‘Or wisdom,’ Gilmore said quietly.
‘Why did they grow at all? Why not stay on their home planet? Because they wanted more. They wanted to take, to conquer . . .’
‘To explore,’ said Gilmore. ‘To spread out. To witness the wonders of the universe.’
‘Your own words condemn you.’ March Sage Savour’s tone was translated as a furious hiss. ‘You talk about the wonders of the universe while this race could wipe you off the face of the galaxy.’
‘Yeah, right. So could the first technologically superior race that my species encountered, if it wanted, but it didn’t want, and the Commonwealth was the result. March Sage Savour, I’ve had the First Contact experience and it doesn’t scare me any more.’
‘Then you are a fool,’ March Sage Savour said.
‘No,’ said Gilmore, ‘I’m just better than you. Come on, Joel, we’re leaving.’
‘You know what really makes me angry?’ Gilmore said as the aircar skimmed across the ocean. He held the data crystal in two fingers, twirled it, peered into its depths. ‘His paranoia became official policy, and we just inherited it without asking. I could have looked deeper and changed it, but I just took it for granted and carried on in the old way.’
‘He, um . . .’ Joel said. Gilmore looked away from the crystal and at him. ‘ . . . could have a point?’ Joel finished.
‘The mysterious strangers,’ Gilmore said. ‘Mystical and benevolent beings of power or crazed imperial galaxy-smashers? Well, which do you think?’
‘Maybe neither.’ Joel looked straight ahead. ‘But if they’re still around, and if they wanted to stay in touch, they’d have done it. It’s like . . . look, if I dump a girlfriend then as far as I’m concerned, it’s over. I don’t want her turning up on my doorstep again and I won’t necessarily be friendly to her if she does.’
‘You dump your girlfriends, do you?’ Gilmore said with a grin.
‘Stick to the point, Dad! You don’t know that looking for them will be a good idea.’
‘No,’ Gilmore admitted after a pause. ‘I don’t.’
Joel sighed. ‘But you’re going to anyway, aren’t you?’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘When do you leave?’
Gilmore chuckled. ‘I can’t just set off into the blue, Joel. There’s plans to make, research to do. First stop has to be the Dead World. See what other clues there are. And
then
set off into the blue.’
Joel gave a weak smile and didn’t say anything for a while. Then: ‘When you get back, do you think the Commonwealth will still be here?’
Gilmore didn’t answer immediately. ‘We uncovered a lot of tensions in this mission, and they won’t just go away,’ he said. ‘But the Rusties need us and we need them . . .’
‘But we don’t need them,’ Joel said. ‘Not any more. They gave us their tech. Supposing we decide to drop them?’
‘You’re quite right,’ Gilmore agreed. ‘Except that we wouldn’t drop them. We’d turn on them instead. Enslave ‘em. Make them second-class citizens. If we humans ever get aggressive and imperial, the Rusties will be the first to know it.’
Joel looked appalled. ‘And that’s a good thing?’
‘Yup. Because as Boon Round showed, the Rusties won’t stand for it. They want us as leaders but they can also stand up for themselves. They’ll always be a constant check on us. We’ll have to work together, or not at all.’
‘Unless more prides, maybe even whole clans, start going over to other alien powers?’
‘Which is always a possibility,’ Gilmore admitted. ‘So, to answer your question, I think there’ll be something called the Commonwealth for a long time. Other than that . . . I can’t say.’
The aircar flew on. After a while, Admiralty Island appeared on the radar.
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Published by Dell Laurel-Leaf an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York
Copyright © 2002 by Ben Jeapes
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RL: 6.0
First Laurel-Leaf Edition January 2004
eISBN: 978-0-307-43404-3
v3.0