adult life fighting the Sh’daar. He’d started off as a fighter pilot off the America, then gone on to flying a console at Navy HQ Command. He’d served as CAG on board the Republic, as skipper of the Nassau and then as XO back on board the America once more, before eventually moving up to becoming America’s CO.
And now he was a fleet admiral in command of the America battlegroup, with orders from the president himself to forge an alliance with the federation of alien cultures he’d been fighting now for twenty … no, twenty-four years.
No … he didn’t like that one damned bit.
Hell, the whole point of the war had been to maintain Earth’s sovereignty against a coalition of beings determined to incorporate Humankind into their own order. But now here he was, with orders from President Koenig to explore the possibility of recruiting those same beings into an alliance with Earth. Could the Sh’daar be trusted? Could they even be understood?
Were humans going to lose their independence after all, after nearly sixty years of bitter and bloody conflict?
It tore at him, knowing so many of his soldiers—so many of his friends—had died because of these beings, and now he was essentially here, begging for their help.
He’d stopped speaking, his message delivered, and he realized that all of the gathered aliens were discussing it now with considerable animation. Gray found that he was unable to follow more than a fraction of what was being said. It was like being in a conversation where everyone was talking at once, and hearing only a word here and there.
He found the Agletsch’s channel. “Aar’mithdisch? I’m not following the translation.”
“The human brain has limitations,” she replied. “It is unable to follow multiple threads, it seems.”
“Are you telling me these beings can?”
“To an extent. All have been enhanced to one extent or another. You will be able to use the translation software to pick out separate threads and hear them in isolation, perhaps at a later time.”
Which didn’t help him understand what was going on now.
He tried to tune in on different threads.
We do not know if these images represent non-Sh’daar manipulation of the galaxy …
We do not know that these images represent reality …
If the Glothr flee …
The ephemerals distort the truth …
… has nothing to do with us …
… ephemerals do not …
… a billion years …
… afraid …
“What are they saying?” McKennon asked on a private channel, and for the first time, Gray realized that she had been experiencing this virtual reality as well, even though he didn’t see her avatar here.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Our translation expert says human brains aren’t good enough for us to join in.”
“Some Sh’daar brains and nervous systems have been artificially enhanced,” she told him. “The Adjugredudhra … the Zhalleg …”
“I thought these species were all Refusers?” Gray replied, a petulant edge to his mental voice. “No GRIN technologies, no genetics, no robotics—”
“As far as we’ve been able to determine,” McKennon told him, “that was almost never an absolute for them. If humans gave up all technology, that would include fire, sharpened sticks, and the hand ax. The most virulent Luddite wouldn’t demand that.”
“I suppose not. It just seems … I don’t know … hypocritical, I guess, for them to demand we give up certain technologies while they continue using them.”
“They’re also alien, Admiral. By definition, that means they don’t see things the same way we do.”
“I’ve heard that one before.” He laughed. “And I still think that’s a piss-poor excuse that explains nothing.”
“Well, excuse me …”
“Oh, I wasn’t picking on you. They have different worldviews, a different context. I get that. But if this were a virdrama, having the villains do something weird just because they’re alien wouldn’t cut it.”
“Maybe the problem is that this isn’t a virdrama,” she told him. “Real life is never as neatly ordered—or as explicable—as fiction.”
… the Six Suns of the future …
… the Spinning Gateways …
… if the ephemerals upset the balance of …
… we must not …
… they must not …
“Are you recording all of this?” Gray asked McKennon.
“Of course. Aren’t you?”
“I am. It’s good to have a backup, though. You may be picking up pieces that my hardware misses.”
“Good thought.”
“Konstantin should be able to untangle it all later. But I do wish we knew what the argument was about now.”
“Ask the Agletsch.”
“Damn it. Of course …” He shifted channels. “Aar’mithdisch? What are they arguing about? Explain it for my poor, underdeveloped human brain.”
“They do not argue … not precisely. There is doubt that the imagery you bring from the remote future represents what is really happening. Two—the Adjugredudhra and the Baondyeddi—think it likely that the galactic Dyson sphere you’ve imaged here is in fact something built by the farfuture descendents of the Sh’daar Collective. If that is true, of course, there is nothing about which they need to be concerned … yes-no?”
“The Glothr records show Sh’daar species fleeing the galaxy.”
“The term ‘Sh’daar’ may have no meaning—or pertinence—in another four Galactic rotations.
“Too, others continue to insist that a billion years is too long an expanse of time for anyone to worry about what lies beyond. Those inhabited worlds fleeing into intergalactic space could be the future equivalent of Refusers, for example, or a defeated faction … or almost anything else at all. Nearly a billion years is a very long period of time, in which cultures will likely evolve and change out of all recognition.”
“How … ephemeral of them …”
“Some Sh’daar species are extremely long-lived,” the Agletsch said. “They tend to take
