Solace started to work, disconnecting the board from the walker as swiftly as she could, letting Olli’s clipped directions guide her hands. She composed what she wanted to say in the moments of quiet in between. What she’d been thinking, ever since her first clash with the specialist. And why do I care what she thinks? Not like it’ll change anything. But Solace did care. Olli’s accusations stung because they could so easily have been true.
‘You know the biggest topic of discussion in the Parthenon, since the start?’ she asked. As Olli sure as hell wasn’t going to ask her to elaborate, she continued, ‘We asked ourselves what Doctor Parsefer actually wanted, when she created us? She designed our society, coded our genome range, picked what she liked from a dozen Earth ethnicities and cultures. She even had a personal hand in a lot of our early tech. She was a polymath, smartest woman there ever was.’
‘Hate her already,’ Olli responded, then said, ‘Not that, the other one, with the yellow tape around it.’
‘And yet we still don’t know what she wanted,’ Solace went on, following each terse instruction. ‘This was before the Architects, you know? Did the Doctor want to come back to Earth, kill every boy-child and institute the Tyranny of Mothers? Or did she just want some part of humanity to develop that wasn’t . . . fucked up, in so many ways, and she thought parthenogenesis was the best way to make that happen? She wrote a whole load of science manuals, but no sociology at all. Then the war came and nobody had to decide. We were humanity’s estranged sister, returning to the fold when we were most needed. We were the warrior angels and everyone loved us.’
The walker’s board came free, because Colonial tech was designed to be taken apart and cannibalized at a moment’s notice. She dragged it over to the Scorpion, feeling her injured elbow every step of the way. Then Olli talked her through what to keep and what to discard. She was expecting more of Mesmon’s crewmates any moment and the sound of gunfire still rattled from elsewhere in the ship. But she was working quickly, and Olli’s instructions were clear and to the point. It had only been minutes.
‘Then the war was over,’ she went on, prising at a bent plate, ‘and step by step things went sour. You know that already. It’s in your historio-types too. Eventually it was so bad we just left Hugh outright. And then we started talking again, about what Doctor Parsefer meant. You ever hear of the War Party?’
‘Sounds like a riot,’ Olli said weakly.
‘It started in response to the Nativists. It had one message: They will come for us, so we have to go for them first. Generals, scientists, philosophers. They were mobilizing the fleet to swing right around and come back to Hugh, only not for talks. You ever hear that?’
‘Only a matter of time, right?’ Olli grunted. ‘Start connecting, now, if you’re going to. Patch me in.’
‘But one day, the entire War Party leadership was found dead,’ Solace said grimly. ‘All five of them, all in different ships, different star systems. All shot dead.’
‘Fuck . . .’ said Olli, despite herself. ‘What, you’re going to tell me that was you or something?’
‘Me? I was in suspension. Only heard about it next time they woke me up. A lot had changed by then. And nobody knows who did it, to this day. But the cabal that took over, they made it plain: that is not us. The Parthenon will not become what you people fear. And the War Party died because we were so close to becoming that very thing. Do you understand? We have the best ships, the best weapons. We come from the vat ready to fight, quicker to learn, just . . . better.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Solace’s hands were anticipating Olli’s guidance now. She was getting the hang of this mishmash Colonial tech. ‘But we made a decision that we were going to use our skills to be the shield and not the sword. Who knows? That decision might get made again, differently, in the future. But anyone trying to do that’s going to think about the War Party.’ She laughed, half bitterly, half embarrassed. ‘You know what mediotypes do the rounds, back home? There are things we’re not supposed to see but everyone has a bootleg copy. Stuff that students smuggle into the dorms? The—’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Actually, I won’t—’
‘Oh no, you better finish that thought. What?’
‘Sách vé faim.’ Solace said. ‘Means, “stories of the starving”。 Stories about your people, the Colonials.’