Zoe`s Tale

TWENTY

"Admit it," Enzo said, through the PDA. "You forgot."

"I did not," I said, with what I hoped was just the right amount of indignation to suggest that I had not forgotten, which I had.

"I can hear the fake indignation," he said.

"Rats," I said. "You're on to me. Finally."

"Finally? There's no finally," Enzo said. "I've been on to you since I met you."

"Maybe you have," I allowed.

"And anyway, that doesn't solve this problem," Enzo said. "We're about to sit down for dinner. You're supposed to be here. Not to make you feel guilty or anything."

This was the difference between me and Enzo now and then. There used to be a time when Enzo would have said those words and they would have come out sounding like he was accusing me of something (besides, of course, being late). But right now they were gentle and funny. Yes, he was exasperated, but he was exasperated in a way that suggested I might be able to make it up to him. Which I probably would, if he didn't push it.

"I am in fact wracked with guilt," I said.

"Good," Enzo said. "Because you know we put a whole extra potato in the stew for you."

"Gracious," I said. "A whole potato."

"And I promised the twins they could throw their carrots at you," he said, referring to his little sisters. "Because I know how much you love carrots. Especially when they're kid-hurled."

"I don't know why anyone would eat them any other way," I said.

"And after dinner I was going to read you a poem I wrote for you," Enzo said.

I paused. "Now that's not fair," I said. "Injecting something real into our witty banter."

"Sorry," Enzo said.

"Did you really?" I asked. "You haven't written me a poem in ages."

"I know," he said. "I thought I might get back into practice. I remember you kind of liked it."

"You jerk," I said. "Now I really do feel guilty for forgetting about dinner."

"Don't feel too guilty," Enzo said. "It's not a very good poem. It doesn't even rhyme."

"Well, that's a relief," I said. I still felt giddy. It's nice to get poems.

"I'll send it to you," Enzo said. "You can read it instead. And then, maybe if you're nice to me, I'll read it to you. Dramatically."

"What if I'm mean to you?" I asked.

"Then I'll read it melodramatically," he said. "I'll wave my arms and everything."

"You're making a case for me being mean to you," I said.

"Hey, you're already missing dinner," Enzo said. "That's worth an arm wave or two."

"Jerk," I said. I could almost hear him smile over the PDA.

"Gotta go," Enzo said. "Mom's telling me to set the table."

"Do you want me to try to make it?" I asked. All of a sudden I really did want to be there. "I can try."

"You're going to run across the entire colony in five minutes?" Enzo said.

"I could do it," I said.

"Maybe Babar could," Enzo said. "But he has two legs more than you."

"Fine," I said. "I'll send Babar to have dinner with you."

Enzo laughed. "Do that," he said. "I'll tell you what, Zoë. Walk here at a reasonable pace, and you'll probably make it in time for dessert. Mom made a pie."

"Yay, pie," I said. "What kind?"

"I think it's called 'Zoë gets whatever kind of pie she gets and likes it' pie," Enzo said.

"Mmmm," I said. "I always like that kind of pie."

"Well, yeah," Enzo said. "It's right there in the title."

"It's a date," I said.

"Good," Enzo said. "Don't forget. I know that's a problem for you."

"Jerk," I said.

"Check your mail queue," Enzo said. "There might be a poem there."

"I'm going to wait for the hand waving," I said.

"That's probably for the best," Enzo said. "It'll be better that way. And now my mom is glaring at me with laser eyeballs. I have to go."

"Go," I said. "See you soon."

"Okay," Enzo said. "Love you." We had started saying that to each other recently. It seemed to fit.

"Love you too," I said, and disconnected.

"You two make me want to vomit so hard," Gretchen said. She'd been hearing my side of the conversation and had been rolling her eyes the whole time. We were sitting in her bedroom.

I set down the PDA and whacked her with a pillow. "You're just jealous Magdy never says that to you."

"Oh, dear Lord," Gretchen said. "Leaving aside the fact that I so do not want to hear that from him, if he ever did try to say that to me, his head would actually explode before the words could even get out of his mouth. Which now that I think about it might be an excellent reason to try to get him to say it."

"You two are so cute," I said. "I can see you two standing at the altar and getting into it right before saying 'I do.'"

"Zoë, if I ever get anywhere near an altar with Magdy, I authorize you to make a flying tackle and drag me away," Gretchen said.

"Oh, fine," I said.

"Now let's never speak of this again," Gretchen said.

"You're so in denial," I said.

"At least I'm not the one who forgot her dinner date," Gretchen said.

"It gets worse," I said. "He wrote me poetry. He was going to read it to me."

"You missed dinner and a show," Gretchen said. "You are the worst girlfriend ever."

"I know," I said. I reached for my PDA. "I'll write him an apology note saying that."

"Make it extra grovelly," Gretchen said. "Because that's sexy."

"That comment explains a lot about you, Gretchen," I said, and then my PDA took on a life of its own, blasting an alarm sound from its speaker and scrolling an air attack notice on its screen. Over on Gretchen's desk, her PDA made the same alarm sound and scrolled the same message. Every PDA in the colony did the same. In the distance, we heard the sirens, posted near the Mennonite homesteads, alerting them because they didn't use personal technology.

For the first time since the defeat of the Conclave fleet, Roanoke was under attack. Missiles were on their way.

I rushed to the door of Gretchen's room. "Where are you going?" she asked. I ignored her and went outside, where people were bursting out of their homes and running for cover, and looked into the sky.

"What are you doing?" Gretchen said, catching up with me. "We need to get to a shelter."

"Look," I said, and pointed.

In the distance, a bright needle of light was tracing across the sky, aiming at something we couldn't quite see. Then there was a flash, blinding white. There was a defense satellite above Roanoke; it had fired on and hit one of the missiles coming for us. But others were still on their way.

The sharp pop of the missile explosion reached us, with not nearly enough time lag.

"Come on, Zoë," Gretchen said, and started tugging at me. "We've got to go."

I stopped looking at the sky and ran with Gretchen to one of the community shelters we had recently excavated and built; it was filling up quickly with colonists. As I ran I saw Hickory and Dickory, who had spotted me; they closed in and took either side of me as we got into the shelter. Even in the panic, people still made room for them. Gretchen, Hickory, Dickory, about four dozen other colonists, and I all hunched down in the shelter, straining to hear what was going on above us through nearly a dozen feet of dirt and concrete.

"What do you think is happ—" someone said and then there was unspeakable wrenching noise, like someone had taken one of the cargo containers that made up the colony wall and peeled it apart, right on top of our eardrums and then I was tumbling to the ground because there was an earthquake and I screamed and bet that everyone else in the shelter did too but I couldn't hear it because then came the single loudest noise I had ever heard, so loud that my brain surrendered and the noise became the absence of noise, and the only way I knew that I, at least, was still screaming was that I could feel my throat getting raw. Either Hickory or Dickory grabbed me and held me steady; I could see Gretchen being held the same way by the other Obin.

The lights in the shelter flickered but stayed on.

Eventually I stopped screaming and the ground stopped shaking and something similar to my hearing came back to me and I could hear others in the shelter crying and praying and trying to calm children. I looked over at Gretchen, who looked stricken. I disentangled from Dickory (it turned out) and went over to her.

"You okay?" I asked. My voice sounded like it was pushed through cotton from a distance. Gretchen nodded but didn't look at me. It occurred to me it was the first time she'd been in an attack.

I looked around. Most of the people in the shelter looked like Gretchen. It was the first time any of these people had been in an attack. Of all these people, I was the one who was the veteran of a hostile attack. I guess that put me in charge.

I saw a PDA on the floor; someone had dropped it. I picked it up and activated it and read what was there. Then I stood up and waved my hands back and forth and said "Excuse me!" until people started looking at me. I think enough people recognized me as the daughter of the colony leaders that they decided I might know something after all.

"The emergency information on the PDA says that the attack seems to be over," I said when enough people were looking my way. "But until we get an 'all clear' signal we need to stay here in the shelter. We need to stay here and stay calm. Is anyone here injured or sick?"

"I can't hear very well," someone said.

"I don't think any of us can hear well right now," I said. "That's why I'm yelling." It was an attempt at a joke. I don't think people were going for it. "Are there any injuries here besides hearing loss?" No one said anything or raised their hand. "Then let's just sit tight here and wait for the 'all clear.'" I held up the PDA I was using. "Whose is this?" Someone raised their hand; I asked if I could borrow it.

"Someone took 'in charge' lessons when I wasn't looking," Gretchen said when I sat back down next to her. The words were classic Gretchen, but the voice was very, very shaky.

"We were just under attack," I said. "If someone doesn't pretend like she knows what she's doing, people are going to start freaking out. That would be bad."

"Not arguing," Gretchen said. "Just impressed." She pointed to the PDA. "Can you send any messages? Can we find out what's happening?"

"I don't think so," I said. "The emergency system overrides usual messaging, I think." I signed out the owner on the PDA and signed in under my account. "See. Enzo said he sent that poem to me but it's not there yet. It's probably queued and will get sent once we have the all clear."

"So we don't know if everyone else is okay," Gretchen said.

"I'm sure we'll get an all clear signal soon," I said. "You worried about your dad?"

"Yes. Aren't you worried about your parents?" Gretchen asked.

"They were soldiers," I said. "They've done this before. I'm worried about them, but I'm betting they're fine. And Jane is the one running the emergency messages. As long as they're updating, she's fine." The PDA switched over from my mail queue to a scrolling note; we were being given the "all clear." "See," I said.

I had Hickory and Dickory check the entrance of the shelter for any falling debris; it was clear. I signed out from the PDA and gave it back to its owner, and then folks started shuffling out. Gretchen and I were the last to head up.

"Watch your step," Gretchen said as we came up, and pointed to the ground. Glass was everywhere. I looked around. All the houses and buildings were standing, but almost all the windows were blown out. We'd be picking glass out of everything for days.

"At least it's been nice weather," I said. No one seemed to hear me. Probably just as well.

I said good-bye to Gretchen and headed to my house with Hickory and Dickory. I found more glass in surprising places and Babar cowering in the shower stall. I managed to coax him out and gave him a big hug. He licked my face with increasing franticness. After I petted him and calmed him down, I reached for my PDA to call Mom or Dad, and then realized I had left it over at Gretchen's. I had Hickory and Dickory stay with Babar—he needed their company more than I did at the moment—and walked over to Gretchen's. As I walked to her house, her front door swung open and Gretchen burst through it, saw me and ran to me, her PDA in one hand and mine in the other.

"Zoë," she said, and then her face tightened up, and whatever she had to say was lost for a minute.

"Oh, no," I said. "Gretchen. Gretchen. What is it? Is it your dad? Is your dad okay?"

Gretchen shook her head, and looked up at me. "It's not my dad," she said. "My dad is fine. It's not Dad. Zoë, Magdy just called me. He says something hit. Hit Enzo's homestead. He said the house is still there but there's something big in the yard. He thinks it's part of a missile. Says he tried to call Enzo but he's not there. No one's there. No one's answering there. He said they just built a bomb shelter, away from the house. In the yard, Zoë. Magdy says he keeps calling and no one answers. I just called Enzo, too. I don't get anything, Zoë. It doesn't even connect. I keep trying. Oh God, Zoë. Oh God, Zoë. Oh, God."

Enzo Paulo Gugino was born on Zhong Guo, the first child of Bruno and Natalie Gugino. Bruno and Natalie had known each other since they were children and everyone who knew them knew that from the first moment they laid eyes on each other that they would be together for every single moment of their lives. Bruno and Natalie didn't argue with this idea. Bruno and Natalie, as far as anyone ever knew, never argued about anything, and certainly didn't argue with each other. They married young, even for the deeply religious culture they lived in on Zhong Guo, in which people often married early. But no one could imagine the two of them not being together; their parents gave their consent and the two of them were married in one of the best-attended weddings anyone could remember in their hometown of Pomona Falls. Nine months later, almost to the day, there was Enzo.

Enzo was sweet from the moment he was born; he was always happy and only occasionally fussy, although (as was frequently explained, much to his later mortification) he had a marked tendency to take off his own diapers and smear the contents of them against the nearest available wall. This caused a real problem one time in a bank. Fortunately he was toilet-trained early.

Enzo met his best friend Magdy Metwalli in kindergarten. On the first day of school, a third-grader had tried to pick on Enzo, and pushed him hard down to the ground; Magdy, whom Enzo had never seen before in his life, launched himself at the third-grader and started punching him in the face. Magdy, who at the time was small for his age, did no real damage other than scaring the pee out of the third-grader (literally); it was Enzo who eventually pulled Magdy off the third-grader and calmed him down before they were all sent to the principal's office and then home for the day.

Enzo showed a flair for words early and wrote his first story when he was seven, entitled "The horrible sock that smelled bad and ate Pomona Falls except for my house," in which a large sock, mutated by its own horrible unwashed smell, started eating its way through the contents of an entire town and was thwarted only when the heroes Enzo and Magdy first punched it into submission and then threw it into a swimming pool filled with laundry soap. The first part of the story (about the origin of the sock) took three sentences; the climactic battle scene took three pages. Rumor is Magdy (the one reading the story, not the one in it) kept asking for more of the fight scene.

When Enzo was ten his mother became pregnant for a second time, with twins Maria and Katherina. The pregnancy was difficult, and complicated because Natalie's body had a hard time keeping two babies in it at once; the delivery was a near thing and Natalie came close to bleeding out more than once. It took Natalie more than a year to fully recover, and during that time the ten- and eleven-year-old Enzo helped his father and mother to care for his sisters, learning to change diapers and feed the girls when his mom needed a rest. This was the occasion of the only real fight between Magdy and Enzo: Magdy jokingly called Enzo a sissy for helping his mom, and Enzo smacked him in the mouth.

When Enzo was fifteen the Guginos and the Metwallis and two other families they knew entered a group application to be part of the very first colony world made up of citizens of the Colonial Union rather than citizens of Earth. For the next few months every part of Enzo's life, and the life of his family, was opened up to scrutiny, and he bore it with as much grace as anyone who was fifteen and who mostly just wanted to be left alone could have. Every member of every family was required to submit a statement explaining why they wanted to be part of the colony. Bruno Gugino explained how he had been a fan of the American Colonization era, and the early history of the Colonial Union; he wanted to be part of this new chapter of history. Natalie Gugino wrote about wanting to raise her family on a world where everyone was working together. Maria and Katherina drew pictures of them floating in space with smiley moons.

Enzo, who loved words more and more, wrote a poem, imagining himself standing on a new world, and titled it "The Stars My Destination." He later admitted he'd taken the title from an obscure fantasy adventure book that he'd never read but whose title stayed with him. The poem, meant only for his application, was leaked to the local media and became something of a sensation. It eventually became sort of an official unofficial anthem for the Zhong Guo colonization effort. And after all that, Enzo and his family and co-applicants really couldn't not be chosen to go.

When Enzo had just turned sixteen, he met a girl, named Zoë, and for some reason that passes understanding, he fell for her. Zoë was a girl who seemed like she knew what she was doing most of the time and was happy to tell you that this was in fact the case, all the time, but in their private moments, Enzo learned that Zoë was as nervous and uncertain and terrified that she would say or do something stupid to scare away this boy she thought she might love, as he was nervous and uncertain and terrified that he would do something stupid, too. They talked and touched and held and kissed and learned how not to be nervous and uncertain and terrified of each other. They did say and do stupid things, and they did eventually scare each other away, because they didn't know any better. But then they got over it, and when they were together again, that second time, they didn't wonder whether they might love each other. Because they knew they did. And they told each other so.

On the day Enzo died he talked to Zoë, joked with her about her missing the dinner she was supposed to have with his family, and promised to send her a poem he had written for her. Then he told her he loved her and heard her tell him she loved him. Then he sent her the poem and sat down with his family to dinner. When the emergency alert came, the Gugino family, father Bruno, mother Natalie, daughters Maria and Katherina, and son Enzo, went together into the attack shelter Bruno and Enzo had made just a week before, and sat together close, holding each other and waiting for the "all clear."

On the day Enzo died he knew he was loved. He knew he was loved by his mother and father who, like everyone knew, never stopped loving each other until the very moment they died. Their love for each other became their love for him, and for their daughters. He knew he was loved by his sisters, who he cared for when they were small, and when he was small. He knew he was loved by his best friend, who he never stopped getting out of trouble, and who he never stopped getting into trouble with. And he knew he was loved by Zoë—by me—who he called his love and who said the words back to him.

Enzo lived a life of love, from the moment he was born until the moment he died. So many people go through life without love. Wanting love. Hoping for love. Hungering for more of it than they have. Missing love when it was gone. Enzo never had to go through that. Would never have to.

All he knew all his life was love.

I have to think it was enough.

It would have to be, now.

I spent the day with Gretchen and Magdy and all of Enzo's friends, of whom there were so many, crying and laughing and remembering him, and then at some point I couldn't take any more because everyone had begun to treat me like Enzo's widow and though in a way I felt like I was, I didn't want to have to share that with anyone. It was mine and I wanted to be greedy for it for just a little while. Gretchen saw I had reached some sort of breaking point, and walked me back to her room and told me to get some rest, and that she'd check on me later. Then she gave me a fierce hug, kissed me on the temple and told me she loved me and closed the door behind me. I lay there in Gretchen's bed and tried not to think and did a pretty good job of it until I remembered Enzo's poem, waiting for me in my mail queue.

Gretchen had put my PDA on her desk and I walked over, took the PDA and sat back down on the bed, and pulled up my mail queue and saw the mail from Enzo. I reached to press the screen to retrieve it and then called up the directory instead. I found the folder titled "Enzo Dodgeball" and opened it and started playing the files, watching as Enzo flailed his way around the dodgeball court, taking hits to the face and tumbling to the ground with unbelievable comic timing. I watched until I laughed so hard that I could barely see, and had to put the PDA down for a minute to concentrate on the simple act of breathing in and out.

When I had mastered that again, I picked up the PDA, called up the mail queue, and opened the mail from Enzo.

Zoë:

Here you are. You'll have to imagine the arm waving for now. But the live show is coming! That is, after we have pie. Mmmm . . . pie.

Love you.

Enzo.

I love you, too, Enzo. I love you.

I miss you.

TWENTY-ONE

The next morning I found out Dad was under arrest.

"It's not exactly arrest," Dad said at our kitchen table, having his morning coffee. "I've been relieved of my position as colony leader and have to travel back to Phoenix Station for an inquiry. So it's more like a trial. And if that goes badly then I'll be arrested."

"Is it going to go badly?" I asked.

"Probably," Dad said. "They don't usually have an inquiry if they don't know how it's going to turn out, and if it was going to turn out well, they wouldn't bother to have it." He sipped his coffee.

"What did you do?" I asked. I had my own coffee, loaded up with cream and sugar, which was sitting ignored in front of me. I was still in shock about Enzo, and this really wasn't helping.

"I tried to talk General Gau out of walking into the trap we set for him and his fleet," Dad said. "When we met I asked him not to call his fleet. Begged him not to, actually. It was against my orders. I was told to engage in 'nonessential conversation' with him. As if you can have nonessential conversation with someone who is planning to take over your colony, and whose entire fleet you're about to blow up."

"Why did you do it?" I asked. "Why did you try to give General Gau an out?"

"I don't know," Dad said. "Probably because I didn't want the blood of all those crews on my hands."

"You weren't the one who set off the bombs," I said.

"I don't think that matters, do you?" Dad said. He set down his cup. "I was still part of the plan. I was still an active participant. I still bear some responsibility. I wanted to know that at the very least I tried in some small way to avoid so much bloodshed. I guess I was just hoping there might be a way to do things other than the way that ends up with everyone getting killed."

I got up out of my chair and gave my dad a big hug. He took it, and then looked at me, a little surprised, when I sat back down. "Thank you," he said. "I'd like to know what that was about."

"It was me being happy that we think alike," I said. "I can tell we're related, even if it's not biologically."

"I don't think anyone would doubt we think alike, dear," Dad said. "Although given that I'm about to get royally shafted by the Colonial Union, I'm not sure it's such a good thing for you."

"I think it is," I said.

"And biology or not, I think we're both smart enough to figure out that things are not going well for anyone," Dad said. "This is a real big mess, nor are we out of it."

"Amen," I said.

"How are you, sweetheart?" Dad asked. "Are you going to be okay?"

I opened my mouth to say something and closed it again. "I think right now I want to talk about anything else in the world besides how I'm doing," I said, finally.

"All right," Dad said. He started talking about himself then, not because he was an egotist but because he knew listening to him would help me take my mind off my own worries. I listened to him talk on without worrying too much about what he said.

Dad left on the supply ship San Joaquin the next day, with Manfred Trujillo and a couple other colonists who were going as representatives of Roanoke, on political and cultural business. That was their cover, anyway. What they were really doing, or so Jane had told me, was trying to find out anything about what was going on in the universe involving Roanoke and who had attacked us. It would take a week for Dad and the others to reach Phoenix Station; they'd spend a day or so there and then it would take another week for them to return. Which is to say, it'd take another week for everyone but Dad to return; if Dad's inquiry went against him, he wouldn't be coming back.

We tried not to think about that.

Three days later most of the colony converged on the Gugino homestead and said good-bye to Bruno and Natalie, Maria, Katherina, and Enzo. They were buried where they had died; Jane and others had removed the missile debris that had fallen on them, reshaped the area with new soil, and set new sod on top. A marker was placed to note the family. At some point in the future, there might be another, larger marker, but for now it was small and simple: the family name, the name of the members, and their dates. It reminded me of my own family marker, where my biological mother lay. For some reason I found this a little bit comforting.

Magdy's father, who had been Bruno Gugino's closest friend, spoke warmly about the whole family. A group of singers came and sang two of Natalie's favorite hymns from Zhong Guo. Magdy spoke, briefly and with difficulty about his best friend. When he sat back down, Gretchen was there to hold him while he sobbed. Finally we all stood and some prayed and others stood silently, with their heads bowed, thinking about missing friends and loved ones. Then people left, until it was just me and Gretchen and Magdy, standing silently by the marker.

"He loved you, you know," Magdy said to me, suddenly.

"I know," I said.

"No," Magdy said, and I saw how he was trying to get across to me that he wasn't just making comforting words. "I'm not talking about how we say we love something, or love people we just like. He really loved you, Zoë. He was ready to spend his whole life with you. I wish I could make you believe this."

I took out my PDA, opened it to Enzo's poem, and showed it to Magdy. "I believe it," I said.

Magdy read the poem, nodded. Then he handed the PDA back to me. "I'm glad," he said. "I'm glad he sent that to you. I used to make fun of him because he wrote you those poems. I told him that he was just being a goof." I smiled at that. "But now I'm glad he didn't listen to me. I'm glad he sent them. Because now you know. You know how much he loved you."

Magdy broke down as he tried to finish that sentence. I came up to him and held him and let him cry.

"He loved you too, Magdy," I said to him. "As much as me. As much as anyone. You were his best friend."

"I loved him too," Magdy said. "He was my brother. I mean, not my real brother . . ." He started to get a look on his face; he was annoyed with himself that he wasn't expressing himself like he wanted.

"No, Magdy," I said. "You were his real brother. In every way that matters, you were his brother. He knew you thought of him that way. And he loved you for it."

"I'm sorry, Zoë," Magdy said, and looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry I always gave you and Enzo a hard time. I'm sorry."

"Hey," I said, gently. "Stop that. You were supposed to give us a hard time, Magdy. Giving people a hard time is what you do. Ask Gretchen."

"It's true," Gretchen said, not unkindly. "It really is."

"Enzo thought of you as his brother," I said. "You're my brother too. You have been all this time. I love you, Magdy."

"I love you too, Zoë," Magdy said quietly, and then looked straight at me. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." I gave him another hug. "Just remember that as your new family member I'm now entitled to give you all sorts of crap."

"I can't wait," Magdy said, and then turned to Gretchen. "Does this make you my sister too?"

"Considering our history, you better hope not," Gretchen said. Magdy laughed at that, which was a good sign, then gave me a peck on a cheek, gave Gretchen a hug, and then walked from the grave of his friend and brother.

"Do you think he's going to be okay?" I asked Gretchen, as we watched him go.

"No," Gretchen said. "Not for a long time. I know you loved Enzo, Zoë, I really do, and I don't want this to sound like I'm trying to undercut that. But Enzo and Magdy were two halves of the same whole." She nodded to Magdy. "You lost someone you love. He's lost part of himself. I don't know if he's going to get over that."

"You can help him," I said.

"Maybe," Gretchen said. "But think about what you're asking me to do."

I laughed. It's why I loved Gretchen. She was the smartest girl I ever knew, and smart enough to know that being smart had its own repercussions. She could help Magdy, all right, by becoming part of what he was missing. But it meant her being that, one way or another, for the rest of their lives. She would do it, because when it came down to it she really did love Magdy. But she was right to worry about what it meant for her.

"Anyway," Gretchen said, "I'm not done helping someone else."

I snapped out of my thoughts at that. "Oh," I said. "Well. You know. I'm okay."

"I know," Gretchen said. "I also know you lie horribly."

"I can't fool you," I said.

"No," Gretchen said. "Because what Enzo was to Magdy, I am to you."

I hugged her. "I know," I said.

"Good," Gretchen said. "Whenever you forget, I'll remind you."

"Okay," I said. We unhugged and Gretchen left me alone with Enzo and his family, and I sat with them for a long time.

Four days later, a note from Dad from a skip drone from Phoenix Station.

A miracle, it said. I'm not headed for prison. We are heading back on the next supply ship. Tell Hickory and Dickory that I will need to speak to them when I return. Love you.

There was another note for Jane, but she didn't tell me what was in it.

"Why would Dad want to talk to you?" I asked Hickory.

"We don't know," Hickory said. "The last time he and I spoke of anything of any importance was the day—I am sorry—that your friend Enzo died. Some time ago, before we left Huckleberry, I had mentioned to Major Perry that the Obin government and the Obin people stood ready to assist you and your family here on Roanoke should you need our assistance. Major Perry reminded me of that conversation and asked me if the offer still stood. I told him that at the time I believed it did."

"You think Dad is going to ask for your help?" I asked.

"I do not know," Hickory said. "And since I last spoke to Major Perry circumstances have changed."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Dickory and I have finally received detailed updated information from our government, up to and including its analysis of the Colonial Union's attack on the Conclave fleet," Hickory said. "The most important piece of news is that we have been informed that shortly after the Magellan disappeared, the Colonial Union came to the Obin government and asked it not to search for the Roanoke colony, nor to offer it assistance if it were to be located by the Conclave or any other race."

"They knew you would come looking for me," I said.

"Yes," Hickory said.

"But why would they tell you not to help us?" I asked.

"Because it would interfere with the Colonial Union's own plans to lure the Conclave fleet to Roanoke," Hickory said.

"That's happened," I said. "That's done. The Obin can help us now," I said.

"The Colonial Union has asked us to continue not to offer aid or assistance to Roanoke," Hickory said.

"That makes no sense," I said.

"We are inclined to agree," Hickory said.

"But that means that you can't even help me," I said.

"There is a difference between you and the colony of Roanoke," Hickory said. "The Colonial Union cannot ask us not to protect or assist you. It would violate the treaty between our peoples, and the Colonial Union would not want to do that, especially now. But the Colonial Union may choose to interpret the treaty narrowly and has. Our treaty concerns you, Zoë. To a much lesser extent it concerns your family, meaning Major Perry and Lieutenant Sagan. It does not concern Roanoke colony at all."

"It does when I live here," I said. "This colony is of a great deal of concern to me. Its people are of a great deal of concern to me. Everybody I care about in the whole universe is here. Roanoke matters to me. It should matter to you."

"We did not say it did not matter to us," Hickory said, and I heard something in its voice I had never heard before: reproach. "Nor do we suggest it does not matter to you, for many reasons. We are telling you how the Colonial Union is asking the Obin government to view its rights under treaty. And we are telling you that our government, for its own reasons, has agreed."

"So if my dad asks for your help, you will tell him no," I said.

"We will tell him that so long as Roanoke is a Colonial Union world, we are unable to offer help."

"So, no," I said.

"Yes," Hickory said. "We are sorry, Zoë."

"I want you to give me the information your government has given you," I said.

"We will do so," Hickory said. "But it is in our native language and file formatting, and will take a considerable amount of time for your PDA to translate."

"I don't care," I said.

"As you wish," Hickory said.

Not too long after that I stared at the screen of my PDA and ground my teeth together as it slowly plodded through file transformations and translations. I realized it would be easier just to ask Hickory and Dickory about it all, but I wanted to see it all with my own eyes. However long it took.

It took long enough that I had hardly read any of it by the time Dad and the others had made it home.

"This all looks like gibberish to me," Gretchen said, looking at the documents I was showing her on my PDA. "It's like it was translated from monkey or something."

"Look," I said. I pulled up a different document. "According to this, blowing up the Conclave fleet backfired. It was supposed to make the Conclave collapse and all the races start shooting at each other. Well, the Conclave is starting to collapse, but hardly any of them are actually fighting each other. They're attacking Colonial Union worlds instead. They really messed this up."

"If you say this is what it says, I'm going to believe you," Gretchen said. "I'm not actually finding verbs here."

I pulled up another document. "Here, this is about a Conclave leader named Nerbros Eser. He's General Gau's main competition for leadership of the Conclave now. Gau still doesn't want to attack the Colonial Union directly, even though we just destroyed his fleet. He still thinks the Conclave is strong enough to keep doing what it's been doing. But this Eser guy thinks the Conclave should just wipe us out. The Colonial Union. And especially us here on Roanoke. Just to make the point that you don't mess with the Conclave. The two of them are fighting over control of the Conclave right now."

"Okay," Gretchen said. "But I still don't know what any of this means, Zoë. Speak not-hyper-ese to me. You're losing me."

I stopped and took a breath. Gretchen was right. I'd spent most of the last day reading these documents, drinking coffee, and not sleeping; I was not at the peak of my communication skills. So I tried again.

"The whole point of founding Roanoke colony was to start a war," I said.

"It looks like it worked," Gretchen said.

"No," I said. "It was supposed to start a war within the Conclave. Blowing up their fleet was supposed to tear the Conclave apart from the inside. It would end the threat of this huge coalition of alien races and bring things back to the way it was before, when every race was fighting every other race. We trigger a civil war, and then we sweep in while they're all fighting and scoop up the worlds we want and come out of it all stronger than before—maybe too strong for any one race or even a small group of races to square off against. That was the plan."

"But you're telling me it didn't work that way," Gretchen said.

"Right," I said. "We blew up the fleet and got the Conclave members fighting, but who they're fighting is us. The reason we didn't like the Conclave is that it was four hundred against one, the one being us. Well, now it's still four hundred against one, except now no one's listening to the one guy who was keeping them from engaging in total war against us."

"Us here on Roanoke," Gretchen said.

"Us everywhere," I said. "The Colonial Union. Humans. Us. This is happening now," I said. "Colonial Union worlds are being attacked. Not just the new colony worlds, the ones that usually get attacked. Even the established colonies—the ones that haven't been attacked in decades—are getting hit. And unless General Gau gets them all back in line, these attacks are going to keep happening. They're going to get worse."

"I think you need a new hobby," Gretchen said, handing me back my PDA. "Your new one here is really depressing."

"I'm not trying to scare you," I said. "I thought you would want to know about all this."

"You don't have to tell me," Gretchen said. "You need to tell your parents. Or my dad. Someone who actually knows what to do about all this."

"They already know," I said. "I heard John and Jane talking about it last night after he got back from Phoenix Station. Everyone there knows the colonies are under attack. No one's reporting it—the Colonial Union has a lockdown on the news—but everyone's talking about it."

"What does that leave for Roanoke?" Gretchen said.

"I don't know," I said. "But I know we don't have a lot of pull right now."

"So we're all going to die," Gretchen said. "Well. Gee. Thanks, Zoë. I'm really glad to know it."

"It's not that bad yet," I said. "Our parents are working on it. They'll figure it out. We're not all going to die."

"Well, you're not going to die, at least," Gretchen said.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"If things really go swirling, the Obin will swoop in and take you out of here," Gretchen said. "Although if all of the Colonial Union is really under attack, I'm not sure where you're going to end up going. But the point is, you have an escape route. The rest of us don't."

I stared at Gretchen. "That's incredibly unfair," I said. "I'm not going anywhere, Gretchen."

"Why?" Gretchen said. "I'm not angry at you that you have a way out, Zoë. I'm envious. I've been through one attack. Just one missile got through and it didn't even explode properly, and it still did incredible damage and killed someone I care about and everyone in his family. When they come for us for real, we don't have a chance."

"You still have your training," I said.

"I'm not going to be able to engage in single combat with a missile, Zoë," Gretchen said, annoyed. "Yes, if someone decides to have a landing party here, I might be able to fight them off for a while. But after what we've done to that Conclave fleet, do you think anyone is really going to bother? They're just going to blow us up from the sky. You said it yourself. They want to be rid of us. And you're the only one that has a chance of getting out of here."

"I already said I'm not going anywhere," I said.

"Jesus, Zoë," Gretchen said. "I love you, I really do, but I can't believe you're actually that dumb. If you have a chance to go, go. I don't want you to die. Your mom and dad don't want it. The Obin will hack a path through all the rest of us to keep you from dying. I think you should take the hint."

"I get the hint," I said. "But you don't understand. I've been the sole survivor, Gretchen. It's happened to me before. Once is enough for any lifetime. I'm not going anywhere."

"Hickory and Dickory want you to leave Roanoke," Dad said to me, after he had paged me with his PDA. Hickory and Dickory were standing in the living room with him. I was clearly coming in on some sort of negotiation between them. And it was also clearly about me. The tone of Dad's voice was light enough that I could tell he was hoping to make some point to the Obin, and I was pretty sure I knew what the point was.

"Are you and Mom coming?" I said.

"No," Dad said.

This I expected. Whatever was going to happen with the colony, both John and Jane would see it through, even if it meant they would die with it. It's what they expected of themselves as colony leaders, as former soldiers, and as human beings.

"Then to hell with that," I said. I looked at Hickory and Dickory when I said it.

"Told you," Dad said to Hickory.

"You didn't tell her to come away," Hickory said.

"Go away, Zoë," Dad said. This was said with such a sarcastic delivery that even Hickory and Dickory couldn't miss it.

I gave a less-than-entirely-polite response to that, and then to Hickory and Dickory, and then, for good measure, to the whole idea that I was something special to the Obin. Because I was feeling saucy, and also because I was tired of the whole thing. "If you want to protect me," I said to Hickory, "then protect this colony. Protect the people I care about."

"We cannot," Hickory said. "We are forbidden to do so."

"Then you have a problem," I said, "because I'm not going anywhere. And there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it." And then I left, dramatically, partly because I think that was what Dad was expecting, and partly because I was done saying what I wanted to say on the matter.

Then I went to my room and waited for Dad to call me again. Because whatever was going on between him and Hickory and Dickory, it wasn't over when I stomped out of the room. And like I said, whatever it was, was clearly about me.

About ten minutes later Dad called for me again. I went back into the living room. Hickory and Dickory were gone.

"Sit down, Zoë, please," Dad said. "I need you to do something for me."

"Does it involve leaving Roanoke?" I asked.

"It does," Dad said.

"No," I said.

"Zoë," Dad said.

"No," I said again. "And I don't understand you. Ten minutes ago you were happy to have me stand here in front of Hickory and Dickory and tell them I wasn't going anywhere, and now you want me to leave? What did they tell you to make you change your mind?"

"It's what I told them," Dad said. "And I haven't changed my mind. I need you to go, Zoë."

"For what?" I said. "So I can stay alive while everyone I care about dies? You and Mom and Gretchen and Magdy? So I can be saved when Roanoke is destroyed?"

"I need you to go so I can save Roanoke," Dad said.

"I don't understand," I said.

"That's probably because you didn't actually let me finish before you got on your soapbox," Dad said.

"Don't mock me," I said.

Dad sighed. "I'm not trying to mock you, Zoë. But what I really need from you right now is to be quiet so I can tell you about this. Can you do that, please? It will make things go a lot more quickly. Then if you say no, at least you'll be saying no for the right reasons. All right?"

"All right," I said.

"Thank you," Dad said. "Look. Right now all of the Colonial Union is under attack because we destroyed the Conclave fleet. Every CU world has been hit. The Colonial Defense Forces are strained as it is, and it's going to get worse. A lot worse. The Colonial Union is already making decisions about what colonies it can afford to lose when push comes to shove."

"And Roanoke is one of those," I said.

"Yes," Dad said. "Very definitely. But it's more than that, Zoë. There was a possibility that I might have been able to ask the Obin to help us here on Roanoke. Because you were here. But the Colonial Union has told the Obin not to help us at all. They can take you from here, but they can't help you or us defend Roanoke. The Colonial Union doesn't want them to help us."

"Why not?" I asked. "That doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't make sense if you assume the Colonial Union wants Roanoke to survive," Dad said. "But look at it another way, Zoë. This is the first colony with colonists from the CU rather than Earth. The settlers here are from the ten most powerful and most populous Colonial Union worlds. If Roanoke is destroyed, all ten of those worlds are going to be hit hard by the loss. Roanoke will become a rallying cry for those worlds. And for the whole Colonial Union."

"You're saying we're worth more to the Colonial Union dead than alive," I said.

"We're worth more as a symbol than as a colony," Dad said. "Which is inconvenient for those of us who live here and want to stay alive. But, yes. It's why they won't let the Obin help us. It's why we don't make the cut for resources."

"You know this for sure?" I asked. "Someone told you this when you went back to Phoenix Station?"

"Someone did," Dad said. "A man named General Szilard. He was Jane's former commanding officer. It was unofficial, but it matched up with my own internal math."

"And you trust him?" I asked. "No offense, but the Colonial Union hasn't exactly been on the up-and-up with us lately."

"I have my issues with Szilard," Dad said. "And so does your mom. But yes. I trust him on this. Right now he's the only one in the whole Colonial Union I actually do trust."

"What does this have to with me leaving Roanoke?" I asked.

"General Szilard told me something else when I saw him," Dad said. "Also unofficial, but from good sources. He told me that General Gau, the Conclave leader—"

"I know who he is, Dad," I said. "I've been keeping up with current events."

"Sorry," Dad said. "He said General Gau was being targeted for assassination by someone in his own close circle of advisors, and that the assassination would happen soon, probably in the next few weeks."

"Why'd he tell you this?" I asked.

"So I could use it," Dad said. "Even if the Colonial Union wanted to tell General Gau about the attempt—which it doesn't, since it probably would like to see it succeed—there's no reason to believe that Gau would consider it credible. The CU did just blow up his fleet. But Gau might listen to the information if it came from me, because he's already had dealings with me."

"And you were the one who begged him not to bring his fleet to Roanoke," I said.

"Right," Dad said. "It's because of that we've been attacked as little as we have. General Gau said to me that neither he nor the Conclave would retaliate against Roanoke itself for what happened to the fleet."

"We were still attacked," I said.

"But not by the Conclave itself," Dad said. "By someone else, testing our defenses. But if Gau is assassinated, that guarantee dies with him. And then it's open season on Roanoke, and we'll get hit, fast, because we're where the Conclave had its biggest defeat. We're a symbol for the Conclave, too. So we have to let General Gau know he's in danger. For our own sake."

"If you tell him this, you'll be giving information to an enemy of the Colonial Union," I said. "You'll be a traitor."

Dad gave me a wry grin. "Trust me, Zoë," he said. "I'm already neck-deep in trouble." His smile disappeared. "And yes, General Gau is an enemy of the Colonial Union. But I think he might be a friend to Roanoke. Right now, Roanoke needs all the friends it can get, wherever it can get them. The ones we used to have are turning their backs on us. We're going out to this new one, hat in hand."

"And by we you mean me," I said.

"Yes," Dad said. "I need you to deliver this message for me."

"You don't need me to do it," I said. "You could do it. Mom could do it. It would be better from either of you."

Dad shook his head. "Neither Jane nor I can leave Roanoke, Zoë. The Colonial Union is watching us. They don't trust us. And even if we could, we can't leave because we belong here with the colonists. We're their leaders. We can't abandon them. Whatever happens to them happens to us too. We made a promise to them and we're going to stay and defend this colony, no matter what happens. You understand that." I nodded. "So we can't go.

"But you can, and secretly," Dad said. "The Obin already want to take you off Roanoke. The Colonial Union will allow it because it's part of their treaty with the Obin, and as long as Jane and I stay here, it won't raise an eyebrow. The Obin are technically neutral in the fight between the Conclave and the Colonial Union; an Obin ship will be able to get to General Gau's headquarters where a ship from the Colonial Union couldn't."

"So send Hickory and Dickory," I said. "Or just have the Obin send a skip drone to General Gau."

"It won't work," Dad said. "The Obin are not going to jeopardize their relationship with the Colonial Union to pass messages for me. The only reason they're doing this at all is because I'm agreeing to let them take you off Roanoke. I'm using the only piece of leverage I have with the Obin, Zoë. That's you.

"And there's something else. General Gau has to know that I believe the information I'm sending him is good. That I'm not just being a pawn again in a larger Colonial Union game. I need to give him a token of my sincerity, Zoë. Something that proves that I have as much to risk in sending him this information as he has in receiving it. Even if I or Jane could go ourselves, General Gau would have no reason to trust what we say to him, because he knows both Jane and I were soldiers and are leaders. He knows we would be willing to sacrifice ourselves for our colony. But he also knows that I'm not willing to sacrifice my only daughter. And neither is Jane.

"So you see, Zoë. It has to be you. No one else can do it. You're the only one who can get to General Gau, deliver the message, and be believed. Not me, not Jane, not Hickory and Dickory. No one else. Just you. Deliver the message, and we might still find a way to save Roanoke. It's a small chance. But right now it's the only one we've got."

I sat there for a few minutes, taking in what Dad asked of me. "You know if Hickory and Dickory take me off Roanoke, they're not going to want to bring me back," I said, finally. "You know that."

"I'm pretty sure of it," Dad said.

"You're asking me to leave," I said. "You're asking me to accept that I might not ever see any of you again. Because if General Gau won't believe me, or if he's killed before I can talk to him, or even if he does believe me but can't do anything to help us, this trip won't mean anything. All it will do is get me off Roanoke."

"If that's all it did, Zoë, I still wouldn't complain," Dad said, and then quickly held up his hand, to stop me from commenting on that. "But if that's all I thought it would do, I wouldn't ask you to do it. I know you don't want to leave Roanoke, Zoë. I know you don't want to leave us or your friends. I don't want anything bad to happen to you, Zoë. But you're also old enough now to make your own decisions. If when all was said and done you wanted to stay on Roanoke to face whatever came our way, I wouldn't try to stop you. Nor would Jane. We would be with you until the end. You know that."

"I do," I said.

"There are risks for everyone," Dad said. "When Jane and I tell the Roanoke colony council about this—which we will do once you're gone—I'm pretty sure they are going to kick us out as the colony leaders. When news gets back to the Colonial Union, Jane and I are almost certainly going to be arrested on charges of treason. Even if everything goes perfectly, Zoë, and General Gau accepts your message and acts on it and maybe even makes sure that Roanoke stays unmolested, we will still have to pay for our actions. Jane and I accept this. We think it's worth it for a chance to keep Roanoke safe. The risk for you here, Zoë, is that if you do this, you might not see us or your friends again for a very long time, or at all. It's a big risk. It's a real risk. You have to decide whether it's one worth taking."

I thought about this some more. "How long do I have to think about this?" I asked.

"All the time you need," Dad said. "But those assassins aren't sitting around doing nothing."

I glanced over to where Hickory and Dickory had been. "How long do you think it will take them to get a transport here?" I asked.

"Are you kidding?" Dad said. "If they didn't send for one the second I was done talking to them, I'll eat my hat."

"You don't wear a hat," I said.

"I will buy a hat and eat it, then," Dad said.

"I'm going to come back," I said. "I'm going to take this message to General Gau, and then I'm going to get back here. I'm not sure how I'm going to convince the Obin of that, but I'm going to do it. I promise you, Dad."

"Good," Dad said. "Bring an army with you. And guns. And battle cruisers."

"Guns, cruisers, army," I said, running down the checklist. "Anything else? I mean, as long as I'm going shopping."

"Rumor is that I might be in the market for a hat," Dad said.

"Hat, right," I said.

"Make it a jaunty hat," he said.

"I promise nothing," I said.

"Fine," Dad said. "But if you have to choose between the hat and the army, pick the army. And make it a good one. We're going to need it."

"Where is Gretchen?" Jane asked me. We stood outside the small Obin transport. I had already said good-bye to Dad. Hickory and Dickory waited for me inside the transport.

"I didn't tell her I was leaving," I said.

"She is going to be very upset about that," Mom said.

"I don't intend to be away long enough for her to miss me," I said. Mom didn't say anything to that.

"I wrote her a note," I said, finally. "It's scheduled for delivery tomorrow morning. I told her what I thought I could tell her about why I left. I told her to talk to you about the rest of it. So she might come by to see you."

"I'll talk to her about it," Jane said. "I'll try to make her understand."

"Thanks," I said.

"How are you?" Mom asked.

"I'm terrified," I said. "I'm scared I'll never see you or Dad or Gretchen again. I'm scared I'm going to screw this up. I'm scared that even if I don't screw this up it won't matter. I feel like I'm going to pass out, and I've felt that way since this thing landed."

Jane gave me a hug and then looked to my neck, puzzled. "You're not taking your jade elephant pendant?" she said.

"Oh," I said. "It's a long story. Tell Gretchen I said for her to tell it to you. You need to know about it anyway."

"Did you lose it?" Jane asked.

"It's not lost," I said. "It's just not with me anymore."

"Oh," Jane said.

"I don't need it anymore," I said. "I know who in this world loves me, and has loved me."

"Good," Jane said. "What I was going to tell you is that as well as remembering who loves you, you should remember who you are. And everything about who you are. And everything about what you are."

"What I am," I said, and smirked. "It's because of what I am that I'm leaving. What I am has been more trouble than it's worth, if you ask me."

"That doesn't surprise me," Jane said. "I have to tell you, Zoë, that there have been times when I have felt sorry for you. So much of your life has been completely out of your control. You've lived your life under the gaze of an entire race of people, and they have made their demands on you right from the beginning. I'm always amazed you've stayed sane through all of it."

"Well, you know," I said. "Good parents help."

"Thank you," Jane said. "We tried to keep your life as normal as possible. And I think we've raised you well enough that I can tell you this and have you understand it: What you are has made demands of you all your life. Now it's time to demand something back. Do you understand?"

"I'm not sure," I said.

"Who you are has always had to make room for what you are," Jane said. "You know that."

I nodded. It had.

"Part of that was because you were young, and what you are is so much larger than who you are," Jane said. "You can't expect a normal eight-year-old or even a fourteen-year-old to understand what it means to be something like what you are. But you're old enough now to understand it. To get an appreciation for it. To know how you can use it, for something besides trying to stay up late."

I smiled, amazed that Jane remembered me trying to use the treaty to stay up past my bedtime.

"I've watched you in the last year," Jane said. "I've seen how you interact with Hickory and Dickory. They've imposed a lot on you because of what you are. All that training and practicing. But you've also started asking more of them. All those documents you've had them give you."

"I didn't know you knew about that," I said.

"I was an information officer," Jane said. "This sort of thing is my job. My point is that you've become more willing to use that power. You are finally taking control of your life. What you are is starting to make room for who you are."

"It's a start," I said.

"Keep going," Jane said. "We need who you are, Zoë. We need you to take what you are—every part of what you are—and use it to save us. To save Roanoke. And to come back to us."

"How do I do it?" I asked.

Jane smiled. "Like I said: Demand something back," she said.

"That's unhelpfully vague," I said.

"Perhaps," Jane said, and then kissed me on the cheek. "Or maybe I just have faith that you're smart enough to figure it out on your own."

Mom got a hug for that.

Ten minutes later I was fifteen klicks above Roanoke and climbing, heading for an Obin transport, thinking about what Jane had said.

"You will find that our Obin ships travel far more quickly than your Colonial Union ships," Hickory said.

"Is that right," I said. I wandered over to where Hickory and Dickory had placed my luggage and picked out one of the suitcases.

"Yes," Hickory said. "Far more efficient engines and better artificial gravity management. We will reach skip distance from Roanoke in a little under two days. It would take one of your ships five or six days to reach the same distance."

"Good," I said. "The sooner we get to General Gau the better." I unzipped the suitcase.

"This is a very exciting moment for us," Hickory said. "This is the first time since you have lived with Major Perry and Lieutenant Sagan that you will meet other Obin in person."

"But they know all about me," I said.

"Yes," Hickory said. "The recordings of the last year have made their way to all Obin, both in unedited and digest form. The unedited versions will take time to process."

"I'll bet," I said. "Here we are." I found what I was looking for: the stone knife, given to me by my werewolf. I had packed it quickly, when no one was looking. I was just making sure that I didn't imagine packing it.

"You brought your stone knife," Hickory said.

"I did," I said. "I have plans for it."

"What plans?" Hickory asked.

"I'll tell you later," I said. "But tell me, Hickory," I said. "This ship we're going to. Is there anyone important on it?"

"Yes," Hickory said. "Because it is the first time that you have been in the presence of other Obin since you were a child, one of the members of Obin's governing council will be there to greet you. It very much wants to meet with you."

"Good," I said, and glanced at the knife. "I very much want to meet with it, too."

I think I actually made Hickory nervous right then.

TWENTY-TWO

"Demand something back," I said to myself as I waited for the Obin council member to greet me in my state-room. "Demand something back. Demand something back."

I'm definitely going to throw up, I thought.

You can't throw up, I answered myself. You haven't figured out the plumbing yet. You don't know what to throw up into.

That at least was true. The Obin don't excrete or take care of their personal hygiene the same way humans do, and they don't have the same issues with modesty that we do when they're with others of their own race. In the corner of my stateroom was an interesting array of holes and spigots that looked like something that you would probably use for bathroom purposes. But I had no idea what was what. I didn't want to use the thing that I thought was the sink, only to find out later it was supposed to be the toilet. Drinking from the toilet was fine for Babar, but I like to think I have higher standards.

This was definitely going to be an issue in another hour or two. I would have to ask Hickory or Dickory about it.

They weren't with me because I asked to be taken directly to my stateroom when we took off and then asked to be alone for an hour, at which point I wanted to see the council member. I think that by doing that, I messed up some sort of ceremonial welcome from the crew of the Obin transport (called Obin Transport 8532, in typical and boring Obin efficiency), but I didn't let that bother me. It did have the effect I was going for at the moment: I had decided I was going to be a little bit difficult. Being a little bit difficult was going to make it easier, I hoped, to do what I needed to do next. Which was to try to save Roanoke.

My dad had his own plan to do that, and I was going to help him with it. But I was thinking up a plan of my own. All it needed me to do was to demand something back.

Something really, really, really big.

Oh, well, my brain said. If this doesn't work at least you can ask this council guy where you're supposed to pee. Yes, well, that would be something.

There was a knock on my stateroom door, and the door then slid open. There was no lock on the door because Obin among themselves didn't have much of a concept of privacy (no signal on the door, either, for the same reason). Three Obin entered the room: Hickory and Dickory, and a third Obin who was new to me.

"Welcome, Zoë," it said to me. "We welcome you at the start of your time with the Obin."

"Thank you," I said. "Are you the council member?"

"I am," it said. "My name is Dock."

I tried very hard to keep a smile off my face and failed miserably. "You said your name was Dock," I said.

"Yes," it said.

"As in 'Hickory, Dickory, Dock,'" I said.

"That is correct," it said.

"That's quite a coincidence," I said, once I got my face back under control.

"It is not a coincidence," Dock said. "When you named Hickory and Dickory, we learned of the nursery rhyme from which you derived the names. When I and many other Obin chose names for ourselves, we chose words from the rhyme."

"I knew there were other Hickorys and Dickorys," I said. "But you're telling me that there are other Obin named 'Dock,' too."

"Yes," said Dock.

"And 'Mouse' and 'Clock,'" I said.

"Yes," said Dock.

"What about 'Ran,' 'Up,' and 'The'?" I asked.

"Every word in the rhyme is popular as a name," said Dock.

"I hope some of the Obin know they've named themselves after a definite article," I said.

"We are all aware of the meaning of the words," Dock said. "What was important is the association to you. You named these two 'Hickory' and 'Dickory.' Everything followed from there."

I had been getting sidetracked by the idea that an entire fearsome race of aliens had given themselves goofy names because of the names I had thoughtlessly given two of them more than a decade before; this comment by Dock snapped me back into focus. It was a reminder that the Obin, with their new consciousness, had so identified with me, so imprinted on me, even as a child, that even a nursery rhyme I liked carried weight.

Demand something back.

My stomach cramped up. I ignored it.

"Hickory," I said. "Are you and Dickory recording right now?"

"Yes," Hickory said.

"Stop please," I said. "Councilor Dock, are you recording this right now?"

"I am," it said. "Although only for my personal recollection."

"Please stop," I said. They all stopped recording.

"Have we offended you?" Dock asked.

"No," I said. "But I don't think you'll want this as part of the permanent record." I took a deep breath. "I require something from the Obin, Councilor."

"Tell me what it is," Dock said. "I will try to find it for you."

"I require the Obin to help me defend Roanoke," I said.

"I am afraid we are unable to help you with that request," Dock said.

"It's not a request," I said.

"I do not understand," Dock said.

"I said, it's not a request. I didn't request the Obin's help, Councilor. I said I require it. There's a difference."

"We cannot comply," Dock said. "The Colonial Union has requested that we provide no assistance to Roanoke."

"I don't care," I said. "What the Colonial Union wants at this point means absolutely nothing to me. The Colonial Union is planning to let everyone I care about die because it's decided Roanoke is more useful as a symbol than a colony. I don't give a crap about the symbolism. I care about the people. My friends and family. They need help. And I require it from you."

"Assisting you means breaking our treaty with the Colonial Union," Dock said.

"Your treaty," I said. "That would be the one that allows you access to me."

"Yes," Dickory said.

"You realize you have me," I said. "On this ship. Technically on Obin territory. You don't need Colonial Union permission to see me anymore."

"Our treaty with the Colonial Union is not only about access to you," Dock said. "It covers many issues, including our access to the consciousness machines we wear. We cannot go against this treaty, even for you."

"Then don't break it," I said, and this is where I mentally crossed my fingers. I knew the Obin would say they couldn't break their treaty with the Colonial Union; Hickory had said so before. This is where things were about to get really tricky. "I require the Obin help me defend Roanoke, Councilor. I didn't say the Obin had to do it themselves."

"I am afraid I do not understand you," Dock said.

"Get someone else to help me," I said. "Hint to them that the help would be appreciated. Do whatever you have to do."

"We would not be able to hide our influence," Dock said. "The Colonial Union will not be swayed by the argument that our forcing another race to act on your behalf does not constitute interference."

"Then ask someone the Colonial Union knows you can't force," I said.

"Whom do you suggest?" Dock asked.

There's an old expression for when you do something completely crazy. "Shooting the moon," it's called.

This was me raising my rifle.

"The Consu," I said.

Blam. There went my shot at a very faraway moon.

But it was a shot I had to take. The Obin were obsessed with the Consu, for perfectly excellent reasons: How could you not be obsessed with the creatures that gave you intelligence, and then ignored you for the rest of eternity? The Consu had spoken to the Obin only once since they gave them consciousness, and that conversation came at the high cost of half of all Obin, everywhere. I remembered that cost. I planned to use it to my advantage now.

"The Consu do not speak to us," Dock said.

"Make them," I said.

"We do not know how," Dock said.

"Find a way," I said. "I know how the Obin feel about the Consu, Councilor. I've studied them. I've studied you. Hickory and Dickory made a story about them. Obin's first creation myth, except it's true. I know how you got them to speak to you. And I know you've tried to get them to speak to you again since then. Tell me it's not true."

"It's true," Dock said.

"I'm willing to guess you're still working on it even now," I said.

"We are," Dock said. "We have been."

"Now is the time to make that happen," I said.

"There is no guarantee that the Consu would help you, even if we convinced them to speak to us and hear our plea on your behalf," Dock said. "The Consu are unknowable."

"I understand that," I said. "It's worth a try anyway."

"Even if what you ask were possible, it would come at a high cost," Dock said. "If you knew what it cost us the last time we spoke to the Consu—"

"I know exactly how much it cost," I said. "Hickory told me. And I know the Obin are used to paying for what they get. Let me ask you, Councilor. What did you get from my biological father? What did you get from Charles Boutin?"

"He gave us consciousness," Dock said, "as you well know. But it came at a price. Your father asked for a war."

"Which you never gave him," I said. "My father died before you could pay up. You got his gift for free."

"The Colonial Union asked for a price to finish his work," Dock said.

"That's between you and the Colonial Union," I said. "It doesn't take anything away from what my father did, or the fact you never paid for it. I am his daughter. I am his heir. The fact you are here says that the Obin give me the honor they would give him. I could say to you that you owe me what you owe him: a war, at least."

"I cannot say that we owe you what we owed your father," Dock said.

"Then what do you owe me?" I asked. "What do you owe me for what I've done for you? What is your name?"

"My name is Dock," it said.

"A name you have because one day I named those two Hickory and Dickory," I said, pointing at my two friends. "It's only the most obvious example of what you have through me. My father gave you consciousness, but you didn't know what to do with it, did you? None of you did. All of you learned what to do with your consciousness by watching me grow into mine, as a child and now as who I am today. Councilor, how many Obin have watched my life? Seen how I did things? Learned from me?"

"All of them," Dock said. "We have all learned from you, Zoë."

"What has it cost the Obin?" I asked. "From the time Hickory and Dickory came to live with me, until the moment I stepped onto this ship, what has it cost you? What have I ever asked of any Obin?"

"You have not asked for anything," Dock said.

I nodded. "So let's review. The Consu gave you intelligence and it cost you half of all the Obin when you came to ask them why they did it. My father gave you consciousness, and the price for it was a war, a price which you would have willingly paid had he lived. I have given you ten years of lessons on how to be conscious—on how to live. The bill for that has come due, Councilor. What price do I require? Do I require the lives of half the Obin in the universe? No. Do I require the Obin to commit to a war against an entire other race? No. I require only your help to save my family and friends. I don't even require that the Obin do it themselves, only that they find a way to have someone else do it for them. Councilor, given the Obin's history of what it's received and what it has cost, what I am requiring of the Obin now comes very cheap indeed."

Dock stared at me, silently. I stared back, mostly because I had forgotten to blink through all of that and I was afraid if I tried to blink now I might scream. I think it was making me look unnervingly calm. I could live with that.

"We were to send a skip drone when you arrived," Dock said. "It has not been sent yet. I will let the rest of the Obin council know of your requirement. I will tell them I support you."

"Thank you, Councilor," I said.

"It may take some time to decide on a course of action," Dock said.

"You don't have time," I said. "I am going to see General Gau, and I am going to deliver my dad's message to him. The Obin council has until I am done speaking to General Gau to act. If it has not, or will not, then you will leave General Gau without me."

"You will not be safe with the Conclave," Dock said.

"Are you under the impression that I will tolerate being among the Obin if you refuse me?" I said. "I keep telling you this: I am not asking for this. I am requiring it. If the Obin will not do this, they lose me."

"That would be very hard for some of us to accept," Dock said. "We had already lost you for a year, Zoë, when the Colonial Union hid your colony."

"Then what will you do?" I asked. "Drag me back onto the ship? Hold me captive? Record me against my will? I don't imagine that will be very entertaining. I know what I am to the Obin, Councilor. I know what uses you have all put me to. I don't think you will find me very useful after you refuse me."

"I understand you," Dock said. "And now I must send this message. Zoë, it is an honor to meet you. Please excuse me." I nodded. Dock left.

"Please close the door," I said to Hickory, who was the closest to it. It did.

"Thank you," I said, and threw up all over my shoes. Dickory was over to me immediately and caught me before I could fall completely.

"You are ill," Hickory said.

"I'm fine," I said, and then threw up all over Dickory. "Oh, God, Dickory," I said. "I'm so sorry."

Hickory came over, took me from Dickory and guided me toward the strange plumbing. It turned on a tap and water came bubbling out.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It is a sink," Hickory said.

"You're sure?" I asked. Hickory nodded. I leaned over and washed my face and rinsed my mouth out.

"How do you feel?" Hickory said, after I had cleaned myself off as best I could.

"I don't think I'm going to throw up anymore, if that's what you mean," I said. "Even if I wanted to, there's nothing left."

"You vomited because you are sick," Hickory said.

"I vomited because I just treated one of your leaders like it was my cabin boy," I said. "That's a new one for me, Hickory. It really is." I looked over at Dickory, who was covered in my upchuck. "And I hope it works. Because I think if I have to do that again, my stomach might just flop right out on the table." My insides did a flip-flop after I said that. Note to self: After having vomited, watch the overly colorful comments.

"Did you mean it?" Hickory said. "What you said to Dock?"

"Every word," I said, and then motioned at myself. "Come on, Hickory. Look at me. You think I'd put myself through all of this if I wasn't serious?"

"I wanted to be sure," Hickory said.

"You can be sure," I said.

"Zoë, we will be with you," Hickory said. "Me and Dickory. No matter what the council decides. If you choose to stay behind after you speak to General Gau, we will stay with you."

"Thank you, Hickory," I said. "But you don't have to do that."

"We do," Hickory said. "We would not leave you, Zoë. We have been with you for most of your life. And for all the life that we have spent conscious. With you and with your family. You have called us part of your family. You are away from that family now. You may not see them again. We would not have you be alone. We belong with you."

"I don't know what to say," I said.

"Say you will let us stay with you," Hickory said.

"Yes," I said. "Do stay. And thank you. Thank you both."

"You are welcome," Hickory said.

"And now as your first official duties, find me something new to wear," I said. "I'm starting to get really ripe. And then tell me which of those things over there is the toilet. Because now I really need to know."

TWENTY-THREE

Something was nudging me awake. I swatted at it. "Die," I said.

"Zoë," Hickory said. "You have a visitor."

I blinked up at Hickory, who was framed as a silhouette by the light coming from the corridor. "What are you talking about?" I said.

"General Gau," Hickory said. "He is here. Now. And wishes to speak to you."

I sat up. "You have got to be kidding me," I said. I picked up my PDA and looked at the time.

We had arrived in Conclave space fourteen hours earlier, popping into existence a thousand klicks out from the space station that General Gau had made the administrative headquarters of the Conclave. He said he hadn't wanted to favor one planet over another. The space station was ringed with hundreds of ships from all over Conclave space, and even more shuttles and cargo transports, going between ships and back and forth from the station. Phoenix Station, the largest human space station and so big I've heard that it actually affected tides on the planet Phoenix (by amounts measurable only by sensitive instruments, but still), would have fit into a corner of the Conclave HQ.

We had arrived and announced ourselves and sent an encrypted message to General Gau requesting an audience. We had been given parking coordinates and then willfully ignored. After ten hours of that, I finally went to sleep.

"You know I do not kid," Hickory said. It walked back to the doorway and turned up the lights in my stateroom. I winced. "Now, please," Hickory said. "Come to meet him."

Five minutes later I was dressed in something I hoped would be presentable and walking somewhat unsteadily down the corridor. After a minute of walking I said, "Oh, crap," and ran back to my stateroom, leaving Hickory standing in the corridor. A minute later I was back, bearing a shirt with something wrapped in it.

"What is that?" Hickory asked.

"A gift," I said. We continued our trip through the corridor.

A minute later I was standing in a hastily arranged conference room with General Gau. He stood to one side of a table surrounded by Obin-style seats, which were not really well designed either for his physiology or mine. I stood on the other, shirt in my hand.

"I will wait outside," Hickory said, after it delivered me.

"Thank you, Hickory," I said. It left. I turned and faced the general. "Hi," I said, somewhat lamely.

"You are Zoë," General Gau said. "The human who has the Obin to do her bidding." His words were in a language I didn't understand; they were translated through a communicator device that hung from his neck.

"That's me," I said. I heard my words translated into his language.

"I am interested in how a human girl is able to commandeer an Obin transport ship to take her to see me," General Gau said.

"It's a long story," I said.

"Give me the short version," Gau said.

"My father created special machines that gave the Obin consciousness. The Obin revere me as the only surviving link to my father. They do what I ask them to," I said.

"It must be nice to have an entire race at your beck and call," Gau said.

"You should know," I said. "You have four hundred races at yours. Sir."

General Gau did something with his head that I was going to hope was meant to be a smile. "That's a matter of some debate at this point, I'm afraid," he said. "But I am confused. I was under the impression that you are the daughter of John Perry, administrator of the Roanoke Colony."

"I am," I said. "He and his wife Jane Sagan adopted me after my father died. My birth mother had died some time before that. It is on my adopted parents' account that I am here now. Although I apologize"—I motioned to myself, and my state of unreadiness—"I didn't expect to meet you here, now. I thought we would come to you, and I would have time to prepare."

"When I heard that the Obin were ferrying a human to see me, and one from Roanoke, I was curious enough not to want to wait," Gau said. "I also find value in making my opposition wonder what I am up to. My coming to visit an Obin ship rather than waiting to receive their embassy will make some wonder who you are, and what I know that they don't."

"I hope I'm worth the trip," I said.

"If you're not, I'll still have made them nervous," Gau said. "But considering how far you've come, I hope for both our sakes the trip has been worth it. Are you completely dressed?"

"What?" I said. Of the many questions I might have been expecting, this wasn't one of them.

The general pointed to my hand. "You have a shirt in your hands," he said.

"Oh," I said, and put the shirt on the table between us. "It's a gift. Not the shirt. There's something wrapped in the shirt. That's the gift. I was hoping to find something else to put it in before I gave it to you, but you sort of surprised me. I'm going to shut up now and let you just have that."

The general gave me what I think was a strange look, and then reached out and unwrapped what was in the shirt. It was the stone knife given to me by the werewolf. He held it up and examined it in the light. "This is a very interesting gift," he said, and began moving it in his hand, testing it, I guessed, for weight and balance. "And quite a nicely designed knife."

"Thank you," I said.

"Not precisely modern weaponry," he said.

"No," I said.

"Figured that a general must have an interest in archaic weapons?" Gau asked.

"Actually there's a story behind it," I said. "There's a native race of intelligent beings on Roanoke. We didn't know about them before we landed. Not too long ago we met up with them for the first time, and things went badly. Some of them died, and some of us died. But then one of them and one of us met and decided not to try to kill each other, and exchanged gifts instead. That knife was one of those gifts. It's yours now."

"That's an interesting story," Gau said. "And I think I'm correct in supposing that this story has some implication for why you're here."

"It's up to you, sir," I said. "You might just decide it's a nice stone knife."

"I don't think so," Gau said. "Administrator Perry is a man who plays with subtext. It's not lost on me what it means that he has sent his daughter to deliver a message. But then to offer this particular gift, with its particular story. He's a man of some subtlety."

"I think so, too," I said. "But the knife is not from my dad. It's from me."

"Indeed," Gau said, surprised. "That's even more interesting. Administrator Perry didn't suggest it?"

"He doesn't know I had the knife," I said. "And he doesn't know how I got it."

"But you did intend to send me a message with it," Gau said. "One to complement your adopted father's."

"I hoped you'd see it that way," I said.

Gau set the knife down. "Tell me what Administrator Perry has to tell me," he said.

"You're going to be assassinated," I said. "Someone is going to try, anyway. It's someone close to you. Someone in your trusted circle of advisors. Dad doesn't know when or how, but he knows that it's planned to happen soon. He wanted you to know so you could protect yourself."

"Why?" General Gau asked. "Your adopted father is an official of the Colonial Union. He was part of the plan that destroyed the Conclave fleet and has threatened everything I have worked for, for longer than you have been alive, young human. Why should I trust the word of my enemy?"

"The Colonial Union is your enemy, not my dad," I said.

"Your dad helped kill tens of thousands," Gau said. "Every ship in my fleet was destroyed but my own."

"He begged you not to call your ships to Roanoke," I said.

"This was a place where he was all too subtle," Gau said. "He never explained how the trap had been set. He merely asked me not to call my fleet. A little more information would have kept thousands alive."

"He did what he could," I said. "You were there to destroy our colony. He wasn't allowed to surrender it to you. You know he didn't have many options. And as it was he was recalled by the Colonial Union and put on trial for even hinting to you that something might happen. He could have been sent to prison for the simple act of speaking to you, General. He did what he could."

"How do I know he's not just being used again?" Gau asked.

"You said you knew what it meant that he sent me to give you a message," I said. "I'm the proof that he's telling you the truth."

"You're the proof he believes he's telling me the truth," Gau said. "It's not to say that it is the truth. Your adopted father was used once. Why couldn't he be used again?"

I flared at this. "Begging your pardon, General," I said. "But you should know that by sending me to send you this warning, both my dad and my mom are absolutely assured of being labeled as traitors by the Colonial Union. They are both going to prison. You should know that as part of the deal to get the Obin to bring me to you, I can't go back to Roanoke. I have to stay with them. Because they believe that it's only a matter of time before Roanoke is destroyed, if not by you then by some part of the Conclave you don't have any control over anymore. My parents and I have risked everything to give you this warning. It's possible I'll never see them or anyone else on Roanoke again, because I am giving you this warning. Now, General, do you think any of us would do any of this if we were not absolutely certain about what we are telling you? Do you?"

General Gau said nothing for a moment. Then, "I am sorry you have all had to risk so much," he said.

"Then do my dad the honor of believing him," I said. "You're in danger, General. And that danger is closer than you think."

"Tell me, Zoë," Gau said, "what does Administrator Perry hope to get from telling me this? What does he want from me?"

"He wants you to stay alive," I said. "You promised him that as long as you were running the Conclave, you wouldn't attack Roanoke again. The longer you stay alive, the longer we stay alive."

"But there's the irony," Gau said. "Thanks to what happened at Roanoke, I'm not in as much control as I was. My time now is spent keeping others in line. And there are those who are looking at Roanoke as a way to take control from me. I'm sure you don't know about Nerbros Eser—"

"Sure I do," I said. "Your main opposition right now. He's trying to convince people to follow him. Wants to destroy the Colonial Union."

"I apologize," Gau said. "I forgot you're not just a messenger girl."

"It's all right," I said.

"Nerbros Eser is planning to attack Roanoke," Gau said. "I have been getting the Conclave back under my control—too slowly—but enough races support Eser that he has been able to fund an expedition to take Roanoke. He knows the Colonial Union is too weak to put up a defense of the colony, and he knows that at the moment I am in no position to stop him. If he can take Roanoke where I could not, more Conclave races could side with him. Enough that they would attack the Colonial Union directly."

"You can't help us, then," I said.

"Other than to tell you what I just have, no," Gau said. "Eser is going to attack Roanoke. But in part because Administrator Perry helped to destroy my fleet, there is no way I can do much to stop him now. And I doubt very much that your Colonial Union will do much to stop him."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because you are here," General Gau said. "Make no mistake, Zoë, I do appreciate your family's warning. But Administrator Perry is not so kind that he would have warned me out of his own simple goodness. As you've noted, the cost is too high for that. You are here because you have nowhere else to turn."

"But you believe Dad," I said.

"Yes," Gau said. "Unfortunately. Someone in my position is always a target. But now of all times I know that even some of those who I've trusted with my life and friendship are calculating the costs and deciding that I'm worth more to them dead than alive. And it makes sense for someone to try for me before Eser attacks Roanoke. If I'm dead and Eser takes revenge on your colony, no one else will even try to challenge him for control of the Conclave. Administrator Perry isn't telling me anything I don't know. He's only confirming what I do know."

"Then I've been no use to you," I said. And you've been no use to me, I thought but did not say.

"I wouldn't say that," Gau said. "One of the reasons I am here now is so that I could hear what you had to say to me without anyone else involved. To find out what I could do with the information you might have. To see if it has use to me. To see if you are of use to me."

"You already knew what I told you," I said.

"This is true," Gau said. "However, no one else knows how much you know. Not here, in any event." He reached over and picked up the stone knife and looked at it again. "And the truth of the matter is that I'm getting tired of not knowing, of those whom I trust, which is planning to stab me in the heart. Whoever is planning to assassinate me is going to be in league with Nerbros Eser. They are likely to know when he plans to attack Roanoke, and with how large a force. And perhaps working together we can find out both of these things."

"How?" I asked.

General Gau looked at me again, and did that I-hope-it's-a-smile thing with his head. "By doing a bit of political theater. By making them think we know what they do. By making them act because of it."

I smiled back at Gau. "'The play is the thing in which I shall catch the conscience of the king,'" I said.

"Precisely," Gau said. "Although it will be a traitor we catch, not a king."

"In that quote he was both," I said.

"Interesting," Gau said. "I'm afraid I don't know the reference."

"It's from a play called Hamlet," I said. "I had a friend who liked the playwright."

"I like the quote," Gau said. "And your friend."

"Thanks," I said. "I do too."

"One of you in this chamber is a traitor," General Gau said. "And I know which one of you it is."

Wow, I thought. The general sure knows how to start a meeting.

We were in the general's official advisors' chamber, an ornate room, which, the general told me beforehand, he never used except to receive foreign dignitaries with some semblance of pomp and circumstance. Since he was technically receiving me for this particular meeting, I felt special. But more to the point, the room featured a small raised platform with steps, on which sat a large chair. Dignitaries, advisors and their staff all approached it like it was a throne. This was going to be useful for what General Gau had in mind for today.

In front of the platform, the room opened up into a semicircle. Around the perimeter stood a curving bar, largely of standing height for most sentient species in the Conclave. This is where advisors' and dignitaries' staff stood, calling up documents and data when needed and whispering (or whatever) into small microphones that fed into earpieces (or whatever) worn by their bosses.

Their bosses—the advisors and dignitaries—filed into the area between the bar and the platform. Usually, I was told, they would have benches or chairs (or whatever suited their body shape best) offered to them so they could rest as they did their business. Today, they were all standing.

As for me, I was standing to the left and just in front of the general, who was seated in his big chair. On the opposite side of the chair was a small table, on which lay the stone knife, which I had just (and for the second time) presented to the general. This time it was delivered in packaging more formal than a shirt. The general had taken it out of the box I had found, admired it, and set it on the table.

Back along with the staff stood Hickory and Dickory, who were not happy with the plan the general had come up with. With them were three of the general's security detail, who were likewise not very pleased at all.

Well, now that we were doing it, I'm not sure I was entirely thrilled with it either.

"I thought we were here to hear a request from this young human," said one of the advisors, a tall Lalan (that is, tall even for a Lalan) named Hafte Sorvalh. Her voice was translated by the earpiece I had been given by the Obin.

"It was a pretense," Gau said. "The human has no petition, but information pertaining to which one of you intends to assassinate me."

This naturally got a stir in the chamber. "It is a human!" said Wert Ninung, a Dwaer. "No disrespect, General, but the humans recently destroyed the entire Conclave fleet. Any information they would share with you should be regarded as highly suspect, to say the least."

"I agree with this entirely, Ninung," Gau said. "Which is why when it was provided to me I did what any sensible person would have done and had my security people check the information thoroughly. I regret to say that the information was good. And now I must deal with the fact that one of my advisors—someone who was privy to all my plans for the Conclave—has conspired against me."

"I don't understand," said a Ghlagh whose name, if I could remember correctly, was Lernin Il. I wasn't entirely sure, however; Gau's security people had given me dossiers on Gau's circle of advisors only a few hours before the meeting, and given everything else I needed to do to prepare, I had barely had time to skim.

"What don't you understand, Lernin?" asked General Gau.

"If you know which of us is the traitor, why hasn't your security detail already dealt with them?" Il asked. "This could be done without exposing you to an unnecessary risk. Given your position you don't need to take any more risks than are absolutely necessary."

"We are not talking about some random killer, Il," the general said. "Look around you. How long have we known each other? How hard have each of us worked to create this great Conclave of races? We have seen more of each other over time than we have seen of our spouses and children. Would any of you have accepted it if I were to make one of you disappear over a vague charge of treason? Would that not seem to each of you that I was losing my grip and creating scapegoats? No, Il. We have come too far and done too much for that. Even this would-be assassin deserves better courtesy than that."

"What do you intend to do, then?" asked Il.

"I will ask the traitor in this room to come forward," he said. "It's not too late to right this wrong."

"Are you offering this assassin amnesty?" asked some creature whose name I just did not remember (or, given how it spoke, I suspect I could not actually pronounce, even if I did remember it).

"No," Gau said. "This person is not acting alone. They are part of a conspiracy that threatens what all of us have worked for." Gau gestured to me. "My human friend here has given me a few names, but that is not enough. For the security of the Conclave we need to know more. And to show all the members of the Conclave that treason cannot be tolerated, my assassin must answer for what they have done to this point. What I do offer is this: That they will be treated fairly and with dignity. That they will serve their term of punishment with some measure of comfort. That their family and loved ones will not be punished or held responsible, unless they themselves are conspirators. And that their crime will not be made known publicly. Every one outside this room will know only that this conspirator has retired from service. There will be punishment. There must be punishment. But there will not be the punishment of history."

"I want to know where this human got its information," said Wert Ninung.

Gau nodded to me. "This information ultimately comes from the Colonial Union's Special Forces division," I said.

"The same group that spearheaded the destruction of the Conclave fleet," Wert said. "Not especially trustworthy."

"Councilor Wert," I said, "how do you think the Special Forces were able to locate every one of the ships of your fleet? The only time it assembles is when it removes a colony. Locating four hundred ships among the tens of thousands that each race alone has at its disposal was an unheard of feat of military intelligence. After that, do you doubt that the Special Forces had difficulty coming up with a single name?"

Wert actually growled at me. I thought that was rude.

"I have already told you that I have had the information checked out," General Gau said. "There is no doubt it is accurate. That is not under discussion. What is under discussion is how the assassin will choose to be discovered. I repeat: The assassin is in this room, right now, among us. If they will come forward now, and share information on their other conspirators, their treatment will be generous, light and secret. The offer is in front of you now. I beg you, as an old friend, to take it. Come forward now."

No one in the room moved. General Gau stared at each of his advisors, directly and in the eye, for several seconds each. None of them took so much as a step forward.

"Very well," General Gau said. "We do this the hard way, then."

"What will you do now, General?" asked Sorvalh.

"Simple," Gau said. "I will call up each of you in turn. You will bow to me and swear your allegiance to me as the leader of the Conclave. Those of you who I know are truthful, I will offer you my thanks. The one of you who is a traitor, I will reveal you in front of those you have worked alongside for so long, and have you arrested. Your punishment will be severe. And it will be most definitely public. And it will end with your death."

"This is not like you, General," Sorvalh said. "You created the Conclave with the idea that there would be no dictators, no demands of personal allegiance. There is only allegiance to the Conclave. To its ideals."

"The Conclave is near collapse, Hafte," Gau said. "And you know as well as I do that Nerbros Eser and his sort will run the Conclave like a personal fiefdom. One among you has already decided that Eser's dictatorship is preferable to a Conclave where every race has a voice. It's clear to me that I must ask for the allegiance I once only held in trust. I am sorry it has come to this. But it has."

"What if we will not swear allegiance?" Sorvalh said.

"Then you will be arrested as a traitor," Gau said. "Along with the one who I know to be the assassin."

"You are wrong to do this," Sorvalh said. "You are going against your own vision for the Conclave to ask for this allegiance. I want you to know I believe this in my soul."

"Noted," Gau said.

"Very well," Sorvalh said, and stepped forward to the platform and knelt. "General Tarsem Gau, I offer you my allegiance as the leader of the Conclave."

Gau looked at me. This was my cue. I shook my head at him, clearly enough that everyone in the room could see that he was waiting for my verification.

"Thank you, Hafte," Gau said. "You may step back. Wert Ninung, please step forward."

Ninung did. As did the next six advisors. There were three left.

I was beginning to get very nervous. Gau and I had already agreed that we would not carry the act so far as to accuse someone who wasn't actually guilty. But if we got to the end without a traitor, then we both would have a lot to answer for.

"Lernin Il," General Gau said. "Please step forward."

Il nodded and smoothly moved forward and when he got to me, viciously shoved me to the floor and lunged for the stone knife Gau had left on the table next to him. I hit the floor so hard I bounced my skull on it. I heard screaming and honks of alarm from the other advisors. I rolled and looked up as Il raised the knife and prepared to plunge it into the general.

The knife was left out and within easy reach for a reason. Gau had already said he intended to reveal the traitor; he said he knew without a doubt who it was; he said the punishment for the traitor would include death. The traitor would already be convinced he would have nothing to lose by attempting the assassination then and there. But Gau's advisors didn't usually carry around killing implements on their person; they were bureaucrats and didn't carry anything more dangerous than a writing stylus. But a nice sharp stone knife carelessly left lying around would be just the thing to convince a desperate would-be assassin to take a chance. This was also one reason why the general's guards (and Hickory and Dickory) were stationed at the perimeter of the room instead of near the general; we had to give the illusion to the assassin that he could get in a stab or two before the guards got him.

The general wasn't stupid, of course; he was wearing body armor that protected most of the parts of his body susceptible to stab wounds. But the general's head and neck were still vulnerable. The general thought it was worth the risk, but now as I watched the general trying to move to protect himself, I came to the conclusion that the weakest part of our plan was the one where the general presumably avoids being stabbed to death.

Il was bringing down the knife. None of the general's guards or Hickory or Dickory was going to get there in time. Hickory and Dickory had trained me how to disarm an opponent; the problem was I was on the ground and not in any position to block the knife blow. And anyway the Ghlagh were a Conclave race; I hadn't spent any time learning any of their weak points.

But then something occurred to me, as I lay there on my back, staring up at Il.

I may not know much about the Ghlagh, but I sure know what a knee looks like.

I braced myself on the floor, pushed, and drove the heel of my foot hard into the side of Lernin Il's most available knee. It gave way with a sickly twist and I thought I could feel something in his leg go snap, which made me feel sick. Il squealed in pain and grabbed at his leg, dropping the knife. I scrambled away as quickly as I could. General Gau launched himself out of his chair and took Il all the rest of the way down.

Hickory and Dickory were suddenly by me, dragging me off the riser. Gau shouted something to his guards, who were racing toward the general.

"His staff!" Gau said. "Stop his staff!"

I looked over to the bar and saw three Ghlagh lunging at their equipment. Il's people were clearly in on the assassination and were now trying to signal their conspirators that they'd been discovered. Gau's men skidded to a stop and reversed themselves, leaping over the bar to get at Il's staff. They knocked away their equipment, but not before at least one of them had gotten a message through. We knew that because all through the Conclave headquarters, alarms began stuttering to life.

The space station was under attack.

Image

About a minute after Il had made his clumsy attack on General Gau, an Impo battle cruiser named the Farre launched six missiles into the portion of the Conclave space station where Gau's offices were. The Farre was commanded by an Impo named Ealt Ruml. Ruml, it turns out, had reached an agreement with Nerbros Eser and Lernin Il to take command of a new Conclave fleet after Gau was assassinated. Ruml would then take the entire fleet to Phoenix Station, destroy it and start working down the list of human worlds. In exchange all Ruml had to do was be prepared to do a little flagrant bombing of Gau's offices and flagship when signaled, as part of a larger, orchestrated coup attempt, which would feature Gau's assassination as the main event and the destruction of key battle ships from races loyal to Gau.

When Gau revealed to his advisors that he knew one of them was a traitor, one of Il's staffers sent a coded message to Ruml, informing him that everything was about to go sideways. Ruml in turn sent coded messages of his own to three other battle cruisers near the Conclave station, each captained by someone Ruml had converted to the cause. All four ships began warming up their weapons systems and selecting targets: Ruml targeted Gau's offices while the other traitors targeted Gau's flagship Gentle Star and other craft.

If everything went as planned, Ruml and his conspirators would have disabled the ships most likely to come to Gau's aid—not that it would matter, because Ruml would have opened up Gau's offices to space, sucking anyone in them (including, at the time, me) into cold, airless vacuum. Minutes later, when Il's staff sent a confirmation note just before getting their equipment kicked out of their paws, Ruml launched his missiles and readied another set to go.

And was, I imagine, entirely surprised when the Farre was struck broadside almost simultaneously by three missiles fired from the Gentle Star. The Star and six other trusted ships had been put on alert by Gau to watch for any ships that began warming up their weapons systems. The Star had spotted the Farre warming up its missile batteries and had quietly targeted the ship and prepared its own defense.

Gau had forbidden any action until someone else's missiles flew, but the instant the Farre launched, the Star did the same, and then began antimissile defenses against the two missiles targeting it, sent by the Arrisian cruiser Vut-Roy.

The Star destroyed one of the missiles and took light damage from the second. The Farre, which had not been expecting a counterattack, took heavy damage from the Star's missiles and even more damage when its engine ruptured, destroying half of the ship and killing hundreds on board, including Ealt Ruml and his bridge crew. Five of the six missiles fired by the Farre were disabled by the space station's defenses; the sixth hit the station, blowing a hole in the station compartment next to Gau's offices. The station's system of airtight doors sealed off the damage in minutes; forty-four people were killed.

All of this happened in the space of less than two minutes, because the battle happened at incredibly close range. Unlike space battles in entertainment shows, real battles between spaceships take place over huge distances. In this battle, however, all the ships were in orbit around the station. Some of the ships involved were just a few klicks away from each other. That's pretty much the starship equivalent of going after each other with knives.

Or so I'm told. I'm going by what others tell me of the battle, because at the time what I was doing was being dragged out of General Gau's advisor chamber by Hickory and Dickory. The last thing I saw was Gau pinning down Lernin Il while at the same time trying to keep his other advisors from beating the living crap out of him. There was too much noise for my translation device to work anymore, but I suspected that Gau was trying to tell the rest of them that he needed Il alive. What can you say. No one likes a traitor.

I'm also told that the battle outside of the space station would have gone on longer than it did except that shortly after the first salvo of missiles a funny thing happened: An Obin cruiser skipped into existence unsettlingly close to the Conclave space station, setting off a series of proximity alarms to go with the attack alarms already in progress. That was unusual, but what really got everyone's attention was the other ships that appeared about thirty seconds afterward. It took the station a few minutes to identify these.

And at that point everyone who had been fighting each other realized they now had something bigger to worry about.

I didn't know about any of this right away. Hickory and Dickory had dragged me to the conference room some distance away from the advisor chamber and were keeping it secure when the alarms suddenly stopped.

"Well, I finally used that training," I said, to Hickory. I was amped up on leftover adrenaline from the assassination attempt and paced up and down in the room. Hickory said nothing to this and continued to scan the corridor for threats. I sighed and waited until it signaled that it was safe to move.

Ten minutes later, Hickory clicked something to Dickory, who went to the door. Hickory went into the corridor and out of sight. Shortly after that I heard what sounded like Hickory arguing with someone. Hickory returned, followed by six very serious-looking guards and General Gau.

"What happened?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"What do you have to do with the Consu?" General Gau asked me, ignoring my question.

"The Consu?" I said. "Nothing. I had asked the Obin to try to contact them on my behalf, to see if they could help me save Roanoke. That was a few days ago. I haven't heard from the Obin about it since."

"I think you have an answer," Gau said. "They're here. And they're asking to see you."

"There's a Consu ship here now?" I said.

"Actually, the Consu asking for you is on an Obin ship," Gau said. "Which doesn't make any sense to me at all, but never mind that. There were Consu ships following the Obin ship."

"Ships," I said. "How many?"

"So far?" Gau said. "About six hundred."

"Excuse me?" I said. My adrenaline spiked again.

"There are still more coming in," Gau said. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Zoë, but if you've done something to anger the Consu, I hope they choose to take it out on you, not us."

I turned and looked at Hickory, disbelieving.

"You said you required help," Hickory said.

TWENTY-FOUR

I entered the storage deck of the other Obin ship.

"So this is the human who has an entire race to do her bidding," said the Consu waiting there for me. It was the only place on the Obin ship where he would fit, I guessed.

I smiled in spite of myself.

"You laugh at me," the Consu said. It spoke perfect English, and in a light, gentle voice, which was weird considering how much it looked like a large and savagely angry insect.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's just that it's the second time in a day that someone's said that to me."

"Well," the Consu said. It unfolded itself in a way that made me want to run screaming in the other direction, and from somewhere inside its body a creepily humanlike arm and hand beckoned to me. "Come and let me get a look at you."

I took one step forward and then had a very difficult time with the next step.

"You asked for me, human," the Consu said.

I developed a spine and walked over to the Consu. It touched and prodded me with its smaller arms, while its giant slashing arms, the ones the Consu used to decapitate enemies in combat, hovered on either side of me, at just about head level. I managed not to completely lose it.

"Yes, well," the Consu said, and I heard something like disappointment in its voice. "There's nothing particularly special about you, is there? Physically. Is there something special about you mentally?"

"No," I said. "I'm just me."

"We're all just ourselves," the Consu said, and folded itself back into its self, much to my relief. "That is axiomatic. What is it about you that makes hundreds of Obin allow themselves to die to get to me, is what I am asking."

I felt sick again. "You said that hundreds of Obin died to bring you to me?"

"Oh, yes," the Consu said. "Your pets surrounded my ship with their own and tried to board it. The ship killed everyone that tried. They remained persistent and finally I became curious. I allowed one to board the ship and it told me that you had demanded the Obin convince the Consu to help you. I wanted to see for myself what sort of creature could so casually demand this, and could cause the Obin to fulfill it at such a cost to themselves."

It looked at me again curiously. "You appear upset," it said.

"I'm thinking about the Obin who died," I said.

"They did what you asked of them," the Consu said, with a bored tone.

"You didn't have to kill so many of them," I said.

"Your pets didn't have to offer up so many to sacrifice," said the Consu. "And yet they did. You seem stupid so I will explain this to you. Your pets, to the extent that they can think, did this intelligently. The Consu will not speak to the Obin for their own behalf. We answered their questions long ago and it does not interest us to speak further on the subject."

"But you spoke to the Obin," I said.

"I am dying," the Consu said. "I am on"—and here the Consu made a noise that sounded like a tractor falling down a hill—"the death journey that Consu prepared to move forward are permitted if in this life they have proven worthy. Consu on this journey may do as they please, including speaking to proscribed creatures, and may if asked appropriately grant a final boon. Your pets have spied on the Consu for decades—we were aware of this but did nothing about it—and knew the route of the death journey and knew the ceremonial ships those on the journey travel in. Your pets understood this was the only way they could talk to us. And your pets knew what it would require to interest me or any Consu enough to hear them. You should have known this when you made your demand."

"I didn't," I said.

"Then you are foolish, human," the Consu said. "If I were inclined to feel sorry for the Obin, I would do so because they had wasted their effort and diverted me from my journey on the behalf of someone so ignorant of the cost. But I do not feel sorry for them. They at least knew the cost, and willingly paid it. Now. You will either tell me how you demand I help you, or I will go and your pets' deaths will have truly been for nothing."

"I need help to save my colony," I said, and forced myself to focus. "My friends and family are there and are under threat of attack. It is a small colony and not able to defend itself. The Colonial Union will not help us. The Obin are not allowed to help us. The Consu have technology that could help us. I ask for your help."

"You said 'ask,'" the Consu said. "Your pets said 'demand.'"

"I demanded help from the Obin because I knew I could," I said. "I am asking you."

"I do not care about your colony or you," the Consu said.

"You just said that as part of your death journey you can grant a boon," I said. "This could be it."

"It may be that my boon was to the Obin, in speaking to you," the Consu said.

I blinked at this. "How would it be a boon to them just to speak to me if you won't at least think of helping me?" I said. "Then it would be you who wasted their sacrifice and effort."

"That is my choice," the Consu said. "The Obin understood that in making the sacrifice the answer might be 'no.' This is another thing they understand that you don't."

"I know there is a lot I don't understand here," I said. "I can see that. I'm sorry. But I still need help for my family and friends."

"How many family and friends?" the Consu said.

"My colony has twenty-five hundred people," I said.

"A similar number of Obin died in order to bring me here," the Consu said.

"I didn't know that would happen," I said. "I wouldn't have asked for that."

"Is that so?" the Consu said. It shifted its bulk and drew in toward me. I didn't back away. "I don't believe you, human. You are foolish and you are ignorant, that much is clear. Yet I cannot believe that even you did not understand what you were asking the Obin for when you asked them to come to us for your sake. You demanded help from the Obin because you could. And because you could you did not ask the cost. But you had to have known the cost would be high."

I didn't know what to say to that.

The Consu drew back and seemed to regard me, like it might an amusing insect. "Your capriciousness and callousness with the Obin interests me," it said. "And so does the fact that the Obin are willing to give of themselves for your whims despite your lack of care for them."

I said something I knew I was going to regret, but I couldn't help myself. The Consu was doing a really excellent job of pushing my buttons. "That's a funny thing coming from someone from the race that gave the Obin intelligence but no consciousness," I said. "As long as we're talking about capriciousness and callousness."

"Ah. Yes, that's right," the Consu said. "The Obin told me this. You're the child of the human who made the machines that let the Obin play at consciousness."

"They don't play at it," I said. "They have it."

"And it is a terrible thing that they do," the Consu said. "Consciousness is a tragedy. It leads the whole race away from perfection, causes it to fritter its efforts on individual and wasteful effort. Our lives as Consu are spent learning to free our race from the tyranny of self, to move beyond ourselves and in doing so move our race forward. It is why we help you lesser races along, so you may also free yourselves in time."

I bit my cheek at this bit. The Consu would sometimes come down to a human colony, wipe it and everyone in it off the face of their planet, and then wait for the Colonial Defense Forces to come and fight them. It was a game to the Consu, as far as any of us could see. To say that they were doing it for our benefit was perverse, to say the least.

But I was here to ask for help, not debate morals. I had already been baited once. I didn't dare let it happen again.

The Consu continued, oblivious to my personal struggles. "What you humans have done to the Obin makes a mockery of their potential," it said. "We created the Obin to be the best among us all, the one race without consciousness, the one race free to pursue its destiny as a race from its first steps. The Obin were meant to be what we aspired to. To see them aspire to consciousness is to see a creature that can fly aspire to wallow in mud. Your father did the Obin no favors, human, in hobbling them with consciousness."

I stood there for a minute, amazed that this Consu would tell me, in seemingly casual conversation, things that the Obin had sacrificed half their number for so many years ago but were never allowed to hear. The Consu waited patiently for my response. "The Obin would disagree," I said. "And so would I."

"Of course you would," the Consu said. "Their love of their consciousness is what makes them willing to do the ridiculous for you. That and the fact that they choose to honor you for something that your father did, even though you had no hand in it. This blindness and honor is convenient to you. It is what you use to get them to do what you want. You don't prize their consciousness for what it gives them. You prize it for what it allows you to do to them."

"That's not true," I said.

"Indeed," said the Consu, and I could hear the mocking tone in its voice. It shifted its weight again. "Very well, human. You have asked me to help you. Perhaps I will. I can provide you with a boon, one the Consu may not refuse. But this boon is not free. It comes with a cost attached."

"What cost?" I said.

"I want to be entertained first," the Consu said. "So I offer you this bargain. You have among you several hundred Obin. Select one hundred of them in any way you choose. I will ask the Consu to send one hundred of our own—convicts, sinners, and others who have strayed from the path and would be willing to attempt redemption. We will set them at each other, to the death.

"In the end, one side will have a victory. If it is yours, then I will help you. If it is mine, I will not. And then, having been sufficiently amused, I will be on my way, to continue my death journey. I will call to the Consu now. Let us say that in eight of your hours we will start this entertainment. I trust that will be enough time for you to prepare your pets."

"We will have no problem finding a hundred volunteers among the Obin," Dock said to me. It and I were in the conference room General Gau had lent me. Hickory and Dickory stood outside the door to make sure we weren't disturbed. "I will have the volunteers ready for you within the hour."

"Why didn't you tell me how the Obin planned to get the Consu to me?" I asked. "The Consu here told me that hundreds of Obin died to get him here. Why didn't you warn me that would happen?"

"I did not know how we would choose to try to get the Consu's attention," Dock said. "I sent along your requirement, along with my own assent. I was not a participant in making the choice."

"But you knew this could happen," I said.

"As a member of the Council I know that we have had the Consu under observation, and that there had been plans to find ways to talk to them again," Dock said. "I knew this was one of them."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I said.

"I told you that attempting to speak to the Consu would come at a high cost," Dock said. "This was the cost. At the time, the cost did not seem too high for you."

"I didn't know that it would mean that hundreds of Obin would die," I said. "Or that they would just keep throwing themselves into a Consu firing line until the Consu got curious enough to stop. If I had known I would have asked you to try something else."

"Given what you required us to do and the time in which we had to do it, there was nothing else," Dock said. It came to me and opened up its hands, like it was trying to make me see something important. "Please understand, Zoë. We had been planning to petition a Consu on its death journey for a long time now, and for our own reasons. It was one of the reasons we were able to fulfill your requirement at all. Everything was already in place."

"But it was my order that killed them," I said.

"It is not your fault that the Consu required their deaths," Dock said. "The Obin who were part of the mission had already known what was required to get the attention of the Consu. They were already committed to this task. Your request changed only the timing and the purpose of their mission. But those who participated did so willingly, and understood the reason for doing it. It was their choice."

"They still did it because I didn't think about what I was asking," I said.

"They did it because you required our help," Dock said. "They would have thought it an honor to do this for you. Just as those who will fight for you now will consider it an honor."

I looked at my hands, ashamed to look at Dock. "You said that you had already been planning to petition a Consu on its death journey," I said. "What were you going to ask?"

"For understanding," Dock said. "To know why the Consu kept consciousness away from us. To know why they chose to punish us with its lack."

I looked up at that. "I know the answer," I said, and told Dock what the Consu had told me about consciousness and why they chose not to give it to the Obin. "I don't know if that was the answer you were looking for," I said. "But that's what this Consu told me."

Dock didn't say anything. I looked more closely at it, and I could see it was trembling. "Hey," I said, and got up from my chair. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"I am not upset," Dock said. "I am happy. You have given us answers to questions we have been asking since as long as our race has existed. Answers the Consu would not have given us themselves. Answers many of us would have given our lives for."

"Many of you did give your lives for them," I said.

"No," Dock said. "They gave their lives to help you. There was no expectation of any compensation for the sacrifice. They did it because you required it. You did not have to give us anything in return. But you have given us this."

"You're welcome," I said. I was getting embarrassed. "It's not a big thing. The Consu just told me. I just thought you should know."

"Consider, Zoë, that this thing that you just thought we should know was something that others would have seen as something to hold over us," Dock said. "That they would have sold to us, or denied to us. You gave it freely."

"After I told you that I required your help and sent hundreds of Obin out to die," I said, and sat back down. "Don't make me out to be a hero, Dock. It's not the way I feel right now."

"I am sorry, Zoë," Dock said. "But if you will not be a hero, at least know that you are not a villain. You are our friend."

"Thank you, Dock," I said. "That helps a little."

Dock nodded. "Now I must go to find the hundred volunteers you seek," it said, "and to tell the Council what you have shared with me. Do not worry, Zoë. We will not disappoint you."

"This is what I have for you on short notice," General Gau said. He swept an arm through the space station's immense cargo bay. "This part of the station is just newly constructed. We haven't actually used it for cargo yet. I think it'll suit your purposes."

I stared at the immensity of the space. "I think so," I said. "Thank you, General."

"It's the least I could do," General Gau said. "Considering how you've helped me just recently."

"Thank you for not holding the Consu invasion against me," I said.

"On the contrary, it's been a benefit," Gau said. "It stopped the battle around the space station before it could get truly horrific. The traitor crews assumed I had called those ships for assistance. They surrendered before I could correct the impression. You helped me quash the rebellion before it could get started."

"You're welcome," I said.

"Thank you," said Gau. "Now, of course, I would like them to go away. But it's my understanding that they're here to make sure we don't do anything foolish with our Consu guest while he's here. The ships are fighter drones, not even manned, but this is Consu technology. I don't imagine if they opened fire on us we'd stand much of a chance. So we have an enforced peace here at the moment. Since it works for me, not against me, I shouldn't complain."

"Have you found out any more about Nerbros Eser and what his plans are?" I asked. I didn't feel like thinking about the Consu anymore.

"Yes," Gau said. "Lernin has been quite forthcoming now that he's trying to avoid being executed for treason. It's been a wonderful motivator. He tells me that Eser plans to take Roanoke with a small force of soldiers. The idea there is to show that he can take with a hundred soldiers what I couldn't take with four hundred battle cruisers. But 'take' is the wrong word for it, I'm afraid. Eser plans to destroy the colony and everyone in it."

"That was your plan too," I reminded the general.

He bobbed his head in what I assumed was an acknowledgment. "You know by now, I hope, that I would have much preferred not to have killed the colonists," he said. "Eser does not intend to offer that option."

I skipped over that piece of data in my head. "When will he attack?" I asked.

"Soon, I think," Gau said. "Lernin doesn't think Eser has assembled his troops yet, but this failed assassination attempt is going to force him to move sooner than later."

"Great," I said.

"There's still time," Gau said. "Don't give up hope yet, Zoë."

"I haven't," I said. "But I've still got a lot on my mind."

"Have you found enough volunteers?" Gau asked.

"We have," I said, and my face tightened up as I said it.

"What's wrong?" Gau said.

"One of the volunteers," I said, and stopped. I tried again. "One of the volunteers is an Obin named Dickory," I said. "My friend and my bodyguard. When it volunteered I told it no. Demanded that it take back its offer. But it refused."

"Having it volunteer could be a powerful thing," Gau said. "It probably encouraged others to step forward."

I nodded. "But Dickory is still my friend," I said. "Still my family. Maybe it shouldn't make a difference but it does."

"Of course it makes a difference," Gau said. "The reason you're here is to try to keep the people you love from being hurt."

"I'm asking people I don't know to sacrifice themselves for people I do," I said.

"That's why you're asking them to volunteer," Gau said. "But it seems to me the reason they're volunteering is for you."

I nodded and looked out at the bay, and imagined the fight that was coming.

"I have a proposition for you," the Consu said to me.

The two of us sat in the operations room of the cargo bay, ten meters above the floor of the bay. On the floor were two groups of beings. In the first group were the one hundred Obin who had volunteered to fight for me. In the other group were the one hundred Consu criminals, who would be forced to fight the Obin for a chance to regain their honor. The Consu looked scary big next to the Obin. The contest would be modified hand-to-hand combat: The Obin were allowed a combat knife, while the Consu, with their slashing arms, would fight bare-handed, if you called being able to wield two razor-sharp limbs attached to your own body "bare-handed."

I was getting very nervous about the Obin's chances.

"A proposition," the Consu repeated.

I glanced over at the Consu, who in himself nearly filled the operations room. He'd been there when I had come up; I wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten himself through the door. The two of us were there with Hickory and Dock and General Gau, who had taken it upon himself to act as the official arbiter for the contest.

Dickory was on the floor. Getting ready to fight.

"Are you interested in hearing it?" the Consu asked.

"We're about to start," I said.

"It's about the contest," the Consu said. "I have a way that you can get what you want without having the contest at all."

I closed my eyes. "Tell me," I said.

"I will help you keep your colony safe by providing you a piece of our technology," the Consu said. "A machine that produces an energy field that robs projectiles of their momentum. A sapper field. It makes your bullets fall out of the air and sucks the power from missiles before they strike their targets. If you are clever your colony can use it to defeat those who attack it. This is what I am allowed and prepared to give to you."

"And what do you want in return?" I asked.

"A simple demonstration," the Consu said. It unfolded and pointed toward the Obin on the floor. "A demand from you was enough to cause hundreds of Obin to willingly sacrifice themselves for the mere purpose of getting my attention. This power you have interests me. I want to see it. Tell this one hundred to sacrifice themselves here and now, and I will give you what you need in order to save your colony."

"I can't do that," I said.

"It is not an issue of whether it is possible," the Consu said. It leaned its bulk over and then addressed Dock. "Would the Obin here kill themselves if this human asked it?"

"Without doubt," Dock said.

"They would not hesitate," the Consu said.

"No," Dock said.

The Consu turned back to me. "Then all you need to do is give the order."

"No," I said.

"Don't be stupid, human," the Consu said. "You have been assured by me that I will assist you. You have been assured by this Obin that your pets here will gladly sacrifice themselves for your benefit, without delay or complaint. You will be assured of helping your family and friends survive imminent attack. And you have done it before. You thought nothing of sending hundred to their death to speak to me. It should not be a difficult decision now."

He waved again toward the floor. "Tell me honestly, human. Look at your pets, and then look at the Consu. Do you think your pets will be the ones left standing when this is over? Do you want to risk the safety of your friends and family on them?

"I offer you an alternative. It carries no risk. It costs you nothing but your assent. Your pets will not object. They will be happy to do this for you. Simply say that you require this of them. That you demand it of them. And if it makes you feel any better, you can tell them to turn off their consciousness before they kill themselves. Then they will not fear their sacrifice. They will simply do it. They will do it for you. They will do it for what you are to them."

I considered what the Consu had said.

I turned to Dock. "You have no doubt that those Obin would do this for me," I said.

"There is no doubt," Dock said. "They are there to fight at your request, Zoë. They know they may die. They have already accepted that possibility, just as the Obin who sacrificed themselves to bring you this Consu knew what was required of them."

"And what about you," I said to Hickory. "Your friend and partner is down there, Hickory. For ten years, at least, you've spent your life with Dickory. What do you say?"

Hickory's trembling was so slight that I almost doubted that I saw it. "Dickory will do as you ask, Zoë," Hickory said. "You should know this already." It turned away after that.

I looked at General Gau. "I have no advice to offer you," he said. "But I am very interested to find out what you choose."

I closed my eyes and I thought of my family. Of John and Jane. Of Savitri, who traveled to a new world with us. I thought of Gretchen and Magdy and the future they could have together. I thought of Enzo and his family and everything that was taken from them. I thought of Roanoke, my home.

And I knew what I had to do.

I opened my eyes.

"The choice is obvious," the Consu said.

I looked at the Consu and nodded. "I think you're right," I said. "And I think I need to go down and tell them."

I walked to the door of the operations room. As I did, General Gau lightly took my arm.

"Think about what you're doing, Zoë," Gau said. "Your choice here matters."

I looked up at the general. "I know it does," I said. "And it's my choice to make."

The general let go of my arm. "Do what you have to do," he said.

"Thank you," I said. "I think I will."

I left the room and for the next minute tried very hard not to fall down the stairs as I walked down them. I'm happy to say I succeeded. But it was a close thing.

I walked toward the group of Obin, who were milling about, some doing exercises, some talking quietly to another or to a small group. As I got closer I tried to locate Dickory and could not. There were too many Obin, and Dickory wasn't somewhere I could easily see him.

Eventually the Obin noticed I was walking to them. They quieted and equally quietly formed ranks.

I stood there in front of them for a few seconds, trying to see each of the Obin for itself, and not just one of a hundred. I opened my mouth to speak. Nothing would come. My mouth was so dry I could not make words. I closed my mouth, swallowed a couple of times, and tried again.

"You know who I am," I said. "I'm pretty sure about that. I only know one of you personally, and I'm sorry about that. I wish I could have known each of you, before you were asked . . . before I asked . . ."

I stopped. I was saying stupid things. It wasn't what I wanted to do. Not now.

"Look," I said. "I'm going to tell you some things, and I can't promise it's going to make any kind of sense. But I need to say them to you before . . ." I gestured at the cargo bay. "Before all of this."

The Obin all looked at me, whether politely or patiently, I can't say.

"You know why you're here," I said. "You're here to fight those Consu over there because I want to try to protect my family and friends on Roanoke. You were told that if you could beat the Consu, I would get the help I needed. But something's changed."

I pointed up to the operations room. "There's a Consu up there," I said, "who tells me that he'll give me what I need to save Roanoke without having to have you fight, and risk losing. All I have to do is tell you to take those knives you were going to use on those Consu, and use them on yourselves. All I have to do is to tell you to kill yourselves. Everyone tells me you'll do it, because of what I am to you.

"And they're right. I'm pretty sure about that, too. I'm certain that if I asked all of you to kill yourselves, you would do it. Because I am your Zoë. Because you've seen me all your lives in the recordings that Hickory and Dickory have made. Because I'm standing here in front of you now, asking you to do it.

"I know you would do this for me. You would."

I stopped for a minute, tried to focus.

And then I faced something I'd spent a long time avoiding.

My own past.

I raised my head again and looked directly at the Obin.

"When I was five, I lived on a space station. Covell. I lived there with my father. One day while he was away from the station for a few days on business, the station was attacked. First by the Rraey. They attacked, and they came in and they rounded up all the people who lived on the station, and they began to kill us. I remember . . ."

I closed my eyes again.

"I remember husbands being taken from their wives and then shot in the halls where everyone could hear," I said. "I remember parents begging the Rraey to spare their children. I remember being pushed behind a stranger when the woman who was watching me, the mother of a friend, was taken away. She tried to push away her daughter, too, but she held on to her mother and they were both taken away. If the Rraey had continued much longer, eventually they would have found me and killed me too."

I opened my eyes. "But then the Obin attacked the station, to take it from the Rraey, who weren't prepared for another fight. And when they cleared the station of the Rraey, they took those of us humans who were left and put us in a common area. I remember being there, with no one looking after me. My father was gone. My friend and her mother were dead. I was alone.

"The space station was a science station, so the Obin looked through the research and they found my father's work. His work on consciousness. And they wanted him to work for them. So they came back to us in the common area and they called out my father's name. But he wasn't on the station. They called his name again and I answered. I said I was his daughter and that he would come for me soon.

"I remember the Obin talking among themselves then, and then telling me to come away. And I remember saying no, because I didn't want to leave the other humans. And I remember what one of the Obin said to me then. It said, 'You must come with us. You have been chosen, and you will be safe.'

"And I remembered everything that had just happened. And I think even at five years old some part of me knew what would happen to the rest of the people at Covell. And here was the Obin, telling me I would be safe. Because I had been chosen. And I remember taking the Obin's hand, being led away and looking back at the humans who were left. And then they were gone. I never saw them again.

"But I lived," I said. "Not because of who I was; I was just this little girl. But because of what I was: the daughter of the man who could give you consciousness. It was the first time that what I was mattered more than who I was. But it wasn't the last."

I looked up at the operations room, trying to see if those in there were listening to me, and wondering what they were thinking. Wondering what Hickory was thinking. And General Gau. I turned back to the Obin.

"What I am still matters more than who I am," I said. "It matters more right now. Right this minute. Because of what I am, hundreds of you died to bring just one Consu to see me. Because of what I am, if I ask you to take those knives and plunge them into your bodies, you will do it. Because of what I am. Because of what I have been to you."

I shook my head and looked down at the ground. "All my life I have accepted that what I am matters," I said. "That I had to work with it. Make accommodations for it. Sometimes I thought I could manipulate it, although I just found out the price for that belief. Sometimes I would even fight against it. But never once did I think that I could leave what I was behind. Because I remembered what it got me. How it saved me. I never even thought of giving it up."

I pointed up at the operations room. "There is a Consu in that operations room who wants me to kill you all, just to show him that I can. He wants me to do it to make a point to me, too—that when it comes down to it, I'm willing to sacrifice all of you to get what I want. Because when it comes down to it, you don't matter. You're just something I can use, a means to an end, a tool for another purpose. He wants me to kill you to rub my face in the fact I don't care.

"And he's right."

I looked into the faces of the Obin. "I don't know any of you, except for one," I said. "I won't remember what any of you look like in a few days, no matter what happens here. On the other hand all the people I love and care for I can see as soon as I close my eyes. Their faces are so clear to me. Like they are here with me. Because they are. I carry them inside me. Like you carry those you care for inside of you.

"The Consu is right that it would be easy to ask you to sacrifice yourselves for me. To tell you to do it so I can save my family and my friends. He's right because I know you would do it without a second thought. You would be happy to do it because it would make me happy—because what I am matters to you. He knows that knowing this will make me feel less guilty for asking you.

"And he's right again. He's right about me. I admit it. And I'm sorry."

I stopped again, and took another moment to pull myself together. I wiped my face.

This was going to be the hard part.

"The Consu is right," I said. "But he doesn't know the one thing about me that matters right now. And that it is that I am tired of being what I am. I am tired of having been chosen. I don't want to be the one you sacrifice yourself for, because of whose daughter I am or because you accept that I can make demands of you. I don't want that from you. And I don't want you to die for me.

"So forget it. Forget all of this. I release you of your obligation to me. Of any obligation to me. Thank you for volunteering, but you shouldn't have to fight for me. I shouldn't have asked.

"You have already done so much for me. You have brought me here so I could deliver a message to General Gau. He's told me about the plans against Roanoke. It should be enough for us to defend ourselves. I can't ask you for anything else. I certainly can't ask you to fight these Consu and possibly die. I want you to live instead.

"I am done being what I am. From now on I'm just who I am. And who I am is Zoë. Just Zoë. Someone who has no claim on you. Who doesn't require or demand anything from you. And who wants you to be able to make your own choices, not have them made for you. Especially not by me.

"And that's all I have to say."

The Obin stood in front of me, silently, and after a minute I realized that I didn't really know why I was expecting a response. And then for a crazy moment I wondered if they actually even understood me. Hickory and Dickory spoke my language, and I just assumed all the other Obin would, too. That was a pretty arrogant assumption, I realized.

So I sort of nodded and turned to go, back up to the operations room, where God only knew what I was going to say to that Consu.

And then I heard singing.

A single voice, from somewhere in the middle of the pack of Obin. It took up the first words of "Delhi Morning." And though that was the part I always sang, I had no trouble recognizing the voice.

It was Dickory.

I turned and faced the Obin just as a second voice took up the counterpoint, and then another voice came in, and another and another, and soon all one hundred of the Obin were singing, creating a version of the song that was so unlike any I had heard before, so magnificent, that all I could do was stand there and soak in it, let it wash around me, and let it move through me.

It was one of those moments that you just can't describe. So I won't try anymore.

But I can say I was impressed. These Obin would have known of "Delhi Morning" for only a few weeks. For them to not only know the song but to perform it flawlessly was nothing short of amazing.

I had to get these guys for the next hootenanny.

When it was done, all I could do was put my hands to my face and say "Thank you" to the Obin. And then Dickory came through the ranks to stand in front of me.

"Hey, you," I said to Dickory.

"Zoë Boutin-Perry," said Dickory. "I am Dickory."

I almost said, I know that, but Dickory kept speaking.

"I have known you since you were a child," it said. "I have watched you grow and learn and experience life, and through you have learned to experience life myself. I have always known what you are. I tell you truthfully that it is who you are that has mattered to me, and always has.

"It is to you, Zoë Boutin-Perry, that I offer to fight for your family and for Roanoke. I do this not because you have demanded it or required it but because I care for you, and always have. You would honor me if you would accept my assistance." Dickory bowed, which was a very interesting thing on an Obin.

Here was irony: This was the most I had heard Dickory say, ever, and I couldn't think of anything to say in return.

So I just said, "Thank you, Dickory. I accept." Dickory bowed again and returned to ranks.

Another Obin stepped forward and stood before me. "I am Strike," it said. "We have not met before. I have watched you grow through all that Hickory and Dickory have shared with all Obin. I too have always known what you are. What I have learned from you, however, comes from who you are. It is an honor to have met you. It will be an honor to fight for you, your family, and for Roanoke. I offer my assistance to you, Zoë Boutin-Perry, freely and without reservation." Strike bowed.

"Thank you, Strike," I said. "I accept." And then I impulsively hugged Strike. It actually squeaked in surprise. We unhugged, Strike bowed again, and then returned to ranks just as another Obin came forward.

And another. And another.

It took a long time to hear each greeting and offer of assistance, and to accept each offer. I can honestly say there was never time better spent. When it was done I stood in front of one hundred Obin again—this time, each a friend. And I bowed my head to them and wished them well, and told them I would see them after.

Then I headed back toward the operations room. General Gau was at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for me.

"I have a position for you on my staff, Zoë, if you ever want it," he said.

I laughed. "I just want to go home, General. Thank you all the same."

"Some other time, then," Gau said. "Now I'm going to preside over this contest. I will be impartial when I'm observing it. But you should know that inside I'm rooting for the Obin. And that's something I never thought I would say."

"I do appreciate it," I said, and headed up the stairs.

Hickory met me at the door. "You did what I hoped you would do," Hickory said. "I regret not volunteering myself."

"I don't," I said, and hugged Hickory. Dock bowed to me; I nodded back. And then I approached the Consu.

"You have my answer," I said.

"So I have," the Consu said. "And it surprises me, human."

"Good," I said. "And the name is Zoë. Zoë Boutin-Perry."

"Indeed," the Consu said. He sounded amused at my cheekiness. "I will remember the name. And have others remember it as well. Although if your Obin do not win this contest, I do not imagine we will have to remember your name for long."

"You'll remember it for a long time," I said. "Because my friends down there are about to clean your clock."

And they did.

It wasn't even close.

TWENTY-FIVE

And so I went home, Consu gift in tow.

John and Jane greeted me as I jumped off the Obin shuttle, all of us ending in a pile as I ran into Mom full speed and then we dragged Dad down with us. Then I showed them my new toy: the sapper field generator, specially designed by the Consu to give us a tactical advantage when Nerbros Eser and his friends came to call. Jane immediately took to it and started fiddling with it; that was her thing.

Hickory and Dickory and I decided that in the end neither John nor Jane needed to know what it took for us to get it. The less they knew, the less the Colonial Union could charge them with at their treason trial. Although it looked like that might not happen—the Roanoke council did remove John and Jane from their posts once they revealed where they had sent me and who I was supposed to see, and had appointed Gretchen's dad Manfred in their place. But they had given Mom and Dad ten days to hear back from me before they informed the Colonial Union about what they'd done. I got back just under the wire and once they saw what I brought, weren't inclined to offer my parents to the tender affections of the Colonial Union judicial system. I wasn't going to complain about that.

After I got Mom and Dad acquainted with the sapper field generator, I went for a walk and found Gretchen, reading a book on her porch.

"I'm back," I said.

"Oh," she said, casually flipping a page. "Were you gone?"

I grinned; she hurled the book at me and told me that if I ever did anything like that again, she would strangle me, and that she could do it because she always was better in our defense courses than I was. Well, it was true. She was. Then we hugged and made up and went to find Magdy, so we could pester him in stereo.

Ten days later, Roanoke was attacked by Nerbros Eser and about a hundred Arrisian soldiers, that being Eser's race. Eser and his soldiers marched right into Croatoan and demanded to speak to its leaders. They got Savitri, the administrative assistant, instead; she suggested that they go back to their ships and pretend their invasion never happened. Eser ordered his soldier to shoot Savitri, and that's when they learned how a sapper field can really mess with their weapons. Jane tuned the field so that it would slow down bullets but not slower projectiles. Which is why the Arrisian soldier's rifles wouldn't work, but Jane's flame thrower would. As did Dad's hunting bow. And Hickory's and Dickory's knives. And Manfred Trujillo's lorry. And so on.

At the end of it Nerbros Eser had none of the soldiers that he'd landed with, and was also surprised to learn that the battleship he'd parked in orbit wasn't there anymore, either. To be fair, the sapper field didn't extend into space; we got a little help there from a benefactor who wished to remain anonymous. But however you sliced it, Nerbros Eser's play for the leadership of the Conclave came to a very sad and embarrassing end.

Where was I in all of this? Why, safely squirreled away in a bomb shelter with Gretchen and Magdy and a bunch of other teenagers, that's where. Despite all the events of the previous month, or maybe because of them, the executive decision was made that I had had enough excitement for the time being. I can't say I disagreed with the decision. To be honest about it, I was looking forward to just getting back to my life on Roanoke with my friends, with nothing to worry about except for school and practicing for the next hootenanny. That was right about my speed.

But then General Gau came for a visit.

He was there to take custody of Nerbros Eser, which he did, to his great personal satisfaction. But he was also there for two other reasons.

The first was to inform the citizens of Roanoke that he had made it a standing order that no Conclave member was ever to attack our colony, and that he had made it clear to non-Conclave races in our part of space that if any of them were to get it into their heads to make a play for our little planet, that he would personally be very disappointed. He left unsaid what level of retaliation "personal disappointment" warranted. It was more effective that way.

Roanokers were of two minds about this. On the one hand, Roanoke was now practically free from attack. On the other hand, General Gau's declaration only brought home the fact that the Colonial Union itself hadn't done much for Roanoke, not just lately but ever. The general feeling was that the Colonial Union had a lot to answer for, and until it answered for these things, that Roanokers felt perfectly justified in not paying too close attention to the Colonial Union's dictates. Like, for example, the one in which Manfred Trujillo was supposed to arrest my parents and take them into custody on the charge of treason. Trujillo apparently had a hard time finding either John or Jane after that one came in. A neat trick, considering how often they were talking.

But this folded into the other reason Gau had come around.

"General Gau is offering us sanctuary," Dad said to me. "He knows your mom and I will be charged with treason—several counts seem likely—and it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that you'll be charged as well."

"Well, I did commit treason," I said. "What with consorting with the leader of the Conclave and all."

Dad ignored this. "The point is, even if people here aren't in a rush to turn us in, it's only a matter of time before the CU sends real enforcement to come get us. We can't ask the people here to get into any more trouble on our account. We have to go, Zoë."

"When?" I asked.

"In the next day," Dad said. "Gau's ship is here now, but it's not like the CU is going to ignore it for long."

"So we're going to become citizens of the Conclave," I said.

"I don't think so," Dad said. "We'll be among them for a while, yes. But I have a plan to get us somewhere I think you might be happy with."

"And where is that?" I asked.

"Well," Dad said. "Have you ever heard of this little place called Earth?"

Dad and I spoke for a few more minutes, and then I walked over to Gretchen's, where I actually managed to say hello to her before I broke down in sobs. She gave me a hug and held me, and let me know it was okay. "I knew this was coming," she said to me. "You don't do what you've done and then come back and pretend nothing has happened."

"I thought it might be worth a try," I said.

"That's because you're an idiot," Gretchen said. I laughed. "You're an idiot, and my sister, and I love you, Zoë."

We hugged some more. And then she came over to my house and helped me and my family pack away our lives for a hasty exit.

Word spread, as it would in a small colony. Friends came by, mine and my parents', by themselves and in twos and threes. We hugged and laughed and cried and said our good-byes and tried to part well. As the sun started to set Magdy came by, and he and Gretchen and I took a walk to the Gugino homestead, where I knelt and kissed Enzo's headstone, and said good-bye to him one last time, even as I carried him still in my heart. We walked home and Magdy said his good-bye then, giving me a hug so fierce that I thought it would crack my ribs. And then he did something he'd never done before: gave me a kiss, on my cheek.

"Good-bye, Zoë," he said.

"Good-bye, Magdy," I said. "Take care of Gretchen for me."

"I'll try," Magdy said. "But you know how she is." I smiled at that. Then he went to Gretchen, gave her a hug and a kiss, and left.

And then it was Gretchen and me, packing and talking and cracking each other up through the rest of the night. Eventually Mom and Dad went to sleep but didn't seem to mind that Gretchen and I went on through the night and straight on until morning.

A group of friends arrived in a Mennonite horse-drawn wagon to carry our things and us to the Conclave shuttle. We started the short journey laughing but got quiet as we came closer to the shuttle. It wasn't a sad silence; it was a silence you have when you've said everything you need to say to another person.

Our friends lifted what we were taking with us into the shuttle; there was a lot we were leaving behind, too bulky to take, that we had given to friends. One by one all my friends gave me hugs and farewells, and dropped away, and then there was just Gretchen and me again.

"You want to come with me?" I asked.

Gretchen laughed. "Someone has to take care of Magdy," she said. "And Dad. And Roanoke."

"You always were the organized one," I said.

"And you were always you," Gretchen said.

"Someone had to be," I said. "And anyone else would have messed it up."

Gretchen gave me another hug. Then she stood back from me. "No good-byes," she said. "You're in my heart. Which means you're not gone."

"All right," I said. "No good-byes. I love you, Gretchen."

"I love you too," Gretchen said. And then she turned and she walked away, and didn't look back, although she did stop to give Babar a hug. He slobbered her thoroughly.

And then he came to me, and I led him into the passenger compartment of the shuttle. In time, everyone else came in. John. Jane. Savitri. Hickory. Dickory.

My family.

I looked out the shuttle window at Roanoke, my world, my home. Our home. But our home no longer. I looked at it and the people in it, some of whom I loved and some of whom I lost. Trying to take it all in, to make it a part of me. To make it a part of my story. My tale. To remember it so I can tell the story of my time here, not straight but true, so that anyone who asked me could feel what I felt about my time, on my world.

I sat, and looked, and remembered in the present time.

And when I was sure I had it, I kissed the window and drew the shade.

The engines on the shuttle came to life.

"Here we go," Dad said.

I smiled and closed my eyes and counted down the seconds until liftoff.

Five. Four. Three. Two.

One.