4.15

August reached over, scratching Ladybug’s fur and received a delighted trill in response. Given how close he was to the door, she should take any monster’s approach as a sign of hostility—at least he was hoping so. He wasn’t comfortable yet with taking her off of protective detail. He did have to sleep in here next to the Voithos who’d almost punched him in two.

“The remnants of the Magnus,” Rittan offered.

“They’re hardly the only ones who would attack a transport outside of the defences, especially if it held someone that important,” Kalter said, shaking her head. “The separatists would jump on it if given a chance, and Talis spies would carry that news straight back to their masters.”

“Separatists?” August said dryly. “Are you telling me that Hekaton wasn’t a unified hivemind who only cared about enslaving everyone else? Rittan, have you been misleading me?”

Kalter snorted.

“Very funny,” Rittan sighed. “They did terrible things, that, I will not dispute—but not every action a criminal takes is a crime.”

“That’s a hard distinction to make,” August said, holding out the finished skewer. “Here.”

Kalter glanced down, and after a moment of hesitation, she took it from him.

“Thank you,” Kalter murmured, taking a bite. “It’s good.”

“It can be difficult,” Rittan admitted, “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

“A few good acts do not absolve them,” Kalter said.

“Back home,” August said, checking the other skewers. “We were split on that kind of thing; the optimistic ones would seek to bring criminals back into society, to help them. The pessimists just wanted them to burn.”

“Which were you?” Rittan asked.

“Undecided,” August hedged. “Broad strokes never appealed to me; I’m more of a case by case kind of guy.”

“There’s a line,” Kalter said, swallowing her food. “You can mess about on this side as much as you want, but once you’ve stepped over—there’s no coming back.”

August handed Rittan’s skewer over, and Kalter passed it up to him.

“Thank you both,” Rittan said, smiling.

Kalter looked away with a huff.

“A binary, huh?” August said, taking a bite of his own skewer. “Doesn’t leave much space for those who didn’t really have a choice, you know?”

August made the mistake of looking over at her, and she caught his eye.

“You always have a choice,” Kalter said, “But it’s not about the choice; it’s about whether you have enough strength to suffer through the consequences.”

August’s mind offered a hundred scenarios where people could be forced or pressured to do things they wanted no part of.

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” August said, frowning.

“It is,” Kalter denied.

Well, a challenge was a challenge.

“There’s a room with a red button and two people—a mother and her daughter,” August said, constructing it on the fly. “The mother knows that pressing the button will result in ten unknown people dying. She also knows that if the button isn’t pressed, then the two of them will die instead.”

“This would never happen,” Kalter said, but he ignored her interruption.

“The mother has been given an additional instruction; she cannot press the button herself,” August said, leaning back on the one hand. “She must convince her young daughter to press it.”

“The child is too young to understand what she is doing,” Kalter said, watching him. “She cannot be held responsible for pressing it.”

“What if she did understand?” August said, “Say she’s ten, more than old enough to know what death is—has she crossed the line?”

“If she knew what she was doing,” Kalter said, “She could have made a choice to not press it.”

“There are power dynamics at work here, Kalter,” Rittan said, “A child is conditioned to listen to their parents; you can’t expect her to go against her mother at that age—at least not easily. I do not believe the child can be at fault here, and the mother is only trying to save her daughter.”

“That’s probably the most empathetic answer,” August nodded. “There were also other conflicts to consider—a mother would be expected to protect her daughter, no matter what. There probably aren’t many people who could watch their family die before them without doing something as detached as pressing a button.”

“A difficult question,” Rittan murmured.

“What do you say, Kalter?” August said, taking another bite. “Did the daughter sneak a toe over the line, or did she take a running jump?”

“She knowingly killed ten people,” Kalter said, remaining firm. “Child or not, the line is behind her.”

August wasn’t that surprised he couldn’t change her mind on it; he’d never really convinced anyone of anything.

“Fair enough,” August said.

“What’s your answer?” Kalter said.

“My answer?” August said, surprised she’d even ask. “I put one-hundred per cent of the blame at the foot of the sadists that came up with the experiment—the mother and child are both faultless.”

Kalter scrunched her face up at the answer, no doubt annoyed that he’d penned them both in with all of those constraints only to put the fault on an invisible foe.

“I wasn’t aware that was even a choice,” Rittan said dryly. “Wizards are quite sneaky, it would seem.”

August shook his head; one day, he’d explain what a wizard was. He finished his meat skewer before tossing the stick into the fire. Rather than waste the time, he removed his unfished twine from earlier and continued where he left off.

The unspent point pulled at his attention, but not enough that he was going to bring it up to anyone. Any move he made regarding recruiting Kalter would only come off as him pressuring her into it, and that wouldn’t go over well. It would likely drive her further away from the idea if anything—he’d simply have to wait until she made the decision on her own.

The light outside of the hut was gone now, and August’s mind conjured up thousands of dark shapes, no doubt an army of [Mitikos] that would plague his dreams. Maybe he should try to [Tame] some of the little ones and add them to guard duty along the shoreline. Something to consider for the morning, now, he had twine to make.