Page 81 of Butterfly Effects

But if I did that, I’d be running again, and I’d just be delaying the inevitable. It was enough to know, however briefly, that the option was open to me. I could go. That meant I didn’t need to.

We had reached a large set of sliding doors, with more guards outside, these ones standing at full attention. The eyes of the guard leading my group flashed white, and the other guards nodded before stepping to the side to let us approach.

The doors slid open. We stepped through, into a short, dark tunnel with light at the far end.

“Move, cuckoo,” snapped one of the guards, and something prodded me in the center of my back, urging me to move forward, toward the light. I did so, and was almost there when someone stepped out of the shadows and snapped something around my wrist.

“Hey!” I yelped.

Too late: they were already gone. I lifted my arm, trying to see what was on my wrist. Whatever it was, it was heavy, and when I shook my arm, it slid up and down by a few inches, too tight to remove, loose enough not to cut off the circulation.

I was prodded again, and I stepped forward into the light of an arena like something out of a gladiator movie. I was standing on the ground level, and all around me were tiers and tiers of seats, almost all of them occupied. The Johrlac around me were wearing all manner of jumpsuit—everything but the cuckoo white-and-gray.

At one end of the space was a high box, cut off from the rest of the seats by privacy walls, occupied by Johrlac in iridescent black jumpsuits, their hair all styled in the exact same manner, all sitting on the same level as they stared toward me. I looked at them and swallowed, hard.

The collective. The five queens who controlled this whole territory, in front of me and in the flesh.

There were other boxes scattered around the edges of the arena, all of them closed off by heavy curtains. I looked at the object on my wrist again, and managed, barely, not to groan.

It was a heavy bracelet, some sort of polished wood wrapped around what looked like uncut opal. Opal is one of the best gems for incorporating in anti-telepathy charms; the water trapped inside the gem acts as a conductor for the magic. I couldn’t feel the power embedded in the gem, but the more I looked at it, the more I thought that was what it was.

An opal of this size could be tailored to contain a queen. I glanced up again, at the box containing the collective. They were looking at me, eyes glowing white, and I didn’t hear anything. They might as well not have been there. I was completely blocked off.

The one at the center of their formation stood, moving the short distance to the front of the box. “Bring the cuckoo,” she said, her voice echoing through every corner of the arena. The acoustics were incredible, and the fact that my designation was “cuckoo,” not “prisoner” or “accused,” explained why: if this was where they did their show trials for exiles, they would have to conduct them at least partially aloud. They couldn’t trust us in their minds.

The guards pushed me forward, and I didn’t resist, allowing myself to be pushed onto the bamboo disk set at the center of the open space. As soon as we got there they stepped away, leaving me alone. The ground rumbled below my feet, the bamboo platform beginning to slide upward. I couldn’t hear any sort of mechanism. I looked back to the central box. All five queens were standing now, their eyes lit up like searchlights, so bright that I couldn’t look at them directly.

There was no mechanism. They were lifting me with their minds. Since I hadn’t been able to do that until after my final instar, it was a good way to remind the people of their power, and why they were in charge. I could respect the showmanship of it all, even as it failed to lessen my desire to crush them for what they’d done. Not just to me: to this entire society, all the people like Fetch and Carry who were being born into a world where their choices had been taken away from them before they even existed. I glared at them, aware that they wouldn’t be able to read my expression, but taking a small pleasure in how human that gesture was. I knew what I was feeling. I could still feel independent of their desires. They couldn’t take that away from me without allowing me access to their minds.

The queen at the center of the collective focused on me, and when she spoke, the acoustics flung her voice effortlessly. She didn’t have to yell. She didn’t even have to speak loudly. “The cuckoo, designate Sarah, stands accused of destruction of her own kind, both mental and mortal; of the unwilling revision of someone who claimed her as an ally; of the invasion of another dimension without the consent or approval of the locals; and of countless small violations of the ethics by which all telepathic peoples are expected to comport themselves. How do you plead?”

I knew they weren’t actually speaking English, although I wasn’t sure how I could still understand them with as hard as they had locked my mental abilities down, and despite this, I still gaped at her for a moment, stunned. She raised an eyebrow, looking prepared to continue whether or not I opened my mouth, and so I straightened my spine and snapped, “Not guilty.”

Eyes flashed white around the arena as the watching Johrlac did their equivalent of muttering to each other about my response. The collective allowed it to go on for several seconds before the one in the center spoke again.

“Silence,” she said. “Designate Sarah, you committed the acts of which you stand accused. That is not in question. How can you plead not guilty?”

“Simple,” I said. “I didn’t commit any crimes. Even if I did those things, I did them in self-defense, or because I didn’t know what I was doing. If anyone here has committed a crime, it was you. By exiling the cuckoos and leaving them to wander with no true understanding of their capabilities, you made situations like mine inevitable. Any blood I’ve shed is on your hands.”

Once again, the silence was broken by eyes flashing like strobe lights, telepathic messages flying through the ether. I almost wished I could listen in on them. At the same time, I was almost grateful I couldn’t. That many people shouting at once would have given me one hell of a headache.

“You do not get to make accusations against us,” said another of the collective. Her voice was exactly the same as the first’s, even down to the inflections. They really had given up their individuality for the sake of power—although not all willingly, considering what they’d done to Collate. “You are a cuckoo, outside our hive, outside our people. We are not held to the same laws.”

“I am held to the laws of Earth,” I countered. “And by the laws of Earth, I’ve done nothing wrong. The only people I harmed were harmed in self-defense. I refuse to acknowledge your authority over me.”

“We have the proof of your crimes,” said the first queen. “You cannot pretend to be innocent when the evidence is placed before you.”

“I am proof of yours,” I snapped. “I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t thrown my ancestors out to wreck other worlds and become other people’s problem.”

They ignored me. The speaker raised a hand, and the curtain over one of the smaller boxes dropped, revealing Arthur. He was held in place by manacles around his hands, but he was still standing, and he didn’t look injured.

Of course I couldn’t read his face, but he didn’t look like he was crying or like he had been recently. I lurched automatically in his direction, stopping myself before I could go over the edge. “Arthur!”

He turned toward me, standing a bit straighter. “Sarah?”

“Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

He managed a small, nervous laugh. “No, and no,” he said.