The bastard. Renall said, “She may be less valuable to me.”
He hated negotiations, especially after a deal had already been struck. Morilan had changed the terms one time too many, and now Renall was considering life with Laria, and finding it to be a less than pleasant idea.
Morilan said, “The temple has no roof.”
“Then I would suggest you get your people to build one out of respect for your deities.”
That sentence resounded with finality. Renall meant every syllable too. He was not about to dish out a single credit more for that temple or for Laria. He was seriously tempted to tell Morilan that he had to break the pact, but he did not know the consequences of such an action and his mind was already weighing the risks and finding them unacceptable.
He’d lose a million credits. He’d lose an ally. It was one thing to refuse to renegotiate yet again. It was wholly another to refuse to wed Laria.
But how he wished he could do just that.
Morilan said, “I see. I understand, of course. The original agreement was rewritten so…”
“Several times. You cannot continue to garner my goodwill in such a way. I could break our pact for your failing to hold to the agreement, demand all my credits be returned, or that the temple be removed from your planet and placed elsewhere. It would have to be torn down and reconstructed, but it could be done.”
Morilan had obviously not expected that. He spoke quickly. “I understand. I see I have angered you. I did not assume you would balk so.”
No, you didn’t.Renall was angry, but mostly with himself. He had allowed Morilan to feel as if he could continue to keep taking credits from his coffers without concern. “I have to go.” He flicked off the interface before he could lose his temper and speak the truth.
The truth was he didn’t want to keep that pact.
He wanted Clara, and there was no way he could keep denying it.
The might of Morilan’s warriors were not the only concern, however. Morilan’s forebears had brought many beings with them when they had settled that planet of theirs. They had been wanderers of the system not yet claimed or even known for the most part. It still was not very well known, and getting to it even posed a risk as it sat just outside a strong grav-pull from a collapsed wormhole. The likelihood of it being plundered did not lessen because of that, however. Brigands and other wanderers, star-and-planet-less races, would risk much to have a home. The one thing the planet had going for it was its unsuitability for most races to live upon its surface and its primitive state. That and the fact that Morilan’s planet and the other populated one, in that tiny system of three planets, were not Federation territory, made it a less than desirable location for purchasers trying to buy a private planet.
Despite its not being part of the Federation, he could not simply go in and take the planet. The Federation must be given a price for it. It was not like it had been centuries before when unclaimed planets could just be taken. In order to keep the Federation out, he had to line the coffers of that Federation. In order to build a suitable habitat and to begin the hard task of taming the planet, he had to have many credits at his disposal.
There were things he had to have in place there, and those things would also take credits. He had to build docks for ships, and those were expensive. The list of the things he had to have credits for grew longer by the day.
And paying an army to help protect the place was not in his means. If it were, he could simply break that pact and go on, even if it meant fighting off Morilan’s warriors.
There was more to consider, however.
His entire race was gone but for a few.
The ones Morilan’s forbears had settled their planet with had been pureblooded, but they had eventually had to mix with the other beings in their landing party in order to survive. Only one family stayed pure no matter what, and now Laria was the only purebred female of his race in that entire side of the galaxy.
Purebred children. Children who would have blood not so easily diluted, who would continue his race. There were others, scattered across the galaxy, and he wanted to get them to that planet. His siblings, all of them as pure-blooded as he was himself, were in agreement with that. They wanted to save their race as much as possible, to keep their ways and genetics alive as long as they could in order to honor their ancestors and to remain upon the face of the galaxy.
But maybe that was foolish.
He paused, his heart beating too fast at the thought. Unbidden understanding hit hard. It would not matter how many children he had and then wed off to whatever purebred beings he could cull from the galaxy and convince to populate the new world. Sooner or later, they would mix, they would have to just as Morilan’s people had mixed. True, they could take the same road that Morilan’s family had and continue a pattern of breeding with real discrimination, but how healthy could their race remain under those circumstances?
And how much good was it doing him to want one being and wed another?
None.
Renall had spent centuries with one plan in mind, and now it seemed that that plan was no longer one he wanted to follow and that bemused him. He was used to being logical, to carefully registering his emotions and then setting them aside in order to make the most logical of decisions, in order to think through all of the possibilities so that he would take the road that would lead to the best and most rational result, the result that would fall in line with his plans.
He went to the window and stared out, not knowing that in her chamber, Clara was doing the very same thing, and thinking the same things he was at that moment.
He stood there staring at Orbitary. It felt like a beautiful prison, one designed to trap the unwary and then take as much from them as it could. He longed to be able to simply open a door and step into oxygenated air without worrying that each breath was being monitored and each carbon-laden exhale registered and weighted and considered for the final bill.
He sighed and turned away from the window.
He could not afford to set aside the dream that had been what had sustained him through so many terrible, bloody, and long and lonely centuries.
