---Bigot---
---Victor’s perspective---
“I don’t get what her game is!?” I growl at the giant, black eyed Spelvuk woman, standing up to pace around “She comes onto this ship to sabotage us, make us look like useless idiots who should never’ve been hired in the first place, make the Twigg and Vrakhand look like savages who shouldn’t be allowed in 20,000ly of Citadel and sell the idea to the galaxy that deathworlders don’t belong here! She was catty and hostile to all of us! She was recording every trivial thing on her holo to bury us under complaints! THIS was her moment and she… she just…!”
“What did she do, Victor?” prompts Alchyinad, lacing her snow white fingers and leaning forward onto her desk.
“She just didn’t!” I shout, throwing out my arms in front of me to emphasise the weirdness of it “That was her moment to bring up every ‘frayed strap’ and untied shoelace(!) That was her moment to point out all the on the job fraternisation ’tween expeditionaries and (in Niyol’s case) ’tween us and the contactees! That was her moment to highlight the war, the trial by combat, the disturbin’ birth and mortuary practices… all of it! And she just… didn’t!… Weren’t like she didn’t have the opportunity neither! The antiTerrans were settin’ her up to give answers that made us look bad and, every time, she actually defended us!”
I stop here, smiling for a moment, remembering the look on the Battan’s face when she’d tried to lead her into badmouthin’ Khr’kowan for the fight with Stetter only to have five different laws and precedents cited back at her!
My frown returns and I go to the window.
It gives a view of Parliament on the horizon since it’s aligned with the hangar window.
At the top, I can see the curved window of the room we were in yesterday.
“I just don’t get it!”
Alchyinad thinks for a moment before sucking in a breath to ask “What if you tried to think of some reasons she might have done as she did, Victor?”
“Ain’t been doing nothin’ ’sides that since yesterday!” I answer without turning from the window “The only thing I can think is that this is some sorta long con!… She makes it look like she’s nukin’ her reputation with the antideathworlders to lull us into a false sense o’ security! What I can’t work out is why!? What secrets does she still think we’re keepin’ that she’s decided it’s worth this risk to get us to reveal! Bigots are simple minded creatures and they ain’t likely to forgive and forget, even if she does reveal the juicier prize she thinks she’s gonna get by trickin’ us… whatever she thinks that is!” I say, idly stroking my chin as I think.
“You haven’t considered that she may have had a genuine change of heart, then?”
My diaphragm spasms in a joyless chuckle as I turn to the dark haired woman and shake my head.
“Some possibilities I can dismiss out of hand, Ally(!)… She’s a bigot!… If bigots were the sorts who’d change their minds about bein’ bigots when they were proved wrong to be, they wouldn’t be bigots in the first place!… Nah… there’s somethin’ else goin’ on here… Just need to work out what!”
“So, you don’t believe it’s ever possible for bigots to change their minds, Victor?” she asks, her tone in that neutral curiosity that gives no clue that she disagrees other than the number of times I’ve heard her use it to get me to realise I was wrong about something!
“Not in her case!” I double down, snarling “She’s had the best part of 4 decades to realise she’s wrong about us and she still calls Twila a ‘machine’, you and your husband ‘miscegenators’ and throws a thousand and one other petty little insults at the rest of us! She were gonna realise she were wrong, it’d’ve happened by now! You can’t reason a person out of a position they didn’t reason ’emself into!”
In my peripheral vision, I see her Vampiric face bob up and down as she thinks about how to change tack.
“Victor, do you think the proportion of bigoted gardenworlders in the galaxy was higher or lower in the War than it is now?” she finally asks, calmly.
“Higher.” I answer, simply.
“What about Terrans?”
I pause for a moment.
“Higher too… probably.”
“Do you think the difference can be explained entirely by the more bigoted older generations dying off and the younger ones replacing them being less inclined to bigotry… on either side?”
I think.
“No… Think a lot of ’em are prob’ly folks who used to be bigots and then changed their minds.” I admit.
“So, you do believe that a bigot can change their mind then?” she asks.
“Not Waqa’arc!… I get what you’re sayin’! I know you fought in the War! I know Cap fought in the War!… I get that, at the time, you both prob’ly thought we was monsters and that you was makin’ the galaxy a safer place by trynna wipe us out!… There’s a difference! You both changed your minds as soon as you saw you was wrong and you’ve spent all the time since makin’ up for it! She ain’t done that! She’s too far gone! There’s no getting through to her at this point! She’s never gonna change her mind!” I insist, turning back to her and sitting back down.
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She wobbles her head and purses her lips in a ‘yes and no’ looking gesture.
“You’re right Victor. Tcakqaal and I both fought and, though I can’t speak for her, in my case, I was largely disabused of my misconceptions about your species before the GU’s surrender… But Tcakqaal and I both spent the end of the War in Terran POW camps… We got to see firsthand how wrong we’d been… How much time do you think Waqa’arc had ever spent in the company of Terrans before this voyage?”
“‘None’’d be my guess(!)” I sneer.
“Exactly!… She was never able to see Terrans for what you are, was she? The only version of you she had to contend with was the one she had created for herself… or perhaps that her echochamber had created for her. However, now she’s spent two years in Terran company… She’s seen you personally do things like save her life from the Revanchist pirate, save that child from the loader, fight a giant monster to protect Twigg from being attacked… She’s seen the doctors go out of their way to find a way to save the lives of Vrakhand mothers and volunteer to stay behind with the ambassadors to keep doing so. She’s seen the work of the ambassadors to bring peace between the Vrakhand and Twigg… In short, Victor, she’s been able to see the side of Terrans that Tcakqaal and I got to see 30 years ago… I’d not be so quick to dismiss the possibility that she’s had a genuine change of heart!”
My face twists with the sourness of thinking about that awful woman changing her ways.
Alchyinad gives me a long time to think before offering “Of course, Victor, if you want to see for yourself, there is something you could try?”
---Waqa’arc’s perspective---
I’m perched alone in my quarters.
My stomach stews with the same unease I’ve been drowning in since I finally did what I decided to do [months] ago.
My entire body is still revolting against me for what I did yesterday!
I’ve completely disgraced myself in the eyes of my former allies… and my former enemies have fairly consistently proven they’re not so quick to forgive.
I am now a woman with barely a friend in the galaxy…
So why did I…?
At this moment, my self pity is interrupted by an alert for the door.
I sigh and hop down to let Tcakqaal in.
Perhaps she can help me feel better right now.
The door slides open and, rather than the two eyed face of the R’qali Captain, I find myself staring at a layer of fabric stretched over a broad trunk.
I’m so thrown by that that it takes me a moment to realise I need to look up!
I turn my beak ceilingward and see a pair of green eyes fixed down on me from a stonily expressioned face.
“I need to talk to you.” announces the deathworlder, tersely.
Somewhat bewildered, I answer “Oh… alright, Mr Taylor… Please come in?”
With a curt nod, he steps around me to cross the threshold of my quarters.
I turn and see the unnervingly dangerous man I’m now secluded with as he strides through my living space.
His head swivels left and right, looking downward.
Finding nothing to seat himself on, he chooses to stand facing the perch I just vacated and fold his arms across his front.
“Your husband here?” he asks as I remount it.
“No he’s out with… he’s out.” I answer, stopping myself from divulging that he is in Qorak’s company, just in case that knowledge damages the Terran’s relationship with the man “Do you need him here too?”
“No.” he answers “You’re the one I want to speak to.”
“Well… I’m listening?” I invite.
His frightening body tenses as he hesitates.
I can’t help but be aware that killing me would be almost as easy for him as simply deciding to… one step forward and one swipe of a thick arm.
Finally, he speaks “Why’d you do it?”
“Why do you care?” I respond in a humourless chitter.
“Because it makes no sense!” he asserts.
“Would you have preferred me to do as you expected me to? Even if what that was would have been against the interests of the new species? Is it not preferable to you that I subverted your expectations as I did?”
The man’s fleshy mouth and nose twist in an expression of disdain as he answers “In a vacuum… no… In a vacuum, I couldn’t’ve asked for a better result than what you did… but I know you Waqa’arc… and you doin’ somethin’ that unexpected gets my hackles up!”
“Well perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think.” I suggest.
“I know you can’t be trusted!” he spits.
“Then don’t trust me!” I laugh “That seems like a nice and simple resolution to the dissonance you’re experiencing, doesn’t it?… If you think I did what I did simply to win your trust then the answer would seem to be as simple as continuing to withhold it!”
The green eyes narrow in a scowl as he asserts “Yeaaah… that sounds like reverse psychology to me! Like I’m meant to think ‘Oh! She must be safe to trust if she doesn’t care if I trust her!’”
“Then, again, the simple answer seems to be to continue not to trust me, doesn’t it?” I observe, wryly.
The man appraises me in silence for several long moments, still scowling, before “You still ain’t answered the question… You turned a room on the fence into a room that voted overwhelmingly in the Twigg and Vrakhand’s favour… The whole of Parliament might vote differently because of the effect you had… I want to know why.”
“Because it was the right thing to do.” I answer, realising the truth of the words only after I’ve uttered them.
I don’t need my translator to perceive the shock on the man’s face.
“But… you’re…?” he finally manages through his confusion before trailing off again.
“A bad person?” I suggest “The kind of person who would never do the right thing? For whom doing the right thing is inherently suspicious?”
“Not to put too fine a point on it but, yeah! You doing something I think is ‘the right thing’ and claimin’ you think the same is suspicious!” he states, pointedly.
“Yes… well… That is who I was… but I’ve decided I don’t wish to be that person anymore… I’ve realised that not only were the beliefs I held erroneous, they were actively harming me and those around me.”
“What… so… that’s it then? Switch flipped and you ain’t a bigoted sack of shit anymore? That easy, huh?!” he sneers.
“No… it wasn’t easy. It was the second hardest thing I’ve ever done after only cremating my daughter.” I state with cold defiance.
If that revelation stirs any sympathy in the man, he doesn’t show it.
His forward facing eyes just fix on me, judging, appraising, evaluating with suspicion befitting a deathworlder.
Finally, he announces “If you’re for real, Waqa’arc… I’d be glad… but I hope you’ll understand if I need a little more time ’fore I fully buy it(!)”
“If, by that, you mean you still don’t trust me, I must point out that I’ve repeatedly made clear that I am at peace with that outcome since the beginning of this conversation, Taylor(!)” I retort.
He *hmph*s in reply.
I watch him as he turns and makes for the door.
His hand is reaching out for the panel when he pauses.
Without looking back at me he says “You should come to Triple M, some time… You might enjoy it…”
Before I have the chance to answer, the door has opened and he’s disappeared out of it.