“They don’t play at it,” I said. “They have it.”
“And it is a terrible thing that they do,” the Consu said. “Consciousness is a tragedy. It leads the whole race away from perfection, causes it to fritter its efforts on individual and wasteful effort. Our lives as Consu are spent learning to free our race from the tyranny of self, to move beyond ourselves and in doing so move our race forward. It is why we help you lesser races along, so you may also free yourselves in time.”
I bit my cheek at this bit. The Consu would sometimes come down to a human colony, wipe it and everyone in it off the face of their planet, and then wait for the Colonial Defense Forces to come and fight them. It was a game to the Consu, as far as any of us could see. To say that they were doing it for our benefit was perverse, to say the least.
But I was here to ask for help, not debate morals. I had already been baited once. I didn’t dare let it happen again.
The Consu continued, oblivious to my personal struggles. “What you humans have done to the Obin makes a mockery of their potential,” it said. “We created the Obin to be the best among us all, the one race without consciousness, the one race free to pursue its destiny as a race from its first steps. The Obin were meant to be what we aspired to. To see them aspire to consciousness is to see a creature that can fly aspire to wallow in mud. Your father did the Obin no favors, human, in hobbling them with consciousness.”
I stood there for a minute, amazed that this Consu would tell me, in seemingly casual conversation, things that the Obin had sacrificed half their number for so many years ago but were never allowed to hear. The Consu waited patiently for my response. “The Obin would disagree,” I said. “And so would I.”
“Of course you would,” the Consu said. “Their love of their consciousness is what makes them willing to do the ridiculous for you. That and the fact that they choose to honor you for something that your father did, even though you had no hand in it. This blindness and honor is convenient to you. It is what you use to get them to do what you want. You don’t prize their consciousness for what it gives them. You prize it for what it allows you to do to them.”
“That’s not true,” I said.
“Indeed,” said the Consu, and I could hear the mocking tone in its voice. It shifted its weight again. “Very well, human. You have asked me to help you. Perhaps I will. I can provide you with a boon, one the Consu may not refuse. But this boon is not free. It comes with a cost attached.”
“What cost?” I said.
“I want to be entertained first,” the Consu said. “So I offer you this bargain. You have among you several hundred Obin. Select one hundred of them in any way you choose. I will ask the Consu to send one hundred of our own—convicts, sinners, and others who have strayed from the path and would be willing to attempt redemption. We will set them at each other, to the death.
“In the end, one side will have a victory. If it is yours, then I will help you. If it is mine, I will not. And then, having been sufficiently amused, I will be on my way, to continue my death journey. I will call to the Consu now. Let us say that in eight of your hours we will start this entertainment. I trust that will be enough time for you to prepare your pets.”
“We will have no problem finding a hundred volunteers among the Obin,” Dock said to me. It and I were in the conference room General Gau had lent me. Hickory and Dickory stood outside the door to make sure we weren’t disturbed. “I will have the volunteers ready for you within the hour.”
“Why didn’t you tell me how the Obin planned to get the Consu to me?” I asked. “The Consu here told me that hundreds of Obin died to get him here. Why didn’t you warn me that would happen?”
“I did not know how we would choose to try to get the Consu’s attention,” Dock said. “I sent along your requirement, along with my own assent. I was not a participant in making the choice.”
“But you knew this could happen,” I said.
“As a member of the Council I know that we have had the Consu under observation, and that there had been plans to find ways to talk to them again,” Dock said. “I knew this was one of them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said.
“I told you that attempting to speak to the Consu would come at a high cost,” Dock said. “This was the cost. At the time, the cost did not seem too high for you.”