Matt then turned and faced the assembly, “We are going to leave your worlds.” He looked at the Warlord and said, “We have agreed to come to the defense of the planets you attacked. We are leaving a device they can use to contact us.”
“What if they attack me,” the Warleader asked?
“Then they forfeit our good will and defense. I suspect, however, Warlord, that you are fully capable of defending yourself. Most of your fleet is still intact.”
The Warleader stood facing the stage, “I am going to order all of my military forces recalled and all of our warships converted to commercial vessels. I will also disarm our more violent nobles. We will remove any mechanism of war from my planet within the next hundred rotations and will not build any in the future.”
The entire room was stunned. Matt looked at Angel then back at the Warleader, “What is your intent in performing those actions?”
“I fully intend to petition your King for membership. I am going to do everything in my power to do the things necessary to persuade him of our sincerity. I sense that you are being truthful and the time is short.”
Matt looked at the Warleader and could tell he was serious. He closed his eyes and he could actually hear the Warleader’s thoughts. “Warleader, why did you attack the eight planets?”
“Why to protect ourselves from their planned aggression.”
The entire room stood and started yelling. Matt looked at Angel and saw confusion on her face. “Stem, are you watching this?”
“Yes, I am and I must confess that I’m uncertain of what is happening.”
“I need you to perform an experiment with me. Will you help me?”
“What is it that you need, Searcher?”
“I need the coordinates of the ships that are waiting for a pilot. I also want you to teleport down here and take the Warleader and me with you to their location. Angel, I need you to maintain order until we return.”
“Why would you possibly want that?”
“I have a feeling and I need to see if I’m right. Will you do it for me, Stem?”
“On my way.”
Matt hit the loud tone and said, “I am going to make a short trip with the Warleader. I want everyone here to wait for us to return.” The Warleader looked puzzled when suddenly a plant appeared next to him and in the next instant the plant, the Warleader, and Matt disappeared from the meeting hall… and reappeared on a large flat barren plane with numerous rows of ships.
The Warleader looked at the ships and said, “They’re absolutely beautiful.”
Matt walked up to the Warleader and said, “I want you to try something.” The Warleader forced his attention away from the ships, looked at him, and nodded. “I want you to look out at those ships and command them to rise.”
“What are you doing, Matt,” Stem asked quickly.
“I’m going to administer some healing but first I have to see who is really sick.”
The Warleader looked out at the rows of ships and was lost in their beauty. He thought, “Rise, oh beauty, rise.”
On the back row twenty ships lifted off the ground. Stem was stunned silent. Matt then said, “You can lower them now.” The twenty ships returned to the ground.
The Warleader looked at Matt and said, “This is how you feel about your friend, isn’t it.”
“Yes it is, Warleader, and it’s surprising that you know that it’s a friend.”
“How could it be anything else? They are miraculous creations.”
“What’s going on, Matt,” Stem asked?
“Stem, we have found a race of very high powered psychics. The Gresh are not an aggressive people by nature, and Warleader, you can correct me anytime I say something that is untrue, but found that they had to learn war to protect themselves from the members of the eight planet trading partners. His people could sense the danger they represented to his race. The Gresh knew they were going to come and destroy them.”
“We could actually sense it long before we developed space travel. We knew they were in our future and we were doomed unless we could stop them.”
Stem leaned to the side showing his shock. “So you attacked them because of your sense of impending doom.”
“Yes.”
“Why were you so brutal to their populations?”
“We have been sensing their danger for more than a hundred generations. That built up a tremendous amount of pressure on our minds. My warriors felt they had to be destroyed to protect our people. We saw them killing every member of my race.”
“Why are you giving up your weapons now,” Stem asked?
“Because I could see the truth in your recording and part of the danger we felt was not from them but from the coming horde. Your psychics are right; they will be here in less than six cycles from now.”
Matt and Stem were speechless. What is your name, Warleader?”
“My name is Life. All of our Warlords are named Life for their prime responsibility; saving their people.”
Matt stared at the huge Gresh, “I am no longer going to address you as Warlord. I am going to call you Life.”
“If you will give me one of those ships, you can call me whatever you want. My life will not be complete unless I can have a friend like yours.”
Stem looked at the two and asked, “Life, how many of your people possess the mental skills you’ve shown us?”
“Why, all of us.”
Stem looked at Matt stunned, “By the creator, the universe is full of surprises.”
“We have one more task to perform.”
Stem nodded and punched his teleport device.
Matt and Life reappeared on the stage at the meeting and the room fell silent. Matt looked out at the assembly and everyone could see the almost anger on his face. Angel began to worry about the safety of the Gresh. She wondered what the Warlord had done to make Matt so stern.
“I am going to ask you some questions and if any of you are dishonest I am going to close this meeting and leave your planets to fend for themselves against the Eight Legs. Does everyone understand?”
The eight Planet Leaders looked at each other and Goige stood and said, “I will speak for all of us.”
“I want to know how long ago your eight planets had a meeting to plan an invasion of the Gresh.”
The room started to yell and Matt yelled, “Silence. Your lives depend on an honest answer.” The room grew instantly still. Angel wondered what was happening.
Goige looked back at the people in the room and then turned and said, “We planned to invade them fifty years ago and were building up the forces to make it happen.” Angel was shocked beyond speech.
“I want each of you to listen closely and understand what I’m saying. You were attacked by the Gresh because they knew of your attack more than five hundred years ago.” Now everyone in the room was shocked silent.
“The Gresh are a race of psychics. They sensed hundreds of years ago that they were facing destruction from your planets; they could sense that you were coming to destroy them. Every member of their race could feel your threat and they grew up knowing you were coming. They struggled and worked to develop space travel and warships to protect themselves and finally they attacked you to prevent the danger you represented. Just like our rulers can sense danger, the Gresh also possess the power to see danger approaching. They are not the danger in this room, you are.”