“You have a connection with the planet?”
Hessia hesitated for a moment, debating with herself how much to say. She glanced aside at Surtr, then fixed her aquamarine eyes back on Selene.
“There's a family story that one of my forebears was there when it was destroyed, the day Concordance fired the first shot of the war that ended galactic civilisation. Like Ondo, I've been trying to piece together the truth of that, although with less success. And, I admit, I'd become disillusioned, given up hope. I was beginning to believe the lies put out by our glorious protectors. The proof that you found, though – I can't tell you how it made me feel. It was like lights being switched on inside me. Like a dead part of me came back to life.”
“What was the story?”
“That one of my mother's mothers was a diplomat on Coronade, someone who spent her days resolving disputes between the worlds, defusing conflicts into peaceful solutions. She'd just completed work on a settlement between three other worlds when Vulpis and a massed Concordance battlefleet showed up out of nowhere. They bombarded Coronade mercilessly, reducing it to dust and ruins. Which is precisely what you saw.”
“Ondo believes Coronade was a symbol of the entire civilisation.”
“For once, I believe he's right. The planet lay at the heart of something they called the Nexus: effectively, a living network of planetary Minds, cooperating and sharing information, working together for the common benefit. The galaxy is huge, something we lose perspective of locked away on our little worlds. There was never any problem with cultures expanding, of colonizing new worlds, of growing. By and large, I think, the galaxy must have been a pretty good place to live. Maybe it really was the golden age that Ondo likes to talk about.”
Selene thought about the nanotube mesh. Had that been used to hold the vast and disparate culture together? The mesh might be ancient, but the Coronadian culture could have found it and started using it. She must mention the idea to Ondo.
“Your forebear was a key part of it all,” she said.
“A small part, I think, but I grew up imagining what it must have been like to be her. The people she met and the places she saw.”
“Coronade's very existence proves that Concordance's story of a galaxy riven by conflict and horror is untrue, especially if there were people like your ancestor there, working to resolve disputes.”
Hessia nodded at that. “Her name was Magdi. Growing up, I heard all these stories about her, and I left Periarch with Aefrid Sen's help intent on finding out about her. I think that there was a lot of guilt in her head – not unlike you, in fact. But I don't only mean because she survived when so many didn't. At some level, also, she blamed herself for what happened.”
“Blamed herself? That makes no sense.”
“Her journals spell it all out. During the negotiations that I mentioned, she told a lie and swore by the nexus of worlds and by the Coronade Mind that she hadn't lied. A small thing, perhaps, but it bugged her, because very soon afterwards everything that she'd sworn upon was gone. It all fell apart.”
“She told a white lie to achieve peace. That doesn't seem like a sin.”
“She connected two things that weren't connected. People do. Empaths are especially prone to getting the wrong perspective on things. We have a tendency to catch negative emotions like other people catch viruses, or we slip into thinking that our own position in the universe is more important than it is because we ride the mental states of those around us. Some empaths succumb to the delusion that they control those around them.”
Selene wondered if all that was another reason Hessia had chosen to live her lonely existence. “You devoted your life to recovering the truth. You weren't so different to me and Ondo.”
The twinge of pain flashed across Hessia's face and was gone. She looked troubled by what she was about to say. “Perhaps. I had an experience soon after I left Periarch; a moment of revelation. I was on a dead world, the population just bones and dust beneath my feet. It was … peaceful. Then I felt it. Do you think it's possible to pick up the emotions of the dead?”
“I don't know,” said Selene. “I've seen no evidence it's possible.”
“Maybe it was all in my head; a reaction of my own. But it was a moment of clarity, and it changed me. I decided then to try and give a voice to all those who've been silenced. Magdi, yes, but everyone. Or as many people as possible. Until then, I'd been suppressing my nature as an empath.”
“That's possible?”
“If we choose, we can boost our empathic sensibilities with the relevant hormones. I believe Magdi would have done that in her role on Coronade. On Periarch, I habitually took the opposite drugs, to suppress my ability. I thought I was doing it for the good of my health, but now I see that I was running away, cutting myself off. I made the decision to embrace my own nature, and to slowly boost my empathic senses to where they now are. Although, as I say, lately I'd given up. Convinced myself I'd recover the truth some distant day in the future. Then I picked up your broadcast.”
“How did your forebear escape Coronade if it was under such heavy orbital bombardment?”
“It's a part of the story that speaks volumes about her. One of the warring parties – someone Magdi had been in conflict with not long before, whom she'd accused of committing a murder in fact – risked herself to return to the surface and rescue Magdi. A soldier called Pannax Ro from the planet Arianas. Magdi got away, barely, and returned to Periarch where her lover, Olorun, was waiting for her. My family survived on Periarch for several generations until I escaped. I guess
