“I need to tell you something, well, something important.” The speaker fidgeted on his seat and stole nervous glances at the advisor.
Said advisor could hardly be glanced at, since the water vapour surrounded him and was on its way to fill the room whole. He stared through the glassed wall of the room at the planet before them, absent. “Me too,” he mumbled around his electric cigar.
“You see, I’ve... What?”
The amount of nicotine the advisor breathed in wouldn’t have made the speaker cough at all. It would’ve made him drop dead right where he sat. “Fleet Command knows, I think. I mean, she’d need to be blind and deaf not to see.” He addressed the ceiling. “No offence, of course.”
“What did you do?”
“Let me tell you the whole story. It shouldn’t be too long.” The advisor put his cigar away, letting some of the vapour about him dissipate. “Back in the Griffin capital, I think something snapped in me.”
“You didn’t smoke before. At least not that much,” remarked the speaker.
“I didn’t. I suppose I was far more supportive of our ‘conquest’ here. Killing things that you’ve just seen alive and well a moment ago changes a man.”
The speaker was silent.
“I got a call, a confidential one, when everything started to fall apart, when they got reports of these new enemy ships. Fleet Command wanted me to host an interrogation, when the time arrives. For the Equine Elements. They got captured earlier today.”
“That’s what you went out for today? You knew?”
“I knew,” he said calmly. “Fleet Command didn’t want you, though. She knew there’d be tons of pressure involved and that I might have to singe them up a bit. I did have to.” He fished for a nerve medication in his pockets.
“And then we got the message from the excavation site.”
“They used their Elements. That’s what made the machinery there start to tick.”
“I thought they’re a weapon.”
“Well, they worked. They’re said to be a weapon of, ahem, friendship, after all.” The advisor chuckled. “Truth be told, had my hand in that. Deep down I knew they won’t kill us, and even if they did,” he took a nerve pill. “I suppose I want to know what Sajuuk looks like.”
“What did you do?”
“Remember me scrambling with the vent? I was planting EMPs to discharge the whole ship off. The cryogenic bays were untouched, though, of course. Our last hope for genetic differentiation is still alive. I planted a number of these charges on the Mothership. That’s why I believe Fleet Command knew. She’s the only god on her ships.”
“I’ve a similar confession to make,” the speaker said.
“Shoot.”
“I’m the leftist.”
“What?”
“The leftist.” The advisor hung his tired head. “I’ve sold the Equines the plans. Or rather, gave it to them. For free. And not just the plans. Every science book I could find.”
“You didn’t do anything.” The advisor took out his electric cigar again and breathed in the nicotine. “No one, no matter how damned intelligent, would be able to master our books in a month. Besides, there’s whole matter of our understanding of mathematics, physics...”
“I believe they’d be bright enough to understand. We don’t know how intelligent their ‘old ones’ or whoever they have for professors are. They’re a bright race, but bright in a different way.”
“‘Bright in a different way’ is something you tell a kid you know will never get to pilot a ship.”
“You see, I’ve learned something from them. The Equines have managed to avoid struggles among themselves for millennia. They’re ruled by a diarchy, but they love the authoritative rule. They understand social sciences far more than we do. They’ve formed something near what we’d call a utopia.”
“Leftist blabber.” The advisor shook his head. “They won’t build a ship, and as long as our descendants aren’t retarded, they won’t be getting the hyperspace drive from us. And they aren’t developing it themselves anytime soon.”
“No one beside the Progenitors did...”
“Somehow, they still managed to understand how our ships work and build their own version. It isn’t possible to be done in a month. How?” The advisor stood up and kicked the soft carpet covering the floor. “How!?”
The speaker turned his gaze at the ceiling. “Perhaps, just perhaps, that question can be answered someday.”