I nodded as the silence stretched between us. Pickering looked to the ground, before she looked up at me. I followed her eyes. I hadn't noticed the bag beside her.
She grinned. I felt my equilibrium shift. It was happening far too frequently lately. "There is some truth to the claims that the Blacks slave Alliance species to machines," she announced.
It took me a full five seconds to comprehend that statement.
"I… what?" I wasn't very coherent.
"The best lies have a core of truth," Pickering replied.
I already knew that. Sol was the first Alliance system to fall. If Pickering was correct, Sol had never fallen. The Humans had never been in the Alliance at all. But that was the truth we believed.
Pickering bent down. She rummaged briefly in the bag beside her. I recognised the object she pulled out immediately. A collar. The light glinted off the needles set into its back. I shuddered. I should have known there was something about those collars. Why else would the Base Commander wear one?
"This isn't active," my former trainer assured me.
"It's still a collar."
She snorted. "You have no idea what it really does."
The retort wasn't what I expected. "It suppresses your microbes," I told her. "I presume you now have something internal." I didn't make it a question, but that was the explanation she had given me so long ago. The collar was the visible sign so that everyone could see that it was active.
Her eyes went hard. I knew that look. It said I'd just made a huge mistake.
"Unless you stab me in the gut, and then consume my intestines, you aren't in much danger from the microbes I carry."
I didn't need the graphic description.
"The ones on my skin are reasonably benign. The others, the viruses and such are more dangerous but don't jump the species barrier that easily."
I took a deep breath and forced myself to ask the next question. "So what does it do?"
She raised her gaze. It was disconcerting. Pickering remained sitting there but suddenly, with the slight shift in her head, she was above me. "It is a slave collar."
I forced myself to be still. She was attempting to get a rise from me. The base Commander wore one, so there was a deeper explanation. Surely, the Humans couldn't indoctrinate the second generations that much? If they did, why let her have rank?
"What are the Bright Ones?" Pickering asked.
I wasn't so impassive at that. She'd asked this earlier. I repeated the first part of my earlier answer. "They are a psychic species that most of the Alliance species perceive as light. I'm going to assume Humans perceive them similarly."
"We do," she nodded the confirmation. She seemed pleased I hadn't given the full answer. "They are a *psychic* species. They communicate with their minds. They communicate with *our* minds."
I went very still. I'd heard the Destroyer in my mind. It's screams still haunted me. I'd preferred to forget.
The Bright Ones communicated with our minds. That's why they liked to meet in person. That's why there was no language pack for them. There didn't need to be. They could hear everything we said… And everything we didn't say. *That* realisation wasn't pleasant.
Pickering was silent as I worked through the implications. Why hadn't I thought about this earlier? Why hadn't anyone? I didn't like the immediate answer I arrived at. I poked and prodded it. It didn't shift. It didn't change. Some in the Alliance must have had this thought. They never got to spread it. Certainly our Leaders gave no thought of being with the Bright Ones. They liked it. It was an honour to be seen by one.
The Bright Ones were always present at Alliance meetings. No one questioned that. They were the Founders, it was only right.
I stared at Pickering. I didn't want to put my thoughts into words. That would make it more real. I might only be a lowly soldier but it still changed everything. I knew enough to see how that was.
"They-" I tried. I really tried. I was trying to deny it. "They are controlling our Leaders?" I made it a question. The implied uncertainty was comforting.
Pickering just looked at me. Her expression told me that I already knew the answer.
"Doesn't anyone question it?"
Another look. I gave her one back. "You are encouraged not to," she said with a huff.
I nodded. That explained something. We were always taught the Alliance was for the betterment of all our peoples. We were reminded that the Bright Ones had uplifted us. It was something I'd heard all my life.
I thought further. Anyone in power would have seen a Bright One personally. If they had doubts, those would have been removed. Or… it wouldn't be that hard to remove them or to see that their career was not successful. A few words, the implication that they were not working for the good of all the Alliance and they would be finished.
That thought reminded me of something Quanna had said. It was said in passing. I hadn't known her long then. I focused. Pickering saw the change in expression. She was content to wait. It came to me slowly. It had been the first day after training.
*'Every Human has seen a Bright One. Every single one of them. They never said why, just said it was necessary, for control or something.'*
It was a rumour then. Something mentioned in passing. I tried to connect it to the new information I'd been presented with. I couldn't, yet I knew there was a connection.
"You've seen a Bright One, haven't you? I mean, when you were with the Alliance?"
"I told you that I had. Yes. I have seen many Bright Ones."
For a moment it didn't make sense. Then it all fell into place. "How did you resist the Bright Ones?"
She understood the question. She knew the you was inclusive. I meant Humanity. She smiled. It was vicious. There was some hidden knowledge there. "We are immune."
"What?"
"We are immune," Pickering repeated. She almost laughed. "Humanity is immune. We can hear the Bright Ones. They can hear us. They just can't change our minds."
I gasped. That was almost too simple.
"There's a biological reason for it," she continued. "Something about our brain chemistry and the way our neurons function. I've had it explained but I didn't understand it." She shrugged. "There's a theory that we've already begun on the path to developing our own psychic ability, enough that we can hold them off. No one's sure about that. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. There's always been some Humans who claim they are psychic. It's mostly guesswork."
Something still wasn't right. I looked at the collar she was holding. She saw my gaze and lifted it a bit higher. I wasn't sure how to phrase the question. I just knew there was one.
"The best lies have some truth," Pickering repeated. "The collar has two designs."
"It does nothing about microbes, does it?"
She shook her head. "Absolutely nothing," she agreed. "For the Base Commander, it acts as an inhibitor. She, and those who also wear them cannot hear the Bright Ones. It can scream at her all it wants. She can't hear it."
"But you can?" Pickering's explanation only partially explained why the Blacks used Destroyers. If they couldn't hear the psionic noise then that was good, but she had said Humans could hear the Bright Ones. I knew she could hear the Destroyers.
"I can. But in the Alliance, this collar serves a different purpose. There, it is an amplifier. It makes the Bright Ones signals so strong that they can control a Human." She freed one hand to rub at the back of her neck. It was a nervous gesture. I probably would have done the same.
"It hurt when they spoke to me. Every time. They were using the collar to overwhelm my natural defences. It gave me a headache for days. It kills others."
I wasn't sure if I was meant to hear that but I couldn't ignore it. "Did they speak to you often?" Quanna had said that every Human had spoken to a Bright One but no one said how often.
"Often enough," Pickering replied. Her barriers were going back up. "So you see, we do slave Alliance species to machines." She looked at me. I couldn't contradict the statement.
We sat in silence for a few moments. It wasn't comfortable. I fought to find some way of breaking it. I looked at the collar. "Is that an amplifier or inhibitor?" I wasn't sure why I cared.
"Inhibitor."
"So what happens if you put one of them on a Bright One?"
"Nothing. They don't have a physical presence."
I frowned. "Then how do you hold them in the Destroyers?" I had seen more than one of those things. It was physically there. It had armour. And the Bright One's ships were there. They could interact with the physical world. They weren't just thought and light.
"They have very little physical presence," Pickering corrected. "The Commonwealth have a couple of theories about them. Some take the Alliance view, that the Bright Ones are ascended to a higher plane. Or at least are on their way. As they evolve further they will lose their physical form completely.
"There's another view though. I think it fits better. It explains why there are no other elder species. I believe the Bright Ones failed. Their species advanced and developed. They became psychic. They became strong and then when the time came to take that final step, to leave this existence behind, they balked. Some of them would have made it. The rest just couldn't let go. That's why they still have bodies and why they now control everyone they can. They don't want others to realise how badly they failed."
I didn't know what to think of that. This had definitely gone beyond the realms of thought for a simple soldier. I think it went beyond even Intel's brief. I wondered what they would say. I wondered if they could say anything. Intel was visited by the Bright Ones frequently. I guess you wanted to control those who looked at your Enemy. It wouldn't do for them to learn the truth…
I gasped. That thought didn't belong. That thought implied the Blacks were right. That went against everything I believed. Everything I'd fought for.
Everything I'd killed for.
I swallowed as I considered that.
"You begin to understand." Pickering's voice was cold. It wasn't all directed at me. I could tell a fair swath of that cold was directed at herself. She knew what she'd done. She knew what I'd done.
I kept looking at that thought. Why had it come to me? Why did I even consider it?
The memories of the past year and a half returned.
The Blacks had given the Zarthan salt water. They had resettled the Opar. They had ensured we were adequately provided for. We were prisoners but we were not mistreated. The Base Commander had even sent for Pickering. I knew she didn't want to be here.
The Blacks… The Humans had cared. That's what it came down to. They cared in a way the Alliance didn't. But were they meant to?
We were soldiers. We were provided for. We were trained. We were given orders. We carried out those orders. That was our job. Civilians had other duties, and with those, had different requirements. The Opar shouldn't have gotten pregnant. But she had…
That was the key here. She had. Her future in the Alliance would have been uncertain. It would have depended on quotas. There were always quotas for soldiers. I hadn't even thought about that. It was just the way it was.
My new knowledge questioned it. I had a feeling I'd be questioning a lot of things soon. I just couldn't keep up with them all at once. Why were there quotas? Were they like the tribute? They had to be. Didn't the Bright Ones know we would fight to defend our homeworlds? They did not have to force us.
Or did they? If things had been presented differently, would we have sided with the Humans? Could we have sided with the Humans? I left that thought quickly. Madness beckoned. I could only deal with the now. I tried to narrow my focus. There were too many revelations.
"So what happens now?" That was the only question I could think of that made sense.
"Now I go back to Earth," Pickering said. Her eyes were wide.
That wasn't the answer I'd been expecting.
"I told you, you aren't my friend. Maybe one day, when I wore a slave collar, I was, but I am not the woman you knew and I won't be that woman."
I remembered her earlier words. I wanted to deny them. I wanted to say that we could be friends but it wasn't going to work. I was still a prisoner. I doubted they'd let me walk out of here, not even if I said I thought they were right. "You don't want to be reminded."
"Exactly." There was a slight note of relief in her voice. I think she expected me to be difficult. I wanted to be but I was not in a position to pursue it. Even if I was, I'm not sure I would have. It wouldn't have said anything nice about me.
I stood. It told her I'd figure out the answer on my own. "I am grateful that you came, Pickering." I didn't use her rank. It would only have reminded her more. I didn't want that. "I am thankful for the information you have shared with me." I believed it but I would be checking what little I could. I couldn't change everything I was on just one source. I wondered how to get further information. The Base Commander would probably help. We were an Experiment, after all. Experiments sometimes needed guidance.
"And while I understand that I remind you of the past, you are my friend." I couldn't say anything more. I wanted to. There was so much that could be said. I knew it wouldn't be heard. I nodded before I moved to the door.
There was a Black waiting. He escorted me back to the barracks where I sat for a very long time, staring at nothing. The rest of my work group entered. They knew better than to disturb me but they did spread the word that I was back.
I didn't see Pickering again.