Mack, Tens, and Delight were sitting across from me, but they were wearing the same looks they reserved for when I was being particularly argumentative. I stopped, and felt myself blush.
“No offence, intended, your Majesty.”
She flicked her antennae in the vespis equivalent of a human shrug.
“At least you asked. There are others here who are curious, but did not.”
Tens blushed, and I wondered why he hadn’t stepped forward, given he wasn’t that shy. The queen continued despite my curiosity.
“Both sides suffered casualties, and it was felt full integration was not conducive to a healing environment. History has shown that this might have been a mistake, and we have learned.”
I remembered T’Kit talking about housing the most troubled settlers in weaver settlements until their phobias faded, or facilities where their survival appeared to depend on being cared for by weavers, and wasn’t sure that was the best approach, either.
“You humans call it Stockholm syndrome,” the queen said. “We do not see why that human tendency cannot be made to work in the favor of all. We will use varying degrees of proximity saturation to ease the transition for all our peoples.”
From the way she said it, humans weren’t the only ones with phobias.
“Indeed, not,” she said, “which brings us to the next mission. We have delayed long enough, and reports from the area are disturbing.”
My mind shivered with impatience as I wondered why she had delayed, at all, and every face turned towards me. The vespis, of their own accord, and the humans because they were following the vespis interest. The queen’s reply was embarrassing enough, without knowing it was being broadcast to every mind in the room.
“You are the promise that humans can work with us all. We could not go without you. You make it permissible for humans to be given the chance to work with the other races of this world—but you must be seen. At least, at first.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Hearing Delight and Tens laughing in my head did not help at all, and I tried to calm the rush of nerves across my skin.
“But why?” I asked. “I’m nothing special. I’m just as human as the rest of them. I…”
I stopped, not at all sure how to carry on. Energy transferred into a shifting nausea, a restlessness that rolled my stomach, and made my limbs ache. The queen didn’t appear to notice.
“You are the only human to have taken on an arach and humans in public defense of a weaver, the only one to have led vespis warriors into battle.”
She followed that statement with a series of images: me telling Odyssey not to shoot the spider, me shooting at the arach charging across the airfield with the vespis flying in my wake, me facing down an arach warrior with nothing more than a chair…
“But, how do they even know?”
The queen cocked her head.
“We are psi. Such images spread quickly from one mind to another.”
“But I wasn’t the only one…” I began, and the look on Mack’s face checked me.
Oh. Yeah. I pretty much had been the only one in those scenes.
Damn.
I wanted nothing more than to walk out of the room, and I knew I couldn’t, so I hid the only way I knew how. I folded my arms on the table, and rested my head on them. Mack cleared his throat, his orders clear in the implant.
“Sit up.”
I didn’t want to. Being singled out like this was bad enough, but… really? I lifted my head from my arms and then rested it against the table, propping my elbows either side, and using my forearms as a barricade, while I gave him a single-digit salute with both hands.
“Cutter!”
“Fine.”
I sat up, but I didn’t look at any of them.
“Just tell me what I have to do,” I said, scrubbing my face with my hands, and pushing down the urge to wave my arms and shout.
My cheeks felt like they were on fire, and I knew I had turned a lovely shade of scarlet. Trying to ignore that, I fought to get my shit under control, and to box the emotion and embarrassment as far from the rest of me as I could. This was not about me. This was about saving a world.
“Now that we have that out of the way,” the queen said, drawing attention back to the top of the conference room. “This is how we are approaching the problem.”
I tried to relax. It was a relief to sit through the rest of the briefing, without a single eye on me. I might be their poster-girl for Operation Reunion, but that was all I was. I only had to be there, doing whatever it was I did, when I was doing as I was told. I let my gaze travel over them, studying the room and the corridor beyond, noticing every change of expression, hearing every word with time enough to repeat it in my head. I missed nothing.
Mack started smirking, and I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue.
I was sure that, once the other humans started doing their thing to look after the other people on the planet, I’d be redundant in pretty quick fashion, local heroes and all that.
“You better hope so,” Tens whispered in my head, and I had the sudden, horrible realization that I might be asked to stay… permanently. Whether I wanted to stay, or not.
My heart started to race at the thought of Mack leaving me behind, that I might be stuck on one world, and only ever able to see the stars in a night sky—the same night sky…over and over, again.
“Would that be so bad?” the queen asked, and I realized I’d been staring out at Tens, could only imagine the expression on my face.
“Your Majesty…” I started, and then stopped. “Your Majesty, I…”
“I meant no disrespect,” I said, and pushed my chair back. “I… If you will excuse me, I
