4.30 Hearts

(English)

I wish I could say I managed to comport myself better over the next few weeks, but no.

There’s a lot of different ways I could explain it away, rationalize both sides of the interactions, really dissect why people behaved the way they did…

But the simple truth was I was on tilt.

At every turn, I found the same thing. Every abductee showed more of the group’s collective attitude. Only it wasn’t ‘collective’. It was cultivated.Nothing was more frustrating than hearing passing remarks about ‘when the Vorak are coming’.

It was one thing hearing it from the older abductees, but their attitude trickled down to the youngsters that looked to them for guidance. Hearing twelve and thirteen-year-olds curse an entire species gave me chills.

The worst part was how blatant it all was.

Kemon didn’t even have to work hard. Everyone was chomping at the bit to find someone to blame, and the only thing that kept my head on was my own very personal experience with the same temptation.

It was so easy…to know who your enemy was.

But even keeping that in mind, I still lashed out. I couldn’t help it. Every other day or so, I had a small outburst about the lack of evidence or logic.

It didn’t make me popular.

The few times I was welcome to sit in on Win’s Adept combat class were the days I managed to keep my mouth shut. I learned those that had passed his muster had created an informal club. They’d even given themselves a name, ‘the Ronin’.

It was exactly the kind of name I’d expect a few superpowered teenagers to come up with.

They were good. Johnny was the clear standout. He could make a lot of mass, very quickly. He preferred a jet black metal, reminiscent of rough cast iron. He sported especially good force of emergence. His iron spikes could displace dozens of cubic meters of air in the blink of an eye and the same volume in earth only slightly slower. In a way, he was like Nai. He could instantly transform a battlefield with dense cover for allies while simultaneously tearing up enemies’ preferred positions. He was limited in intricacy though. All his creations were rough and thick. No delicate tools for him.

The other two ‘Ronin’ to pass Win’s evaluation were Ben and Madeline.

Ben was a bit more like me. He had taken clear inspiration from more than a couple comic supervillains and created a gun capable of spewing snow and ice. It took me a second to figure out, because air didn’t have that much water in it to freeze. But his gun didn’t actually freeze the air. He created the ice with Adeptry. The gun was a delivery mechanism to circumvent his limited range. The gun would launch the material while it was between exotic states, so it could solidify into ‘ice’ at his target. It didn’t shoot out the same way every time despite only having one trigger and barrel. How did he change the results without changing the gun? I was sure there were some psionic control mechanisms I couldn’t sense remotely.

Madeline was perhaps the most disappointing. Maybe it was because I felt like she and I had hit it off. But she was as committed to Kemon’s sway as anyone. Her Adeptry was also the hardest to pin down. She’d taken Ben’s idea of developing Adept technology to another level. I hadn’t seen what she’d done to earn Win’s recognition, but judging by the servos, gauntlet, and helmet she seemed to be practicing, she was trying to make mecha armor, or something similar.

“Maddie’s the only one who’s tried making armor,” I complained. “Seems like everyone should be interested in a way to protect themselves from bullets.”

“Ted?” Sid interrupted.

“I’m just saying, if we want to take fighting seriously, then shouldn’t knowing when to fight be, I don’t know, just a little bit important?”

“…Ted?” he said reproachfully.

“What?” I huffed.

“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to slap you.”

Sid was the only abductee willing to be seen putting up with me.

“…Fine, I’m just saying.”

“Yeah, we get it. We’re all stupid.”

“You think I should just shut up when I see us heading toward a bad situation?”

“I think you should shut up because a bad situation is heading toward us.”

“I think people expecting fights become certain to find them,” I rankled. “At the rate we’re going, people are going to die. I’m going to keep trying to avoid that even if everyone hates me in the process.”

“Well then, hey, you’re right on track,” he said.

I scowled, redoubling the psionic maintenance I was busying myself with.

“…I mean, seriously,” Sid said, looking up from his textbook, “haven’t you heard you catch more flies with honey?”

“Except you don’t,” I said. “Vinegar works best. It smells like fermenting fruit to them.”

“Jesus,” Sid shook his head, “way to miss the point.”

“I don’t think you guys are stupid,” I protested. “But I do think everyone’s gotten into a mindset that’s going to get someone killed! How much do you know about what’s out there? How much do any of us really know about the Vorak?”

Sid gave me a sullen look, but for a second it looked just a bit curious too. Had I gotten through? Even a little bit?

“We don’t know shit,” Sid said. “So all we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

I wanted to scream. That was a false dichotomy. Preparing for ‘the worst’ was fine until your preparations opened up new possible worst-case scenarios. Even ignoring that, we weren’t preparing for the worst!

As upset as I was though, I noticed that Sid was keeping his cool. Sure, he was irritable, but no more than usual.

“Why do I feel like a broken record?” I said. “I feel like I could make the most reasonable point ever elocuted, and it’d just go in your one ear and out the other.”

“Because you are a broken record,” Sid shrugged. “It’s been a month and you’re saying the same stuff. You’re a known quantity. Everyone knows what to expect from you by now.”

“What about you then? If you think I’m a jerk just like everyone else, why do you put up with me?”

Sid actually paused his reading properly this time, meeting my gaze unflinchingly.

“Because even if you’re a jerk, you’re still one of us. We’re all in the same boat, and we don’t leave anyone all on their own.”

I blinked.

Put that way, it was actually touching.

“…Well…thanks, I guess.”

“Jerks have to stick together too,” Sid said dismissively.

“Why are you one then?” I asked. “A jerk, I mean. I know why everyone has no patience for me, but what did you do? How come everyone avoids you?”

“Two reasons,” Sid said. “First, I’m not Adept. Second, I told them to.”

I stared at him, expecting more. But he seemed utterly disinclined to share another word.

“…Well don’t elaborate or anything,” I said, “otherwise I might have some idea of what you’re talking about.”

“Too bad,” Sid said. “Making sure you’re welcome doesn’t include my personal details. Just keep tinkering with your psionics until dinner. It’s movie night anyway.”

“…Thanks again,” I muttered.

Sid snorted.

“Am I interrupting?” a newcomer asked.

‘Captain’ Kemon himself had wandered across the rec platform to Sid and I’s couches. I eyed the Casti with the same irritability I’d first met him with. He didn’t miss it, but took it in stride.

“No,” I said.

“Then I’d like to offer an…oh, what was it…I was going to say an idiom for a peace offering, but I neglected to note the translation,” he said.

My frown deepened. I was still nowhere figuring out why Kemon’s psionic firewall was a cut above all the others’. Not for the first time I was tempted to blow his defenses to smithereens.

I knew I could.

I wanted a peek at the whatever information his psionics were holding. But I’d yet to find a way past his firewall that he wouldn’t notice.

“It was some kind of plant idiom,” he mused. “I’m sorry I can’t remember it.”

“Olive branch,” I supplied. “What is it?”

“Yes! Branch!That’s right,” he said.

“I mean, what is your olive branch?” I asked.

“When I first returned, I said we could arrange for you to look at some of my crew’s data,” he said. “I’ve failed to deliver on that in a timely manner. I apologize. I’m prepared to make good on my word now. If you’re still interested?”

“I am. Now?”

Kemon clicked ‘yes’.

“Lead the way.”

····

Seeing Kemon’s evidence left me impressed for all the wrong reasons.

Because it was all fake.

There was a video taken of the Vorak ship that had supposedly been shot down, but it was just footage of a ship exploding in an impressive fireball low on the horizon. It matched the smartphone video one kid had taken too.

The table inside the shack was laid out with stacks of documents, transcription of ‘intercepted’ Vorak comms.

But it wasn’t like Kemon was showing me bodies recovered from the wreckage. Just sheets and printouts of ‘logs’ supposedly recovered from the downed craft.

It was just pictures and documents, all of which could be fabricated. None of which was contextualized. Kemon knew his audience. He wasn’t trying to convince a military tribunal, or any kind of formal authority.

He was shoving a mountain of evidence in front of someone he was sure couldn’t understand it all.

Looking over everything he and his crew had assembled, I was struck with a thought that I hadn’t experienced since I’d left Earth: why were they filming?

I knew alien video recording setups were not simple. Why in the world had they been prepared to film this ship that had supposedly caught them off guard?

It was a lie that would only work on humans. Maybe even specifically humans our age…

“I understand you’ve had a very different experience from the rest of your peers,” Kemon said. His tone was the most infuriatingly sympathetic thing I’d ever heard. I could hear how badly he wanted himself to come across that way…but only because I had experience with Casti expressions and tone.

In all likelihood, the effort was probably wasted on his part. His words were probably the only part that mattered.

Unfortunately, he picked those well too.

“That’s putting it mildly,” I said. “I’ve had both Casti and Vorak shoot at me, and I’ve been hurt by both. So what do you say you and I be honest with each other?”

“Of course,” he lied.

“I don’t trust you,” I said. “I think you’re not doing all this for free. And I think you want to get us tangled up with the Vorak for some reason.”

“I assure you,” he said. “I have only good intentions.”

“They say the road to hell is paved with those,” I bristled, but Kemon was unfazed.

“What can I say to change your mind? I find myself believing nothing can convince you of the truth. Surely I cannot be correct,” he said.

“You really want to convince me?” I asked. “Tell me why you’re doing any of this. I’ve seen enough to know this isn’t easy or cheap. You have an entire crew under your command; surely you were doing something before finding us. So what is it that made you drop everything and play babysitter?”

Kemon’s eyes were motionless. He was like a snake deciding if it was going to bite. For all that I could understand his tone, I couldn’t read his face. The only clue I got was the slow shift my psionics picked up on.

Something about his mood had reversed. I couldn’t be sure about what.

“Tell me, do you know how wars are fought on your homeworld?” he asked.

“Is this related?”

“It is.”

“Sure,” I said. “Get soldiers. Arm them—”

He raised a hand.

“I mean on a more individual level.”

“How about we skip my guesses, and you just tell me what you have in mind?”

He pursed his lips, but clicked ‘okay’.

“There’s two ways one person can go about fighting a war,” he said. “You find yourself either furthering your own side’s goals, or hindering the enemy’s.”

“And you’re fighting a war?”

“My people have been for years, and from the moment it broke out I have only ever found myself in a position to do the latter. I have few friends on the side I support and believe in, and plenty of enemies within reach,” he said. “For years the Vorak have been paying pirates to turn against their own people, and for years I have hunted that…sprout instead of the root. But six months ago, I stumbled across something that would let me not just hinder but ruinmy enemy’s goals.”

“You found Jordan’s ship in Mummar,” I nodded. “I think I know that part already.”

Kemon clicked ‘yes’.

“You are surely aware that there are more abductees out there?” Kemon said. “Five-thousand people snatched from their home planet? Twenty-four abductees per ship, that’s at least two hundred ships. Where else could that come from, but a planetary government or military? And since the Vorak are hopping mad that your ships have been found…”

“…I guess that’s one too many leaps for me,” I said.

“Tell me more,” he said, and dammit the way he seemed so eager to hear what I had to say…it made me doubt myself.

“I don’t understand whatever war is going on,” I said. “But when I was with the Casti where Win picked me up, they made it clear that they were fighting other Casti. Tell me your war really is as simple as ‘Casti’ against ‘Vorak’, I dare you.”

His face tightened.

“It…is not that simple,” he said. “But if you accept lies as a weapon of war, it can be.”

“I’ve read the dictionary,” I said in Starspeak. “I know the broad strokes between the Coalition and the Assembly. There’s Casti and Vorak on both sides.”

“That’s the lie,” he said. “War is more than two sides shooting at each other. The Assembly’s worlds…no…their leadership specifically has thrown away any pretense of law and order. Chaos and corruption are commonplace under their authority. I can’t show you any proof of that firsthand, but it summarizes to this: the Vorak leaders have turned neighbor against neighbor, sold out even their own kind for their own benefit. The Coalition seeks to break away and build something better, and that can’t be allowed. They’ll do anything to prevent it. Turn Casti against Casti and Vorak against Vorak. Even Human against Human.”

“Not Farnata against Farnata though?”

“They would if they could,” Kemon said, following my switch back to English. “But the grudge of the Kiraeni is not so easily forgotten.”

“Mmm…” I hummed noncommittally.

“You aren’t convinced,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“No,” I said. “Because even if that’s true, it doesn’t explain why…”

I trailed off.

“Explain why…what?”

Why you haven’t called in the Organic Authority! Why you’re conveniently not showing any concern that First Contacts in your care are becoming increasingly predisposed against an entire species! Why you moved abductees into Askior out of a safer and better equipped Mummar!

But I couldn’t say any of it.

“It doesn’t explain why you haven’t made us someone else’s problem,” I said. “You said it yourself: you hunt pirates. This isn’t your normal game. So there has to be someone better to help us than you.”

“…Not anywhere near enough,” Kemon whispered. His voice was heavy. Like it had real regrets to it.

God, I wanted to doubt myself so much.

It was a nice picture he painted. But it was one that preyed upon the lack of background knowledge we abductees lacked. Nothing he’d said was strictly false. But there was still nothing conclusive to explain why we should fear Kemon’s enemies as our own.

This Casti lied as easily as he breathed.

He was good at it.

He wasa lawyer, after all…

I wanted to shout at him. After everything I’d been through, it was insulting for someone to think any of this would ever have a chance to convince me. I wanted to jump up and down and scream, because these weren’t even good lies! But maybe that was the wrong way to think. Maybe the timing mattered more than the lie itself.

I’d been down that road all month, and I learned I was joining this game too late. Kemon had his hooks in deep, and I wasn’t going to change that overnight.

So instead of trying to call him out here again, I bit my tongue, and it was the first thing I managed to do right since arriving.

For the first time since arriving, I actually breathed a little easier. This was incontrovertible proof of multiple lies. If he was willing to show me, then all I had to do was trick him into showing the same lies to other people, and then finding a way to prove them lies.

Jordan restoring contact with the Jack would clinch the latter half. My role was becoming clear. I needed to sow the seeds of doubt so we’d be ready when the moment came.

“Can I take a look at this again another time?” I asked. “Or was this a one time deal?”

“We usually keep these files on the ship we have in orbit,” Kemon said. “But if you give us a few days notice, then yes.”

“I’ve seen enough for now,” I said. “I have plenty to think about over dinner.”

And with that I left the shack and climbed back up the scaffolding to the rec platform.

····

The platform creaked with so many people stomping about atop it, but it was secured to six spaceships as well as anchors in the surrounding rock. It reminded me of airplane turbulence. It was scary to feel it rumble beneath your feet, but apparently totally safe.

More interesting than the platform was the tenting overhead.

The whole of the scaffolding was covered by massive tarps like a circus tent. But unlike most other nights, a new canvas was stretched tonight. It was strung within the larger tent structure, perfectly vertical.

It took me far too long to connect the canvas to Sid’s earlier words: movie night.

An abductee’s laptop was being setup on the opposite end of the platform. Was that a projector?

“You’ve been ducking me,” Knox said, plopping down next to me.

“Sure have,” I said.

“Relax,” he said. “I think I’ve got your number. You’re not going to hurt me unless I do something that really endangers Humans.”

“My benchmark was ‘even slightly endangers humans’,” I corrected.

“Sure, sure,” he nodded. “But like I said, I got into this mess from the Human endof things. I’m not going to do anything bad, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

I suppose the one good thing about being a pariah was that no one wanted to linger too close to you.

“Assuming you really were hired by humans,” I said. “Not unlike Kemon; you’ve got no proof of that.”

“My name is proof,” he said. “You think I just pulled ‘Knox’ out of a hat? Or how to speak English using phrases like ‘out of a hat’? Kemon reached out to several systems asking about humans. The ones I knew weren’t sure if they wanted to accept his offer, so they asked me to go in their stead and report back what I think they should do.”

“And you told them to keep their distance; Kemon’s fishy,” I said. “Which conveniently explains why no one else is here who can corroborate your story.”

“Come on, Caleb—” I elbowed him, “—it’s been a month. Time to start helping each other.”

“It’s been twenty-four days,” I said.

“Maybe in Earth days,” Knox frowned. “It’s been thirty-five local days.”

“Fine,” I huffed. “You want to team up? Pretend like I’ve gotten through to you. At least a little. Ask about the Vorak ship that got shot down. Kemon keeps bluffing because no one has the hand to call. If we can actually catch him in a lie, then we’re suddenly in a whole different game.”

“That’s it?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be this badass professional? You’re really asking me what to do?”

“Not necessarily,” he said. “My job is to know what’s going on and relay that information. I can’t do that if I don’t know what you’re up to.”

“What I’m up to…is biding my time,” I said. “I played this wrong, and it’s going to take time to correct my mistakes.”

“Okay…? What about in the meantime?”

“In the meantime, shut up and watch the Princess Bride,” I said, seeing the title.

Knox wasn’t thrilled, but he took the hint and sat back on the couch.

The alien projector worked like a video camera. It didn’t capture a video source, so they hadn’t actually connected to the laptop’s ports. The projector’s input camera/face/slide section was just aligned to perfectly capture the physical screen and reflect that image through the projector and across the massive canvas that had been hung.

All the ordinarily invisible pixels were suddenly a lot easier to pick out, but still ignorable when you looked at the whole image.

For the first third of the movie, it was pure bliss for me. Even sitting with just Knox for company, I hadn’t gotten to watch anything like this in more than a year. For a moment I got to be a kid again and just watch a sappy move about grandfather reading a story to his grandkid.

It almost made me want to become a Bears fan.

But halfway through the duel between the Man in Black and the Spaniard, the laptop fell asleep and everyone protested.

The interruption was enough to get my mind onto other details, but for a moment there I’d really been able to forget my problems.

As the laptop was brought back to life, I noticed more about our camp’s entertainment setup.

The first day there’d been music playing over a speaker. I’d thought it was a Bluetooth one, but no.

The movie’s audio was spotty and faint. What I’d assumed was neatly done Adeptry was anything but. Rather than figuring out a wire connection between the laptop and the speakers, it was made with more psionics than I expected.

The speaker wasn’t from Earth, or even Adept made, save for the component designed to receive the psionic signal from the abductee running it. No wonder the sound was off. The laptop’s audio wasn’t loud, but everyone could still hear it a little. But the sound being rebroadcast by the speaker was filtered through an abductee’s psionics.

There was no way the aliens could understand all the lines…no matter how quickly they’d picked up English. But they all stared at the projector screen raptly.

Gah. It couldn’t tell if they were all genuinely eager to understand what the abductees were sharing, or if it was all just an act to ingratiate themselves.

Trouble was, it still could be both. Kemon’s crew might have no idea what their captain was up to. As a matter of fact…the more I dwelt on that fact, the more I realized how much Kemon must keep from everyone, not just us lowly humans…

Too many of the crew helping out around the camp, the Casti without any rank, would have developed too many genuine bonds, even despite themselves. The odds for Kemon’s entire crew to be malicious were the same as the odds every single one of them would agree to ignore Coalition diplomatic ship’s request to share information on all the abductees’ whereabouts.

Every last member of his crew?

This might not have been Kemon’s usual game, but I had no doubt that he had plenty of practice with lies. There had to be someone worth allying with on his crew. Maybe that engineer I’d met the first day, Dansi, or someone.

Not to mention Serral’s hunch about Kemon’s crew.

Maybe it was coincidence, but the movie practically spelled out what I did wrong. Wesley beats Inigo and Fezzik without alienating them. He knew his real enemy was the one calling the shots.

That was what I’d done wrong in that stupid meeting. I’d let outcry drag me into arguing with my fellow abductees rather than staying focused on Kemon himself. He’d barely said a few sentences before I stormed out.

He’d let me dig my own pit.

It was a problem that people thought of me as a jerk. It was especially problematic that they were correct.

After the movie ended, there was still an hour or two before lights out. Madeline was chatting with Drew and Jordan. I was tempted to mingle, but I knew myself better than that. Just injecting myself into social situations wouldn’t magically change people’s minds.

No, I really was back in high school all over again. If I wanted the credibility to call Kemon out properly, I’d need to earn it.

I needed a plan…