Fastoshi: Chronicles

“Fourth, as reparation for the millions of lives and trillions of marks in property lost, a cube of pure duraylium two centimeters on a side will be transferred from the Imperial Treasury to the Bank of Terra.  Finally, an embassy will be established on each nations’ home planet and relations normalized,” I said, reaching the end of the demanded terms.  I bowed again, bowed to the Primary and closed my briefcase.  Leaving the document on the Rostrum as I was supposed to do, I headed back up the stairs and the doors swung open to let me out.

The doors closed and my shoulders sagged as I regained my seat.  “Now we see what happens,” I whispered, and found myself asking Deus to let me see my wife again.  I fished into my briefcase and pulled out a small water bottle.  Taking a pull at it, I wondered if I would make it off this world.

The attendant turned as one of the doors opened slightly; there was a whispered conversation, and she looked straight at me, her feline eyes widening slightly.  I put my bottle away and closed the case as she said, “The Council desires your presence, sir.”

I stood and walked back in, stopping only when I reached the well of the chamber.  Lord t’Yamka stood behind his desk, and the Councilors looked even unhappier than he did.  “Ambassador Mortimer,” he said, “the Council has voted to accept the terms offered by Terra, and agrees to all stipulations.”  He bowed to me, and I bowed back, mystified.

Agreement to all stipulations meant that they had conceded the point that they had attacked us first, without warning or provocation.  We had thrown that in to shame them – where did they get off actually admitting it?

“An increase in neutrino flux,” she observed.  “The local star showing any trouble?”

“No, ma’am.  The vector was wrong, and there are no local supernovae.  The neutrinos were found to have come from fission sources on the planet’s surface,” he said in a flat tone.  Several bright blue dots appeared on the map, four on one continent, and three on the largest.

“Interesting.”  The boundaries started to fade as the map grew weather patterns again and started to move, the line between night and day sweeping over it.  “I’ve set the map in motion again so you could see this, Director.”  The use of her title unsettled her remotely as she watched.

Day after day passed, perhaps one every fraction until suddenly the terminator stopped over the southwestern quadrant of the continent that held the most fission sources.  “Watch carefully, ma’am,” r’Tazh said as he magnified the image.

A sudden point of light welled up, illuminating then shouldering aside the clouds over the desert region; the light revealed a range of mountains to its west and a roiling cloud of dust beneath it.  The textual gloss to the left of the image began streaming line after line of data from the detectors placed on the planet’s satellite.  “All of our subatomic particle sensors went wild at this point; we didn’t know the cause until we backtracked,” r’Tazh said.

M’Han swallowed once, convulsively, then said in a soft voice, “Please tell me that was not what I thought it was.”

“I’m afraid there is no doubt, ma’am.”  R’Tazh glanced down at the image, where the fireball was cooling and drifting off on the stratospheric winds.  “It was a nuclear detonation, fission type.  Primitive and messy, according to the sensors.”  His tail slid across.