The First Debate

"What if I disagree with what you did after I finish reading?"

For the forty-eight hours after Lacus said those words, she contacted no one.

The medical bay of Xuanwu Three had been converted into a temporary living quarters. It was not large, and two round portholes were set into the walls, beyond which the curve of Earth drifted slowly past.

Lin Yuan had Chen Linhai prepare an independent terminal for her, loaded with three encrypted document packages.

The first package bore a four-character title: Blood Evidence Archive.

Lacus opened it on the first day.

What appeared on the screen was not a written report, but footage.

The original satellite records of the Julius 7 incident. The thermal imaging sequence of the nuclear bomb detonating inside the colony satellite had been broken down frame by frame: a white flash, structural collapse, atmospheric leakage, and the life signals of 243,721 people dropping to zero within nine seconds.

Then came Blue Cosmos propaganda clips.

On news programs within the Atlantic Federation, anchors read out rhetoric about the Coordinator threat in polished broadcast voices. Behind them played edited footage of PLANT military exercises, every frame carefully selected to show ZAFT units in their most aggressive poses.

Then there were street interviews. A Natural mother held her child and said that Coordinators had taken her husband's job and her child's chance to attend a good school. Her voice trembled with tears, and the camera held a fifteen-second close-up on her.

The second document package contained intercepted internal communications from the Zala Faction.

It was a recording of Patrick Zala's speech during a closed meeting of the Supreme Council, its voiceprint verified by the East Asian Intelligence Bureau. He said that the crimes Naturals had committed against Coordinators were unforgivable, and Earth had to pay an equal price. He did not use the word revenge. He used reckoning.

The third package was Siegel Clyne's final political communication, sent three days before he was ambushed. Its recipients were three neutral PLANT councilors. It contained only one paragraph: Zala's plan would not fail militarily, but it would destroy the moral legitimacy of the Coordinators' existence. If they answered extermination with extermination, humanity would no longer have any possibility of reconciliation.

Lacus took two days to finish all the material.

On the third day, she requested a conversation with Lin Yuan through the ship's communications system.

May 19, C.E. 71. The communications room connected once more.

Lacus sat before the screen without a cup of water in hand, her fingers interlaced atop the table. There were faint bluish shadows beneath her eyes, the kind left by two sleepless nights.

Lin Yuan rested his hand on the armrest and waited for her to speak first.

Lacus spoke, her voice half a note lower than it had been two days ago.

"Mr. Lin Yuan, I've finished reading them."

"All of them?"

"All of them."

Lin Yuan did not press her for her feelings.

Lacus continued on her own.

"In the Julius 7 footage, there was a slow-motion sequence of the atmosphere leaking out after the colony satellite's hull ruptured. Those white streams were mixed with debris. When magnified, you could make out clothing and household items. There was a child's backpack tumbling through the vacuum, printed with a cartoon character from the PLANT children's channel."

Her voice did not shake, but when she mentioned the backpack, her pace slowed by a beat.

"I watched the Blue Cosmos propaganda too. Every word that mother said reflected her real feelings. She really was afraid. She really was angry. But the people behind the camera chose to turn her fear into a weapon, aimed at every Coordinator."

Lin Yuan's finger tapped the armrest once.

"What did you see?"

Lacus lifted her gaze from the tabletop to Lin Yuan's face on the screen.

"I saw both sides doing the same thing. Using the suffering of victims to create the next round of victims. Blue Cosmos uses Naturals' fear to create hatred. The Zala Faction uses Coordinators' anger to create war. Their logic is the same. Only the direction is different."

"So?"

"So peace cannot rely on appeals."

When Lacus said those words, the curve of her lips was far more restrained than it had been two days earlier. The singer's gentleness was gone, replaced by an edge she had not yet fully grown accustomed to.

"But I still believe peace is necessary."

Lin Yuan's pace did not change.

"I never said peace was unnecessary. I said peace would not fall from the sky."

"Then where does it come from?"

"From making those who want war unable to wage it."

Lacus's fingers curled slightly on the tabletop.

"Mr. Lin Yuan, if Chairman Zala truly activates that world-ending weapon, what will stop him?"

"A cannon bigger than his."

"And after that? Who will the bigger cannon be aimed at?"

Lin Yuan looked into her eyes.

"At the next person to raise the butcher's knife. Whether he is a Natural or a Coordinator."

Lacus fell silent for five seconds.

"My father said in his communication that if Coordinators answer extermination with extermination, humanity will no longer have any possibility of reconciliation."

"Your father was right."

A slight crease formed between Lacus's brows.

"You agree with him?"

"I agree with his judgment. I do not agree with what he did. Your father saw the danger, yet he only wrote a letter. A letter cannot stop nuclear bombs. It cannot stop GENESIS. It cannot stop Patrick Zala from pressing the button."

Lacus's lips moved, but she did not immediately speak.

Lin Yuan continued.

"Miss Clyne, your father was a good man. In peacetime, good people are a nation's conscience. But in wartime, if good people have no power, they can only become names on a monument."

For the briefest instant, Lacus's breathing stopped.

She did not refute him.

Nor did she agree.

She lifted her hands from the tabletop and returned them to her lap.

"Mr. Lin Yuan, there is a question I have been unable to understand for two days."

"Go on."

"Blue Cosmos uses Naturals' fear to create hatred. The Zala Faction uses Coordinators' anger to create war. If one person possessed power greater than both of theirs, who could guarantee that person would not become a third kind of madman?"

The low background hum of the communications room's equipment filled the air.

Lin Yuan stared into those pinkish-purple eyes on the screen.

Six seconds later, he spoke.

"No one can guarantee it."

Lacus's gaze shifted slightly.

"Including yourself?"

"Including myself."

Lacus said nothing.

Lin Yuan moved his hand from the armrest back onto the table.

"So keep reading. If, after you finish, you think my order is no different from their madness, you can tell me to my face. I will give you an answer."

Lacus neither agreed nor refused at once.

Her gaze fell to the tabletop. After three seconds, she raised it again.

"Is there more material?"

"Yes. Records of the Atlantic Federation's Enhanced Human experiments. Audited black accounts of United Army internal arms procurement. And the full text of every peace proposal your father submitted over the past five years that the Zala Faction rejected."

Lacus nodded once.

"Please send them to me."

Lin Yuan tapped the terminal twice.

"Miss Clyne."

"Yes?"

"The materials were selected. I do not deny that the angle of selection reflects my position. But every original document in them is marked with a source number. You can cross-check them through any channel."

A very small curve touched Lacus's lips. It was not a social smile, but something closer to acknowledgment.

"Mr. Lin Yuan, this is the second time you have taken the initiative to tell me about your own limitations."

"You are from the Clyne Family. It is better to let you judge for yourself than to deceive you."

Before the screen went dark, Lacus spoke one final sentence.

"I am no longer merely someone who was saved. From now on, I will see for myself, think for myself, and decide for myself where I should stand."

Lin Yuan's hand paused over the terminal switch.

"Then look."