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target the pathogens by small variations between different isenj genotypes. Rit knew that, but she wondered how reliable the weapons might be, and if it might not be a ruse to wipe them all out.
    No, wess’har weren’t humans. If they were set on destroying isenj, they would have done it without a moment’s hesitation. Deception wasn’t a weapon they needed to use. She could at least trust them.
    â€œYou know the stakes,” said Rit. “Our population will soon reach the point where even the managed environment will collapse and there’ll be millions of deaths anyway. Better to manage that in a controlled way—or do you subscribe to this view of Tass…Tassati…”
    â€œTargassat,” said Ralassi. “That only outcomes matter? All wess’har think that, not just Targassat. Yes, I believe I do think that as well. But you sound as if you’re trying to convince yourself, Minister.”
    I am, because I’m out of my depth. But I know we can’t carry on as we are and survive. How suddenly these tipping points come upon us.
    â€œI’m simply choosing the manner of their dying.”
    Ralassi narrowed his eyes again. “You and the cabinet.”
    The groundcar edged forward. The streets here weren’t as tightly packed with pedestrians as the capital, and the driver made better progress.
    Rit looked at Ralassi with renewed curiosity: why did ussissi adopt the culture of another species so thoroughly, and yet not that of the world where they were raised? Did they have their own languages and beliefs? What did it mean, then, to be ussissi? She couldn’t grasp a sense of allegiance and belonging so devoid of place or genes. But Ralassi was loyal in the sense that he wouldn’t betray her. That was all.
    â€œThe human and the wess’har who have c’naatat, ” she said. “Is it true they have isenj genes?”
    â€œI hear they have.” Ralassi glanced out the hatch of the groundcar and leaned through it to stare up at the sky. “And isenj memories.”
    It was a shocking revelation, but c’naatat was a strange symbiont. “Whose?”
    â€œWhoever captured Aras Sar Iussan in the wars.”
    That was five centuries ago. This wess’har, this freak of nature, had isenj memories—but direct ones, undiluted by forty or more generations, and he wasn’t just any wess’har but the destroyer of Mjat, a historical figure of hate for all isenj. This war criminal had a direct memory, a parental memory, one generation removed and no doubt vivid and detailed. Did it change the way he saw isenj now? Did he feel anything that his fellow wess’har didn’t?
    She wanted to meet him. She wondered if her dead husband had. “So the humans have inherited the memory from him, and so the two I saw, the soldier and the matriarch, they also…”
    Rit trailed off. Ralassi seemed distracted by something, cocking his head to one side.
    â€œStop—” he said.
    Ussissi had excellent hearing. He was straining to hear something. Seconds later, a faint whistling sound became loud and insistent, and the noise of the crowd either side of the car leapt from a low continuous whirring to a few high-pitched shrieks, silenced almost instantly by an explosion that left Rit numb and tasting saline in her mouth.
    Snapping sounds crackled around her, her hearing so overloaded that it left a taste in her mouth. She was looking up at the inner canopy of the ground car. It was canted at an angle, but she couldn’t work out if it was the vehicle or she who was tipped on one side.
    The ground shook and she tasted more deafening sounds. Screams were drowned by low-frequency thuds. Ralassi’s face was suddenly right in hers, lips drawn back to reveal an unbroken reef of white, spiked teeth.
    â€œMinister—“
    â€œWe’re under attack.”
    â€œCan you hear me, Minister?”
    Rit was convinced she