“Azi.” The deep baritone harmonies of the Warrior vibrated even through the table surface. The elder faces at the end of the table were stark with dread. Eron watched them and not the Warrior, reckoning their every reaction. “We widen the hives,” the Warrior said “We protect human hives, for payment in goods. We need more fields, irrigation, more food, more azi. You can give these things. Red-hive and Kontrin—” More air hissed into the chambers. “—are compatible. We group now without the translation computers. We have found understanding, identification, synthesis. We taste . . mutual desire.”
That was awe. Eton saw it and smiled, a grim, taut smile, that melted into a friendlier one. “The power of the hives. Kontrin power, cousins. Human space shuts us out. Kontrin policy has limited our growth, limited our numbers, limited beta generation growth, limited the breeding of their azi. Colonised worlds throughout the Reach are fixed at the level of population reached four centuries ago, Our whole philosophy has been containment within the Reach. We have all acquiesced in a situation which was arranged for us . . . in the theory that humans and majat can’t co-operate. But we can. We don’t have to exist within these limits. We don’t have to go on living under these restrictions. Item number one in the program before you is essential: widening access permitted by the Pact Your affirmative vote is vastly important. Majat will be willing to assist us on more than the Worker level. We already have Warriors accessible to our direction, at this moment; and possibly, possibly, my dear cousins—Drones. The key to the biologic computer that is the hive. That kind of co-operation, humans working directly with what has made the hives unaided by machines . . . capable of the most complex order of operations. That kind of power, joined to our own: majat holistic comprehension, joined to human senses, human imagination, human insights. A new order. We aren’t talking now about remaining bound by old limits. We don’t have to settle for containment any longer.”
No one moved. Eyes were fixed on him, naked, full of speculations.
No, more than speculation: it was fact; they had made it fact. This, here, in this room, was the reality of the Council Decisions were being shaped here, and no one objected—no one, staring into the glittering eyes of the red Warrior—objected. At this end of the long table, in the hands of the Thels, the Meth-marens, the Ren-barants and the Halds . . . rested authority; and the others would go into the Council hall and vote as they were told, fearing for themselves what had been wrought elsewhere.
And perhaps . . . perhaps conceiving ambitions of their own. The old order had been stagnant, centuries without change; change confronted them. Possibilities confronted them. Some would want a share of that.
“Second item,” Eton said, not needing to look down. “A proposal for expansion of the azi breeding programs. The farms on Istra . . . have applied for expansion of their industry, repeatedly denied under the old regime. The proposal before Council grants that license . . . with compensations for past denials. The facilities on Istra and elsewhere can be quadrupled, an eighteen-year program of expansion easily correlated with the majat’s eighteen-year cycle of increase. The hives can be paid . . . in azi; and the population of the Reach can be readjusted.
“Third item, cousins: authorisation to beta governments for a ten percent increase in birth permits. The supervisory levels of industry and agriculture must increase in proportion to other increases.
“Fourth: licensing of Kontrin births pegged to the same ten percent. There has already been attrition; there may be more.
“Fifth: formal dissolution of certain septs and allotment of their Colours and privileges to other septs within those Houses. This merely regularises certain changes already made.”
There was laughter from the left side of the room, against the wall, where some of the younger generation sat. Eton looked, as many did. It was Pol Hald who extended big long legs and smirked to himself, ignoring his great-uncle’s scowl.
“Questions?” Eton asked, trying to recapture the attention of those at the table. “Debate?”