"Abmon! Is that what his people are called?"

The Qlerning did not reply, but the Rock Pillar itself gave a very large, exaggerated nod by tilting its whole pillar forward.

"Ah! I'm right?"

It nodded again.

"Great! But anyway, when you say that stuff about scents . . . you mean people - human people - think they smell bad?" She looked at the Rock Pillar. "I don't think you smell bad. I was just on Earth and it kind of reminds me of that. Honestly, it makes me kind of happy - it's why I came into the room."

The Rock Pillar began to rattle, slightly differently from before.

"He is pleased," Plep said. "He That Squats is going to be serving on the Craton for Detachment Training. I am sure he will experience many events."

That last part seemed . . . cryptic and slightly ominous to her, but she smiled to . . .

"He That Squats?" she asked.

The Rock Pillar made some rumbling noises to the Qlerning, who ignored it until one of the goose barnacles on its head stretched and slapped Plep on the arm. It made a loud noise, and the Qlerning actually jumped slightly, dropping its instrument.

"Pain is an acquaintance I do not enjoy meeting," Plep said, watching the Rock Pillar. Its tone was just as calm as ever, but it was rubbing its arm to take the sting from the blow.

"What did he say? Just please tell me exactly."

"He said that is not his full name and I should tell you his full name," Plep said. Then he said nothing else.

"Okay . . . so what is it?"

Plep was quiet, and more of the Rock Pillar's weird arm-barnacle things raised up, almost threateningly.

"You hit far too hard," Plep said. "To be struck by a train puts none in a good mood."

Plep looked at her. "His full name is 'He That Squats on Yellow Sand'. Abmon use such descriptive names."

"Oh, all right," Apollonia said. "You know, I knew a guy who had a name like that. He wanted everyone to call him The Breath of Angels Upon God's Face, but we all called him Stinky Breath because, well, his breath was terrible."

The pillar rotated so the eyes were on her, and then it began to shake again, loudly clanking its sections together.

Apollonia was starting to think that was something like laughter, and she started laughing, too. Plep still seemed annoyed, though.

"I do not know what to make of that," he said.

Apollonia began to laugh harder.

"Okay, so can you please give me a simple and straight answer, Plep? I'm . . . well, I'm a noob at a lot of this stuff."

"A what?" Plep asked.

"A noob. Newbie? I'm fresh to the Sapient Union? I know you're . . . just being you, I guess, but I need you to throw me a bone here."

The being seemed a little huffy. "Doing is learning," he insisted.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

She took that to mean she was supposed to figure out what he was saying. "I need the 101," she insisted. "And right now I can't even understand Mr. Squats over there."

The rocky being looked to Plep and rumbled something.

Plep leaned back and seemed thoughtful. "Brevity," he said. "Is the soul of wit."

"That's a human quote, isn't it?" Apollonia said. "I think I've heard that before!"

"To know your own history is to know yourself, in many ways," Plep said, seeming pleased.

Apollonia smiled. This might be progress.

"Okay, so can you tell me why my system won't translate him?" She held up her tablet.

"You just need to download the language pack," the Qlerning said, for once being blessedly clear.

"Oh, great! Er - how do I do that?"

Plep reached up. "May this one be so honored?"

"If you mean can you do it, be my guest," she said.

The being took her tablet and tapped a few buttons, then offered it back. She was on a download page, and a large, shiny green button said 'download and install Abmon Language Pack'. She hit it, and saw that it was 23 exabytes of data.

It installed in a few moments.

"Try saying something," she said to the Rock Pillar.

"I've decided I'm not offended by being called Mr. Squats," the being said. Or at least, it made the rumbling rock sounds, but she heard the words in her ear buds. The voice the system created for it seemed wholly appropriate for a walking crab pillar thing, deep and rumbling.

"Oh, I heard that!" she said. "Wait, I offended you?"

"Can you just call me Squats on Sands if you must abbreviate?" he asked.

"All right, I can do that."

"Ah, great!" he replied. "To be honest I expected it to be harder to get a human to use my name right. It's hell on forms especially. You know, you're all right for a Squishling."

"And I'm squishier than most," she said with a nod.

The being did its rattling again, which her system turned into a hearty guffaw. "I think I like her," He That Squats on Yellow Sand said to Plep.

The being just plucked on its ukulele again, but said nothing. Apollonia was unsure if he was hurt or what, but she hardly cared.

At least she'd have some interesting company for the rest of the trip.

----------------------------------------

Brooks could not see the viewing gallery any more than he could earlier, but the courtroom felt colder and more hostile when he re-entered. He wished to know that there were friendly faces up there, but it was better knowing that everyone was safe.

The Tribunal looked haggard, he thought. Stress lines seemed more visible, shadows thicker.

It was probably his imagination.

But he felt nervousness worming its way through his gut. This Tribunal had not gone like any he’d seen before, and he felt that the conclusion would not be anything like what he’d first expected.

All of this had seemed so absurd at first, and it still was. But there was a gravity being given to it all that had only been heightened by Apollonia’s earlier testimony. Whether any of this still had anything to do with him, he did not know. Freeman was playing a game with them all, with most of them not even realizing their part in it. And he was nothing more than a useful pawn.

It was not a happy thought to realize that you were so lowly in a game that you had no control over.

“There is one more person to call for questioning,” the Chairman said. “Ian Brooks, please step up.”

Vandoss said some quiet encouragement, but Brooks could not hear it.

Going to the witness stand, he was sworn in.

The Tribunal only watched him. It was Freeman who came up.

“Captain, it is impossible to make this inquiry without bringing your past into it. Both of your service and prior to that,” he began.

Brooks had been expecting this, however much he hated it.

Freeman continued. “Your parents both died in the Orbital Ring Collapse – my condolences, of course. You and your elder sister survived through the entirety of the Kessler Isolation. You were a very successful ‘scrounger’, venturing into abandoned areas and retrieving vital supplies for your kith and kin. A very dangerous and brave activity.”

“What is your point, Director?” Brooks asked, his tone sharp.

Freeman seemed totally calm as he continued, ignoring Brooks’s question. “The sum of your traumas and experiences have led some to wonder if you were fit for command. That your history had left you . . . with psychological baggage, so to speak.”

Including Freeman himself. “My detractors have been shown to be incorrect,” Brooks noted.

“Beyond your childhood, we know of some of your brave actions prior to joining the Voidfleet. At Terris and others besides. You are the only officer ever to have encountered a Leviathan-class entity four times-“

“Three times,” Brooks said.

“Four,” Freeman corrected. “If the entity at MS-29 was indeed an embrion, then it was yet another Leviathan you’ve encountered.”

Brooks said nothing, and merely sat patiently, waiting for the man to talk.

Perhaps he had been waiting for Brooks to argue, as he paused a long moment before speaking again.

“In every case you have encountered a Leviathan, it has been life-or-death, has it not? In some, you were trying to kill it, in others you were merely aiming to survive. Is it possible, Captain, that at MS-29 your own sense of fight-or-flight intruded into your mind and affected your ability to follow my orders?”

“I followed your orders as best I could,” Brooks replied. “As best as anyone could have.”

“You did not obey my orders, Captain!” Freeman exploded, his calmness turning to fury in a heartbeat. “I ordered you to protect Michal Denso, and you let him die! Station records indicate that, when you learned Dr. Urle was in with Denso you did nothing. You did not communicate with her, did not attempt to find out her purpose – nothing!”

He looked over to Admiral Vandoss. “And as much as it would aid this investigation to know what occurred on private channels, I have been denied this information by the Voidfleet and by the Medical Corps.”

Eyes went to Vandoss, who merely scowled more heavily. “Director, with all due respect you are utterly ignoring all chains of command in this . . . investigation. You are technically able to level these charges against one of my most trusted officers, going over my head in the process. I have the option to not share information with you unless ordered by a higher authority, and I have chosen to utilize that privilege.” He looked intentionally to the panel. “And I have not been so ordered. I consider this all an insulting farce, and you a selfish, insolent fool.”

A gasp went through the gallery at his words.

Brooks hated all of this. It was not the lack of civility, so much that it showed the hostility that had apparently come to exist between branches of their system. At a time when many thought they should be moving beyond having government at all, into true and full communism, it seemed like it was instead all getting worse.

Brooks hesitated a moment, but then decided he could hold back no longer.

“I followed your orders, Director. But they were wrong orders, as all on the scene agreed. Whatever you wished to potentially learn from the ’embrion’ was not worth 300 million lives.”

“So . . . you admit your failure?”

“No,” Brooks said. “I accuse you of gross incompetence, of wasting public resources on this sham. I followed your orders, but when the proper medical authority of MS-29 decided differently, I had no choice but to acquiesce. And if it had been entirely my call, I would have made the same decision – without hesitation. Without regard for any consequences. Because those lives had to be protected by someone. And you failed to consider the value of those lives.”

Brooks found himself standing. “You should be before this tribunal, Director. Explaining why you thought risking hundreds of millions of lives was worth satiating your curiosity.”