The Dushegubs braided their branches, creaking and hissing. Unessa stood alone, a hint of uncertainty on her lovely face.
“Proposition,” the largest Dushegub announced. “We leave, and Dominion builds a gate to Ugobuh. Do you wish to discuss?”
A green planet appeared on the screens with a description flashing by it. The Dushegubs wanted to colonize the other habitable planet in their system. Their spaceships were clunky, so an interplanetary gate would be the best way to do it, but what would the Dominion get out of it? Kosandion didn’t do things without a reason. He had permitted them to progress this far, so there had to be something he wanted out of this interaction besides their entertainment value.
“The Dominion will build a gate to Ugobuh if your civilization agrees to mine and supply the Dominion with all pulsar requarzite found there. Do you wish to discuss?”
Pulsar requarzite was an essential component of most energy weapons. Now it made sense. According to the description, Ugobuh was hot, swampy, dangerous, and generally inhospitable to most humanoid life. Mining on it would have been an expensive nightmare.
For the first quarter of their lives, Dushegubs remained stationary, their roots burrowing deep into the soil. They were organic miners, pulling the minerals out with their roots. They also took everything literally. If they said yes to this, they would dig in that planet until every last ounce of requartzite was extracted and safely stowed away in Dominion warehouses, because Kosandion didn’t want some requartzite. He wanted all of it. No sane creature would ever attempt to steal any of it with the carnivorous trees prowling the planet.
Not only would he get his mineral, but the Dominion would control the gate. They would be able to shut it down at will, severing all travel between the two planets. They would hold it over the Dushegubs to keep them in line.
There were times I was very grateful for Earth’s special status.
“We agree,” the Dushegub leader announced.
And they had gone for it.
The Dushegubs turned to leave.
“Wait!” Surkar’s voice rang out.
“What is he doing?” Dagorkun growled under his breath.
“What happens to her?” Surkar pointed toward Unessa.
“She has failed. We will consume her to recoup our resources,” the leading Dushegub said.
Unessa went white. The arena snarled in outrage.
“Statement: she is ours!” the Dushegub hissed.
“I wish to purchase the female.” Surkar held out a sack.
“Inquiry: what do you offer?”
Surkar tossed the sack to the Dushegub leader. The tree snapped it out of the air, ripping it in half. Golden spheres, fuzzy like dandelions, tumbled out. Baderi fungus, filled with rare nutrients. The Dushegub equivalent of the rarest caviar, a delicacy. He just dropped enough of it to ensure the survival of an entire acre of young Dushegub saplings. To the Dushegubs, it was nearly priceless.
“Statement: she is yours.”
The Dushegubs exploded into action, snatching the fungus and stuffing it into the cracks in their bark. In seconds it was gone, and the trees slithered their way to the portal and out of the inn.
Surkar looked at Unessa. “You are free. You can come with me if you wish. You will be safe. No one will abuse you.”
“Do you wish to go with him?” Kosandion asked.
Unessa gave Surkar a long look.
“Are you strong?”
“Yes,” Surkar confirmed.
“Are you rich?”
“Yes.”
“Do others serve you?”
“Yes.”
Unessa looked at the Sovereign. “I wish to go with him.”
“The Dominion has no objections. Does the inn?”
“No,” Sean said.
The arena erupted in applause. Surkar offered Unessa his uninjured arm. She held on to him. They made a victory lap around the stage, followed by the shaman.
“Damn it all to all known hells,” Dagorkun swore. “He was beaten and humiliated, and now he’s a hero again. That lackwit couldn’t come up with that move in a million years. Who helped him? Who? When I find out…”
“It was me,” Karat said.
Dagorkun froze.
“I told him how to put this together.”
He turned his head slowly to look at her. The shock and betrayal on his face was almost comical.
“Why?” Dagorkun squeezed out.
“Why not?” Karat sneered at him. “I do not owe you an explanation, Under-Khan. Our nations are at peace, but we are hardly allies. Consider it a small reminder.”
Holy crap.
Dagorkun surged to his feet and marched off. I barely had enough time to open the door for him or he might have just walked through it.
“I thought you and Dagorkun had…something?”
Karat gave me a short laugh. “No. Dagorkun and Gaston had something. I am a vampire knight. I’ve seen this kind of farce play out many times before. This was a competition between two men who disliked each other and decided I would serve as the winner’s prize without consulting me. Me, my wishes, my feelings were quite incidental to the entire affair. The Under-Khan is a smart man. I simply showed him he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.”
“None of them really are, dear,” Her Grace said.
Below us, Gaston waved his arms. “Six candidates are gone. Six remain. We have said our farewells to the departed and now we must begin the 3rd Trial.”
The remaining six candidates entered the stage: Amphie, Bestata, Oond, Nycati, Prysen Ol, and Lady Wexyn. A massive round table emerged from the center of the stage, sixty feet in diameter. Six chairs flanked it at even intervals. A terminal appeared in front of every chair, enclosed by privacy screens. The center of the table ignited, projecting a huge planet into the air.
Gaston grinned. “WELCOME TO GAME DAY!”
When Her Grace first arrived at the inn, she devoured popular culture, absorbing everything about Earth like a sponge. She watched countless documentaries, learned four languages, read thousands of books with ridiculous speed, and within six months, she could pass for a local provided she hid her teeth. Toward the end of that half year, she showed me a tablet with an advertisement for a computer game on it. It was the latest iteration of Civilization being offered at a steep discount, and within a day she was playing it.
Civilization started the player off with a small group of settlers, which it plopped at a random spot on the map. The settlers founded their first village, scrounged for resources, reproduced, began to grow crops, developed new technologies, created their first religion, and from that tiny seed, a mighty civilization grew, guided by the player all the way to the space age. That is, if the other civilizations didn’t destroy it first. Warfare was an integral part of the game. One could play against AI or human players, and Caldenia had done both. She had beaten that game on Deity difficulty more times than I could count and moved on to Stellaris and other similar games, but Civilization remained her first love.
The Dominion had their own Civilization, a staggeringly complex and elaborate simulation called Progress. But to the Dominion it wasn’t just a game, it was a national sport, complete with tournaments, professional teams, and very lucrative contracts. Playing it required an advanced understanding of economics, civics, military strategy, and resource management. The game was constantly evolving, changing as the Dominion expanded its knowledge base.