Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4)(67)

It looked at me again curiously. "You appear upset," it said.

"I'm thinking about the Obin who died," I said.

"They did what you asked of them," the Consu said, with a bored tone.

"You didn't have to kill so many of them," I said.

"Your pets didn't have to offer up so many to sacrifice," said the Consu. "And yet they did. You seem stupid so I will explain this to you. Your pets, to the extent that they can think, did this intelligently. The Consu will not speak to the Obin for their own behalf. We answered their questions long ago and it does not interest us to speak further on the subject."

"But you spoke to the Obin," I said.

"I am dying," the Consu said. "I am on" - and here the Consu made a noise that sounded like a tractor falling down a hill - "the death journey that Consu prepared to move forward are permitted if in this life they have proven worthy. Consu on this journey may do as they please, including speaking to proscribed creatures, and may if asked appropriately grant a final boon. Your pets have spied on the Consu for decades - we were aware of this but did nothing about it - and knew the route of the death journey and knew the ceremonial ships those on the journey travel in. Your pets understood this was the only way they could talk to us. And your pets knew what it would require to interest me or any Consu enough to hear them. You should have known this when you made your demand."

"I didn't," I said.

"Then you are foolish, human," the Consu said. "If I were inclined to feel sorry for the Obin, I would do so because they had wasted their effort and diverted me from my journey on the behalf of someone so ignorant of the cost. But I do not feel sorry for them. They at least knew the cost, and willingly paid it. Now. You will either tell me how you demand I help you, or I will go and your pets' deaths will have truly been for nothing."

"I need help to save my colony," I said, and forced myself to focus. "My friends and family are there and are under threat of attack. It is a small colony and not able to defend itself. The Colonial Union will not help us. The Obin are not allowed to help us. The Consu have technology that could help us. I ask for your help."

"You said 'ask,'" the Consu said. "Your pets said 'demand.'"

"I demanded help from the Obin because I knew I could," I said. "I am asking you."

"I do not care about your colony or you," the Consu said.

"You just said that as part of your death journey you can grant a boon," I said. "This could be it."

"It may be that my boon was to the Obin, in speaking to you," the Consu said.

I blinked at this. "How would it be a boon to them just to speak to me if you won't at least think of helping me?" I said. "Then it would be you who wasted their sacrifice and effort."

"That is my choice," the Consu said. "The Obin understood that in making the sacrifice the answer might be 'no.' This is another thing they understand that you don't."

"I know there is a lot I don't understand here," I said. "I can see that. I'm sorry. But I still need help for my family and friends."

"How many family and friends?" the Consu said.

"My colony has twenty-five hundred people," I said.

"A similar number of Obin died in order to bring me here," the Consu said.

"I didn't know that would happen," I said. "I wouldn't have asked for that."

"Is that so?" the Consu said. It shifted its bulk and drew in toward me. I didn't back away. "I don't believe you, human. You are foolish and you are ignorant, that much is clear. Yet I cannot believe that even you did not understand what you were asking the Obin for when you asked them to come to us for your sake. You demanded help from the Obin because you could. And because you could you did not ask the cost. But you had to have known the cost would be high."

I didn't know what to say to that.

The Consu drew back and seemed to regard me, like it might an amusing insect. "Your capriciousness and callousness with the Obin interests me," it said. "And so does the fact that the Obin are willing to give of themselves for your whims despite your lack of care for them."

I said something I knew I was going to regret, but I couldn't help myself. The Consu was doing a really excellent job of pushing my buttons. "That's a funny thing coming from someone from the race that gave the Obin intelligence but no consciousness," I said. "As long as we're talking about capriciousness and callousness."

"Ah. Yes, that's right," the Consu said. "The Obin told me this. You're the child of the human who made the machines that let the Obin play at consciousness."

"They don't play at it," I said. "They have it."

"And it is a terrible thing that they do," the Consu said. "Consciousness is a tragedy. It leads the whole race away from perfection, causes it to fritter its efforts on individual and wasteful effort. Our lives as Consu are spent learning to free our race from the tyranny of self, to move beyond ourselves and in doing so move our race forward. It is why we help you lesser races along, so you may also free yourselves in time."

I bit my cheek at this bit. The Consu would sometimes come down to a human colony, wipe it and everyone in it off the face of their planet, and then wait for the Colonial Defense Forces to come and fight them. It was a game to the Consu, as far as any of us could see. To say that they were doing it for our benefit was perverse, to say the least.