When Sean and Elenya emerged, they found Carver in the front room with Tatyana and the Ambassador in tow. One look at his daughter’s tear-streaked face was enough to turn Anyon’s mood fouler still. But all he said was, “We need to know there is a logical, definable purpose behind your desire for us to weaken our position.”
“We’re not weakening anything,” Dillon retorted. “We’re setting a trap.”
Sean said, “We don’t know when the next attack will come. We don’t really know anything about them. Our knowledge has been restricted like everything else about the transit powers. The aliens are developing new tactics and we’ve remained stagnant. And unless we prepare for their new strategy, we risk losing another world.”
Elenya’s voice revealed her severely shaken state. “Father, he is correct. These are exceptional circumstances. And Sean is the man to work out our solution.”
“Because he is an adept. He had an idea come to him from beyond. He says that it was as if he walked through a cloud of an idea. Do you remember hearing those words before, Father?”
The Ambassador was silent. Thoughtful. Intent. Behind him, Tatyana and Carver leaned closer, clearly drawn by Elenya’s unexpected words. Sean glanced around the room. Baran, Chenel, Sandrine, all of them captivated by what Elenya was saying. And apparently very surprised.
Elenya went on, “They were part of my favorite stories while I was growing up. About the young woman who defied an entire planet and drew from nothing the records and the concepts that now shape our Assembly.”
Anyon did not respond.
“Sean is an adept. You need to accept this. He has been given what may be a method to protect us, not just now but in the future. We need to pay attention and do what he says.”
Sean resisted the urge to tell Elenya that she had sort of twisted the truth. The idea that had come to him wasn’t so extensive, and wasn’t about halting this particular attack, and wasn’t . . . But he held his comments in check. Elenya was on a roll.
Anyon glanced once at Sean, but not long, as though he was too captured by this transformation in his daughter to give much weight to anything else. He asked, “What comes next?”
To her immense credit, Elenya replied, “That is for Sean to say.”
Sean swallowed hard. What came next meant moving into the danger zone. “My brother needs to teach me how to hunt.”