“This isn’t about justice,” said Ram Odin. “It isn’t about right and wrong. It’s about us and them. And I choose us.”
“All in favor?” asked Deborah.
They all raised their hands.
“We can philosophize to our hearts’ content after we’ve saved humanity,” said Ram.
“Now all we need is a plan,” said Noxon.
“I think I have another voyage ahead of me,” said Ram Odin. “But with a different destination. How long do you think since these aliens first developed space flight?”
Meanwhile, the original Noxon and Ram Odin had both developed radiation poisoning. Noxon’s facemask helped his body recover. Now there were two copies of him, though one was still in bed, sleeping almost constantly as his body’s cells were rebuilt and cancers were eliminated.
There was only one Ram Odin, though. Only one person in their group who could pilot the starship they had stashed in Antarctic ice in the remote past. This time the mice would be given the freedom of the ship. This time, they would be turned loose on an alien world.
CHAPTER 26
Tidiness
Param stood in the Tent of Light, bending over the table, studying the maps with Olivenko, Umbo, Loaf, Rigg, Ramex, and Square. Ram Odin sat in the doorway of the tent, looking out over the meadow, either keeping watch or dozing—it was hard to tell which.
Param spoke little at these councils. Her natural disposition coincided exactly with good policy on this—for she had quickly learned that if she even hinted at a preference, Olivenko would start to bend all his ideas and argument to favor the course of action that he guessed she was favoring.
She had had to be careful even of her questions, until she finally said, rather testily, that she could not make any rational decisions unless she was sure she understood the situation, which meant she must ask questions. But how could she ask questions if people reacted by trying to guess what she meant by her question? “I mean—I always mean—that I believe I need to know the answer to my question. Nothing else. I don’t hint. When I’ve come up with a tentative decision, I offer my conclusions for comment. It isn’t subtle, is it? You all understand when I do that?”
They all did—but after that, Param was quite sure that they still tried to guess what her questions meant, which way she was leaning. They simply became more subtle about their responses.
It was annoying that, as Queen-in-the-Tent, at least for this corner of the realm, she had to be so scrupulous about even the slightest utterance. How constraining it was to have authority!
Yet she also remembered Mother’s powerlessness in the pleasant prisons in which Param had grown up. Mother also had had to watch every word she said, but not because others would over-obey her, trying to anticipate her decisions. Mother’s constraints came from fear that the People’s Revolutionary Council would suppose her to be trying to assert royal authority. So Mother, too, had to learn to speak far less than she thought.
It turned Mother into a monster of deception. What is it doing to me?
In private, she could ask Umbo. But she knew his answer: You’re doing a perfect job of saying the very least that you can say. Yet when you do speak, it’s always sensible and when you make decisions, everyone can see the justice, the wisdom in your words.
And then Param would wonder if Umbo said this because it was true, or at least he believed it was true; or did he say these things only to reassure her and make her happy? And if she ever made a decision that flatly contradicted the clear will of the council, would she be obeyed? She tried to rule by persuasion, by creating consensus, but that only worked when the decision had no urgency. As they prepared for the full-fledged all-out war, the clash of great armies, decisions would need to be made quickly, and she was quite aware that it was not just the Queen-in-the-Tent—herself—who had no idea what she was doing. Olivenko was well-read and clever, but no one knew what their army would do in real bloody combat, so he might be wrong about everything. So might Loaf. So might any of them.
“We can always go back and try again,” said Umbo at such times. “Have I come to you in a vision and warned you not to decide in a certain way?”
“Well, not yet,” said Param.
“Then your decisions obviously work out perfectly well.”
“Or I haven’t made any decisions with consequences that matter.”
“That should ease your mind even more,” said Umbo.
“Or whatever went wrong killed you and me and Rigg, and so there was no one to come back and prevent it all from going wrong.”
“And if that happens,” said Umbo, “then the Destroyers will come and wipe out all our mistakes.”
“Unless Noxon succeeds in saving us,” said Param.
“He hasn’t yet,” said Umbo.
“That we know of,” said Param.