Grail - Elizabeth Bear [126]
“Danilaw,” Perceval said, taking his broad warm hand, “we are experienced in dealing with nonhuman intelligences. They’re not like you. Or like us. But they’re not as alien as a talking sundew, either. So tell me. Given that they made evolutionary decisions for all of their species not yet born, given that they colonized other, inhabited worlds—how were your ancestors any less monsters than mine?”
There. Familiar ground, a challenge he’d been expecting. She could see it in the satisfied shape of his face. “Mine did it for the future of the species.”
Perceval smiled. “And so did mine. You think your people are so enlightened, but what they are is homogenized. They’re xenophobic—”
“They have a system—” He glanced at Amanda. She made a smug mouth full of I told you so. “You may,” he conceded, “have a point.”
So now Perceval could give him a little more room. “A point you never would have listened to if you were an atavistic human. Because you would have been too busy with your worldview-defense.”
“Sophipathology,” Amanda said, smirk widening. “It’s not a useless concept.”
Danilaw glanced over with what Perceval read as fondness. “I believe in taking responsibility.”
“So take responsibility. Think of your cephalopod friends. Think of making room for us, when we can communicate with them. When we can translate for you with the other intelligent life-form on this world.”
Amanda glanced at him. “Do you believe them?”
Danilaw stepped back. The hand went to his head again, fingertips pushing hard through the tight coils of his hair to dent the flesh over his skull. “Mother—” he said, like a curse word rather than a plea.
He swayed; Amanda put a hand on his shoulder. “Sit,” she said, guiding him down while his legs folded under him. Perceval too moved forward to support him, and Cynric was at her side before she released him and stepped back.
The Sorceress bent over, pulling Danilaw’s eyelids down. “Severe head pain,” she said. “Is that a known health issue, Administrator?”
“It’s not pain,” he said. “It’s aura. Seizure aura. I will be fine. Just back up a little and let me breathe, please.”
She stepped back. Danilaw raised his eyes to follow her. “Saint Cynric,” he said. “Haloed in tentacles. It’s really quite numinous on you.”
“Temporal lobe epilepsy,” Cynric said, her eyebrows rising. “I’d never seen it. We can cure that—”
“It’s usually well controlled,” Danilaw said. “It’s just lately, and at work, that it’s been getting awkward.”
Apparently, Perceval noted, that hand-flip dismissal of personal stress reactions was a human constant.
He seemed to be steadying, calming. His hands rested on his thighs, and when a hesitant knock came on the door he did not startle.
“Come!” Perceval said, because everybody was looking at her. Technically, she supposed, it was her sickroom—
A woman dressed as a member of Danilaw’s security poked her head into the room. “Administrator Gain is under arrest—Danilaw!”
“He’s fine,” Amanda said, just as Danilaw lifted up his head and said, “I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s just an aura. Karen, you have Gain in custody? That’s a relief.”
The security agent nodded. “She doesn’t seem too upset about it. She wanted a message passed.”
“Oh, ruin,” Danilaw said. “Hit me.”
“ ‘I did not do these things for myself,’ ” and it looked as if the agent refrained from eye rolling only through a titanic struggle, “ ‘but for the future.’ ”
Danilaw heaved himself to his feet, straightening faster that Perceval suspected was wise. He seemed none the worse for it, however, though he steadied himself with a hand on Amanda’s arm. “Sounds like religion to me. Have somebody check her rightminding, would you? And Karen—thank you.”
Karen smiled and vanished back whence she had come, her torso retracting through the half-open door like a snail’s head.
Danilaw turned to Amanda. “Well, then. Maybe we can make some decisions in a climate of calm reason now. What do you say?”
But the latch had barely clicked behind the agent