"Sixteen months." It was the older captain, Serle. He was shaking his head in disbelief. "There's no way we can be ready in that time."
"We're going to have to be," countered Captain Li.
"Ready?" Rue put her hand up, looking ironically meek. "Ready for what?"
The minister glanced around the table, nodded. "Rue, what we're about to tell you cannot be spoken about outside this room. After our experience with Crisler's men hacking into our inscape system, we no longer trust public communications systems for this kind of thing. We know we were not compromised before his arrival, but now that the R.E.'s ties to Mallory's people are exposed, security is more vital than ever.
"You are now a captain of the Cycler Compact. You have certain rights and powers, including a security clearance high enough for you to hear what we're about to tell you. First, however, we need your solemn assurance that you will not tell your travelling companions, the professor and this NeoShintoist, Bequith, anything that we reveal to you now."
Rue chewed her lip, thinking. It was astonishing; from being a rejected kid on a cometary station, she had arisen to cycler captain. One small step remained to be taken and she would be in the central circle of power for the Compact itself, so far above where her ambitions had lain that she had no idea what it would mean for her.
"No," she said curtly. "I trust those men with my life, sir. They have my confidence."
Travis Li leaned forward. "They are citizens of the Rights Economy," he said. "We can't permit the R.E. to know—"
"They're my crew," she interrupted.
Li sat back, obviously startled. "Crew? But they were hired by Admiral Crisler to do research for him."
"Ask them," she said, though her heart was pounding. "One of the rights of a cycler captain, as you explained to me so kindly at the ball the other night, is to confer citizenship. I hereby say that Laurent Herat and Michael Bequith are citizens of the Compact, in my eyes, if they choose to be. Ask them. But I won't swear to you that I won't tell them whatever secrets you're offering me."
The powers of the Compact muttered among themselves and Rue sat with her face hot, feeling like she'd blown it for good this time. And what was this secret, anyway?
Travis Li was frowning. "You realize that as captain, you will be responsible for their conduct and if they betray the Compact, you will bear the consequences?" She nodded.
Then the abbot clapped his hands sharply and everyone turned to him. "This is Compact Law," he said. "She has the right to what she proposes. And since Apophis and Osiris lie along her ring, Captain Cassels must be informed of any actions the Compact takes toward any worlds on that ring. It seems, gentlemen and ladies, that we are at an impasse."
He stood and bowed to Rue. "We will ask your friends if they will forego their citizenship in the Rights Economy to become sons of the Compact. If they do, they may continue to fraternize with you and may be party to our plans. If not, we must ask you to end your association with them, at least for now— lest they should leave Colossus by cycler and communicate what they know to the R.E."
And the meeting broke up, simple as that.
I'VE DONE IT this time, Rue told herself for the tenth time. She was being escorted down a corridor hacked into the ice deep beneath the city. Eight hours had passed since the strange meeting and she'd had just enough time to ponder things and get very depressed. It was late in the shift now, she was tired, and way out in space, Crisler must be laughing himself sick as he and Mallory winged their way toward the Envy.
Two military policemen were escorting Rue to the cells (they called them apartments) where Mike and Herat were being held. Apparently they had been asked the question Rue, in her stupidity, had maneuvered them all into. Give up the R.E.? A world where they could traverse the galaxy in weeks? When both men's lives revolved around the hunt for alien intelligence? No. Why would they voluntarily remain in the halo, when they had that to return to?
This whole fiasco threw her relationship with Michael Bequith into sharp relief. It had been ridiculous for her to hope he might stay with her, she saw now. She hadn't even dared to fantasize that he might— but the hope had been there, underlying all her thoughts and actions these past few weeks.
She was a girl from the stations, after all, her eyes too weak to stand the sunlight of Mike's world. The dark was her home and the cold of the orphan worlds between the stars. He lived in the light and he would be returning to it as soon as he could.
She bit back tears as the MPs barged through one last set of metal doors and into some sort of waiting room. There were benches on the floor and a podium at one end, behind which the infinity symbol of the Compact was etched on the wall. Travis Li was here, seated on one of the benches. To her surprise, so was the abbot. He smiled at her kindly and handed her a thick book.
She stared at it. The abbot coughed politely, so Rue made to sit on one of the back benches. The abbot took her arm, shaking his head and gestured forward. She walked to a front bench and started to sit. He shook his head again; both he and Li were smiling now, damn them. The abbot gestured forward again.
But there was nothing up there except… Oh, the podium. Rue walked up to it hesitantly and laid the heavy book down on it. There was a ribbon bookmark in the center of it, so she opened the book out to that page and made to return to the benches. But the title on the page of the book caught her eye.
Ceremony of Citizenship in the Cycler Compact
"All rise!" shouted one of the marines suddenly. Travis and the abbot stood, grinning, and the doors at the back opened. In stepped Laurent Herat— alone.
Rue felt nauseated. She was sure she would faint at any second, and barely registered Herat's presence as the man came to stand at the front of the room, right before the podium. When she finally did look into his face, she saw the apologetic expression there, and that just made her feel worse.
"Why?" she croaked, almost inaudibly.
Herat shrugged. "My career was in its twilight anyway— the whole Panspermia Institute is on its way out. My wife is dead, my children grown. And my people… you know, years of investigating the ruins of alien civilizations have taught me a lot about what makes a healthy one, and which ones are doomed to fail.
"It's all about time, Rue— a species' attitude to time, I mean. The problem with faster-than-light travel is that it promises instant escape from any problem. The Rights Economy is proof of that: We expand and expand, with no thought to limits or tomorrow. Meanwhile, we rot from within.
"The Envy, and you, and this place have convinced me that there's another way. Maybe that's the secret of the Lasa— maybe they turned their back on FTL and conducted their civilization at a slower rhythm…. Anyway, if you'd asked me twenty years ago which of our cultures had more potential, yours or mine, I'd have said the R.E. But I don't believe that any longer.
"You've allowed me to see what it was we nearly destroyed when we took the lit worlds away from the halo. For that, I'll be eternally grateful to you."
His expression became more sober. "I have the benefit of my years. Bequith… Michael gave me a message for you," he said. "He told me to tell you that he cannot abandon his people— those on Kimpurusha or elsewhere in the Rights Economy. He said that while he is a citizen of the R.E. by conquest, still he can't abandon his world while it's under the kind of threat that Crisler represents. He wishes to find a way to go home as soon as possible, to warn people about Crisler's plans."
You fool! Rue wasn't sure if she was angry at herself or at Mike. She should not have created this dilemma for him. Mike didn't know why she had asked him to take citizenship; as far as he knew, Crisler had cleanly escaped, and even now Rue herself didn't know how the powers of the Compact might catch him. For Mike, this ceremony must seem like an admission of defeat— an attempt by her to get him to abandon the chase, and settle down on Colossus.