“Well now,” I said, unable to breathe for just a moment, “this is a dilemma.”
The star map, I confirmed, was a map of a 1/10th slice of Area 1. I could focus on each point of light, and the orb screen would display a system. Then I could focus on a planet, and its overall map would appear along with quite a few different option sliders, each one adjusting the areas of prospective Safe Zones in some way.
"I thought you'd be happier," said Serayne, "with this, you can make entire stellar regions of Area 1 more peaceful."
I gave her one of my now patent pending stares—not the angry one, but one that said "seriously?"
Then I laughed, more mockingly than I should have. Now Serayne was looking at me with concern. "Uh, how do I put this," I said, "the last thing this is going to do is make things more peaceful. At least, more than before the safe zones fell in the first place."
Serayne cocked her head in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"
I exhaled a deep breath. "Oh boy, how do I put this. You said you have no specific memories from your previous cycles, but you do have sort of vague echoes, right? I thought that would have been enough for you to have a sense that it's not so simple."
"The echoes are more vague than that, I think. Really, what I call those, it's really just my best guess at some leaps of intuition, sometimes. But go on, why is this not helpful?"
I took another deep breath. "It's been about 10,000 years since you've last hatched. The Federation has been around for what, about half that time? And their people, at or near that founding, were responsible for the Safe Zones being activated, and they weren't deactivated again until less than a year ago.
None of them managed to enter this room at the time. I seriously doubt the Federation even knows it's possible to change the configuration and radii of the Safe Zones—not even the President. So, for 5,000 years, people have been—they've basically built the Federation's civilization around what Safe Zones do exist...and more to the point, where they DON'T exist as well."
Now Serayne gave me a look. “Surely you’re not defending the sorts of practices that surely make up the majority of the activity that relies on unsafe areas.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I held up my hands. “Of course not. But openly expanding the safe zones en masse in a tenth of the entire Area is an excellent way for us to make a truly breathtaking number of enemies.”
“I doubt the Syndicate would count among those,” Serayne scoffed, “and next to them, who else could even possibly count as threatening to us?”
“You’d be surprised. Maybe few people who would be ruined by the Safe Zones expanding would be likely to kill us, but plenty would have enough power of another sort to seriously inconvenience us. If enough banded together, they could possibly try to retaliate against Grosstin, for associating with us. Or maybe they'd be more likely to persecute our admirers.
People like that, who acquire money and power by exploiting people and threatening them, aren’t going to back down and just stop doing that, they’re not going to just wake up and say ‘well, I guess I’d better start making my living honestly’ just because it gets tougher for them, either. Expanding the Safe Zones is actually more likely to induce such people to cause more trouble than to help more innocent people.”
Serayne looked up sharply. “You can’t possibly know that,” then, dipping her head again slightly, “but overall, you’re right that the consequences could be a lot more unpredictable than I may have given it credit for.
After all, there must be some kind of reason why the previous Fire Guardian didn’t set them to maximum in the first place...hmm.
Very well, let us return for now. We should make a more well-considered plan when we can.”
“We may not get a chance to,” I said, “I don’t think we can keep this from the Federation. And they’re going to have a lot of big problems with the idea of my doing whatever I want to the size of the Safe Zones.”
“I agree with the second part,” Serayne nodded. By now, we were on our way back to the Guardian Quarters section of the “back rooms.” “But what makes you so sure we can’t simply not tell them?”
“You’ve seen how Bruzigan fights by now,” I said, “you’ve seen his character. He’s my Floor team leader as well as a Federation Admiral. What do you think the chances are he won’t clear every trial and become the Guardian of Life?”
Serayne opened her beak, then closed it. “I see your point. The fallout from us keeping this from him on top of the Federation finding out anyway in such an event doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“Yeah. We’re gonna have to tell him. But not over virtual space. If someone spying on us picks up on this existing...that doesn’t bear thinking about either. I’ll ask him to set up a top secret team meeting on Satslik.”
Serayne assented, and we returned to the Firebrand. I threw myself back into my busy routine, trying to distract myself from the fact that I now had even more to worry about.