rickgriffin

A Vast And Endless Sky 10

Added 2022-08-15 22:35:56 +0000 UTC

Endless Sky 9

JN Squire wanted more of one of the stories I was developing already. This one has parallel themes to the krakun story I'm writing, which I didn't intend, but I suppose it's probably something that's always on my mind a lot. Comments appreciated!

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Five months.

Thassiter obviously didn’t mean to keep this from him; the ssarith had implied that invasion was soon and inevitable, but five months just seemed like not enough time for anything, especially coordinating a fleet of supermassive ships and a billion ssarith. The dynamics of it just seemed impossible to grasp: there was going to be hundreds of thousands of points of contact between montrose and ssarith and there simply was no way to ensure that every single one of those events happened ideally—no matter how badly the ssarith would want it.

Karno, though, simply patted Rees on the back. “That is always the issue with politics, isn’t it?” he stated. “The ones in charge are made responsible for every single issue under their command no matter how impossible or impractical it is to micromanage.”

“I don’t think I could shoulder that kind of responsibility,” Rees said. “I’d implode from the sheer weight of resentment of everyone on Ar.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about that. The ssarith will be taking all the blame; if you do not wish to be known, you don’t have to be. In fact, I may suggest against taking on any fame for this unless you are well-prepared for it. Being the very first montrose to advocate for his people in the shift to a new world order is going to be a huge historical weight. Perhaps too huge. Instead, just consider what it is that you want. What do you want to see done different, and better, in your world? What do you want to ensure is protected? What do you think the ssarith need to hear in order to serve your people better?”

“But what if the things I feel need changing are wrong?” Rees asked. “Or worse, what if the ssarith can’t do anything about it?”

Karno tapped his muzzle with a finger. “Keep in mind, you have thousands of ssarith who will be considering your words in the best of faith. You don’t have to do anything but think up the best future you can. And you’re never going to get a better reception from any court, senate, or parliament in the entire galaxy.”

****

Rees forced his tail to wriggle as he took on some of the equipment the lio offered him—the breathing mask to keep for himself, the makeup kit, and some more computer equipment all stuffed into a high quality backpack—though not the phone that the lio had offered earlier. Velk then escorted him all the way back to the ssarith vessel.

“Velk?” Rees asked as they changed out the atmosphere, and he could remove his helmet again. “Can you… stay with me?”

“I did give you a communicator,” Velk pointed out. “You can contact me or my alternate any time of day or night.”

“Who is your alternate?”

“Bekarus. He’s a very amiable male.”

Rees nodded. “Well, okay, but I feel rather more secure having some people my scale around me. Even if you’re not montrose, you’re more like me than the ssarith.”

“We can schedule visitation if you like,” Velk said. “Maybe you’d like to come see what the lio are like when we’re not being all serious diplomats.”

Rees blushed. “I’d like that.”

Velk did make a point to stay with Rees as he got settled back into Thassiter’s quarters. While the giant serpent slept, Velk helped out change out some of the adaptable walls in the quarters to create something of a miniature alcove for Rees, with a space to sit and lay on his own. Velk then showed him how to use the computer, which took an awful long time to figure out since it had no protocols for writing in Tannic. But the AI was helpful in constructing something that worked more or less like Rees’s computer back home, and he could finally just sit and start writing his thoughts about what he wanted the world to be like.

He drew a blank.

“What sorts of things do you wish was different about your homeworld?” Rees asked.

Velk hesitated. After crossing her arms and hemming and hawing for several moments, she started, “Well, not having the war would be a start. As honorable as combat is, it’s certainly taken its toll on our culture. We end up having to surrender so much for the war effort, we have to make deliberate exceptions just so lio can live normal lives and have normal families. Otherwise we’d just burn through our youth.”

“I’d certainly like less war,” Rees said. He typed into the computer, “planetary peace.” It seemed a little cheesy. “I don’t think most montrose are opposed to that. The question is, how do you do that without… just taking away the ability to wage war.”

“Many wars are fought over resources,” Velk pointed out. “The lio haven’t had a civil war in well over a krakun’s age, because there are no opposing governments to rival for resources, at least on our worlds. A unified, altruistic goal goes a long way toward reliving the necessity of internal strife.”

Rees started to type that in, then hesitated. “…what if religion is getting in the way?”

Velk tilted her head, a little amusingly since the mask didn’t change expression.

“I mean,” Rees said, “I don’t… like how fractious our religions are. But at the same time, I don’t want to declare one metaphysical truth. I just want people to stop taking it so seriously that it harms everyone else, inside and outside.”

Velk took Rees’s paws in hers, pulling them away from the keyboard. He looked down in shame.

“Rees,” she said, “I don’t think you have to solve all of this for all montrose forever. There’s certainly things I’m ashamed about with my culture, too.”

“Such as?”

“Well… a long time ago, the krakun conquered the homeworld of a people called the mysa. They’re very small.” She held her paw just a few decimeters off the table. “And we, wanting to be the altruistic defenders of the galaxy against the krakun, took in many hundreds of thousands of them as refugees. It’s gotten to the point where Costaruna is as much the mysa’s homeworld now as it is ours, and it’s not always been the most stable of unions; they aren’t exactly built to be warriors like us. But they deserve better from us.”

Rees stared at the computer monitor, then up at Velk. He then typed in, “sexual equality among montrose: what would that look like?”

“And I don’t know what it would look like,” Rees said. “I think male montrose should definitely have more equal footing in politics and society in general. I want to be able to assert myself in social life the way females are allowed to, without fear of some female taking advantage of me. But how does that even happen? And on top of that, a lot of the female montrose would see it as power being taken away from them. They won’t like that kind of shift. And some males aren’t going to be too keen on what’d feel like being given more responsibility--”

“Rees, it’s okay. Don’t overthink this. If the innate nature of montrose gets in the way, then it will. But that doesn’t mean that you have to stop up yourself from saying that there is a problem.”

She was sitting awfully close, and so Rees wrapped his tail around hers in a shy expression of affection. It eventually, with some gesturing and a little encouragement, turned into a hug around her midsection. She hugged him back. It was rather the first time that Rees had embraced a female outside his immediate family and it not feel like he was about to be dragged into emotional peril.

That’s what he wanted more of.

They spent hours talking, and when he was done, he had an enormous number of suggestions for how things could be changed. He gave them all the priority they deserved, but didn't try to figure out which ones were the most important or how to even begin solving them. And eventually, Velk took her leave, leaving Rees to contemplate his position in the galaxy, and also eat something from the snacks the lio gave him, because he was starving again.

Rees was quite tired, and had started trying to figure out if there was any way to play video games on the alien technology, when Thassiter finally stirred in his bedchamber and awakened. He looked up, startled, only for his rigid hood to soften when he spotted Rees taking up a new opening in the room.

“Rees, there you are,” he said, his voice box rattling. “I apologize, I forgot you did not sleep as long as we do. I should have set something up for you myself so you did not grow bored and wander off.”

“It’s okay,” Rees said. “The lio have been very kind to me.”

“The lio?” Neither Thassiter’s voice box nor his expression revealed if he was surprised by this, but he certainly didn’t come across as startled.

“Yes, they were in here. I spoke with the ambassador.”

“What did he have to say?”

Rees took a deep breath, tapping his fingers on the table, before he turned the screen around for Thassiter to look at. “On behalf of my people, if you insist on conquering my world for our own good, then I have a list of demands.”