Only Human (Themis Files, #3)(33)
—Bad person.
—Who? Katherine? Yeah, well, she’s a lawyer.
—Katherine is not lawyer. She is nuclear physicist.
—What? Why am I surprised? I can see her blowing up shit. Betcha she stuck firecrackers inside frogs when she was a kid.
—Katherine did bad things to you. Your father— —Weren’t you listening? He took away my home!
—Sem’ya aznachayet, chto nikto ne astanetsya pazadi ili budet zabyt.
—That’s another Russian saying thing, isn’t it?
—Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.
—I wanted to be left behind. That’s all I wanted. Was that too much to ask? I was happy. Why couldn’t he just let me be happy? He didn’t have to do this. He sure as hell didn’t have to drag my friend into this. He kidnapped him, put a gun to his head. Do you have a proverb for that? He didn’t ground me on prom night. He killed my best friend. There’s no apology for that. There’s no…do-over. You can’t take that back.
FILE NO. 2122
LETTER FROM DANIEL MOENSCH, US AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA TO THE RUSSIAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The Government of the United States, prompted by a genuine desire to come to an amicable understanding with the Russian Federation, has continued negotiations with the utmost sincerity since September 10, date on which the device known as Themis appeared in Estonia for the advancement of Russian-American relations. We have done so with the utmost sincerity in order that our two countries, by their joint efforts, may contribute toward the realization of world peace.
In that spirit, it is my honor and duty to reiterate the following points:
1. It is the immutable policy of the United States Government to promote world peace and, in accordance with that policy, it has consistently exerted its best efforts to prevent the extension of warlike disturbances.
2. Subsequent to the dissolution of the United Nations Earth Defense Corps, we have made claims regarding ownership of the device known as Themis based on established principles of international law. To this date, the Government of the Russian Federation has not challenged these claims in any recognized court of law or through the proper administrative procedures at the United Nations. The Government of the United States considers these nine years of inaction to be a tacit agreement on the part of the Government of the Russian Federation.
3. The detention of foreign nationals without proper notice of the names of the detainees and the motives of their detention is a violation of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which both our governments are parties.
4. The Government of the United States demands the immediate return of its property and of any and all American citizens present inside that property at the time of its reappearance.
In view of the aforementioned facts, and of the continued refusal by your government to respond to our reasonable and legitimate request, I have been instructed to inform the Government of the Russian Federation in the name of the government of the United States that a failure to comply with this request by midnight on the evening of September 22 will be considered an act of aggression and that a state of war will therefore exist between our two countries.
I have the honor to be, with high consideration,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Daniel Moensch
FILE NO. 2124
INTERVIEW BETWEEN MAJOR KATHERINE LEBEDEV, RUSSIAN MAIN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (GRU), AND DR. ROSE FRANKLIN, PH.D.
Location: GRU building, Saint Petersburg, Russia
—So, Dr. Franklin, Vincent tells me he does not think the…Ekt will come back.
—I think he’s right. I don’t think they’ll want to interfere any more than they already have. Their last visit sent their world into turmoil. You can trust that they won’t make the same mistake again anytime soon.
—Turmoil? No one’s mentioned turmoil before. What are you not telling me?
—Maybe turmoil isn’t the right word. Unrest. No, that’s—
—Unrest isn’t much better than turmoil.
—I’ll let you choose a better word. They…A lot of people disagreed with their decision to come here. It goes against their principles. After it went…bad—
—Bad? Millions of people died, and you call that bad. I can’t begin to imagine what turmoil looks like.
—The Ekt are a peaceful race. Almost to a fault. They don’t deal well with violence. There were protests—
—What kinds of protests?
—It’s not what you think. There were vigils, letters. A lot of letters. Here, people protest about anything and everything, so this would be par for the course, but that sort of thing doesn’t happen over there. It was a big deal. They won’t make the same mistake twice, believe me.
—So I’m supposed to feel safe—everyone on Earth is supposed to feel safe—because they have principles.
—They take them very seriously. You should try it some time.
—Noninterference. What does that even mean? We interfere all the time. I’m interfering with your day right now.
—You could say it means let nature take its course…It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Look at what happened when we tried to play God with nature.
—What happened? I feel like I should know these things.