Achille Augustain Nadeau paused, then halted, before freezing into oblivion. Silence seethed in the pit of his mind.
His mind played over the usual topography of imagery that accompanies a flashback; Burgundy, Normandie. Caen, alive, vital and entirely material. He considered what the matter of all those faces he had known, derided, sided with, loved, loathed, and generally, begrudgingly coexisted with for the full kaleidoscope of his years.
His mind tracked over to the stars. Constellations. The twists, stitches and weaves of Ptolemy’s sphere, and hissed. The universe was littered with Ptolemys: would-be archivists for the universe; messianic figures who saw fit to explain the sphere. Imagination, idealism. The philanthropist’s obsession and the free man’s bane. There is no creative flex in reality.
With a tinge of the wry creeping at his cheekbones, Nadeau waited the transmission window.
“Statement noted, Colonials – we will not counter-point against the official diatribes of the Republic. Besides, you take the neutral ground; the Commonwealth respects your impartiality, so long as that impartiality maintains.”
“…So. You are indeed in possession of a singularity weapon.”
“…Ami, exactly how does that knowledge diffuse the situation, if at all? The Persephone is a flying doomsday bomb if what you state is true, or even physically plausible. If the Perseophone’s destruction would and could ever occur... Dieu. The end of."
“…Do you have any idea what the ramifications of such a device could catalyse, doctor? Do you truly? How do you ever intend to decommission the core, once the craft has reached the end of its intended service life? How could anyone of an allegedly philanthropic nature possibly prove so damnnably shortsighted as to unleash such a gorgon into the universe?”
“Doctor. You obviously despise me as much as I find you misguided, but pray, listen to me as intently as my vocation has forced to listen to you; if this… doomsday device… that you have inserted into this Leviathan is truly the lovecraftian horror you insinuate, then you are a master of nought but mutually assured destruction. You are, in essence, M.A.D.”
“…Primrose effect reactors. My god, man. What have you people done? Doctor; you are clearly a theoretical physicist clothed in the skin of a sawbones, but your reactor according to the formula you have described would require pecowatts upon pecowatts of electrical power to actually negate the outbound flow of the astrophysical jet. We’re discussing the viability of a paragravity generator capable of total inversion of matter stream, a process that would require nearly as much electrical energy that you could ever possibly derive from your over-glorified dynamo.”
“…Whilst the reactor could be hypothetically self-sustaining, the total usable output would be… barely superior… to that which you would derive from a more sanely designed conventional fusion core. Clearly, doctor, the backfeed device (for ease of lingo, permit us to call it that), finds its charge from an alternate, xeno-originated energy source.”
“Doctor, we barely are aware of each other; before this tryst, we have encountered each other once only – on an equally hostile footing, so it may be somewhat understandable if you consider me a buffoon.”
“…However, I happen to be an exceptionally wealthy, influential buffoon with a vested intrest in preventing singularity orientated technology from being utilised by anybody, in any manifestation, anywhere.”
“Holiday, you must believe humanity to have a value. Having a star-system destroying bomb in your possession is not a complimentary trait to your fame as a humanitarian. With this vessel, you could reduce Baffin, or Roussillon, or Tau thirty seven, or Coronado, or Malta, or…. Wherever it is Golanski’s agents happen to be based to nothing but the absence of a memory.”
“…If a nihilist like me can comprehend your villainy, then surely a man of conscience such as you can comprehend equally well.”
"Think on it."
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)