She happened to agree with the Confederation representative, but she didn’t accept his reasoning. She and Foue were both much younger than him, and Sky didn’t think that he appreciated the fact that she was the team lead. As an older man, he thought he was entitled to the position. What he was forgetting was that the Klethos were a female-oriented society, and they didn’t seem to give the same respect to males, whether Klethos or human. Call it a cultural bias.
Still, Sky could use some help here, no matter the source.
“We are not reacting to save the Brotherhood, Ambassador. We have citizens on Destiny. The Saint Peter Canisius Monastery is also on the planet. The Jesuit brothers there are independent, and they’ve provided much of the scientific insight for the new weapons we use to fight the Dictymorphs, weapons your own warriors use.”
The quad leader froze for a moment, and for once, Sky thought she’d surprised her. She knew that the various factions within humanity perplexed the more homogenous Klethos-lee. The idea that the monastery was an independent enclave on a Brotherhood world probably blew their raptor-like minds.
Several of her staff thought that piece of information might sway the Klethos not just to stand down from their threat to take on the Brotherhood, but to actually enlist their help on Destiny. At the moment, the Klethos fighting force with the humans was still on J-Point while the human task force was en route to the planet. They could make a huge impact if they would join the effort.
“They are not d’lato, and only d’lessu would commune with them,” Glinda said, squashing that theory.
Time for number two, she told herself.
She wasn’t too confident that this one was going to work either, but the groupthink was that it was the next best option.
“Ambassador, our own honor is at stake here. We will address lassor, but after the Dictymorph threat has been eliminated. As our allies, as fellow d’lato, we simply ask that you hold back. Do not take any action concerning honor while we fight the Dictymorph. When we have won, we can re-open negotiations.”
Glinda rose up from the special chair that had been made for her, her neck frill fully displayed.
“You think we are negotiating with you? There is no negotiation with honor,” she shouted, every word underscored by hissing. “We may have been mistaken to believe you are d’lato, and that is to our shame.”
She stepped away from the table as the other three scrambled to their feet. Without another word, she strode past the assembled humans and pushed open the double doors. And then they were gone.
“That went well, I’d say,” Dr. Pavoni said, breaking the stunned silence. “Nice choice of words, Skylar.”
Sky hadn’t thought that tack was going to work, but she hadn’t foreseen Glinda’s reaction.
She looked back up to the cam, knowing that the Minister was watching. Pavoni could be somewhat of a jerk, but he was right. No one had given her the word “negotiation” to use. It had just slipped out.
What have I done?
DESTINY
Chapter 29
Hondo
“This sucks,” Cara said, as she and Hondo watched their Marines check IDs.
That’s an understatement, Hondo thought.
He was just as unhappy with the situation as she was. They’d arrived on the planet ten hours ago, ready to join their battalion—only the battalion had been essentially disbanded. The two intact line companies had been attached to other battalions while the Zrínyi survivors had formed a conditional company and been assigned to security duty.
Hondo had faced the Grubs before, and it wasn’t high on his list of fun things to do, but while he was safe and sound on one side of the planet, the Grubs were tearing through the main continent on the other side.
And so far, they were letting the Grubs do what they wanted. The local Brotherhood forces hadn’t been able to put up much resistance.
Hondo knew they had to build up the forces in order to prosecute the defense, and they couldn’t use naval assets to soften up the Grubs, but still, it hurt to let them establish a beachhead on the planet. More could come and reinforce those already here, making it even harder to defeat them when the real battle commenced.
Even being on Destiny was surreal. The platoon had just fought the Brotherhood, had killed and died on Lore, yet now they were on a Brotherhood planet defending the bastards.
Yeah, bastards!
Hondo didn’t have it in him to simply forget that the Brotherhood was the enemy. He’d lost too many of his Marines to them to make such a drastic 180. The brass evidently felt the same, otherwise the platoon wouldn’t be set up on the road under a huge monastery with orders to keep all Brotherhood citizens away from the UAM buildup. This might be their planet, but they weren’t going to get into the assembly area.
Down the hill and into the plain, Hondo could see the activity associated with military operations. Aircraft flew on short hops, and vehicles kicked up dust. Marines in PICS would be out there, rehearsing, and Hondo wished he was with them.
“Do you wish you were down there?” he asked Cara.
“Hell no! Go out there and fight the Grubs? We’ve got it made here, sitting with our thumbs up our asses. I mean, I didn’t join the Corps to fight now, right?”
Hondo was quiet for a moment, then said, “Yeah, I wish I was down there, too.”
EARTH
Chater 30
Skylar
“And while your forces sit in Grayson, we’ve lost most of Canaan!” the arch-bishop shouted, his face florid with anger, spittle coming out of his mouth.
Ambassador Hortense, keeping her voice low, but as if lecturing a small child, said, “We cannot engage until all our forces are ready.”
“It’s your fault, you and the entire UAM,” he said, pausing to shift his gaze from the Federation ambassador to sweep over the entire assembly. “If you hadn’t provoked the Dictymorphs, they would still be hundreds of parsecs away from human space. You brought them here, first to Purgamentium, and now to Destiny.”
“He’s right,” Yelcy said. “We did get their attention.”
“Which is said and done,” Sky said. “And it would have been only a matter of time before they reached us anyway.”
She turned back to the holo to watch as the Brotherhood ambassador railed against what he saw as a delay. Brotherhood forces that had been in the UAM Dictymorph task force were arriving on the planet and getting routed, all the time while the UAM task force built up their forces.
Sky had to wonder if the delay was not, in fact, a military necessity, but rather a political move. She wouldn’t put it past the members of the task force to be doing their own lassor, punishing the Brotherhood while imparting on them the importance for all humankind to actively fight the invaders. If it weren’t for Saint Peter Canisius, Sky wondered if the UAM would let the planet fall, but the Jesuit brothers were still a major source of Dictymorph research, one too valuable to lose.
Was it coincidence that the Dictymorphs had invaded Destiny, of all places? There were a thousand human worlds, but only a few were hubs of Dictymorph research.
Too many people, Sky included, tended to think of the Dictymorphs as big, mindless worms, or Grubs, as the masses called them. But they’d shown to be able to adjust to meet new threats. Sky didn’t know if they’d targeted Destiny for a reason, and they’d landed on the opposite side of the world from the monastery, but she suspected that the choice of a target was deliberate.
Back in Brussels, the Dentonian ambassador had the floor. As an ally of the Brotherhood withdrawal from the task force, tiny Denton was merely a Brotherhood mouthpiece. The wizened old man, with his flowing white locks, might have seemed frail, but he had a surprisingly robust voice as he called out the UAM for letting Brotherhood soldiers and police die while the Marines were “flipping their widgets.” Sky had never heard that particular phrase before, but its meaning was clear from both his context and tone.
Sky’s PA vibrated. She frowned whi
le she picked it up. She’d given Jack strict instructions that unless the chairman herself called, she was not to be bothered while they watched what was going on in Brussels.
“Ma’am, you have a visitor waiting in your office. I think you need to see him,” Jack said, his voice subdued.
“I don’t have anyone on my schedule. You can tell whoever it is to make an appointment.”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea, ma’am. You’re going to want to see this visitor.”
“Who is this vaunted visitor that you insist I see?” Sky asked curtly.
Jack lowered his voice and said, “It’s Gary.”
“Gary? Gary who?”
“You know, that Gary. The Klethos Gary.”
Sky pulled down her PA and looked at it in shock, no more surprised than she would have been had it turned into a cobra in her hand and started singing Carmen.
She brought it back up and asked, “Are you sure? Gary? In my office?”
“It’s not something I could be mistaken on. They don’t really blend in with the crowd.”
Sky looked around at the rest of the team. No one seemed to have noticed that she took the call.
“OK, I’ll be there in two minutes,” she told Jack, then buzzed Keyshon.
Meet me in my office now. We’ve got an unusual visitor.
Keyshon looked up in surprise and caught her eye. She nodded, stood up as casually as she could, and then walked out as if going to the restroom. She had no idea why she was trying to keep the Klethos’ presence a secret, but she wanted to find out just what the heck was going on before she informed anyone else.
Keyshon came out of the conference room and asked, “What’s up, ma’am?”
“We have a visitor, a very VIP one. I want you with me when I meet him. Make sure every recording device is running.”
He raised one eyebrow in a question, and she said, “It’s Gary. The Klethos Gary.”
“Holy shit!” Keyshon said, the first time that Sky had ever heard him resort to crude language. “Does the ministry know he’s here?”
“I doubt it. If they did know, I think they would have given us a heads-up. Confirm that all of this is being recorded, then come in with me.”
“This will just take a second,” he said, pulling out his PA. A moment later, he added, “Done. Visuals and analytics.”
“Then let’s not keep our visitor waiting.”
Jack was standing in the outer office as the two entered, wringing his hands.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. He just waltzed in. I didn’t know what to do, so I put him in your office. Is that OK?”
Normally, Sky’s office was off-limits if she wasn’t in it, but this was an exception.
“That was a smart move, Jack. For now, make sure no one bothers us. No one comes in unless I OK it.”
The two entered the office. Gary was standing alongside the far wall, looking at a signed print of a Dvorak. It wasn’t worth much, but Sky liked the play of color in the forest, colors that had never existed in nature.
“This is . . . unusual,” Gary said, not turning around. “I will conjecture that it is a representation, not an accurate rendition?”
“That is true, Ambassador.”
No one really knew what to call the other three members of the quad, so by mutual agreement, all four were given the ambassador honorific.
“But it is no less real for being in the artist’s mind.”
“I guess you are correct.”
Why are you here, Gary? Not to chat about human art, that’s for sure.
Gary turned around, gave a slight nod of his head and the elbow twitch that Klethos sometimes performed when meeting someone.
“Uh . . . Ambassador, I have to admit that this is unusual. We have never met with you alone. May I ask why you are here?”
“Yes, this is unusual. This is the first time I have done this on Earth.”
“Are you here in an official capacity?”
“Words do not always mean what they mean,” he said.
That’s not what Glinda told me.
“It is known I am here meeting with you by some, but my quad is unaware of my present location.”
Sky’s mouth almost dropped open in amazement. He seemed to take what he’d said as a matter of course. His neck frill remained flat. If he was under any sort of pressure or stress, if he was doing anything wrong, he wasn’t showing it.
“So, if I can ask, why are you here?”
“To teach you about us. There is a word, d’lamma. I believe you do not know this?”
“No, I don’t,” Sky asked, suppressing the urge to call it up on her PA.
“It is not one we use often. The concept does not coincide with some of our beliefs. D’lamma is somewhat like d’lammo, our young, who are not d’lato, but who are also not d’lessu.”
Sky had to concentrate. There were too many d’whatevers being thrown around.
“I ask you, are your young held to the same standards as your adults?” he asked.
“No, of course not. They need to learn right and wrong.”
“And so it is with honor as well?”
“Yes, a child does not understand honor yet,” Sky answered, wondering where Gary was going with it.
“This is the way of the universe. But I ask you, cannot someone, an adult, not understand right and wrong, not understand honor?”
“I suppose so.”
“To simplify what I am saying, the d’lamma are these. Ones who are not d’lato, but because they do not understand.”
Sky’s mind was churning. Gary wasn’t just giving her a language lesson—he was telling her something important, something she could almost grasp.
Gary stood there silent, as if waiting for her to say something. Sky was grasping at straws, not knowing what to say, so she said the first thing that came to her mind in order to buy time.
“So, what do you do with these d’lamma?”
She could have sworn Gary’s posture relaxed a fraction, as if in relief, as he said, “You teach them. You allow them to ascend into d’lato.”
It was almost there for her, and she knew she had to understand what he was telling her.
“So, if someone is without honor, they can be brought into honor?” she asked.
“This is so.”
Something clicked into place, and she asked, “Without the need for lassor?”
This time she was sure Gary showed a degree of relief.
“Without the need for lassor. Lassor is for those who refuse honor, not those who do not understand it.”
“So, let me ask you this, Ambassador. If people, if d’lessu reject honor, they are subject to lassor. But if someone doesn’t understand honor, like a child or a d’lamma, they can be taught.”
“Again, this is so.”
“So, I ask you, how is someone, well, designated,” she said, not knowing what term to use, “as d’lessu or d’lamma?”
“It is invoked.”
Just like that? It can’t be that easy.
“So I understand it, if I, for example, invoked d’lamma status on someone, then it’s done?”
“It is so.”
“And what if someone disagrees?”
“If you, as d’lato, invoke it, honor demands that all recognize it.”
“And then, if I’m correct, lassor cannot be conducted.”
“It is so.”
“And would honor demand that all act to assist, to protect d’lamma from a threat?
“Honor would demand it, particularly if she who invoked it were taking action herself. Honor would require assistance.”
Sky felt a surge of excitement. Gary, for whatever reason, had handed her what might be a solution to the terrible situation they were in.
“And this is iron-bound? No one can block it?”
There was slight twitch to Gary’s neck frill, then he said, “Honor demands all recognize it, if she who invokes it is d’lato. But if the invocation is without
honor, she who invokes it is no longer d’lato.”
Her sense of euphoria suddenly deflated. If she was reading him right, trying to get the Brotherhood this d’lamma status could result in the UAM itself losing their d’lato status.
That would be catastrophic, something almost too terrible to comprehend. Mankind could suddenly be facing two enemies. Its very existence would be at risk. This had to go up the chain, not only to the Federation and UAM, but to the Brotherhood and the rest of their alliance as well.
There was a long moment of silence. Sky tried to let what she’d heard sink in. She’d go over the recordings after the meeting before she forwarded them to see what she might have missed. Gary had, in fact, offered them a golden ticket, but like all golden tickets, this one had risks.
“I will take my leave now, Vice-Minister,” Gary said, breaking the silence.
Sky gave a quick glance at Keyshon, then stepped over to stop the Klethos.
“Please, can I ask you? Why did you tell me this?”
“You are the human expert on the Klethos-lee, correct? Should you not know more about us?”
“I don’t mean that. The rest of your quad doesn’t know you’re here. And unless I’m completely mistaken, I don’t think the ambassador, uh . . .”
“Glinda?” he asked, then when he saw Sky’s face, added, “Yes, we know you have taken to name us.”
“Uh, right. So, then, I don’t think Glinda would approve of you telling me that. She does not seem to be too, shall we say, forgiving, of the Brotherhood?”
Gary stared at her for a long moment, and Sky wondered if she’d overstepped her bounds.
Finally, he said, “Glinda was a d’relle, and her hold on honor is without parallel.”
“And yours isn’t?” Sky asked, before thinking about how that could be taken as an insult.
“I am male, Vice-Minister.”
“And?”
“The Klethos-lee are strong on traditions, traditions that have allowed us to survive longer than you have been out of the trees and walking upright. We rely on our females to protect us from our enemies, both within and without. They have been bred for aggression, both physically and emotionally. Without honor, without fassonay,” he said, using a term Sky had never heard, “their aggression would have destroyed us, a fate that almost occurred twice in our past.”
The Price of Honor Page 17
