electronic probe sticking out of his skull. “Mr. President, members of the Council,” she said, turning to face the elders, “may I introduce to you Reza Sarandon Gard of Hallmark.”
And there, standing but a few paces away, was the president himself.
“Welcome home, young man,” he said. President Nathan had wanted very much to have himself and the entire Council down there, on the floor, to welcome Reza in a more personal fashion. But the Secret Service had been adamant that they remain separated, and more than a few of the senators had voiced their own personal objections. An unknown quantity, armed and known to be extremely dangerous to his opponents, Reza posed an incalculable threat to the core of the Confederation government at close quarters; the Council was quietly protected by an invisible force field immune to any attack Reza could make. Or so the Secret Service hoped. “I bid you welcome home to the Confederation, on behalf of all of humanity.”
“My humble thanks, my president,” Reza replied formally as he knelt and brought his left fist over his breast in salute. “My sword is yours to command.”
This caused a few raised eyebrows and hushed murmurs in the audience.
“Young man,” President Nathan said, “you need not kneel before me. I am not your king, your lord, or your emperor. I am chosen by the people of the nation of humanity to serve and to lead. Yet, I remain but a citizen myself. Please, be at ease.”
Reza relaxed slightly from his position of subordinate humility and looked at the dark man, who smiled.
“Sit, and be comfortable,” he said.
Finding no skins laid out on which to sit, only the awkward and uncomfortable human-designed furniture, he simply knelt on the shiny wooden floor right where he was, resting his armored hands on his knees.
For a moment, he thought he had done something wrong. The elders suddenly seemed confused, as if some form of vital protocol had not been adhered to.
But the president quickly resolved the matter. Smiling with good nature at Reza and the others in the room, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, let us all be comfortable in our own way.” Reza heard some laughter at that before everyone sat down.
The woman who had first spoken to him appeared again beside him, awkwardly sitting down on the floor with her legs pressed close together and folded beneath her, as if she were afraid of showing the parts of her body beneath the tube of fabric she wore from her waist.
“I guess where you come from they don’t use chairs,” she said, smiling.
“No,” he answered, noting the sense of genuine concern this woman held for him. “Animal hides are much more comfortable.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she replied in a whisper as the president cleared his throat.
“Are you sure you want to sit on the floor, Miss Savitch?” the president asked amicably.
“I’m fine, sir.”
“Very well, then,” Nathan said, nodding. “Reza,” he went on, his voice deepening in pitch with the gravity of his words, “your return to human space has posed a number of very complex challenges for us. While we would like to think otherwise, that we are wise enough and powerful enough to know all there is to know about anyone or anything, there are some questions that only you can answer for us. Unfortunately, these questions are the most serious of any we have had to consider in your case.
“Fundamentally, Reza, we are concerned about your loyalties after so many years in the Empire. For example,” he held up a yellowed piece of paper, the one Wiley Hickock had written so many years before, “you presented this to military representatives of this government, offering it as proof of citizenship and declaring your interest in joining the Confederation Marine Corps. Further, while you have been extremely cooperative in most instances, in not one case have you divulged a single scrap of information about the Empire, a fact we have found most disturbing.”
Nathan paused a moment to look at Reza carefully, assessing for himself if the young man understood the importance of what was being said. If he did not make some kind of showing now, Nathan would have little choice but to give in to the increasing pressure by certain members of the Council and the High Command to use more serious methods of interrogation.
All he received was Reza’s unnerving alien stare.
“Reza,” Nathan said, “as most who know me understand, I am not one who enjoys long speeches with great fanfare, and I also do not wish to tax your understanding of our language on so critical an issue as this. But you must understand that a great deal – your future, and perhaps ours, as well – rests on what you say and do now, here in this room. I realize that once more you must find yourself in a strange new world with strange customs, and have had to relearn your native language in but a very short time. But these people,” he gestured with his arms, indicating the senators sitting to either side, “indeed all of the Confederation, need some reassurance that your presence among us is of your own free will, and that your loyalty now is – and always will be – to this Confederation of Humanity.”
The room became deathly silent except for the occasional creak of a chair as someone unconsciously leaned farther forward in their seat, the better to hear what words Reza might utter, or to see what he might do in response to those of the president.
“Take your time answering, son,” Nathan said quietly.
“Reza,” Melissa whispered beside him, “think carefully before you answer; but, whatever you say, it must be sincere enough to let these people understand that you’re with them, that you’re one of them. If you feel you need help of any kind, ask me – that’s why I’m here with you now.” That really was all she could say. The president had laid the ground rules, and the ball was deep in Reza’s court. It was now up to him to play out the game.
“Mister President,” he began slowly, his deep voice resonating in the hushed room with the accent of the language in which he dreamed – the Old Tongue – heavy on his words, “there is no secret to why I am here. I am neither the devil some see, nor a god. When first I came to the Empire as a boy, I promised myself that I would never fight against those born of human blood. This was a promise I have kept for all of my life.” Reza looked at each of the senators sitting around the dais, his green eyes boring into each of them with a look of such uninhibited animal power that several of them had to turn away. “You ask me why you should believe my allegiance to this Confederation, why you should accept and value my honor, why you should trust my words and my silence. In answer I tell you this: everything dear to my heart, all that made my life worth living, all that I suffered for, have I sacrificed to return to this realm, to serve you with my sword rather than slay you. I can offer you nothing of substance in proof, for there is nothing I can give save my word and my life.”
He withdrew the knife that had once graced the palm of the Empress, and had since bound his life to Esah- Zhurah’s.
There was a collective gasp from the audience, and several Marines and Navy officers rose from their seats, reflexively reacting to the potential threat, but none were quite ready to challenge the armored figure sitting quietly before the dais. President Nathan did not flinch or change expression.
“You ask me why you should trust me,” Reza said quietly. While he hardly understood anything about these people and the culture they had built around themselves, he realized that only the greatest sacrifice would prove to them that he was not a “traitor,” a term for which he himself had no reference from living among the Kreela. He would die, but at least his name would not be held in contempt, and his honor would be preserved among humans as well as his sisters in the Empire. “I tell you that you are all I have now,” he said, “that there is nothing for me but to serve you, to offer you my life. I can never return to the Empire, for my Way there is finished, my bond to Her Children severed.” He held the knife in both hands as if it were a platter, offering it toward the president. “You ask for proof of my honor; I offer you my life.”
“No,” Melissa gasped as Reza turned the knife’s glittering blade toward his throat. She grabbed at his arms in an attempt to thwart his suicide, but her best efforts had as much effect as if she were grappling with a giant redwood.
The room broke into a pandemonium of unfocused noise and movement as those who could see what was happening leaped out of their chairs with cries of astonishment, and those behind them acted similarly because they could not see what was taking place. Those seated at the dais were on their feet, with the president trying to calm both Reza and the panicking assemblage, but his words were lost in the din. To the left, opposite the doors through which Reza had entered, a troop of Marines burst in, weapons at the ready.
Reza took it all in calmly, absorbing both the words and feelings of those around him as he might take a breath of air before diving deep under water. He fastened his mind upon the image of Esah-Zhurah that never left
