You’d never know it to look at her now, though. The smile most people know from cosmetics billboards and style magazines doesn’t waver—her hands are steady. She’s wearing green, a billowing dress cut in a fashion several years old, but it’s beautiful on her. Tarver’s face is distant, his eyes on her as the breeze ripples the fabric.
“My father,” Lilac begins, her voice echoing as it bounces back from speakers spread throughout the crowd, “is a brilliant man. Growing up, I believed he could do no wrong. I imagined him like one of the ancient gods the president spoke of, fit company for the stars.
Her eyes scan the crowd as she pauses to take a breath. “But the stars aren’t gods, and neither was my father. What he was—what he is—is human. Everything he did, every path he took, he believed was right. His mistake wasn’t a lust for power or fame or riches; it wasn’t hubris and arrogance; it wasn’t even the subjugation of an entire species.”
Behind her the rift’s glow wavers, a few filaments of gold whispering through it, curling through Lilac’s hair and settling around the dais. The Collective, too, is listening to what she has to say.
“Roderick LaRoux’s mistake was in believing that he had the right to make the world’s decisions for us. Believing that the burden of choice was thrust upon him, and him alone, was ultimately what destroyed him. He once named a ship the Icarus—and stood shocked with the rest of the galaxy when it fell from the sky in flames.” She glances over her shoulder, the camera panning toward Tarver, whose poker face has only gotten better over the last few weeks of media coverage. “But free will is what it means to be human, and no one can determine the path you take through this universe. Choice is our greatest right, our greatest gift—and our greatest responsibility.”
Lilac glances down, though the aerial shots show she has no note cards. She’s quiet so long that I glance at Gideon, worried she’s forgotten the rest of her speech. I can no longer even hear the crowd through the ambient microphones, so complete is the silence. It’s as though all of Corinth—all of the galaxy, watching on the hyperspace feeds—is holding its breath.
But then she lifts her head, and the performer in me recognizes like skill in her. She’s an orator—and no one ever knew her poise could be so powerful.
“So now, here, today, we all have a choice.” Lilac’s voice rises, passion evident even through the distortion of the speakers. “The world is forever changed now that the rift is opened for good. We will never be alone in the vastness of this universe again. So we can choose to greet these new beings with suspicion and mistrust, with blame and anger. Or we can choose to show them why humanity is worth knowing, worth joining, worth saving.”
She pauses then, as if waiting for her audience—the hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the streets of Corinth, the billions watching on screens across the galaxy, and me, on this beat-up mattress with Gideon’s arm around me—to make that choice for themselves.
“I, for one, have made my choice.” Lilac tips her head up, eyes sweeping the scaffolding forming the framework of the Headquarters building being rebuilt around the rift. “Which is why my husband and I are taking over LaRoux Industries and dedicating its considerable resources to the rebuilding of our city, and to learning everything our new neighbors have to share with us. The new headquarters you see under construction now will be a place for anyone, human or not, to come and learn, and share stories and memories of what it is to be human. They want to know it all—the good, the bad, the darkness and the light. They want you to bring your stories.”
Lilac drops her eyes to the crowd again, her smile, that infectious, galactically famous smile, returns. “The Icarus was named in arrogance. Now, we turn that tradition of names to something good, something hopeful. This new project will be called Eos—named for the ancient goddess of the dawn, in honor of the new world we’ve found ourselves in. It’s my hope that as this new day arrives on planets everywhere across the galaxy, we can all see hope in the dawn.”
There’s a silence after she finishes, a brief moment that nonetheless stretches with a dozen possibilities. But then the crowd erupts, the sound levels on the feeds frantically adjusting themselves to compensate for the roar. I see Lilac’s lips moving, and though I can’t hear her over the crowd, I read the words easily enough: Thank you.
The news announcers begin chattering breathlessly, ready to start dissecting the speech and analyzing the political ramifications, as the aerial camera shows Lilac stepping back away from the podium, returning to Tarver, who clasps her hand in both of his and raises it to his lips.
Gideon flicks his hands at the screen to mute the news anchors, then sticks his chopsticks into his noodles and leans back. He’s silent for a while, then lets his breath out in a low whistle. “Damn.”
“You mean she didn’t make stirring, epic speeches when you were kids?” I tease, leaning harder against his shoulder.