The Terran Representative by Angus Monarch Page A

needed to happen. There were those who were mutinous, who wanted to go back on our deal.”
    My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “Executions for mutiny?” I said. “That wasn’t executions. That was sacrifice. How do you explain that abominable bone structure?” I screamed. The thought of it made me want to cross this space and throttle all of them. If that didn’t work I’d wake up and throttle them in their chambers.
    “At Augustine we left a marker for future colonists,” said the man with the mustache. “Kaur believed that when we returned we’d take it down. Until we did so the additional colonists would come to Masirah and help us look for the imprisoned one.”
    “Our debt must be repaid,” said the woman with the ponytail.
    My hands balled into fists. My teeth ground together. If I’d known how I would have left them right then and there.
    “Something went wrong,” said the final man. His voice was quiet and timid. It sounded like he was hesitant to speak. The other four shot him dirty looks but said nothing.
    “What went wrong?” I said.
    “Admiral Kaur,” said the man. “She went wrong. She lost her mind.” He gestured to the other four. “And we went along with it.”
    I sensed the animosity between the four and the final man. He kept his head down and didn’t look at them. He took a big breath, started to speak then shook his head.
    “Do you know about the sacrifices?” I said.
    He squeezed his eyes closed and scrunched up his face. Tears started to form at the corners of his eyes.
    “What about the symbols?” I said. I tried to keep my voice, calm, even, like I was trying to coax a confession out of a child. “I saw colonists with them carved into their skin.”
    “It was Kaur,” said the man. His voice registered barely above a whisper. “At first we traveled to possible colonial sites, but whenever we were out of our dimension there was always something in the back of your mind.” The man sucked in a breath and continued speaking with a quavering voice. “It gnawed at you. Its words, those symbols, would always be wavering at the edge of your vision, like whispered words you just couldn’t make out.”
    “He talks nonsense,” said the man with the mustache. “He’s delusional.”
    “He attacked a fellow colonist,” said the woman with the ponytail.
    He patted his chest. “She attacked me,” said the man. His words were cut with sobs. “People started speaking in a language we couldn’t understand. They started carving those symbols into themselves. They became violent. Some of us petitioned Kaur to stop on the next possible colonial site. Make that our home.”
    “Mutiny,” said the deep voiced man. He pointed at the other man, but faced me. “This is why we had to have the executions. They wanted us to renege on our obligations.”
    “And Kaur executed people?” I said, blocking out the other four and focusing on the lone man confessing.
    “Yes,” said the man. “She drew it out.” He bit his lip hard enough that if it was in the real world I was sure it’d start bleeding. “She made a spectacle of it. She said it was demanded of her.”
    “Why did Kaur leave you behind then?” I said.
    The man with the mustache sat up straighter and puffed out his chest. “We were to be a separate search party. At a designated time we were to be awoken.”
    I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why not just drop you off? Why put you in a cryo-chamber?”
    “I was to be a sacrifice,” said the confessing man. He wrapped his arms around himself. “Rather than searching for new races we were to be awoken when a new space faring race found us. When that happened I would be sacrificed. It would pinpoint where the other four were. The new race would then be brought into the fold.” Snot ran down his face and tears rolled off his cheeks.
    “You were to be sacrificed because you were part of the ‘mutiny’?” I said.
    He nodded.
    “Why