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“You are the one who broke your pledge, remember?” he said. “Not us.”
There was no way they were going to keep their word. Not if there was a profit in it for them. Just as I knew they wouldn’t waste valuable resources in keeping me alive. They would kill me the moment I got off that stage.
I extended my hand.
S’lec-Quos peered at it in confusion.
“A sign of trust,” I said.
S’lec-Quos took it and we shook.
He was going to betray me, that much was obvious.
My stomach performed somersaults.
But what would I say when the moment came? Would I lie and save my people’s lives again? Or tell the truth and sacrifice countless Titan lives?
I had no idea.
But at least I just bought myself a little more time to think.
A lot less time than I’d hoped, as it turned out.
The crowd’s murmurs grew louder as I stepped onto the stage. The restraints jangled at my wrists and ankles. There, arranged at each corner of the stage, a holographic projector that could both capture and project holograms from the blinking white lights on their surface.
They could transport apparitions of me across time and space to homes and factories on distant planets and moons and meteors in countless locations across the galaxy.
Titan workers would be pausing and tapping their friends on the shoulder to get their attention. Meanwhile, their Changeling supervisors would harangue them about getting back to work. The workers would ignore him. The threats he made didn’t matter.
And on other planets, in warm homes where children played, concerned parents would clutch their kids close and watch the events taking place. In some of those homes, Changeling inspectors would be ensuring homes met ‘safety’ standards—which in reality meant they were in the process of planting bugs to listen to what the families were thinking and saying.
The Titans spread out before me now were but a tiny fraction of the audience watching me. I gave my attention entirely to them. They represented every other Titan, male or female, child or adult, spread throughout the galaxy.
There were so many judging eyes in the crowd, so much hatred. A kind decision made for the right reason could still be the wrong decision.
A voice interrupted my thoughts:
“They are ready,” Qale had said. “They were born ready.”
Looking out at them now, I knew that to be a lie. They stared at me with venom that suggested they wanted to tear me apart with their bare hands.
I had given them to our enemies.
No matter the reason, it still amounted to the same thing.
I hung my head in shame.
S’lec-Quos got to his feet armed with a tall walking stick. At one end, a curved blade glinted off the bright sunlight.
The tool he would use to punish me.
He looked out at the crowd of Titans before turning back to me.
“The great House of Taw has served the people of Titan for centuries,” S’lec-Quos said, “leading it in times of trouble and strife, through good and bad. It has always stood as a beacon of hope.”
I peered up at the cloudless blue sky at the mountain in the distance. The heap of wood was barely visible from here. I wished it would self-combust and leap into flames. But it didn’t.
And it wouldn’t.
