With people “we can work with”, as the Accord put it, resources pour in.
Magnetic shields are built, great rings of metal orbiting the worlds of the Shine. When the Edge finally arrives, when the bomb that was set off by the supernova at Lhonoja all those years ago eventually detonates in the skies above Tu-mdo, the blast will be deflected. Sheared away into the dark.
There are decades to go. Decades in which to get it right.
Billions will live. So many billions. Billions who perhaps would have died if the Shine had not fallen.
The Slow did this maths, and the maths was cruel, and we will never know if there was another way.
Wanted notices are put out for the few remnants of the Executorium who escaped.
Most strike deals for surrender.
They know it is better for the Accord – a sign of good intent – if instead of putting the Executorium up for a show trial, they instead convict them of a few minor misdemeanours and lock them away on an island somewhere. As is always the case, the Accord are not in fact in a state of clean agreement on this matter.The people of Nitashi cry out for blood and vengeance, vengeance and blood, and eventually a little group of the Yeh’haim will infiltrate one moderate-security prison where a member of the Executorium is held and cut hís throat, writing just one word – AHRMRET – on the walls in crimson when they depart. The Accord tuts and says goodness, how barbaric, and the Nitashi grow angrier and angrier that their pain, their suffering is not being given meaning. Is not being given justice, is not in any way being made right. They blame the Accord as much as the Shine, and for decades to come the planet stays outside the normal bounds of polite conversation, wrapped up in a pain that will take generations to leave it.
A few Executorium try to run.
In the end, their own people turn on them.
The habits of the Shine – selling out your neighbour, making the best possible deal for yourself – do not encourage loyalty.
In the end, only one remains unaccounted for.
Theodosius Rhode.
I offer to join the search parties.
The authorities of Xihana advise against it, but by now they have largely given up trying to moderate my affairs.
Rencki asks why I want to go, and I say it just feels right.
Cuxil asks if this is a selfless act, and the tone of her voice implies that she thinks it is not.
I do not hear anything from the Slow.
Above the planets of what was the Shine, worlds that must now find a new name, a new way of being themselves, magnetic shields start to grow, and I do not go planetside, and I keep looking for reasons to be in the Pilot’s chair.
There is a rumour of a sighting of Theodosius here – but no, it was just a very tall, rather unpleasant man with an accent that was mistaken for Mdo-sa and was not.
A Nitashi ship vanishes; perhaps it is conspiracy, perhaps it is a kind of retribution – or perhaps it was a Pilot who should not havebeen allowed to fly, whose mind had been touched once too often by the dark, and who opened their arms to meet it.
I try to open my arms, but the dark is not interested in me.
The Lordat say that the dark is interested in things that are not of itself. That it is fascinated by life unknown, minds that twinkle, souls that shine. There is nothing malicious in its curiosity. It has no sense of right or wrong, good or bad. Rather, like a soft-winged bug drawn to the flame, it flitters and flits towards the warmth of a soul as it blazes through the night.
Does this mean, I ask, that I do not have a soul?
Possibly, one Lordat replies. But honestly, your question is a bit above my pay grade.
Theodosius is seen on a space station, boarding a ship.
Hé seems to be alone – or rather,heseems to be alone, the ur-hé and ur-shé of the Shine having been declared regressive, oppressive archetypes that exist only to crush people with their exclusivity and connotations of power.
By the time we reach the system where he was last seen, he is gone, and his ship left no flight data behind.
It is depressing to think that the power and connections he still has are enough to keep him safe. Frustrating to imagine the great many people – so many people – who can look him in the eye, know what he has done – the terror of Nitashi, the scourge of Cha-mdo – and still decide his Glint is worth more than their conscience. Any illusions I might have harboured about the ethical integrity of the Accord are vanished.
Eventually the search dries up.
