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“I’ll do what must be done,” I growled. “If I thought I could fire a railgun with enough precision that it would go right down Tschenkar’s throat and out through his ass, I would hit the button right now.”
A few people laughed, but Airlock looked up at me, and I could perfectly picture her shocked and unblinking eyes through the mask I’d made for her.
“But,” I said, “we all have the Hivemind’s analysis. Tschenkar does too.”
“Why is the Hivemind helping Tschenkar?” Airlock asked.
“We are all part of one hive,” I said, “all the packs belong to the same superintelligence. We are all aspects of the same whole. The hivemind does not favor any of us, and it shares freely with all of us.”
“But you fight each other. You fire railguns up each other’s asses. Right?”
“I’ve never managed to hit with a railgun that accurately, my little human, but your point still stands. Yes, we kill each other, but none of us truly ever dies either. We are all part of the whole. Nothing is ever lost. We fight so the strongest may survive and breed. ”
She looked confused, and I didn’t blame her for it. It would take more than a few quick explanations during life-and-death moments for Airlock to understand the subtleties of what it meant to be an organic shard of the non-organic Hivemind.
Kantar sighed. “Even the Hivemind has no idea who would win, or if Eden would survive the battle.”
If breeding weren’t on the line, it would be the kind of odds that drove us headfirst into battle. We wanted to breed more than anything though, and knowing that our prizes might not survive the crossfire was an unacceptable risk.
Both sides would see it that way.
“So,” I said, “the only question is, how little can we get away with giving Tschenkar?”
“One minute,” someone said, I nodded acknowledgment but grasped Airlock by the shoulders. Gently enough to remind her that I would never hurt her, but firmly enough that she’d understand how deadly this situation could get.
“Airlock,” I said, “myhuman, you heard what we discussed. Would either of your crewmates want Tschenkar to breed her?”
Even through the mask, I could see her wide, unblinking eyes. Those eyes were becoming the part of her I liked the most, and I saw them even when they weren’t looking at me. I liked to imagine how they’d react to what I said or did. The mask was a test of those exercises, and even though I couldn’t know for sure that I was reading her right, I was reasonably certain I was. She thought I was insane for asking her this.
“Airlock,” I said, voice stiff and urgent, “we have very little time. Eden is at stake.”
“Would Tschenkar hurt her?”
I shook my head. “No. Khetar do not hurt women. Not even the most brutal among us.”
“Thuliak,” she said. Now I pictured her eyebrows going up, from the way she’d said my name. “That man just threatened to “‘nuke a few million virgins.’”
“It’s a difference of scale,” I said. “Normally, threatening to destroy cities would be targeting both men and women. Eden is a rare exception. Tschenkar would never hurthiswoman, which is what I think really matters to…”
“Sojourner,” she said. “Sojourner would like that kind of…brute.”
“I’ll offer her to him,” I said, looking where I knew her eyes were, so that she could see and read mine. I wanted her to see that I was being truthful. I had bad blood with Tschenkar, but he was still a prominent scion with a strong packship. Emissary and Sojourner were coming with me to get bred—they knew it—and I saw no reason to delay setting them up with powerful scions.
“This feels wrong,” Airlock said, her voice so low that I doubt anyone else heard her.
“It’s my decision,” I said, “you cannot carry guilt for what I do, human.”
I smirked, because I imagined her baring her teeth at me for dismissing her like that. I was probably right.
“Get him back on comms,” I said, turning toward where I knew his screen would project.
Tschenkar’s smug face filled the space. “Am I your Second, or am I your enemy?”
I kept my own face rock-hard and stoic. I’d brought Airlock into here to show her what I could do. She was not going to leave this bridge only having seen me bend over backward to give this shithead everything he demanded of me.
It was a real risk. I might have hated Tschenkar most of the time, but he was no coward. If I insulted him deeply enough, he would declare war on me over it. To push him to Third is what everyone was expecting. Probably even Tschenkar. He expected me to offer him Third, and then he’d say no, but I’d start offering him something extra for settling for Third. Eventually we’d agree on him being Third, but with some upside for him.
I wanted to insult him more than that though. I wanted to show him just how stiff my spine was, or how big my balls were, or maybe both. I wasn’t afraid to go to war either.
