“Forgive me, Elders, for my disrespect to one of higher station, but I cannot abide his disrespect, his blasphemy toward the skymounts. Let alone that proposed by this alien Riker. The very idea of this disgusts me. The thought of—of tamingthese glorious souls, reducing them to beasts of burden, it is an outrage!”
“More so than killing them and living in their corpses?” Riker had to ask.
“You understand nothing, human. We do them honor by taking them in glorious struggle, freeing their souls to join the Spirit and taking only what they leave behind. We earntheir bodies as our prizes, as a legacy of the honored dead. We have no right to their bodies while they live!” Most of the elders nodded or squawked in agreement.
“All right,” Qui’hibra said, his voice rising slightly. “You have made your point. But have they not now won a great and decisive victory over us? Surely that wins them everlasting honor that we cannot take away.”
“No, that is not the way of the Spirit!”
There were gasps around the table. “Silence!” cried Rhi’thath. “Do not presume to lecture your Elder on the ways of the Spirit, you arrogant whelp!”
“Again, my apologies.” Se’hraqua fell silent, still seething.
“Impertinent or not, he has a point,” Aq’hareq said. “It would be an affront to the skymounts’ dignity to tend them like livestock. Just as it would be an affront to ours to tend livestock. We are hunters! We earn mastery over beasts by tooth and claw. That is the way of the strong.”
“Adaptability is also the way of the strong,” Riker said. “A human thinker called it survival of the fittest. Whatever qualities, whatever behaviors are best suited to a particular environment will win out over others. If the environment changes, if the needs of survival change, then the species that don’t change with it are no longer fit to survive.”
His words were met with thoughtful silence, so he went on. “I also want to make it clear that nobody’s talking about enslaving or domesticating the skymounts. What I’m proposing is a partnership, the two species working together—just as you work with Vomnin or Rianconi or Shizadam.” He looked around the meeting chamber, choosing his words carefully. “Clearly you all have great reverence for the skymounts’ power, for their skill and cunning at evading you. Recently you’ve discovered how dangerous they can be, how ruthless and efficient they are against their enemies. If anything, I’m sure that makes you respect them all the more.” Many of the elders and matriarchs were nodding now. “If you respect them that much as adversaries, imagine how valuable they could be as allies. Imagine that power, skill and cunning working alongside yours instead of against it.”
“But it would be a risky partnership,” Qui’chiri said. “We would be dependent on their willingness to cooperate, answerable to their whims. It would be a struggle to convince them to go along with our wishes.”
“Isn’t life a struggle already? Isn’t that what the Great Hunt is all about? You’ll just be pursuing the same struggle in a different way. Maybe it carries more risks, but it also promises greater rewards. How is that not worthy of a hunter?”
Qui’chiri looked around to see the males nodding, looking intrigued. “I am a matriarch, not a hunter. Your words are pretty, but someone must deal with the practical matters. And I would much rather work aboard a nice, well-behaved dead skymount that does not object to my ripping its guts out to install living quarters.”
The matriarchs nodded and laughed in agreement. The males glared at them, shaking their heads and muttering about disrespect and the inability of females to grasp higher spiritual matters. Qui’hibra, though, merely looked amused. “If anyone can talk a live skymount into letting her rip its guts out, daughter, it is you. Curse me for it all you like, but I know you will meet the challenge and triumph over it.”
Aq’hareq looked at him sharply. “Then you say we should accede to this mad plan of the human’s?”
“I see no choice but to try,” Qui’hibra said, addressing the whole chamber. “There is far more at stake here than our pride or our traditions or our convenience. We teeter on the brink of chaos, and must find a way to restore the balance. If that means changing how we live, then we will change it. Because the one thing that must not change…is that the Pa’haquel lead the charge against the chaos. No matter where the chase takes us, no matter what it costs us, we are the ones who hold it at bay, who keep it from consuming more than its due. We are the ones with our beaks at chaos’s throat through all eternity, as the Spirit of the Hunt created us to be. We do not serve our own convenience, our own habits, our own bloodlust. We are the Spirit’s hounds. Remember that.”
As the elder spoke, Riker could tell that he was winning them over. Some remained skeptical, and others seemed uneasy but realistic about the need for new solutions. Once Qui’hibra finished, a vote was called, and the proposal passed by a narrow majority. Aq’hareq and Se’hraqua were among the dissenters, unsurprisingly. With the proposal passed, Qui’hibra turned to Riker. “Now—how do you propose we proceed?”
After the Conclave session ended, Se’hraqua attempted to leave hastily and speak to no one. He had no wish to be reminded of his humiliation, of being forced to submit meekly to chastisement by that weak old bird Qui’hibra. By all rights he should have sat on the Conclave as an equal by now, with his own skymount to command. That the Spirit had spared him, of all the adult males in the Se’ha line, was proof enough that he was worthy and fated for something more than subordinate standing. But Qui’hibra had refused to trust in his worth, keeping him on menial duties and denying him the opportunity to make a kill he could claim as his prize, a mount of his own where he could rebuild the Se’ha line and bring it glory and prestige in the Hunt.
And then the faithless fools on Titanhad thrown off the balance, perhaps cheating him of any further chance of making his kill. They had offered this mad scheme of cooperation with the skymounts, but Se’hraqua could never bear to desecrate the holy beasts so by forcing them into slavery while they lived. The skymounts must live free and die free; the Pa’haquel had the right to master only their bodies, not their souls. That was the way of the Hunt, and Se’hraqua could not imagine participating in the corruption Riker proposed, even if it meant he would never have his own mount. But to his disgust, the Conclave had acceded to this madness, and now he wished only to get them out of his sight.
Before he could make his break, however, he found himself waylaid by Elder Aq’hareq. “I would speak with you, Hunter.”
Se’hraqua lowered his head respectfully. Aq’hareq had voted against Riker’s scheme and thus was still worthy of respect. “Please, Elder. I apologize again for my offense.”
The elder placed a gnarled, half-bionic hand on his shoulder. “To me you gave no offense. You spoke eloquently and with true reverence for the Spirit and the skymounts. You show a commitment to our traditions which is rare in one so young.”
Se’hraqua stared. “Thank you, Elder! Such words from such a celebrated veteran bring great honor indeed.” To be in Aq’hareq’s favor could bring many rewards, he realized. If he cultivated that favor well enough, perhaps he would be asked to join the Aq’Tri’Hhe fleet-clan as it sought to rebuild from the Hounding. Even if no new mounts would be forthcoming, there might still be posts of real responsibility needing to be filled, and perhaps he could rise to eldership of a mount if its current elder fell in combat and he acquitted himself well. So although his esteem for Aq’hareq was sincere, he was not blind to the benefits of expressing it.
Aq’hareq brushed off his praise, though. “I am but a hound of the Spirit, as Qui’hibra said. Although I do not share his opinions about what that means.” He grimaced. “He has never been one of strong faith. To him, the great balance is but a mundane thing, a matter of ecology and population control.”