by Timothy Zahn
The Elder nodded. “Sixteen hundred years ago, after a thousand years of slavery, there was a carefully coordinated uprising of the other races of the galaxy, a revolt long planned and long concealed. It ultimately cost the lives of many, including at least five entire races, and in the end all races had lost the capability to travel even within their own star systems. But the victory was worth the price, for our oppressors were finally and utterly destroyed.”
“You sound like you were there,” I suggested.
His alien face twitched. A smile? Or a grimace? “The Chahwyn were there, certainly,” he said. “But we were merely one of many servant races, genetically created by the Shonkla-raa to be their technical laborers. We had been made incapable of aggression or combat, and thus were necessarily kept in the background during the war. As a result, our people survived better than most.
“But as I say, all peoples were beaten back to pre-spaceflight levels, some to even preindustrial levels. So matters remained for three hundred years. The Thread still existed, but no one had the capability to reach it. Indeed, for most peoples even the rumor of its existence was lost.” He paused. “Then, by chance, the Chahwyn discovered a cache of Shonkla-raa technology that had been hidden before war’s end. With it we were able to reach again into space; and with access to the Thread, we gained the stars.”
“Only the Shonkla-raa had made sure to breed all the fight out of you,” I said. “Which meant that anyone you ran across could beat you silly if they had a mind to and take all the goodies for themselves.”
“And the whole cycle would begin again,” the Elder said. “We knew that before we approached the other peoples of the galaxy, we had to find a way to make interstellar war and conquest impossible.”
“And so you built the Tube.”
“And so we built the Tube,” he said. “But we needed assistance, so first we created the Spiders. For that we used the Shonkla-raa’s genetic equipment and our own flesh. We didn’t dare mingle with other races ourselves—there was too much risk that our weakness would be discovered and that we would again be enslaved.”
“Couldn’t you have used the equipment to eliminate your passiveness?” I suggested. “Then you could at least defend yourselves if necessary.”
“Or we could become a second Shonkla-raa,” he countered darkly. “No. Even if we knew how and where to draw such a delicate line, we would not dare take the risk.”
“Very noble of you,” I said. The words came out with less sarcasm, somehow, than I’d actually intended. “So you and the Spiders built the Tube. How long did it take?”
“Very long,” he said. “Even with the spatial distortion near the Thread working in our favor, it still took six hundred years to complete.”
“At which point you set up Quadrail service and invited the rest of the galaxy to come out and play,” I said. “Which brings us back to the Modhri.”
The Elder’s face quivered in yet another unreadable expression. “He was to be the Shonkla-raa’s final weapon against the Grand Alliance,” he said. “Genetically engineered to be a group mind that could infiltrate, subvert, and ultimately control the leaders of the forces arrayed against them.” A doglike shake ran briefly through his body. “Fortunately for us all, the war ended before he could be properly deployed, and for centuries he lay dormant within the coral formations of Modhra I.
“Then, two hundred years ago, the Spiders opened a station for the Halkas in the Sistarrko system. We know now that during their explorations the Halkas discovered the coral, and with that the silent war began. Within sixty years, we believe, the Modhri had spread his tendrils throughout the Halkavisti Empire and taken partial control of its leaders. At that point he turned his attention outward, sending Halkan walkers out into the galaxy to sell Modhran coral to the other species.”
“Pricing it out of reach of everyone except the upper business and governmental echelons, naturally.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Though at this point his expansion seems to have been more for information-gathering than conquest. He established outposts for future use, but still seemed interested mainly in bringing the Halkavisti Empire more firmly under his control.
“Within the next thirty years, though, the Spiders began to notice his influence among the Halkas, though they as yet had no idea what it was or where it came from. Growing increasingly concerned, they approached the Juriani, themselves relative newcomers to the galactic community, and asked if they could discover what was happening to their neighbors.”
“And bang go the Juriani,” I murmured.
“Yes,” the Elder said grimly. “Their investigation was detected and the investigators infected. And because the team members were part of a military chain of command, the Modhri was able to use thought viruses to quickly leap himself up those contact lines to the very top of the government.”
He gestured with his long fingers. “We hadn’t known about this particular Shonkla-raa weapons program, but when we saw the same subtle influence now spreading among the Juriani we suspected some such evil was involved. We redoubled our efforts to search Shonkla-raa archives, trying to learn what it might be.”
“Why didn’t you just close down the Sistarrko Station?” I asked.
“At that point we had no idea where the Modhri was located,” he said. “Nor did we know the mechanism of the attack, particularly how emotional connections allowed him to spread so quickly among a society’s elite. Even more worrisome was the fact that he seemed to be increasing the pace of his conquests. It had taken nearly sixty years to conquer the Halkas, but only fifteen to reach the same level of control of the Juriani.”
“Do you want anything to eat or drink?” Bayta put in suddenly. “I’m sorry; we should have offered that sooner.”
To my surprise, I realized that I was in fact ravenously hungry. But this was far too interesting to interrupt even for food. “No, I’m okay,” I told her. “Please, continue.”
“Over the next sixty years the Spiders tried again and again to learn who and what this enemy was,” the Elder said. “They were able to get four other races interested in the problem, each taking a turn at solving it. All four ultimately fell, and it finally dawned on us that our actions were actually facilitating the invasions. The Modhri was also spreading out on his own, but we learned too late that these official investigation teams were probably the fastest and simplest route to high government levels.”
“And even after all this, you still had no idea where the attacks were coming from?” I asked.
“Actually, by then we had narrowed it to one of the worlds along the Grakla Spur,” he said. “Sistarrko was considered the most likely system.”
“So again, why didn’t you shut down the station?”
His eye-ridge tufts vibrated again. “We tried,” he said ruefully. “Citing economic reasons, we closed down the entire Spur. But the pressure from the other empires was enormous, and not only from those controlled by the Modhri. We didn’t dare take the chance that someone might become angry enough to storm the Tube itself, possibly destroying a section and thereby learning the secret of the Thread. So after a few weeks, we reopened the line.”
“And business returned to normal.”
“Except that now the Modhri knew who it was who’d been behind the various probes launched against him over the years.” The Elder shivered again. “And with that, the Spiders themselves became targets for conquest.”
I felt my throat tighten. Passengers, cargo, and mail, I remembered thinking rather resentfully back at Terra Station. If the Spiders were conquered, that ultimate hat trick would pass to the last-ditch weapon of an all-powerful tyranny. “I hope you’ve taken some precautions.”
“The very nature of the Spiders and their armor makes a normal Modhri attack impossible,” he assured me. “Still, with enough walkers in hand, other methods would become possible.” His eyes flicked to Bayta. “One of which you have already seen. I will admit that we began to wonder if there was s
till any hope for us, or whether we and the galaxy had instead begun the long dark path to defeat.
“And then, thirty years ago, you Humans burst upon the scene.”
He paused, his eyes again shifting to Bayta. “You were a wild race, full of confidence and energy and cleverness. The Shonkla-raa had either failed to notice you or else had decided your world had nothing worth stealing and had passed you by. But you were certainly a shock to the rest of us. Nothing quite like you had ever been seen in the galaxy, and I will admit that many of us were somewhat taken aback. But others saw you as perhaps our last, best hope for victory against the Modhri.”
I felt my throat tighten. “Are you saying there isn’t anyone else left?”
His eye-ridge tufts bristled. “At that point neither the Bellidos nor the Cimmaheem had shown signs of Modhran influence,” he said. “And we think the Filiaelians, at the far end of the galaxy, may yet be untouched. Their routine manipulation of their own genetic code provides a natural barrier to Modhran intrusion.”
Which was probably why Hermod had pointed me toward the Fillies in the first place. Watching a Spider agent go charging off to one of the last remaining bastions of independence would have pretty much guaranteed the Modhri’s attention.
“But you were the ones with the drive and the curiosity that gave you a unique edge,” the Elder continued. “We needed only to wait until you were acclimated to the cultures around you and ready to act.”
“And meanwhile, the Bellidos decided to take their own crack at the Modhri,” I said, remembering our conversations with Fayr aboard the Quadrail.
“And failed like all the others,” the Elder said grimly. “Still, it was their effort that finally solved the mystery of the thought-virus mechanism.”
“So when Fayr decided to try it on his own, he had the whole story available to him,” I said, nodding. “And as an extra bonus, you even provided him with a nice little diversion.”
The Elder ducked his head, the gesture looking very strange the way his neck was jointed. “For that I apologize,” he said. “But Fayr was in motion, and while we had no details of his plan or timetable, we nevertheless deemed his attempt had a good chance of success. We further judged that Humans were not yet ready to make a serious effort against the Modhri on their own. So we did what we could to help the Bellidos, while at the same time not jeopardizing the possibility of a future Human attack.”
“And it worked pretty well,” I had to admit. “I didn’t divert the Modhri quite the way you planned, but my presence at least muddied the water a little. And Fayr was good enough that none of it made much of a difference to his plan anyway.”
“Yes,” the Elder murmured. “Except that it seems his plan was only a partial success.”
“Unfortunately,” I said. “My guess is that once the Modhri figured out that you were the ones behind all these attacks, he decided he’d better pull up stakes and get out of town. He picked a new homeland and started shipping his coral there as fast as he could.”
“So that by the time Fayr destroyed the Modhran coral beds, enough of him had already made the transfer to begin again,” the Elder said heavily. “But now Bayta tells us you know where this new homeland is.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “Now all you have to do is convince me that I should tell you.”
He stared, his eye-ridge tufts going suddenly rigid. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean that from where I sit, you and the Modhri are looking way too much like fraternal twins,” I said evenly. “You both communicate telepathically, you both like to be in control”—I hesitated, but this was no time to worry about a little hypocrisy—“and you both play fast and loose with the truth when it suits you.”
I looked squarely at Bayta. “And you both invade people’s bodies.”
“It’s nothing like that,” she insisted. Unlike the Elder, her human face carried emotional cues I could read, and it was clear she was stunned by my abrupt refusal to spill my guts on cue. “The Modhri is a parasite, emotionally as well as physically, a creature who seeks to manipulate and control others for his own ends. I, on the other hand, am a true synthesis, with the Human and Chahwyn parts of me forming a genuine partnership.”
“And how much say did the Human half of you have in the arrangement of this partnership?”
A flicker of something crossed her face. “She was a foundling,” she said, her voice low. “A baby born aboard a Quadrail, then abandoned.”
I felt my skin crawling. That sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen anymore, certainly not among the rich and powerful who could afford to travel among the stars. “Did you try to find her mother?”
“Yes, they found her,” Bayta said. She was trying hard to sound like she was just reciting facts, but I could hear the pain beneath the words. “But she didn’t want me. Or so she insisted.”
“We, on the other hand, had great need of her,” the Elder said. “We had the Spiders bring her here and … the two were melded.”
A shiver ran up my back. “At least the Modhri has the courtesy to wait until someone’s full-grown before taking over.”
“We had no choice,” Bayta snapped, glaring at me. “You saw Hermod, how big and fat and ungainly he was. That’s what happens if you try to meld a Human and Chahwyn later in life. We had no choice.”
She swallowed, her glare fading. “We were fighting for our survival,” she said. “And for yours.”
“We’re not talking about me,” I said. “We’re talking about you, and how you’ve cheated an innocent Human being of her right to live. How exactly was this so-called melding done?”
“It was simple enough, at least from a technical standpoint,” the Elder said. “Though despite what you say, we did think long and hard over the ethical questions. But as Bayta has said, we had no choice. So we took the Human foundling and introduced a newly born Chahwyn into her body.”
So they’d done the same thing to a baby of their own, too. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” he agreed uncomfortably. He extended a finger, stretching it out toward Bayta like an invisible hand pulling taffy. “Our bodies, as you’ve already seen, are far more malleable than yours,” he said, withdrawing the finger to its original size. “It didn’t hurt either of them, I assure you.”
“The Modhri within a walker is always a separate entity lurking in the background, looking for advantages for himself,” Bayta said. “With me, though the Human and Chahwyn parts are in some ways separate, we are at the same time truly one person. We are partners, companions, friends. We are stronger than the sum of our parts.”
“If you say so,” I said, looking back at the Elder. “What about the one who brought me my Quadrail ticket? Another foundling?”
The Elder hesitated. “He, too, was unwanted.”
“Was he another foundling?” I repeated.
He sighed. “He was purchased,” he admitted. “Another child whose mother didn’t want him. In his case, we worked through Hermod and an agency to obtain him.”
“So there you have it,” I said, the ashes of defeat in my mouth. I hadn’t really wanted to prove the worst about the Chahwyn. But it seemed I’d done so anyway. “You buy and sell and use people like commodities, just like the Modhri. So you tell me: Why should I even bother to pick sides?”
“We’ve kept the galaxy at peace for seven hundred years,” the Elder said, his voice tight as his hoped-for victory began to slip between his malleable fingers. “We don’t interfere with politics or commerce or—”
“Do you want the woman back?” Bayta asked abruptly.
I blinked. “What do you mean, do I want her back?”
“You said we’d cheated an innocent Human being of her right to live,” Bayta said. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady. “We can’t change what has been for the past twenty-two years. But if the Chahwyn part of me is willing to die and return the rest of her life to her, will that make sufficien
t amends for our injustice?”
I shot a glance at the Elder. He seemed as flabbergasted by the offer as I was. “I don’t know,” I said. “What would that do to her?”
Bayta took a deep breath. “It would return her to what she would have been,” she said. “She would be fully Human once more.”
“And?”
Bayta hesitated. “She would be fully Human,” she repeated. “Would that be sufficient amends?”
I studied her face. If there was any duplicity in her offer, I couldn’t see it. “Let me think about it. What’s happening with McMicking?”
“The work will take a few hours more,” the Elder said, floundering a little as he tried to get back on track again. “Fortunately, he was brought here while the Modhran infection was still small and localized. Do you—?” He shot a look at Bayta. “Bayta reminds me you still need food and rest. Perhaps you will allow her to show you to a place where you may obtain both.”
“Thank you,” I said, studying Bayta’s face. Two beings, separate yet one. I didn’t understand it, but it seemed clear that she found the arrangement both reasonable and comfortable.
Perhaps more than just comfortable. Partners, companions, friends, she had said.
Friends.
She had told me flatly that she wasn’t my friend. Yet for the sake of her people, she was willing to give up the closest friend she had … and that closest of friends was in turn willing to die.
If I demanded it.
I flipped my mental coin and watched it land where I knew it had to. No, the Chahwyn weren’t perfect. But then, which of us was? “Yes, I’d like something to eat,” I continued. “But let’s first get the matter of the Modhri’s new homeland out of the way.”
The Elder’s eye-ridge tufts fluttered. “I thought—”
“I know,” I said. “But in the end, I guess, everyone eventually has no choice but to pick sides. And like you said, you have kept the galaxy at peace.” I looked at Bayta. “Besides, Bayta has all the same clues I do. She could put it together if she wanted to. Question: What does the Modhri need in a homeland?”
