“Oh, are you slightly less filthy rich than before or something?” Telu sneered.
“In a word, yes. But more importantly, we’re less useful to Belarius. Our drones, as you know, keep mining no matter what we try to tell them and are still digging up raw material that was long ago rendered obsolete. They’re bringing in fewer and fewer resources of value to us, and we can’t reprogram them. Meanwhile, over the last hundred years or so, the Treznors have developed a manufacturing empire. They now make the best military-grade ships in the systems—like that destroyer we all just became intimately familiar with. They also joined forces a few years ago with the Nirmana family through a marriage alliance, practically doubling their wealth and political clout. They stand to replace the Dracortes as the right hand of the Belarius family empire…unless we do something to maintain Belarius’s interest in us, and thus our preeminence.”
“And Shadow is your best bet,” Qole murmured. It wasn’t a question.
I nodded, almost wishing it weren’t true, that I didn’t have to put her through this. But then, if we didn’t find a way to make it safer for everyone, not only would my family suffer…but Qole would, too.
“You still haven’t given us much of a reason to believe you,” Arjan said, “other than you helping Qole on the destroyer—but, like I said, we were doing just fine until you came along. Why in the systems should we trust you, or even give a single ice-shaving about what happens to you or your rotten family?”
I put both of my hands on the table, willing the truth, the strength of my conviction, into my words. “Because my family isn’t rotten. I know that no one on Alaxak has any love for the royal families. But this isn’t about the wealthy, or the powerful; it’s about all of us. The systems are in political upheaval, the kind that hasn’t been seen since the Great Collapse. There is one, only one”—I held up a finger—“family with a charter that mandates the greater good, not family prosperity. There is only one family that maintains the precepts of the Unifier and believes that our existence is only here to improve the existence of others.”
There was silence in the messroom for a moment, and only the languid flame of the Shadow moved. Then Telu started laughing.
“Oh man, that is such a load of scat. Do you even hear yourself?? Unifier, that’s great. I just…I don’t even know where to start, hey?” She wiped a mock tear from her eye.
Frustration flashed through me that my speech had gone over so poorly. “I didn’t take you for a Scientist,” I snapped. In some systems, people worshipped science, especially the science that had been lost in the Great Collapse, nearly as devoutly as others worshipped the Great Unifier.
Telu barked a laugh. “I’m not. No one on Alaxak cares about any of it—Unifier, Science, you name it. We’ve been here since before the Great Collapse. Nothing changes, you all just think it does. We have our family”—she looked around the crew—“and that’s all that matters.”
I glanced at Qole, who wasn’t giving much away. What in the systems was she thinking? “Well then, you should at least be interested in the very tangible results I can offer. Because things will change, after this. With Shadow as a widely usable resource, Alaxak will experience wealth like it never has—my father would make sure of it. Treznor wouldn’t grant you the same favor, and they will pursue my family’s research if we don’t, in whichever way they see fit. With us in charge, your people will be looked out for, and they’ll prosper. And in the meantime, I’ll repair your ship, keep Qole safe, and help you learn how to survive your Shadow affinity. I promise.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Eton stood up and moved to the galley. Out of a drawer, he pulled a device with a dozen different kinds of wire attached to four different rotating arms. I watched in bemusement as he quickly assembled them around a bowl and began to feed dried, dark fruit from a bag into a receptacle at the top. He flipped a switch on the device, and it began to whip the fruit into a fine paste over a sheet of parchment paper he placed under the wires. “You make beautiful promises, speeches about the future ahead of you. But the minute something goes wrong, you’ll scramble and crush anyone in your way to protect your own hides.”
“Is he…cooking?” I looked at the others, who hadn’t even been paying attention.
“Eton?” Qole glanced at where he was now waving a plasmic heater of some unknown variety over the paste. “Yeah, he’s the ship cook. Why?”
“I…ah.” I opened my mouth and shut it. Eton, the chef? Words would probably not suffice.
“I still don’t see why you didn’t just tell me all this in the first place instead of trying to abduct me.” Qole’s gaze was back on her folded hands, and her saying it as calmly as she did twisted my gut.
“I wanted to, I did.” I tried, I wanted to say, but I didn’t think that would help. I leaned forward over the table, as if that would help my sincerity reach her. “That’s why I got on board this ship, so I could have a chance to earn your trust, convince you, but I ran out of time. My transport was departing and…” I hesitated. “As a prince and heir, I was only granted a limited amount of time for this venture, and even that was difficult to arrange.” That was putting it lightly. “And I have to be back to Dracorva in time for the Dracorte Conference and Report, whether or not I bring back any good news. This is one of my family’s last chances to prove to the galaxy that we’re not a dying star…one of our last opportunities to devote our resources to research that could save you and your people, along with us.”
Qole’s face was as expressionless as Basra’s.
Frustration flashed through me again. “Look, I have a strict deadline. If I’d told you all this in the bar in Gamut, would you have remotely entertained my request? Without knowing me in the slightest, or trusting me at all?”
She finally looked at me, her dark brown gaze locking onto mine with the force of a mag-coupling.
“We still don’t trust you,” Arjan muttered.
Qole ignored him, and she didn’t break her stare. Then she shifted, blinked, and let out the breath she’d been holding. “No, I wouldn’t have,” she admitted.
I’d been holding my own breath, and felt nearly dizzied by her sudden concession. Maybe I was getting through to her.
But she only fell silent afterward, and Arjan shook his head. “Even if you weren’t a maniac, it’s the peak of the fishing season.”
“I’ll cover your losses on fishing and compensate you well beyond. I know this goes against a lot of what you believe, but things are changing.” I turned back to Qole, appealing to her directly again. “The systems are changing, and your way of life will change too. You can change it for the better.”