Seeton had been hard pressed by the new governor to allow Chessori observers aboard his ships, but the visit by Krys, the Queen’s Seer, had alerted him to the danger. The threat had been reinforced by Val and Mike, and he now knew without any doubt that the Chessori were the enemy. He would risk everything before allowing the enemy aboard his ships.
Krys had delivered the same message to Orion III, and Val expected to encounter a similar arrangement there.
Val had two reasons for taking passage on the cruise ship. First, it offered a non-military, clandestine method for approaching Orion III. Second, one of Seeton’s clerks had discovered six Chessori listed as passengers, and Val wanted to study them.
He slept through liftoff and felt completely refreshed when he emerged from his compartment. He spent several hours perusing the various decks, astounded at the multiple forms of entertainment offered to guests. Sorely missing Reba, he nevertheless congratulated himself on not being forced to explore all the activities offered by the entertainment staff. Reba would have demanded exhaustive involvement in each and every one.
He developed a routine of an hour of hard physical exercise before breakfast, then lots of time cruising the corridors or simply relaxing in various lounges, drinking mild stimulants to keep up appearances while constantly searching for the Chessori.
After nearly a week of failure, he resorted to asking Captain Summers to seat him with the Chessori during a meal. The captain gave him a troubled look, wondering aloud why a fleet lieutenant would have any interest in the Chessori, but when Val returned to his room the following day, he discovered an invitation to join the captain for dinner.
He decided to put a little pressure on the Chessori. Discarding his plan to act as a civilian, he put on his best uniform. A crewman escorted him to a seat directly opposite the group of six Chessori. To his left sat a man and woman returning to Cordolla, the ship’s first stop, after a year-long vacation. They were wealthy farmers recently retired. To his right sat a self-important businessman and his wife heading to a meeting on Orion III.
In Val’s experience, every species had one or two strong suits, almost always something physical that set them apart from other species, something that had helped them climb the evolutionary ladder high enough to let intelligence do the rest. It might be strength or speed, claws, beaks, or hands, size, or any combination of such things, but it was usually obvious.
The Chessori had no visible strengths at all. Short of stature and hairless, their bodies were completely white. Slim, weak necks supported disproportionately large heads. To all outward appearances, they were frail. And they were frail. The Chessori that Mike had tackled beneath the ship on Earth had died beneath him, its bones crushed.
Their only remarkable feature, other than the complete lack of significant strengths, was their eyes. Dark and shaped like ellipses, the eyes of the Chessori dominated their features. And they never blinked, didn’t even have visible eye lids.
The six Chessori sitting opposite him looked like mannequins sitting eerily still, their eyes never blinking but seeing all. His skin crawled at the memory of the mind weapon hidden behind those eyes.
Clearly, the mind weapon had paved their way up the evolutionary ladder. Other than Mike and Reba, Val was not aware of any other creatures in the galaxy that were immune to the weapon.
He wanted to stare at them. Even more, he wanted to pull from them the means to inhibit this mind weapon of theirs, but he could not – yet. He wanted to keep a low profile. The very presence of a uniformed line officer aboard a cruise ship was unusual, and Val explained his presence at the first opportunity. Keeping one eye on the Chessori for reaction, he described how he had lost his job as a ship’s navigation officer after failing to comply with his captain’s demand that he swear loyalty to the Rebels. He made it clear to everyone at the table that he supported the old Empire and would not waver in that position.
Conversation about the coup and its effects on the Empire immediately erupted around the table. The Chessori watched stolidly, their huge eyes betraying no emotion, though he did see questioning looks pass between several as the discussion continued.
“How can there be an Empire when there’s no Queen?” asked the wife of the retired farmer beside him.
“What makes you think there’s no Queen?” Val replied simply.
“Well!” the woman snorted. “Everyone’s seen the pictures. Everyone knows what happened at the Palace.”
“How can you support anyone who would do such a thing?” Val inquired, spreading his hands wide and addressing everyone at the table.
Silence held for a few moments, then several replies came at the same time. The general consensus seemed to be that it was done and could not be undone. It was necessary to consider the future now.
“If the Rebel cause was just,” Val argued when the discussion seemed to be dying down, “I might agree. But to rebuild from a foundation of treachery, of wrongness, to reward the ones who caused it with loyalty and support, what does that say of our values? And what does it say of the eventual success of their venture?”
The table went silent. Val looked at each of them during the silence, then continued. “Would you build your home from defective materials? Would you begin a new business with a knowingly defective business plan? Would you teach your children that honor is dead, that it is proper to reward murder and treachery with loyalty?”
These were not new subjects to these people. He knew they had given careful thought to the ramifications of the coup, though perhaps not in the same terms he had. Probably most discussion centered on what was best for themselves or their own worlds, not what was best for the Empire at large.
“I can tell you,” he continued, keeping an eye on the Chessori for any reaction, “that all modeling I have seen regarding the future of the Empire shows it coming apart at the seams under Rebel leadership. Maybe that doesn’t matter to you, but I promise you it will matter to your descendents. Their Empire will not be the pleasant place you have grown up within. I would be surprised to see cruise liners like this one plying the space lanes in two hundred years. It will be too dangerous.”
He turned to Captain Summers. “Have you encountered any pirates yet, sir?”
Summers smiled a tight smile. “No, and it’s your job to prevent that.”
“It was, and I hope it will be again when I find a new ship,” Val responded openly. “Which I hope to find on Orion III. But what if the very people you count on to keep you safe from pirates become pirates themselves? Have you thought of that? Have you thought about what the military could become without firm, centralized political control? And without the values these Rebels have so blatantly abrogated? To whom will the admirals and generals swear allegiance? Might they not become local strongmen, responsible only to themselves?”
Val looked around the table again, then let his gaze come to rest on the Chessori. “What do our Chessori friends think about all this?” he asked in a pleasant voice, inviting a response from them.
The Chessori directly opposite him spread his small hands wide. “To us, this is an internal issue. We take no sides. We are simple traders.”
“Traders?” Val asked in surprise. “Where’s your ship?”
“Ah…” the Chessori responded, his mouth turning into a thin, grim line, changing his stony facade instantly. “You ask just the right question, young sir.” He spread his hands to encompass his comrades. “Like you, we, too, are without a ship at the moment. We hope to remedy that on Orion III.”
“What happened to your ship?” Val asked innocently.