"Zamara thought so. She was willing to let an awful lot of people die for this secret she harbors. Some of those people were friends of mine."
And some were friends of Jake's... and he loved his friends. Mine were business associates.
"And," she continued, "unless your preservers have a history of being selfish and egotistical to an insane degree, which I don't think is the case, then yeah—I do think the risk would be worth it."
"How dare you tell us what to think?" Urun's mental voice cracked like a whip, and Rosemary winced from the pain of it in her head. "You are in no position to demand anything!"
"Peace, Urun," Artanis said, holding up a hand. "The terran female merely states her opinion."
"Which should carry no weight whatsoever in this council," said Nahaan. "There are too many opinions already. We are like beasts trying to pull a vehicle in several different directions. We will get nowhere!"
Someone else had a snappy retort, and Nahaan rose to it, and Rosemary slumped slightly. In a way, Nahaan was right. They would get nowhere, arguing like this.
"Rosemary Dahl, I am so very sorry," Vartanil said in her mind. "We are a people who strive so hard for unity and yet it seems it is forever eluding us."
They'lljust send me back to my comfortable cell until they've argued over it some more, Rosemary thought. She tried to direct her thoughts privately to Vartanil, and had no clue if she'd succeeded. "Jake and Zamara could be dead by then."
"Hierarch! May I address the council?"
Rosemary's dark head whipped up in surprise. That clear, strong mental voice belonged to Selendis. The slender but still powerful protoss stepped forward, moving with a graceful stride toward the human woman. Rosemary wasn't alone in her shock; apparently no one else had expected Selendis to speak.
"Of course, Selendis," said Artanis. Rosemary got a brief hit, quickly smothered, of other protoss not being quite so willing to have the executor share her thoughts.
"I was the first in a position of authority to be informed of the human's arrival, along with the other evacuees of our homeworld," Selendis began. "I have never attempted to hide my feelings; on the contrary I am proud of them. None here assembled can question my devotion to my people, nor my desire to fight and protect them."
Her gaze swept the hall, almost as if daring anyone to challenge her. No one did.
"It is said that nothing can be forever hidden, if it wishes to be found; that lessons not learned the first time they appear will come again until we accept them. So it is with this situation now. The lesson craves to be understood and embraced; and the secret once unspoken strains to be shared. Those who knew it kept their silence, truly believing that it would serve nothing and harm much to speak of it. At the time, that might have been true—but no longer. Hierarch, I will tell them."
Everyone in the room strained forward. Mental murmurs of surprise pattered softly on Rosemary's brain. She'd already had a profound shock in discovering that the Hierarchy, at least, knew about Ulrezaj and she braced herself for another. What kind of bomb was Selendis about to drop?
Judging from Artanis's reaction and the sudden stillness that meant they were communicating privately, it was a big one. Artanis sat back, looking unhappy but resigned, and Selendis turned to address the hall.
"The attack on Shakuras," she said solemnly, "was not the first time we had encountered Ulrezaj. We found him and his cohorts shortly before then.. .when we sent a small fleet of protoss on a rescue mission to Aiur."
Rosemary gritted her teeth and clutched her head at the mental pain this revelation caused.
"You knew there were survivors on Aiur?"
"Why did we not send a larger fleet?"
"So many could have been saved!"
Selendis held up a hand. "We were investigating what we thought was a slim chance to recover a handful of individuals," she said. "We came expecting to find only the three templar who had survived because they were in stasis cells. When we saw the reality on Aiur..."
"Zeratul and I agreed that it would serve us nothing to mount a larger rescue mission," Artanis interrupted. Selendis turned to him. "In the end, it was my decision, Selendis. To not rescue our brethren.. .and to keep word of it silent."
Rosemary stared. "Why, you heartless—"
Urun let out a mental roar so intense Rosemary almost passed out. Vartanil reached to steady her, doing what he could to shield her from the telepathic bombardment, even though he himself was reeling from the news that he could have been rescued four years ago.
"Our people are Crying there!" Urun thundered. "You have told us that we did not have the strength to fight the zerg, to recover our world.... You let us believe that there were no survivors to save!"
"We expected only to find those who had been in the stasis cells," Artanis repeated. "We were shocked and stunned to discover more had survived on the planet. And yet even while we were there, we could see that the zerg were still rampaging across Aiur, overwhelming them... slaughtering even as we watched, too few in number to save them. Even if we had sent a rescue mission, we had no reason to believe that by the time it reached Aiur, there would be anyone left to rescue."
"It is true," said Vartanil unexpectedly. All eyes turned to him. "No one could have known that the zerg would stop targeting us....
No one could have known that we would find a Benefactor." He lifted his head and looked at Artanis.
"To discover that there were so many left, and that they had endured so much these four years—I do not think there is one among us who was unmoved by that. Particularly those of us who had known some survived, and believed you to simply be walking dead," said Selendis. Her emotion was obvious.
Vartanil nodded. "I.. .understand your decision, Hierarch."
Others still did not, Urun among them, but they could not continue protesting when Vartanil, the one among them most wronged by the choice, was willing to forgive.
Artanis rose and bowed deeply to the young Furinax, who suddenly looked rather endearingly embarrassed.
"We must focus on the present, for the past cannot be changed," Selendis said. "Though I greatly wish it could be. Ulrezaj has resurfaced, to prey upon the remnants of those left behind on Aiur. But to what end? And what does he want with a preserver? What does she know that has shaken so vastly powerful a being? Our only clue so far is what Vartanil and Rosemary can tell us. And that, my fellow protoss, is insufficient. It is as clear to me as the stars were when glimpsed from Aiur on a cloudless night what we must do. Ulrezaj may have indeed fallen upon Aiur, under the combined attack of the Dominion, the protoss, and the zerg. Or, he may not have, and he may continue to hunt Zamara and every other protoss down, to silence them forever."
Selendis's eyes glowed fiercely. "We must not let him succeed. He has murdered many protoss, used them for his own unknown ends. Shall we sit idly by and let him do the same to a preserver? Put an end to a line that has existed since the arrival of the xel'naga? Permit that song to be forever silenced, all that knowledge eternally lost?"
That hit home with Zekrath. Out of the corner of her eye, Rosemary saw him physically jerk as if struck. His thoughts, however, were tightly lidded.
"And perhaps worse still—shall we permit a terran male, who did not ask for this burden, and yet who has done all that he could to support the preserver, to die alone and in pain because we are too afraid to go to his aid?"