The Fourth Consort

by Edward Ashton

This is the second time in the past three years that he’s been tasked with making first contact on behalf of Unity with a planet-bound sentient species. His primary difficulty the first time was in convincing the locals that he wasn’t some sort of deity. It doesn’t seem that will be a problem with the minarchs.

At the end of the hallway stands a closed, circular, ironbound wooden door. Dalton thinks first to knock, but then realizes that there’s no reason to believe a minarch would understand what that means. There’s an iron ring set into the center of the door at chest level. Dalton grasps it with both hands and pulls. The door hasn’t even fully opened when the minarch inside whistles, “It is considered basic courtesy to knock before entering.”

“First,” he says, “Neera is not my master. She is my equal.” “Truly? You are male, are you not?” “Uh,” Dalton says. “Yes?” “And this Neera—she is female?” Oh. He sees where this is going. “We don’t have the same social structure that you do,” he says. “The fact that Neera is female and I am male is irrelevant.” “Hmm … so you say.”

“Well. I had hoped for a few moments of pleasantries, but I see you would prefer to go straight to the heart of the matter. Is this a universal human custom, or are you simply unconscionably rude?”

“And yet, you continue to lie, as if lying were some intrinsic part of your nature, one that you simply lack the power to avoid. This also supports what our Honored Guest has said about you. He tells us that a species such as yours, utterly lacking in natural weapons, must by necessity live by subterfuge and deceit in order to survive. He tells us that these tactics must be bred into you by a million generations of evolution, and that holding these things against you would be no more reasonable than holding you accountable for your physical appearance. So we will speak no more of it. Instead, we will agree that you will try your best in the future to resist your natural inclinations toward deceit, and we will think together now about how we might proceed such that both of us are still living in three days’ time. Does this seem reasonable to you?” Dalton stares blankly at her for a moment, then says, “My appearance?” “You are hideous.

That’s the moment that comes to Dalton as Breaker steps down into the grass and walks toward him—the clench in his stomach, the roar of the train, and above all, the absolute certainty that swept over him then that no matter what happened in the next few seconds, everything would be fine. He would live, or he would die, and no matter which branch the universe chose, everything would go on more or less just the same as before.