There is something to be said for the human internal clock. The first day after secession had not even concluded, but on Earth, it was the next day, and the United Nations was already meeting in emergency session, and had been for hours.

The snap vote had been smart of the Secretary-General; she was using the fury of her fellow humans to push through a resolution that would allow her to begin abrogating the Treaty of Titan Station. It was the first step; there were several more hurdles to clear.

Even so, the debate was surprisingly not one-sided. Certainly, everyone was angry. But it is a leader’s job not to overreact to anger, and more than a few countries had started the day sceptical of withdrawing from the treaty, despite the provocation. And concerted lobbying had brought more aboard as the day wore on.

“The delegate from Zimbabwe is recognized.”

They were at the endgame now. Two speakers remaining before the vote. Tatenda rose, and walked to the floor microphone at the front of the chamber. He looked over the assembly calmly; it was going to be closer than he’d hoped. But they needed to win over another five or ten votes to keep it from passing. He wasn’t sure where they’d come from, honestly.

All he could do is try to convince them, he supposed.

He reached the lectern, and shook his head.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“Can anyone tell me what this is meant to accomplish? How will this keep us safer? How will this keep us more secure? How will this help us build a better future for humanity?

“The supporters of this resolution say that we have been insulted, and indeed we have. The video sent to Earth was appalling. We all saw it; we all know. It was outrageous; nobody can deny that. Nobody has. Not even the Empire.

Tatenda looked directly at the Secretary-General. “But a provocation by whom? Nobody knows that. Nobody knows who sent the message, and nobody knows why. The Ambassador for the Empire has said to anyone who will listen that it did not come from the Imperial government, that they, too find the video to be atrocious.

“So why are we reacting to it by punishing the Empire?” Tatenda said, throwing his arms wide. “Don’t you see – that’s what we’re supposed to do!”

He shook his head, and looked down for just a moment. “This video made me angry, yes. It made us all angry. As it was designed to do. But anger and madness are brothers, and if we give in to our anger, our actions will be madness, as sure as night follows day.

“Someone wants us to act in anger, my friends, and give in to the madness of revenge. And we are obliging them. We are doing exactly what they want us to do.

Tatenda looked around the chamber. “Should this pass, this resolution would allow the Secretary-General to begin the process of voiding the Treaty of Titan Station. No, it would not happen immediately, but the process would begin.

“As you know, I was the second human to sign that document, an honor I still do not feel worthy of, but an accomplishment that brings me as much pride as anything I have ever done. You all seem to have forgotten, though, what had happened just before I signed it. Just days before, I had nearly been killed, along with my crewmates on the Lem. A Titan had attempted to have us murdered, and he came very, very close to succeeding. Believe me,” he said, with a grin, “I found that experience quite distasteful indeed. Far more than the worst video I could ever see.

“And yet I signed the treaty. Why would I do such a thing, when one person had nearly killed me?”

He looked around the room. “Because of something we all have learned, through pain and hardship. We know there will always be bad people. People who hate, people who kill, people who would destroy our fragile peace if we gave them a chance. But we have learned that we must not judge others by the vile and vicious among them. If we do, we invite them to judge us by the vile and vicious people we call our own.

“For thousands of years before First Contact, the Empire defended our system. Yes, they have treated our siblings in their care shamefully and disgracefully, but they left Earth alone to develop. Titans have died for our safety and security. A Titan died for mine,” he said. “Centurium Oden took a lethal shot to allow my fellow officers to take off and request help. Incidentally, he did so after making a number of mistakes, some of them as bad as any on the video we all saw. I could judge him based on his mistakes. But that would be ignoring that we all have made mistakes. We all will make mistakes. And we all can choose to be judged by our mistakes, or by our willingness to fix them. I choose to judge Centurium Oden by his sacrifice. His ability to make the right decision, even after making wrong ones. I do this because that is how I would hope to be judged. How I would hope we all will be judged.

“Someone has shown us the vilest and most vicious things that the Empire has to offer. We can be horrified by them. We should be. But we must not allow ourselves to be deluded that this is all there is to the Empire. They are imperfect. But we are, too. And before we demand that they leave us alone, now and forever, let us stop to remember that they have shown the capacity for good, as well. The Empire has liberated humans. Imperfectly? Of course. But they are trying to be better, and they must find their own way. We have little power over what is not ours, and the Empire is not ours, just as Earth is not theirs. Their past is horrible, and their present is imperfect, but our past is horrible, and our present is imperfect. We will help the humans in the Empire and the humans on Earth by remaining calm. Not forgetting these mistakes, but being willing to work past them. To judge the Empire on their willingness to repair the damage. And to judge ourselves the same way.

“I close with this, my friends. Dr. Neutha, whose death has been the catalyst of all this rage – what would he ask us to do, were he here? He was as sharp in his criticism of the Empire as any person alive, but did he choose to fight it by abandoning it? By denouncing it? By allowing his just anger to poison his actions? Never. He fought by never giving in to fury, by staying calm in the face of violence and degradation. He spent his last breaths calming other humans who were dying alongside him – because he knew that equality will never be won through anger and hate. Would he want us to demand change? Yes! Would he want us to demand the liberation of our siblings? Yes! Would he want us to demand that humans, and all sentient creatures, be viewed as equal? Yes!

“But would he want us to cut off our relations with the Empire? To tell them to go away? To tell them that their actions have led us to hate them?”

Tatenda looked around the chamber, seeming to land on every pair of eyes in the room. “We do not honor his sacrifice, and the sacrifice of others, by embracing the brother of anger. We do not honor the humans still fighting for equality by giving in to madness. And we do not prove ourselves worthy of equality by being so easily infuriated that one video, horrific as it was, will cause us to choose to change our path. I urge you to vote against this resolution. I urge you to vote against madness. Thank you.”

****

Eyrn watched the broadcast from her temporary office on Titan Station. She suspected most of the people on Earth were watching the same broadcast. Tatenda’s speech had been marvellous, but he didn’t have the closing argument. Now, Secretary-General Ridgemont was stepping up to make her address. She looked cool and collected, blonde hair tied back in a bun. She reminded Eyrn a lot of Forna Qorni in style and manner. Both would likely loathe the comparison, but it was a compliment to both. They were both heads of bodies that governed planets, shrewd and skilled politicians who knew exactly how walk the delicate line of public opinion. And they had similar dress sense as well.

Ridgemont stood at the podium and looked out across the General Assembly floor. She didn’t need to wait for silence, she had the full attention of everyone in the room already but she decided to pause for a moment before starting. She purused her notes, not that they meant anything. It was a print out of the first chapter of To Kill A Mockingbird. She threw them over her shoulder and looked angrily at the gathered representatives across the world. She wanted to give the impression she was going off script.

“1777…” she said. “1778, 1783, 1793…”

She continued listing number. “…1807, 1811, 1813…”

Her voice was getting louder with each number “…1834…”

She took a big gulp of air and near shouted the next number. She elonginated it, making a point of its significance. “Eighteen Sixty three!”

“Do you know what is significant about these numbers? These are the years in which many of the great nations of Earth abolished slavery. In 1863 my nation, The United States of America, millions of people went to war to fight for the freedom of their fellow man. It marked a turning point in the attitudes of Humanity, where civilised nations declared that no longer would it be acceptable for one person to own another…”

She paused.

“Twenty One Seventy-Two!” Ridgemont slammed her fist on to the top of the hard wooden podium, its dull thud echoed and amplied by the many speakers in the General Assembly’s walls. “That is the year the Titan Empire, begrudgingly came to the conclusion that it is wrong to own another person!”

“This Empire has been in existence since before Humans built their first cities. They came to visit us, study us and ultimately, to collect us! To sell us! An Empire that is vast in both size and in sophistication but yet so primitive that it did not even have the most basic moral fibre to know that it is WRONG to own another sentient being!”

There was applause from a large section of the gathered representatives.

“I have sat in my office, in my home, in my bed and worried. What can we, one single world, just stepping out into the galaxy, do to defend ourselves from a foe that is hundreds of times our size, many times our numbers and far more advanced? I was afraid. I sat in my home and I was afraid. I looked into the eyes of my grandchildren and was afraid for them. Like every other man and woman on this Earth and in this star system I was afraid that one day they will choose to come for us!”

“But then I asked myself, were those slaves who first threw off their chains and fought for their freedom afraid? Were those who went to war to stop the march of Hilter’s seemingly unstoppable war machine afraid? Were those who fought against our own mechanical demons in Singapore afraid? And were three brave men who infiltrated a vast station on Titan to rescue their collegue who had been captured by arrogant giants afraid. The answer is NO THEY WERE NOT!”

Once more the assembly applauded, and in larger numbers this time.

“People have asked me what can we do? It seems hopeless, but let me tell every man, woman and child watching this broadcast that it is not!” she tapped an index finger on the podium as she spoke the last three words. “We must stay calm. We must stop turning on a fellow Human beings who have differences of opinion. We are a world that values freedom and that includes the freedom to differ. But we must be united by one common purpose in a way that Humanity has never united before!”

“We must work towards securing our solar system, to securing our planet, and to securing our future! If we have learned anything over the last twenty years it is that it does not matter how big they are, or how advanced that they may seem! It is that Humans, working together, can advance faster, can outwit and overcome the most deadly of foes!”

There was a standing ovation. Ridgemont paused for breath and allowed the applause to wash over her.

“We must send a message to the galaxy! To the Titan Empire! Humanity will not take this humiliation lying down! That you will pay for the crimes you have commited! That from this moment on…” she said tapping her finger on the podium once more. “Any species that thinks it can own another is on notice. Humanity will be victims not longer. We will be Instruments of Justice and will work and learn and fight to ensure that this galaxy is a free galaxy! And that never…”

THUD! Ridgemont slammed a fist into the podium.

“EVER!”

THUD!

“AGAIN!”

THUD

“…will any sentient being from any species be a slave to another!”

Once again the representatives were on their feet applauding. It took several minutes for them to sit back down.

“My fellow Assembly Members, fellow Human beings. Let the message ring out loud and clear from this Great Assemby that Humanity is done waiting for the Titan Empire to civilise itself. I propose that we vote to dissolve the Treaty of Titan Station and order the explusion of all Titans from the Sol System. We have been more than patient. But that patience has been rewarded only with the cruellest of insults. We need to say, right here, right now…”

THUD!

“WE!”

THUD!

“ARE!”

THUD!

“DONE!”

THUD!

“WAITING!”

Over half of the Assembly members stood and cheered and applauded. And they did so for quite some time.

Back in her office on Titan Station Eyrn started to feel a bit queasy. She picked up her pad and called her husband.

“Aerti…we need to talk…”

****

Ridgemont let go a deep breath when she saw the votes from the United Baathist Republic and Cayenne go up on the board. Both the Arab League and Latinoamerica had given their members a free vote, and those two states had been dithering up until the end.

It was going to be a lot closer than she’d expected. Palestine had voted against, as had Kurdistan. The nations of Oceania had switched their initial support to a solid, unanimous no vote. Indeed, if Mecca hadn’t cast its typical abstention, instead of following the Holy See’s lead and voting against….

“The roll shall be closed. The vote is 95 Aye, 93 Nay, with one abstention. The resolution is adopted.”

She shook her head. Far too close. One switched vote, and she’d have been preparing to resign.

As it was, she waited patiently, taking congratulatory handshakes in stride, until she saw the person she was waiting for.

“First Minister,” she called. “A moment, please?”

Tatenda looked at the Secretary-General in mild shock; he was certainly not expecting to get a chance to speak with her, much less have her seek him out. He was planning to take his case to the media – governments representing a majority of Earth’s population had voted against the measure. He’d try to force a Security Council vote, take it to the International Court of Justice. This was a ratified treaty….

Still, he followed her to an elevator, and got in. Ridgemont hit the button for the 38th floor of the Secretariat building, and turned to him.

“I know I lack support to actually void the treaty,” she said, bluntly. “If you and your allies will be so kind as to not challenge this immediately, I would appreciate it.”

Tatenda blinked. “Then why….”

“The people need to know we’re angry, and the Titans do too. They need to know we’re willing to burn the thing down if we have to. We can point to this and say that there is at least a majority who would kick them out if we could. That’s a start.”

“So you’re not looking to drive them out of the Solar System?”

“Oh, no, I am. But prudently and sanely. Perhaps we will allow them to keep access to Titan Station if they give us everything out to the Oort Cloud, and guarantee human equality. And I’m not opposed to becoming allies long-term, but they need to prove to us that they are serious in believing we are their equals. You said it yourself, Tatenda. It’s not the mistakes. I need to see that they’re fixing them.”

“Madam Secretary-General, I think this is reckless. If you wanted to negotiate, Ambassador Bass….”

“Ambassador Bass is not a bad person, but she’s just a diplomat. We need their government to actively engage. To fucking wake up, to be blunt. We’re not some dirtwater outpost in the middle of nowhere. And they need to acknowledge that.”

Tatenda looked thoughtful. “Madam Secretary-General…if you push too hard, I will have no choice but to go to the ICJ.”

“I know. But if you do that, I can talk about how you’ve been working back-channel with Bass even after she was kicked off Earth. They’re rioting in Mombasa and Cape Town, do you think they’ll take it well if they find out you’re working with the oppressor? First Minister, we’re both standing in a room full of explosives while holding matches. Let’s neither of us drop ours, okay?”

“I will give you time,” Tatenda said. “But I never wanted to be a politician, Madam Secretary-General. I will agree, it is best if we let the anger cool down, for the sake of the people who’ve been hurt. But if you think that my career is that important to me….”

“Fair enough,” Ridgemont said. “Tell Bass that when the government is willing to talk directly, I’ll be willing to talk. But I want a goddamn sight more than platitudes.”

The elevator door opened, and Ridgemont stepped out. “Good day, First Minister,” she said, and pressing a button, she closed the elevator door.

——————

Author’s note: Once again thank to D.X for his contribution.