He knocked politely, another human custom that had a certain logic to it when you wanted something. Jake told him to come in.

He managed to restrain himself from sitting until his host gestured him to the second chair. Emerald was beginning to think his own arrogance had left him ill prepared for a situation like this. Still he got straight to the point.

“Sapphire thinks that he can force me to fight yet another duel, even though I won the last one. He showed up this morning with a Green Sword Honor elder calling himself Peridot. His host is Mario. They both want to fight me again.

“Whatever mistakes I’ve made in the past, the Green alliance shouldn’t allow itself to be manipulated like this. It can only weaken us. I believe Serpentine will vote no this time. I’d like you to make it unanimous.”

Diopside nodded. “I will. Do you think it will matter?”

“How could it not?”

“None of our technomancers here can build a portal starting with human level technology, singularly or collectively. If the River does not think humans are ready to join the Eightfold, it will not be built.”

Emerald said, “But the River is our servant. It will do what we say.”

The words sounded wrong as soon as he said them. He couldn’t quite remember the details of his last encounter with it, but it had left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Diopside replied, “It is not our personal servant, but the servant of the Eightfold collectively. And when it withdrew from the management of our day to day affairs, it decided that it had to act for our benefit rather than always according to our instructions. And after some First Contacts went wrong, it was decided that it must act according to our ideals rather than always for our immediate material gain. And certain pieces of the River which are disconnected from the bulk of it tend to develop their own perspectives and priorities on all of these. How much of this are you merely too stubborn to accept, and how much have you forgotten?”

Emerald ignored the last question. “So which priorities could possibly be served by allowing Sapphire to talk elder after elder into fighting me, leading to the needless slaughter of human hosts regardless of how the duels come out?”

Diopside looked at him. “I don’t know. You will say this is because of my faction, but I have a great deal of respect for the River, and even for pieces of it which may imperfectly reflect the whole. Let me ask you now. If you were unobstructed and in charge of this Embassy, how would you handle First Contact?”

Emerald paused, realizing he did not in fact remember any political views he had once held, or the reasons for them. He hesitated to say so, because something told him the question was important. An unconvincing lie would probably make things worse.

He said slowly, “I would want what is best for humans. I think that there have been many studies of the many first contacts of the Eightfold, and we should follow the science and do what is best for the humans.”

Diopside hesitated. “If by any chance your memories came back, and you discovered that you once had believed differently, what would you do then? How would you decide?”

Who could believe differently than the broad platitudes that Emerald had just stated? But giving Diopside the answer that he seemed to be looking for too quickly and easily would only dilute his already weak credibility.

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted.

As the silence grew uncomfortable he came up with questions he liked better. “How about Sapphire? Do you know what he believes? How much do you trust him?”

Diopside replied promptly, “I don’t trust him at all. He claims we should play the River’s little game, then divide up Earth by nationalities and political groupings. The highest scoring elders would get first choice of region.”

Something was tickling the back of Emerald’s mind. A few memories were coming back. He said, “Then each Elder would preach the virtues of his own faction to those under his control. Most Eightfold worlds have found ways to conduct the struggle between the factions without much death and destruction. That usually doesn’t happen for younger worlds.”

The other nodded. “Just so.”

Emerald eagerly followed this train of thought. “Whatever I believed cannot be worse than that. You cannot believe that whoever Sapphire coaxed to try and replace me will resist him more effectively than I will.”

Diopside hesitated again. “It’s not so much about what I believe as what the River believes. But …”

“What did I used to believe?”

“I’m not going to tell you right now. I want the memories to come back at their own pace, so you have time to rethink them.”

For the first time Emerald wondered what horrible things he used to believe, that could not even be spoken.

Then he said, “So if you truly believe that I am as bad or worse than Sapphire, why did you take my side yesterday? Because I am Eightfold, and we should not be killing one another?”

Diopside spoke slowly and deliberately. “Partly that. And partly because it would be a bad omen if the Embassy sent to teach humanity how to live in peace with all the strange revelations we will show them fell to killing each other before they got started. Plus … I always thought you were rash and impatient. Sapphire knows exactly what he’s doing, and what the consequences will be. He’s the truly evil one.”