CHAPTER EIGHT
Inzrep’fel, the ha’selnarshazi Intendant who was in direct thrall to Destoshaz’at Zum’ref of the Fourth Dispersate, clenched her lesser tentacles. “As always, the First Dispersate sends.”
Zum’ref sent (equanimity, forbearance) at the announcement of this monthly occurrence. “And is it the same message?”
“No, Destoshaz’at: this time, the shaxzhutok depicted by the shaxzhu of the First Dispersate is the Peace-Feast at the end of the Kinstrife of Nunmarken. They seem to place particular emphasis upon Kef’trel’s shock when he learns that he almost slew his masked sibling, Ya’fef’ah, in the final battle.”
“And you are sure it is being sent by the First Dispersate?”
“Yes, ’at.”
“You are certain that the point of origin matches the last five years of monthly sendings?”
“Yes, ’at. The sending began with the same shaxzhutok as always: the announcement of the First Dispersate’s destination, including a sustained image of the target star, in Ardu’s main planetarium.”
Zum’ref stood. “So. The Kinstrife of Nunmarken. The First Dispersate must be growing worried.”
“Worried that we may have been destroyed by a mishap on our journey, ’at?”
“No, of course not. You are selnarshaz; you should know the significance of the Kinstrife of Nunmarken.”
Inzrep’fel lowered her eyes. “Alas, I do not. My mentor was a Sleeper, one who had walked upon the soil of homeworld, of Ardu. He had many such recollections of our collective past, of the deeper shaxzhutok that is our legacy. But he—”
Zum’ref felt his Intendant’s selnarm tremor uncertainly, reeling itself in before it released a thought that she clearly feared was (impolitic, risky). And he understood. “There is no shame in uttering the truth, Inzrep’fel. Yes, your mentor had insufficient time to pass all his knowledge to you because, like the other First Sleepers, I returned him to his cryogenic slumbers. And judging from this latest shaxzhutok from the First Dispersate, it is well that I did so.”
“Why do you say so, Admiral?”
(Surprise, disappointment.) “It is truly not evident? Then attend: the Kinstrife of Nunmarken is a warning against sins of pride, of intemperance, of arrogance. In this case, its sender evidently presumes we are still alive, out here in the most empty gulfs of interstellar space. Any other conclusion would, after all, be quite illogical. We know from the other Dispersates that the same sender has also sent them the same messages for five years, now. And none have answered. From the perspective of the sender, then, how likely is it that the collective, uniform silence of all the other Dispersates is because we all—all—met with fatal disasters during the course of our journeys?”
Inzrep’fel looked up, her eyes brightening with imminent comprehension. “It is most unlikely, Admiral. Indeed, it would be almost impossible.”
“Exactly. So, since we know that such a powerful selnarmic pulse could not be sent by anything less than a Group of senior shaxzhu working in concert, it is clear that the postwar leadership of the First Dispersate not only presumes that we remain alive, but has recently come to fear that we shall not accept whatever new society they have founded.”
“Then why not simply send us that message, as Admiral Amunsit has done with her updates from Zarzuela?”
“An excellent question, Intendant. I hypothesize that the leadership of the First Dispersate is now dominated by shaxzhu, possibly Sleepers. If so, they will follow the accustomed methods of their caste and their training: to communicate messages in the form of culturally iconic scenes from the vast repository of past-life events, of shaxzhutok, at their disposal. It is, of course, a most elegant means of communication—presuming that both sender and receiver have the same frame of reference, the same compendium of past-life memories at their disposal.” He smoothed his selnarm as a fastidious predator might preen. “We are no longer in that situation, of course, having rid ourselves of such superstition-riddled inanities.”
“And Admiral Amunsit?” asked Inzrep’fel.
“I suspect that because her shaxzhutok conversancy is now every bit as—restricted—as our own, that necessity compelled her to innovate and adopt the same signaling method that so many later Dispersates discovered: communicating through on-off selnarmic pulses. No content in the selnarm itself, but it was a natural means of transmitting one of our earliest telegraphic codes. A string of silences and signals of varying duration, each of which signified a different letter or speech-act. Slow, but far more precise and flexible than the traditional and largely symbolic shaxzhutok sendings that the First Dispersate clings to.”
Inzrep’fel sent a careful, inquisitive tendril of selnarm out toward her commander: (unsurety, foreboding), “And what implications or meanings do you derive from the First Dispersate’s iconic sending, Admiral?”
Zum’ref, irked, let his left cluster’s tendrils spasm as he replied. “The conclusion is inescapable, even if it were not for the last four years of pulsed-binary selnarm updates from Amunsit at Zarzuela. In short, these patch-furred bipeds that she names ‘humans’ have thoroughly seduced and suborned the First Dispersate. And now they are trying to use our own sibling-shaxzhu to infect us with the same heretical soul-rot.”
Inzrep’fel sent (regret, accord). “So it seems—but then, what must we do?”
Three years ago, Zum’ref’s answering emotion would have been one of regret and mourning; now, all he could feel was brimming resentment, even bitterness. “We must learn from the mistakes of those siblings-in-Illudor who went before us. The war-leader of the First Dispersate—Torhok—reportedly foresaw this outcome: that the shaxzhu would attempt to undermine the proper, Destoshaz leadership of our fleets. Indeed, it was through just such internecine bickerings that Senior Admiral Amunsit in the Zarzuela system very nearly lost control of her own Dispersate on three occasions. She has been entirely too patient with her shaxzhu’s quaint but discordant shaxzhutok challenges to common-sense contemporary planning.”
“But,” Inzrep’fel pointed out, “she did propose that her shaxzhu be kept in cryogenic sleep until all the alien, tool-making zhetteksh were eliminated.”
“Yes, and that was her mistake: she proposed it. She was foolish enough to bring the matter before her own Council of Twenty before acting upon it. They forced her to rouse at least a few of the shaxzhu from cold sleep to share in the deliberations. And as if the shaxzhu weren’t troublesome enough on their own, the majority of the Sleepers from other castes have many of the same soft-headed notions about ‘communicating’ with these alien animals. Even those of our own Destoshaz caste.”
Inzrep’fel’s selnarm was tense. “Then how are we to save ourselves from a similar fate, Destoshaz’at?”
Zum’ref managed to summon a modest pulse of (regret). “We have no choice: we must completely remove the danger posed by our own shaxzhu—and by our many thousands of Sleepers, besides.”
“Very well, but how are we to render them harmless? They are, as you say, fairly numerous.”
“Unfortunately, there is only one sure solution: we must kill those who threaten us.”
“Kill shaxzhu?”
“Yes, and Sleepers.”
Inzrep’fel blinked. “I foresee a problem, Admiral Zum’ref. The shaxzhu and the Sleepers are renowned for their subtlety, their cunning. They might work against us in secret until it is too late.”
Zum’ref sent (approval, gratification) along with his concurrence. “This is most assuredly true.”
“Then how shall we identify which ones must be killed?”
“That problem is easily solved, Intendant.”
“It is?”
“Yes: we kill them all.”