Kwaide (The Ammonite Galaxy Series, Book 2)

Chapter Thirty

Chapter 30

ON KWAIDE THE weather was getting worse. The cold season was well established now, and that meant that the days were shorter, and the nights so cold that only the heat of the chimneys melted the ice on the roofs, which refroze before it could drip down to the floor, causing curious sculptures on top of each shack.

Grace and Diva arrived back in a shuttle pod, having been deposited on the orbital station by Arcan. They left the pod at the spaceport, next to the other three that were on the ground, and then walked to the base camp. That took them some time – Diva was still limited in the movements of her leg, although she was now able to be completely self-sufficient. 

They told Six and Cimma exactly what had happened at the meeting, and how Arcan had agreed not to transport anybody directly to the surface of Kwaide. “… which is why we had to come down in a pod,” finished Diva.

“That is great news!” Six jumped up, and began to pace the room, thinking. “It means that the Elders can no longer depend upon the Sellites to get them out of trouble. Fantastic!” Then his face fell. “Though the Sellites get to stay on Valhai for a thousand years. That is not so good!”

“I think Arcan put that time on it so that they wouldn’t all move over to the Sacras planets, invading us,” said Diva. “This way they will probably put things off for hundreds of years – and they might even have changed by then.”

“Some hope!” said Six. “They will be worse than ever, I expect. Not that any of us will be around to see it.”

“You should have seen Mandalon 50 stand up, Six,” Grace told him. “He is only ten, and yet he made all those agreements as if he had been bargaining for years!”

“What happened to my old favourite, Atheron?”

Diva pulled a face. “Nothing, of course. Our old inquisitor wriggled out of it as usual, saying he had been badly advised, and only doing his best in a position for which he had not been modified genetically. Grace listened in to some of the Sellite chit-chat, and Atheron was playing the victim so well that they were apparently sorry for him!”

“He would!” Six gave a snort. “What a poser!”

“At least he has been forced to go back to running only the teaching house,” said Grace. “And Mandalon 50 is outside his reach now, because since he has taken on the presidency at such a young age, he will be tutored non-virtually at his own skyrise.”

“I bet he turns out like his father, in the end,” asserted Six.

Grace shook her head. “I don’t think so. He did really well at the meeting, stood up for what he believed was right for Sell, and seemed to grasp the most important points. His father was determined not to change anything. Anyway, they have convoked the Second Valhai Votation, which will take place soon. Mandalon 50 has decreed that all 50’s can attend without a trustee, providing they are at least 6 years old. That means that the old school will be pretty effectively shut out. There are only about twenty 50’s who are over university age.”

“Was Arcan happy with the deal?”

“Relieved, I think. He just wants to be left in peace and quiet, and this treaty will give him that. He has only to run the orthotubes for another ten years, and then the Sellites will be self-sufficient. It is a good solution.”

“But he can’t transport us to Kwaide.”

“No, but the space station is pretty close. We have left our orthogel bracelets up there, too. The refugees don’t have Arcan, but the Elders don’t have the Sellites, either. It seems fair.”