But individuals weren’t worlds. Individuals didn’t have excuses, and that was certainly one reason why Mere’s marriages rarely lasted longer than a decade or two.
No individual deserved any excuse.
That’s what the little woman believed, and she held herself to the same maxim. Her job was to be as a one-souled invader. She might be disguised, swimming unnoticed among the schooling aliens. Or to suit some dramatic need, she rode thunder and fire into a world capital, little arms raised as she introduced herself as a small, peculiar god. Each mission had its first goal and its second and the rest. Each was a mess of calculation and improbability. The hardest, best, and most often memorable missions were those where Mere and only Mere decided who would ride on board the Great Ship. Did she make mistakes? Too many, yes. The Ship’s history wore a few blunders. And because Mere was ageless and strong in so many ways, the woman could spend centuries considering her personal grief about each blundering step.
She despised evil, but true evil was scarce in the Universe, and once identified, it usually proved frail. Broken thinking and self-made idiots were common hazards, but they weren’t the most dangerous enemy. The inability to feel responsibility: That was what terrified Mere. It was the capacity of too many colleagues to misstep horribly and then retreat back to safety, nothing learned, not so much as a wisp of grief inside their happy minds. And worse than that, there were people with famous biographies and tremendous powers who didn’t deserve to throw their boasts at others.
Rococo.
Mere’s opinion was Mere’s. Few shared her disgust for the diplomat. Even reasonable, compassionate Washen disagreed with her tiny, alien-born exobiologist.
Of course it helped that Rococo began his service to the Great Ship long before Mere arrived. Also, the man’s work had transformed alien worlds into good friends, and partly because of his considerable record, humanity was spread across a twenty thousand light-year journey. And Rococo was instrumental in some famous missions and critical moments where the impossible was accomplished. For instance, he willingly joined the bal’tin on a breeding/slaughter mat, legs properly crossed while ten thousand entities coupled and died around him. That was a nightmare ready to test even the most flexible-minded entity. Yet Rococo managed to sit where no other diplomat would sit, offering the best words while enduring the foulest odors. And now the bal’tin were devoted allies, and their metal-rich comets were home to millions of human settlers.
Mere understood the diplomat’s mission. A proud, vainglorious creature like Rococo could accomplish miracles.
But she also happened to be the first scout to meet with the bal’tin. Before any diplomat arrived, she lived in their ranks for years, secretly and then openly. As the first face of the Great Ship, she instructed her new friends about her origins and the ancient laws of the Galaxy, preparing the way for the researchers and diplomats bearing down inside that much larger second wave. And in every report, Mere was blunt. The bal’tin were blessed with unusual minds. Left alone, they would likely avoid the disasters that often killed species and worlds. War wouldn’t be an issue. They loved death too much to waste it on useless slaughter. They also didn’t have careless hands that too often led to ecological disasters or vicious AIs. No future was set in hyperfiber, but the bal’tin were on a tangent that might lead them across thousands of light-years, and as a consequence, the Milky Way would be a much, much richer place.
But the scout was only a scout, and she was replaced by a fellow with huge reservoirs of charm and confidence. Rococo sat on the same ritual mats that Mere had experienced. He had to suffer the most bizarre behaviors known to exobiologists, and to his credit, he endured longer than Mere had. And the outcome was a deal that left humanity with a considerable portion of that solar system’s resources. Comets weren’t often laced with iron and uranium; bal’tin comets were a prospector’s dream. The natives would have flourished once they reached their Oort, but one exceptional diplomat impressed them too well, and now the odds had changed, the bal’tin far less likely to mount any assaults on galactic history.
“There’s no translation for their name,” she mentioned.
They were several years into the present mission. Their streakship was still accelerating, obliterating fuel until that point where they would flip and then fire the engines again, convincing the Universe to slow down around them.
“But the concept behind the name is simple enough,” Rococo said. “The Universe is a spectacularly narrow line, and that line is drawn between spawn and oblivion. The bal’tin are celebrating that line. That’s what I kept telling myself. And that’s why it was critical to sit there calmly, farting preplanned farts, and if they wanted to play with my genitals, I let them.”
“I know the mats,” she reminded him. “And I know how to fart, too.”
Rococo had a fine smile when he wanted. But not then. “So, Mere. What is your difficulty about me?”
“You took more than you should have,” she said.
He laughed. Without his usual decorum, Rococo acted as if she was an idiot and pitiable because of her silly mind.
Amund was sitting nearby. He had little choice. Their ship’s mass had been stripped away at every turn, increasing their range but limiting space. Amund only had his tiny quarters and this slightly larger common room, and they were accelerating to the brink of what a mortal body could tolerate. Simple motion was a struggle for the young man. More than not, he would spend years on his back, and with nothing to watch but two ancients acting like petty bureaucrats.
But not that day. That day, the man
