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Chapter 1: 13 Four 271 PT Chapter 2: 16 Four 271 PT

In the world of P'Ache

Visit P'Ache

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Chapter 2: 16 Four 271 PT

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Taf

Everything was going to be fine. Peacekeeper Taf Y'Ako paced back and forth, repeating that mantra to himself. Everything was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine because it had to be fine. There wasn't another option. Only one more day, and it would be signed and it would all be... fine. 

The old wooden boards creaked under his boots as he moved from one side of the small meeting room to the other and back again. To an outside observer, he might look nervous or worried about the impending treaty but, of course, that wasn't the case. The very idea was absurd. He was merely... working out some excess energy. That was all. Because everything was fine. It was all going to be just fine. 

The door slammed open and Primian B'Ray stormed through, his ruddy complexion dripping with sweat. "This bloody planet. Are we sure we want it?" He laughed at his own joke and collapsed into one of the few chairs. "I am grateful every day that this is almost over and I will never have to come back to this sweaty armpit of a place. My sister-in-law smells better than it does here and she exists solely on eggs. And don't ask me why eggs, I've had it explained a system of times and it is utter nonsense."

Taf knew he should laugh, or at least act amused, but all that excess energy was grinding him down. "They're on their way?" 

B'Ray pulled something that was likely once a neckerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow with a tired sigh. "Yes, they are on their way, and everything will go just as planned. I've even left J'Pur back at the base to ensure he can't add mud to the talks." He looked up at him, a patronising smirk on his face. "Come on now Y'Ako, one more day and this is all ours."

Taf hated it when he did that.

Technically he was B'Ray's superior, perhaps not in age but in status, and B'Ray knew that. But he continued to address him as though they were of a level, dropping the respectful honorific like he would one of his old friends. It was infuriating. As was the very clear reason why B'Ray wasn't nearly as worried as he was. He had no ship in the race, no credit on the table. If this went well, B'Ray would go down in history as part of Taf's team and would, no doubt, be able to spin it to make sound like he was the star of the system. And if it all went wrong, well, then it would be Taf's fault and B'Ray would have 'tried to warn him' or some other condescending but self-aggrandising sentiment. 

It was petty and it was annoying, far more so than anything else Taf had encountered on this planet. He quietly agreed with B'Ray; it was too damn hot. But he'd also worked too long and too hard to get here to complain about it. The same could obviously not be said of his supporting emissary. He knew a dressing down was not the way to handle this man, but he also knew that if he didn't get a stronger hold of the reins this particular Ikkne would be riding him, and taking great joy in it.

"Straighten up, B'Ray. You're starting to look as though you belong here." Taf hid his satisfied grin as he watched the robust older man pull himself quickly to his feet and begin tidying up his uniform. It was satisfying to know that even if he didn't have the man's respect, he could still make B'Ray dance to his tune. Somedays were harder than others, but when his ego was involved it was barely a challenge. 

The sound of multiple wet feet slapping down on the warped wood floor outside heralded the arrival of the Macran representatives, and it sounded as though they were fast approaching. It was an unpleasant sound, undoubtedly made worse by the excess energy currently churning in Taf's stomach. Despite the growing feeling of nausea and almost certain failure, he took his position on the opposite side of the table from the doorway, with B'Ray loitering to one side, not quite leaning against the wall. 

As they entered he felt the unease only grow inside him. They knew. They had to. He always found Macrans hard to read; their faces so wild yet familiarly Pachian, but with expressions all too different from what he was used to. 

It was truly a mystery of the stars, how this star system could contain four separate planets populated by the same species. The Primians had run the tests when they’d first landed on P’Ache Minor and the data was conclusive. Although the Minorans behaved in confusingly different ways, they had the same genetic sequence. It had been less surprising when they’d discovered the same was true on P’Ache Micro and P’Ache Major. 

But for Taf the real mystery was how these Macrans could look so similar but have such fundamentally different ideas. It was as though they didn’t want to be better than they were. As though they had no desire to see beyond the swamp, as though they had no ambition. It seemed impossible. And perhaps that was what he was struggling with. No, not struggling, but maybe that's where this excess energy was coming from. After 19 years of standard education quickly followed by 12 years working his way up the Diplomatic track and now six and a half - almost seven - years on-planet, the last four of which he'd been leading the negotiations, he still didn't truly understand the Macrans. 

It would be so easy to think like B'Ray, to look at them as savages and dismiss their intelligence. Far too easy. It would also be a mistake. It was the mistake his predecessor had made and was part of the reason he was here now instead. He wasn't going to make the same mistake.

At least Taf knew one thing his predecessor hadn't; he knew he didn't truly understand them. He'd studied the Macrans, learned as much about their culture as he could, and talked to them about ideals and motivations until neither one had air enough left to breathe and they were forced to stop. But it wasn't enough. It had not been enough because he still didn't understand them. How did he know that? Because they still made decisions which surprised him. Taf was rarely surprised.

Take B'Ray for example. B'Ray was obnoxious, lazy and stubborn, and to a layperson that could make him unpredictable. He might do or say something which no one could have predicted. But it would still fall within certain parameters; in a broad sense, the social laws and structure which were subconsciously adhered to, and in a more narrow sense, the man's own code of conduct - whatever that might be - and his emotional framework. Others may find him erratic or fickle, and perhaps he was, but Taf had never seen him do anything that was outside those preconceived barriers which were an essential part of who he was as a person. 

To an extent, the same was true of the Macrans. They would also be acting within the scaffolding of society and their own mind, but Taf was finding it more and more difficult to predict any of the Macrans' next move, particularly their thought process. All because he did not have a good enough grasp on what that framework was. Not for a single one of them. 

"Good morning," he stood to greet them, nodding and addressing each by name as they found their seats around the oval-shaped table. He was usually as comfortable here as he was anywhere on this planet. Today was different. Today there was tension in the air. 

They talked through the agenda items, finalising the details of the signing of the treaty, and all the while Taf waited for the whole thing to come crashing down. But it didn't. They didn't stop on the points he tried to move them passed quickly. No one said anything about the changes required on-planet in order to adapt to a more modern way of life. 

He breathed a sigh of relief as he dismissed the meeting. He was vaguely aware of B'Ray joking with one of the Macrans about meeting his daughter, but the relaxation of his muscles, particularly those in his shoulders and neck, took up more of his focus. That was it, the final talks before the signing tomorrow. He was so close, so-

"Urmm... Primian Y'Ako." The voice was that of one of the younger Macrans, an earnest woman in her mid-fifties with auburn curls she tucked into knots on her head, Barlinth of the Placid Waters. She was generally quiet in their meetings, but Taf was not naive enough to believe that didn't mean she was paying attention. 

"Yes? Is there anything I can help you with Macran Placid Waters?" The name wasn't as musical as it was in its original form, but Taf knew that starting the transition to a better, more Primian, way of doing things would make it easier for everyone. He'd been doing this with all the representatives for a few months now and he thought they were more or less used to it. 

Barlinth proved him wrong as she winced slightly, but was not rude enough to comment. "I don't want anything to get in the way of the signing tomorrow, but I wanted to let you know that I've been made aware of some troublemakers." 

If Taf wasn't busy overheating he was certain his body would have run cold. "Troublemakers?" 

She nodded and sent a puff of air out of her mouth, jutting out her lower lip so it went up like an exhaust pipe. A lot of Macrans did this without really thinking about it, and when he'd asked none had been able to clearly explain what it meant. In this case, Taf was willing to take a bet on frustration. 

"My sister's husband's cousin's neighbour is friends with someone who lives in the Eastern Marshes. Apparently, there have been a few gatherings of people who are worried about the treaty changing the Macran way of life." She huffed again, this time with a dismissive wave of her hand as though she hadn't just spoken Taf's worst fears aloud. "It's most likely a group of people sat around a pipe complaining. We'll handle it. But I wanted to let you know."

Taf's jaw was tight, his fist clenched beneath the table and all that surplus energy was back tightening around his shoulders and chest. "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. What can I do to help smooth this over before the big day?" 

Rin

Rin winced as her left knee moved, already tender skin rubbing against the warm, worn wood floor, causing marks she knew would last. 

“If you’re old enough to go sneaking off after the Primians when I thought you were smart enough not to need to be told it was a bad idea, then you’re clearly old enough to look after your brother.” Those had been her mamma’s words, meant to inflict the maximum amount of shame as well as ensuring she spent most of the following days on her knees, cleaning up the mess that the chaos creature she was related to managed to create. According to both her mamma and daddy, ‘looking after her brother’ included cleaning up after the eight-year-old Lodi who, in her opinion and that of her friend Kantra, was more than old enough to clean up after himself.

She'd sneaked out of her room the previous evening to meet up with Kantra near her hometree. Kantra wasn't brave enough to go far from her hometree. If she was honest with herself, Rin judged her friend for her caution a little bit, but she tried not to voice it too often. She was her best friend after all.

"He's older than I was when I started doing chores," Kantra had offered. "But my parents are different than yours." 

Rin had nodded her head, thankful for the backing, but somewhat at a loss for words. Kantra may have been doing chores from a young age, but Rin hadn't. And her parents were very different. Kantra's daddy was large and menacing in a way her daddy could never be. Her daddy wasn't ever even angry.

But that didn't make this form of punishment fair or just. Why was she even being punished?

In a word, it was shit. A small spark of shame followed by rebellious pride shot through her even thinking the word. If her mamma were to hear her… but then, what would she do? There could be no punishment worse than wiping the dried remains of Lodi’s lunch off the wall, from where he'd decided it would be more fun to use his self-made trebuchet to eat the hashed veg than his fingers like a normal person. Her little brother was worse than a chaos creature, he was a smart chaos creature which made his messes more inventive than was fair.

“This is shit,” she whispered under her breath, feeling emboldened and lighter for the briefest moment.

“Karinth of the Deep Green Moss!”

“I’m sorry, Mamma,” she said, wondering how her mamma was able to hear her from the top of the hometree.

She meant the apology too. Mostly.

It just wasn't fair, and she still didn't see that she'd done anything wrong. Not really. She was old enough to know what she was doing. She'd just been trying to help. Why was she being punished for trying to help?

"Rinny." Her brother appeared at her side from nowhere. For someone who made a lot of noise most of the time - too much in her opinion - he could still make her jump. 

"What Lodi? I'm busy."

"I want to go outside but Mamma says I can't unless you come with me." 

He sounded so sad, so desperate, that Rin couldn't help but take pity on him. He may be a mud monster most of the time, but she loved him. "Alright. But help me clean up what's left of your lunch first." 

Lodi grinned and sat down next to her, scraping off the dried mush with his fingers. "It got real far, huh?"

Rin snorted a laugh. "Yeah, it did." 

He was quiet for a moment and she could almost hear his little brain working. "I think I could make it go further if I made some changes to the counterweight..." 

In less than half an hour, the kitchen was trebuchet-fodder free and the pair of them were outside, experimenting with Lodi's various projectile projects.

They were still out there, laughing and covered in mud hours later when Rin spotted her daddy approaching the hometree. Her first instinct was to run over to him, but something about the set of his shoulders and the speed of his walk stopped her. He seemed sad, but also angry, and her daddy was never angry.

Lodi didn't seem to notice as he bound over. He threw his arms around Daddy's legs, but barely received more than a pat in exchange. Something was wrong. Very wrong. 

"What's wrong, Daddy?"

He looked at her then, and while she could see the love in his eyes, there was a deep sadness that she couldn't understand. "Come inside the hometree," he said, smiling at her. "Let's see what Mamma's made for dinner, and you can tell me about all this." He said the last bit to Lodi who immediately started talking about all the different things he could put in a trebuchet. Rin followed them inside. 

It was later, after her little brother had been tucked up in bed, and she'd been told it was time to go to her room, that she realised her daddy hadn't answered her question. Frustrated, she moved to the top of landing, about to climb out of the window at the end of the hall to visit Kantra, when she heard her daddy's voice. 

"...dead. All of them, Seri. And there was nothing I could do. I feel like such a coward." Her daddy sounded broken.

"You're sure?" Her mamma's voice was lower and so soft she almost couldn't hear it. 

"I know it sounds crazy. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I'm not certain I'd believe it. It was as though the swamp was on fire." She could hear the crack in her daddy's voice and it was that which made her truly afraid. 

There was a long pause, so long that Rin wondered if she might have missed them leaving or was about to be caught out. Then she heard a sob. Her daddy was crying. 

"Do you know why?" Mamma asked after a while. 

"I think it was the meetings. That's why I was going there. They must have found out somehow. I..." The sound of more crying pierced Rin's heart faster than any blade could. "I didn't do anything. I just ran. I should have done something." 

"Karn!" Her mamma's voice was firm this time, the same as when she was telling Rin off. "You did nothing wrong. If you'd tried to do something then we could have lost you. And I won't let you put us in that situation, am I clear?" 

Another pause. "I love you, wife."

Her mamma sounded lighter this time. "I love you too, husband." 

Yuck. Rin did not intend to sit around and listen to any more of that, it was too gross. But as she turned towards the window, she overheard her daddy say, "There is no doubt in my mind they had help. Only Primians know how to control a blaze like that." 

The words sent a shiver down her spine. Sure the Primians were a little scary, but they weren't actually dangerous. Were they? She stepped away from her escape route and turned, silently moving back to her room. Meeting up with Kantra no longer seemed so important. 

The door closed silently behind her and she moved back to her bed. "Shit," she whispered, as the reality of her daddy's words sunk in. "Shit, shit, shit."

2.1.4 Any and all efforts made towards modernisation and progress for both P'Ache Prime and P'Ache Micro will be considered as in the common good, no matter what form they might take. 

- extract from the Peace Treaty between P'Ache Prime and P'Ache Micro, agreed to and signed on 17 Four 271 PT

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