“Apologies, then.” Dash smiled warmly and tilted his head in a fractional bow. “We generally don’t like to start things off weird.”
Now Lomas smiled and gave the two mechs a significant look. “If I had to make a list of things about you I found weird, offering me your hand isn’t even making a mark. Now those hulking beasts? Those are weird.”
“Yes, those . . . vessels . . . of yours are remarkable,” the moon-faced man said. “Very dangerous, too, I suspect.”
Dash looked back, admiring the sun on flashing armor and weapons. “We’ve made a policy of never starting a fight. It wasn’t an option we had, not in our galactic arm, and these beings, these mechs, were built with a purpose more noble than simple war.”
“They sure look like weapons,” Lomas said.
“And they are. But they’re also sapient, and up until recently, pointed at a race that regarded life—any life—as a mortal enemy. We’re not cavalier about what we do, and I take my role as the Messenger seriously. It’s”—Dash cut his eyes to Leira, who gave him a small nod—“the first thing I’ve ever chosen as my life’s work. My true purpose, if you will. So when I tell you we don’t want to be here, all I can hope is that you believe me. I’ve had my fill of war, and so have my people.”
The moon-faced busybody spoke up. “Small arms probably wouldn’t help anyway.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” Dash said, tone flat. He’d met this man before, or at least his kind. The parasite, who filled mid level positions near the power in hopes of grabbing it for himself. “But it’s my hope that we don’t need any weapons. I mean that.”
Lomas glanced at her security escort, then sighed in a sound of mild deflation. “This is just protocol.”
“I understand.”
“In any case,” she went on, turning to the round-faced man, “allow me to introduce my Adjutant, Envaer Tane.”
Envaer did offer his hand to Dash, which he took and shook once, in a motion that used an insulting lack of energy. Dash immediately regretted contact with the moist, cool flesh but made himself keep smiling regardless. “I have no idea what an Adjutant does, but I’m sure you’re a good man to know. It’s my pleasure to meet you, if under odd circumstances.”
Envaer’s face flushed so mildly, Dash wasn’t sure he’d seen it, but Leira did. She uttered a mild snort, then covered it with her hand.
Dash inhaled, smelling the clear, fresh air, so unlike ship’s filters and human bodies. “I have to admit, it’s a gorgeous day here on—what do you guys call this place, anyway?”
“This moon? We call it Edge. It’s the League’s most remote outpost. And you’re going to ask if we’re going to conduct our meeting out here.” Lomas smiled, then gestured toward one of the peaks. “No. We’ve got a facility buried under that mountain. If you’ll follow me.”
She gestured for Dash to follow and they set off, strolling to a set of blast doors concealed behind a shoulder of rock at the edge of the landing pad. The doors rolled open, admitting them into a large chamber of annealed rock, from which a half-dozen corridors radiated. Lomas led them along a circuitous route to an elevator, which whisked them up to a room high up the side of the peak. Windows not visible from below looked out across the landing pad. Even at this height, the tops of the Archetype and Swift weren’t very far down.
Several other people waited there, rising and offering salutes to Lomas as she entered. Dash wondered if these people just happened to be military, or if the whole Rimworld League society was just generally militarized. Dash would have preferred if they weren’t. Not because militarized peoples were hard to deal with—in some respects they were easier, being much more predictable—but because it just got wearing. As they settled in around the table, Lomas introduced several people who were clearly non-military, including a lean, sharp-eyed man named Abillart, who she called an engineer. Dash would have known that anyway, though. The man’s manner was so close to that of Viktor it was almost uncanny, like they could have been brothers.
“So you are actually from Earth?” Abillart said. “That’s amazing.”
Dash shook his head. “We’re from Earth in the same way you guys are from Earth. I was actually born aboard a helium-3 freighter named the Hollywood.”
Leira frowned at him. “Really? You never told me that.”
“You never asked, and I’m not telling you all my stories. What will we do when we’re old?”
Leira snorted. “Avoid mosquitoes among other things.”
Lomas smiled. “Well, if I needed any proof you were human, you just gave it to me.” Her smile became a knowing grin aimed at Leira. “I know when two people, ah, disagree about homelife.”
“Human, yes,” Envaer said. “But clearly from a humanity that has progressed, technologically, a great deal more than I think any of us would have expected.” He looked out the windows, at the tops of the Archetype’s and Swift’s heads, as he spoke.
Dash leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “Actually, in terms of tech, the bulk of humanity from our part of the galaxy probably isn’t much different from you folks. Those mechs you see out there, and those ships deployed in space above us, aren’t of human origin.”
He went on to describe the Unseen, the Golden, and the Life War into which they’d been drawn as proxies, answering the occasional clarifying question, but mostly speaking to a rapt audience. “That’s the origin of the Cygnus Realm. So we’re not exactly typical of humans you’re likely to find elsewhere in the Milky Way.”
“Well, before this meeting, we weren’t even aware of other humans,” Lomas said. “We’ve assumed, I guess, that humanity was us—that we were its legacy, long departed from Earth and now its banner bearers among the stars.” She sat back in her chair. “It’s a little humbling to find out that not only are we not that, but we’re not even the most advanced group of humans around.”
“All due respect,” Envaer said, leaning forward, his face tight, “but we’ve heard how remarkable your technology is. How do we know it’s true?” He looked at Lomas. “Proconsul, I would avoid rushing to judgment over the claims these people have made.”
Dash smiled patiently. There was a time for kindness and a time for proof. They were now at the latter stage of this little dance with the sycophant Envaer. “Sentinel, how many people are in this base, and how long would it take you to destroy it?”
“There are one hundred and twelve humans present, counting you and Leira, occupying three point two kilometers of corridors and approximately one million cubic meters of excavated space. All weapon systems are capable of destroying it completely in less than one minute.” Sentinel paused, then added, “Ten seconds if I’m feeling, as you like to say, spicy.”
Murmurs rattled around the table, along with looks of alarm, but Dash raised a hand. “Could this base realistically defend itself if I ordered you to destroy it?”
“None of its four missile launchers, particle-beam weapons, and twelve smaller point defense arrays would be able to penetrate the Archetype’s shields before all were neutralized. Would you like me to ping the location of every sidearm on the moon as well?”