Chapter 20

Pit lay in his crate, head on his paws. To anyone watching, it looked like he was asleep, or at least lying with his eyes half-closed.

But Pit was reading.

He'd discovered something about his HUD: a sub-menu he hadn't known to access until he'd laid there wishing he had something to read.

Something appeared across his vision. An article on meditative gardening wasn't quite what he'd been hoping for, but it turned out to be useful. He added it to a Post-Retirement Reads list with a pang. The article started scrolling, slowly at first, then picking up speed as he read it hungrily.

He'd missed words, so very much.

He missed a lot of things. Conversations that occurred at eye level. Food he didn't scarf out of a bowl. Two-legged mobility.

But this reading material was the first glimmer of hope in a world that had been quite cruel as of late, and he lapped it up hungrily. It took him a while to figure out the navigation, so he spent the first hour exploring the gardening section.

At one point, it occurred to him that the HUD must have been set to gardening articles because Tristan's dog was reading them.

Another pang. This was becoming an annoyingly regular thing, these feelings.

Then he discovered how to return to the main database, and chemical reactions were forgotten as he hungrily devoured first the articles on Chir, then on the solar system in general-and, finally, the news.

It was all bad.

Tristan's coup was masterful. He'd managed to sway public sentiment and completely destroy the existing power system in one fell swoop. It was all planned and implemented over several years-now that Jace had pointed it out, Pit could see that.

The other generals had stood aside, respectfully, so the one who had revealed the traitor in their midst could tell his version of the story. Tristan played his part spectacularly: he convinced the general populace, or at least those with the influence to do anything about it, that the war against the alien invaders had been nothing but a cover for a secret ploy to sell the human race into comfortable slavery. Comfortable, because that was more believable than straight up shackles, and somehow more ominous.

Tristan's staff had carefully prepared materials to release to all the news organizations, especially the intergalactic ones that everyone watched and sourced, materials that included sworn statements by top military officials (Tristan's university friends, mostly), photographic evidence of the alien invaders shaking hands with officers directly under Pit (bollocks, Pit thought bitterly, anyone halfway educated knows those aliens don't shake hands, they initiate telepathic touch), and sketched floor plans of buildings labeled "behavioral training facilities," with all the charm of ancient asylums and areas ubiquitously named "pleasure corners."

All of it carried a strange, threatening mystery to it. It was expertly crafted, Pit had to admit. Just the right amount of confusion and ambiguity to prevent the journalists from doing real research, but convincing enough to constitute proof in the minds of a populace primed to doubt their government.

The news channels had lapped it up.

Pit did, too, with a growing sense of horror and a gulf in his gut.

A gulf, an emptiness, a realization that things would never, ever be the same.

There was one thing that made him smile: Jace had managed to get a rumor about Pit's potential escape out, gods knew how, to the conspiracy theory show host Ben Couture. Now there was a small pocket of shrill voices crying for evidence of General Pitney's actual death, which kept his name and the possibility of his survival barely bobbing along the surface of the media.

But it was mostly drowned out in a storm of treachery and deft deception.

Pit closed his eyes, shutting off the HUD temporarily. For the first time in his life, he prayed.

Please, he begged silently. Please don't let them take Prowess.

In his mind's eye, he saw his beautiful little gem of a planet, the fused asteroids still as revolutionary as the day he'd designed them. In his mental flyover, he saw the green of his manicured fields, the grey-brown-green of his implemented tundra. The inviting blue-gray of his oceans.

In his mind's eye, he watched it burn.

He wished he could cry. Cry for Prowess. For his body, which he hadn't had time to mourn. For everything he'd lost.

Since he couldn't, he opened his eyes, turned on the HUD again, and lost himself in the Grenyin tracts on bio-theory.

His one dog eye and his one bionic eye were flicking furiously back and forth, absorbing the particulars of understanding post-humanism DNA, when he heard soft pawsteps approaching. It required willpower, but he didn't look up as Ravenna padded past his box, making a beeline towards hers.

He waited. Counted softly to himself, trying to ignore the ache in his wounded tail. Four, three, two, one... She hadn't spoken, so he did. "What time is it?"

He could have consulted his HUD, but the silence was oppressive.

She managed to shrug with her voice. "Late. We don't really run by a clock when we're starside. But that's because Fionn's not like most undogs and humors me that way."

"Undogs?" Pit was annoyed to hear genuine curiosity in his question.

Ravenna stuck her muzzle out of her box, looking unfocused and a bit annoyed. "Sorry. I forget not everyone studies to become what they are. Undogs are anything that isn't a daugment. We call pure dogs just that, dogs. They may not be too high on the food chain anymore, but we honor them for what we've come from. And any dog might become a daugment, if the right human fancies."

Pit shuddered despite himself. "Pretty dependent on humans, aren't you? We?" The correction tasted metallic, like fear.

"Yes, we are," Ravenna said, focusing her eyes on his face. "I just checked for you. It's five minutes past standard hour five."

"Ow," Pit said.

Ravenna frowned. "Is that particular time...painful?"

"No. My tail. Some predator on Makops decided to spear me for sport."

"How unpleasant. May I? I have a bit of skill with first aid." Ravenna rose and came out of the box, her irritation evaporated. Before Pit could really wonder how a dog could perform first aid, she was sitting on the uninjured part of his tail and pressing something cool and soothing to the wounded segment.

Pit couldn't contain his whimper of relief.

Ravenna looked over her shoulder with a satisfied smirk. "Self-reliance is a rather valuable skill for the field. I had nothing but time alone to read when I was young, and a massive research library to choose from, so I learned a lot of skills before I really left the house."

She stepped away from him lightly and came around so they were face to face. Pit heaved himself to his feet and forced his gaze to meet her golden one.

Reading. Now that was a subject on which he could speak, to anyone, at great length, if only they were willing to listen.

Incidentally, no one ever had been. Not really. Nobody was interested in the private library of a brilliant general unless he was talking about where he got his strategy. Everyone wanted to learn how he did it, but no one wanted to realize that reading was how.

Reading everything and anything.

Pit dared to feel normal for the first time in days.