‘Half a million years of unbroken rule would hardly become unbalanced by a more candid attitude towards our fellow citizens,’ came Squat’s immediate reply. ‘If the Mother Star Faction’s demands can’t be met, then at least give them a reasonable explanation of why they can’t.’
‘That won’t happen, General. Those to whom I answer will have none of it.’
‘Then you’re facing the risk of revolution, Trader-In-Faecal-Matter-Of-Animals,’ came General Squat’s immediate reply. ‘Now that I think of it, perhaps your chosen ambassadorial name sounds more appropriate than I realized. Most Shoal-members live far from the homeworld, but they would all rather see it orbiting securely around a stable star than lost for ever in a frozen dust cloud. Otherwise…’
Otherwise, what? was Trader’s unvoiced reply. It was clear the General was not going to listen to reason.
‘Otherwise,’ General Squat concluded after a pause, ‘others like me will be sure to disseminate the truth -particularly if anything drastic were to happen to me.’
Trader gave the signal. Suddenly the dozen priest-geneticists came rushing forward. Their energy bubbles flashed as they collided with the General’s, while Trader himself retreated to a safe distance.
Thirteen balls of coloured light suddenly merged into one, with General Squat caught in the middle. The priest-geneticists now fell on the old warrior-fish, their tentacles ready-tipped with diamond-edged blades. The General fought valiantly, but he was old, and had been taken by surprise.
Your agents, dear General, are compromised, Trader thought to himself. Squat’s plans stank of rank amateurism.
It was over so quickly. After a few moments the priest-geneticists fell away from the General’s ripped-up corpse, which began spiralling down towards the seabed, preceded by a field disrupter weapon the old fool had kept concealed about his person.
‘Feed the General’s remains to the Dreamers,’ Trader instructed one of the priests, a near-albino known as Keeper-Of-Intimate-Secrets-Of-The-Unwittingly-Compromised. ‘They can enjoy his memories.’
Keeper blinked his massive eyes at this request. ‘If we submit the General’s remains to the Deep Dreamers, his once-conscious matrix will merge with and further inform the Dreamers. The memory of what has happened here would survive and, so long as it remains within the matrix of the Dreamers, what he knew at the time of his death might be rediscovered by others.’
Trader sighed, emitting a long stream of bubbles. ‘And it is your duty to sift through, interpret and censor such information as it comes to light, is it not? Rigor-Mortis gave himself to the Deep Dreamers precisely because he believed the truth would emerge just as you describe, and it’s your duty to ensure this never happens. Is that understood?’
‘Understood, yes,’ the priest-geneticist replied, with a rapid string of clicks.
‘Very good. Now take me to the Deep Dreamers.’
For some reason, some of the priests-including Keeper-Of-Secrets-appeared to regard Trader as almost as much of an oracle as the Deep Dreamers themselves.
‘And you truly believe the war to end all wars is upon us?’ Keeper-Of-Secrets asked yet again, as General Squat’s body was delivered to the vast spirochetes of the nearest of the Dreamers.
Trader’s reply was dismissive. ‘What the Dreamers tell us is… well, it’s rarely conclusive, is it? Sometimes, sad to say, it’s even useless.’
Keeper was clearly scandalized by this suggestion, but Trader blithely continued: ‘Instead the Dreamers give us clues vague enough to appear to mean one thing, then turn out to have a wildly different interpretation once it’s too late to influence the course of events. Keeper, I think we rely on them too much. They’re just a convenience the Hegemony can point to so they can abdicate all responsibility for their own actions. Look, they just say the Deep Dreamers predicted this, and the outcome was inevitable, whatever they might have done.’
Trader flicked his tentacles in a shrug. ‘So ultimately that means an unfortunate few like myself are forced to take on responsibility for what must be done, and divert the flow of history.’
‘Perhaps, but it must be…’ Keeper hesitated.
‘Continue.’
‘I’m afraid of speaking out of turn.’
‘You have my permission.’
‘It strikes me as a lonely and thankless occupation,’ Keeper-Of-Secrets continued. ‘So few are permitted to know that such as yourself must manipulate events throughout the galaxy for the general benefit of our species. Yet, since such manipulations are based on the Dreamer’s own predictions, and you appear not to think highly of the Dreamers…’
‘I couldn’t live with myself, if I thought any inaction on my part led to our destruction,’ Trader replied. ‘So, you see, to act is morally unavoidable, whatever the source of the intelligence.’
They had by now almost reached the first of the Dreaming Temples-a hovering robot submarine that granted the privileged few the means to interface directly with the Dreamers.
Trader made his farewells to his new partners in murder before finally slipping into the wet embrace of the Temple. The machine’s innards opened up automatically at his approach, mechanical mandibles reaching out and securing his field bubble, which merged on contact with the Temple’s own energy fields.
Trader found himself in absolute darkness, greater even than that prevailing beyond the Temple’s hull. This hiatus lasted only seconds, however, before the Temple made contact with the Dreamer’s collective consciousness.
Trader felt as if his mind had expanded to encompass the entire galaxy within a matter of seconds. Powerful images and sensations assailed his mind, far stronger than those faint intimations he had sensed on his journey here. He witnessed a hundred stars blossoming in deadly fire across the greater night of the Milky Way, a wave of bright destruction unparalleled in all of Shoal history, outside of the Great Expulsion.
Trader felt sickening despair. This was the worst possible outcome: a seething wave of carnage sweeping the Shoal Hegemony into dusty history. To become a had-been and never-would-be-again civilization, forgotten in the annals of the greater history of the cosmos.
Yet hope could still be detected even in the face of apparently unavoidable doom. Over the next few hours, working within the Temple, Trader was able to identify potential key factors: individuals, places and dates that might well influence the initiation of the conflict.
And even if war could not be prevented, it might still be reduced in the scale of its destructive impact. With gentle manipulation, it might even be contained, rendered harmless: turned into a historical footnote rather than a final chapter.
Sometimes, Trader had found, fate really did lie in the hands of a few sentients such as himself.
He began to make plans to ensure he would always be present in the right places to witness-and influence-these pivotal events. And perhaps even divert them away from an astonishingly destructive war that otherwise threatened to erase life from the galaxy.