For He will instruct His angels in your behalf, to guard you in all your ways.
They will carry you in their hands, lest you hurt your foot on a rock. You
will tread upon the lion and the viper; you will trample upon the young lion
and the serpent
—Psalm 91
Date Point: 14Y 1W AV
Jerusalem, Israel
The hastily-summoned Knesset was in a low uproar. Earth’s news organizations had been able to get very little out of the tight-lipped military regarding the one question everybody wanted an answer to: what was happening to Gao? Speculation was rampant, and the various members of the Israeli Parliament were, mostly, just as much in the dark as anyone. The few reports received from Cimbrean that hadn’t been summarily censored showed massive numbers of hollow-eyed Gaoian refugees pouring through the jump platforms, and while no one seemed to have actual facts, it was obvious that there was very, very little good news to be had.
A harsh bang of the gavel from the raised dais at the top of the chamber brought an end to most of the buzz of side conversation, as the members looked to their own leadership. The session had been called at an unusually early hour; overhead, the rising sun was just illuminating the high windows, and most of them had had to be roused from bed to attend. It was unusual enough that, to a man, they had assembled.
“We will come to order,” intoned the Speaker into his microphone. The last whispering stopped, and, uncharacteristically, the room was silent for a moment. “Thank you. We recognize the Prime Minister.” So addressed, the Prime Minister stood and approached a podium. She adjusted a pile of papers, then looked up.
“Thank you, members, for coming this morning. I realize this is earlier than the customary time, and I apologize for bringing you here at this hour. What I have to say, however, cannot wait or face delay.” She paused for a moment, and then plunged on.
“My office was made aware yesterday of several developments in the ongoing Gaoian crisis. Allied Extrasolar Command has successfully secured the Gaoian system from outside attack, driven off the Hunters, and deployed a system defense shield.” She held up a hand to forestall comment, even as she was interrupted by applause and shouts of approval from most of the room.
“There is much, however, to be done simply to secure the surface of Gao from remaining enemy forces. We received word yesterday that the Gao have raised a Great Father, for the first time in millennia, to address this, and of course there is the deployment of the US Army to the surface for ongoing combat operations.”
“Humanity is at a crucial and unprecedented point today. Fourteen years ago, we learned for absolute certain that we are not alone in the universe…and one topic that has been conspicuously absent from this body’s deliberation is whether the laws that govern us all, the rights that we have called human are, in fact human rights at all. I believe they are not. I believe that God created our non-human friends as He created us, and I believe it is time that this body led the rest of Humanity in recognizing this central truth.” She paused, waiting for the racket to die down, as some applauded, some booed, and some shouted. It took several minutes and several raps of the Speaker’s gavel for the chamber to be quiet again.
“Our American friends, several hundred years ago, put into one of their founding documents that they hold the truths of equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be self-evident, that they are granted by a merciful and just God, and that they are inherent to all men.. I have come before this body with a challenge, to be the first among nations to righteously declare that there is a right to existence and sentience possessed by all living peoples, be they human or no.” The chamber was dead silent as the members looked at one another. The Prime Minister went on, more quietly.
“This nation, this people, this very chamber and every man and woman here, is here because the history of the Jewish people is written in tears. We understand loss. We understand pain. We remember. It is graven in our very bones. It is therefore right, and just, that we lead our fellow Man in recognizing the right of all sentient people to exist, that moakh shalit al halev, or, the heart is ruled by the mind, and that a people who remember the Holocaust must never permit such a thing to happen to others without answer. Thank you.”
Date Point: 14Y 1W
Office of Governor-General Sir Jeremy Sandy, Folctha, Cimbrean
Sister Niral
The scratch scratch of a Gaoian at the door was, for Sir Jeremy, a welcome break in what felt like a week that would probably not end until the universe died of heat death. Sir Jeremy had been functioning on an hour or two of sleep snatched at odd intervals since the launch of the Gaoian Crisis. He couldn’t remember the last time he had showered, had an uninterrupted hot meal, or more than five consecutive hours of sleep, but being able to actually receive a Gaoian visitor while he was in his office felt both like a return to some kind of normalcy and an encouraging sign that the refugee camps’ internal organization had progressed to a point that they were able to send someone to him for something.
“Come,” he said in a raised voice. The door swung open. “Sister Niral. How may I be of service?” Without asking, he poured her a cuppa, having literally just heated the water for himself, for the umpteenth time that day, and slid it across to her.
She took the cup with a grateful tilt to her ears. “I…we cannot… I cannot thank you, and every human, enough for all you are doing for us, Sir Jeremy. If there was any doubt that our peoples are meant to be allies, I think the last week has dispelled that.” She held the cup in tired paws, simply feeling the warmth and inhaling the delicate fragrance.
“We were in no position to help the Guvnurag,” Sir Jeremy said after a moment. “The words never again have a special meaning for my people, as you may know. To stand by and watch that happen to your people was not something we could abide.”
Niral sipped. “We are more grateful than you know.”
Sir Jeremy grimaced. “Even now, I and the commanders of our forces wish we could do more.” He sighed and took a sip of his own tea, which, as always, was a panacea if only for a moment. They sat in silence, both sipping.
“I came to ask, actually, if the hall for the Thing is available,” Niral said, finally. “While your organizations are doing an incredible job managing things, some of us feel that it is past time we took over organizing logistics for incoming refugees and the cubs, and played a more direct hand in managing. We appear to be here for the long term, Governor, and it would be wrong of us to allow you to shoulder it alone.”
Sir Jeremy raised one eyebrow. “I don’t believe we have anyone housed there currently…which is unusual now that I think about it. I don’t see why not…but the Thing might have to be convened. That isn’t a decision I have the authority to make, Sister. What did you have in mind to use it for?”
Niral frowned. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. We don’t govern the same way you do—we make decisions communally and informally—but I think there’s a lesson there in having a place…dedicated to making decisions and to assembling…that isn’t used for something else. And there is no way that those decisions and discussions can happen in the camps—the camps are too busy and chaotic for it.”
Sir Jeremy was nodding as she finished speaking. “Aye, I will be happy to take this to the leadership, and I’ll run point on getting word back to you. How does that sound?”
Niral gave him a faint Gaoian smile with her ears cocked. “Thank you, Governor. I need to be going.” She finished her tea, and nodded again to him, and closed the door on her way out.
Date Point: 14 Y 1W AV
Interfaith Center, Folctha, Cimbrean
Gyotin, Clan Starmind
The sound of plucking strings and a soft, haunting melody wafted through the air, as Gyotin returned to the Interfaith Center both to check in with his fellow Starminds and to get something to eat. The sound started and stopped, with the voice of a male human speaking every time it stopped to an audience of some kind.
Gyotin rounded the corner and stopped, surprised. The floor of the big central room was absolutely stuffed with cubs, several Mothers overseeing their wayward charges, but that wasn’t the surprising thing. The surprise was…they were all, every last one of them, holding still and paying attention. By itself, this was nearly miraculous—there were probably fifty of them, divided into three groups roughly the same size as one another, and grouped mostly by age. The human standing at the front of the room with a stringed musical instrument of some sort was speaking to the littlest ones with the aid of a translator on his arm.
“Okay…just like we were practicing earlier,” and the song began again as he addressed the other two groups. “I’ll cue your groups to come in—remember, this is called a ‘round’, meaning you’ll all be singing different parts of the same song at the same time, and here we go, with me….” He nodded to the youngest cubs, and they began to sing, hesitantly pronouncing the unfamiliar words and then gaining more confidence. The verse ended, and began again, and as the first verse ended, the second group picked up and began singing the same song over the top of the first group. The melody was sad, and soft, and full of haunting regret and loss, remembrance of places, people, and things gone forever. The Mothers, Gyotin noticed, were doing their utmost to be silent as the cubs sang. He walked in quietly and stood next to several of them by the youngest cubs in the room.
It wasn’t a long song, Gyotin noticed, and as it came to an end, several of the Mothers he stood next to surreptitiously wiped tears from their eyes and at least one inhaled deeply in an attempt to not whimper. The cubs’ attention was still on the Human at the front of the room, who smiled as the song finished, the deeper voices of the almost-adult cubs at the back of the room trailing off, followed by a final chord from his instrument.
“That song is a verse set to music, but the verse was very old, for humans. It was written, we think, about four thousand of our years ago, and what we’re singing now is a translation…of a translation, of a translation, I think. This music is much more recent, it was written maybe fifty years ago; this verse has been set to music many times, as have most of the verses in the same book,” the man said. He caught Gyotin’s eye and nodded. “Okay. I want to hear some of the songs you know now. You figure out what you’re going to sing—I’m going to go talk to the Mothers about boring grownup things.” He winked at the room, and a round of chittering flickered across the room, as he walked through the narrow opening between groups of cubs, as they busily began moving around, pulling things out of covered bags and making room for one another by essentially piling atop one another in a recursive heap of fuzzy cuteness.
“That was lovely song. Very …haunting? That was the right word?” Gyotin asked in English. The man bowed, and replied in accented but otherwise flawless Gaori.
[“Haunting is perhaps the exact word, yes. My people have many songs that reflect loss; that one is a favorite of mine both because it is so simple and because it’s very well-known. And it’s easy to sing.“] He stopped speaking and nodded his head towards the exit, as the more enthusiastic older cubs demonstrated to the younger, more energetic ones how the various percussion instruments they were pulling out worked. The resulting thumping, clanking, banging, and sounds that had no convenient onomatopoeic description was quickly becoming difficult to talk over. The four Gaoians and taller Human exited the room and let the door close most of the way, and all three Mothers sighed in relief once the cubs could no longer see them.
[“Cubs are a blessing and a burden at once, aren’t they?”] the human said with another smile. [“I’m Aaron.”] The females and Gyotin introduced themselves quickly. Back inside the big room, the sounds of tall drums settled into a rhythm, augmented by a deep rhythmic bark that was half a shout and half a simple challenging exhalation. It built quickly, as more of the cubs picked up the rhythm, and before more than a minute had gone by, Aaron started chuckling.
“That’s a haka, isn’t it? Or at least, it sounds a lot like one,” he said in English. He looked inside to see, sure enough, a chittering line of young male cubs dancing for the group in moves that no human spine could possibly emulate.
“They must have seen one in our media….that’s…that’s actually pretty well done.” He looked back at the group to see all three of the Mothers with a scandalized set to their ears. “Oh, you mustn’t think I’m offended. Quite the opposite, really. I’m glad they have so much resilience.”
“We…need to get them settled down, I think. It’s getting late, and the small ones at least will be up all night if they’re not nested down soon,” said one of the Mothers, to agreement from the other two. “Thank you for your time, Rabbi Aaron. We look forward to more music.”
The three Females re-entered the group, bringing the gyrating frenzy to an abrupt and unpopular halt. Once the drums were stowed, and the elder cubs press-ganged into getting the youngest together, in a remarkably short time, the Gaoian children left the Interfaith Center, chirruping goodbyes to “Rabbi Aaron” in high-pitched little voices.
“It is a good thing you do,” said Gyotin kindly. “Come. Have tea and sit with me a while.”
“Tea sounds wonderful,” Aaron said. They went into one of the many side rooms lined with books, and Gyotin busied himself for perhaps the hundredth time that day. His simple version of a tea ceremony never seemed to fail in applying its magic, and while he’d had lots of practice on refugees lately, he was interested to see how a human would respond.
As the water heated, building up in a steady quiet whistle inside the pot, Gyotin regarded his new visitor. “This instrument you have…is a guitar, yes?” Aaron nodded.
“I’ve played since I was a teen. A major part of my work at home is seeing to refugees in camps not unlike the one outside of town here, although they’re entirely populated by humans.”
Gyotin cocked his ears. “I often forget how few of your people are involved beyond your own world.”
“Parts of our world are still very primitive. Music, I’ve found, is one of the few ways that I can connect with nearly anyone, and I was interested to see how it would work with, well, non-humans. The opportunity was too good to resist.”
“My people’s string instruments, what few we use, are much less complex,” Gyotin observed. “Fewer strings, and much different configuration—some are large and have many strings, but each string is one note, not many as yours seems to be.” Aaron swung the guitar in front of himself.
“This is a purely acoustic guitar; it’s been in my family for a long time. Six strings, tuned at the top with tension, with different thicknesses to allow for different ranges of notes,” he gestured to it as he explained. “Pressure on the strings at different points makes for different sounds, like so…” he demonstrated a single note, rising in pitch as he slid his hand further towards the bottom of the string.
“Strings can be plucked…or struck….or strummed…” He demonstrated the various different methods. “There was one famous electric guitarist that used a power drill to play. He was amazing in his day.”
Gyotin was fascinated despite himself. Even in simple tools, humans consistently demonstrated a depth of thought and development that was mostly unprecedented in the larger galactic community, doing more with less than anyone else ever had. “How many kinds of guitar are there? You mentioned that this one is acoustic…and you have electric ones too?”
“Oh yes. And hybrid guitars that are acoustic but have electric pickups. Guitars made of different materials, different types of strings—all used for different kinds of music. Here, let me show you.” Aaron pulled out his phone and accessed the colony’s cache of YouTube.
“So… here’s that guy I was telling you about.” They watched Eddie Van Halen for a moment, and Gyotin’s tail was soon twitching to Van Halen’s classic.
“So energetic,” Gyotin said, leaning over to look closer at the small screen as the video wound down.
“Okay…and here’s another one….this is a contrast. This is the original, which is basically just for fun,” He let the video play, and they watched several outlandishly dressed young human males cavorting in unlikely-looking clothing.
Aaron pulled up a third video. “Look at what this guy did with an acoustic guitar, with the same tune, though.” Gyotin couldn’t help twitching his tail and bobbing his head to the beat of this one, which appealed to him a lot.
“And those are the same song!” Gyotin marveled after the video of Noah Guthrie was done playing. “We have different versions of our music, but….nothing quite like that. It’s the same song, but they’re nothing alike at all.”
“Exactly. I think music is one of the single things that humans…or, actually, thinking beings of all kinds, really…can all relate to, even if it’s something we don’t appreciate. I don’t like American country music, particularly, but there are millions of humans who do,” Aaron said, nodding. “Among my people, music is a way of remembering the past. We have songs that are older than Western civilization by thousands of years, although most haven’t lasted.”
Gyotin cocked his head. “That’s the second time you have referred to ‘my people’. What do you mean by that?”
Aaron blinked. “I…I guess I’m so used to people knowing what being a Jew means that I hadn’t considered that you might not.”
Gyotin’s ears splayed with tired humor. “How is a ‘Jew’ different from other humans? To my nose, you all smell much the same. What does it mean to you?”
“Oh, man. Where to even start?” Aaron said, thoughtfully. “Okay. You know that one of the ways that humans divide ourselves is by religion, yeah?” Gyotin nodded, aware from his reading in the human library that there were possibly as many different religions as there were living human beings; he and the other Starminds had gravitated towards Zen Buddhism for most of their still-developing philosophy, but he had found nuggets of various truths that resonated with him with nearly every religious text he had been able to get his paws on.
“So…Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all from the same roots, what most scholars accept as being the ‘Abrahamic religions’. I personally think that all three split from the original root at different times and for different historical pressures, but in some circles that’s an unpopular opinion.”
Gyotin nodded. He had read at length about the divide between three of Earth’s major religions, and found it both alarming and fascinating that such subtle differences in doctrine had led to so much strife.
“Anyway—Christianity came to dominate the West, from about a millenia and a half ago until the present day. During that time, the Jews, followers of Judaism that is, had been dispersed throughout Europe away from our homeland. For many reasons that I won’t go into now, it was not just legally sanctioned, but religiously encouraged, to discriminate against my people. Read Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice some time, if you haven’t already, and understand that the character of Shylock is a Jew.”
Gyotin duck-nodded; he hadn’t previously encountered an actual rabbi, and didn’t want to interrupt the torrent of words coming from his new friend, so said nothing. He had found that humans, particularly younger humans that were excited or passionate about something, typically would simply fill silence with whatever that topic was until they exhausted themselves or realized that the other party wasn’t saying anything. It was useful in the extreme, because most of them never realized he was simply being silent and listening, and those that did went on about what a good listener he was. Young Ava Rios was like that.
“Within the last century,” Aaron went on, “we experienced something that reminds me very much of what is happening to your people today.” He idly plucked at his guitar, eliciting a mournful chord or two. “In places, nine out of ten Jews were…exterminated, intentionally. Roughly six million of my people were slaughtered for no crime more serious than their birth, in a span of about six or seven of our years. They called it a ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Problem’.”
“The American President released some information several days ago,” Gyotin said thoughtfully. “He said that the true enemy is the hand inside the Hunter puppet, and that they are the ones that have made so many of my people into these drones. I have heard that Great Father Daar has said the same.”
“Zombies,” Aaron said without humor. “They fit the bill.” Gyotin nodded an acknowledgement.
“Zombies, then. Yes… perhaps they try to exterminate us because they see us as a threat, you think?” Gyotin asked. “This makes me think perhaps we are more powerful than we think. In a way, it is a compliment.”
Aaron laughed, a single exhalation that had little actual humor in it. “For someone whose people is facing extinction, you have a unique point of view.”
“As do you,” Gyotin observed. “What is it that keeps your people…your people, do you think? This is a question I have asked many times since I came here, of many people, and I get many answers.”
“We have a shared history and culture that has been very resilient for thousands of our years,” Aaron replied. “In many ways, Jewish history is defined by our resilience in the face of loss.” He strummed a few more mournful chords by way of illustration and began to sing softly.. As it wound to a halt, Aaron resumed talking, as though he had not interrupted himself.
“That song is about the pogroms in eastern Europe…coming home to find everything…the town, the people you love, the very street you live on and the house you live in simply….gone. Gone forever,” Aaron said quietly.
Gyotin laid his ears back almost involuntarily and made a wordless sound of shared pain.
Aaron went on. “In many ways, I suspect that there are many of your people that will understand that song all too well before this is over, and it will make no difference that the enemy is one they didn’t even know existed. At least my people have usually understood who the enemy was, you know?”
“Knowing your enemy is important. Knowing yourself is more important, I think,” Gyotin returned.
“That’s the trick isn’t it?” Aaron asked. He strummed at his guitar without playing anything in particular. “What do you think the result of this is going to be? I mean…among my people, we formed a new nation and went after the people that had hurt us the most. Your situation isn’t quite the same.”
Gyotin thought for a long moment. “I am not sure what to think, but I am afraid, in a way.”
“What are you afraid of?” Aaron asked him, pausing with the guitar.
“I am not sure, to be honest. I…the best comparison I can give you is a Gaoian saying. I smell Keeda’s agony. I do not know what the future has in store for my people, but I think it will have much pain.”
Date Point: 14Y 1W 4D AV
Washington DC, United States of America, Earth
President Sartori
”….run that by me again, son,” Sartori said to his morning briefing officer.
“The Israeli Knesset, sir. Their PM made an early morning address a few days ago, drawing a direct parallel from the Gaoian situation to the Holocaust. In response, the Knesset enacted a new Basic Law this morning, which as you know, sir, is essentially what passes for a Constitutional Amendment, since they don’t have a Constitution. It declares the…hang on, sir, let me read this directly…” the officer trailed off. Sartori wasn’t a bad boss, as far as this job went. Most of the time, he was downright pleasant to work for, as he was anything but a bullshitter, and in Colonel Howard’s experience, that was a pretty rare thing in a leader.
”…Let’s see. Here it is, sir. …recognizes the rights of all sentient beings to exist, and to protect and defend that right by any and all means… Goes on to outline the right to self-defense, sir, but that’s the gist of it. There’s an explanatory statement that references the Gao specifically, sir, but the text of the Basic Law isn’t that specific. This also comes with a request from the Israeli ambassador for a meeting with you, at your earliest convenience.”
Sartori growled something wordless into his second…maybe third, he wasn’t sure… cup of coffee for the morning. He’d sworn off the stuff during his campaign, but his term thus far had reignited his body’s need for sufficient caffeine with a vengeance, and his staff had quickly adapted to ensuring that The Boss had a ready supply.
“All right, thank you, Andrew. Anything else?”
“Just one final item, sir. AEC says they’ll have a briefing for you in a few days on….”
Date Point: 14Y 1W 4D AV
Various locations across Western Civilization, Earth
It began in many places, as most such movements do. If it could be truly said to have started anywhere, a historian might have placed that point in Israel, but by the time anyone might have cared about such things, the moment for identifying it was long gone and forgotten.
The Knesset’s decisions, occasionally impenetrable, sometimes almost contradictory, but always impactful, typically always had an effect of some kind on the Jewish community of the West. Rabbis in synagogues read the new Basic Law, did some thinking about it, and although some of them spoke with their peers about it, nearly all of them came to the same conclusion.
Often little-appreciated, known, or acknowledged by the non-faithful was a nonetheless core tenet of Jewish faith; a mitzvah injunction to charity. Equating the Gao’s plight to the Holocaust was a powerful statement, albeit one not fully appreciated by the massive Western media until rabbis in nearly every synagogue in the West spoke about it the following Sabbath. That changed things. Enormous online communities sprang up almost overnight, coordinating the biggest question of How can I help with the biggest answer Here’s what’s needed, followed by news reports on CNN and other networks worldwide. At the moment, nothing yet was known, and inevitably, all eyes turned to the State of Israel.
They’d kicked this off. There must be a plan behind it.
Date Point: 14Y 2W 1D AV
Washington DC, United States of America, Earth
President Sartori
“Ambassador! Thank you for coming!” President Sartori greeted the Israeli Ambassador with a firm handshake and a smile polished by both years of public speaking and a genuine like of this particular Ambassador. “Please, come in, have a seat.” They were in the Oval Office, and he led the group accompanying the Ambassador around to a pair of cream-colored couches in front of the Presidential desk, gesturing to the empty one and taking a seat next to his Chief of Staff and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, from the Pentagon. Once all were seated, coffee offered and declined, and the niceties observed, he leaned back. “How may the United States help our Israeli friends?”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” began the Ambassador. “I must introduce my companions; this is General Gavriel Schur of the Israeli Defense Force, and Rabbi Uwriy Walden, a representative of one of the largest Chabad-Lubavitch communities in the United States.”
“Gentlemen…welcome,” said Sartori. “These are my Chief of Staff and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Please, go on.”
“Mr. President, thank you. As you may know, the Knesset enacted a new Basic Law several days ago, recognizing the right to exist of all sentient beings. The State of Israel is prepared to contribute materially, and to leverage our global community resource base, to assist the Gaoian people in their time of need. Mr. President, I cannot emphasize enough how gravely my government considers this. What has happened…is happening…to the Gao is another Holocaust. To us, never again means exactly that, as I am sure you can appreciate.” The Ambassador paused, and then went on.
“Toward that end, I have been authorized by my government to make the following requests of the United States, and my counterparts in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada are this morning putting this matter before the Prime Ministers of those nations. One, we wish to formally and fully join Allied Extrasolar Command as a fully participating partner in every sense; this includes, particularly, entrants to the Spaceborne Operations Regiment, and we are prepared to contribute logistical support to both Gao and to the refugee population on Cimbrean. Two, I mentioned a moment ago, we are prepared to leverage our global community resource base. Specifically, we want to directly support the Cimbrean refugee effort; we have a great deal of logistical expertise with such things, as I am sure you know. We have mobile hospitals that can network with specialists in Folctha and provide full services on-site, up to and including surgery, trauma care, or stasis transport to a fully equipped medical facility.” The Ambassador leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and looking Sartori directly in the eyes.
“Mr. President, we consider this a moral obligation. I fully anticipate a repeat of other such refugee relief efforts as we have conducted with great success in the past. I cannot put it more simply. We offer, because we must help. Morally, we cannot allow this opportunity to pass without trying.” Sartori took a deep breath, as he usually did before responding to proposals that had considerable weight behind them.
“Pending the agreement of Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and of course figuring out exactly what role Israel will play…the United States agrees in principle. I don’t know what help you can provide, sir, but any and all efforts are welcome.” Sartori reached a hand across the table, and their hands met in a firm, solid grasp.
Date Point: 14Y 2W 4D AV
Refugee Camp 4—Folctha, Cimbrean
Mother Seema
Seema couldn’t decide what was worse; the new, fresh, raw stench of suffering every time a new group from Gao came to the camp, the thought usually following it that her nose would simply never get inured to it, or the fear that it would. None of the Mothers had any answers for the cubs plaintively asking what had happened, when they could go home, where they were now, or why whatever was happening had happened.
There were rumors, of course. Seema wasn’t sure what to believe despite having seen events on Gao firsthand. Grim-faced Stonebacks covered in gore and tall Humans with unreadable expressions had swooped in on her commune, run some kind of sensor over her head and the head of every Mother they had brought with them, had bodily thrown them into massive military vehicles of some kind for a rough and unkind ride to a spaceport that looked nothing like it had when she had been there before. It had taken her an uncomfortable amount of time to recognize Lavmuy Spaceport, it had changed at the hands of Humans so much. Tense conversations had followed, and then she and the others were…here. Meeting humans that had greeted them with worried faces, hot food and drink, and sorrow that transcended any language barriers at all. The last two weeks had been a total blur and the most infuriating thing of all is that not even the Stonebacks would tell her what was happening and why they had destroyed her life, in a violation of everything she had learned as a cub about the Females’ special relationship with Stoneback.
She’d heard that the Wi Kao Females commune had met with tragic results, and it was rumored that some of the Females there had tried to break their sisters free and been summarily cut down. She wasn’t sure that she believed it. Mother-Supreme Yulna had released a recorded statement pleading for the Females to follow the Stonebacks and the Humans, that they were protecting the Females according to the old Contract, and that the Swarm of Swarms was about to attack Gao. There had been more, but Seema couldn’t remember everything the Mother-Supreme had said—one of the human medics that had stayed in their camp almost the whole time they had been there had called it …something. “Pee Tee Ess Dee” or something like that, but she hadn’t explained it and it hadn’t seemed important enough to demand an answer.
The interceding weeks had been uneventfully exhausting. The Humans never seemed to sleep at all; Seema would lie down at the end of a day and when she awoke, she would swear the Humans that had been up and moving around when she’d gone to sleep were still there, tending to the Mothers and the cubs. They were so compassionate….she had made friends with several, although she was unable to reconcile the caring and empathetic people with the rumors of forbidding Deathworlders. Even their cubs…children…toiled alongside parents in an endless and one-way river of empathy.
As more, and yet more Mothers, Sisters, and cubs were brought from Gao, however, the problem of population pressure and everything it brought with it became more and more apparent. Eventually, she knew, even the Humans were going to simply run out of resources. She sat, taking her turn watching a sizeable group of youngsters try to learn a game from some Human children called “football” that involved a great deal of running and kicking a black-and-white ball according to rules Seema knew she couldn’t have remembered at this point if she’d tried. It kept them busy, however, and that was the important thing. Busy cubs were cubs that weren’t indulging their endless fascination with mischief and/or shenanigans. A shadow fell over her, and she looked up.
“May I sit with you, Sister?” said the other Female. Seema didn’t know her, but duck-nodded, grateful to have the company. “I’m Niral.”
“I’m Seema,” she said, as the other Female sat. “It’s good to see them playing again.” She nodded at the cubs running amok on the field, one particularly small and enthusiastic male with, apparently, a pair of Human shorts in his mouth running fourpaw ahead of the pack and being chased by all and sundry. The ball sat, forgotten, at one end of the field. Even the human children ran, behind the pack of cubs, shrieking with laughter and faux outrage, with the one who was sans his shorts laughing and yelling at the others to bring them back, now that the game of “football” had become an elaborate game of keepaway.
“I don’t know how you manage to keep your eye on that many of them at once,” Niral said with an amused tilt to her ears. “I typically only have about three or four of them to deal with. Or, I should say, I did before this all happened. Things have been a little different over the last week or two.”
“Where were you when this started?” Seema asked, unable to help herself.
“I…I have been with the Female Commune here in Folctha for several years,” Niral said. “I work with the human military here.” She sighed. “I was the one that found the electronic intercept showing that the Hunters were coming to Gao, but I was too late to do anything about it other than warn others.”
Seema’s ears had gone flat, despite herself. “So it is true. The Hunters came to Gao. I had heard, but no-one seems to know, really, and I don’t know what to believe.” She deflated, misery rising unchecked back to the forefront of her mind.
Niral was silent for a moment. “They tried. The Humans drove them off and put up a system defense field like the ones around Cimbrean and Earth.” She sighed again. “It wasn’t enough, though. Between the Hunters and the Hierarchy, I’m afraid the end of the Gao may be staring us in the face.”
“The Humans…. drove off the Swarm of Swarms????” Seema said in disbelief. Niral nodded.
“They did. It cost them hundreds of lives and an irreplaceable ship, but they did it. I’ve…heard about the weapon they used, but they won’t say what it was or tell us anything about it. All I know is that it turned night into day on Gao for a few minutes and destroyed thousands of Hunter ships. Millions of the beasts are dead, adrift in space now. That isn’t really what’s important, though.”
Seema could only stare at her wordlessly. The phrases drove off the Swarm of Swarms and millions of dead Hunters weren’t such common utterances that they squared neatly with not really what’s important.
Something else Niral had said a moment before stood out in her head suddenly, illogically. “Hierarchy? That’s the thing that the human President was talking about, why humans don’t use implants, right?” Niral duck-nodded.
“Yes. They’re very real. If you have implants, they can use them to…hijack your body and turn you into a puppet. They did that to the entire implanted population of Gao; a billion of our people, gone, just like that,” Niral said sadly.
Seema’s shock had turned to horror. “The Stonebacks…that is what they were protecting us from. Mother Yasru had implants!” A number of things that hadn’t made sense a few short minutes ago were suddenly falling into place.
Niral nodded again. “Yes. The Wi Kao commune’s implanted Females broke loose from the enclosure that Stoneback had them in and got into the armory. They…massacred….the Sisters, the Mothers…the cubs. Stoneback took a lot of losses shielding Females with their bodies. And the worst part was, nobody knew why it was happening, and so the only thing they could see and understand was a group of Sisters being slaughtered by Stonebacks, when in reality, the Stonebacks were trying to protect the rest of us that hadn’t been taken over.”
The two Sisters sat together without speaking further, thinking about problems that were far too big to solve and almost too big to grasp, when something in the here and now dragged their attention back to the present. Two of the oldest m ale cubs, both close to being young adults, were tensely facing off with one another. Their body language shrieked aggression, and Seema realized that claws were already out. Something needed to be done, quickly; neither was old enough that the Gao’s customary rules on males duelling or fighting with one another would suffice, and with that many little ones close by…
Both Females were across the field in moments, smaller fuzzy heads giving way as the Mothers arrived. Seema raised her voice, trying to forestall the nearly-inevitable from becoming actually-happening.
“Boys! What’s going on here?” The look of surprise on both young faces was comical, and Niral had to work to keep a stern Look Of Authority on her face.
“Mother…I…” both began, breaking off as they realized the other was speaking too. Finally, one plunged on. “Mother, he tripped me on purpose, when he knew I’d land with my face in the mud.” Seema cocked an ear at the other would-be combatant.
“I didn’t! Mother, he tripped over my foot! I didn’t put it in front of him on purpose, and then he got up and pushed me!”
Both of the miscreants were grass-stained and covered in mud, and neither of them smelled particularly repentant. Seema opted for the scorched-earth approach, rather than get into who had done what to whom first, in front of so many eagerly nosy faces. “Okay. Since both of you apparently have way too much energy to handle dealing with each other in a constructive fashion, you’ve both just volunteered for latrine duty this evening. Save your fighting for when it matters.”
There was a collective “awwww” from the entire group, and both of the young males—the group of younger cubs and the human kids all, of course, wanted to see Mama Seema get the older cubs in trouble, and the two hooligans, of course, really didn’t want latrine duty.
“All right,” Niral said. “Off with you….go play.” She waved a dismissive paw at the group, who dashed away and resumed whatever version of their game it was by rules that were probably transitory at best. The two Mothers walked back to where they’d been sitting before, the two would-be combatants following sulkily behind. They sat, and Niral looked up. “Oh no. You two go get busy. You know where to find Sister Gella—you take your direction from her, and no complaining or I’ll have you doing this again tomorrow.”
“Yes, Mother…..”
“All day. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Mother.” The two slouched away, not looking at each other in shared misery.
“You know,” said Seema thoughtfully, once they were out of earshot. “Those two normally wouldn’t have reacted like that.”
“What do you mean?” Niral asked.
“Toran and Tybal have been bestest friends practically since they were born, and they’re normally inseparable. Normally, if one of them pushed the other down into the mud, the one in the mud would have dragged the other one down with them, and they’d have both been covered in it, utterly filthy, and both pleased as a Keeda about it.”
“And now?” Niral asked.
“Now…those two were ready to come to blows over a little tussle in the dirt. It wasn’t play-fighting like I’d normally expect from them…or from any cub that age, really.” Seema looked around, despair overcoming her face for a moment. “We need to find these cubs homes.”
Niral nodded thoughtfully. But where? And how?