Eyrn walked hesitantly to the office; Yamanu had told her she didn’t have to carry him to Gae, but Eyrn didn’t mind; he was a lot lighter than an X37-B, and besides…she felt like he deserved a little extra care right now.

She had focused on Darren’s plight, on what was happening to Darren. And that was understandable – his life had been at stake, and now his freedom was at stake. There was every reason to battle on Darren’s behalf.

But though she was loath to admit it, she knew that her focus on Darren was selfish. He was her friend – the only tie she had to Earth. Oh, there was Izzy, off roaming the stars on the Gyfjon, but she wasn’t here.

And besides, though Eyrn liked Izzy, considered her a friend – Darren was as close to a brother as she’d ever had. He’d always acted like her big brother, ridiculous as it sounded. As much as she knew he needed protection…she had needed it too. And he’d always been around to offer it.

That was the problem, she realized – even if everything went right, even if Lyroo gave up after a few days and went to the court and told them to give Darren back to her…even if somehow, everything went back to the way it was…he couldn’t protect her. Not here. This was her world. She had to protect him.

She shook her head.

No. Not just him.

She looked down on the quiet human in her left hand, who had been just as close to death as Darren, whose girlfriend had met the fate Darren almost had. She thought of the hundreds of people who hadn’t been even as lucky as Darren, who had died in the gullets of Titans and Insectoids alike, just at that dinner. And how many more dinners had there been? How many more thoughtless publicity stunts? How many thousands of humans could tell tales like Darren, like Yamanu…and how many, like Aenur, never would have the chance?

She knocked on the door.

Gae opened it presently, and blinked down at Eyrn.

“I brought your boyfriend,” Eyrn said, quietly, handing Yamanu to Gae.

“Thanks,” Gae said, offering her hand. She let Yamma leap the short gap between the hands.

“I…I’m sorry,” Eyrn said. “I know you tried to help Darren. That’s….”

“I’m sorry,” Gae said. “I should’ve listened to Yamma months ago. I should have known better than to put my faith in the idiots I worked for.”

“Not like there was much choice,” Yamanu said, leaping to her breast and climbing to her neck, snuggling against it like he had a thousand times. “You said it before, gok’ma. If you don’t work for TETH…who else? The HOS? After what Prenn pulled?”

“There’s no good group working to help humans, is there?” Eyrn asked.

Gae sighed heavily. “No,” she said. “Not really. I thought…maybe, I could help fix TETH, but…they would have let Darren die. And…did Yamanu tell you about them?”

Eyrn nodded.

Gae closed her eyes. “I will always feel guilty about what happened to Aenur, what happened to all of them.”

“You shouldn’t,” Yamma said.

“I should,” Gae said, softly but sternly. “It should eat away at me every day, because my hesitation killed someone who deserved a long and happy life. But at least…at least it does eat away at me. It should hurt. I just hope, if there’s an afterlife, that Aenur can forgive me, for everything.”

Eyrn surprised Gae and Yamma by pulling both into a hug.

“I’m sorry. Thank you for caring what happened to him. Thank you for caring what happens to all of them,” Eyrn said. “And Yamanu…thank you for helping get my head screwed on straight.”

Eyrn broke the hug, and smiled weakly. “See you in the morning?” she said.

“See you then,” Gae said. She watched the short woman walk away, and reached for Yamma.

“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly, to the man she loved. She prayed that wherever she was, Aenur knew that she’d never set out to steal her boyfriend; she prayed she knew that if Gae could trade her life for Aenur’s that she would, in a moment.

“You saved me, gok’ma,” Yamma said, rubbing her palm with his. “And you mourn her, even when it’s the bastards at TETH who should be groveling to her memory. I’m sorry you didn’t get to know her; I think you would have liked each other. You’re both fighters.”

Gae smiled, and stroked Yamanu’s back. “I’m a better fighter with you to fight for,” she said.

“And I’m better off with you fighting for me,” he replied.

* * *

“Elder Huntress, a moment, please?”

Quendra paused, and turned back. “Hari, are you here to lobby me against Luke’s presence here again? It will work as well as last time.”

Hari shook her head. “I have accepted that I will change nobody’s mind. And besides…it is my hope that I am wrong. You know that, do you not?”

Quendra took a deep breath, and tried to remember what Drugar had told her about the difficulties of being a leader. “Hari, I recognize and venerate that you support this tribe in word and deed. I hope you know the same is true of me, and of Luke.”

“I…am concerned about Luke,” Hari said. “But I do not doubt your loyalty, Elder Huntress.”

Quendra raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“Anyhow, my question is of a report from a defender – Lun saw a woman he thought resembled Seeks the Tribe. She was helping Tall as Tree.”

Quendra frowned. “Have you told this to Drugar?”

“Mant is going to. I ask you, because Luke had said she was not connected to the Guardians, did he not?”

Quendra looked up at Hari with a slight smile. “He said he did not know her. That does not mean the Guardians may not know her. Especially if she is a friend of Tall as Tree – he did not meet her. He does not know her acquaintances.”

“Still…does this not trouble you?”

Quendra looked at Hari, more exhausted than angry. “Hari, I will ask Luke if he knows anything about her. Again. But I believe him when he says he does not; how many times does he have to demonstrate his loyalty to us before you believe him?”

Hari shook her head. “Remember my words….”

“…’this will come to no good end.’ Consider them remembered, Hari the Defender. You need not test my memory again.”

Hari glowered at Quendra, but said, simply, “As you wish, Elder Huntress.”

* * *

Aisell heard someone coming down the path to the pond, but didn’t look up. She was looking at the ground, quizzically, head tilted at a slight angle.

“Hey, Aisell…oh, sorry, am I bugging you?”

“Hmm? No. Eyrn – does this look like anything to you?” Aisell said, sitting on her rock and continuing to look at the markings on the ground.

Eyrn walked over, and kneeled down, looking at where Aisell pointed. There were some scratch marks there, maybe, though they were worn a bit by rain and weather. It looked like two lines converging, maybe…but she couldn’t be sure it was intentional, or just a fluke.

“It looks a bit like an English letter v, maybe?”

Aisell frowned. “Does it look like an a, perhaps?”

Eyrn turned it over in her head. “Yeah, could be. A is like v, only upside down, and with a line through it.” She squinted. “It looks like an ashay. I think. And that might be a line connecting them. ‘Course, it might be a fluke, too. Pareidolia, maybe.”

“Maybe,” Aisell said. “Kinda hope it isn’t, really. It would be nice…Luke said that if he found a way home, he’d leave me a sign, a letter a for Aisell.”

She stared at it, and blinked back a tear. “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. If it isn’t…well, then he’s gone. And if it is….”

She sighed. “If it is, then he found a way home after all, somehow. Either way, I’m never going to see him again.”

Eyrn sat down next to Aisell on the boulder. Aisell sighed, and drew a circle around the maybe-letter with her shoe. “Either way, I failed Luke. Like I failed Darren.”

“You didn’t fail Darren, Aisell. That was me,” Eyrn said.

“No, that was all of us,” Aisell said. “Every Titan who’s ever bought into the idea of human pets, even those of us who didn’t, but didn’t fight for them…that’s our fault.”

She looked over at Eyrn. “They just took a walk through a restaurant. Tapp and Darren and Degu should have been able to walk through a restaurant without taking their lives in their own hands. Luke…Luke should have been able to go to the Earth ambassador and explain he’d been kidnapped, and the Imperial government should be apologizing to the government of – the United States, right?”

Eyrn nodded.

“They should be apologizing that one of their citizens was kidnapped. He should have been on a ship back to see his mom and eat some peach cobbler. Darren should be back with the Army. Tapp should be running a fashion studio. Degu should have three kids of his own to play with, and not have to worry that some day, they’ll be taken from him and given to someone else.”

Eyrn sighed. “That’s all true, every bit of it. But how do we do it? I was talking to Yamma – TETH killed his human girlfriend, you know. Not on purpose, but through negligence. And they’re the ones who want to free humans! They’re the ones who should get it! If they don’t….”

“If they don’t, then those of us who do need to step up.”

Eyrn looked over at Aisell. She was looking middle distance, and the wheels were turning in her mind.

“Eyrn, I’m just a farm kid. I don’t have the resources to fight this. But…I have an idea how I could get some. Build a bit of a following. It’s silly, but there’s a game – it’s popular, I’m pretty good at it.”

“Wrestling Ler?” Eyrn said, with a grin.

“No,” Aisell said, returning it. “It’s a game called Tol-Bot. I played in the lower divisions – I wasn’t as good as I could have been. My mind wasn’t on it, and I was playing not to lose. But I have a reason to play, now. If you’re good, you can get fans, and money…and you can speak up, and people listen. I suppose this sounds ridiculous….”

“Naw, it’s like baseball,” Eyrn said. “I remember when Jackie Robinson integrated the major leagues – okay, probably doesn’t mean squat to you, but on Earth, people with dark skin got looked down on. He had dark skin, wasn’t supposed to be able to play. He did, and he was really good. I met him once, he was really kind. Anyhow, because he was good, he was able to speak out, tell people it was wrong to discriminate. And people listened. He didn’t do it by himself….”

Eyrn looked at about the middle of the lake. She was quiet, before she said, “You know, I’ve had like three dozen offers to tell my story, ‘bout my time among those ‘savage humans.’”

Aisell snorted. “Yeah, they’re the savages.”

“Right. Well, I haven’t called anyone back. Not because I don’t want to talk about them, but…well, hell, you had to handhold me just to move me around the city, and I didn’t do a goddamned thing for Darren. Everyone else did. If I go tell my story right now…I don’t know the Titan culture, the Titan government. You say you’re good at a sport, I say ‘Jackie Robinson,’ because I don’t know anyone who played Tal-Bat.”

“Tol-Bot.”

“Exactly. I was hanging out, making friends, living on the money the government gave me and Bedra’s kindness, taking a class or two on Archavian and complaining the whole time…hell’s bells, I don’t even speak your language! If it wasn’t for this translator, you couldn’t understand me at all.”

“Well, most people have translators.”

“Yeah, but still – knowing the language has to make it easier to communicate. I know it translates well, but I guarantee some of the meaning gets lost.”

Aisell nodded. “It’s in the shading of the words. If it’s subtle.”

“Right. It’s not hard. I speak English, français, and quite a bit of español. Not saying I’ll be fluent overnight, but no reason I couldn’t be if I put in the work. Same with the history, culture….”

She threw up her hands. “If I go out there sounding like some Okie from Muskogee, I’m just going to prove everyone right. I’ll be the Wild Girl they say I am, proof them humans are too dumb to teach water to flow downhill. And that isn’t their fault. It’s mine.”

Aisell looked over at Eyrn. “Eyrn, there’s no guarantee either of us could make it. No guarantee we’ll be able to make them see. But…if either of us could get people to start listening, really listening….it’s too late for me to save Luke. It’s not too late for Darren, but it’s gonna be dependent on what Lyroo decides to do, and there’s not much we can do. But there’s Tapp and Degu…Yamanu….”

“My friend Izzy,” Eyrn said. “She’s on the Gyfjon. Got picked up the same time Darren did.”

“And how many more that we don’t know?” Aisell said. “Millions in the Empire. How many on Earth?”

“Seven billion, if I remember right,” Eyrn said.

Aisell’s eyes widened. “Seven – that’s seven times the population of Archavia!”

Eyrn nodded. “They aren’t overly big, you know,” she added, with a grin.

Aisell put her hand on Eyrn’s shoulder. “We can’t fix the past. But we can try to make the other Titans see what we know. Maybe it isn’t much, but….”

Eyrn smiled. “I remember…there was a human politician, his name was Bobby Kennedy. His brother was President of the United States. I remember he made a pass at me when he came to see me at Groom Lake – Jack, not Bobby. A guy shot Jack in ’63, a different guy shot Bobby in ’68, not long after they shot Martin Luther King.”

Aisell gave Eyrn an ironic smile. Eyrn chuckled. “I know! But dang it, Bobby said something that the Titans should remember. After he died, I made myself memorize it, because he was trying to make the world a better place, damn it, and even if I was stuck on a base…I wanted to.

“’It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief,’ he said, ‘that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.’”

Eyrn looked at Aisell, soberly. “Maybe all you and I can be are those tiny ripples. But the humans can’t do it on their own.”

Aisell smiled. The sun was going down, now, but she felt somehow more energetic than she had in years. “Would you help me get my Tol-Bot gear out of the tool shed?” she asked. “I’d like to get it set up before dinnertime.”