Quiet Invasion(172)

“NO!” screamed Vee.

Beside her, Helen’s mouth opened soundlessly and she clutched Ben’s arm. In the next moment, Helen Failia slid to the floor.

While T’sha watched, the message faded from the New People’s display. The tool foundered in the air and began to sink, gathering momentum as it fell.

D’seun did not move to stop it. Neither did Z’eth. T’sha darted down and grasped the cold, clumsy thing without thinking. It burned all her palms, and she shrieked, but she kept hold of it. Br’sei swooped after her and grasped one of the thing’s extensions, pulling it toward a construction shelf where it could rest.

“A malfunction, apparently?” said Z’eth overhead.

Her hands stung, but T’sha ignored them. She rose to meet Z’eth’s gaze.

“Ambassador, did you not see their plea? We cannot do this thing.”

“Why not?” asked Z’eth, her crest lifting as if she were genuinely surprised. “We have declared them insane. This world is ours, and we have every right to protect it from insanity. There is nothing wrong here, Ambassador.”

T’sha stretched out hands and wings to Z’eth “Please, Ambassador, this cannot be done. It is wrong, wrong.”

Z’eth rose over her, her voice sad, but stolid. “I have given my promise, T’sha. What can you give me to change that? This is too much; there are too many ties. I cannot just break my words because you wish things were other than they are.”

T’sha shrank. She had nothing, nothing except Ca’aed’s last words, and Z’eth would not accept those. “You must stop this. You know it is wrong. D’seun is insane!”

Z’eth’s muzzle lifted. “That doesn’t matter!”

No, you did not say that. You could not possibly have said that. But D’seun hovered behind Z’eth, swelled to his fullest extent, pride and triumph filling the world. “How can what is right not matter?”

Z’eth flew so close to T’sha that she could not even see D’seun. “Because D’seun is also right! We need this world, and we need it now. Not fifty years from now, not twenty. We are dying T’sha. Your own city, T’sha, how does it do?”

A moan burst free from her. “Ca’aed is dead.”

For a moment they were all silent and still. T’sha’s wings folded over her eyes, and she wished she were dead with her city. She had failed. She was nothing. The New People would die as Ca’aed had died.

Her wings fell away from her eyes and she looked up at Z’eth hovering in front of her.

“I am sorry.” Z’eth brushed her muzzle against T’sha’s. T’sha could barely feel it, her skin was so contracted. “But if we do not create our life here, in just a few years, all the cities will be dead. What good will sanity and right be then?”

“What can I promise you to change your words? What can you be seen to accept that is worth the lives of the New People?”

D’seun rose from behind Z’eth, a great cloud lifting up from the horizon. “Ca’aed is dead, T’sha,” he announced, as if he savored the words. “Your people must be indentured so their children will be adopted by what cities still live. You have nothing left.”

T’sha looked at him and hated what she saw. Greed and in sanity and the terrible power of both. But he was right. He was right and she could not dismiss his words. What did she have to promise Z’eth? Nothing. Z’eth had given a promise to D’suen, and T’sha had nothing with which to counter that promise. She had Ca’aed’s last words and her own wings and that was all….

Her own wings. T’sha jerked her muzzle up to stare at Z’eth.

Her own wings. No one had made such a promise in centuries, but it was still legal. It could still be made and accepted and it was the richest offer, the final promise of all.

T’sha swelled to her full size. “My life, Ambassador Z’eth.”

“What?” Z’eth pulled her muzzle back.

“My life,” T’sha repeated. “I give it to you as promissory. If you do not kill the distant family, my life is yours. Not your city’s. Yours.”

Z’eth’s whole body tensed. “That’s a very old-fashioned idea, Ambassador.”

“It’s still legal.” Life of my mother and my father….Oh my sisters, my brother, forgive me, forgive me. “And it’s all I have left.”

“T’sha.” D’seun thrust his muzzle at her. “Why are you doing this?”

T’sha rounded on him. “Because there is nothing else I can do, D’seun! No matter what the New People said for themselves, no matter what you heard, or saw, you wanted them gone. You have blocked me at every turn, and raw materials and soul are all I have left!” She shrank in on herself and sank down until her belly touched the thickening air and she could fall no further. Memories of Ca’aed and all its beauties filled her. If Z’eth agreed she’d never have a home again, never fly anywhere without orders. Gone, everything would be gone.