CHAPTER 277 – A BINDING CONTRACT
“Are you sure?” Tom asked Everlyn gently. “I still remember how you reacted last time with a similar decision and an agreed approach.”
She laughed bitterly. “No. I’m not, but it’s not up to us. This is beyond us, and we have no choice. I love that you’re strong enough to do it. Because I don’t think I am.”
“Give me five minutes,” he told her and then left the system room. She remained in the system room as they had agreed, her body present in the real world without her consciousness. It was no better than an inanimate, lifeless, beautiful doll. Instantly, the eyes of everyone fell on him. He raised a hand to forestall an angry attack. “I know I screwed up.”
Michael and Toni swallowed their words.
“You have a lot to apologise for,” the healer said finally. “A lot.”
“Everlyn made that perfectly clear.” With cold eyes, he examined the chosen and wondered how bad this was going to go. There was a universe out there where they didn’t care and would contract without hesitation. Tom doubted he would be that lucky.
The elder noticed his stare and immediately zoomed over to end up right in front of him. Like always, Tom wanted to push it out of his personal space, but the same as every other time he resisted the impulse. Some things weren’t worth it.
“Leader Tom, I empath great turmoil.”
“No. Cut the shit.” He interrupted harshly. “You don’t empath anything. You heard exactly what was said.”
“Leader Tom, I watched a misspeaking and from yours and others vocal pitch changes I deduce significant concern with splashes of wrath. You fear rivals deliverance of consequences.”
He could barely understand the structure of what the alien had said. Despite the time they had spent together, he did not know if the Elder and the others were deliberately confusing them or if there was an understanding gap that translation struggled with. “Yes, I let slip facts which I had no right to do so with. The question is what now?”
“A floating seed once released may become an orchard, but it is no longer your concern.”
“Or a bird can eat it before it plants itself in fertile soil and it becomes nothing more than nourishment.”
“Leader Tom, there are fundamental truths of the world that can’t be altered via wishing.”
He nodded like he had received a fundamental truth. “Luckily, the current dilemma can be solved by a simple, enforceable promise not to speak about it.”
The elder moved side to side slowly.
Tom’s heart sank. He knew what it was communicating. The chosen had picked up all the simple non-verbal human communication cues. “Why are you saying no?”
“Leader Tom. I can not offer the solace you speak. What you suggest is a repulsive betrayal of our inner truth and not an outcome that is available.”
“So you claim.”
“Leader Tom, I’m not one for superfluous claims. An honesty released is a precious detail that should be distributed.”
“No.”
“Leader Tom, my kind has done you no harm. Would you have us destroy our soul in penance for your mistake.”
“If I have too.” He said harshly and then paused. There was no way to look into its eyes, but if he could have, he would have. “Make no mistake, Elder. I will have your permanent silence on this topic.”
“I clearly articulated that such a direction is against our sense of self. Leader Tom, you would conquer our silence. Is that your fervent desire. But it was more than that wasn’t it. More than a wish. Leader Tom what is the or?”
“I don’t see why you can’t just agree to keep the secret.”
“Because Leader Tom! It is not what we do!”
Tom hesitated. He remembered that conversation he had shared, how this Elder had been unwilling to kill semi-sapients. It had refused to even approach the monsters, which would have caused them to attack first. They were a race of principals. “Elder, how strong are your convictions. I have my view. We went out of our way and risked our lives to save you, but if you can’t guarantee your silence on this secret, then we will have to part ways.”
The elder said nothing.
“If you can’t agree we will have to split up.”
“Leader Tom, I do not trust that you can deliver on that poorly considered threat. Your team will not support you in this endeavour.”
Tom smiled without it reaching his eyes. He was not sure the person in front of him could interpret the body language, but he couldn’t help himself. “Elder, I’m being very serious here. If you push too far, you’re going to learn something fundamental about humans. We will do abhorrent things if we think we have no other choice.”
“Leader Tom, I have no doubt that you personally will stand true to your convictions, but can you guarantee everyone else will. We may seem deranged under the standards of a race that kills sapients freely, but we are not fools. The perceptive one is not here to listening to this conversation, probably by your design. She, for example, would not tolerate your bully.”
“Her design.” Tom interrupted. “Your problem is you don’t understand humans. This was her decision, this was her idea. There is no negotiation happening today. We will have magically imposed silence or part ways.”
And your silence will be enforced by your death. The unspoken words hung there.
The elder clearly understood it, too. “Leader Tom, the perceptive one is not the only one who will support me.” It buzzed over to hover in front of Rahmat. Harry, Tony and Clare. “Your house is divided. The secret is released. Do not embarrass yourself by believing it can be suppressed now that it has got free.”
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Tom chuckled. “Elder, you truly don’t understand humans do you. You don’t know what we’ve all been through. You can’t comprehend the resolve we have. None of us will compromise on our collective aim. None of us will betray our friends and family. They will follow me, and if I wasn’t doing this. If I wasn’t proposing this solution, he decision would already have been made. We would all be packing up and leaving.”
“Leader Tom. We can guarantee a helper’s safety.”
Tom got the sense that the appeal was not to him, but to the wider audience.
“None of us will agree to be slaves.” Michael interrupted.
The elder moved instantly to hover in front of Michael. “Distinguished one, that is not what we purported. A volunteer, not a slave, a connection of mutual benefit. With a single human, we can capture this trial and extend one of you to the utmost of tallness.” The elder flew to be back in Tom’s personal space once more. “And there are five of you predisposed to assistance. Leader Tom, I’m an Elder. I know people. Even if you are alien to us you are still people and with five wishing to ensure our survival one will agree to do what is true. We all know the subtext behind the caution of departing each other’s company, but we will not be stranded. We will persevere and survive. Do you comprehend the irrationality of your views.”
Tom shook his head. “I don’t and I’m not asking. I have no choice here. This is humanity’s secret, not my own. We will accept nothing but an oath.”
“Overeager Leader, can your skill even bind all of us?”
“No, it can’t. But it can do all but two and in a week I can do a separate contract with them.”
“And in the meantime, we can buy a temporary oath stone or scroll to restrict the other two,” Thor said from where a portal was crackling in front of him to allow him to send yet another note. Tom hadn’t even realised the other man had been following the conversation.
“Leader Tom. What you are suggesting goes against the disposition of who we are. Would you really sacrifice us sapients who helped heal your soul damaged ones or at least delayed their deterioration into insanity? Would you be inclined to do that?”
Tom stared at the strange creature in front of him. In so many ways, it was perceptive, but it did not understand humans. He had been in its head and still could barely comprehend its worldviews, it going the other way without that advantage had no chance. It thought its arguments would work. It had no idea. “For humanity. I will do whatever it takes.”
“Every day of the week,” Michael said. There were grunts of assent from everyone, including those the Elder had implied were willing to break from the wider group.
That was a long moment of silence.
“Should I craft a contract?”
The elder did not respond. Tom internally shrugged and began constructing the contract. They would agree or they wouldn’t. There was no harm in developing a framework now. Multiple skills combined to aid him, as he envisaged exactly what he wanted.
There was nothing in his contract binding skills that mandated that terms needed to be a hundred percent balanced, but it was not a skill that supported slavery via coercion. There was an unwritten but very real restriction that there had to be a similar exchange of value both ways.
Mentally, he layered on the conditions. Them being forced not to convey the critical information, inserting teeth into the contract so that it could apply immediate enforcement to prevent accidental or deliberate exposure of the secret. The benefit to them was that Tom would be contractually obliged to do all he could to ensure they survived the trial.
He considered what else could go wrong and added an amendment to ensure the contract remained binding even if Tom died. There had to be a termination clause, so he set it for when they got the information from a separate non-human source or when the competition finished.
Not watertight, but pretty close. The elder was still hovering in Tom’s personal space, deep in thought. Tom extended his magic so the Elder could review what he had constructed.
“Leader Tom, this is too much.”
“It’s the framework. I haven’t finished with the requirements.” Tom was worried about the two he could not bind. The contracts Thor would purchase from the auction house would only be tier one. They would not be enough to restrict a determined sanatio’s chosen. He needed more to close the loophole.
The wording was tricky. He required the seven that he would bind initially to act as a guarantee for the silence of those outside the contract. There was more. If someone was motivated and creative enough, they would exploit loopholes that Tom couldn’t see. Similar to what Keikain had done to feed on Sven. To counter the threat, he built consequence clauses. The repatriations that would have to be paid if the information they were safe guarding slipped out. Minor penalties if it only went to other chosen but crippling amounts if they were responsible for spreading it to another species even inadvertently.
“Leader Tom, this is worse. It will restrict us and be painful to wear.”
Next to him Thor had returned to his frantic scribbling. He was trying to saturate the auction house so that even if Phil was not really browsing for anything specific, he would notice the notes just because of the sheer numbers out there.
“Elder, I’m sorry. I can’t stress enough about how much I regret my stuff up. I wish I didn’t have to do this, but as I said this is for humanity. I don’t have a choice.”
“Leader Tom we have been friends. You do this. We become unwilling acquaintances.”
“As I said I don’t have a choice.” Tom winced. He was almost shouting, mainly at the anger he felt at himself. He was the one who had screwed up and others were going to suffer the consequences.
“Leader Tom, we will no longer be friends. We will not help you to maximise your experience gain any more or guarantee safety. Our relationship will be one of colleagues.”
Tom frowned at the elder, it was clear that it was disturbed and was lashing out. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Mentally, he added the extra lines into the contract to make them continue their current level of support. A failure that resulted in someone dying would free Tom from his obligations and have a crippling blow back on all of them who were culpable.
“Leader Tom. It’s not moral to change the contract like that”
“As I said I’m sorry. If you want to live, this is what you’re going to have to accept to do so. Now agree.”
All the sanatio’s chosen dropped so their bellies were on the ground. Tom felt their sadness.
“Leader Tom, you are the scum that rots tree roots. You are the discolouration of the bilec. You are an evil blackmailer. We will begrudgingly accept, but know that going forward we will extend no kind feelings for you.”
Tom flexed his mind. The contract terms coiled together and spread out to cover the seven other in the initial deal. Thick inseparable chains that linked them. In his mind, they had spikes with red blood on the end of them.
He was not sure what the aliens saw.
One by one they accepted. Each of them, even the Elder started to whimper as the spell took hold. A sound too low to create a visceral reaction like a baby crying would or a yelping puppy, but it successfully conveyed the intensity of the emotion.
The last of them agreed, and the contract snapped into place. It guaranteed silence, and the chosen support through the trial in return for their lives. Tom knew it was a fair trade or else it wouldn’t have formed so readily, but with the whimpering that was occurring he felt like a monster.
Thor produced two scrolls and Michael bound the remaining middles that had been excluded from Tom’s skill. In the end, the solution for them was effectively a spell of silence that would prevent them from talking or communicating to anyone but the Elder.
It was done and the social cohesion that had formed between them was torn apart. The sanatio’s chosen stood on one side of the clearing and the humans on the others. The still bleeding bodies of the swallow like monsters surrounded them. He glanced between the two groups and frowned.
The separation between them felt wrong and artificial. When he wondered why, he realised that without any conscious decision on the human’s side they had merged their team with the sanatio’s chosen. For the last couple of days, they had been a single group, mingling to create a whole, and now that was no longer the case. There was a divide between them that was far more extensive than the physical separation.
Everyone was a little shell-shocked.
Almost in a daze, they continued forward to complete the kill quest.