Qui’hibra stared at him, standing silent for a long moment. Vale stared too. “Sheepdogs for hounds?” she muttered. “Let’s hope your plan works better than your metaphors. The shields are critical and we can barely maneuver.”
Se’hraqua came into the frame. “Elder, you cannot be considering this! He insults us by suggesting we become herders, weaklings!”
“Silence,”Qui’hibra told him. But to Riker he said, “The boy has a point, I fear. The Conclave will not think well of this scheme. It is not our way. I have doubts myself.”
“Is it so different from what you already do here, with the Proplydian?” Riker asked. “You don’t destroy it, since it doesn’t threaten planets. Instead you travel with it and use it to aid you in hunting other species. I’ve just given you a way to do the same with both the star-jellies andthe branchers.”
“It is very different. Trying to tame branchers, and having to hold the hands of live skymounts at the same time…it is overcomplicated. Risky. The Hunt, the way of tradition, is proven by time. We know it works. Give us the means to counter the skymounts’ advantages and we can restore it again.”
“I know you don’t truly believe that, Qui’hibra,” Deanna said from her star-jelly. “You know that things have changed forever, that a new solution must be found.”
“I thought I did at first, but many wise Pa’haquel believe otherwise. I am just a hunter, not a philosopher.”
“But you know the skymounts,” Deanna said. “You know them as living beings, better than any Pa’haquel ever has since before your people left Quelha. You have felt the rapport that can exist between your species, and you know in your bones that you can be stronger as partners than you could ever be as enemies.”
“That is what I would like to believe. But the Conclave has declared that the Hunt must resume. And the Hunt demands that I do what I must, not what I desire.”
“So you keep saying,” Deanna fired back, her voice hardening. “And I believe it. I believe that you will do whatever you must in the name of what you think is right. So if the Conclave says one thing, and you know that another thing is right, what does your loyalty to them matter? What does their authority matter? What does your tradition and cultural preference matter?
“You keep insisting that nothing matters to you as much as fighting the chaos, as much as preserving life throughout the galaxy. Well, here is lifefor you to preserve! Here is a whole species that you have it in your power to spare, right here, right now. A species that you revere and cherish, a species that is willing to forgive everything you’ve ever done to it and stand by your side as friends. A species that could be the greatest ally you’ve ever known.
“If they give you that, and you repay them with betrayal, with death—where is the balance in that?”
Qui’hibra was silent again for a long time. Deanna tried to read his body language, to strain her senses across space and pick up something from him, but she got nothing. Finally, he took a deep breath and let it out. “Hunters! Stand down. There is no more prey here today.”
“What?”Se’hraqua challenged. “You would defy the Conclave?”
“You would defyme?” Qui’hibra’s voice was softer and more dangerous than she’d ever heard it.
The youth seethed. “I will stand down for now. But the Conclave will hear of this.”
“Yes, they will. I will tell them myself.”He faced the visual pickup again. “If you, Riker, and you, Troi, can prove to me that the branchers can be herded and used to hunt…then I will stand with you and prove it to the Conclave.”
“Thank you,”Riker said sincerely, and Deanna felt his flood of relief. “I hope this day will mark the beginning of a new era for this region of space.”
“Some things may change,”Qui’hibra said, unimpressed by the rhetoric. “But the Hunt goes on.”He paused. “Commander Troi…once again I offer my apologies for what I believed the Hunt required of me. I hope that now you are willing to forgive me.”
She crossed her arms and thought about it. The jellies were willing to forgive worse, as she had pointed out so emphatically moments ago. It would be a bit hypocritical not to follow suit. Still, she had to ask one thing. “Would you really have let Riathrek eat me alive bit by bit?”
He seemed surprised by the question. “Yes.”
She blinked. “Well, all right. Just as long as I know what I’m forgiving you for.”
CLAN AQ’TRI’HHE LEAD SKYMOUNT, STARDATE 57221.8
The Conclave of Elders watched the sensation wall speechlessly as it showed a trio of branchers, herded by live star-jellies under the direction of Huntsmaster Qui’shoqai and his clanmates, made short work of a group of spinners basking in the light of the Proplydian’s star. Deanna reached out with her mind, gauging their reactions, and found them too much in flux to let her judge how this would turn out. She turned to Will, who looked at her expectantly, and gave a fractional shake of her head.
“Now you have seen with your own eyes,” Qui’hibra declared when the demonstration was concluded and the branchers were being led meekly away. “We have achieved this much after only a few days of training. Imagine how much more we can accomplish. We can still be hunters, even more effective than before. The balance of life and death continues…but we and the skymounts need no longer be on opposite sides of that balance. And we need no longer lose so many of our wives, sons and daughters, see so many worthy lines diminished or snuffed out in Houndings. Imagine how many of your kin would still be here today if we could have sent the branchers against the harvester.”
Se’hraqua shot to his feet and spoke angrily. “You speak of the balance, but you do not understand it. The balance of life and death is not preserved if we no longer have the courage and commitment to sacrifice our own lives to the Hunt!”
“And how is it balanced,” Deanna challenged, “if there is so much death on both sides, and so little life? Death will always be there—it doesn’t need you to help it along.”
“This blasphemer has no right to speak here!”
“She is here as my advisor,” Qui’hibra countered, “and an honorary member of my clan. That gives her the right.” He addressed the Conclave as a whole again. “And she speaks wisely. The more of our lives we throw away, the more we diminish our strength against the chaos. Consider it. Consult with your singers of history. Have we ever had so few in a Great Hounding before, or come away with so few left alive? Our old ways were not in balance—they gave too much of an edge to death.”
Now Aq’hareq rose. “Our ‘old ways’ are our onlyways, Qui’hibra! They were handed down to us by the Spirit, passed on from generation to generation pure and unchanged. They are the way we were meant to be. Follow this corrupt path and the Spirit will never forgive you.”
“And what about the skymounts?” Deanna said. “In your tradition, you pray to them for forgiveness as well. And they are willing to forgive what you did to them when it was the only way for you to survive. But now it isn’t the only way anymore. You have a new way, a better way that lets both you and them live in harmony and far greater safety. If you try to hunt and kill them now, when there is no need for it, they will not give you their forgiveness.”
“The Spirit governs them too,” Aq’hareq replied, unruffled by her words. “They stray from Its path by seeking to evade the Hunt, and they will be shown their folly in time. The branchers will turn on them, or they will sicken with disease from having Pa’haquel live inside them, or the hotsprings of their breeding worlds will grow cold. One way or another, the true balance will be restored.”