Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9)

by Glynn Stewart

  “Indeed,” a rumbling, interlaced chorus of eight voices replied. “I look forward to Division Lord Casimir’s briefing. If nothing else, more intelligence on our enemy is always valuable.”

  “I appreciate your open-mindedness, Strike Master,” Morgan told them.

  Any further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the virtual forms of Voice Tidirok and Princess Oxtashah, and Morgan concealed a hard inhalation as she faced the quartet of beings who would decide whether anyone would speak to the Infinite before they went in shooting.

  “Voice Tidirok, Princess Oxtashah,” she greeted the two aliens she knew. “I appreciate all four of you making time for this. I understand that it is not really the position of a junior flag officer to have made some of the promises and suggestions I made, but I was the sentient there, speaking to the Infinite.”

  “An impressive qualification all on its own, Division Lord,” Tidirok told her. “The Infinite have not spoken to anyone else, after all. Only issued orders to civilians, at most.”

  “I regard their actions as speech enough,” Oxtashah observed. “But I am prepared to listen, Division Lord. Speak.”

  “Agreed,” Tan!Shallegh said. “You have asked for this meeting, Casimir. We are prepared to listen to what you have learned. So speak.”

  Morgan nodded, swallowing as she looked down at the notes she’d written.

  “As you all know, I was sent into the Astoroko Nebula to deliver a set of starkillers and hopefully destroy the Infinite nest there,” she reminded them. “That mission failed in short order, I’m afraid.

  “We forgot that our starkillers are derived from an attempt to duplicate the Alavan star drive,” she told them. From the way Koh-Stan rippled, the Ren officer might not have even known that—but there was no point in concealing ancient history.

  “Because of that, we doomed our own use of stealth fields,” she said calmly. “The Infinite are clearly able to detect the Alavan star drive technology through any concealment we have available.

  “However, they believed that meant we were being escorted by a squadron of Alavan ships,” Morgan noted. “So, when they ambushed us, they targeted the starkillers first and destroyed them all. This focus allowed my task group to prevail in our first encounter with them, but we were all too aware of the overall strength of the Infinite.

  “We evaded further contact as best as we could, but they were attempting to trap us. Eventually, however, the news of Swarm Charlie’s defeat clearly reached the nebula, and those forces were redeployed.”

  She shook her head.

  “This was also a trap,” she admitted. “The Queen wished to contain a small force of our ships to interrogate them. My belief that we had a somewhat clear escape allowed her to succeed in this mission.

  “Without the ability to escape the force of Category Seven bioforms the Queen had brought with her, I didn’t see much alternative to responding to her queries,” Morgan concluded.

  “The Queen was under the impression that we, like the Mesharom and other species that shared space travel with the Alava, were Alavan slaves. She called them the ‘Nest Burners,’ which does suggest why the Alava and the Infinite were trying to exterminate each other before the Fall.

  “While it took some doing to convince her that we weren’t slaves and had been defending ourselves against her actions, she also brought up that on her second encounter with us, we’d opened fire without communicating.”

  Morgan grimaced.

  “That encounter was with the conspirators who tried to start a war between the Wendira and the Laians, sirs,” she told them. “They quite accidentally succeeded in starting a war after all—between the Infinite and everyone.

  “Fortunately, the Infinite somehow recognized me as the person they’d first encountered…and recognized that they started shooting at me after I’d offered to communicate.”

  Morgan remembered those panicked moments all too vividly—especially the one where she’d ordered dozens of her crew killed to eject a failing antimatter core and allow her engineers to fix her hyper emitters.

  That nightmare would not fade from her mind anytime soon, therapy or no therapy.

  “Despite everything that has come between us, the Infinite recognize that they fired first,” Morgan said quietly. “So, the Queen was prepared to make an offer. She will keep her bioforms inside the Astoroko Nebula for a time and is willing to talk. To negotiate a peace, and terms on which the Infinite could perhaps become valued neighbors.

  “Do not forget that these beings lived alongside the Alava,” Morgan said. “They have concepts and science and knowledge we have never even touched upon. They have communications that can leave hyperspace. A reactionless drive unlike anything we’ve seen, with its own advantages over the interface drive.

  “They have sensors and mining systems and technology unimaginable to us,” she told the officers. She didn’t even mention that the Taljzi cloner had been based on Infinite biotech. She wasn’t sure that could be duplicated without other parts of Alavan tech—or that duplicating it was remotely moral.

  “They don’t need the systems we live in and could, in fact, provide us with entirely new ways to access the resources of systems we’ve regarded as worthless. There are no resources we need to conflict over.

  “The entire war has been over fear—their fear of dying out and our fear of the unknown. We need to step away from that fear,” Morgan told the officers she needed to convince. “We need to look at the Infinite not with the eyes of yesterday and what we have lost but with the eyes of tomorrow and what we can gain.”

  She exhaled a long breath as she ran out of steam.

  “I know all of you have orders that justify moving immediately against the Infinite,” she said. “So, it falls to you to decide to wait. To wait for more information. To wait for confirmation that our governments will negotiate.

  “Their only requirement has been that I accompany our first delegation,” Morgan concluded. “I feel…I hope…that the chance of the future is worth the risk.”

  She laid her hands on her desk and waited.

  The virtual conference was silent for a few seconds, then Tan!Shallegh snapped his beak in laughter.

  “Of course, my colleagues, while we have swum the deep waters of hyperspace, my Division Lord has issued her report to the Imperium,” he noted. “My Empress and the Houses are united as one: the Imperium wishes to speak with the Infinite.

  “We will not abandon our allies or our sworn oaths, and we will stand with you all to defend your worlds, but we feel that an attempt must be made at peace.”

  Koh-Stan shifted, a rippling motion of eight shoulders and faces that sent atavistic shivers through Morgan’s brain.

  “We Ren have not yet lost blood or iron against the Infinite,” they noted. “We will follow the desire of the Laians and the Wendira in this; it is our oaths to them that bring us here.”

  Morgan wasn’t sure exactly how this conference was going to break down. Did everybody get a vote? In that case, the Imperium had just voted for peace and the Ren had recused themselves.

  “I am the Voice of the Republic,” Tidirok finally said after a few seconds of silence. “There is a reason that my juniors are the Swords and Spears and Pincers of the Republic, but that our most senior officers are our Voices. We do not speak only orders, and we are charged to speak before we kill.

  “I will consult with my Parliament, but while I do not believe we must always choose peace, I do believe that we must always choose to talk before we choose war.”

  Every eye went to Oxtashah, and Morgan was suddenly grimly sure that unanimity was required.

  “Two hundred star hives,” the Princess said softly. “Over six hundred star shields and over twelve hundred escorts. Plus the losses in Tohrohsail and in the attempt to blockade them. Twenty million Wendira and Laian dead.

  “Do we forget them? Do we allow their deaths to be for nothing?”

  “We have killed sentients
who have been the Infinite’s brothers and leaders for fifty thousand years,” Morgan said quietly. “The Queen has lost children who have been at her right hand for longer than any of our civilizations have existed, but she offers a chance at peace.

  “Please, Princess Oxtashah. We cannot bring back the dead. But we can build a future where no one joins them.”

  The conference was silent, and Morgan focused her gaze on the Wendira Royal…and realized that Oxtashah had probably lost more than a cousin at Shokal. She was a Royal—and that meant she’d laid somewhere in the region of twenty thousand eggs before her career as a diplomat had begun.

  Oxtashah had almost certainly lost children at Shokal, and while the Wendira Royals didn’t have the same attachment to their children as other races with smaller families, there was a connection there.

  “Like you, Princess, the Queen is mother to thousands,” Morgan half-whispered. “She has seen hundreds of them die in this war and wants to save all that remain. Will you send more of your children to their death to kill hers?”

  The silence that followed stretched tight. Morgan could feel the tension in the room as she watched the Wendira Princess…until suddenly, Oxtashah’s wings snapped backward in a violent unconscious gesture.

  “No,” she finally answered Morgan’s question. “I will not send more children to their deaths. The eyes of the past versus the eyes of tomorrow, as you say.”

  “Humans call it the ‘sunk-cost fallacy,’” Morgan told her. “Continuing on a course of action because of what we’ve already spent and lost, rather than assessing whether it’s worth spending more.

  “It’s as true for lost friends and shed blood as it is for money.”

  “So it is,” Oxtashah agreed. “Very well, Morgan Casimir. I will travel to the Astoroko Nebula with you and we will make peace with this ancient leviathan.”

  She gestured around the room.

  “I think it is within all of our power to end this war for our people,” she declared. “So, I suggest we take one ship, with the five of us, into the heart of the hive.”

  The Wendira’s multifaceted eyes now bore into Morgan’s gaze—and Morgan’s soul.

  “I trust your Dr. Dunst,” she told her. “And I know he would follow you into hell, Division Lord Casimir. So, lead on into that hell.

  “I believe that you believe we will find peace there.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Rin Dunst had not been on Earth in over ten years. Even before that, he’d been born and spent almost his entire life in the northern hemisphere. That Hong Kong was covered in Christmas decorations in the middle of what was clearly summer was…disconcerting.

  It wasn’t the main source of his discomfort, though. When he’d landed at the spaceport, he’d been met by a very earnest human Imperial Marine with a summer suit in exactly his size. The young man had turned out to be his permanent escort and was driving the car as they headed into a district of luxury residential towers.

  Slowly. Hong Kong traffic hadn’t improved over the centuries.

  “Lance, who exactly assigned you to me?” he asked the soldier. “I wasn’t expecting an escort.”

  “Sir, you’re a Category One asset,” the Marine pointed out. “You are supposed to have a permanent detail, but according to the brief I received, the Institute and the Marines haven’t sorted that out yet.”

  “Huh.” Rin stared out the window at the streets of Hong Kong. Even though—or perhaps because—it was Christmas Eve, the city was busy. Sidewalks were full of people, only about three-quarters of them human, cheerfully yelling and making their way around.

  “We’ll have you to your appointment in no time, sir,” the Marine told Rin. “I’m coordinating with the Division Lord’s detail.”

  “I supposed Morgan would have one of those,” Rin admitted.

  “Most flag officers do, sir,” the noncom said. “And, of course, Division Lord Casimir is currently the center of everyone’s attention. She did end a war.”

  Rin chuckled.

  “Even if she thinks everyone else involved should get the credit,” he murmured. “Typical.”

  “I can’t speak to that, sir,” the Marine said. “We should be at the Tower already, but, well…” He gestured out the front window at the barely moving traffic.

  “I imagine everyone else is being equally delayed,” Rin told the other man. A twinge of discomfort ran through him as he considered who the rest of said everyone else was.

  “Captain Antonova’s detail reports that she and Mrs. Antonova are equally delayed,” the noncom confirmed. “Division Lord Casimir is on site. Speaking with her sisters, I believe.”

  The thought of meeting Morgan Casimir’s sisters did not help with Rin’s comfort. He’d traded a few messages with the twins, Leah and Carol Bond, but he hadn’t encountered Morgan’s younger sisters.

  The twins had a reputation in scholarly and political circles. Both held PhDs—Leah in political science, Carol in economics—from top-tier Imperial universities. Leah was the heir to the Duchy of Terra, and Carol was rarely far away from her sister.

  Combined, they were their mother’s hatchet women—and multiple planetary leaders had ended up bruised and confused after assuming the pair of mid-twenties blondes were innocent, naïve or inexperienced.

  “All of the Bonds are on site, according to the Militia details,” Rin’s escort told him. “That should make this easier, yes?”

  Rin snorted.

  “Not what I want to hear when meeting my girlfriend’s parents for the first time,” he told the Marine. “How many other people is the Duchess’s detail coordinating arrivals for?”

  The driver chuckled.

  “Including Captain Antonova and her wife, seven,” he noted. “And from the rumors that swirl around, Megan Bond is single, so I can’t even math it.”

  Rin snorted. Somehow, the realization that he wasn’t going to be part of the only polycule at Christmas Eve dinner was reassuring.

  Rin beat Victoria and Shelly Antonova to Pegasus Tower—known for thirty years now as the residence of the family of the Duchess of Terra, who had been slowly taking over more and more floors over those years—by about five minutes.

  Morgan saw him enter the marble-clad lobby from across the room and immediately abandoned the pair of taller platinum-blonde women she’d been speaking with. The gazes of a dozen guards followed the Division Lord across the lobby as she jogged over to embrace him.

  “Damn, it’s good to see you,” she told him. “Been too long.”

  “I didn’t get called back to the Houses to give briefings on Infinite psychology and the likelihood they’d keep the peace,” he pointed out.

  “No, you just spent a full long-cycle interrogating a brain the size of a planet about their worst enemies,” his lover told him—and then kissed him thoroughly to keep him from responding. “Anything interesting in that?”

  “A lot,” he admitted. “Their perspective on everything is fascinating. The Infinite are going to make for intriguing partners.”

  “Yeah, we’re talking about recruiting Cat-One bioforms to act as sentient shipboard communicators,” Morgan told him. “We’ll need to trust them a lot more than we do yet before we go that far, but it’s on the Navy’s mind.”

  “I’m glad you got people to talk to them,” Rin said. “We’d have lost so much if we’d destroyed them. Or they’d destroyed us, but that seems more obvious.”

  “They could easily have killed either or both of us,” she agreed. “But…we’re home now. We made peace.”

  “Doesn’t seem to have hurt you,” Rin murmured. “No extra medals, though.”

  “Making peace generally doesn’t get you medals,” Morgan said. “Just warm, fuzzy feelings and a lot of attention that should have gone to others.”

  “Sir, Captain Antonova’s car is arriving,” a Marine interrupted.

  “Good. We’re still waiting on Carol’s boyfriends, but I think I can take my cluster upstairs once t
he Antonovas are here,” Morgan told the guard.

  “Is this as complicated and messy as it feels?” Rin asked.

  “Naw,” Morgan told him. “This is just family…made a bit messier by bodyguards.”

  Yet another tall blonde woman entered through the front lobby, with a short and heavyset dark-haired woman in tow. Two Duchy of Terra Militia security officers accompanied Victoria and Shelly Antonova as they entered.

  Rin allowed Morgan to drag him over to the other half of their polycule, standing slightly to one side as Morgan and Victoria kissed. They were delighted to see each other, which certainly helped smooth over his momentary confusion.

  He’d accepted the polygamous relationship long before, but it was still strange to be there with his girlfriend’s girlfriend—and said girlfriend’s wife.

  He offered a hand to Shelly Antonova.

  “Rin Dunst,” he introduced himself. “Imperial Institute of Archaeology.”

  “Shelly Antonova,” the other woman replied. “I’ve read a couple of your papers, Dr. Dunst. Adjacent to my area of expertise but still valuable.”

  “Oh?” he asked. “You’re an academic?”

  “Xenopsychologist,” Mrs. Antonova told him. “I work with the integration of multispecies populations, like the Laian Exiles in the Australian Outback. Some of your archaeological work on historic and prehistoric multispecies sites has been fascinatingly useful.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by a clearly coordinated attack, as Morgan wrapped an arm around Rin and Victoria wrapped an arm around Shelly—with the two of them keeping an arm around each other as well.

  “I’m not honestly sure why I’m here,” Shelly Antonova admitted quietly. “This isn’t quite…”

  “Because you are family,” Morgan told her. “And Mom insisted. We’re celebrating Christmas and family. Everyone needs to be here.”

  “Five kids and what, eight partners?” Rin asked.

  “Yeah, Carol has two boyfriends, and Alexis has a matching boy-girl set of Marines,” Morgan concluded with a grin. “So, we bring everyone together and we have Christmas.”