The Chaplain’s Legacy Read Free Page A

deferential as he introduced her. “She is the highest of the Select who rule our people. Her voice carries supreme authority within the Quorum of the Select.”
    “She is your sovereign,” I said.
    “Yes and no,” said the Professor. “She is elected, but she also shares a tremendous lineage, biologically. Her genetics run through countless mantes, over many of your generations.”
    In other words, she was fecund, in addition to being old.
    I sat up a little straighter.
    “Ma’am,” I said to the Queen Mother, “of what service can I be to you?”
    The Queen Mother floated forward a bit more, while the Professor floated back.
    “Your name is spoken in my Quorum,” she said. “It is the only human name that has ever reached such height. When the one you call the Professor first came before me, many of our cycles ago, and petitioned for us to halt our Fourth Expansion, I considered him obtuse. Your superstition is of no consequence to me, nor do I have any use for it. And yet, the Professor had convinced a good many of his contemporaries that the elimination of your species—of your numerous modes of religion—would be detrimental to the advancement of mantes knowledge. And his colleagues had convinced many on the Quorum. Rather than force a contentious vote on the issue, I acquiesced, believing that the merit of the Professor’s proposed observation and research would become obvious in time. Even if I could see no value in it in the moment.”
    She let a tiny silence hang in the air.
    “I no longer feel the need for such forbearance.”
    The room was dead silent, but the Queen Mother’s words had hit me like a thunderclap. It was one thing to hear the captain talk about a possible end to the peace. It was quite another to have the nominal leader of the  enemy  in front of me declaring that she was going to drop the hammer. I felt a slithering surety in my stomach: the Queen Mother would not bluff.
    I cleared my throat experimentally, trying to shake off the dread I felt. The eyes of the officers behind me began to drill virtual holes in my back as I left my seat. The Queen Mother remained where she was.
    “I have to think,” I said, voice shaking just a bit, “that your mind isn’t entirely made up. Otherwise why agree to this meeting at all? You could just as easily declare the ceasefire dead, launch your war armada, and have done with it.”
    “There are still some,” she said, her triangular insect’s head tilting back in the Professor’s direction, “who petition me for further amity. I am not a hasty being. I listen to my intellectuals. If they say there is additional merit in long-term conciliation between our races, I am habitually obliged to entertain the notion—whether I agree with it or not. So rather than send a delegate, I came here myself. To meet the one human who has managed to alter the inevitable course of my empire. I had expected someone more impressive.”
    “My apologies,” I said, “if my presence does not meet that expectation. As for what I can say or do to change your mind, I am not sure I can offer you much more than what I’ve already been able to offer to the Professor and his students. I am the chaplain’s assistant. I’ve counseled the Professor that he’d do well to seek out a bona fide  chaplain.  Or, if a military man is not in order, then there are the finest theologians, scholars, religious teachers, and clergymen Earth has to offer. If I have failed to provide enlightenment, surely someone else might be better suited.”
    “Enlightenment,” the Queen Mother said, her mouth hinged open and her serrated, vicious teeth vibrating—the mantis display of annoyance. “This is a phrase that I find utterly preposterous. I have studied what little of your planet’s history is available to me and determined that we mantes were building starships when humans were still scuttling about in caves. Enlightenment. Ridiculous. Does the larva  enlighten  the