As Ars bound her hands behind her back with nanites that hummed with authority, Via could do nothing but gape at Patria. She's arresting me. My mater's arresting me. This can't be real.
Yet magical pressure circled her wrists even as the chill of shock settled into her bones. She twisted her hands but could not move them to a more comfortable position. The nanites emitted a warning thrum and tightened, stalling further movement.
As Ars rested a firm hand on her shoulder and nudged her toward the door, Via glanced back at her mater. Why are you doing this to me after what I showed you? Are you in on it? she screamed inside. But other words came out of her lips.
The nanites pushed her forward like an invisible hand on her wrists but did not stop her from speaking, at least. "How did you find out that I falsified evidence?"
They were damning words. She knew that. But there was no point in lying anymore. Her mater would question her about this for sure, and the higher-ranking Navigator's compulsion could and would pry the truth from her.
But she had some truths of her own she needed to hear, even if one aching truth was too painful to pursue yet.
"So, you admit it?" Lucina asked behind Via's mater, one white brow arching. Or maybe it was Umbrata? Via's heart thundered in her chest as she reached for the Caeles to identify the two women, only to have the nanites slide away as though blown aside by a breeze.
Patria turned stiffly over her shoulder and fixed the elderly twins with a cold glare. "You're dismissed." Her gaze shifted back to Via, then moved to Ars. "I want to speak to my daughter alone."
"Of course," one of the twins said as the detective nodded and stepped aside. She offered a grandmotherly smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Forgive us. We know this must be painful for you."
The trio took their leave.
When the office door slid closed, Patria sighed and dismissed the nanites still clasping Via's wrists with a wave.
Via swallowed hard as she rubbed her trembling hands. "How did you know?"
Patria's eyes narrowed. For the first time in Via's life, she saw none of the motherly exasperation that usually greeted her misdeeds. "That you planted evidence to make your grandmater's death look like murder?"
Via's hands clenched even as her face heated. She focused on the anger, not the embarrassment. "It was murder. I just couldn't prove it yet." She stepped forward, searching Patria's stony face. The Chief Navigator could have been a statue, she was so still and cold. There must be a way to make her mater see reason. "But now we know for sure that it was murder. You know that. You have to." She shuddered as the frozen bodies in the arboretum flashed through her mind. "All of the Ancients in the colony are dead. Umbrata and Lucina killed them. You know that." She swallowed, then forced herself to seek the truth that hurt. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"Because you didn't have the wisdom to look away," Patria said, and ice swept through Via's veins at the soft words. "To do what is best for the colony." She shook her head, brown eyes grim. "You asked how I knew that the crime scene you showed me was fake. I knew because Umbrata and Lucina came to me three hours ago and confessed everything."
For several moments, Via just stared. She could not have heard those words correctly. Otherwise, why was she under arrest while the Chief Terraformers walked free? "Confessed?" she whispered.
"They told me about what your grandmater and the other Ancients had been planning and..." Patria paled, and when she spoke again, her voice was choked. "And how they took care of it. There was no propane grill involved. No pipe. Only a fissure like in the Sunlit Station."
"Took care of it?" Via stormed forward and slapped her hands on her mater's desk, rattling an empty mug and potted plant. "They killed your own ma! They murdered twenty people!" She shook her head, dimly aware that her eyes were too wide and spit flew from her lips as she shouted. She didn't care. "No, not just murdered. This was genocide! They executed every single Ancient on this planet!"
"Your grandmater and the other Ancients live in the Caeles, now," Patria said, her voice shaky but growing firmer as she took a breath and continued. "They enjoy immortality where they can't spread their heresies anymore."
"Heresies?" Via's hands curled over the edge of the desk, her fingers like claws. If she could have yanked the white crystal desk from where it grew out of the floor and tossed it, she would have. "They were speaking the truth, and you know it! They discovered real evidence that the xenos and even the planets might be intelligent, and--"
"That's not the Eternal Radience's truth." Patria shook her head. "It's not the truth this colony needs. We can't give up our future and turn this planet over to a bunch of dangerous native beasts, Via."
"It isn't ours to keep or turn over." She swallowed, remembering Data. What would happen to the pup when the Trellis rose? "This is their planet. We're outsiders here." She crossed her arms. "And Grand Ma never said we should completely abandon the idea of the Trellis. She just wanted us to slow down and find out if we needed to proceed differently. If the local lifeforms are--"
"Sentient?" Patria rose from the desk, leaning over it to glare at Via, her face twisted in frustration. "What if it turns out that they are? We can't leave this world, Via. Everyone of the old generation who knew how to navigate the stars passed away long ago. I don't know how to operate a starship. Do you?"
"We could figure it out." Via rushed on, hoping her mater's frustration might mean that Patria was finally ready to listen. "Our ancestors did, right? We're Navigators, Ma. We can do this. We're genetically engineered to--"
"Chart a path through the stars using pulsar navigation and lead our people with augmented strength, intelligence, and will." Patria's lip curled. "None of that tells us how to build a starship, Via."
"We don't have to. The nanites in the arcology and station will transform back into a ship on their own if commanded to do so."
"That command can only be given by the Chief Terraformers," Patria said, shaking her head.
"You're the Chief Navigator. You're our leader. You can compel them to do it."
Via's mater sat down again, folding her hands atop the desk. Her interlaced fingers trembled, but her voice was firm. "I can, but I won't." She sighed as Via began to pace atop the crimson and gold rug spread atop the white crystal floor. "Do you know how long it took in the old days to train crew members to operate and maintain a starship?"
"There are textbooks, lectures, and training simulations in the Heritage Records--"
Patria shook her head. "Even if we dredge up the Heritage Records and begin training people now, they won't be ready for many years, Via."
"The wait will be worth it."
"Will it?" Her mater sighed. "You need to think about the long term here. What if, at the end of all that redirected effort, we end up learning that the lifeforms here aren't intelligent at all? We'd have wasted valuable time that should have been spent preparing this world for full habitation."
"We can live here without terraformation. We already have! We've done just fine for a hundred and fifty years. The air here is breathable. We can survive here." But she knew what her mater would say even before her words had finished rushing out.
"We've lived here confined to the arcology and the night-side. Yes, the air is breathable, but the solar flares on the day-side are deadly, and it's too cold on the night-side for anyone un-augmented to easily survive." Patria's voice was patient now as she leaned forward. "We will begin thawing the embryos in only seventy-five years. I know that seems like a long way away for someone your age, but it will be in your lifetime, Via, and in mine. We have a responsibility toward them, and all future generations. They deserve a world where survival won't be a constant struggle, and it's our job to prepare that world for them. And we're all meant for more than mere survival. Whether augmented or un-augmented, our species evolved walking in the daylight and farming beneath the open sky."
"We can teach our people new ways," Via said stubbornly.
"Those new ways are not what I want for our people," her mater said, voice firm. "I won't subject them to such a limited future."
"It should be their right to decide for themselves what kind of future they want." But Via knew there was no persuading her mater now. Not when Patria had adopted the expression of calm decisiveness she now wore. "Grand Ma always said self-determination is important. She--"
"She wasn't crafted from the genes up to lead our people," Patria said bluntly. "I am. And this is not the direction that I will lead them, Via."
She bowed her head and swallowed as defeat swept over her. "So what now?"
Her mater's eyes narrowed. "Now you have a choice to make about your future."
Via scoffed. "Ironic. You deny that choice to so many but give it to me?"
"You're a child of the Chief Navigator line and my daughter," Patria said. Her eyes were pained, and realization swept over Via.
"Silence in life or silence in death, right?" she asked bitterly. She could become like Mitis, mind wiped, or like Kaitlyn, an eidolon barred from speaking the truth. She doubted her mater would actually kill her, but she couldn't be sure anymore. She no longer recognized the woman. "Some choice."
"Not death," Patria said, voice trembling. "Immortality." She shook her head hard. "But come now, don't be dramatic. We both know you won't choose that."
Via crossed her arms. "Threaten me all you like. I'm not going to shut up unless you make me, Ma." She shook her head. "I couldn't live with myself."
"I can have Sententia make you forget." A strange pleading note entered Patria's voice that left Via frowning and her heart beginning to race. "Then your conscience wouldn't be burdened."
"Eventually Sententia will die," Via said, trying to summon back the courage she'd felt a moment before and call her mater's bluff. "And one day, so will you. Then I'll tell everyone. You can't silence me forever."
"You won't be able to speak the truth as an eidolon either. The anti-meddling barriers built into the Caeles won't allow it."
Via offered a casual shrug she didn't feel. She's not going to kill me. She's not. I'm her daughter. She'll back down. "Eidolons are immortal, Ma, and eternity is a long time. I'll wait."
Patria gaped at her. "You can't be serious!"
"You're not too bothered by Grand Ma's death," Via snapped, searching her mater's face for any sign of remorse. Any sign she wouldn't truly do this to her own daughter. "You'll get over mine just as fast, I'm sure."
Patria snapped to her feet, face blanching, eyes wide. "No!" she gasped. "You're not going to choose death, Via. I love you. I don't want that for you."
The air rushed from Via's lungs. She could barely make herself speak. The sarcasm she tried to inject into her words was weak. "It's not death, it's immortality. You said so yourself, remember?"
Patria rounded the desk and took her shoulders in hand, eyes wide and pleading. "Via--"
"If you're really going to give me a choice, then respect that choice, Ma," she said with a calm stubbornness she didn't feel. "Or let me speak freely." She narrowed eyes that wanted to remain too wide. "Those are the choices I'm offering you."
Patria shook her. "I can't let you speak, Via. Do you understand that? I have a responsibility to the whole colony."
It was only then that Via's growing dread crystallized into certainty. Her knees grew weak, and only her mater's tight grip on her upper arms kept her from sinking to the crimson and gold rug. Yet those same supporting hands would... "Then you're actually going to kill me?" she whispered, unable to keep the horrified betrayal from her tone.
Patria gulped. "If you insist on this course, I'll have to stop you. But you won't feel any pain." She stroked Via's shoulders soothingly, but it only made a shudder writhe through her. "It will be a smooth transfer to the Caeles, you'll see. You'll wake there as an immortal, and I won't let any of it hurt, I promise."
"It already hurts," Via whispered.
Her mater searched her face, brown eyes agonized but unyielding. "Via, please don't make me do this."
Via shrugged out of her grip. "I'm not forcing you to do anything," she gritted out. "You're the one who decided it's better to kill me than to let me speak."
"Via--"
She turned her back. "I don't want to talk to you anymore, Chief Navigator."
Quiet footsteps padded toward her, scuffing the crystalline floor as they paused. Patria moaned softly, the sound thick and choked, then drew a shuddering breath. "Is... Is there someone else you'd like to talk to, then? Will that bring you comfort? I will need to compel you not to speak of this, but I don't want you to be alone right now."
For a moment, Via couldn't think of anyone. Her mater's words barely made sense to her spinning mind.
Then a smiling face framed by strawberry-blond curls came to mind. "Let me talk to Clari."
"I'll go get her," her mater said, voice tear-choked. "Maybe she'll be able to talk sense into you."
Via waited until her mater's door slid open and her footsteps stumbled away. Then she walked stiffly to the corner as the door closed and sank on weak legs to the floor next to a potted black spiceweed plant.
I'm going to die, she realized. She'd been so foolish, thinking she could make her mater see the truth. Patria had stared the truth head-on and turned her back on it. She was willing to sacrifice even her own mater and daughter to protect a lie.
But my own lies got me into this mess. Fabricating evidence to find justice at any cost was pointless, she realized with a shudder. I should have spent my time getting the truth out to as many people as possible, not lying in order to win over someone so invested in hiding the truth. Now no one knows but me.
Tears blurred her vision, and she squeezed her eyes closed. Grand Ma won't see justice, and a whole alien civilization might be destroyed, all so we can put a false sun in the sky and pretend this world belongs to us.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and swallowed hard. How did we ever fool ourselves into mistaking the Trellis for a gift from the Eternal Radiance? It's ridiculous how some glorified nanite lattice inspires so much religious fervor.
Something about the word made her brow furrow. Fervor... Via's head jerked up as an idea and then a strategy began to rapidly take shape in her augmented mind with all the speed and intricacy that had once taken her Navigator ancestors across the stars. The dominos stretched before her mind's eye. She just needed to tip the right one, and the rest would tumble. I'll use the religious fervor!