The door opened. Hwang and a dozen security personnel entered, Bannor Rulaine at their head. “Is this the—gentleman—we are to escort to special quarters?”
Caine nodded. “That’s him. And good riddance.”
“A strange farewell,” observed Shethkador. He smiled as the two shortest commandoes—Miles O’Garran and Peter Wu—pulled a restraint jumper up around his ankles. “This would be a better parting platitude: ‘until we meet again.’”
“I hope not.”
“I predict otherwise.” With the Ktor’s arms wrapped tight against his body, the security detachment frog-walked him out of the room. Caine did not lower his sidearm until the door had closed behind the detail.
Even Alnduul seemed to relax slightly, then turned to the humans in the room. “There is one more item of importance. The final name by which the Accord is to address your polity. World Confederation was only a tentative term, was it not?”
Visser nodded. “That is correct, Alnduul. Since we were summoned to the Convocation, though, there has been much talk of settling upon a more species-specific, a more inclusive, term: Human Confederation.”
Alnduul’s lids nictated slowly. “I would suggest you consider a different term.”
Sukhinin stared at the Dornaani. “Now you will tell us what to call ourselves?”
“I merely offer a prudent suggestion. Consider, you are planning to call yourself the Human Confederation. Yet, what is the Ktor, but another human?”
Sukhinin shrugged. “So perhaps we are simply more precise. ‘The Earth Confederation,’ maybe?”
Caine thought. “What about the Terran Confederation?”
Vassily looked over, perplexed. “Terran? From the Latin? Why this?”
It was Visser who answered. “Caine is right. Latin is not any nation’s language anymore, so any name derived from it is less likely to arouse cultural jealousies.”
Hwang nodded. “It is also wise not to use a name too closely associated with any one world. If we include ‘Earth’ in the title, we are emphasizing one planet above the others. What about the Moon, Mars, DeePeeThree, Zeta Tucanae? If we choose a title that fails to implicitly include all our worlds, I think you may be only one generation away from rebel groups chanting ‘no Confederation without representation.’”
Visser nodded. “I agree. But your point brings another issue to mind. We cannot know how our government will evolve, or if all of our peoples and polities will have equal, or any, representation within the blocs that comprise our state. Even now, some nations and groups choose not to. Can we truly claim ourselves to be a ‘confederation,’ then?”
“What would you suggest?”
Visser reflected upon Sukhinin’s question for a moment. “I think the closest English term is ‘consolidated.’ It would mean that we are all together—all one political entity—but it does not attempt to define or imply any universal set of political relationships: merely solidarity.”
“I agree,” Sukhinin said softly. “But if we make no statement of political accountability and equality, then what makes us different from a mob? ‘Terran Consolidation’ could be a fine title for the empire of a ruthless dictator, no?”
Caine felt something rise up from values learned at his family’s kitchen table, something which would have made his history-professor father proud. “Republic. We call it a republic.”
Visser frowned. “Not all states will like this.”
“With respect, that’s too damned bad. A republic is representative pluralism, yes? So is the bloc structure, even if all the constituent states are not, themselves, republics. But one of the implicitly understood principles of a republic is that its social contract is the supreme authority, and may be fashioned and evolved only by representatives of the people. It puts the rule of law above both the vagaries of the vox populi and the dicta of would-be tyrants. And isn’t that what we want? Isn’t that what Nolan was urging, on his last day? To take a stand—at least this one—to use a global government not merely as a mechanism for enhanced security, but as an instrument for social good?”
Sukhinin was smiling for the first time in the past hour. He put a hand—Caine had to actively dispel the hackneyed association with a bearish Russian “paw”—on his shoulder. “Nolan could not have said it better. He would be happy today, to have heard you say this.” Sukhinin squeezed his shoulder and his eyes grew shiny. “Nolan was right about you. Every bit. If there is a heaven—and, bozhemoi, I hope there is—he is surely smiling down on you right now.”
Caine gave a brief, and he hoped humble, nod, but thought, That assumes that Nolan is wearing wings above us, rather than in chains below. Just how many good-intentioned lies can you tell before even those prosocial prevarications earn you a one-way ticket to a personal, or mythological, hell? Probably equal to the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin…
“So we will recommend our polity to the Accord to be named the Consolidated Terran Republic?” As the first word of the title began rolling off Visser’s tongue, it sounded tentative. It had been graven in stone by the time the last syllable emerged.
Caine looked at the persons in the room, committed their locations and facial expressions to memory. I will be able to say—and record—that this was the first time our collective name for ourselves was uttered. That this was the founding moment and vision that would become our touchstone and hope throughout the long trial by fire that now stands before us. And in so recording it, pen a rebuttal to the stylish cynicisms of the modern age: that not all declarations are banal; not all acts are futile; not all beliefs are pointless—and that I have lived the truth of that in this past minute.
And in the time it had taken to reflect upon the significance of the moment, the moment was past. That was, after all, the nature of moments. By the time we can reflect on events, they are behind us. The present is like a vertical line in geometry, with the past stretching limitlessly to the left, and the future immeasurably to the right. But existing upon the line of the present means we are eternally perched upon a single point, an imaginary unit of measure that has no width. Just the way a “historical” moment is so narrow a sliver of time that it appears and disappears in the same instant. It has no epic dimensions and so casts no epic shadow at the moment it passes us. Only when it becomes a momentous object of the past—or future—does it acquire shape, mass, opacity.
Visser approached Darzhee Kut. “Delegate Kut, might I invite you to accompany us to the captain’s ready room? It would be the most appropriate place for us to begin our attempts to recontact your government.”
Darzhee Kut chittered out a string of affirmatives, turned just before he, Visser, Sukhinin, and Hwang exited. “I will look forward to our next meeting, Caine Riordan.”
“As will I, Darzhee Kut.”
As the door closed, Alnduul moved in the opposite direction, toward the observation gallery and the star-littered expanse before them. Caine asked his back. “How much did you know?”
“Of what would occur?”
“That, and the identity of the Ktor.”
“Their stratagems and the flow of events we foresaw. Their identity was uncertain at best. We foresaw that the Ktor would attempt to destroy the Accord unless they could secure your cooperation. With you as a satrapy, the Accord could have been a legitimating structure for their ambitions. However, when you would not ally with them, they hoped you would either prove weak enough to be conquered, or savage enough to undertake atrocities that would make you pariahs. Like them. You have done neither, and they are not revealed. For the Ktor, the outcome is a stalemate.”