“We’ll have to throw ourselves on Aten’s mercy.”
“He’ll stop the ravages of this disease of his if we simply agree to follow his leadership.”
They were old. They were tired. They had considered themselves immortal once, and now the prospect of painful death had them frightened and cowed.
“I agree,” Anya said to them, her voice utterly weary, infinitely said. “There is no further point to continuing this war. Despite the fact that we hold the military advantage at present, we have lost.”
“Ask Aten for a truce.”
“Call him now.”
Anya said, “We don’t even have the strength to reach him. The disease has weakened us too much. We’ll have to send an emissary to him, physically.”
I was about to tell them that I could reach Aten, but something made me hold my tongue. I glanced down at Anya, sitting hunched over beside me. She did not look at me, but I got the distinct impression that she had warned me not to speak.
“I will go to him,” Anya was telling the others. “Orion will convey me in his ship. You can return to your hibernation fields until I return.”
They nodded among themselves, then one by one became encased in those glowing spheres of energy that they used to move through space-time. The spheres shone weakly, though, as if they barely had enough power to cover the individual Creators. I knew that each of them had once been able to live in the emptiness of deep space in those spheres, drawing energy directly from the stars themselves. Now they looked as if they could barely make it to their separate chambers, deep beneath the Hegemony’s capitol, buried alive in hibernation crypts where they hoped they would be safe from the Commonwealth’s weaponry. They slept while their creatures fought and died for them.
“Come, Orion,” said Anya, “it’s time to put an end to this fighting. Take me to your ship.”
So all the fighting, all the strategy and battles came down simply to this: Threaten the Creators who had caused this war, and they were willing to surrender. Or at least ask for a truce. They thought nothing of sending millions of cloned warriors into battle, causing billions of deaths among the humans and other species. But threaten them, themselves, and they were ready to give up.
I could barely conceal my contempt for them all, even Anya.
And she knew it. She made a wan smile for me and said softly, “For what it’s worth, I never wanted this war.”
I had no intention of surrendering to Aten, but I had to obey Anya’s wishes. Or at least, appear to obey.
So I watched as Hegemony technicians slipped her inert form into a cryosleep capsule, an elaborately engraved metal sarcophagus, which we loaded aboard the Apollo. The technicians and other humans in the spaceport seemed to understand that their leaders had decided to surrender to the Commonwealth. Rumors of defeat hung heavy in the air. They were sullen, fearful, angry. But they did as they were told.
Anya’s last waking thoughts warned me, Don’t let the Skorpis know that we are going to surrender. They would blow your ship out of the galaxy if they knew.
I wondered if the humans of Prime would try to stop us, but they were obedient and allowed us to break orbit and head out of the Zeta system.
But not for long.
We were accelerating as fast as we could, trying to achieve the safety of superlight velocity before anyone could deter us. We passed the rings of defenses that orbited Prime, then flew through the belt of battle stations that surrounded the Zeta system like a globe of bristling hedgehog spines.
Someone back on the capital planet must have passed on the rumors of our intention to surrender to the Skorpis, for as we were clearing the outermost battle stations in the belt, we were hailed by a dour-faced Skorpis admiral.
I took her message in my command chair on the bridge, wearing my best ship’s uniform.
“There is ugly talk,” said the admiral, her teeth showing in a barely suppressed snarl, “that you return to the Commonwealth to discuss surrender of the Hegemony.”