36. "Because that is what I do with my enemies."

"Human Ship Captain NathanSawyer," Horthus said, sounding annoyed to Nathan’s ears, and having purple liquid covering his front.

"Horthus. Something I can help you with?" Nathan asked. "I do have a good link for recipe’s for cooking the hearts of your friends and enemies."

"They are better raw. I know the capabilities of your ship. Why have you taken no action to stop the surprise ambush? Do your laws not require your intervention when civilian lives are at stake? This ambush has killed thousands of Nameless, whom you are sworn to protect," Horthus demanded, and Nathan thought that the holographic planetary leader looked much too smug with his chain of logic.

"Nice try. Really, A for effort. D for execution, however. As I’m sure the old man has already told you, the facilities and objects that have been targeted thus far were all military in nature. They were valid targets for the Aurealians in prosecuting their offensive against your system," Nathan countered lazily. "There are presently only two targets which are not classified as valid military targets and which would require the intervention of the Theseus. Those are the inhabited planets of Horthus Prime and Secondus. You can ask the old man for details on exactly what sort of intervention I am required to give you and what form it will likely take, but for now I’m going to terminate the connection because looking at your face in the best of times makes me nauseous, and it’s covered in gore at the moment, which is exacerbating the problem. Athena, end transmission."

The hologram ended before Horthus could reply. Nathan sighed and shifted in his seat, looking around at the holographic representation of the Horthus system that had returned.

"So, like I was saying, these are the two known forces of your people who are either in system, in the case of the cloaked ambush team over here, or about to hit the oort cloud over here," Nathan explained patiently to his student. "Except they were never really cloaked, they just designed their ship to look like space-dust. No active processes involved in that. They’re a little outside of even our sensor ranges to get an accurate picture of exactly what their ships are capable of or whether they have another volley of impact missiles up their sleeves or not. The first one was deadly enough that there’s no way Horthus will just turn his back on them again either way."

"You are witness to a murder, and you just keep talking as though nothing had happened?" Stargazer asked from her position opposite him in the simulation. "No, you make a joke and act like nothing is wrong?"

"They’re Jurassian, Stargazer. I can’t do anything about the fact that their leadership castes need to kill their subordinates in order to clear their own heads and make rational decisions. It is not Yosca’s job to change their society, as much as we may disapprove of certain aspects of it. It is the same for your own people. I wish that we could stop the Aurealians from taking the Urata the moment they perceived they have lost. I wish that we could inspire them to fight until the dirty, bitter end. But ultimately all of Yosca’s treaties were written to specification about Earth origin sapients. Both your people and the Jurassians are excluded from even the basic rights which we consider fundamental until your people vote to join us, which neither side has done so far. I am stretching the limits of what I’m legally allowed to do just in having this conversation with you."

"I do not understand why we do not join you then," Stargazer confessed.

"Your people’s practice of eating the Urata, especially for population control methods, violates a few standard of Yosca’s basic sapient rights. There are other concerns, but that’s the main one. None of your people are willing to give up the Urata, especially not when they get nothing in exchange, because they would still have to convince Yosca members to move in and act on their behalf, which is still a legal landmine of astronomical proportions. Abiding by our basic rights would help them, but they’re in the middle of a war of extinction and they’re a little busy to think of such things."

"And yet you continue to interfere. You destroy cloning facilities, rescue kips, and electrocute innocent Aurealians who were just coming to sing with you because you asked her to do exactly that ," Stargazer sang, and Nathan winced at the accusatory tone of her later song.

"I said I was sorry," he said, scratching his scalp nervously.

"Oh, you said you’re sorry. Well, it’s alright then. You only killed me for a moment or two, after all."

Nathan shifted uncomfortably under her three-eyed glare. He was acutely aware of just how alien she actually was at that moment. Interacting with the uplifted sapients that were not allowed to reproduce on earth for ‘legal, ethical, and scientific reasons’ had been Nathan’s favorite part of leaving. However, he’d always had at least some idea of what the uplifts were actually thinking. Not so with Stargazer. Was she holding a grudge, or simply teasing him? Was her tone deadpan, or heartfelt? Nathan truly felt terrible for injuring her and had apologized profusely until she had specifically asked him to stop. He didn’t feel that her resentment was undeserved, he was just uncertain how to handle it. He decided to sidestep the barbs for now.

"As for our interventions so far, we’re not able to offer your people direct military aide, but we do have some leeway in stopping atrocities where we determine that doing so will not affect the outcome, except in ways which may increase the potential of a ceasefire and slash or peaceful resolution. My predecessor and I felt that putting an end to those facilities fell under both categories of justifiable intervention. The way in which the facilities were being used did not increase the Horthian’s military strength, but rather affected only their ability to hunt Aurealians such as yourself. An act which is an atrocity by human standards and Aurealian alike.

"However, the Horthians are Jurassian, and they view such hunts as a right of passage for Named Ones. I won’t pretend I know how you view the cultural significance of such milestones unless you choose to tell me, but the cultural importance that the Jurassians put on such hunts is actually a significant problem for us. Many of our member species were either carnivores, or prey, for most of their recent evolution. This includes humans, by the way. We were hunter-gatherers until a few thousand years ago, when we became more agrarian based. It may sound strange to hear, but when the war between your people and the Deathsworn was already centuries old, my people were still confined to their birth planet, and for a while it actually looked like we were about to drive ourselves extinct with our own technology. It’s only in the last five hundred years that we have started to spread out among the stars, and to heal the wounds we caused to our home planet."

"The Felus sapiens, they were hunters?"

"As were the ancestors of Wizard and his fellow commandos, both before and after we domesticated them. There was always some debate over whether dogs and wolves were the same species or not. Uplifting them both only complicated things, as they have both established their own unique cultures and traditions. Similar, but different. Wolves are much more restrictive on who they consider pack and who is not. And they also place much more importance on the hunt than uplifted dogs ever do."

"You allow these ‘wolves’ to hunt?" Stargazer asked, and once again Nathan could not infer for certain her emotional inflection.

"It’s more than allow, Stargazer. We are often legally required to assist them. Not in the actual hunt itself, they would view that as insulting. However, on any world in which humans and uplifted wolves live together, the humans must stock a certain number of suitable game animals for the wolves to hunt. Those animals are not uplifted. They are either base-state game animals, or they have been genetically modified to make them even more suitable for their status as game animals than they originally were on earth. It’s one of the fundamental rights of all uplifted members of the order ‘Carnivora’ that we make reasonable attempts to see that they are able to obtain their food naturally, which means allowing them to hunt. They are not allowed to hunt fellow sapients, but we have to allow them to hunt something . Which complicates things even further, because if the Jurassians ever successfully join Yosca they may claim that preventing them from hunting your people is a violation of their fundamental rights."

"Your people are very strange to me," Stargazer confessed. "You profess that you want to help, but you refuse to help us because it would violate the rights of our enemies. You insist that we have a right to exist, but you refuse to take steps to ensure that right is not violated. You do nothing but sing in circles!"

"I’m sorry," Nathan said sadly. "I know how complicated and confusing we must sound to you. Your people, from what I understand of them, are incredibly harmonious and monolithic by our standards. There are many rules that I wish I could simply ignore to help you and your sisters down on the world, but those rules exist for reasons . The balance between our predator and prey uplifts is vital on every colony world where they exist together, which is the majority of them that are not ‘human only.’ Which, again, is the majority of them, given how useful uplifts are in terraforming. The choice we are forced to make is one between protecting your right to exist and potentially antagonizing our carnivora members by setting the precedence that hunting a species’ natural prey may be restricted, or setting the precedence that hunting sapients is acceptable and antagonizing many, many other species. It is not my call to make, but many of the people who are in a position to seriously help your people see doing so as a ‘lose lose’ situation because of the internal strife it will cause us on this matter alone. Nobody wants to set the precedent here."

"But you destroyed the cloning facilities," Stargazer argued. "Was that not ‘picking sides’? Was that not choosing Aurealians over Jurassians? Was that not ‘setting precedent’?"

"Not exactly," Nathan said, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. "You see, the way that we’re circumventing our moral obligation to get involved in the conflict at the moment is by arguing that neither Jurassian nor Aurealian are members of Yosca, and are therefor not subject to any of our treaties, laws, or customs. That means that we can only provide humanitarian aide, but it also means that we must provide it to both sides or neither. But the strange part, the interpretation which the Theseus is operating under, is that this allows us a broad latitude of actions which we may utilize in the purpose of saving lives. In fact, if we predict that an action will result in the net gain of civilian lives saved, we are obligated to perform that action. That is why we destroyed those facilities, Stargazer. And the strange part of it all is that doing so probably saved more Jurassian lives than Aurealian."

Stargazer was silent for a moment, before singing "I do not follow the logic on this. You saved many kips, but it is our enemy who truly benefits?"

"In a strange way, yes," Nathan admitted. "We rescued about one hundred eighty thousand … kips you call them, right? Young females? Anyway, we rescued a lot of them and sent them on ahead to a known Aurealian world where hopefully they’ll be safe. Based on historical patterns, we can assume that, if we had not acted, around forty thousand of those kips would have been murdered before being released into the hunting grounds."

"Twenty percent, yes. Two for every ten. The Other’s told us this repeatedly as they were doing it," Stargazer agreed.

"At the moment, all hunting is suspended until the situation with the Aurealian invasion is resolved. It is entirely possible that the culling practice prior would have been suspended as well to increase the number of hostages available to use against the Aurealian forces. We expect the battle for control of intra-system space to take weeks at the most, and the outcome is already a foregone conclusion.

"It is the battle for the planets, and especially Horthus prime that we expect to be deadly to both sides of the conflict. It is our analysis that it was the goal of shutting down the cloning facilities and rescuing the captive Aurealians on Horthus prime that brought the fleet here to begin with. Horthians seem to have a near one hundred percent militia recruitment rate, which means that millions of Jurassian lives might have been expended in defending those facilities from Aurealian forces.

"I believe in the work I did the other day. I feel good about all of the kips that I was able to get out of harms way. I know that saving the kips and shutting down the facilities was the moral thing to do in regards to your people, Stargazer. But ultimately, we saved more Nameless Jurassians than we did kips. And the truth is, Stargazer, that it is for the purpose of saving the lives of Nameless Jurassians which my predecessor ultimately authorized the sabotage of those cloning facilities."

"You are spending a great deal of effort in attempting to confuse me. First you appear in the sky in a vast display of power and rescue thousands of my little sisters from a terrible fate. The very knowledge of your existence gave me and my sisters hope for the future that we thought lost forever. Then you appear before me with words promising help and attack my mortal enemy before me. But when I appear to--"

"--I really am sorry about that--"

"--discuss things with you, you electrocute me as well. However, you tell me that it is because you electrocuted me and that I required emergency intervention that you were allowed by your laws to remove me from my open-air prison. Had I not been injured badly, you would have been required to leave me where you found me no matter how I pleaded. And now that I have been removed, you are no longer allowed to return me, this is true?"

"It is. Removing you for medical treatment and returning you into a situation in which we know you are in danger are very different acts. One I can justify with my authority, the other one I may not."

"Even if I were to sing that my sisters need my guidance and that by refusing to return me you are dooming them to despair, hopelessness, and a slow death?"

"Even then, I could not."

"But you will not rescue my younger sisters as you have rescued me? You will allow the Jurassian leader to use them as a hostage, a weapon against my people instead? When the battle for the orbits is lost, you will allow this ‘Horthus’ to begin executing my sisters until they leave the system or surrender?"

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"No! Emphatically no, Stargazer. Your sisters have been classified as non-combatant civilians. I am required by the laws I follow to defend their lives with my own, if it comes to that. Horthus knows that if he were to actually begin executing his Aurealian hostages with a human ship observing the conflict, we would be obligated to intervene on behalf of those civilians. Horthus has proven himself shrewd, but although he has a perceived victory over humans in his recent memory, I do not believe he will dare to antagonize us in such a way. Especially not while the Aurealian fleet is in system. After that, well, it is not the intention of the Theseus, its captain, or its crew, to leave any Aurealian civilian at the mercy of Horthian or Deathsworn forces."

"Then save them now! You can do it now, I know you can, that is why you asked me to convince my sisters to take your gifts!" Stargazer sang/shouted.

"If I do, then I will have failed the Theseus’s main objective. One that could potentially save trillions of lives , Stargazer. Aurealian lives, Jurassian lives, Human lives, human-allied uplift lives, all of them could be saved based upon the decisions I make, and when I make them. If I rescue your sisters today, I am depriving Horthus of a key bargaining chip that he might be able to use tomorrow. Depending upon how he spends this chip, he may take the first step towards establishing a ceasefire that could ripple through the conflict zone. That is what is at stake, Stargazer. A step towards a peaceful resolution of a centuries long war. A chance for your people to rebuild, and perhaps join Yosca and find new allies to defend their right to exist! But if I act to quickly then everything is lost. Do you understand?"

"You are putting my sisters in danger in order to save more lives in total?" she asked.

"Your sisters have been in danger from before their zygotes became distinct organisms, Stargazer. I am taking steps to mitigate that danger now, while planning actions to eliminate it soon. And because I am human, I am doing my best to weigh my actions to save the most lives and do the greatest good."

Stargazer was silent for long moments as she considered the information he had revealed. "This greatest good? What do you see when you think of it?"

"Peace. There is a saying among my people; ‘war is a game where the only way to win is not to play.’ The first step to peace is establishing a ceasefire, even if it is only in this star system. The second step would be negotiations. Both sides must establish terms for a lasting peace. After that is the enforcement of those terms. The long term goal is peaceful coexistence of both Jurassians and Aurealians. A secondary possible long term goal would be to include both of your species into Yosca. We’d have to change the name, though. That’ll be surprisingly difficult, actually. Fortunately that will be some other jack off’s responsibility, not mine. But if we manage it, the Aurealians will be subject to so many interstellar treaties that it’s positively insane how protected you will be by your earth-origin allies."

"But we cannot join now because we are in a war for our very existence as a self-determining sapient species," she supplied.

"Unfortunately, yes, that’s the situation. And the Aurealian – Deathsworn conflict precedes the formation of Yosca and all of its associated treaties, so claiming that the Jurassians attacked or betrayed you isn’t sufficient because it wasn’t against our particular treaties for them to do so at the time that the war started. I wish I had a better excuse than that."

"This lasting peace … you expect me to simply forgive the Others? What they have done to me, my sisters, my very race?" Stargazer demanded.

It was Nathan’s turn to be silent as he carefully considered his answer. "I was raised in a very religious household, Stargazer. I am not certain if religion is a trait that our races share or not. It is often defined as the belief in supernatural entities called gods, but it can also simply be defined as beliefs in forces that are greater than oneself. I, well, I rejected my parent’s religion when I left home. But I do believe in some of the things that they taught me. One of those things, Stargazer, is that hatred and resentment are poisonous. They do not poison your enemies, that’s not what I mean. They poison you, for holding those emotions in yourself. The only way to be free of that poison is to forgive them for what they have done to you."

"Forgive them? After they – after all the terrible things they have done to us?"

"It is that or fight them until the bitter end. Billions of Aurealian lives lost, billions of Jurassians. Billions of humans too, because our consciences will not allow us to remain neutral for very much longer. Once the people demand action, the consequences will ripple through Yosca space and humanity will have its first true interstellar war. So far, Stargazer, your people and the Jurassians have seen humanity only at its best. Neither of you are prepared to see us at war."

"So instead we allow them to continue on as they slaughter entire planets of us?"

"No! I am not saying that you simply allow them to win! Forgiving an enemy for wronging you yesterday does not mean that you turn your back to him tomorrow. Any peace between Jurassians and Aurealians must be a mutual peace . Each side must equally respect the other’s right to exist, or they are not at peace. The hunting of your people must stop! On that matter your people and mine are very much agreed, Stargazer."

"And your ‘greater good’ will see that happen?" She demanded.

Nervously, Nathan looked away from her steady gaze. "I can’t make any promises that I haven’t already made, Stargazer. I can’t even be certain to keep some of the ones that I have made with seeming confidence. I am one man, alone for lightyears in any direction with but one exception. I have friends and allies from Earth, but they are all counting on me to lead them and … and I don’t know why. I was tricked into being put in this position by a man I admire, a man I trusted. I am doing the best I can to live up to their expectations, and his, and yours. But I’m just a nineteen year old kid who didn’t get a proper education, washed out of the marines, and then signed up for Yosca because it seemed like a good opportunity to travel. I am batting way, way out of my league, here. Sorry, sports reference, you’re not expected to get that. The only promise that I can make for certain is that I am willing to die to fulfill the mission goals of the Theseus. That is my level of commitment to you and your people."

Stargazer studied some of the holograms floating around the room. The entire time he had been speaking with her they had drifted in and out of his vision. Some expanded or shrank based upon his hand movements, others zoomed in or out. Numbers and letters – they were unfamiliar to her so she couldn’t tell which were which – appeared and scrolled by and vanished. His focus on her had never been perfect, as he allowed the apparitions to distract him periodically, although he never lost focus on her translated voice, nor his own place in the conversation. It reminded her of being young, when she still heard the voice of the false mother singing the supposed secrets of the universe, as the holographic parts of the lessons floated through the room imparting her knowledge.

"What do the lights mean? The ones that you are so focused on?"

"I’m sorry if it feels like I’m not paying attention to you, but I am captain now and -"

"No, I am not accusing you of being rude. I wish to understand them as well."

"Oh, I didn’t even think of that, I’m sorry! That was extremely rude of me indeed. Athena, contact Simon, medium priority request."

"Clarification, two way communication request?" a voice answered.

"Confirmed, two way," Nathan answered.

"Who is that?" Stargazer inquired.

"Technically, it’s nobody. Her name is Athena, and she’s an artificial computer construct that runs most of the ship for us. I’m sure I’ve mentioned her before, but I’m not sure that I explained. Athena, give Stargazer guest level access and voice commands."

"Confirmed. User Stargazer designated ‘guest.’ Retroactively studying vocal recordings and establishing control and security protocols. For more help setting up your account, please sing ‘help me Athena, you’re my only hope,’ three times."

"She’s just being a smartass, you can just say ‘help’ and she’ll go into troubleshooting mode," Nathan corrected. Halfway through the exchange the head of a chimpanzee appeared, but remained silent for a few seconds.

"Why do I feel like you’re going to be giving her more permissions than you’ve re-given me?" Simon asked.

"Well so far she hasn’t jeopardized my safety or that of any of the crew, so there is that," Nathan shot back.

"Nope, it’s just you jeopardizing hers from what I hear," Simon teased. "I laughed so hard when I heard that you’d actually shot an Aurealian! It’s the funniest thing I’ve heard my entire life, I swear to that god you pray to, and Saint Darwin as well."

"Piss off, monkey, I’m not in the mood for your bullshit right now. I need you to figure out how to get Athena’s data to show in figures and units that Stargazer can understand. You ripped the written language out of those facilities yesterday as well as the auditory one, right?"

"Ugh, do you know what you’re asking me to do? Their written language has the music written into it as well , Nathan. It’s going to be just as complicated as making their auditory one translate properly, if not more so. And I don’t have Katherine around to help me this time."

"Well, you’re in prison, what else are you going to spend your time on?" Nathan demanded.

"I’ll get working on it. Also, ‘piss off, monkey?’ Since when are you insulting sapients for their base species?"

"Since you tried to fucking kill me, Simon. Now get to work. Athena, terminate two way connection."

"I wasn’t trying to-" The hologram disappeared before the uplift could defend himself.

Stargazer watched the exchange in amazed silence. The participants did not seem to be aware that Athena was translating their every word so that she could understand them. She continued to watch for a moment as Nathan composed himself after the connection ended.

"He does not seem like a friend. He tried to kill you? He is a criminal?"

"Yes to the second, to the first, it was more like he recklessly endangered my life. Which I’ve forgiven him for. Hell, I’ve forgiven him for endangering the mission and the other crew as well. The only thing I haven’t forgiven him for is putting me in a position where I feel obligated to save his life where the outcome of all of my potential actions is in doubt. His crimes will be reported when we return to Yosca space, there’s nothing I can do to stop that. If I don’t figure out a way to save him before then, there’s a good chance my government will execute him."

"I do not understand. What has he done that obligates you to save his life?" Stargazer inquired.

"Absolutely nothing. He’s been a complete asshole to me since the moment we met. You know, he was like the first or second uplift I’d ever actually met? I was so damn nervous so I researched everything about him to try to make a good impression. Didn’t seem to matter what I said or did though, he’s always treated me with disdain. I never thought he’d take it so far as to sabotage a combat mission, but Athena’s logs prove that he did."

"I do not understand. Why must you save him? He does not sound like he is your friend."

"No. I thought we were sort of frenemies, but he’s disabused me of that illusion. He is my enemy, Stargazer, due to his choices and his actions, not mine."

"Then why must you save him?"

"Because that is what I do with my enemies, Stargazer. First I forgive them, and then I save them from themselves. And that is why I haven’t fully forgiven him for what he’s done. Not yet. Because I must try to save him, and if I fail I will spend the rest of my life questioning what else I could have done."

Stargazer was silent as she considered carefully his words. "You have spoken much about yourself and your mission. Let me tell you now of myself. Unless you are too busy being a Human Captain to listen."

"You’re the first Aurealian I’ve really met, Stargazer. I’ll make the time to listen to you, so long as nothing pressing needs my attention. I didn’t take the time to get to know any of the kips we saved, we were running out of food fast and forming a bond with them seemed like a bad idea at the time."

"I opened my eyes in a small room with thirty sisters. I listened for all of my young years to a false teacher who fed us promises of a greater cosmos outside the room, where we would journey among the stars doing wonderful things. Then the Others, who had fed us all our lives, broke the illusion forever and killed seven of my sisters in front of me. They cut me and pushed something inside of me, something which you tell me that you had to kill me to deactivate. After, they threw me in a wilderness, where I was taught to hide and survive when the Others came to hunt me and my sisters there. We could not match them physically and the only weapons we were allowed until you came were those that we could make ourselves. So I trained with a spear with my sisters, and the new sisters that I met on those proving grounds.

"When I had survived fifty hunts, the elder of the hunting grounds died with a group of elite veterans who were trying to kill a hunter who was notorious among us for his cruelty. It was a betrayal, for an Elder’s job is to survive and pass on her knowledge, not to defend those who must learn to defend themselves.

"When I was one hundred and fifty hunts old, I became Eldest. From that hunt until you abducted me, I was charged with singing the songs of defiance and memory and lamentation to those who would remember them after I was gone. I broke trust with my sisters three times since your lights appeared in the sky. The first was to demand answers from an Other who did not kill, who told me that humans had come and gave me hope.

"The second was because your lights had appeared in the sky again and I despaired that you had abandoned us. Instead, the Other who did not kill told me that you had destroyed the birth-place-that-is-wrong and rescued all of the kips within, giving them a swift end. It was what I believed at the time, and it filled me with hope, for a swift end is better than the misery of the hunting grounds.

"The third was when I heard you singing, and then you attacked the Other who did not kill and made him vanish. You claimed to be human, that you were there to protect me and my kind, but yet you attacked me when I showed myself. Since then you have told me many things, a long convoluted line of logic connecting all of them together like the strings that fold the universe together. You will not let me return to my sisters? Well, if you are willing to die for your mission, then I am willing to die for my sisters! Either return them to me, me to them, or give me some method of aiding them from here."

When she had fallen silent, she met Nathan’s eyes defiantly, her three against his two.

"Okay," he said after a few moments. "Good argument. You win. I can work with that."

‎