“It opens up a number of intriguing possibilities in communication,” Hickory said.
“I suppose that’s true,” I said. “None of which I’m interested in right now.” I turned to Zo?. “Sweetheart, I want you to order these two to answer all my questions truthfully, without any lies or evasions.”
“Why?” Zo? said. “What’s going on?”
“Please do it, Zo?,” I said. Zo? did as I asked.
“Thank you,” I said. “You can go back to bed now, sweetie.”
“I want to know what’s going on,” Zo? said.
“It’s not something you need to worry about,” I said.
“You order me to have these two tell you the truth, and you want me to believe it’s not something I need to worry about?” Zo? said.
“Zo?,” Jane said.
“Besides, if I leave there’s no guarantee they won’t lie to you,” Zo? said, moving quickly before Jane could finish. Zo? knew she could negotiate with me; Jane was much more of a hard-ass. “They’re emotionally equipped to lie to you, because they don’t care about disappointing you. But they don’t want to disappoint me.”
I turned back to Hickory. “Is this true?” I asked.
“We would lie to you if we felt it was necessary,” Hickory said. “We would not lie to Zo?.”
“There you go,” Zo? said.
“Breathe a word of this to anyone and you’re spending the next year in a horse stall,” I said.
“My lips are sealed,” Zo? said.
“No,” Jane said, and came over to Zo?. “I need you to understand that what you’re hearing here you absolutely cannot share with anyone else. Not Gretchen. Not any of your other friends. Not anyone. It’s not a game and it’s not a fun secret. This is dead serious business, Zo?. If you’re not ready to accept that, you need to leave this room right now. I’ll take my chances with Hickory and Dickory lying to us, but not you. So do you understand that when we tell you not to share this with anyone, that you cannot share it with anyone else? Yes or no.”
“Yes,” Zo? said, staring up at Jane. “I understand, Jane. Not a word.”
“Thank you, Zo?,” Jane said, and then bent down and kissed the top of Zo?’s head. “Go ahead,” she said, to me.
“Hickory, you remember when we had the conversation where I told the two of you that I wanted you to hand over your consciousness implants,” I said.
“Yes,” said Hickory.
“We talked about the Conclave then,” I said. “And you said that you didn’t believe the Conclave was a threat to this colony.”
“I said that we believed the threat to be negligible,” Hickory said.
“Why do you believe that?” I asked.
“The Conclave prefers that colonies are evacuated rather than destroyed,” Hickory said.
“How do you know this?” I said.
“From our own information on the Conclave, provided to us by our government,” Hickory said.
“Why didn’t you share this information with us before?” I asked.
“We were told not to,” Hickory said.
“By whom?” I asked.
“By our government,” Hickory said.
“Why would they tell you not to share this?” I asked.
“We have a standing order from our government not to share information with you on matters about which you are not substantially informed,” Hickory said. “It is a courtesy to your government, which requires security and confidence from our own government on numerous matters. We have not lied to you, Dickory and I, but we are not allowed to volunteer information, either. You will recall before we left Huckleberry that we had asked you what you knew of the status of this part of space.”
“Yes,” I said.
“We were attempting to discover how much of our knowledge we were allowed to share with you,” Hickory said. “We regret to say it did not appear you knew much. So we were not able to share much.”
“You’re sharing it now,” I said.
“You’re asking now,” Hickory said. “And Zo? has told us not to lie.”
“You’ve seen our video of the Conclave destroying the Whaidi colony,” I said.
“Yes, when you shared it with all of your colonists,” Hickory said.
“Did it match your own video?” I asked
“No,” Hickory said. “Ours was much longer.”
“Why would our version be so much shorter?” I asked.
“We cannot speculate why your government does the things it does,” Hickory said.
I paused at this; the construction of the sentence left a lot of room for interpretation.
Jane jumped in. “You said the Conclave prefers to evacuate colonies rather than destroy them. Are you saying this because of the video or do you have other information?”
“We have other information,” Hickory said. “The video shows only the first attempt by the Conclave to remove a colony.”
“How many others have there been?” Jane asked.
“We do not know,” Hickory said. “We have been out of communication with our government for the better part of a Roanoke year. However, when we left, the Conclave had removed seventeen colonies.”