“The planet is inhabited!” Samk shouted.
Filitt spared a glance from the hell manifesting on the viewing screens to look at the major. Samk’s eyes were wide and he looked distraught.
“We know, by primitive life forms!” Filitt snapped. Why was Samk wasting his time? People were dying on this ship, dying on the other hundreds of vessels in the fleet—
“No, Commander,” Samk replied, speaking quickly. “By sentient beings!”
Filitt stared at him. This wasn’t possible. That planet was uninhabited. Needed to be uninhabited…
You have to be quiet, Samk, he thought wildly. I can’t hear this. Not now.
But Samk pressed on. “I have detected a complex language and huge cerebral energy.”
The words galvanized Filitt into action. He strode to the major and snatched his badge. The detector abruptly ceased functioning.
“Major Samk,” he growled through clenched teeth, “history is on the march. Neither you, nor a bunch of savages can stand in its way!”
But Samk, apparently, was going to try. “It’s an intelligent species, Commander. I’m sorry to insist, but their DNA print is bigger than ours.”
“And so our victory will be twice as big.” The commander returned to his post. He did not waver. Staring out on the screen, seeing ships catch fire and be blown to bits—he hit the button that unleashed the apocalypse.
He watched with cold pleasure and a sense of justice done as the gigantic enemy flagship was hit, spiraled out of control, and crashed into Mül. He felt only the slightest twinge as the planet was wrapped by an explosion that cracked its blue-green orb into pieces.
It had been a pretty planet… but war had casualties.
A cold, hard, male voice jolted him out of the memory.
“So when you found out that survivors from planet Mül were living in the heart of Alpha, you decided to erase any trace of your mistake, rather than accept the consequences. Right?”
Filitt heard again his own voice in memory, now, as he watched the Pearls emerge from behind their wall. I want no survivors. Annihilate them all!
And the young captain, gone too. No voices left to speak against him. K-TRONs. Better than humans. No loyalty, no ideology, no judgment. Just programming, and obeying that programming. Simple. Clean.
“And you destroyed all evidence Major Samk had against you.”
No. He didn’t want to see this. But the speaker had said the words, and the images came, unbidden, and he was unable to drive them back into the safe darkness where they had dwelt for the last year.
He had overridden the lock on Major Samk’s door and entered quietly, so very quietly. He checked before he acted—a brief glimpse at the screen confirmed that Samk was, indeed, typing a report on what had happened above planet Mül.
It was a shame.
Filitt had lifted the muzzle to the back of Samk’s head and pulled the trigger.
“It was the only way!” Filitt exploded. The words of justification he had hoped he would never have to speak were ripped from him. He stared wildly at the two agents, whose faces might as well have been carved into stone.
“Don’t you see?” he pleaded. “Admitting to an error on this scale would have exposed our government to colossal damages and compensation claims. Our economy would never recover!”
The faces only grew harder, more judgmental. They were willfully choosing not to understand. His voice rose in desperation.
“In one instant, we would have lost our supremacy, our leadership. There would have been immediate sanctions, and it’s a pretty good bet we would have been banished from Alpha—the very station we created, dammit—and been deprived of access to the galaxy’s greatest market of knowledge and intelligence. Is that what you would have wanted for your fellow citizens?”
Filitt looked from Valerian to Laureline, and found no sympathy there.
He did not dare look at the Pearls. He could not permit himself to think of them as anything other than obstacles to humanity.
“Is it?” he pressed. Spittle flew from his mouth. “Leading them into ruin and degradation? Forcing them to go a thousand years backward? The Council saw fit to protect our fellow citizens. First and foremost. Is that not its duty?”
He thumped his chest hard as he said, “And mine? And yours? Isn’t it, agents? Or would you rather we risk wrecking our economy for the sake of a bunch of…” He wheeled on the emperor, looking at him with a mix of loathing and resentment, words failing him.
“Savages?” offered Laureline.
Filitt wheeled on her. “Sergeant! You are totally under the influence of this creature! Don’t confuse the issue. He’s the threat! He’s our enemy!”
The emperor, still impossibly patient, stepped forward toward the commander, placing his forefinger on the man’s chest.
“You are your own worst enemy, Commander,” he said compassionately. “Unless you make peace with your past, you won’t have a future.”
The commander backed away, dazed by the emperor’s words. No. He was wrong. He had to be. The only way for humanity to be safe, for himself to be safe, was if this problem went away now. It could. It almost had. He had almost wiped them from the universe’s memory.
He could still do it. “Major!” Filitt barked. “I order you to arrest this man. Do you hear me?”
“Can we talk man to man for a second?” Valerian asked.
Slightly wild-eyed, Filitt turned to stare at him. “What?”
The punch came so swiftly Commander Arun Filitt didn’t even have time to blink.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The commander crumpled to the floor. Valerian winced and shook his aching hand. He’d put a lot of feeling into that blow.
“Good talk,” he said to the unconscious form. He turned to the emperor. “Look, this was fun, but we need to report back to our people. Here. This is yours.”
He took out the pearl and handed it to the emperor. He stared at the tiny, perfect orb nestled in his palm, then closed his fingers around it and lifted shining, grateful eyes to Valerian.
“We’ll make this right,” Valerian assured him. “You have my word.” He glanced back down at the commander and a smile quirked his lips. “Let me take this guy off your hands.”
As he turned, he noticed Laureline speaking with the empress. The Pearl’s eyes were full of tears, and Laureline was reaching into her belt. Her hands came out holding the converter.
“Hey!” Valerian shouted. “What are you doing?”
Laureline said, as if it were self-explanatory, “You gave them the pearl. They also need the converter.”
“I know, but—” He turned to the emperor and gave him a smile that was more like a grimace. “Will you excuse us a second?”
Valerian marched over to his partner, grabbed her arm, and steered her away. “Listen,” he said, keeping his voice low, “the converter is government property. And most likely it’s the last one in the whole universe.”
“Oh,” Laureline said, her eyes narrowing in anger, “so you buy into the commander’s what’s-mine-is-mine-and-what’s-yours-is-mine philosophy? Is that what you’re saying?” “No,” Valerian shot back, stung, “I ‘buy into’ my oath of allegiance! We have no authority to hand this over to the Pearls.”