“You want us to tell them everything,” Trujillo said.
“Everything,” I said. “Hold that thought.” I opened the door and called Kranjic. He and Beata entered the room. “Start with him,” I said, gesturing to Kranjic.
They all looked at him.
“So,” Kranjic said. “What’s up?”
“The Magellan’s crew will be the last people down,” I said to Jane. I had just come back from a logistics meeting with Zane and Stross; Jane and Savitri had been busy reprioritizing the colony’s equipment based on our new situation. But for the moment, it was just me, Jane and Babar, who as a dog was happily resistant to the stress around him. “After they’re down, Stross will set the Magellan to drive itself into the sun. No muss, no fuss, no sign of us.”
“What’s going to happen to Stross?” Jane said. She wasn’t looking at me; she sat at the stateroom table, tapping it gently.
“He said he was going to ‘hang out,’ ” I said. Jane looked up at me quizzically. I shrugged. “He’s adapted to live in space,” I said. “That’s what he’s going to do. He said his doctorate research would keep him busy until someone came to get him.”
“He thinks someone is coming to get him,” Jane said. “That’s optimism for you.”
“It’s nice someone has optimism,” I said. “Although Stross didn’t really seem to be the pessimist type.”
“Yeah,” Jane said. Her tapping changed rhythm. “What about the Obin?”
“Oh, well,” I said, remembering my earlier conversation with Hickory and Dickory. “That. Seems the two of them know all about the Conclave, but were forbidden from sharing the information because we didn’t know anything about them. Basically, not unlike some spouses of mine I could name.”
“I’m not going to apologize for that,” Jane said. “It was part of the deal I made to be with you and Zo?. It seemed fair at the time.”
“I’m not asking you to apologize,” I said, as gently as I could. “I’m just frustrated. From what I read in the files Stross gave us this Conclave has hundreds of races in it. It’s the single largest organization in the history of the universe as far as I can see. It’s been coming together for decades, since back when I was on Earth. And I learned about its existence only now. I don’t know how that’s possible.”
“You weren’t meant to know,” Jane said.
“This is something that spans all of our known space,” I said. “You can’t hide something like this.”
“Of course you can,” Jane said, and her tapping suddenly stopped. “The Colonial Union does it all the time. Think about how colonies communicate. They can’t talk to each other directly; there’s too much space between them. They have to compile their communication and send it in spaceships from one colony to another. The Colonial Union controls all ship travel in human space. All information bottlenecks into the Colonial Union. When you control communication, you can hide anything you want.”
“I don’t think that’s really true,” I said. “Sooner or later, everything leaks. Back on Earth—” Jane suddenly snorted. “What?” I asked.
“You,” Jane said. “ ‘Back on Earth.’ If any place in human space can be described as profoundly ignorant, it’s Earth.” She motioned her hand, encompassing the room. “How much of any of this did you know about, back on Earth? Think back. You and every other CDF recruit signed up completely ignorant of how things are out here. You didn’t even know how they were going to make it possible for you to fight. The Colonial Union keeps Earth isolated, John. No communication with the rest of the human worlds. No information either way. The Colonial Union doesn’t just hide the rest of the universe from Earth. It hides Earth from the rest of the universe.”
“It’s humanity’s home,” I said. “Of course the CU wants to keep its profile low.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Jane said, genuinely irritated. “You can’t possibly be so stupid as to believe that. The CU doesn’t hide Earth because it has sentimental value. The CU hides Earth because it’s a resource. It’s a factory that spits out an endless supply of colonists and soldiers, none of whom has the smallest idea what’s out here. Because it’s not in the Colonial Union’s interest to have them know. So they don’t. You didn’t. You were just as ignorant as the rest of them. So don’t tell me you can’t hide these things. The surprising thing isn’t that the Colonial Union hid the Conclave from you. The surprising thing is that it’s telling you about it at all.”
Jane resumed her tapping for a moment and then slapped her hand down on the table, hard. “Fuck!” she said, and put her head in her hands and sat there, clearly furious.
“I really want to know what’s going on with you right now,” I said.