His words would have earned him a death sentence on just about any world. His openness at speaking them appalled and excited her in equal measure. “If all that's a lie, what is the truth?”
Ondo looked amused at the question. “Ah. I wish I knew. And that's the problem isn't it? When the truth is missing, it's easy for lies to fill the void. People need certainties. I think Concordance rely on that. I think that's probably the main reason each system has its Cathedral ship in orbit. Not to quell unrest or to destroy attempts at reinventing metaspace tech, but to ensure the correct version of history is heard.”
“Tell me the little you do know.” He'd given her hints and scraps but never the full picture he saw in his mind.
“I know that Concordance didn't exist three hundred years ago. The Magellanic Cloud had on board only a few believers in the cult of Omn. It was a minor religious sect, an odd little curiosity, unknown in most of the galaxy. Vulpis was, obviously, their leader, but on the ship, he was a chemist, not even particularly high-ranking. The ship was a scientific exploration vessel, investigating unknown star systems in the galaxy's central mass. I know the Omnian War did take place, although, as I have said, I believe it was also a war to suppress the truth and not simply the means by which Concordance imposed control on the supposed chaos.
“The faction opposed to Vulpis – the normal crew of the ship, I think – took the Magellanic Cloud, intending to inform galactic civilisation of what had been found. Vulpis, somehow, fought them and stopped them. I have discovered several references in various datastores to someone or something that translates as Morn or The Morn, but whether that's a place, or a previously-unknown culture, or weapontech, I don't know. It appears to be something fearful, calamitous, and perhaps that is what allowed Vulpis to establish his galaxy-wide theocratic order.”
“Or Vulpis encountered a civilization that used him to seize control of the galaxy. If there was a previously-isolated culture that suddenly learned the location of all these other worlds, and they had some sufficiently advanced technology at their disposal, they could have risen rapidly to dominance. Perhaps that's what Concordance is. A front for that.”
“Perhaps.”
“Omn, Morn. Maybe they're the same thing. The words are close.”
“It's possible. Vulpis and his followers brought the word Omn with them, of course, the name of their god, and perhaps they – or someone – simply imposed it upon this Morn, appropriating an older word to aggrandize their own. It's a familiar pattern. Simply stating the two are the same thing, or aspects of the same thing, allowed Vulpis to bolster the importance of his sect, while also giving him licence to use his discovery to the supposed glory of Omn.”
“Or giving the culture they encountered a story to justify what they went on to do.”
“That's what we need to find out.”
“What specifically have you learned from my father's investigations?”
“Corroboration of everything I've said – but also the knowledge that there is another uncharted crash site on Maes Far. I've been able to decrypt records that he was unable to read by cross-referencing with other fragments. The evidence is clear: there was a battle in orbit, and a second ship was hit. Crippled, it veered into the planet's atmosphere and parts of it crashed into the southern polar cap. It's another trail to follow. It may lead to nothing, as most of them do – or it may reveal some vital clue about what really happened three hundred years ago.”
“Concordance haven't destroyed it?”
“I don't believe they know about it.”
The Maes Far southern polar cap was essentially uninhabited, little more than a barren ice-sheet. “You've been there?”
“Once I'm sure all interest in the planet has died down, I'll go and see what I can find. Another piece of the puzzle, or another dead end. There may well be nothing left of the second crashed starship. Perhaps I'll find nothing more than a thin deposit layer of debris in the ice record, microfragments of vaporised graphene and polymer nanotube. It wouldn't be the first time.”
“What if you die? What if the Void Walkers find you?”
“It's unlikely; the Cathedral ship has left the system, reassigned to some other inhabited world.”
“There are still a million ways to get yourself killed on a shattered planet suffering that scale of environmental destruction.”
“If I die, then the Refuge and everything within it is yours, Selene.”
That threw her. She wasn't at all sure she wanted such a gift. It sounded a lot like a burden. “Why would it be mine?”
“Because there is no one else.”
“And if I don't want it? Don't want any of this life of yours?”
“Then take another vessel and leave, by all means. There is no duty imposed on you; I saved your life so you could live it as you wished. I've been making sure there is another craft prepped and ready to use: the Aether Dragon. Not as advanced as the Radiant, but serviceable. All I ask is that you
