“FM and Jorgen?” Arturo said. “No, not like that.”
That wasn’t much of a comfort, but as they all seemed committed to seeing this through, I supposed I should leave their internal politics alone.
Arturo watched me quietly.
I sighed. “You still think I’m going to betray you?” I asked.
“I hope you aren’t,” he said. He didn’t seem upset about it either way. Merely uncertain.
“You could also betray me,” I insisted. “You could promise the Superiority you’ll bring me in, use me and my people as a bargaining chip to get yourselves a better position the way Quilan is doing.”
“We could,” Arturo said. He seemed surprised, like he hadn’t thought of that.
I hadn’t meant to give him any ideas. They’d be heroes, enough that their commanders might forget about their court-martial. Their admiral could claim this was his plan all along. That was what our Council would do in such a situation.
“But we won’t,” Arturo said. “We’ve come all this way to secure an alliance. Those are our orders.”
They were not-orders, as I recalled. But I wasn’t going to mention that.
“Thank you,” I said. Arturo nodded, but we both watched each other uneasily.
I waited for him to leave, but he kept standing there. Did he not want to leave me alone in this room? Did he think I would sabotage it somehow? “You don’t have to watch me every minute,” I said.
“I know,” Arturo said. He seemed surprised again, like the idea hadn’t occurred to him. “I was just wondering why you’re doing this.”
I blinked at him. “Trying to rescue my friend?”
“Fighting the Superiority,” he said. “When you described it back on Detritus, it sounded like your lives are good here.”
“They are,” I said. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”
“So if your people joined the Superiority, what do you think would be worse?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. It was hard for me to imagine exactly what that would be like. Giving in to the Superiority felt like the worst thing that could possibly happen, but on the surface I could see how it would look attractive to the humans after the years of war and terror.
“I don’t think they’d try to exterminate us,” I said carefully. “If they were going to do that, they would have done it years ago, after we lost the last war.”
“Okay,” Arturo said.
“But I think they would oppress us.”
“And they’re not oppressing you now?” Arturo asked.
“No, they are,” I said quickly. “They withhold the secrets of hyperdrives from us, try to control how we use cytonics, tell us what aspects of our culture are ‘lesser’ or ‘advanced.’？”
“Do you really want to fight a war with them just because they’re critical of you and refuse to share?”
“It’s not that,” I said. “They actively try to stop us from learning. They tell us that wireless technology is dangerous, that cytonics are dangerous—but they became a powerful civilization through the use of those same resources. By denying us access—it’s not only that they won’t help us, it’s like they walked through the door and then locked it behind them.”
Arturo nodded. “Still,” he said, “what do you need that technology for, if you want nothing to do with them? Wouldn’t that be the only reason you’d need it? To interact with them?”
“We need it to fight them,” I said. “Because we don’t want to be under their control. Because we’re not ‘lesser.’ We’re intelligent, and we have a right to direct our own lives and our own future. We’re not trying to take over from the Superiority. We only want to exist without their interference and their…judgment.”
Arturo nodded. I got the feeling he wasn’t arguing with me. He was trying to understand. “And that’s worth it to you,” he said. “To risk war, to risk them deciding to exterminate you after all. To risk your life and the lives of everyone you love, the lives of your whole people. To avoid being judged by them.”
“It’s not only that they judge us,” I said. It was so hard to define, but I felt the resistance to everything the Superiority stood for like it was a part of me. “It’s that they judge us and find us wanting. And if we cooperate with them, it’s like we’re admitting they’re right. That we are lesser. And we’re not. We are equal beings who deserve to be treated as equals. And I would rather risk everything than capitulate, because I can’t deny that to myself. It would kill me to do it.”