He knew he should be focused on the ancient monument, but for some reason he couldn’t explain, the wrecks of the armored vehicles held his attention even as he and Tanya were given a quick tour while the setting sun drew long shadows off the standing stones. It seemed only a few minutes had passed before they were ceremoniously escorted back into their shuttle. “Can we fly low over that?” Geary asked as the shuttle lifted.
The pilot gave him a startled look, but nodded. “It might get me in trouble, but I’ll say you insisted,” she added with a grin.
“Why were you surprised by my request?”
“Because not many who come here want to see that. Most would rather that ugly pile of rust and high-tech pottery was gone, but it’s an historic site just like the big stones, so they’re stuck with it. Me, I’m glad it’s here.”
“Why?” Tanya asked.
“Something my dad said when he brought me here the first time,” the pilot said, twisting her controls to bring the shuttle in a slow pivot over the ruins of the archaic armored vehicles. “I looked at them old, dead monsters, and I said, It’s a good thing they stopped them. And my dad looked at me and said, No, it’s a good thing they had to stop them because if they hadn’t, we might have made ones a lot bigger before we learned our lesson.”
“You’ve got a smart dad,” Tanya remarked.
“A-yeah.” The pilot grinned at her. “He wanted me to work at the law, like he does. But he accepted my being a pilot when I said it was that or I’d ship out for the stars. They’re all crazy out there, he said. You lot don’t look too crazy to me, though.”
“You don’t know us very well,” Geary said.
Another reception committee awaited them at the castle. “Here’s where you’ll spend your last night on Earth,” the pilot said as they left her, laughing at what Geary guessed must have been a joke. He went through the process of introductions and greetings, the faces and names and titles of the various officials blending into the blur of others he had met during what had turned into a whirlwind tour of Old Earth. Back in the Alliance, most star systems had a single government spanning all of the planets and orbiting facilities, but here there seemed to be a new government, a new batch of officials, and a new set of titles every hundred kilometers.
“It’s a real castle,” Desjani said in disbelief.
“Yes, Lady Desjani,” one of the officials responded.
“I’m not a lady, I’m a captain.”
“Uh… yes… Captain. The oldest portion dates to the eighth century, Common Era. Have you ever seen a castle?”
“I’ve seen fake castles,” Tanya said. “You know, buildings that aren’t very old but were made to look like castles for amusement parks and resorts or for people with a whole lot of money to spend. There are a few on Kosatka, where I grew up. Like the one at—” Her voice cut off abruptly.
“Tanya?” Geary asked in a low voice.
“Memories,” she murmured back to him. “My brother and I, when we were kids. Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
Her younger brother, dead in the war. Desperate to change the subject and distract the locals who were watching Tanya with discreet curiosity, Geary locked on one of the last things said. “The eighth century? Is that Roman?”
“After the Romans left,” a man replied. “The Dark Ages, we called them.”
“Dark Ages?” Desjani said with forced cheerfulness. “No wonder they needed a castle.”
“Yes. After the Roman Empire fell apart, there were many wars, barbarian invasions, a general lawlessness and suffering. Terrible loss of life and destruction. It was an ugly time,” the man said, sounding as if he had lived through it.
“It’s hard to imagine such a breakdown of government and society,” a woman added.
“Not if you’ve seen it,” Desjani replied.
Another awkward silence fell, giving Geary time to wonder why Tanya seemed to be particularly undiplomatic tonight. “The Syndicate Worlds,” he explained. “They’re coming apart. We’ve seen revolutions there, collapse of local authority, and internal fighting.”
A second long pause was broken by the man who had spoken first. “Are you helping them?”
“We… can’t,” Geary said. “In most cases, we can’t. It’s too big. Even if the Alliance hadn’t been bled white by the war—”
“The war the Syndics started,” Desjani interjected harshly.
“—we wouldn’t have the resources. We’re doing what we can, but it’s very little compared to the scale of the problem.” They didn’t like hearing that. Geary had run into this before on Old Earth, a difficulty in comprehending the sheer vastness of humanity’s reach even though human-occupied space made up only a small portion of a single arm of the galaxy. Nor did he want to explain that the immense costs of the war had left the star systems in the Alliance bickering over even reduced commitments to common goals and unwilling in a time of cutbacks to invest in helping former enemies.
But there was another point that usually swayed his audiences, or at least cut short their arguments. “Besides, the Syndicate Worlds is an authoritarian state. They maintained rule by force. Now some of their star systems are seeking freedom, autonomy. We won’t help the Syndic government terrorize their own people in the name of maintaining order. We’ve helped defend some star systems which have declared themselves free.” Technically, only the Midway Star System qualified as having been defended by the Alliance against Syndic reconquest, but one star system fit the definition of the word “some.”
“And we’ve defended them against the enigmas,” Desjani added, still sounding defiant. “We stopped the enigmas from taking over star systems occupied by humanity.”
A woman smiled broadly. “You must tell us about these different aliens! Please come in. We have a dinner ready for you.”
Grateful that at least one person present was trying to steer the talk away from difficult topics, Geary smiled in return.
The smiling woman led Geary and Desjani to their seats in a dining room with walls hung with shields and banners whose decorations were bright enough to advertise them as recent reproductions rather than ancient artifacts. “I’m Lady Vitali.”
“Vitali?” Tanya asked. “We have a Captain Vitali in our fleet. He commands the battle cruiser Daring.”
“He could be a relation,” Lady Vitali said. “Our family has a long naval tradition. Does he cause much bother? Raise a bit of hell at times?”
“No,” Geary replied.
“Perhaps he’s not a relation, then. Tell me about the enigmas!”
As everyone ate, the locals listened intently as Geary, for perhaps the tenth time during this brief visit to Earth, described what little had been learned about the enigmas. That led to a discussion about the Dancers, then the third alien race so far discovered, the single-mindedly expansionist and homicidal Kicks.
“You’ve seen a great deal among the stars. Have you enjoyed your stay on Earth?” Lady Vitali asked Desjani.
Tanya paused, as if trying to ensure that her next words weren’t combative or inappropriate, then nodded. “It’s like visiting a place of legend. I never thought to see any of it in person.”
“What impressed you the most?”
“The statue we saw of that woman. Joan. When I looked at it, I felt like she might have been an ancestor of mine.”