It was an awful thing to say. I was angry all the way around, angry with how she treated Ashnahta, and I lashed out at her. The words hit their mark. Her eyes filled with angry tears and she turned away. Marlon gave me a little nod. I wasn't trying to team up with him. I wasn't even trying to prove his point. I was just...being an angry ass, that's what. I had to get out of there. I turned and left, slamming the door behind me.
I took a breath in the hall and heard Lynette's voice yelling behind the door, and Marlon's right back in response. I didn't want to hear any more. I had my own trouble inside to settle. She said she was going to the observatory. I pushed off the wall and stormed down the hallway.
I swiped my card and stormed in. She was standing at the very edge of the room, right against the thick glass of the dome. The lights were out and the dome was untinted, letting us fully see the dull red of the last rays of sunlight highlighting the bleak landscape.
Your world is so ugly.
"It's not my world."
No. You don't have a world, do you, Jake? I thought you did. I thought to myself always that somewhere was Jake's planet. But you really live on rocks, don't you?
She was sad. I could feel the depths of her sadness. It was the first time in weeks she let me really feel it, and my heart broke for her. My anger was gone, just like that. I walked up and stood with her, looking over the terrain. She was right. It was ugly. Ugly and stark and dry and cold and lonely and...and perhaps the exact opposite of everything she had ever known.
"I am not sorry," she said out loud in Qitani. "I am not sorry I did what I did."
Why? Why are you here? I didn't have to say all the parts of that question. She knew. She had known since she woke all those weeks ago that it was the one question I needed her to answer. Until that night, she wouldn't. Or maybe, maybe she just couldn't. Maybe it was too much. She explained then, in her words and her feelings, using inspeaking to fill in the gaps.
"I was just a little child when you entered our system. I was barely old enough for memories." I knew, though, because I could feel it, too. Everything was different. With ones who feel the universe, the slightest change is huge. "But we did not really feel the whole universe, did we? Because we would know about you already if we did." How stupid, is it not? How grand. How pompous. We feel the universe? We are just specks, just like you.
"One day the feeling was panic. Just like that. All of a sudden, a ripple through the Ehkin." And through us, because of them. Our eyes and ears, our allies. And they took you in, accepted you without question. Without thought. "Their fear was about our retaliation, not your presence." We are not forgiving. You know this. And they are traitors in our eyes.
"Morhal and Ta'al planned your destruction." Every man and any child, with capture for the viable females. Slaughter, as was the protocol, the plan in case anyone dared get near us. The Ehkin could not be a threat. If they lived, there was always the chance that others did, too. "But Klan'dha stepped in." The Ehkin assured her there were so many things to be learned from your humans. Already they had given medicines to help the Ehkin with a fungi outbreak.
I vaguely remembered that. Some kind of antibiotic ointment that one of our crew rubbed on the sensitive skin of one of the Ehkin elders. I was young myself, but I remembered the welcome we got after that. And how thrilled they were when we discovered some native plant life that could be used for a similar purpose.
"Not even Morhal is free from the Main Goal." To leave the life having instilled more value than existed before. To better the life for the Qitan. "Ta'al convinced her the knowledge of your family would be a greater contribution than any in history." And it will be. She was absolutely correct in that. And Morhal will get the credit. How sad for Ta'al, no?
"So the plan was altered. The protocol itself changed. Capture, imprisonment. A trade, your lives for the information you could provide." Years of work, lives of work. Whole lifetimes worth, just there for the taking. "Morhal presented your mother with the options." Not your father. None of the males. It is still hard to understand a society where the useless males are in the lead.
I didn't take offense. I had spent years hearing it.
"On face, Eunice accepted." But we know now, don't we? How much more clever she is than Morhal! "But she put in her own requests." They seemed so reasonable. And Morhal is a stickler for reason. It wins above everything. "Morhal could see no danger. Your ship had no weapons and you were all weak. They could not run away if they wanted to." I could have crushed even the largest of your crew, and I was a mere child.
"Years of space travel does that," I said in defense.
She gave a quick little smile, then continued her explanation. "You were the one trouble." You were to be the experimental subject. You were to have tests, to have examinations, to be put through trials to see how your weak body would handle it, and then you would be killed and studied. "Morhal approached Eunice with the idea." She could not understand why Eunice would be in such a rage. "He is worthless and no doubt a burden." I can remember Morhal saying those words to Ta'al and Klan'dha. "Eunice threatened to destroy the entire ship, the lifetime of information." Morhal relented, and gave you to my sisters as a pet. "But they did not want you, either. So I took you."
She stopped then and just kept staring at the Martian expanse in front of us. I could hardly breathe. I wanted her to continue, desperately. I had to hear it all. I was afraid she was going to keep quiet, when she finally started speaking again.
"And you were not unintelligent after all, to my surprise." Though no one else would believe me for years. Especially Morhal. "And I was very glad indeed that I got to keep you." She smiled and I felt a warmth spread through me. She continued. "Your star man, Xavier, approached Morhal with a deal."
It was getting difficult for her to speak. I could feel her hesitation, how careful she was trying to be. She knew it would hurt me. And that bothered her. The knowledge felt like a bombshell. She'd never tried to spare my feelings on anything before. "Just tell me," I said quietly.
Xavier offered Morhal a deal. He said we could have you in exchange for the freedom of the crew. He would leave Eunice, you, and your father. "Morhal thought herself clever. She pretended to agree with Xavier." She never would have let them leave. He was a traitor. He would not honor his position with your mother, he would not honor he agreement with her. "She met with him for secret information."
"I knew there was a reason I always hated that bastard!"
"I believe Eunice knew." She started refusing to allow Xavier to come down, and when Morhal or Klan'dha would board the Condor, Xavier was never around. "And the whole time she worked her own plan." Your mother would make a great primary. Her name would inspire prayer.
It was a heartfelt and surprising compliment, and oddly, it made me choke up.
"Eunice had her own plans." You. Keeping you away. I did not understand. Not even when I left. "She sabotaged her whole life to send you away." It confused Morhal more than angered her. You were just a child, and a male child at that. Useless. Worthless. A woman of Eunice's intelligence and strength could not do something like that just for a child. "And one day you were gone. And then we knew." She tricked us. Tricked us all.