Doragha

By Jud Widing

Far in the future, war is fought entirely through simulations. No land is ever taken, no lives are ever lost. Like a game no one wins or loses. To be honest, it’s basically just peace with games. It’s pretty boring. Sorry for starting this off saying the galaxy was at war.

But you see, not too long ago the galaxy was at proper war. DORAGHA, that period was called. Terrible weapons were constructed to fight this war. Atrocities were commonplace. It all became too costly. In lives lost, but more importantly, in money. Hence the switch to simulations.

Which never sat well with the veterans of DORAGHA. One of whom, Major Bresden Lardenoy, resigned, vowing to take no part in this soft new simulation war. A vow he keeps for decades, until financial hardship forces him to begrudgingly re-enlist for an easy paycheck.

Doesn’t seem like an especially momentous decision, does it? It certainly doesn’t seem like the sort of decision that’ll kick off a series of increasingly dire diplomatic crises, roping in warriors and royals and bureaucrats and revolutionaries from an ever-expanding number of planets, threatening to plunge the entire galaxy back into the chaos of DORAGHA, or perhaps something even worse.

But, well...it is. Otherwise this book would be a lot shorter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jud Widing
• Release date: Apr 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005636630

Jud Widing

Jud Widing is an itinerant book person.

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DORAGHA

by

Jud Widing

Copyright © 2022 by Jud Widing

Cover artwork by Luke Oram

http://www.lukeoram.com

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Designed by Jud Widing

Edited by Gene Christopher

www.judwiding.com

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram: @judwiding

Anyone who isn't confused doesn't really understand the situation. - Edward R. Murrow, as quoted by Walter Bryan and others

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation. - Edward R. Murrow, as quoted by Julia O'Brien and others

There are no sources from which to quote Mr. Murrow directly on this line. It comes to us only through third parties, most of whom are apparently called Brian.

AGES AGO

One of the longest-surviving civilizations in the universe was that of the Derigibidians. Was because, well, they're all dead now, which is too bad for them. But hey. It happens. In the end, no one can survive civilization forever.

Enough about the end, though; the Derigibidians' story begins more or less the same as everyone else's. There was a bang - the Big one - after which the whole universe was totally screwy for a few billion years. Out from this infinite chowder belched the planet of Derigibidia, which wasn't actually called that until it evolved creatures audacious enough to decide they could give their planet a name. That done, those Derigibidians built a society, starting with a few nomads who banded together to form tribes, which settled into towns, which erupted into cities, which congealed into nations, each uniting with the others in the noble pursuit of doing genocides on each other because they all really wanted each other's stuff. A Stone Age yielded, with no small amount of bloodshed, to a Steel Age, then a Busgravine Age, a Polyester Age, a Dark Age, a Neomarmalade Age, until finally the Derigibidians arrived at their Space Age. The wars didn't stop all at once, but as more and more nations developed spaceships capable of flying as high as the upper mesosphere before exploding into a million little bits, the terrestrial conflicts came to seem increasingly meaningless. What was the point of killing each other for control of one measly planet, when there was a vast universe to explore, no doubt full of equally measly planets to control?

So as soon as the Derigibidians built spaceships that didn't explode so much, they went to space. And they colonized a whole lot of resource-rich planets, most of which already had things living on them when they arrived. Some of those things could well be described as civilized, even militarized, which made for tremendously thrilling wars, but those aren't the point right now so we'll blow past them. Everybody had laser guns though. Tremendously thrilling. But that's not the point right now.

The point is, the Derigibidians built themselves an honest-to-goodness intergalactic empire. Did such a good job building it, in fact, that at a certain point they ran out of galaxy to conquer. Which left them with nothing to do but manage their conquest. The belligerent types who had run the show for the past few millennia quickly proved ill-suited to the task; the bureaucratic, officious, and all-around fuddy-duddy types wasted no time in rising to the challenge. They erected themselves a throne of unnecessary paperwork, burying their martial predecessors in documents that needed to be signed in triplicate whilst a half-dozen lawyers hold hands and gallivant around you like a maypole. The Derigibidian military became little more than an enforcement mechanism for the new aristocracy's many, many, many little laws and rules, by which the rest of the galaxy was expected to abide. Which the ousted military-minded laser-gun guys didn't appreciate, to say the least.

Which makes it sound like the laser-gun guys are going to precipitate the downfall of Derigibidian civilization. That's usually how it goes, after all. But this time, it was the functionary-types who brought about the end, via the formation of the DSV.

The Department of Spacefaring Vehicles, or DSV, was created to establish certain standards in space travel. All quite dull safety-minded regulations, standardizing protocols in signaling and pre-emptive identification, enforcing certain safety measures between the vessels of various races, fairly unremarkable stuff. That said, they received the most pushback (read: had to blow up the most dissenters) on the imposition of speed limits. Why, these soon-to-be-blown-up contrarians asked, did there need to be speed limits in space? Space is really fucking big. One needs to go quite fast to get anywhere in it, and there's almost zero risk of two space travelers colliding with each other, given the lately-mentioned really-fucking-bigness of the place. Kaboom, they would add, as the Derigibidians blew them up.

These were small controversies though, all easily manageable. What really did the DSV in was their decision to play gatekeeper to the whole of space. Any civilization hoping to leave their own planet, the Derigibidians determined, would need to apply with the DSV for a license to do so. Any society that passed both a flight test, as well as a written one, were welcomed to space with open arms. Those who failed were free to try again. Those who questioned the enterprise as a whole would be unable to try again, due to kaboom.

Quite arrogant, for a species to appoint themselves that role. But nothing intrinsically empire-annihilating about that. Until a few centuries into of what the Derigibidians referred to as the Administrative Age, when they first became aware of a no-account planet called Earth, just starting to get serious about escaping what was left of its atmosphere. The Derigibidians paid Earth a visit in one of their many, many DSV satellite offices, which looked a bit like a twelve-story-tall knapsack made out of purple licorice, but also nothing like that at all. It definitely didn't look cool, which was what humanity had convinced itself to expect from their first extraterrestrial visitors.

Silly as it looked, the DSV satellite office landed with remarkable grace, its lower end swinging out and up, turning the entire vessel parallel to the Earth. Slowly, carefully, it completed its journey to the ground, silent in touchdown save the sigh of grass and soil compressed by the landing appendages.

After a bit of slightly undignified hissing and clicking, a gangplank peeled itself away from the main body of the satellite office. The assistant manager of this particular portion of the galaxy galumphed its way down the ramp, flanked by two of its assistants.

As it happened, the uncoolness of their spaceships reflected that of the Derigibidians themselves: they were horizontal-torso'd weirdos, with six pale camo-green limbs made up of thick ovular muscles strung together by popsicle-stick tendons. Far from the slick, oozing skin so often expected of alien invaders, the Derigibidians were a dehydrated, cracking-and-snapping bunch, all their moisture stored in cartilage sacs that we don't have time to talk about right now. The Derigibidians' bodies, which ran parallel to the ground, were thick chitinous rectangles balanced flat on four wide-hooved limbs of equal length. From the two ends of the rectangle burst those fifth and sixth appendages, arms which balled into six-fingered fists. Cap that all off with the puke-hued dome of a tiny little head plonked on the center of that perfectly-level body, a band of pale mustard sandpaper tracing its equator, and you've got yourself a Derigibidian.

For the record, they thought humans looked pretty dumb too.

Halfway down the ramp, the assistant manager halted, lifted a tiny purple square to its lipless mouth, spoke in Derigibidian, then gave its equivalent of a smile as the translation device spat out the words Hello, subjects! in perfect Humanese.

Unfortunately, the Derigibidians were far enough out from their own landlocked days that they'd forgotten one of the most reliable phenomena associated with space travel. Namely, that planets blasting people out into the galaxy were unified by the effort, as well as the easily-vilifiable others they were bound to meet. In time, the culture wouldn't wholly homogenize, but it'd telescope down to three or four key regional variations.

Planets that were only just getting around to blasting people out into the galaxy wouldn't have gone through such a homogenization process yet. Which meant thousands of different cultures, with different languages, social mores, and amenability to stupid-looking aliens landing in a ridiculous spaceship that wasn't even cool.

All of this to say, if the Derigibidians had done a bit more research, they might not have landed in Duluth, Georgia, with translator devices calibrated to flawless Cantonese.

As the bullets rained down upon them, the Derigibidians clundered back to their ship length-wise-forward, like big silly space crabs. Immediately, NATO invoked Article 5 of its charter; each signatory nation commissioned a series of derisive memes based on the footage of the Derigibidians' escape. They'd have preferred to launch missiles and stuff at them, but the Derigibidians had all flown away, leaving NATO with no way to let off steam other than making memes, and/or launching missiles and stuff blindly into the sky, which they did a bit of just as a little treat for themselves.

Everyone got quite a bit more serious when the Derigibidians announced their imminent return, in a broadcast beamed simultaneously to every wireless receiver on the planet. In each case, the message was delivered in the language spoken by the majority of the nearby popula-tion, or in the case of personal electronics, by the owner of each device. The subtext of their messaging was received loud and clear: they had done their research this time.

For the most part. The DSV announced that this time they would be touching down a few kilometers outside The Hague, which annoyed the Americans tremendously given that aliens are only supposed to land in New York, Washington D.C., or maybe London. Alas, off to the Netherlands went all of Earth's dignitaries, lining up to meet the satellite office as it once more met the Earth. The gangplank opened and spat out the assistant regional manager, now trailing behind the regional manager itself.

Here, in a variety of languages, the Derigibidians formally welcomed humanity into the Derigibidian empire, which was to say, the galaxy. They would be free to travel most anywhere they liked in it, as long as they observed certain rules, and, more importantly, passed the tests to receive their license. There would be a nominal fee, of course, just for administrative costs and whatnot.

Humanity asked what would happen if they didn't get the license, but continued their efforts to reach the stars. They were reminded that kaboom means the same thing in every language.

After quite a lot of grumbling, humanity assented, submitting their very best hotshot pilots to complete the spacefaring portion of the exam. This module proved simple enough. What tripped humanity up was the written test.

Insisting they didn't need to study because the laws were probably pretty intuitive, humanity's greatest minds flunked the first time. The second attempt was also a failure, despite a concerted (and grudging) study session. Finally, the third time, they flunked again. Humankind thusly decided that the written test was such bullshit, they knew how to fly, it was so dumb, they should get the fee back if they weren't gonna get a license.

All the while, they kept trying to sneak ships into space. The Derigibidians, however, were as good as their word, shooting down any and all vessels attempting to defy Earth's gravity, and so Derigibidian law.

Humanity insisted that this wasn't fair. The Derigibidians replied that it was.

Humanity said no, it actually wasn't, and they weren't going to abide it. The Derigibidians said yeah actually it really was fair, actually, and actually they were going to abide it.

The humans said no, actually, it's really wasn't, actually, but this time they also launched hundreds of thermonuclear warheads, each with an over one hundred megaton payload, at the orbiting Derigibidian ships, which looked very cool indeed as they exploded. Humanity's first productive foray into space (playing golf on the moon doesn't count), then, was harvesting the wreckage of the Derigibidian fleet from orbit, taking said wreckage to brightly-lit laboratories with so many holographic screens covered in data and numbers and stuff that it was honestly pretty distracting, and reverse engineering the technology that had allowed the DSV satellite office to find and reach Earth across the senseless expanses of space, into engines and vessels that would let them find and reach Derigibidia.

At long last, after hundreds of thousands of years turned inwards in parochial conflict, humanity came together as one people, to eradicate Derigibidian civilization. It took a good Earth-century or two, but in time, the humans reached their enemy's home planet of Derigibidia itself. "Looks like you failed the test, of life," Fleet Commander Johnsoid drawled as he pressed the button that fired the cannons that scorched the surface of Derigibidia, but by that point most people had forgotten about the whole DSV license test thing, so nobody really got his one-liner.

At any rate, that was how the Derigibidians died.

That wasn't to say humanity got the last laugh, though. Ill-equipped to take control of the crumbling Derigibidian empire, and now lacking a common enemy to unify them, the listless humans quickly reverted to what they did best: identifying differences among themselves and nursing them into prejudices. In this case, the scattered humans judged each other based on which colony they'd wound up on. Those who'd settled on Rivas-4 thought the folks on Holdortha were all crass, dirty dunces. Those who'd opted to make a home on Nilbor scoffed at the very idea that they could share a common ancestry with those fussy patricians on Allech. And so it went. Over time, they did what old friends who move away from each other have always done; they would periodically agree that they really ought to hang out, have some drinks and catch up on what each other's civilizations were up to...and then never actually make the plans. Stuff was always coming up, you know, and life was just so darn busy, what with everyone having kids of their own and all, it was hard to find the time to cross the stars and drop in on one's fellow homo sapiens. Particularly as the centuries passed, becoming millennia, becoming whatever the next one up from millennia is. During which time...they all changed. For while natural selection didn't work quite the same way in a post-civilizational world as it did in a pre-one, no species could truly free itself of selection pressures. Slowly, imperceptible, unpredictably, each pocket of scattered humanity was reshaped by the planet they'd settled on, ceasing to be humans altogether, evolving into scores and scores of distinct, post sapiens races. They became utterly unrecognizable to one another.

Which was fine, right up until each of the humanesque races started rediscovering their intergalactic ambitions, once more crossing paths after innumerable years' worth of supercharged divergent evolution.

The first thing they did was fairly standard procedure for two alien races meeting for the first time; they tried having sex with each other. Though successful in all the senses you would high-five your friends about, the post sapiens discovered that their evolutionary branches had split too far to make permit procreation, leading many to question or outright dismiss the historical claim of common ancestry in the form of this so-called human race. Whatever the truth of the past, their present was undeniable: they were, quite emphatically, different species.

So, naturally, they went to war.

It was a long, brutal, ugly war. Some scholars argued that it made more sense to speak of a series of wars, rather than a single unbroken conflict, while others countered that that was a distinction without a difference, to which the first scholars shot the other scholars in the face with laser blasts. Thus began the Historians' War, one of the countless smaller conflicts within the larger whole (just don't let the wrong sort of scholar hear you say that). There were all kinds of little wars in this period, battles and alliances and revolutions and coups and more battles and an unthinkable number of casualties. Those civilizations who shared no human ancestry did their best to steer clear of the violence, leaving the intergalactic gibbons to tear each other to shreds. And boy, did they ever.

This whole horrible period of general war amongst the post sapiens came to be known as Doragha.

The reason was simple: Doragha wasn't a word in any of the thousands of languages spoken by the combatants. It was just three syllables joining forces to form a nonsense. As such, calling the war Doragha was the only thing the no-longer-humans managed to agree upon.

Until, after hundreds of years of incalculable carnage, the Vigridians built their Drudgenaut. And the Corkarnans built their Drudgenaut.

Which gave everyone a second thing to agree upon. Whether they wanted to or not.

For whatever it was worth, Bresden Lardenoy was very much in the not camp.

A MAJOR PROBLEM

1

Bresden Lardenoy sat back on his heels and frowned up at Corkarna's Drudgenaut, leering down at the planet from the far side of the sky. Despite its being a towering phallus of a warship, so hysterically massive that its gravity periodically tampered with Corkarna's tides, so stupidly colossal it was somehow at least partially visible from almost every single point on the Corkarnan globe at any given moment, so unfathomably powerful that it had ended Doragha and brought about this damned Unwar without ever even activating its primary weapon...despite all of that, Bresden found he'd been pretty successful at just tuning the damn Drudgenaut out. It was either that, or let its inescapable, sky-blighting bigness ruin his day, every day. More than it already had, and did.

Speaking of: Bresden let his gaze fall back to the soil in which he sat, to the more proximate threat to his blood pressure. He plunged his hand back down into the dirt, and once more grabbed the root that had sent him reeling onto his heels, to have a nice skyward frown.

Mockroot in the otterstock, Bresden sighed, over a garden that he had just discovered would be barren by the rains.

Huh?

Bresden heaved his sigh, mighty and near-perpetual, towards the young man standing behind him. The kid's name was Cogburn. He was from the city. Strikes one and two, as far as Bresden was concerned. But...well, Bresden had signed up for the CUAEP cultural exchange program, so the revolving door of city kids being trucked out here to his farm was his own damn fault. CUAEP stood for something. Bresden couldn't remember what. All he could remember was the whole thing was some initiative to...give rich city kids a chance to see firsthand how a small business fails, and let farmers meet their future bosses. They'd framed it a lot more positively than that, but Bresden hadn't been listening. He'd been sold at the you get a tax credit bit of the pitch.

If only he'd known they'd be sending him people who were worse than property taxes.

What? Bresden asked Cogburn.

I said 'huh?', Cogburn repeated.

Bresden ran his hand through his dense grey beard. I was talkin' to myself.

Oh.

Scrtch scrtch, went the hand in the beard. Goddamnit...Cogburn wasn't a bad kid. Dumb as bricks and nowhere near as useful, sure, but that didn't make him a bad person. Just a fucking stupid one. Which wasn't his fault.

Bresden sucked air enough to blast out another sigh, then said mockroot in the otterstock, kid. That's what I said.

Oh, Cogburn nodded.

...you know what any of that is?

No.

This... Bresden gestured to the patch of the garden in which he was kneeling. These're the otterstock beds. You remember when I told you that?

No.

Bresden was briefly deafened by the grinding of his teeth. First thing this morning, I said to you, today we're weeding the otterstock beds. Which is what we've been doin' for thr-

I don't remember that.

...okay, Bresden managed, just...come... he pointed to the ground next to him. Come down. I'll show you.

In the dirt?

Yeah. Kneel down, I'll expl-

I can't kneel in these pants.

What do you mean, they're too tight?

No, they're Thertean leather.

Bresden narrowed his eyes at Cogburn.

Cogburn shrugged, clearly not appreciating that, on average, most people who had gotten that look from Bresden had received it on the battlefield. Shortly before receiving a laser blast to the forehead.

The hell're you wearin' offworld trousers for? Bresden demanded.

Cogburn shrugged. They're cool.

Bresden plucked at his royal blue workpants. So are these! Corkarnan-made! He released his pinch on the pants. Show some pride, man!

Everybody wears offworld clothes.

Bresden just shook his head. We're still at war, goddamnit.

With the Therteans?

"With everybody!"

Oh.

And you're...playin' dress-up with their garments. Bresden's head-shaking intensified. Even if it isn't a real war... he jabbed a finger into the dirt. "We're still at war!"

But, Cogburn replied, Therteans make the coolest pants.

Kid...kneel in the fuckin' dirt and look at the otterstock, or I'm gonna lay you out in it.

In the otterstock, Cogburn wondered earnestly, or the dirt?

Find out.

Cogburn pouted. Slowly, one knee at a time, he lowered himself into the squelching muck of the garden.

Bresden took a long, deep breath. The otterstock's fucked, kid. He grabbed a thin, pale vine up from the soil. This is an otterstock vine. Bit smaller than we wanna see it this far into the season, but I wouldn't be worried about that, if that was all I was dealin' with here. But... He grabbed the thick pink stem of a plant growing just beside - and fanning its leaves out over - the otterstock vine. We got sudoc. This is the weed you damn well better have been pulling over there.

Over where?

The... Bresden leaned back on his ankles and squinted at the bed he'd told Cogburn to weed. If I go over there and see as much sudoc as there was this morning, so help me... He trailed off as the words of many a CUAEP representative drifted through his mind: Mr. Lardenoy, threatening to kill the exchanges is unacceptable when done to excess. Please limit yourself to one threat per day.

Alas, Bresden had already threatened to kill Cogburn earlier today, when the kid had taken the last of the groutberries at breakfast. So he dropped the thought and continued: "Most times, sudoc grows in...hey. Hey."

Cogburn lowered his skyward gaze back to Bresden. Huh?

What are you lookin' at?

Nothing.

Well I'm fuckin' showin' you somethin', you wanna take a gander at that?

At what?

Bresden wrapped his hand around the base of this particular sudoc plant, twisted it to unmoor the roots, and yanked it out of the ground.

A few tenacious clods of dirt slingshotted off the roots and splatted onto Cogburn's face. He spat through pursed lips.

Sudoc, damn you! Bresden cried, shaking the plant in Cogburn's face.

Why are you yelling?

"Because I'm tryin' to teach you shit, which is the whole point of this godforsaken program, and if I'm not teachin' you then there's no point in you bein' on my goddamned property!"

Okay.

Bresden wheezed noisily through his nose. Sudoc, he continued with a tight jaw, grows low and wide. He used his free hand to spread one of the spotted green leaves out for Cogburn to see. Hangs its leaves out to suck up all the light. So the otterstock here, he nodded down at the pale vine resting in the dirt, doesn't get any. So it doesn't produce berries. So now I've got nothin' to take to fuckin' market other than the wymie honey. So I'm lookin' at a lean goddamned rainy season, feedin' my goddamned grandkids on nothin' but what that honey goes for. He throttled the sudoc in Cogburn's direction. You understand why I'm angry now, son?

So you've known this for a while, then, Cogburn replied.

...what?

Cogburn blinked. Can't we just pull up all the sudoc?

...yeah. Yeah, that was what I was wantin' to do, Bresden growled. Then I found this. He grabbed hold of the sudoc's roots, and spread them out for Cogburn to see. Specifically, the part of the roots that ended not in a thin tuft of dendrites, but in a flat, compressed knot, as though they'd been bunched and cut. See that there?

Lotta roots.

"Yeah. Lotta roots. This one, though. That's mockroot."

The one that doesn't look like the others look.

Right. Bresden nodded towards the pile of sudoc he'd already pulled. They got it too. Half the sudoc in this row, they're showin' me signs I've got a mockroot. He launched the sudoc in his hand towards the pile, then planted his hands on his thighs and grimaced at the ground.

And mockroot, Cogburn ventured, is not good.

No, kid. It's not. Without looking at Cogburn, Bresden lifted his right hand, and pinched an imaginary mockroot between his first finger and thumb, holding them two millimeters apart. This big. That's the mockroot. That's all. Just a tiny, damnable dirt tussock. All it takes to ruin a good man.

And now you, Cogburn offered innocently.

Bresden glared at Cogburn, but found his attention drawn back to distant contemplation. You pull somethin's grown a mockroot, mockroot just...it's like a root for the root, you know? Mockroot's gonna let go of the main root system, let you think you got it all out. Meanwhile it's still down there in the dirt, growin' back the plant you just pulled, double-time. Likely layin' more mockroot as it goes. Can't stay on top of it.

Oh.

"Oh is right. He shook his head. And what drives me up a goddamned wall with these things is, we made 'em. In a manner of speakin'. Bresden met Cogburn's gaze. Artificial selection, you know what that is?"

It's when the bounceball teams pick which university kids get to play in the pro league.

No, kid. No. Bresden sniffed. Say a farmer comes along and pulls a weed without a mockroot. As long as you get the roots, the weed's gone. Don't have to worry about it anymore. But some of these things...I got no clue how, but they grow themselves a mockroot. Just random mutation or what, I don't know. But it's this... he once more pinched an invisible mockroot between his fingers, "...this fuckin' little...piece of shit...checkpoint thing, lets it regrow. And fast, too. Like it learned from the first time. Like it's got better at bein' a fuckin' nuisance, and killin' my fuckin' otterstock. And the more you fuckin' pull 'em, the smarter they get. Faster they grow, I guess I oughta say. But I don't know, kid. I know it's mindless. It's a plant. But...sometimes feels to me like it's got malice. Am I imaginin' that, seein' as it's somehow easier'n gettin' pushed to the brink of goddamned destitution by a mindless fuckin' mockroot? Maybe? Could be. I just don't know."

Cogburn paused for a few thoughtful moments. Man, he finally weighed in. That sucks.

It does, kid. It really d-

Can I take a break?

Bresden's brow fell so heavily, he'd have sworn it made an audible crang noise. What?

Can I take a break?

"...a break from what?"

Cogburn looked at his knees in the soil, then back up to Bresden. Whatever I'm doing.

"Oh, you mean you want a break from doin' nothin'? So you wanna do somethin'?"

The kid curled his nose up. That doesn't sound right.

Can you repeat one thing back to me I just said?

"...uh...you said fuckin' and goddamn a lot."

Kid.

That's two things.

"I'm explainin' to you my life is this far, up came the invisible mockroot again, from fallin' in to a fuckin' crater. Whatever armor you got in that massive head of yours keeps facts from gettin' in, maybe you can drop it for a second and we can have a Corkarnan goddamned connection for a second?"

Cogburn's wide-eyed stared seemed to grow more vacant by the moment.

Bresden grunted, pointed to the wooden fence of the near pasture, and told Cogburn to go over there.

Why?

So you'll quit bein' here.

Okay. Cogburn struggled back up to his feet. This gonna count towards my CUAEPing hours?

No.

Cogburn shrugged and slumped in the direction Bresden had pointed, mumbling mockrock in the shuttlecock to himself.

Mockroot in the otterstock! Bresden shouted at him. Open your ears and learn somethin' for once in your life!

It was hard to know for sure, now that Cogburn was further away, but it sounded like he'd switched to mumbling mock mock mock mock.

Groaning his way up to his feet - groaning partially due to Cogburn, mostly because it was hard work heaving his paunch around - Bresden surveyed the entirety of the otterstock patch and frowned. Just under four square meters of ground, riddled with sudoc large enough to necessitate using the trenching boomer (oh, how his low back dreaded that). All of which weed would grow back, unless he could find that awful little mockroot and tear it out of the ground. Easier said than done, that. Much, much easier said.

Absurd though the impulse was, Bresden spat onto his own garden. Which wouldn't be a garden for much longer; the only way to rid oneself of mockroot was to dig up the entire damn bed, to a depth of almost half a meter. If he worked quickly, and carefully, he could keep most of the otterstock alive long enough to be rerooted. Assuming he found the mockroot almost straight away.

Why'd you spit on your stoppersock? Cogburn called from the fence.

Otterstock! Bresden snapped.

Can I go inside? asked the boy whose income this year alone would more than likely surpass what Bresden had made in his entire thirty years of service in the Corkarnan Defense (And Offense) Force.

You come over here and help, or you stand by that fence and do nothin'!

Oh, cool! Cogburn remained by the fence.

Bresden lumbered towards the coop, weighing the risks and rewards of forcing the affluent young moron to help him. Exhuming a seeded field without completely botching the crop was a hell of a lot of work to do by oneself, but it also required considerable precision. Cogburn, meanwhile, seemed like he was having a good day if he managed to get his shirt on the right way round on the first try.

How it was that countryfolk came to be saddled with a reputation for simplicity, Bresden would never understand.

He shouldered open the door to the coop, crouching into the humid gloom and grabbing everything he'd need to have a real go at the goddamned mockroot. The boomer, a trowel, the hoe for good measure. Thusly encumbered, he headed for the door to find the aperture framing his nine-year-old granddaughter, Drusiel.

Hey Farfar? she asked.

Yeah? Bresden asked as he maneuvered the long-handled tools through the coop's door.

Can I go to Gilly's house?

Ah, he replied as the handle of the boomer caught on the doorjamb. That depends on did you get your chores done.

Drusiel weaved beneath the business ends of Bresden's tools and liberated the boomer handle for him. I did.

You see any issue bein' home by sundown?

Nope!

Well, then I don't see any issue with this whole Gilly farrago.

...does that mean I can go?

It does.

Yay! Thanks Farfar! Drusiel chirped as she ducked into the coop to grab her cycle.

Bresden stepped aside and watched her go zipping down the rutted back road off the property. For an instant, a familiar thought plonked him on the back of the head: this isn't fair. He'd done the whole raising-a-kid thing already. Raised his son Simoas alone, as it happened, after his wife Djun ran out on the family halfway through a long-gone rainy season. Granted, young Simoas had already become a man by the time Djun left, and she'd only really left because she hadn't wanted to live alone with Bresden any more, whom she insisted she no longer loved because he was an angry drunk. Which was hardly fair - Bresden had fallen into drink after returning from Doragha. Anybody would, after seeing some of the things he'd seen. Men boiled alive by low-orbit energy nets; women cut in half by a well-swung voern, the head-half screaming all the way to the ground; kids so young they'd probably never had the chance to mistake infatuation for love gawping in terror as they were lassoed by a Vigridian snare, to be dragged wailing into the sky and dropped on their own encampment, shrieking until they hit the ground and burst.

So yeah, he drank. But also, he was an angry independent of his intoxication levels. You can't leave a man just because of his personality! When he can't help his personality!

So...uh, so maybe it wasn't quite right to say Bresden had raised Simoas alone. Or at all, given that he'd been at war during most of Simoas' formative years. Point was, though, that Simoas went on to have three kids, before going and getting himself killed jumping off a gorge-spanning bridge. It wasn't a suicide jump - well, not intended to be - but a recreational one gone wrong. The cord that was meant to spring him back up onto the bridge snapped, and Simoas fell all the way down. Such an unspeakably idiotic thing for a father to be doing. Bresden still couldn't quite make sense of it.

The anguish he felt at the loss of his son might well have plunged him deeper into drink, were it not for the fact that there were three little buoys holding his head above the surface: as Djun was offworld somewhere (Bresden had tried very hard to find her, but ultimately failed), and Simoas' partner had died from some sort of organ failure, there was no one left to raise Simoas' three children save their dear old granddad, Bresden. And save him they did. In the larger, quit-drinking-and-find-purpose sense.

They were also, at the same time, unbelievably fucking annoying. The oldest had been, what, maybe five or six when they'd come to live with Bresden; the youngest, Kirby, had lived a life measured in months. Nattering engines of want and wail, too small to pull their weight around the property. Oh, he'd spent the intervening years trying and failing to hook them up to all manner of plows and tills, but even mature-beyond-her-years Drusiel would only put in an hour or so of work before scampering off to splash around in the creek.

Useless.

Still, Bresden conceded with a private little smile, they could be amusing to have around. Which, if they couldn't be much help on the property, kept them from being complete freeloaders.

Also, even if he didn't tend to mention it often, lest they get big heads about it...he loved them very much. Which was lucky for them.

Bresden turned away from Drusiel's vanishing form and trudged back to the otterstock beds. He dropped his tools and plotted his approach. Mockroots could seed anywhere in a bed, but almost never spread from the center. So from which side of the garden did he want to start? The sun rose from the south, which made that a reasonable place to begin the excavation. But...was that too reasonable? How smart had mockroot gotten? He had to consider this carefully: he didn't want to be outsmarted by a godda-

Hey Breadson? Cogburn's voice asked from directly over Bresden's shoulder.

Bresden flinched, then turned slowly, slowly, one hundred and eighty degrees, to face Cogburn, standing well within thwapping range. I don't recall dismissin' you from your post.

Cogburn laughed.

Bresden grimaced.

Post, Cogburn chuckled. Like a fencepost?

Yeah, like a fuckin' fencepost. The kind I'm gonna... Bresden swallowed that anatomically improbable threat and shook his head. You decide you wanna be useful for once in your life?

No. I just came over because your bugs are making a funny noise, and I wanted to s-

My bugs?

Yeah.

...you mean to say the wymies?

Ok.

"They're not mine, they make their own... The hair on the back of Bresden's neck jerked to attention. Given the silver thicket he had growing there, it sounded like a full regimen snapping off a salute. What noise are they makin'?"

Funny.

Funny how?

Like when you laugh.

They're laughin'?

Cogburn considered this, turning towards the wymie hives. Doesn't sound like it.

FARFAR!!! Drusiel screamed from the back road off the property. Bresden turned to find her throwing down her cycle and sprinting, as fast as her little legs could carry her, back towards the house. SWAAARM!

And suddenly...Bresden could hear it. A shrill, needling hum, which somehow balanced over a much deeper, more menacing rumble.

The sound of a rising wymie swarm. Something he'd only heard recordings of before. Something he'd happily have gone his entire life without hearing in person.

Especially not from the wymies that lived on his land.

S...str... Bresden tried to his best to swallow, but couldn't muster much more than a dry clicking in the throat. Strike the banners! He finally managed to shout at Cogburn, and then he was off and running, mockroots forgotten.

What's that? Cogburn called after him.

THE BANNERS!

I don't know what those are!

I got 'em! Drusiel cried as she raced up the hill in the opposite direction of Bresden, towards the barn.

Already out of breath, Bresden scrambled for the wymie hives. How long had it been since he'd run like this, legs pumping so hard he was turning the dirt beneath his feet? Not since his days in the CDOF, probably, back when that had meant boots on the ground and blood in your eyes. Dreadful memories came rushing back, the feel of a lurch rifle bucking against his shoulder, the crackle of atmosphere burning as a laser tore through it, the look in a man's eyes in the moment he realized that death was coming...grisly images all, but they were still no match for the gloomy futures to come if the wymies rumbled off over the horizon. Without their nectar, the Lardenoys would be left with absolutely nothing to sell at the final markets before the rainy season. And if that happened...

Well, Bresden truly did not know what he would do.

Even over the pounding of his heart, thrumming all the way up to his throat and ears, Bresden heard the crack of the first of the banners unfurling from the front of the barn.

The sound was still echoing across the naked pastures (yet another of this year's failures) when he heard, and then saw, the top of the wymie swarm.

He tripped, nearly tumbling to the ground, as he craned his neck up, up, up, following this dark titan of the collective as it rose higher and higher into the air, three stories tall, now four, now five, all the while spiraling around and through itself like impatient clockwork.

The individual wymies were no larger than half the size of a mockroot, truly miniscule little things, but as a swarm they seemed a single colossus, possessed of a unified will. A fearsome sight, Bresden had no trouble conceding, and one that made a noise to match.

TRRBZZPLLJGGRONBBIIF! the swarm roared.

Bresden recovered his hustle, struggling back into a sprint. He leapt clean over a nearly meter-high fence - oblivious to that being his most remarkable physical achievement in decades - waving his arms over his head and charging headlong to the base of the swarm, even as every synapse in his brain urged an about-face.

WAIT! he screamed. WAIT!

DSSCLLWQQZUUAOOYFF? the swarm replied, curling at the top and bending down, as though to inspect Bresden.

Fuck, Bresden gulped under his breath. Wymies could be so reasonable in isolation; catch a rogue one or two and you could have a terrific conversation. How's the brood, how's work, oh that's right you were hatched to serve a specific purpose in the hive and so you quite literally are your job, well then how are you...that sort of thing. Once they started swarming, though, there was no longer any such thing as a rogue wymie. They were a bloc, to be shifted only at the whim of their queen, who in this hive was called Madile. Reasonable lady, she was, but good luck getting to her in a swarm.

As that swarm bent towards him, though, close enough that Bresden could hear the scuttle of little wymie wings scratching together...it occurred to him that while each of the wymies knew and (hopefully) trusted Bresden individually, he couldn't be entirely certain that the swarm knew him. To say nothing of trusting him.

Fear. True fear. That was another long-forgotten memory coming back in a rush. How long had it been, since Bresden had cause to fear for his life?

Not so long that he'd forgotten how to control that terror, thankfully. He felt himself getting on top of the wave, as it were. I want audience! he shouted up into the faceless cyclone.

The swarm leaned even closer.

Have a gander at the banner! Bresden hollered, swinging his arms towards the barn, from which the second of four banners was unfurling.

NECTAR RENTS ARE NEGOTIABLE, the first banner insisted.

YOUR WORK IS APPRECIATED, the second informed them.

The 'head' of the roiling swarm turned as though to read the banners, then tilted back to Bresden.

Bresden jutted his jaw to the right. I want audience with Madile! he pressed. Audience!

The swarm quivered, contracted...then spat out eight little wymies. Had to be the advance guard for the Queen; Bresden had read enough about swarms to know that was the next step in the protocol. Either that, or stinging him to death.

Fingers crossed for the advance guard, then.

The eight little wymies puttered from the still-roiling swarm to Bresden, kitted out with teeny weeny armored breastplates on their bulbous thoraxes and itsy-bitsy gauntlets on their four legs. They buzzed directly up to Bresden's face, their wings revolving like those of an omnicopter, which made them immensely agile, yet highly susceptible to winds much stronger than a light breeze. As such, they could only get so close to Bresden's wheezing face, lest they be buffeted on the tide of his exhaustion.

Woah! one of the advance guard shouted, as Bresden breath-blasted him backwards a bit.

It's an ambush! cried another of the guards. He brandished an ass-mounted stinger at Bresden.

Two of the other guards did the same.

Not an ambush! Bresden replied. I'm just tuckered! Come on. He pointed to himself. You see how tuckered I am? So quit it with the stingers, now.

State your business with the Queen, yet another of the guards said. Or maybe it was the first one who'd said that. They were all hovering around each other, like electrons around the nucleus of an atom.

Suddenly, Bresden hoped very much to be speaking to a hive mind rather than eight individuals; keeping track of who'd said what would be like a high-stakes game of 'find the lady.'

She can't leave, Bresden said.

The wymies tightened up their orbit, all shouting at once:

Can't?

"She can't leave?"

She can do what she pleases!

"I meant shouldn't," Bresden was quick to correct himself. "You're bang on about she can do what she wants. But I'm sayin' she shouldn't."

A snap from the barn.

Bresden turned to see the unfurling of the third banner, which read ALL IT TAKES TO MAKE YOUR DREAMS A REALITY IS AN UNTHINKABLE PORTION OF CONFLICT AND SACRIFICE.

His frown deepened. That had sounded so much more inspirational when he'd thought it up in the loft of the barn.

Nice flag, a softer, honeyed voice cooed.

Bresden looked back to the swarm to see it part for its leader, Queen Madile. She floated out of the maelstrom of her subjects, which closed back up behind her and settled into a lower, steady hum.

Queen Madile drifted down to Bresden, stopping an arm's length from his face. But, she continued, that won't sweeten our nectar.

Your majesty, Bresden bowed slightly.

Queen Madile's long, gold-and-purple abdomen twitched, flitting the long, silken train of her crimson gown. Flattery will fare little better.

The swarm buzzed behind her.

Madile silenced them with a wave of one of her legs.

Bresden shot the swarm a nasty look.

Madile, larger than the other wymies but still hardly the size of Bresden's thumbnail, buzzed in nearer to her benefactor and placed two impossibly small, possibly sympathetic hands on his forehead.

I promise you, Madile told him, that if I had something reassuring to say, I'd say it right now.

Bresden had a momentary urge to reach out, snatch her in his fist, and crush her. He had an even stronger urge to not get stung to death by the swarm, though.

So all he did was grumble I don't beg.

What a relief.

So let's dump the decorum, eh? Let's talk. Brass tacks.

I've no idea what that means.

Me neither. It's an oldie.

The Queen warped her face into a little smile. Quite a distressing thing to see, from a creature with no lips.

Tell me what you need, Bresden snapped.

I need to care for my hive.

No, tell me what you need to stay here.

Sir Lardenoy, please do not emba-

This a pollen issue? If we got sub-par pollen, you say the word, I'll getcha s-

Sir Lardenoy.

Nectar rents too high? We can figu-

This isn't a negotiation.

Could be if you started negotiatin'. He pointed limply to the first banner.

The queen shook her head. You have mockroot in the otterstock.

Bresden thought it worthwhile to at least feign disbelief. What? He forced a chuckle. That's...a hell of a thing to say.

So you wish to gainsay the claim?

No, I'm...well... Bresden cleared his throat. Where'd you hear that claim?

You.

I never said any such fuckin' claim to you.

No. Not to me. Queen Madile pointed off towards the nearest pasture. To him.

Bresden followed her gaze to Cogburn, leaning casually against a fencepost that was, apparently unbeknownst to the kid, slowly tipping over.

That... Bresden turned back to Madile. The kid's a buffoon, he blustered, City boy. Wouldn't know a mockroot from a derrish.

"You misunderstand me, Sir Lardenoy. I heard you cry to the boy across the field. Mockroot in the otterstock, you hollered to him. Followed shortly thereafter by an encouragement that he open his ears."

Bresden opened and closed his mouth, but no sound emerged. Finally, he landed on a reply: What is and ain't in the otterstock bed is...that's my business.

If it means no otterstock berries, Queen Madile replied, her tone sharpening, "it means no gauds stopping here as they migrate east, which means no lytain seeds carried in from the west, which means no lytain blooms just prior to the rains, which means no lytain pollen, which means n-"

Okay. I get it.

Madile buzzed even closer. "They may be your otterstock beds, but in as much as its yields are critical to my caring for my hive, they are still very much my business. So, I ask you again...do you have mockroot in the otterstock, or don't you?"

Bresden narrowed his eyes. ...alright, I'll beg.

Queen Madile sighed.

Just give me a day, Bresden gurgled. I can dig up the mockroot.

There is no negotiating this.

Then how about let's just discuss it?

There is nothing to discuss, Madile hummed. You have mockroot in the otterstock. Sometimes it is as simple as that.

It doesn't have to be, was the best Bresden could do.

Another smile from Madile, this one a little less unctuous. You have been an agreeable business partner, Sir Lardenoy. I wish you luck in whatever comes next.

What comes next is me and my kin fuckin' starve to death.

Then may fate intervene, to provide a more swift and painless death for you all. Madile gave one final nod, then turned and rejoined the swarm.

Its grumbling grew louder as she approached, peaked as she re-entered the lightless cyclone of wymie bodies, and dissipated as the swarm fucked off over the horizon, leaving Bresden standing alone, fists clenched, shoulders hunched, glowering at empty space.

Snap.

The fourth and final banner unfurled over the last side of the barn. It read YOU ARE (A) VALUED MEMBER(S) OF THE LARDENOY FAMILY.

Bresden experienced audible indigestion.

Everything good? Cogburn asked from the fence.

Bresden turned to face Cogburn, slowly, as though balancing a vat of liquid magma on his head. Go home, he ordered the boy with equal care and precision, lest he accidentally say something involving the word murder.

Took the better part of the day, but eventually Cogburn threw his loaded-up suitcases into his mobler (marvel they let the boy drive, so it was) and puttered back to the big city of Foronk, to a no-doubt cushy apartment paid for by the rich, disappointed parents he very clearly had.

Out of sight, fortunately, was out of mind; the instant Cogburn left Bresden's field of view, Sir Lardenoy was able to devote his full attention to attacking the otterstock bed with boomer and shovel. Drusiel sacrificed her playtime with Gilly to join her grandfather, even dragooning her two younger siblings into doing what little they could to help. All three of Bresden's grandkids, he noted with mixed emotions, seemed to immediately grasp the stakes here. Made for more urgent workers... but all the same, their faces were too soft to countenance such grim determination. Ought to have been, anyway.

Even after the northern hills had swallowed up the last of the day, after Hild and Kirby had retired to their rooms and Drusiel had fallen asleep still clutching the handle of her spade, Bresden kept digging. He dug until he'd torn up the entire bed, he dug until its soil towered in high mounds along the perimeter, he dug until the otterstock seeds had been strangled by the evening frost. He dug and he dug and he dug, until the bed was a meter-and-a-half-deep sinkhole and the pads of his fingers had been stripped of flesh and his head was fire and his heart was ice.

Still, the mockroot eluded him. But he could laugh about it. It was funny, because wasn't it? It was alright because wasn't it? The problem had been solved. There was no mockroot in the otterstock. How could there be? There was no otterstock left.

A catastrophe for Bresden and his family, to be sure. But a catastrophe for the entire galaxy as well.

Do four square meters of turned soil and dead otterstock on some old Corkarnan fella's no-account family farm seem like enough to shake the foundations of empires, to pull the rug out from under civilizations?

Of course not. But then, there's never anything special about the first domino, is there?

2

On sale, Bresden couldn't stop himself from saying to every person who lingered at his stall.

The latest lady squinted at the chaotic spread of trinkets and toss Bresden had brought to the last market before the rains, then lifted her disdainful gaze to meet the proprietor's.

Everything is on sale, Bresden repeated, with half the gusto.

And... she used her thumb and forefinger to pick up an oil-stained gear. What is...all of this?

S' what we could find to bring.

I thought... she took a step back, studied the hand-painted sign on the front of Bresden's table, then stepped back in. I was told you have produce. Lardenoy Farms. I th-

Oughta have done. We had a... Bresden sighed. "Lady, I'll tell you how it is. I'm down to sellin' whatever I could spare. Anythin'. Just tryin' to get us enough to make it through the rains. So anythin' you can spare for us here...?" He gestured to his three grandchildren huddled together behind him. They could easily have stayed at the farm - Drusiel was more than capable of babysitting her siblings - but Bresden had thought they'd inspire a bit of sympathy from the folks at market.

He'd thought.

Well, the lady said, good luck. She placed the gear back on the table, wiping her hand on the burlap cloth Bresden had lain out to cover the stand.

Oh, Bresden groused, that's what I keep hearin'.

The lady rolled her eyes and strolled to the next stand over, an obnoxiously decorated booth selling what appeared to be scented stress relief balls. Just spherical molds of putty you squeeze to feel better, then sniff to, what, get high? Not even? Soft, frivolous bullshit.

Corkarna had gotten so soft. The galaxy had gotten soft. Not in ways that would help Bresden, though. Since they'd landed here as human beings a hundred thousand years ago or however the hell long it had been (Bresden wasn't a damn historian), Corkarnans had been a race of people frantically yanking their own bootstraps. Success or failure was a solitary endeavor; the only things one shared were things one didn't need. And when the rainy season was on the horizon...well, everybody needed most everything they had. Those who didn't have what they needed yet came here, to this frenzied free-for-all of a market, hundreds upon hundreds of crooked stalls thrown up in the hitching lot of the ReRud Performing Arts And Disaster Relief Arena.

To the right, the left, behind, everywhere but here, Bresden could hear and see folks hurling cash at booth proprietors, occasionally shoving each other out of the way as they fought for rainy season provisions. It was just the sort of excitement that ordinarily surrounded Bresden's booth too. When he'd had anything of value to sell.

Those were the days, huh?

Clap.

Bresden turned around.

Kirby's eyes spun frantically in their sockets, as his hands slowly drifted up to just in front of his face. He flinched hard, then clapped his hands together again.

What are you doin'? Bresden demanded.

Bug, Kirby replied.

There's a bug that keep flying in his face, Drusiel explained.

Bresden shook his head. Don't do that.

Kirby's hands fell slightly. "I saw a big bug."

The clapping. Bresden demonstrated. Don't do that.

Kirby stared right back at Bresden with a painfully familiar I'm going to do it again face.

Don't do it, Kirby.

Why? Drusiel asked on her youngest sibling's behalf.

Because it's annoyin'. Also, the bug's not hurtin' ya. Probably doin' a job. No cause to kill it.

Hild, the middle child, cocked her head to the side. But you killed people, Farfar. Right? That's what Daddy sai-

No, Bresden replied. No. I killed Vigridians. I killed Slaneks. He pointed to the sky. "I killed bad guys from other planets. That's different from people. I didn't kill any other Corkarnans."

Kirby clapped, eyes locked on Bresden's. At four years old, Kirby had precisely two moods: sweet beyond belief, and likewise sour. This was clearly becoming a case of the latter.

"I told you clear as an off-rains day, don't clap," Bresden snarled.

"I'm CLAPPING!" Kirby fired back.

"He said don't clap!" Hild whined.

Bresden pointed to the middle sibling. Hild, you mind your business.

Hild crossed her arms and pouted. "I wanna go home."

Got a customer, Drusiel mumbled.

What have you got here? asked the potential customer.

Bresden turned to the newcomer. I'll tell ya how it is, I'm down to se... his sentence drifted off into silence.

The person standing in front of his table was, quite clearly, a Vigridian. The leathery, scar-mottled flesh and thick bursts of facial hair gave it away. That, and the gentle glow of the universal translator stuck to his left temple, subtly scrambling his brain in just the right way to make him fully fluent in any language he chose, even the universal one, Hlurgh. Or, as his translator was currently set to, Corkarnan.

A fucking Vigridian. Member of the race that spilled more Corkarnan blood during Doragha than any other. How many good men had Bresden personally seen killed by Vigridians? How many friends?

How many Vigridians had he himself dispatched, be it via long-range scopes or daggers half the length of his forearm?

And yet here one was, hands tucked in the pockets of its fuzzy-pelt pants, staring down at Bresden's wares like their respective peoples hadn't been mortal enemies prior to the relatively recent construction of the Drudgenauts.

Granted, this particular Vigridian looked young enough that it might only have learned about that chapter in their history, rather than living it...but still! Fuck this offworld piece of shit, and its stupid translator. That was the main thing.

Bresden opened his mouth to say as much...and then a Corkarnan lass stepped up to the booth.

Move aside, Bresden told the Vigridian.

The Vigridian blinked. What?

Let the girl see wh-

The Corkarnan lass threaded her arm through the Vigridian's, pulling herself close to him.

Bresden considered it something of a miracle, that his eye-crossing rage didn't blast him out of his seat and into low orbit. He knew the world had changed - Corkarna, like every other Interior planet in this dismal post-Doragha period known as the Unwar, had become a goddamned melting pot of offworlders - but to see these changes so dramatically, intimately demonstrated, in front of his impressionable fucking grandchildren...

These were blast-off levels of contempt.

Bresden glanced back to the aforementioned grandchildren, then faced front and leaned forward, planting his knuckles on the table. Just move along, son, he managed to say at a sub-yodeling pitch.

The Vigridian didn't even flinch - clear enough, he knew exactly what Bresden really meant. Which was probably why he maintained eye contact and said I stand here merely to inspect your wares.

None of this is for sale.

"Then why are we here?" Hild whined.

Kirby clapped.

Bresden wrinkled his nose and turned back towards his grandchildren.

You're a specist, the Corkarnan girl spat at Bresden.

Bresden whipped back around to face her, pointer finger leading the way. "No I'm not. I fought in Doragha. You kids don't have the first hog-gobblin' clue what it was like, fightin' in Doragha. Against him," he added, turning his furious finger on the Vigridian. And others, Bresden instantly regretted adding.

Some twenty spans before Doragha ended, the Vigridian intoned, my forerunners did depart that war-torn globe, objecting as they did to strife in a-

His family were conscientious objectors, the Corkarnan girl growled at Bresden. "They didn't even like the whole Doragha thing."

Didn't like it?! Bresden gasped. "They didn't...like it?!"

The Vigridian raised a calming palm.

Bresden deliberately misunderstood the gesture. He launched to his feet. A war's not fought on a whim, boy. It's fought because it's the done thing.

The Vigridian's palm lifted higher. Naught lifts my heart to greater heights, than witnessing how does the kin of man pass peaceably amongst their fellow th-

Just walk on, Bresden grumbled, waving off towards a booth selling edible wall art. Sick of you, boy. Walk on.

He's allowed to be here, the Corkarnan girl answered on his behalf.

I'm all too clear on that.

Farfar, Drusiel whimpered from over Bresden's shoulder.

Bresden spun around. What?

Everyone's being nice except you.

Nice. Bresden scoffed, turning back to the Corkarnan girl in front of him. "I'm not bein' nice." He turned to the Vigridian. "His great