“Who are you?”
“Where are we?”
I held up my hands to silence them before any more questions could be asked.
“We are on Earth, at a time approximately twelve and a half millennia earlier than your own era.”
“Nonsense!”
“A patent lie, no one can travel across time. Our scientists have tried it and—”
“Shut up!” I snapped in my best military voice of command.
They shut up.
“You don’t have to believe a word I say,” I told them. “That doesn’t matter at all. What does matter is this: You are going to sit at this table until you have hammered out an agreement to end the war.”
They stirred at that.
“I don’t care if take days or years. No one leaves this time and place until you have agreed on peace. Once you do, you will be returned precisely to the times and places you were when I brought you here.”
“And what do you propose to do if we refuse to discuss peace?” asked the biggest Tsihn there, a real dragon with multihued scales encrusted with decorations.
“I will shoot you, one at a time, until you do begin meaningful discussions.”
Half of them leaped to their feet, shouting.
“How dare you?”
“You can’t—you wouldn’t!”
But they saw my troopers standing behind them, saw the guns at their waists, the grim smiles on their youthful-yet-aged faces.
“You will make peace or you will die,” I said sternly. “Just as you send your soldiers to be killed in battle, now you can face death yourselves.”
“You would kill unarmed civilians?”
“Who killed the people of Yellowflower?” I asked. “Who wiped out the Hegemony colonies? Who gave the orders?”
They sank back into their chairs.
“Listen to me,” I urged them. “If the war goes on, one side or the other will begin to use star-wrecking weapons. When you come to that point, the older species of the galaxy will annihilate all of you, without mercy and without remorse. You will all be exterminated like vermin.”
That started them arguing. I assured them of the Old Ones’ resolve. “Weapons powerful enough to destroy whole stars can set up chain reactions that can destroy much of the galaxy, perhaps the entire galaxy. That will not be permitted.”
“Who are you to make such threats?”
I smiled coldly. “In a sense, I am the ambassador from the Old Ones and the other ancient species of this galaxy. They have remained aloof from us because we are too young and too ignorant to be of interest to them. But now that we threaten the existence of the galaxy, they have no choice but to take notice of us—and take action.”
They did not want to believe me, but after long hours of debate and argument they began to accept what I told them. The sun sank behind the lofty trees and night came on. I kept them at the table, protected and warmed by a bubble of energy. I produced food and allowed them to leave the table briefly, knowing that there was no place in this continent-wide forest that they could escape to.
“No one returns to their own time and place until a peace agreement has been reached,” I said.
Days went by. They argued, they railed at each other, they hurled accusations and threats across the table. I reminded them that unless they began working toward peace I would begin shooting them. And I pointed to the loudest of the loudmouths.
“You’ll go first,” I said.
His eyes widened, but he stopped his insults and imprecations.
It was like a giant group-therapy session. It took time for them to air their true resentments, their real fears. They accused one another of all sorts of aggressions and atrocities, at first. But gradually, knowing that there was no alternative, knowing that they themselves were facing death, they began to get to the underlying causes of the war.
I knew that the real cause was the manipulations of the Creators. No matter what these humans and aliens agreed upon, the Creators could upset it in the blink of an eye. I realized that after I had finished with these politicians, I would have to face the Creators. Led by Aten, the Golden One.