Kingdom of Cages(62)

Laban, the poker-thin, dark man who was director of computers, gave Shontio a sideways glance and picked up the story. “We are fortunate they backed down quickly,” he said.

“Quickly?” Ajitha snorted again. “It took eighteen months.”

“We are fortunate they backed down quickly,” Laban repeated. “Or we would have run out of food. We were poor, even then, and the shippers that could be reached”—his eyes slid sideways to Beleraja—“did not seem interested in our revolutionary cause.”

Beleraja could make no answer other than dropping her gaze. She also could not help noticing that each one of the directors spoke as if they had fought the battle personally.

“A treaty was negotiated eventually,” went on Ajitha, twisting her ring around her finger, “but the threat has always remained. Whenever Pandora is sufficiently upset with Athena, they suggest that the management board needs to have chips stuck in their brains. Obviously, this has never happened.”

“We never let strangers land on Pandora before,” pointed out Ordaz.

“We?” Kyle, the citizens’ welfare director, who had sat silent up to this point, lifted her chin. An unpleasant light shone deep in her black eyes. “We did not let anything happen. It is the Authority who was supposed to keep Pandora safe from invasion.” She met Beleraja’s eyes without any hesitation at all. “It is in fact the Authority who brought this trouble to us in the first place.”

“Director Kyle,” said Beleraja, laying her hands flat on the table, “you’ll never know how sorry I am that Athena Station had to get caught up in this mess. I assure you—”

“Beleraja,” said Shontio suddenly. “Do you remember what you said to me about the cure for the Diversity Crisis?”

The statement so startled Beleraja, she had to run it through her head several times, and even then she did not understand. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You said that you believed the only way to cure the Diversity Crisis was to bring the human race back together on a single world.” Slowly, Shontio’s shoulders straightened, as if some great burden were being lifted off them. “Could such a thing be done? Are there enough people who are desperate enough to come here? Are there enough shippers who could be convinced to take the job?”

“Shontio…” Beleraja could not believe what she was hearing. He couldn’t be thinking this. This could not be what he was saying. He was talking about making good on the threat she had laid out to the Pandorans at that long-ago meeting. He was talking about letting the Called overrun the hothousers’ home and turn it into a new Earth, and, it seemed, he was talking about doing it without permission or sanction from the Authority.

“Shontio, it would take years. The Authority would do everything they could to stop it.”

“The Authority doesn’t care who comes to Pandora or how they get here. In fact, they want them here. The more people here, the more pressure on the Pandorans.” He flung out one hand. “By the time they know exactly how many people have come, it will be too late.”

“Shontio, you don’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “I’m tired of this.” He spoke the words plainly, without heat or anger. “I am tired of living under the threat of having my mind taken away from me. I am tired of knowing that my children have to live with the same threat. The Pandorans have finally gone too far. The only way to stop them is to break them, and the only way to break them is to flood Pandora with refugees, overwhelm hothousers with humanity. We end the Diversity Crisis and we end Pandora, all at once.”

“Some people just tried a landing.” Beleraja stabbed her finger at the blank screen wall. “They are all dead! I told you that was what would happen!”

Her words did not even make Shontio pause. “The landing failed because there were not enough people. Enough people, in a coordinated landing, in wave after wave, and I don’t care if the hothousers have the Burning God on their side, they will not be able to get them all.”

“You will be sending them to their deaths. Thousands of them.”

“They are already dying.”

Beleraja sat there, her gaze locked on Shontio. She was vaguely aware that the other directors were shouting back and forth, arguing, their voices melding into one great incomprehensible noise. All she could understand were Shontio’s hard, hopeless eyes. He had given up. There was no compromise left in him. In his mind, he had already declared war, and he was not going to back down. It was up to her whether she supported him or not. If she did not, he would still go to war, but he would lose.