There's some interesting cultural philosophy here. Which is apparently what I do when left with too many thoughts and not nearly enough people to talk to about them.
Oh, and glconstien? You're my hero. I'm gonna dedicate this chapter to you. Thanks.
Enjoy!
Jim rolled his shoulders as he assessed his opponent. Dmitri stood loosely, his arms almost relaxed at his sides. Jim knew that look – it was that of a man used to fighting hand-to-hand without any particular doubt in his abilities. In spite of himself, Jim smiled.
"Isn't somebody going to say go?" Race asked from behind.
"This is for none but those who seek to comprehend one another," Ivan said. There was a faint hitch in her voice and Jim turned automatically to her, noting as he did so that Dmitri stilled to look in concern as well. Ivan was leaning on Blair's arm a little heavily, her weight unsteady in the sand. Within moments, someone produced a camp chair and Blair eased her into it. Ivan smiled at the faces around her.
"Do not fear for me. Attend that which determines our fate."
Jim faced Dmitri again and they both felt a snap of anticipation before charging simultaneously. Only two or three blows into the exchange and Jim discovered two things about his opponent – Dmitri was trained military for sure, and Dmitri was in it to win.
On reflection, Jim knew he could have capitulated quickly, not throwing the match exactly, but not giving his all. He wanted to prove something, but he didn't need to win in order to do that.
But in the moment, facing another Sentinel, a Sentinel decades into his gifts and responsible for a tribe of dozens of other Sentinels, Jim couldn't have held back if he had wanted to. He was driven with a power he'd only felt a few times, the power that always echoed in his jaguar's eyes somewhere in the back of his mind. He wanted this fight with a passion, and he would win it or go down trying.
Jim dodged an incoming punch and slammed an elbow into Dmitri's side, just glancing off a rib. Dmitri reacted by ducking behind Jim to attempt to knock him to the ground. Jim let Dmitri's momentum drop him, but he rolled at the last instant and kicked out, bringing Dmitri to the sand with him. He attempted a powerful horizontal heel-drop into his opponent's midsection but Dmitri caught his leg and twisted, sending Jim flopping awkwardly to keep from having his knee wrenched.
Jim shoved himself backwards and broke the hold on his ankle, getting to his feet. Across from him, Dmitri smiled. "Not bad for an American," he said with a dark respect.
"Just getting started," Jim answered him with a smile of his own. He settled into a more traditional boxing posture, and immediately Dmitri moved into a likewise stance.
After they punched and blocked for several minutes without either making particular headway, Jim had a flash of remembrance. Benton said these Sentinels, while trained from childhood, were forced to live in a system that made it harder for them to manage their senses without help or insulating surroundings. Jim might need Blair's help, but he didn't rely on it. It was an advantage. The jaguar in his mind almost purred in anticipation.
Accordingly, Jim began a steady campaign of using Dmitri's senses against him. A glancing blow might result in Jim scraping sand across his exposed skin. He worked to keep himself facing the beach, leaving Dmitri to battle while shielding his eyes from the sun dancing on the ocean. Nothing underhanded, not exactly. But he ensured that every instant he played against Dmitri's senses with the precision of a man whose own similar weaknesses were keen.
Dmitri managed a brilliant right-cross that smashed into Jim's nose, not quite breaking it but certainly causing it to bleed spectacularly. For a moment the scent and pain almost overwhelmed him, and then Jim could hear Blair, not actually speaking, but what he would have been saying any other time. Almost like he could hear Sandburg thinking: Use it to overwhelm him instead!
Jim never hesitated. He swiped at his nose with one fist while ducking under Dmitri's swinging left punch and getting up behind him. He caught the Russian in a hold and jammed his blood-covered hand right under Dmitri's nose even as he pulled the man's head back to force an ear against his chest. Dmitri fought for an instant, but the double stimuli of the scent and feel of blood against his mouth and the foreign pulse beating in his ear undid him.
Jim expected a zone. What he got instead was Dmitri dropping to the ground, curling into himself with a deep groan.
Then Blair and Ivan were both running, the former more lithely than the latter, but both with the same urgent purpose. Blair reached his Sentinel first, quickly offering a handkerchief that clearly smelled of Benton Quest to staunch the blood while he examined Jim for further injuries.
"I'm okay, Chief. Just some good bruises," Jim assured him.
"Nice work, man," Blair said, smiling, even as he didn't let up looking for other hurts. "I knew you could do it."
Beside them, Ivan crouched before the beaten Sentinel, speaking softly in Russian as she ran her hands over his head and back. It soothed him, but he did not uncurl and his shoulders began to tremble. After a few moments, Dominik approached with a thick blanket. Jim could tell that it was wired with a few tiny white noise generators in it. Ivan threw it over Dmitri's body and pinned it down, cutting off light and sound. Dominik helped her stand before taking her place to keep the tent pinned over the distressed Sentinel.
Ivan faced Jim with her chin up, the sand and spots of blood sticking to her knees and hands invisible in the face of her presence. "You have defeated our Sentinel. He and all who were his will defer to you."
Jim reached out to grab his Guide and pull Blair to his side, gripping the back of his neck possessively. "And what does that mean for me and Blair exactly?"
"Sentinels are not sheep and we maintain our own ways of determining our fate," Ivan said almost reprovingly, "but they will be more inclined to listen to your words and advice. What you have done, the way in which you used Dmitri's senses against him, this we have never been able to resist. Your command of your gifts is superior. My people will want similar training."
She looked at Blair, who tried not to appear as if he were being shielded by his much larger, paranoid Sentinel.
"You, young wolf, are a powerful companion for your Sentinel. Your strength is echoed in his control just as your wisdom is in his eyes. We who Guide do not defer to others who Guide, or to Sentinels, but those who have need of you will come to seek you. Of all my Sentinels, they have had only myself. They will now look to you also for peace from the pain as well as your strength and wisdom."
"Blair is my Guide," Jim said tightly.
"Yes," Ivan affirmed. But then she turned away from the other Sentinels ranged on the beach. She stepped close to Jim and dropped her voice to less than a whisper, so much even Dominik a few paces away would have needed to extend his hearing to listen. "Blair is yours, soul to soul. I Know this. But the connection is fragile where it should be strongest. You must prove it to yourself, or you will tear the both of you apart."
-==OOO==-
Once cleared by the paramedics of immediate danger and the oxygen masks were removed, Hadji and Ngama wheedled their way out of the ambulance under the condition that Simon drove them directly to the hospital to be checked more thoroughly. Of course, "wheedled" wasn't the word either would have used – Ngama would have said "negotiated" and Hadji would suggest it was more "an act of reason and logic based upon a clear will and sensibility." Simon had a kid their age and knew better; he termed it wheedling.
"We should call your dad," he said as they pulled up to the Emergency Room parking lot. Simon was beginning to think he should have a reserved space for how much time he spent here dealing with prone-to-injury Sentinels and Guides. He glanced into the back-seat. "Both of your dads, maybe?"
Ngama shook his head. "I am unharmed, Captain Banks. My father will worry needlessly. Should my condition deteriorate, then perhaps. But for this, it would do more harm than good." He coughed a little unconvincingly.
"I think perhaps you will not agree," Hadji said softly, "but it was Jonny's wish not to disturb his father while on such an important mission. It is…it is not in me to betray that wish, not yet."
"But don't you want your dad to…?" Simon trailed off before he finished with, "you know. Be there for you?"
"The comfort of my family stands with me no matter their geography," Hadji said, a touch of his habitual serenity sounding in the words in spite of their smoke-roughened tone. He stroked Bandit's head steadily. "Where he is does not matter. Doctor Quest is 'there for me' from Russia or the bottom of the sea or the surface of the moon. The heart is not bounded by space and time."
Simon shrugged – there wasn't a whole lot to say to that. Instead, he climbed out of the car and led the two young men into the ER to be checked again, leaving the pup whining in the back-seat (Simon knew this hospital staff, even with the patience of the saints, would not put up with the wiggly canine). As they entered, they found Jessie pacing.
"Hadji! Are you okay? Don't you ever do that again!" she leaped from concern to anger even as she threw her arms around him gratefully. "If you ever leave me to wait on the sidelines again just because I actually followed orders and called for backup…"
"I shall deserve your wrath, my friend," Hadji said ruefully. Then his gaze went over her shoulder. "How is he?"
"They put him on oxygen and they've started running tests. I kept them from giving him anything because of 'allergies,' but sooner or later they're going to start asking questions."
"No they won't," Simon said. He glanced at Ngama for just a moment, then shrugged. "I put in a call to Agent Howard Fritz as soon as Jessie hung up on me when I was on the way. A team will be by soon to airlift Jonny up to SELF and they'll bring in a medic we can trust."
His phone rang just as he finished these words. Jessie and Hadji looked up hopefully, but Simon shook his head as he answered the call. "It's Daryl. I left him in kind of a rush."
"Tell him whatever you need to," Jessie said decisively. As Simon edged away to reassure his son, she turned to the other two. "It seems to be a busy night around here, so we have some time before the doctors pull you two in for your exams. Hadji, call Agent Fritz and give him an update. He'll want to hear from you anyway."
"What will you be doing?"
Jessie tipped her head to Ngama. "Looks like I'm going to be explaining all about the Department of Homeland Security and the SELF location."
Within the hour, the DHS team arrived and quickly extricated Jonny from the doctors' care before Jessie and Simon had run out of ways to stall either medical treatment or having the hospital contact Jonny's legal guardians. Agent Fritz had not asked why Hadji requested he not inform Doctor Quest, mainly because he knew the Quests well enough to know which mysteries were not worth his aggravation. The helicopter was big enough to carry the DHS personnel and Jonny to SELF, but the others had to follow in Simon's car after Hadji and Ngama were released, with one quick stop to retrieve their basic supplies from the SELF house.
The medic was a military doctor, and what Maggie Mui lacked in knowledge about Sentinel physiology she made up for in experience with strange traumas. Hadji and Jessie and Simon and even Ngama shared everything they knew about Sentinels' medicine in general and Jonny in particular. Throughout the night, the doctor was able to establish that Jonny was largely uninjured except for a few burns, but the real damage was from the smoke and fumes. He was reacting as if he had been dosed with ten times the concentration of chemicals in the air. But the impact to his body was real, and the lack of a viable treatment was worrying.
"The problem," Doctor Mui explained in her quiet voice, "is that in normal cases we would administer a series of drugs that assist in pulling the heavy metals from a person's body. Jonny was exposed to mercury and arsenic poisoning as well as other compounds from his proximity to the burning computer parts. We have to purge those substances and quickly or there could be irreparable damage. But even dimercaptosuccinic acid which is used on children is too dangerous in his case."
"So you can cure him, but you could really hurt him if you do," Simon said. "But if you don't do anything…"
"I need to do something," Doctor Mui said. "I just don't know how well he'll recover from the side-effects of the cure."
Hadji, Jessie, and Ngama had been sitting near the bed in the infirmary, and with her words Hadji's head shot up. He grabbed for Ngama's shoulder.
"Your father! That tree sap!" he said with a rush of hope.
"You're right!" Ngama cried. He turned to the doctor. "My father has been working with a natural remedy used by my people for thousands of years. It is able to regenerate severe injuries and help the body recover from illnesses, and it does not harm Sentinels – I can attest to that personally. Already it is in its secondary drug trials, but it is safe to administer and it may rebuild whatever is destroyed by your cure."
"If he will bring some of it to us," Doctor Mui began to move towards the vials of medicines she had gathered before realizing she could not administer them, "I will work on the poisoning itself at once. I have no better ideas and I cannot wait much longer to clear the poisons from Jonny's system." She stopped with a syringe poised to put into Jonny's IV. "Hadji, I understand that in the absence of Doctor Quest and Race Bannon, you are the remaining person authorized to agree to treatment of your brother. Should I begin now, or should I wait?"
Hadji took a short breath and stood. "I know the dangers of the poisoning to which he has already been subjected. Please do what you can to save him from that. If we wait for a cure for the cure, we may be too late to treat the original ailment." But he looked to Simon as if for confirmation.
The captain put a hand on his shoulder. "It's triage, son. Do what you can with what you have. I think you're right on this one. There's only so much we can do, and I bet that tree sap won't help him much if he's still full of arsenic."
Hadji shook his head. He squeezed Jessie's hand as he nodded at Doctor Mui. "Please proceed."
"I'll call my father at once," Ngama said. "He owes you and Jonny a great deal as well, including my life. No matter our personal differences of opinion, I know he will send several doses as quickly as he can."
"I'll call Agent Fritz again," Jessie rose. "He might be able to arrange transportation."
"Good thinking," Simon approved. He looked down at Hadji and suppressed a shudder. Hadji couldn't be more than twenty years old, and he was the one left to make medical decisions for his adopted brother? Simon wasn't sure he'd even feel up to making such a decision for his own son.
As Jessie led Ngama out of the medical area to where they would get better reception, Simon drew Hadji backwards by the grip on his shoulder. "Come on. There's nothing you can do here right now."
"He's my Sentinel," Hadji protested. "I'm his Guide. I need to be with him."
Oh lord preserve me from all this stuff, Simon moaned internally. Aloud he said, "That might be true, but you're in pretty terrible shape. At least go take a shower. You're not going to do him any good covered with the stuff yourself."
Hadji acquiesced much more easily than Simon knew Blair would have, and he was grateful that at least somebody around here still listened to his perfectly good common sense. Once Hadji was out of the room, Simon looked to the doctor.
"Is there anything else we can do?"
"No," she answered, carefully measuring doses. "I'm going to keep him unconscious to give his body a chance to rest and to keep him from putting too much strain on his system by fighting with his senses. I'll be here to monitor him until we know, one way or another."
"All right," Simon nodded. "If you need something, I won't be far."
And he strode out of the room to find a quiet spot from which to make a phone call of his own.
"I let Hadji get out of telling his dad," he muttered to himself, typing in the complicated number that would route his call to a cell phone halfway across the world over the secure Quest network. "I didn't say anything about not telling Jim."
But the detective didn't answer. Instead, Simon was treated to Jim's voicemail. Apparently no one had ever left Jim a voicemail on the private Quest phone before, or he would have known it was Jonny who had recorded the outgoing message.
"Hi there! You've reached the super secret phone of Jim Ellison. If you did not intend to call this number, please don't ever use it again. Oh, and we'll block your number as soon as we find you. If you meant to call Jim, clearly he's not answering for a good reason since he would definitely hear the phone ring otherwise. Please leave him a message. I don't know if he figured out how to get his messages yet, but I guess you'll find out! Later!"
"Jim, it's Simon," he said, keeping his tone firm and unhurried. "Look, something happened and you should probably think about sending Doctor Quest and Race back here ASAP. Jonny got hurt. We're doing all we can, and we even called in Fritz. Call me as soon as you can, any time day or night. I…think Benton should know about this."
-==OOO==-
Blair glanced around. "Are you sure this is a good place to do this?"
Dominik smiled at him. His thin face seemed quite dour until his grin proved how bright it could be. "This hotel is government run. I gave an order and all outsiders fled rather than face the wrath of an angry colonel. Besides, it is an easy building to set up for our particular use."
"That is one good thing about being here," Race commented. "The civilians are fairly used to just going with whatever the military says. It helps – as long as your friends are military."
"Which we are," Ivan nodded. "Myself, perhaps not. But Dmitri is much revered as the fierce Colonel Barkov."
Dmitri himself was looking a little better, though his eyes were still wide and his face was tense. He'd sent Dominik, who turned out to be his lieutenant, with orders for the hotel staff to clear the entire back portion of the hotel and unlock the large ballroom before making themselves scarce and keeping any of the other tourists on the island away. Then Dominik had overseen a crew of Sentinels set up an elaborate series of white-noise generators, replace light-bulbs with those that were not so bright, and designate Sentinel-friendly safe rooms for retreat. The ballroom was fairly elegant in décor, but its style had been somewhat ruined by the crowd of Sentinels who grabbed chairs from their neat stacks and dragged them into a rough assembly deep amidst banks of white-noise machines that blocked out the rest of the world.
"So what now?" Jim asked, standing awkwardly. He wasn't altogether pleased with finding himself at the center of attention for the dozens of Sentinels around him. On the plus side, though, from the moment Dmitri had dropped in their fight, the odd wariness of being in the territory of another Sentinel had faded. From what Ivan had said, that was because these Sentinels now recognized Jim as one of themselves, so he was no longer an outsider. Jim wasn't so sure about that, but he was glad to be rid of the permanent feeling to keep Blair close and growl at everything that moved.
And Jim didn't miss that every single Sentinel was vastly more at ease surrounded by Sentinel-friendly technology, that they only relaxed when they were barred from any uncomfortable stimuli. Only that comparison told Jim how very different their coping mechanisms were from his own. Thank god for Sandburg, or I wouldn't be able to leave the loft.
"Now you will present what you wish us to consider," Ivan said, taking a chair between Dmitri and where Jim stood, Blair awkwardly at his side and trying not to be stared at.
"Well…" Jim floundered. He looked to Blair and Benton for help. Benton stepped up.
"I have created an organization that offers shelter and relocation to any Sentinel or Guide who wants it," Benton said. "I understand that all of you have worked as part of the military for most of your careers, but as your senses continue to refine themselves as you age, you are struggling more and more in the system that has housed you up until now. I would like to offer you an alternative. You can come with us to join SELF, and we will provide an environment in which you can discover more about your Sentinel nature and your capacity for control."
"Your senses are amazing," Blair jumped in. "But there's more you can do with them, and you shouldn't have to rely on a government to provide special housing or all these machines to dull all the noise for you, either. You can live your own lives like Jim does. You just need to learn how."
"And would you be teaching us, Professor Guide?" Dmitri asked, only the barest twinkle in his dark eyes.
"Um, yeah," Blair nodded, coughing with a little embarrassment. "At least for a while. We'd also start trying to help find others who could be Guides so you wouldn't have to just depend on me and Ivanna."
"Even with their own Guides," Ivan spoke up, "you and I shall always be the primary Guides, just as Jim is a nominal leader of them as Sentinels. It is in their nature to give their loyalty and remember it. Just as it is in their nature to respect authority."
"But that's just what we can change," Benton said passionately. "You've lived your whole lives under a very strict hierarchy. We want to give you the freedom to find your own way and live independently, without having to defer to anyone. We'll make it comfortable, and if you want Jim as a leader that's fine, but you don't need it. You just need to embrace your true potential as Sentinels."
Ivan frowned. "You may offer political freedom beyond what we already know, but you cannot change what we are."
"We don't want to change what you are," Blair said. "We just want to help with the senses. Help fix the training that made you dependent. When you have the kind of control and comfort Jim does, you can live wherever you want, in whatever system you want. We're just offering a way to get there. Like…consider it an offer for a place at a school. What you do after you graduate is up to you, but we want you to have the education that will help you. That's all."
Dmitri shook his head with a thoughtful expression. "Professor Guide indeed. You we believe. But it is harder for us to accept them," he looked at Benton and Race. "They are not one of us."
"Doctor Quest has put all his time and effort and money into making sure you could have this option," Jim said a little hotly. "He doesn't have to be a Sentinel or a Guide for him to be a good man trying to help."
"But we did not ask for his help," Dmitri said, standing. "We did not ask for a hero to come to us to save us from our ignorance. We are not some poor, helpless people who will be amazed at the magic of your powers. We are strong. We have survived much. We did not ask for you to come and tell us that your ways are better and we must embrace them."
Race took a step forward looking like he wanted to fight, but Benton caught his arm. "Don't, Race. He's right. There is a certain…colonial superiority in our position."
"But we're not trying to go all White Man's Burden on you," Blair protested. "Okay, we all know there are Sentinels who do need a rescue, but that's not because their ways are stupid – it's because they're locked up in breeding centers. So can we all agree that Sentinels who don't have choices do need some help?"
Ivan nodded. "We all have friends and family who have been lost to the chaos in their minds and were…reassigned. And we know what that means. If you intend to help them…"
"We do," Jim said staunchly. He stepped to the center of the crowd and looked out as his conviction grew firmer. "I've only ever known three other Sentinels," he told them. "I've never had a…community of people like me before. I'm new to all this."
"You're doing fine," Blair said in the barest whisper. Jim threw him a quick, grateful nod and continued with more confidence.
"Look, if you're good with what you've got, that's fine. This is an offer, and it's not just coming from Benton. If you woke up one day and won the lottery, you'd probably take that money and use it to help your families, right?"
People were nodding now.
"Well, Benton has reason to care about Sentinels, so he basically just gave me a winning ticket. And if you don't want to share in it, that's fine. Stay here. Protect the navy and the little city and this island and live behind a bank of white-noise generators and air filters. That's your call. Nobody has to give up their territory here."
Jim paused and took a breath. "But you do have a choice. You can come with us, come live in Cascade. There's a huge facility there that's been built for Sentinels. You'll get to learn all the stuff Sandburg taught me about control, all the tricks that give me an advantage and make me independent. And if you want to do that and come right back here afterwards, you can. Or you can stay in Cascade. Or you can go live on the moon for all I care."
"And if every person in this room says no?" Dmitri asked.
"Then we leave," Jim shrugged. "And we'll go find one of those places where Sentinels get sold or 'reassigned' or whatever you want to call it. And we'll give them the same choice. You've got it pretty good, but you all know you might not have it forever. This offer isn't a one-time deal. If you say no now, you can always join us in a year or ten years if you're the one on the reassignment list."
"Why are you doing this?" Ivan looked at Benton. "Why do you come here and offer us riches at all?"
Benton glanced at Jim who gave him a nod. Benton laid his cards on the table. "My son has recently become a Sentinel," he said. "And when faced with the challenges of what that meant, I could not do nothing. When I learned the state of Sentinels throughout the world, I could not do nothing. I have the means and the will and the resources to make things happen. If it makes you feel better, I'm doing this as much for him as for my high ideals."
Benton's eyes went fiery. "I want to change things so that no government or terrorist group or anyone else ever has the ability to take away my son's freedom. I want Sentinels to be known in the West as well as they are in your military so he will have some protection. I want Sentinels to be understood in society so children born naturally like Jim will get the training they need without having to end up in the military or an asylum."
"I can help," Blair said earnestly. "And the more Sentinels that can function outside of the governmental systems, the closer we'll get to Sentinels being known and welcomed in the general population. We just need to fix a few things."
"Professor Guide," Dmitri said, and there was respect in his voice, "you know much of the science of senses – this is clear. You know the history of Sentinels and it seems you have stumbled upon some of the greatest truths of our people passed down these generations by those of us who listened to the stories as children. You may offer the ability to fix the training we endured and grant us more freedom, as you say. But you have yet to learn our spirits. You cannot fix what makes us Sentinels."
"I don't want to," Blair said. "I want you to be whatever you are. Just without having to sleep within military barracks and special rooms."
"Blair," Race said suddenly. "Stop thinking like a Guide for a minute. Think like an anthropologist."
The words brought him up short. Blair looked to Jim who shrugged, then to Benton who was nodding as understanding showed in his face. Blair turned to Ivan who sat watching him serenely. When he spoke, his voice was quiet as he worked through his thoughts.
"I…I think I hear what you mean. Being a Sentinel is genetic, but it's also cultural. I already guessed that Sentinels would tend to respect hierarchy and authority. It's kind of instinctive, I suppose. But…for you, you've lived your whole lives for generations inside this system. We're the outsiders. If we were from your country, your culture, we wouldn't be talking about freedom like this. We're making assumptions based on our own cultural bias. Oh man."
Blair's head came up and he looked around the room with a new passion. "Yours is a unique culture informed by the peoples that have fed it for generations, passed from the families who raised Sentinel children to you and onto whoever commanded Sentinels or worked with them as teachers and trainers and even your non-Sentinel military allies. Your natural instincts aren't being suppressed – you just exercise them differently than I expected. And now I come in and tell you that everything you've ever done or lived or taught others is wrong. Oh man. I broke the cardinal rule of anthropology. I forgot to check my bias at the door. I'm sorry."
"We are a brotherhood," Dmitri said, stepping to Blair and putting a hand on his shoulder. "We that you see here are those who survived as children, who were loyal to our units, who protected our men and women with all our skills. We have been brought here because we may no longer be able to do that. What you offer is a great temptation, because what we want is to return to the people that we consider our own, but also a great risk. Because if we defect now, we will never return to our own soldiers who even now serve without us to guard them."
"I understand," Jim said suddenly. "I was a soldier too. I understand."
"And yet," Dominik spoke softly, "our own soldiers would wish us to become all that is within our potential. They might even forgive us defection if it earned us greater strength and control. Those we guarded for so long only ever wanted the best for us."
Many heads in the crowd nodded at that.
"So why don't we start this offer over?" Blair said. "Hi. I'm Blair Sandburg. Jim is my Sentinel, and we learned a lot of things about his senses by accident and because of our unique situation. We'd like to share this knowledge with you. The easiest thing would be for you to come with us to a great place we know in Cascade, but if you can't do that, we understand."
"We are not here to save you," Benton said. "You don't need saving. If you don't want what we have to share, we won't bother you again. We would at least like to part friends and allies."
"Oh, we would like to hear about your new ways and receive your wisdom," Dmitri said with a wry smile. "It does not take the great Doctor Quest to know that we have been trained like well-kept dogs who rely upon our masters. But if we are dogs, we are proud dogs and we do not need to be pat on the head like puppies."
"No head patting," Race deadpanned. "Got it."
Half the crowd hid snickers – and a few did not bother.
"I have a question," Ivan said. She stood and faced Jim squarely. "After you leave here with our decision, do you intend to do as you say and offer this freedom to our brothers and sisters who are less free than we? Those who have been sold and have lost their ability to choose?"
"Yes," Jim nodded.
Ivan smiled and turned back to the room where many faces were beginning to look hopeful, even excited. "We have much to discuss."
