Let us speak of Memoire. The Seat of Rituals and Secrets within the High Council, hers was a special position within New Ludayan society. It was her duty to chronicle the holidays of the nation. The turning points. She worked closely with the Seat of History to ensure that the daily prayers, if any, were spoken, and in the correct way, with the correct movements. Epochia was myriad in its cultures and, in truth, the only thing that connected the nation together was that her people shared the metagene. Each kingdom had its own rituals, its own gods.
And it was Memoire's duty to chronicle them all. Or what was left of them, at least.
She was working with Iconoclast this afternoon, just after the Council's meeting. Luminary was with them, and beside her was her friend, the newcomer, the one once known as Shimmer. Yes, Memoire remembered this one. Or rather, a few of the people in her memories did. Luminary had shared with her the first meeting with the now-old man in front of her now, sitting across from her at a table. He was young in her memory, scarcely out of his teens, all fire and passion. The Becenti that sat in front of her now was none of that. There was a hollowness to his eyes that many older metahumans shared. Even now, with all of the wonders of New Ludaya around him, despite the excitement in his voice as he spoke, there was a resignation there. As though he were simply waiting for all of it to come crashing down.
(Or, perhaps, that was her own biases infecting her view of the world.)
“The plane Chliofrond descended to was one of water,” Becenti was saying, “A freshwater sea in a stone bowl. No waves. No local life. Even the sun was artificial in nature. My guildmaster, Wakeling, thought that it was placed there by metahuman magic.”
“Which implies that the Chliofrondi stayed there for awhile,” Memoire noted.
“That was a line of reasoning we had,” Becenti said, “Though we have no way of knowing how long the islands were inhabited after crashing into the sea. Most of the work the elves did there was based on the freshwater sea itself. They were after its resources. The metahuman ruins were, frankly, an afterthought.”
“And yet you didn't go there more often, Myron?” Luminary said.
“No,” Becenti said, “...No, I did not. There were more pressing matters I had to attend to.”
He and Luminary exchanged knowing looks.
(For, earlier in the day, they had spoken at length about Darwinists.)
“The plane's gone, from what I hear,” Memoire said, “The Federation glassed it, yes?”
“They found out about the metahuman ruins,” Becenti said, “And what the elves were doing there. There were… fears, of cross-technological contamination. There was a Shard of Imagination there.”
Memoire sucked in a breath. Iconoclast's jaw set.
“I see,” Memoire said, “And they destroyed it.”
“Yes,” Becenti said.
“And you're sure of this?”
“I had a few guildmates on that job,” Becenti said, “They said that there was nothing left but ash and glass.”
“A Shard of Imagination can survive worse,” Memoire said, and her entire body, that symbol-etched thing, rippled and twisted as she pulled up an ancient memory, “A great-grandfather of an old friend experimented on Shards of Imagination. Saw them survive glassings. Saw them survive worse.”
She looked at Becenti.
“It is likely the Federation collected the Shard later on.”
Becenti grimaced. Looked away.
“They wouldn't want it,” he said, “It's anathema to them. Runs against everything they stand for.”
“And yet, it is power,” Luminary said, “And we know they love power over anything else.”
“And old records show that they've used them before,” Iconoclast added, “It was considered a heresy, back then, but they still used them. There's precedent.”
“...You may be correct,” Becenti said.
“We're getting off track,” Memoire said, “The plane, Mr. Becenti. Can you describe more of it? Where is it located?”
“...It was located on its own,” Becenti said, “The Traveling Point hung in the middle of the ocean on Redenia. Hard to see. It apparently took the elves years to even find it. I'm not sure how long it's been in forecast.”
“Redenia,” Memoire said.
“The Pallaved Paradigm,” Luminary said.
“Quarzen-Heim, actually,” Becenti corrected, “But the dead plane itself didn't appear to travel with the rest of the Paradigm.”
They were quiet.
Then...
“I wish to speak with Becenti alone,” Memoire said, “My power is best used in private, between donor and host.”
Luminary nodded. She gave Becenti’s shoulder a tight squeeze, and then she and Iconoclast took their leave.
Becenti rose from his seat as well, pacing around the room. They were in Memoire's office, a tucked-away corner of Mt. Redress with no windows. It was a cave, a natural one by the looks of it, with a few stalagmites and stalactites, though there was a way the walls of the caves glinted, as though Pauldros's power had turned them over, had cast a sheet of rock over the original walls.
The only source of light came from torches set into the stone. Dusk in the cavern, and they only added more shadow to Memoire as she watched Becenti take stock of her room.
“I was raised on Krenstone,” she said, “The open sky, it makes me feel odd. Fearful, even, on bad days.”
“I have a guildmate from Krenstone,” Becenti said, “One of the Dwarven merchant princes.”
“Oh, I never met any of them,” Memoire said, “The rich do not care for beggars like me. Especially if they're metahuman.”
Becenti nodded at that. He turned around, sat back at the table.
“Tell me,” he said, “This... your ability. Does it hurt?”
Memoire smiled at that.
“It does not,” she said, “Many ask the same thing. But what I am doing is copying your memory. That is all.”
“Just copying?” Becenti said, “Nothing else?”
“For you, just copying,” Memoire said, “Many ask that same question, as well. I will be frank, Becenti, I have the power to take memory away as well, and you would not even realize. You would not know the difference. They would simply be gone.”
“Then it's a matter of trust,” Becenti said.
“Yes,” Memoire said.
After a moment, Becenti sighed. Put his elbows on the table, and leaned in.
“I'm ready,” he said.
“It's not so much a surgery,” Memoire said, and she put her hands on his head, fingers just grazing his temples, “It may take a while.”
“It is a wonderful thing, your ability,” Becenti said, “A living memory.”
“I have collected much, in my travels,” Memoire said, and her eyes flashed for a second, “I've gotten started, but you may continue talking.”
“You take the emotions as well?” Becenti said.
“At times, I can try,” Memoire said, “There can be no memory without emotion, and no emotion without memory. It is an inexact art. Often, I extract a memory, but the emotion remains, and like how a bee uses landmarks to find its way home, so too does the memory return to its original owner.”
She frowned upon settling on an incident on Chliofrond. Shouts and barely repressed anger.
“So much pain, there,” she said.
“An argument that one of my guildmates, Nash, had with the guildmaster,” Becenti said, “Nash has always... been abrasive, when it comes to authority. There's a reason why they're one of our Far Travelers.”
“I see,” Memoire said, “You argued before?”
“A number of times, when they first joined,” Becenti said. He felt the heat of embarrassment, and so tried turning the subject again, “And you feel the emotions with everything?”
“Yes.”
“Even guilt?”
Memoire's eyes became focused again, as she looked at Becenti. Her heart rate quickened.
“Y-Yes,” she said, “How did you...?”
But Becenti's voice betrayed nothing.
(No, he did not know.)
“...Yes,” she said, “I feel the guilt. The guilt of every memory I take. I have taken harsh memories, Becenti. Memories of murder. Of looting. Of dark things happening in dark places, on the edge of the known multiverse. Sometimes all I feel is guilt.”
(Though it was not from these memories that she felt this way.)
“I see,” Becenti said, “...Forgive me. I'm prodding too much.”
“It's quite alright,” Memoire said, “Many have asked me these questions. You are no different.”
She removed her hands.
“I'm finished,” she said, “All of your time at Chliofrond has been put in my head. Even if you were to pass on, your time there will still be here. Chliofrond will not be forgotten.”
Becenti nodded.
“Thank you,” he said.
She smiled.
“You're welcome,” she said.
…
…
Long after the newcomer left, Memoire stayed in her room. She paced around, like he had, memories swirling in her head. The raw burn of guilt attended her, the way it rotted the stomach and filled her chest. She was mumbling to herself.
She had not done that before New Ludaya.
Then, without warning, she retched. Vomited, for she recalled a moment of violence. Of screaming. Of the air filling with the copper-iron scent of blood.
And these memories, they were not taken from another.
And these memories, they were all too recent.
***
Deep range scanners in the Outer Reach detected the starship on its third run.
It was a small cargo runner of some sort. Going in and out of a sector of the Silver Eye that wasn't known to have any official colonies. A few settlers without legal mandates, perhaps, but that wasn't unheard of in the eyes of the government. People were wont to go where they wished, and there were far too many of them for the High Federation to keep track of. The majority of such colonists were people who wanted to keep to themselves. Religious communes. Isolationist cults. Anti-technology, old-ways farmers. They found themselves some nice world in the Outer Reach where they could survive off the land, and disappeared. It was rare for the High Federation to involve themselves with such worlds.
As such, the detection of a cargo runner in that region of space wasn't anything to be alarmed about.
What was cause for some investigation was that the cargo runner kept appearing. Again and again, over the course of the year. And others with it.
Someone was building up out there. This, Olendris Valm, Prime Voice of the High Federation, knew. There was a feeling in his gut as he read these reports. The galactic north of the Outer Reach was a good place to strike at the core worlds. There were several undocumented Traveling Points out there, ones that an enemy could use as a staging ground. Old Warp trails connected from there to the Iris and the Founder's Apple, back when the galactic north was the center of commerce during the Age of Reflection. Such enemies, if they gained a foothold, could launch assaults on the inner parts of the Federation. Perhaps even Everlasting Truth itself.
And there was more.
There were the nomads.
They arrested a caravan of them on Galandos Secundus, a stormy planet that was a launching point to the galactic north. Metahumans all, which was why they were taken in by the authorities for questioning, for, to quote former Prime Voice Horenthian Kantos, 'One metahuman is suspicious, two are trouble, three are a conspiracy, and any beyond that is a terrorist plot.'
They were resistant to initial interrogations. To the point that the authorities on Galandos Secundus put in a request to the Department of Psionic Affairs for the dispatching of a telepath. Three months later, the Department of Psionic Affairs confirmed the request, and a month after that they sent out an agent to interrogate the metahumans.
(Who, it should be noted, were held in a small, single room cell the entire time.)
The telepathic agent drilled into the metahumans. A Mescusian, the agent was known for having perhaps too rough an edge in their telepathic abilities. One of the metahumans, a young child, was reported as 'passing away due to a telepath-related incident.'
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
(The agent was given a light reprimand.)
The child's parents were far more valuable. They had images in mind of paradise. A green world, a utopia in the galactic north, just on the edge of the Silver Eye.
Three more parties, two on Galandos Secundus and one on Impechu, were taken in for questioning. They all had the same thoughts, the same general area.
The same utopia.
All of these reports fed their way to Olendris Valm. Who read them all.
“Tell me,” he said to his protege, Kathen Aru, “What do you think of this?”
He handed the report to Kathen.
We should speak of Kathen Aru.
(Sairad Ghedir.)
He was in his twenties, with long, blond, wild hair like a lion's. His beard was light and shallow, and there was a sort of reserved sadness in his eyes. A raysword hung at his side, and he was leaning back in his chair. His AI companion, Merry Curiosity, was sitting on his shoulder in the form of a Delluran Avatar, green, with four whispery arms, eight eyes looking over at Valm.
Kathen took the report, reading it over. His mouth ground itself into a thin line.
“Metahumans always have their utopias,” he said, “Always going on about the past. About their old nations.”
Valm nodded.
“What else?” he said.
“What was the reasoning behind their internment?” Kathen asked.
“They're metahumans,” Valm said, “What other reason is needed?”
Kathen was quiet at that. He disagreed with his mentor's assertion.
But Valm was like a father to him. So he said nothing to that.
“We've got four, maybe five interesting metahuman parties, families all,” Valm said, “Caught up by the authorities, all of them thinking the same thing. Tell me, Kathen, what conclusions can you draw?”
Kathen thought, scratching his beard.
It was Merry who spoke first.
“Families tend towards safety,” she said, “A few metahuman terrorists would be normal, but these are entire family units, moving as one.”
“It's risky,” Kathen said, “One of the families, that first one, had three young children, all under the age of eight. Traveling the galaxy like that, from cargo ship to cargo ship, that's gotta be tough...”
“But what is the destination?” Valm said, “What would make a family with three young children uproot their lives and make a dangerous trek across the Silver Eye?”
Kathen looked up at his mentor.
“A nation,” he said, “They're trying to build a nation.”
“Precisely,” Valm said, “Now, it is a gut feeling. A conclusion drawn on rather faulty evidence, for we know that a metahuman's word means little.”
“But it's something that's caught your attention,” he said.
“Yes,” Valm said. He brought a longer finger up to his mouth, thinking.
“Will you...” Kathen grimaced, “Will you bring this up to parliament?”
Valm thought on this, then shook his head.
“No,” he said, “This is not something to bring up with them. They would not believe this information. A metahuman nation, after all this time? I'd be the laughingstock of the galaxy. No, they don't believe in anything save for what lines their pockets. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them were bribed by those Mutts out there.”
“Sir,” Kathen said.
“I know, Mr. Aru,” Valm said, “I should not call them that. But when one acts like a dog...”
He shook his head.
“Well, the parliament will be what it will be. A thorn in my side.”
He looked at a few more reports. Looked up at Kathen.
“Tell me,” he said, “What would you do?”
“Me, sir?” Kathen said, “You said it yourself, parliament won't do anything about it.”
“Yes, but we know they're out there,” Valm said, “A metahuman nation, right in our backyard. Tell me, Kathen, can you sense the danger? Can you even see it?”
“Families, sir,” Kathen said, “They're families.”
“And families grow,” Valm said, “And tell their little children how awful our Federation is. How vile we are, for treating them as they are. They tell them to be scared of us. And, eventually, fear turns to action. And then you have metahumans on Everlasting Truth. You have metahuman mongrels killing our women and children.”
“Alright, I get it,” Kathen said, “You want a plan of action.”
“I have a few ideas,” Valm said, “But I want to hear your input, Mr. Aru.”
“Hear that, Kate?” Merry Curiosity said, “He wants your ideas. Not sure why, though, considering-”
Kathen turned her off. Merry disappeared back into his head. He thought for a few moments. Then looked up.
“The Auxiliary Support Act,” he said, “That bill that passed just a few months ago.”
“What about it?”
Kathen took his datapad, flipping through a few tabs, before reading it out.
“'When given cause is sufficient, the High Federation may direct the use of specific guilds with special charters to act on matters usually forbidden by the Law of InterGuild.'”
He looked up at Valm.
“That includes military action on behalf of the High Federation.”
Valm smiled.
“Precisely,” he said, “The Auxiliary Support Act was drafted by the best think tanks in the Reclamationist Party. It was written precisely so that I, as Prime Voice, would be able to use Pagan Chorus for these ends.”
“Something you wouldn't be able to do normally,” Kathen said.
“As Prime Voice, I cannot legally make a contract with a guild that I am part of,” Valm said, “The possibility of stepping down as guildmaster did come up early on after I was sworn in, but I rejected it. Pagan Chorus is an important instrument for my plans.”
He gave Kathen a knowing look. One that Kathen did not quite understand, like he was supposed to be aware of some sort of in-joke.
“But now, we have a unique weapon in our hands,” Valm said, “Pagan Chorus can go to the Outer Reach, without contract, and investigate this... metahuman utopia.”
“Good thinking, sir,” Kathen said.
“And,” Valm said, looking at Kathen, “We're going with them.”
***
There was very little innovation in the technology of the High Federation. The starships, the plasma weaponry, the grand terraforming machines that had transformed ten million worlds, those were all gifts from the past. They had existed, unchanged save for the odd difference in hull design, or the slightly more efficient plasma chamber, for tens of thousands of years. It had been High Federation warbirds that had brought down Epochia. And some were still in the fleet today, relics of an ancient era, still patrolling the eternal night, never allowed to rest, only allowed to retire in a flash of burning plasma and shrieking metal.
As such, there had been very little progress made on the warp engines of the High Federation. That most important piece of the Silver Eye's infrastructure, the means to bypass the distance between stars, and few knew how they actually worked. There were schematics, but it took a scholar's eye to translate the dead languages of the Federation's ancestors. There were copies, cobbled-together engines that could do the work, though they were shoddy work, and it often took several weeks for them to chug from one end of the galaxy to the other.
No, only the oldest of engines would do. Those that had been made in the Federation's golden age.
(An age that some said had long since come and gone, never to return.)
The fastest of the engines were reserved for the most important starships in the High Federation. Rediscovered from archaeological digs in the Founder's Apple, they were said to have powered the ships of the Alu'eer themselves. Clean. Beautiful. A rainbow pillar of light in the center of the ship.
And the Sovereign Melody, flagship of Pagan Chorus, had been outfitted with one such engine some three months ago.
Kathen stared at it now, leaning over a railing in the engine room. Guildmate workers tended to the pillar of reality, which glowed and shifted in iridescent shapes, a rainbow twisted into the shape of a machine. There was a distinct rumble to it, a humming like a woman's wail.
“Magnificent, isn't it?” a voice said behind him.
Kathen turned around. Old Scar, his weapons instructor, head of security, was walking into the room, pushing past a few crewmembers. He had a smile on his ugly face.
“Makes her the fastest warbird in the fleet,” he said, “I was onboard when we took her to respond to some pirates down in the Pleyor system. I blinked, and we were there. Only took a couple hours.”
He slapped a hand on Kathen's shoulder, shook him.
“A couple hours! Before, it would take a day.”
“Right,” Kathen said, “I asked the engineers about how long it'll take us to get to the edge of the galaxy. They said only a couple of days.”
“Good,” Old Scar said, “And then we can sync up with long range scanners and see for ourselves what the Mutts have been up to.”
At once his ferocious, jovial attitude melted away. Replaced with a familiar look of hatred. Old Scar leaned against the rail with Kathen, his jaw set as he stared at the warp engine. His pitiless eyes reflected the multicolor aura.
“Don't like it when they get like this,” he said.
Kathen didn't answer. Old Scar's head turned, just a bit, to his young protege.
“Well, say something, will ya?” he said, “You've got to have that stick in your gut too.”
Kathen shrugged.
“They're just families,” he said, “Sounds to me they're just trying to...”
He thought of his words.
“Find something better out there. And I can't say I blame them.”
“Families,” Old Scar said, “You sound like Rhunea.”
He spat off the edge of the railing. Saliva plattered down to the pillar's base. A couple of crewmembers looked up. One of them went to contact the Chief Engineer.
“They're just families,” he said, “Until you find one of their kids has a bomb strapped to his chest. Just families, until every single one of 'em is going for your throat during a raid. I lost plenty of good friends to 'just families.'”
He turned his hateful gaze on Kathen.
“Mark my words, kid. If we do find them out there, it'll be to the death. Don't hesitate. You'll be burying your guildmates, if you do that.”
The Chief Engineer hmm-ed and haw-ed over to him. Old Scar waved him off. He was already leaving.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, “Fucking whatever.”
***
The Sovereign Melody departed from Everlasting Truth a couple of hours later. Any viewscreens that showed the outside world smeared into an ocean of whites and greys. Kathen found himself wandering the halls of the old warbird, Merry peppering him with idle chatter. The weight of certain types of seashells. The recent jobs that Pagan Chorus had gone on. The latest guild spat, something between the Academy of the Unreal and the Solth'layat.
“Apparently, they were both hired by the same client for the same job,” she said, “And they didn't realize it until they got there.”
“Doesn't the Academy and the Solth'layat have history?” Kathen asked, though his question was forced and absent.
“Yeah. It ended with the client cleaning the walls of Solth'layat innards,” Merry said, “Their guildmaster is apparently furious.”
“Yeah.”
A pause. Merry Curiosity materialized on Kathen's shoulder.
“Everything alright?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kathen said. Then, with a wince, he said, “Maybe not. I don't know. Just trying to clear my head I guess.”
“You're still thinking about what Old Scar said.”
Kathen nodded. A few guildmates walked by him, giving him a wave. He gave them a curt nod. He passed one of the auxiliary crewmembers, common for the Sovereign Melody, officially in the guild, but given none of its privileges, for this was a right to be earned.
“Sairad Ghedir,” one of them whispered to the other. The other gave Kathen an odd look.
He had never seen those two before. But they walked on and down the hall.
“There we are again,” he muttered.
“It's been happening more,” Merry said, “That's the fifteenth time this month.”
“I hate that you've been tracking it,” Kathen said.
“I know,” Merry said, “But it's... interesting, don't you think? I’ve hardly been able to find any history of the term-”
Kathen walked briskly, trying to avoid her assertions and research. It was becoming a sore point between the two of them. The more he heard 'Sairad Ghedir,' the more uncomfortable he became.
Thankfully, someone came along to end Merry's running commentary. Rhunea was just coming out of her quarters, a datapad in hand that she was reviewing. She looked up at Kathen.
“Well, Kate,” she said, “How goes it?”
The look on his face was answer enough. One of Rhunea's ears flickered.
“Perhaps we should get a drink,” she said, “And you can tell me what's on your mind.”
***
Rhunea was from the multiverse. Some members of Pagan Chorus were, though they adopted the customs and weaponry of their adopted home plane. As such, she was wearing the guild's military-style uniform when on-duty, and during combat she wore heavy combat armor. She was a woman with the head of a doe, and something about this, in the sea of sapience that was the Silver Eye, with its thousands of spacefaring races, would always denote her of being foreign to the galaxy.
Perhaps, too, it was the way she still practiced the old ways of her home plane. Magic was traditionally an unknown to the Silver Eye, one of the many things the Alu'eer considered offensive and profane, to the point that it had once been listed as one of the One Hundred Hatreds.
But now it was not as looked down upon. And Rhunea practiced it, a finger swirling in her cup of tea to warm it up through will alone. Plangosian Tea was served cold, and no matter what, the replicators served it that way. So she always made do, and warmed it up herself, as was her habit.
She took a sip, smiling.
“Always good to have a good drink while you do work,” she said, “The guildmaster asked me to review a few records in the Metahuman Registry, see if they could potentially pull something like this off.”
“Like who?” Kathen asked.
“The Dorucanthos Family. Iconoclast. Maybe Silicon, he's got the influence,” Rhunea said, “Though I've met him before, and his politics weren't exactly utopian in nature.”
“I see,” Kathen said.
They were sitting down in one of the bars onboard. Viewscreens were hung on the walls to simulate windows, and they were connected to the external sensors. The world outside was much like a sped-up video as the Sovereign Melody cut through the warp.
“Rhunea,” Kathen said, “Is it alright if I ask you a more... personal question?”
“By all means,” Rhunea said, “I'm an open book.”
“Did you... fight alongside any metahumans, during the war?”
The doe looked up from her datapad, and her eyes suddenly became very, very sad.
“...Yes,” she said, “I served alongside several. Most of them are gone now. They died during the war. Or they died after it.”
(Kate noted she did not say how.)
“Were they nice?” Kathen asked.
“‘Nice,' is such a vague term,” Rhunea said, “Many of them bore scars from their pasts. You cannot go through what...”
Now it was her turn to look out the window, as she searched for her words.
“You cannot go through what they have gone through, and come out as 'nice,'” she decided, as though letting out a secret, “Many of them were kind, in their way, but they were brusque. Rude. Immature, even.”
She let her statement hang, distracted herself from having to answer by sipping her tea, by putting a few notes into her datapad.
“But... not all of them?” Kathen asked.
Rhunea sighed. When she spoke, she was careful. Careful and uncomfortable.
“There were a few who I counted as friends. Shimmer. He's... do you remember that spat you had during InterGuild? He was part of the guild that you fought.”
The flash of an older man, brown-skinned and with hard, angry eyes came to Kathen's mind.
“I only saw him once,” he said.
“He was a friend,” Rhunea said, “So were a few others in our little outfit. But... not anymore. We made choices. I joined Pagan Chorus. He took that as a betrayal.”
She sounded on the verge of tears.
“My dear Kate, do you know the worst part? He was not angry. He was just sad. Like I had broken something in him.”
“Why did you join the guild?” Merry's question came out of thin air, delivered to the internal chips embedded in both of their brains.
Rhunea glanced up, gave Merry a smile, though the AI had gone back into her own subsystems and discorporated her avatar.
“I felt like I could still do good work here,” she said, “I don't believe in the High Federation, mind you. Not traditionally. But I see it for the force of good it can be.”
She leaned in.
“You must understand. The High Federation is like any other state. It has its vices. Its corruptions. Its dark history. But it was also the primary bulwark between the Manticore and the rest of the multiverse. Without it, I believe that all of the multiverse would have been lost to the Darwinists.”
She sipped her tea.
“You ask me these questions because of this particular job we're going on, yes?”
Kathen nodded.
“It doesn't seem right,” he said, “They're just refugees.”
“It's not up to us to decide that, Kathen,” Rhunea said, “We are guildfolk. The role we play is that of the instrument, not its wielder.”
Kathen scowled.
“Even if the wielder is the guildmaster himself?” Katehn asked, “If it's a client, that's another story. But there's not even a contract. This is just Valm making his own decisions, his own-
“It doesn't matter,” Rhunea said, “It's still our job. We have to put our personal feelings aside. To protect people, Kathen.”
She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. Kathen decided not to press her further. She had her own opinions, guilty as they were. But she doing the best she could to justify why she was here.
Why she was helping with this.
“Alright,” he said, “Thanks, Rhunea.”
“Of course, Kathen,” she said, “See to your hair. It's getting unruly again.”
He got up and left his guildmate to her work. He walked. Continued his pacing, finding no answers to his questions.
…
…
The Sovereign Melody continued its journey across the galaxy.
It would arrive in the sector of space that held New Ludaya's Traveling Point in a mere two days.
No time at all.