‘You didn’t do anything.’

‘So you just don’t like my species, then? Or what?’

‘Captain,’ Roveg said.

‘I’m not upset about it,’ Pei said. ‘I just want to know.’

Speaker placed her hands in her lap and folded them together. ‘You really want me to answer this?’ Speaker said.

‘Yes,’ Pei said. She really did.

Sounds did not resonate with Pei the way they did with other species, but all the same, there could be no mistake that every syllable hitting her implant was delivered with the quiet accuracy of someone choosing her words with care. ‘I don’t know you,’ Speaker said. ‘And I like Aeluons the same as any species.’ She paused, gathering herself. ‘What I don’t like is your job. And if that has bled into my interactions with you, then I apolo—’

‘What about my job?’ Pei asked. The yellow darkened.

‘The … spheres in which you operate. I …’ Speaker clicked her beak and inhaled. ‘I believe you and I have differing opinions on the Rosk war. That’s all.’

Roveg laughed at this. ‘You should’ve been a diplomat,’ he said. ‘Or a parliamentarian.’

Speaker did not laugh. ‘I’m good where I am,’ she said with glacial calm.

Pei’s eyes narrowed. She hadn’t cared what Speaker thought of her before, but now she did. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re … you’re kidding, right? Do you have any idea what’s happening out there?’

‘Not as well as you, I’m sure,’ Speaker said.

‘They’re bombing civilians,’ Pei said. ‘Whole settlements, from orbit. What possible opinion could be had about that?’

Speaker opened her palms upward in a crass approximation of what an Aeluon would do if they were trying to back down. ‘Captain, I—’

‘No, really, I want to know.’ Pei was not going to back down, and was not about to let Speaker do the same. Speaker hadn’t seen what Pei had seen. She hadn’t seen the limbs, the char, the craters where towns once stood. Differing opinions. Pei had carried the gory corpse of her crewmate – her friend – out of an alleyway on what should’ve been a safe world because of differing opinions. She’d spent two days cleaning out her mine-riddled ship – her home – because of differing opinions. No, she wouldn’t stand for this. Her cheeks seethed purple, and it had nothing to do with the kick or the hormones. This whole turn had started because Pei had wondered if she’d somehow insulted Speaker, but now the opposite was true. Even on her best days, she would not let this slide.

‘I don’t agree with what the Rosk are doing to the Aeluon civilians,’ Speaker said. Her words remained obnoxiously placid. ‘It’s horrific. I’m not arguing that. But I do think, simultaneously, that it’s worth asking why they’re doing it.’

The limbs. The char. The craters. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does. Nobody bombs civilians from orbit without cause. My understanding of the situation is that the Rosk believe planetary colonisation is abhorrent, and they’ll do anything to stop it from happening in their territory.’

The purple deepened to the cusp of black. ‘We’re not in their fucking territory. They can do – or not do – anything they want on their side of the map.’

‘Yes,’ Speaker said. ‘But who drew the map?’

Roveg sighed softly from where he sat between them. ‘Oh, stars,’ he said to himself, and took a hefty drink.

SPEAKER

If the Aeluon wanted to make Speaker angry, she was doing a fantastic job of it. Speaker was trying to keep her head cool, she really was. She didn’t want to fight, and she wasn’t at all comfortable doing so with a species outside of her own, but for fuck’s sake, Captain Tem had asked. What was the point of asking for an honest answer if you didn’t want to hear it?

Captain Tem slammed her cup down in the grass, the kick inside sloshing over the edge. ‘The colonies my government are protecting are at the border,’ she said. ‘Not across the border. At it. If the Rosk don’t want to settle off of their own planet, fine. They do not get to dictate what happens in the systems next door. And even if they did, murdering people would not be the answer.’

‘I’m not saying it is,’ Speaker said. Calm, calm, she told herself. Be the reasonable voice. ‘But you – your government – is murdering them in response, and I’m sorry, but I can’t accept a lesser evil for the sake of it being lesser.’

Captain Tem glared. ‘Your people kill people, too. You can’t tell me that’s not for the sake of your own interests.’

‘And I wouldn’t. I don’t agree with them, either. But I do understand why. I sympathise with the reasoning even if I disagree with the action taken. And in that, I can simultaneously feel sympathy for the Aeluon settlers and for the Rosk who don’t want them there. Who I don’t feel sympathy for are … well, the people killing over it. On either side.’

‘Could we perhaps—’ Roveg started.

‘What else are we supposed to do?’ Captain Tem said over him. ‘They won’t negotiate. They won’t compromise. They won’t listen to anything else.’