Verdant Song

by Mixolydian Grey

In the Shadow of Verdence, pt. IV

Eikon arrived near the bridge not more than a few minutes after the rest of the hunting party. The encounter with that mare hadn’t lasted more than thirty seconds, though it had felt like much longer. His mind had raced with the possibilities as he approached the bridge.

The engines had shut off while Eikon was en route, and he felt a momentary pressure in his head as the Alcubierre field engaged. The ship had finished the maneuver and was warping. The only worthwhile destination was Equus.

Out of the factions who desired to reach Equus, only a few had been in any position to execute it. The ponies kept prisoner down in chemlab had all been accounted for not more than a few hours ago, and even if one or more had escaped, they couldn’t pull off something like this in such a short time. Kelantos had the will and the capability, but he couldn’t oppose the desires of the flock so blatantly. The same went for the other griffons, though none of them gave any indication of a desire to reach Equus.

The most natural assumption was that Kelantos had decided to oppose the flock. It offered an explanation with the fewest new assumptions. Occam’s razor, Eikon thought. But Occam’s razor wasn’t a truth detector, it was only a guideline for estimation.

The remaining possibility was the presence of another faction: survivors on the Song who had remained undetected thus far. That explanation raised many more questions… but those questions had answers. How had they hidden? The Song was a big ship, and there were places the griffons did not go.

Upon reaching the bridge, the last hypothesis was confirmed.

A handful of griffons crowded around Kelantos, attempting to control the blood loss from one or more chest wounds. Kelantos was in shock, barely conscious.

Globules of blood broke away from the wounds and drifted like bubbles. Everything became soaked in blood; it went everywhere. The hastily improvised bandages, their hands, their feathers…

For a brief moment, Eikon observed the strangeness of his own calm. Kelantos had been shot. Eikon should have been moved in some way, but he found only the logical conclusion that the doctor would probably have everything under control, and that Eikon could do little to help.

His efforts would be best spent gathering information. He examined the surrounding area.

Doctor Theophanes was there. He had improvised bandages from the vest uniforms the griffons wore. But he hadn’t been hunting with the griffons. Also, a number of griffons were absent.

There was a stallion drifting at the end of the hall. He had lost so much blood from a chest wound, it formed a shimmering sheath around his midsection.

Motion flickered in Eikon’s peripheral vision and he turned. Dorian emerged from a doorway down the hall in the other direction, a small medical kit in hand. He noticed Eikon as he made his way towards the griffons. After handing off the kit to Theophanes, he flew over to Eikon.

“Theophanes was here first,” Dorian said. “Came up from chemlab when the ship moved.”

“Where are the others?” Eikon asked.

“Chasing a ghost,” Dorian said. “Theophanes claims to have seen Lennox.”

Eikon frowned. “The ship logs say he’s dead.”

“The ship logs say I’m dead. I wouldn’t put much faith in their accuracy.”

The last time Eikon had seen Lennox had been one hundred and sixty-five days ago, shortly after the incident that crippled the ship. Lennox and Kelantos had been talking, but Eikon didn’t overhear the words. Lennox had left Kelantos’ office and passed Eikon in the hallway, but Eikon didn’t know him well enough to pick up thoughts at a glance, and he wasn’t sure if the conversation had gone well or poorly. Kelantos was even more unreadable. After that, Lennox had disappeared. It was easy to presume him dead from the rioting. The griffons had been quite thorough.

As far as Eikon knew, Lennox’s only occupation on the ship was a sort of programmer. In the official database, he was listed as an officer of software development without any military rank. The role lacked routine duties and was called upon to deal with any issues or challenges that the original designers of the ship hadn’t already prepared for. There wasn’t any reason to believe that he would have been exceptionally prepared to deal with the fighting.

But the official records neglected a great many details.

“Who’s the stallion?” Eikon asked.

“I don’t know,” Dorian said. “You’re the one with the eidetic memory.”

Eikon glanced at the other griffons. Kelantos was still half-conscious and still bleeding, but had been thoroughly bandaged at this point. The griffons had arrived soon enough that he’d likely survive the blood loss. The real question was whether there was organ damage, but that wasn’t anything that Eikon could help with. Theophanes had the help he needed.

Eikon flew to the end of the hall where the stallion hovered, unmoving. Dorian followed.

The stallion’s helmet was smashed, and little bits of glass twinkled as they hung in a sort of sheet just a few centimeters above the floor. That suggested that the helmet was broken before the ship’s engines disengaged, and the inertia left the shards arranged in a horizontal plane. Kelantos had fought the stallion and subdued him before or during the acceleration.

Eikon reached out and gently lifted the stallion’s chin. He was completely unresponsive to the touch.

“Interesting,” Eikon said. “Note the marks here…”

There were claw marks around the stallion’s neck, the sort of red marks that came from pressure without piercing the skin.

If Kelantos had his claws around the stallion’s throat, there were only two reasons not to immediately kill the stallion. One: attempting to force the stallion to stop the ship. Two: another had been present and Kelantos needed a shield.

And if you took a hostage to hold as a meat shield, you held them from behind and likely faced the same direction. The marks were from the left hand claws, then… one on the stallion’s right and four on the left. Leaving Kelantos’ right hand free for a weapon.

A spear hung in the air at the opposite end of the hall. It could have drifted that far if Kelantos had dropped it. It could have been thrown. Eikon turned his attention back to the stallion.

Most of the stallion’s wounds were cuts, except for three major puncture wounds. Two in the chest had exit wounds in the stallion’s back, penetrating all the way through. The abdominal wound did not.

Eikon imagined himself holding the stallion in one hand and a spear in the other. There were only two good angles for stabbing with one hand… an underhand grip and an overhand grip. But stabbing lower would only make sense from behind. The abdominal wound was on the wrong side. And the higher wounds weren’t high enough. A stab from higher would have descended through the neck and shoulder area, killing in one thrust.

The evidence were entirely consistent with a scenario where Kelantos held the stallion from behind as a hostage or shield. The two of them had been shot by another.

“Which way did the others go?” Eikon asked.

Dorian pointed. “Theophanes said Lennox took off that way. The others followed. Through the crew quarters and then down to the axis.”

Another interesting detail, Eikon noted. None of the griffons had looked at the bridge, yet.

“Dorian!” Theophanes shouted from the other end of the hall.

Dorian muttered something before turning and flying back.

Eikon glanced over the griffons to see if he was also wanted. None of them were paying any attention to him.

He started to make his way to the bridge, spear in hand, but allowed his gaze to linger on Kelantos for just a moment.

Kelantos was conscious, though slightly delirious. His eyes moved… not with the lightning intellect of a chess master but with the same hollow fear that all creatures knew in danger. His chances of survival were fairly good at this point, at least as far as immediate survival was concerned. If he had been hit in vital organs, he’d already be unconscious.

Even still, Kelantos was mortal, and that realization struck all of them.

The airlock wasn’t far, but it was locked. Captain-ordered lockdown. The control panel wouldn’t let him do anything unless he gave the captain’s authorization code, which was long lost.

Eikon glanced down the hallway and shifted his grip on his spear. There was another airlock on the other side. He flapped his wings and took off, rounding a corner and heading for the other airlock to the bridge. It was dark, even to one with avian vision.

There wasn’t much reason to maneuver the ship again, once at warp. It was unlikely that any other survivors would hide near the bridge.

He eventually found the other airlock, a small alcove set into the wall.

The door control to this one was smashed open, with wires hanging out. A battery was tied in. This must’ve been how the stallion got on the bridge.

But the door was shut; Eikon couldn’t budge it, and there wasn’t enough power in the battery to unlatch the manual locks.

If he could somehow get this door open, he’d then have to deal with the next. It was, after all, an airlock. If the inner door was functional, he’d have the lockdown to deal with. But perhaps the other was broken as well…

And if it was similarly broken, he could get on the bridge and ensure that there wasn’t anything else planned for the engines.

He could shut off the Alcubierre drive, too. Stop the voyage.

He looked over the wires in front of him. While they were charred and damaged, it was fairly obvious which drew power and which opened the door. Two of them were bent upward from recent tampering while the rest bent down.

He rummaged in his pockets and withdrew a small flashlight. His heart beat faster as he unscrewed one end and slid the battery out.

There could be someone on the bridge, waiting. Someone who might attack. But if Lennox had been there, he had left, headed into the crew quarters. Could there have been others that had hidden themselves all this time? The Song was a big ship.

Eikon kept his spear close as he reached for the wires.

“What are you doing?”

Eikon spun, losing the flashlight and getting a clumsy grip on his spear.

Dorian should have smirked at Eikon's clumsiness, but he didn't. He just gave a cold scowl. “What are you doing?”

Eikon frowned. “Trying to get on the bridge. Making sure the engines won’t come online again.”

“They won’t.”

“How do you know?” Eikon slowly shifted his grip on his spear to something more natural and comfortable, more prepared.

Dorian’s gaze never faltered. He hung in the air, still, staring at Eikon. “Because the ship is already at velocity. It’s all warp from here on.”

Nausea churned in Eikon’s stomach. His wings tensed. “It couldn’t hurt to look.”

“It could.”

Was Dorian trying to stop him? Working together with Lennox? He still had his rapier sheathed at his hip… if this was a threat, it wasn’t one made too eagerly…

Eikon took a deep breath, trying to relax. If he just backed off, Dorian wouldn’t hurt him… he hoped. He knew too much, now, though. Dorian had revealed some intentions better kept silent.

Eikon held his spear in one hand and spread his hands in a sign of deference. “Okay. We don’t need to check, then.” His heart pounded, almost as if calling out. Eikon felt his rapid breathing pull at the muscles around his chest.

“I was sent up here to get you,” Dorian said. “We’re not worried about the bridge right now. It’s sealed off. We can’t get in.”

Sent by whom? “Okay. So what should we do now?” Eikon tried to breathe more calmly. Maybe the bridge was sealed off. Maybe it wasn't. But deliberately avoiding the truth was concerning.

Dorian shook his head and sighed. “You’re acting like I’m up here to stab you.”

Eikon hesitated. Wasn't Dorian up here, prepared for that? “Whatever gave you that impression?”

“I could ask you the same.” He glanced aside, then whispered, “Think about it. Think about the consequences.”

“You would be punished? None of the flock have killed another for—”

“No. The ship. The bridge.”

Eikon felt his eyes locked in place by Dorian’s hard stare.

“If we get on the bridge, we can stop the ship,” Eikon said.

“Which means that today will have changed nothing. Now, the alternative?”

Eikon frowned. If they went back now, told the others the bridge was sealed… It was deceit, it was one of the highest sins. But sometimes, an individual might choose a selfless sin, accepting their own damnation to secure a better fate for the group.

If he did nothing, the ship would arrive home. They had thought it impossible. It had been impossible, back when there were so many mouths to feed. But the mutiny that killed most of the crew had also been the very thing that allowed these stragglers, Lennox and the stallion, to fix the engines and send the ship home.

They all wanted to go home, but knew they couldn’t. Not because of the engines, but because of what they had done. These were crimes unforgivable. Eikon was as guilty as any of the others. If they went home, they would suffer the highest legal punishments. They had butchered and played games with the others, turned to savagery in their isolation. There was no going back after that.

But Eikon missed the sky. Even if he could only see it through bars, even if he only saw it once before being executed… He missed the sky. And there wasn’t anything left on the Song. They would eventually all die here.

“Well?” Dorian asked.

“If we do nothing, we go home,” Eikon said. “We’ll be punished.”

“We’ll be free,” Dorian said. He made a gesture toward the floor, the rest of the ship. “This is punishment.”

“You’d rather face justice back home?”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Dorian said, menace creeping into his voice. He nodded towards the airlock.

“Right.” Eikon let his wings extend slightly, not sure if he should move or stay put until Dorian gave an order.

Dorian finally turned away, breaking his hard stare. Eikon felt that he could breathe again.

Dorian took a moderate pace, moving down the hall toward the elevator.

Eikon cleared his throat. “The others don’t want to go home, you know.”

“I see the same things you do.”

The others would rather stay out there than suffer whatever awaited at Equus. Dorian apparently wanted to go home, instead. That made three, that Eikon knew of. There were perhaps one or two more, but the overwhelming majority was violently in favor of exile.

“So why are you different?” Eikon couldn’t help but ask.

Dorian smirked again. “Because I’m surrounded by idiots and I can’t bear the thought of being stuck with them any longer.”

That was probably a joke, but Eikon was curious enough to pursue it as if it were serious. “You want to be executed just because you don’t like us?”

“You’re so sure of what awaits, aren’t you?” Dorian said. “You should throw the dice a few times before the end.”

“Wait.” Eikon sped up and moved ahead of Dorian, turning as he did so. “Have you figured a way to escape all of this? Get home without being held responsible?”

“No, I haven’t. We can make something up as we go along.” Dorian seemed to enjoy Eikon’s mild surprise. “I try not to think so far ahead because I’m desperately afraid that I might end up like you.”

Eikon glowered at him. “And by the way, you don’t need to threaten me.”

“Why? Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

— — —

The tunnel through the central axis was not the only way to travel from one end of the ship to other. Dozens of smaller hallways and little rooms twisted around the axis, an outer shell to house auxiliary systems and the motors that spun the habitats. Lennox had studied the schematics thoroughly, finding every passage that could be of use.

Through these, it was possible to avoid the griffons and travel from point to point without placing oneself in the center of a giant, brightly lit tube with no concealment whatsoever along its thousand meter length.

Smaller passages led from this network into the docked habitats, one of which allowed Lennox to avoid the main airlocks and enter the habitat he and Solstice had frequently made home.

As he descended through the decks, moving farther from the axis, the centrifugal inertia gradually became stronger. The gentle change was much more welcome than the shock of the ship’s acceleration.

Descending, the habitat’s systems became more dense, as well. The idea was that, en route, as much equipment as possible would be kept towards the ends of the habitats, because the ends had the greatest centrifugal inertia and would be most like Equus gravity. It was more difficult to create the rotational acceleration, but was regarded as worth it. Once landed, the upper decks allowed a lot of room to grow.

He and Solstice had set up base camp in the habitat dedicated to electronic manufacturing and satellite control. The plaque read, ‘EMSC.’ The crew had made the acronym pronounceable by appending a little more of the last word, resulting in the nickname, ‘emscon.’

It was the habitat the griffons were least likely to spend time on, as it was almost entirely useless en route and the vast majority of the fabricators had been depleted months ago.There wasn’t anything on that the griffons couldn’t find elsewhere with less effort. Most of the areas of the ship had some overlap in functionality.

That overlap was also the reason habitat emscon had a small hydroponics bay sufficient to feed a dozen or so passengers indefinitely. A dozen or so ponies, anyway.

Griffons were not biologically capable of surviving on vegetables indefinitely, a fact that seemed to have worked out rather unfortunately for the crew. They could for a time, but the they couldn’t digest or synthesize all necessary nutrients from plant matter alone. The synthetic ‘meats’ were a step up, but even after two centuries, the only way to make a perfect substitute was to use a real animal, something that made the equines very uncomfortable.

Lennox ate in silence, scanning the room to distract himself from the taste.

Faint light from other rooms diffused through the hallways and into his room. It was sufficient for him to see his surroundings. There was no need to turn on the light when he was alone.

Computers surrounded him, though these weren’t connected to any of the ship’s systems. This was a control room for artificial satellites around Verdence. At the moment, almost nothing was of any use whatsoever. The fragile transmitters and receivers weren’t even installed on the outside because they wouldn’t have survived atmospheric entry.

Lennox finished his small meal, all he had the appetite for, and stared at the other side of the room. The cutting edge of his hunger was gone, but he was still exhausted. He needed to rest. But he also needed to go find Holly.

The griffons would… actually, they wouldn’t prioritize her at the moment. They were after him. Which would have made a good motivation to get up and keep moving, if not for the fact that he knew he was safe here.

If anyone came after him, he’d know. He had sealed doors behind him, not to lock them shut but to trigger alarms in his communicator. And if someone came, Lennox could lock the doors remotely and make for some escape path or hiding place. And even if the doors and sensors failed, Solstice could—

Lennox squeezed his eyes shut. No, the sensors wouldn’t fail. Solstice had built them. Solstice had always been the one to work with hardware, Lennox with software. Their complementary skill sets had allowed them to accomplish so much by working together. But it wasn’t enough, was it?

Lennox curled a hand into a fist as if trying to crush the smoothed claws within, then slammed it into the floor. A thud briefly echoed around him. The pain registered, dull and aching. He spat a curse, not from the pain but from something else. The pain was almost satisfying.

He relaxed his fist. Then, realizing that his entire body was tense, took a deep breath and relaxed all at once. Tension impaired efficiency.

Sitting around and doing nothing felt even more inefficient, but he couldn’t press himself to keep going for days on end without any break. With the griffons after him and away from Holly, he could afford a few moments.

Once his heavy breathing quieted to an inaudible level, he listened, trying to observe rather than process.

The ship had its quirks. Creaks and bumps here and there. Soft hums that came and went. They were distant and quiet. On the threshold of perception, he heard the ticking of Solstice’s watch, buried in a pocket in the discarded vacuum suit on the floor next to him.

He leaned over, rustled through the material to open the pocket, and retrieved the watch. Returning to his sitting position, he held it up to the faint light.

It glinted. The band was composed of gold links, the watch face a sort of granite black with streaks of lighter grays. The numbers were engraved in silver Romane numerals.

If he paid careful attention, he could feel as well as hear it. Like a gossamer metronome, it ticked out an almost-but-not-quite-perfect sixty beats per minute.

It was old, beyond obsolete. And though some of the old analogs were still manufactured as collectors’ items, this was not a replica. Lennox turned it over, saw the faint scratches around the edges. The manufacturer and the year were carved into the back. This was an authentic analog watch, well over a hundred years old, still functioning as if it were new.

It was truly an elegant piece of craftsponyship, but something of zero practical value. Its uncertainty was on the order of tens of seconds at best, woefully inferior to a digital timekeeping device.

Why would anyone take something this rare and valuable and useless on a mission like the Song’s? Equines were a sentimental species, and sentiment was not entirely unknown to griffons, but there was a difference between a sentimental reminder of home and a priceless historical artifact in mint condition being brought along on a dangerous voyage.

It almost seemed appropriate to hide it somewhere, to tuck it away and keep it safe in the manner of a dragon. But griffon tendencies made use of gifts, as a gesture of respect to the giver.

But it was much too large to fit around his wrist, and it felt like defiling a holy relic to remove some of the gold links from the band. He slid it into a pocket on his vest and sighed.

If he listened closely, he could still hear it ticking. A constant reminder of the passage of time. For every tick, the Verdant Song traveled one and a half astronomical units in normal space. And for every tick, the other griffons had an opportunity for unspeakable violence.

Something like thirty hostages survived in the darkest areas of the habitat the griffons claimed, Chemlab. Lennox didn’t know where they were or how many survived. He didn’t know how the griffons kept the area defended, or how he could get in undetected. He and Solstice had dealt with that issue over and over, not finding any satisfying solution to the various problems with the goal of rescuing the ponies. They opted to worry about the ship first because saving the hostages yet remaining stranded wasn’t much of an accomplishment.

The problem was always avoiding the griffons. Even if Lennox could sneak in, even if the ponies were still alive, the problem of getting out arose.

Just like the bridge.

Except, this time, you don’t have any allies to sacrifice.

He clenched his beak and squeezed his eyes shut.

It had been the only way out. They both would have died otherwise. Solstice was going to die either way; they couldn’t have escaped from that together, not with Solstice wounded so severely, not with an entire hunting party at their back. One survival was better than zero, wasn’t it?

Only if it results in more survivals later on. Only if he could somehow rescue the ponies down there, make his own life count for something, make Solstice’s death count for something.

If not, the Song would arrive in Equus space full of griffons and blood. If he failed here, then the return of the ship would destroy any chance of peace between the races. No diplomacy could recover from something like that. It might be better for Equus if the Song remained lost. Speculation and accusation was better than solid proof that one species had butchered the other.

He sighed. Solstice had been right. The worst thing you can do is stop and think. Success depended on momentum.

His legs protested as he stood again. But there was no more time for resting. Holly needed help, assuming she was still alive. In all likelihood, the griffons had already killed her. But he wasn’t about to go run towards them to reach engineering, so an alternative means of discovering her fate would be necessary. A room full of computers offered a convenient solution to that problem.

Even though most of the computer systems were permanently locked, there was probably some small hole he could squeeze through and gain access to ship-wide surveillance instead of just the surveillance for Emscon.

After dragging himself to his feet and slumping into a seat at one of the computer terminals, he set to work.

It took him roughly thirty minutes to find out that access to Chemlab would be nearly impossible without the captain’s authorization, but he could get into the main sections of the ship… the axis and the command module and engineering. Rather than continue to fight with Chemlab’s security, he opted to scan over the camera feeds he did have access to.

There weren’t many functional cameras through engineering’s crew quarters or hallways, but he did have feeds watching over the reactor controls and the Alcubierre drive. As they were the most structurally durable areas of engineering, they had suffered only minor damage, and the cameras there were still perfectly functional. The doors remained sealed, a nearly invincible barrier to prevent any kind of tampering with the most vital systems. That was reassuring… the griffons couldn’t break in and stop the ship through brute force.

Less reassuring were the feeds watching over the crew quarters. It was dark enough that most of the cameras had switched into an infrared mode.

Lennox traced over the most frequent path of the griffon hunters. It was almost impossible to track anyone on the ship; they didn’t leave prints or any noticeable disturbance; they just glided through the air. But finding nothing was finding something. The griffons were not currently hunting. Assuming they kept to their schedule, the engineering module would be abandoned for the next week.

He hadn’t really figured out how that would help, though. He could potentially set up an ambush of some sort, use everything at his disposal to tip the odds in his favor, but even a handful of the others would be too many to fight directly. Lennox was no warrior.

Even so, there might be something floating around down there that would spark an idea. He flipped through camera feeds.

Engineering was the largest of the modules, mostly because of the reactors. But it was also the most dense… The engineers weren’t nearly as claustrophobic as the other passengers, and engineering lacked gravity for about two-thirds of the voyage. There were tiny hallways that twisted around each other, linking storage and arcane machinery like something between a ball of knotted yarn and an anthill. If there was anything left that the griffons hadn’t already found, it would be in engineering.

One of the feeds gave a brief glimpse of light around a corner. He tried to find another feed showing the hallway it came from, but none gave a good view.

Could be a lost computer tablet or something. It wasn’t far off from the griffons’ usual paths, so it could have just been something they dropped, or something they found hidden but then tossed aside when they found how useless it was.

He left that feed and searched through some others. There was a lot of maintenance equipment left floating around. Small cleaning robots and the like. Nothing useful, of course, unless one got very creative.

He found a small room with a working fabricator and made note of its location. It looked like it was out of raw materials, but that was easy to fix. If you weren’t picky about what came out, you didn’t need to be picky about what went in. A chunk of scrap metal could become your next longsword. Guns needed to be a bit more precise, though. This was one of the “brute force” fabricators… fit for larger items, precise to a millimeter or so, not the nearly microscopic precision of some of the others.

After flipping through the rest of the active cameras and finding nothing of interest, he went back again. Perhaps Holly had left the engineering section. But it was also possible that he had simply missed her. With so many of the cameras disabled at the moment, it was possible that she was between working camera ranges.

The unidentified light from earlier was gone. It wasn’t likely that an inanimate object would hang in the air, still for a minute, and then suddenly accelerate without cause.

He flipped through the feeds, trying to build a mental picture of the nearby decks to anticipate where it would end up. Just as he was narrowing down on the possible locations, he came across a small mare drifting across the field of view, horn aglow in the infrared.

If not for the recording and rewind capabilities, he would have thought it a hallucination. Holly had actually survived a hunt and escaped.

The griffons must have left her behind when they ran for the bridge.

When they had reached the bridge, they would have found Kelantos and Solstice, maybe caught a glimpse of Lennox… Depending on how thoroughly they wanted to catch Lennox, they would probably split off into two groups. One to continue pursuing Lennox, one to attempt to take care of Kelantos. Eventually, there would be a third… one to finish that hunt. Her twenty-four hours weren’t up, yet.

She was on the opposite side of the ship, though. And to get to her, Lennox would have to go through the axis or the hallways around the axis. If the griffons were still chasing him, he’d be putting himself right in the heart of their search.

Holly had time to hide. Assuming she was resourceful enough, it wouldn’t be that hard, especially if she could make it to one of the habitat modules. The main issue with being hunted was that you were constantly surrounded. But if she was alone for a while, she had all kinds of possibilities open to her. She could disappear and scrape together enough supplies to survive.

Of course, if he found her and they worked together, they’d likely have greater chances of success. He couldn’t have moved the ship without Solstice.

But Solstice hadn’t ever been hunted. Holly might try to kill Lennox on sight, and no amount of explaining could change her mind… He was a griffon, after all. After an experience like that, there was no telling how she might react to him.

And, admittedly, he wasn’t particularly approachable or… friendly.

If he went out looking for her but she hid from him, he’d be endangering himself. He might end up pinned between her and a flock of griffons. Conversely, if she was looking for help and he wasn’t there, she would be endangering herself.

Lennox frowned. It was a classic situation in game theory. The almost aptly named stag hunt.

Two players. Each has two choices: hunt a stag or hunt a hare. A successful stag hunt rewards each player with two points, but the stag hunt is only successful if both players choose that option. If one hunts the stag while one hunts the hare, the stag hunter fails, getting zero points, and the hare hunter only earns one point. If both hunt hares, they each earn one point.

It was a game of social cooperation versus safety. Working together meant greater rewards, but you never knew if you could trust the other to contribute, and if you go it alone, you fail. There’s always the safe option: hunt the hare… but with low risk comes low reward.

Of course, in the game theory version of the problem, each player knows nothing of the other’s true intent… it’s a game of chance.

He watched her for another minute, trying to read some hint of her thought processes. She was panicked. The way she looked around and wandered that she clearly had no idea where she was going or what she was going to do.

But, to her credit, she had managed to pull a light source out of thin air, and every once in a while, she’d stop, close her eyes, and it would grow a little bit brighter.

After a few iterations of that, it was bright enough that the cameras didn’t need to use the infrared mode, and they switched back to optical mode, giving full color.

White coat, red mane, mint-green eyes and magic aura. The sibling resemblance was strong.

Optimize the outcome. The family member is likely to die with or without treatment. Simply put, one death is better than two.

The math said stay. The math said it wasn’t worth the risk. Choose the hare. Play it safe. Optimize the outcome.

But it wasn’t a matter of one point versus a chance for two or zero. How many points was Holly worth? How many points was a promise to a dead stallion worth? Game theory actually did have numbers for those, concrete numerical values assigned to define the value of life, rough approximations to allow for quick assessment of cost and benefit when intuition failed. Only the highest levels of authority used them. Only the generals and senators, the theorists and advisers who knew nothing of the frontlines, who had never walked among the battlefields and seen the bloodshed.

I guess it is pretty simple to let them die when you’re only looking at numbers.

Solstice had prioritized the fate of the ship over himself and his sister. Solstice had chosen the mathematical option in a case where it truly was the better option, where thirty lives were pitted against one.

That problem was mostly solved. The ship was on route. There wasn’t anything to be done for the other hostages. But for Holly… Lennox had promised to find her and take care of her. A griffon’s promise. Griffons did not take promises lightly.

But it was still math. There were still possibilities and consequences and a best course of action to be calculated. The griffons were hunting for both Holly and Lennox, though Lennox was temporarily the priority. Leaving his hiding place would be a huge risk.

There wasn’t any guarantee that she would even be willing to talk to him, let alone work alongside him.

But judging from her behavior, it was highly likely that she needed help to survive. She couldn’t choose the safe option.

Lennox curled his fingers around the pocket containing Solstice’s watch. Damnit, Solstice… This wasn’t game theory anymore.

Comments

[TheGrandNil]

OMG Thai is soooo epic!!!!

This story is amazing, and is quickly rising up my list of favorite fimfics ever!