You know, she's pretty sure the gun wasn't this heavy before, right? Didn't sit in her hands like the weight of all the consequences of this moment?

Because, on the one hand, [i]fuck[/i] this little sheep. She has no reason to despise this synnefo and his obsequious little smile and his pleasantly neat hat and his encouraging eyes.

She has no use for the gun. Too many regrets to wield it, and those among her companions who could, wouldn't. 

She has every reason to sell it. Seven billion of them, in fact.

Purple and gold flicker around the edges of her vision. No plan. Every plan.

How do you plan for this? What can you even say to this?

Two hundred fifty years. That's a lot of time.  Hardly seems fair that it's only two-hundred fifty, given he just [i]said[/i] it's worth the en[i]tire[/i] planet. Like, in perpetuity.

An entire service with guns like these. Would they need two hundred fifty years?

She could smash it, here and now. Dash it to pieces on the floor. She meets the eyes, purple in their olive frame, and almost does it. Lifts the gun, dashes seven billion lives to crystal shards.

Seven billion lives in her hands.

Meets the gold eyes, the beatific smile. Uplift them. Condemn them to order. Perfect vassals, perfect subjects, kings and lords and rulers and godlets.

No. False. Imperfect. An impossible dichotomy. A fake dichotomy.

There has to be a line between perfect chaos, abandonment, all for one, and perfect order.

"Find out what they call themselves, and uplift them under that name. Not as servitors--as a new administrator species. Uplifted according to their own design, according to the things they value and prioritize. They are to be given resources and technology, and helped by the service as they request. No guidance on culture, on values.

"And they are to be left alone, to do with that technology and resources and service as they see fit. Given access to the hyperlanes, but left alone by others."

Awful. Terrible.

The only answer she can give that doesn’t feel worse.