It was all because of me. Not that I couldn’t be enraged at those who had helped.
“You drove her off?!” Father’s eyes narrowed, but I didn’t let him interject. “And Uncle is fine with this? He knew all along that there was a possibility he might forcibly study whomever I brought back?”
“Since he was far less surprised than I that you brought anyone back at all, then I’d guess yes, of course he knew. I’m not sure what purpose this mental exercise is serving, Nevarian.”
Rubion. My uncle was far more insidious than I’d ever imagined, and he’d taken full advantage of my na?veté. But I would have to deal with him later. “How can you be so calm about this? This is…horrible. This is the exact way the Treznor-Nirmanas would behave.” I felt the same disgust that I had that day on their destroyer, except now I stood in Father’s office and felt it for him.
For us.
“No, it’s not,” Father replied sharply. “They were ready to kill her on the spot for convenience. We are running tests, and nothing unnecessary will be done. This is a critical part of the research, I’m afraid—research that you were eager to have us conduct.”
“No, I was not,” I snarled at him, stepping closer, angrier than I’d ever dared to be with him. “Not like this. I was taught that people should be treated with respect and dignity. I was told that we should honor our word. I told her that we were different from the rest of the scum in the galaxy.”
The king remained impassive. “I was afraid you would feel this way. Nevarian, at some point you will have to learn that being a leader is a question of sacrifices. I would rather not hurt anybody. I would rather live in peace and harmony with our neighbors. But there are times and situations where that is simply impossible, and the more dire the times, the more dire the choices that need to be made in order to protect all that we hold dear.”
“Our times are so dire that we need to conduct experiments on unwilling subjects we kidnap?” I laughed bitterly. “Then aren’t we the ones creating the dire times? What happened to the teachings of the Unifier, that we only exist to serve others?” I had heard these mantras so many times over the years, they were part of the fabric of who I was. Anger grabbed a hold of my tone again. “Our right to rule is based on helping people, not hurting them!”
For the first time, something sparked in Father’s eyes, and his voice became hard. “Do you take me for one of your Academy fellows to fall to such amateur debating tactics? Your reasoning skills disappoint me, my son. Morality is not a zero-sum game. The same choices in different situations can be good or ill—it is intent and results that matter, or else we are all nothing but murderers and thieves. My intent, as you so helpfully noted, is to follow the commandments of the Unifier, to not fail the mandate of the Dracorte family, and to be a beacon of hope to the galaxy. Tell me, Nevarian, how much of a beacon do you think we would be under the boot of another family?”
I didn’t back down, staring back at him defiantly. “Unless you mean Belarius, I’m certain it’s the other royal families who are more likely to be under our boot. And yes, thank you, I am aware that we are in dangerous times. But unless you can tell me that everything is about to come crashing down, your actions tonight are categorically wrong.”
“Well then, allow me to enlighten you to just how dire the situation is.” Father’s voice became harder yet, and he snapped to the room, “Systems analysis, previous quarter.”
The images on the wall faded out, and then one large display appeared. Bar charts and graphs surrounded a large map of the explored galaxy. Father stabbed a finger at the wispy blue lines in between the systems. “You see those, Nev? Those represent the drone networks. Dracorte Industries hasn’t had a major success in synthetics or alloys in years. Newer products on the markets from competing families haven’t supplanted ours yet, but they are better, frankly, and we are losing market share hand over foot. Right now, the only business that is steady is our mining ventures, thanks to the drone network.”
He swiped across one portion of the screen, and a line graph showing a precipitous drop appeared. “But the yields from those are diminishing rapidly, not to mention that it seems some drones are finally starting to malfunction now, after centuries without maintenance. None of that is anything, however, compared to the fact that our enemies have been poisoning the ear of Belarius the Elder. The other families are pushing to share in the fruits of the mining operations, claiming it is only reasonable since the drones mine in their systems.”
I stepped back. “But that would never happen. Belarius won’t let them; that’s always been the agreement. They gave us the drive, we gave them access to the drone security functions and any resources they wanted.”
“Nevarian, you are not listening. That’s the agreement now, but if we fall out of favor with the Belarius family, then why wouldn’t they support something else that benefits them? All they’d have to do is stand aside while another family simply seizes the mining yields from the network in their system. We are one disgrace away from that happening. Xiaolan is courting an alliance with them, trying to encroach on our favor. And Treznor-Nirmana has us exactly where they want us with their investment in our operations.” He paused and rubbed his brow, worry lines creasing it.
I felt like clutching my own head. I had thought myself well informed of the political forces affecting our family. None of these facts were new, but I hadn’t fully grasped the severity of them, the full scope—I doubted anyone had, other than Father and his closest advisors. A future without mining or material production would mean that, really, truly, all we had left to pin our hopes on was…Shadow.
Qole.
It was either that, or to continue allowing the Treznor-Nirmanas to invest in us to stay afloat. They would own us in short order. “We just need to pay the investment back in time,” I said without conviction.
“Do you know how aggressive the timeline on our repayment is? If we can’t generate enough revenue, their terms are punishing. Our holdings will become theirs. The markets are unstable already; all it would take for our investors to lose faith in us would be to fail to impress the systems in the next few days, or worse yet, disgrace ourselves. Which I will not allow you to do.” He took a step toward me, and a new anger crept into his voice—not the anger of a father, but of a king. He’d directed this at me very rarely, and only after a massive personal failure.
“I still don’t see how you can justify coercing Qole,” I said, though my own voice sounded weaker. “You could have given her a choice.”