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“And how about the Dark Ship
People?” Marisea pressed. “You can’t argue we’re not at war with them.”

“Who are the Dark Ship People?”
Rebbert countered. “We have seen their ships, but they haven’t spoken to us,
not even to declare war.”

“The phrase ‘Die, Abominations,’
comes to mind,” Park pointed out. “I particularly recall a Dark Ship alien
saying that. In my book that constitutes a declaration of war.”

“Not officially,” Rebbert
insisted. “Officially we are not at war because neither we nor the Premm nor
the Dark Ship aliens have declared it formally.”

“In the time I came from,” Park
pointed out, “my country’s government had not declared war in over a century,
but it didn’t keep us from fighting some real doozies anyway. Regardless, you
cannot argue we are at peace with the Dark Ship People. There has been no truce
or armistice. They just faded back to wherever they came from in the first
place. And any unprovoked attack is a declaration of war regardless of the
political niceties.”

“Well, I suppose you are right,”
but we have not been at war for a very, very long time,” Rebbert told them.
“The very concept frightens many of the Alliance especially since our children have
been taught that humans have evolved beyond the need to wage war.”

“Sounds like wishful thinking,”
Park opined. “I mean, I wish that was the case, but the evidence seems to imply
just the opposite,”

“We could probably mount an
expedition against the Dark Ships,” Rebbert admitted, “but we still do not know
where they came from and as for the Premm, it could tear the Alliance to pieces
should we manage to scrape a majority together that would support such a war.
It would be too close and there are too many members who would leave the
Alliance in protest.”

“Speaking as a citizen of Earth,”
Park pointed out, “I would prefer if the Premm were neutralized, considering
their religion demands the death of all life on the planet. Lord Rebbert there
should be consequences firmly established. The Premm did not just secede from
the Alliance. They have threatened us. They did so with every announcement that
followed their secession.”

“They did,” Rebbert recalled,
“but there have been no attacks and most of the Diet is willing to pass off
that declaration as just so much hot air and…uh…”

“Sour grapes?” Park suggested.

“Perhaps,” Rebbert allowed. “What
are grapes? It doesn’t matter. The fact is we did not declare war on the Premm
and as they haven’t either, the Diet, in general, is willing to ignore the
threat they made against us.”

“Lord Rebbert,” Park argued, “we
are at war whether we declare it or not and it is against an enemy whose
religion commands them to commit multiple cases of genocide.”

“Park, my friend,” Rebbert
replied, “You are understandably prejudiced. I agree with you, truly I do, but
not everyone in the Alliance believes that.”

“The Dark Ships…” Park began.

“The Dark Ships,” Rebbert echoed
quickly, “did not target every world of the Alliance. They were quite careful,
in fact. We probably would not have achieved even the unity we did had they not
attacked Owatino System. That was a mistake.”

“It was a big mistake,” Parker
agreed, “and I think the Premm let their allies get out of control when it
happened. The Premm were trying to use that blockade as leverage toward their
goal of destroying Earth.”

“Just another reason they cannot
be trusted now,” Marisea chorused.

“True enough,” Park nodded.
“Also, do not forget their motives are religious in nature and it is just one
small step from ‘Destroy the evil ones’ to ‘all who oppose us are the infidel
and therefore evil as well.’”

“I doubt the Premm will try to
destroy every world in the Alliance,” Rebbert denied.

“They won’t have to,” Park
replied. “Just pick off the members of our faction until the rest capitulate.
You’ve seen the reports on those ‘melted worlds?’”

“I showed them to you,” Rebbert
reminded him.

“So you did,” Park agreed. “We
still don’t know how that happened, but I’ll bet they would not need to destroy
more than a handful of worlds before the Diet started begging for peace. Want
to guess what the Premm’s terms would be?”

“Not particularly,” Rebbert shook
his head, “but damn it, man! We have dealt peaceably with the Premm for
millennia even before they joined the Alliance of Confederated Worlds.”

“But never happily,” Park
countered. “And as Marisea told you, don’t expect my replacement to be any more
moderate on the Premm issue than I am. The Mer are not only at the same risk
from the Premm and their threats, but are not likely to thank anyone for one
million years of oppressive segregation.”

“Yes,” Rebbert nodded, “I should
have realized. Well, I will mentor him, but he cannot possibly stir up the Diet
more than you have these past two years.”

“Probably not,” Park shrugged,
“but then I never claimed to be a diplomat in any sense of the word.”

“Come on, Park,” Marisea insisted
as she rushed him through the Owatino spaceport. She was using the odd hop-step
gait of a Mer wearing a suspensor belt and able to move fairly quickly down the
concourse, but Park was just moseying along and she kept having to come back
and tug on his arm. The action annoyed Cousin, who as usual chose to ride in
Park’s arms whenever they were walking somewhere. “They’re waiting for us at
Gate Ninety-three. After all this time I would have thought you’d be in a hurry
to leave.”

“Just taking one last look
around,” Park replied. “It’s not like we have any plans to come back here
soon.”

“Well, if you take much longer,”
Marisea warned, “Tina will miss her flight window and we could be stuck here
for days.”

“Oh very well,” Park shrugged.
“You sure you want to pass up your last chance to sight-see? When we got here,
Rebbert had to sneak us past the
paparazzi
.
The access corridors weren’t so interesting.”

“I’ve been back to Earth three
times,” Marisea reminded him. “The novelty wore off after the first trip. All
spaceports look alike, I guess.”

“And how many spaceports have you
seen?” Park asked, amused. “This doesn’t look much like the ones in Van
Winkletown and Questo.”

Marisea looked at her
tamovir
with the exasperation only a
young adult could muster for a member of her parents’ generation. Then she
laughed and kissed him on the cheek. Marisea and Park had enjoyed a special
relationship ever since he had escorted her to her very first formal dinner. A
tamovir
was a sort of combination
honorary uncle, stand-in parent and first date for young Mer women and the
closeness was one that frequently lasted for life. It was an ancient practice
and one also observed on a few of the more traditional worlds of the Alliance.
“Oh come on, you!” she laughed. “Iris is waiting.”

“Iris is here?” Park asked,
surprised to hear his wife was on Owatino. “Why didn’t she meet us at the
embassy?”

“Because she thought you might
move faster if she stayed on the ship,” Marisea responded.

“I would have, had I realized she
was here,” Park retorted, picking up his pace. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just did,” Marisea laughed,
bounding on ahead of him. “Race you to the ship!”

In respect to Cousin, who was
already gripping Park’s arm in her strong little hands, Park did not quite run
down the concourse, but he did manage to keep up with Marisea’s
suspensor-assisted hop-steps. “Ouch!” he exclaimed at last as they reached the
gate. I think it’s time you filed Cousin’s nails. They’re getting long and she
nearly tore holes in my arm with them.”

“Next time don’t startle the poor
dear,” Marisea laughed heartlessly.

“Park?” Iris called from the
gateway to the waiting ship. “What kept you so long?”

“Just the usual last minute
delays,” Park replied smoothly as he took his wife in his arms and kissed her
soundly.

“Sight-seeing?” she asked Marisea
a few minutes later when she and Park had finally disentangled.

“Sight-seeing,” the Mer nodded.

“Well, tourist time is over,
dear,” Iris told Park. “Time to go home.”

“Admiral on the bridge!” someone
shouted as Park stepped into the forward compartment of
Independent
.

“Admiral?” Park asked. “I thought
I was a commodore.”

“Admiral, commodore,” Captain
Tina Linea laughed. “What’s the difference?”

“One or two stars, I think,” Park
replied.

“I stand by, ready to be relieved
either way,” Tina smiled.

“No, she’s your ship, Captain,”
Park refused. “Take us home, please.”

“Gladly,” Tina replied and
started giving the requisite orders. “Oh, by the way, you might be happy to hear
that Ronnie Sheetz finally got around to replacing the old bread-boarded
circuits on this crate with properly manufactured ones; ones that are rated for
the normal shaking a ship goes through in the course of normal usage.”

“So?” Park asked. “Did we lose
the rainbow effect and the high speed transition from one side of reality to
the other?”

“Not really,” Iris cut in, “but
at least now she knows where she went right. All our ships have the new
improved drives, including the ones we bought from other Alliance worlds. It
turned out to be a very simple part to retrofit, just a slight change, in fact,
to the fuel ionizers.”

“Strange no one discovered that
before then,” Park noted. A glance through the ports showed him they were
moving toward the head of the runway. He glanced around the bridge and found a
spare seat next to the pilot’s station.

“I thought so too,” Iris admitted
as she sat down at her familiar gunnery station, “but this technology is so
ancient for most of the Alliance, they haven’t thought to tinker with it in
tens of millennia. Honestly, for all the advanced technology the Alliance
worlds have, I think they are in a period of prolonged stagnation. It all looks
new and shiny to us, but their own scientists seem so complacent that they know
all it is possible to know about some subjects that they don’t spend a lot of
time taking fresh looks at what they know.

“I think that’s starting to
change, however,” Iris went on. “Every time we discover something the Alliance
people have overlooked, they have one more reason to reconsider their
complacence. I hear several worlds have been sponsoring new research into old
technology.”

“Sounds good to me,” Park opined.
“I’d hate to think Ronnie is
 
reinventing
the wheel for the entire galaxy. Where is Ronnie, by the way?”

“You can’t have been expecting
her to keep working as a ship’s engineer,” Iris laughed. “She’s far too busy in
her private Dream Factory these days. Frankly, I worry about her sometimes,
though. She hardly ever sees the light of day any more. We really do need to
drag her out of that pit every once in a while.”

“Velvet Blair should be able to
do that,” Park suggested.

“Vel’s been almost as busy, but
in Questo, putting Ronnie’s new designs into practice,” Iris explained. I don’t
think they see each other more than a day or two each month. I thought that
would end when Questo got back into full production, but Ronnie keeps cranking
out new inventions and Velvet keeps building new assembly lines. But, of
course, we’ve all been busy. There’s so much to do and not enough people to do
it.

“I’ve had to do my own work and
yours while you’ve been relaxing on Owatino, you know,” Iris continued, teasing
Park.

“I’d have been more than happy to
trade jobs,” Park responded.

“I know you would, dear,” Iris
agreed, “but I wouldn’t have been much of a diplomat.”

“You’re better at it than I am,”
Park laughed.

“Not really,” Iris chuckled,
“unless you mean gunboat diplomacy. I just don’t have the patience to put up
with diplomats and politicians.”

“And I do?” Park demanded.

“The proof is in the fact that
you have been doing just that for two years,” Iris reminded him.

“But not happily,” Park admitted.
“I wonder why it took so long to find a replacement, though.”

“The usual politics,” Iris
replied.

“Stand by for lift-off!” Tina
announced. The spacecraft rolled down the long runway and Park stopped talking
in order to let Tina and her crew work without undue distractions. By the time
they were in space and headed for the outer system, however, he decided it had
been a very long day and he excused himself to lie down in the cabin he and
Iris shared.

The trip back to Sol System was
uneventful and it gave Park and Iris time to enjoy each other’s company for the
first time in months. Park kept himself out of Tina’s way most of the time, but
could not resist her invitation to be on the bridge when they made the
hyperspatial jump from Owatino to Sol.

During his tenure on the
Alliance’s Diet world, Park learned they had started referring to such jumps as
transitions and while it was still a new experience for him, the crew of
Independent no longer found the fact that everything changed color while in
transition particularly remarkable. The transition still only took a few
subjective minutes to complete even though the process was instantaneous in
what Park continued to think of as the “Real Universe.” However, the transition
was smooth and breakout in Sol System occurred a few minutes later as expected.

“All right, crew,” Tina ordered
as the external displays returned to normal. “Let’s get our bearings and head
inward to home.”

“Position and bearing confirmed,”
the navigator announced a few moments later. “She’s all yours, pilot,”

“Aye aye!” the insectile pilot,
Tragackack, replied. Park recalled Trag had been one of the first Atackack
cadets. Now he was a regular officer on board a starship.