arrangement is insufficient. These men and women would prefer to take outright what Barsk has agreed to provide. Indeed, one among you would trump up economic arguments as a motivation for hatred, and racial differences as a justification for extermination. I refer to Senator Bish. He organized a project to acquire the knowledge of the manufacture and refinement of the drug we call koph. He has authorized and personally committed theft, kidnapping, and murder in pursuit of his goal. Even now, I am imprisoned at his command in the vain hope that I will provide information to further his desire. I doubt he planned to keep me much longer, and he certainly now knows he will need to kill me outright. But like some petulant child desperate to get his way, he has threatened to destroy not just me, not just my people, but our entire world. Those of you who are parents know better than to give in to such a demand. Nor will I. I will not allow Senator Bish to continue.”

“You malformed little maggot!” The Yak shouted at him. The wise and grandfatherly demeanor, the perfect diction and poise, these had all vanished. Jorl took a step back, not at the blistering outburst; he realized he'd stumbled upon the man's weakness. In the many decades Bish had enjoyed power, had anyone dared to refuse him, to deny him anything, in the presence of others? Jorl's outrageous presumption had shattered the senator's façade. The resulting, long-buried rage echoed through the room. The Fant's many incarnations all flinched.

Bish faced the Jorl that had spoken, barely allowing his gaze to flicker to the other versions of the Fant and utterly ignoring his fellow senators.

“You are an insignificant bead of piss on a single blade of prairie grass! I don't know how you managed this trick, but it changes nothing. Do you think you can end this by making an announcement to my committee? That they'll recommend legislation to the larger senate body? Idiot! There are no Fant in the senate, not a one. Some few races may hold your world harmless, your people neutral, but even these would benefit from shattering your Compact and opening your world's resources for the good of the Alliance. Once we've raped your planet and taken everything it has, no one will care if we burn it all to ashes, every tree and plant and Fant.”

Still staring at Jorl, he swung his head in an arc, the massive horns taking in the other committee members in a wide sweep. “You have no allies here. Few of them would publicly support me in this, but none will actively oppose my actions, not openly and not privately.” The Bos turned his attention to his fellow senators, slowly capturing each with his gaze. More than half turned away.

“So you say.” Jorl's words brought Bish's glare back. He ignored the senator for a moment as he gave an infrasonic signal to his other selves. One by one they passed the tethers of their respective conversants over to him and then caused their own nefshons to disperse. They vanished, leaving only Jorl and the members of the Committee of Information. He fanned his left ear, feeling uncomfortably warm. He waved his trunk in a broad arc to bring their attention to him.

“I am a Speaker. As you must have realized by now, you are all conversants in a summoning I have performed.”

The senators murmured among themselves. Naming the strangeness of the experience ironically made it more real. The many Lox they had seen, all looking alike, might have been dismissed due to their inexperience with Fant. But as each senator's escort had vanished and the one who'd identified himself as Jorl spoke, he saw realization dawning. They knew something was very wrong. There had only ever been one Fant there.

Jorl continued, “You know about Speakers. We can converse with images of the dead, one at a time. And yet, here there are many of you. And no, none of you are dead. But I am not like other Speakers.” He paused and gestured at the tattoo on his forehead. “I am only the second Speaker to ever bear this mark. The first was our Matriarch, who was both the very first Speaker and the first Aleph. In assembling you all here, I have achieved what has never even been attempted. I have sought you out from your respective, far flung worlds throughout the Alliance and brought you here, not to threaten but to show you I can do this thing. All I want to do is talk with you. You are the Committee of Information, and I want nothing more than to share knowledge. Because in addition to bringing you here, I can do another thing beyond the ability of any other Speaker. I can reach back, unimaginably far, and summon someone from Before.”

As he finished, Jorl opened his awareness to the collection of recently summoned nefshons and pulled them together again, summoning Dr. Chieko Castleman to stand alongside him.

Half of the senators began to scream.

“Impossible!” Bish roared. He glared at Jorl and at Castleman. “This is
impossible
!”

More than half of the senators showed signs of panic, but like Bish, some clearly recognized a human being. They glanced among themselves, whispering urgently.

“Senators, if you will allow, may I present Dr. Chieko Castleman, engineer, programmer, and archivist. A female human from Before.”

“No,” insisted T'Minah, a Geom senator Jorl particularly recognized from his past study of the committee; her office had final approval on historical research. “Bish is right. There must be a trick. There are no humans. There haven't been since before the Expansion. This is a lie.”

“It's not a lie,” Jorl assured them. “Like yourselves, the woman you see here has been summoned. Unlike you, she died tens of thousands of years ago. She comes from a time before most of our races even existed.”

“What does that mean?” This from one of the junior senators, a Feln. She'd clearly never seen a human before. “What does he mean
before
our races existed?”

Jorl gestured encouragingly to Castleman with his trunk.

“Well, as I explained to Jorl … we, that is, my species, the humans of my time, um, we made you. Built you up from other animals.”

“That is insane,” yowled the Feln senator. “Built us? Built us how?”

Castleman looked toward Jorl, a mix of nerves and confusion writ upon her face. Jorl nodded for her to continue.

“We wired language into you, encoded you for intelligence so you could develop reason. We altered your physiology to make you tool users. We educated you in science and art. We made you self-aware as never before.”

T'Minah had moved during Castleman's explanation and now stood alongside Bish. “Do you really expect us to believe what you're saying? Are we supposed to think you're some kind of god?”

“What? Good Lord, no! I mean, of course not. I didn't personally do any of that. My work was in a completely different area. But, uh, other members of my species did, yes. From what I've seen, and what Jorl has explained to me, you are all descendants of the raised mammals that humans created back in your Before epoch.”

Several of the younger senators gaped openly at Castleman. A few trembled. “A god. A furless god,” one muttered, which sent a shudder running through the rest of them. Jorl twitched his nubs at the succinct phrase.

“I see now what you're attempting,” said Bish. He'd leashed his anger and his voice held some of its former power again. The thunder of his authority drowned out the other senators' whines and whispers. “You brought this committee together so you could present this ‘information' to us, but we are not all shocked or overwhelmed by your news. Some of us already knew this history, knew about humans, and of our true origins. The senate elite has always known. It's in part why the Committee of Information was originally formed.”

Jorl nodded to himself. He watched the faces of the senators who'd clearly been ignorant, not only of humans but also of the existence of such an elite in their midst.

“I suspected as much. It explains the unofficial policy regarding artifacts from Before.” He turned to Castleman who looked as confused as the junior senators. “The ones who knew about you, knew what your artifacts represented. Bish has all but admitted that. Any time one turns up, it gets quietly destroyed so the rest of the Alliance can't learn about your people or that you created us. They're deliberately keeping everyone ignorant.”

“But why?” Castleman took a step toward Bish. “That all happened tens of thousands of years ago. None of it should matter now. Your species, your races, have existed for longer than mine had at the time we raised the first mammals. And, if what Jorl tells me is true, you've outlived us as well. Why keep any of this secret?”

Bish glared at the human, but Castleman met his gaze and in the end it was the senator who turned away. When he spoke, his voice had lost the power he'd briefly regained.

“You don't understand. Neither you nor the Lox understand. You don't know.” Bish seethed.

“You're the Committee of Information,” said Jorl. “Share what you know.”

“We cannot,” said T'Minah. Several of the other members of the committee nodded her way, deferring to the Gopher's expertise. “We only know what is written in our most ancient records, an accounting of the centuries before the Expansion, and all who have read it are sworn never to speak of it.”