You understand that the damage the Yellow Sign has done to your body is beyond repair, Yu-Ha said to her. The Chinese woman was radiant, so much more than mortal. Behind her was the great, veiled presence of the Sleeper.
Ilyana did understand. She understood the state of her still-living, struggling body. The mark infected her face. Cancers accelerated through her body, spurred on by the malignancy of Hastur’s will. She would die. But the Miriya was in orbit, and its shuttle was on the ground.
Do you understand? Yu-Ha asked, indicating the embryos far below them. They glowed in the darkness of the atrium with life and potential. They have been sleeping a long time, waiting for a ship to come.
Why ask? Ilyana said, to Yu-Ha and to the Sleeper. You are powerful, you can take what you want.
Because then we would be no better than the King in Yellow, Yu-Ha responded. Even in the face of Eternity, that matters.
Ilyana looked beyond Yu-Ha to the Sleeper, who sent her a dream-thought. It was a moment with her infant daughter, seated in the nursery she and Gregor put together in their two-bedroom apartment on Archanska. Ilyana viewed it from the perspective of an observer, but she felt the love in that memory of the early morning.
In that moment, Ilyana understood. Love is an eternal constant. In spite of eternity, it mattered.
Will you protect my daughter and husband from his mark? Ilyana asked.
* * *
Ilyana sat on the white sand next to the desiccated corpse of Yu-Ha, watching the shuttle lift off. In that shuttle’s cargo hold was the most precious cargo in the universe—embryos comprising a second chance at life for hundreds of species and the machines that sustained them. They’d only loaded a small portion of the whole, but Ilyana knew the Commissariat would be interested in the rest.
“Your oxygen levels are low, Captain,” Petrov said in her ear.
“I know,” Ilyana responded. There hadn’t been much on board to take with her. “Tell my daughter I love her. Tell my husband I love him. Tell the Commissariat to treat the babies with care. The Sleeper will be watching them.”
“I will.” Petrov paused. “Captain Visok, I have now been informed that the Commissariat agrees to the terms. They are assembling a retrieval expedition to this world to establish formal contact.”
“I won’t be here when they come, Petrov.”
“Your body will, Captain,” Petrov said. “That will be enough.”
Ilyana nodded. “Yeah, it will.”
She watched the shuttle dwindle into a spark, heading slowly toward the Miriya. “Goodbye, Petrov, and thank you.”
“Goodbye, Ilyana. Fare well.”
Ilyana was on her last few breaths of air when the shuttle rejoined the Miriya. She watched as the starship activated its main engine to leave orbit. She turned to Yu-Ha and nodded. Life and death were phase states, and she’d see Natasha and Gregor again. She was ready.
An avid junkie of weird fiction and genres arc-wielded together with spit, flair, and appropriate grammar, D.W. Baldwin is the author of the award-winning, science fiction novel Capricorn Rising. Thrilled to be included in the Broken Eye Books pantheon, D.W. lives in the Pacific Northwest with a dog, two cats, and an abiding worship of Clinton J. Boomer (the writer so good, he deserves a call-out in another author’s bio!).
Behold, a White Ship
J. Edward Tremlett
Illustrated by Luke Spooner
It was the Hour of the Shell on the temple cruiser Serannian, and confessions were running long.
In a tiny, overly lit cell just off the main corridor, a white-bearded Ecclesian prefect looked down at his prisoner. They’d been here for hours, and the story had changed with each new telling.
Nodens’ servants didn’t appreciate subjective truth.
“Start again,” the prefect said, wiping his well-used, silver truth stick on a fresh towel. “And this time, try not to be a hero?”
And all the prisoner could do was gasp, look up, and say—
* * *
“There’s just one problem with this business,” Captain Ione said, pulling the Oeno up so steeply the block freighter should have broken in half.
“What’s that?” Jesk asked, hanging onto her gunnery station as they hurtled through Planus Nine’s deadly ice rings—three-winged Teeg fighters close behind.
“Getting shot at,” he answered, spiraling wildly to avoid being smashed.
Lasers streamed past the bridge’s well-armored windows, almost perforating the boxy ship’s backside. Several flashes of blue light erupted, indicating the demise of some of their pursuers.
“Yes!” the captain shouted, enraptured. But more lasers flew, and his smile fell. “Khub’s sake, Hrsk, are they still with us?” he demanded, running a hand through his straight black beard.
“Yesss,” the burly man-lizard at sensors hissed, “Many shipsss, now.”
“How many?”
“Too many,” the Xard replied, and he was right. The Teeg carrier had sent every fighter, and none of them had backed off when he dove into the rings.
“Who knew they still cared about that dead king,” Ione muttered, cursing his decision to “borrow” Gravonib the First’s funeral goods.
“I can’t get a target lock!” Jesk shouted as they pulled out of the ice. “Too many things moving—”
“Hang on,” Ione ordered, diving straight back down into the rings.
Ione maneuvered the Oeno through them: up and down, left and right, even sideways. As they went, fewer laser blasts flew, and more bright blue explosions happened.
After ten blissfully silent seconds, Ione grinned. “You see, girl? Have some faith—”
“Look out!” Jesk screamed, ducking behind her console as an ice chunk smacked the Oeno portside. Sparks flew from ceiling consoles, and the ship went dark and silent.
But as they spun through the bottom of Planus’s ice ring—somehow missing everything—the few remaining fighters shot past them, pancaking into each other.
* * *
“Which is how we escaped the Teegs’ most feared capital ship,” Captain Ione said, bringing his drinking story to a close. “And how I got this new, handsome scar across my face.”
“Which scar?” asked the pale man sitting across from him in the booth. His face was hidden behind the long hood of his black cloak, except for his long, thin chin.
“My nose,” Ione said, tapping it. “Goes nicely with the one on my cheek.”
“More . . . borrowing?”
“Sort of. Fighting wamps on Keldan-2. They’d infested the temple, you see.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. And I lost half this ear serving the Second Dominion in the Ophidian War. And . . . well, you know how it goes.”
Ione couldn’t see his companion’s expressions, but the man seemed confused. Maybe his translator wasn’t working too well—that’s what he thought the strange, silver object around his neck was, anyway.
“But I’m sure everyone in this bar has a scar or two and a story or three,” Ione shrugged, casting his hand over the large and noisy establishment, packed with scammers and scalawags from every world in the Twenty-Three systems. “On Serania, we always say, if you’ve got more stories than scars, you’re doing alright.”
“Truly?” the pale man asked, running his finger along the silver object. “Are you doing . . . alright? Did the treasure of the Teegs bring what you desired?”
“Sort of,” the captain winced, compulsively running a hand through his beard. “I fixed my ship, paid my crew, and had enough left over for a drink or two. Can’t ask for much more.”
“So you are not . . . successful.”
“Not as such,” Ione sighed: “But Nebar’s not known for success stories, is it? Three dominions later, it’s still just rock and ruin. And half the stars in the sky gone.”
“Yes,” the pale man nodded, making a hand sign Ione half-recognized from his more religious childhood on Serania. “The Null.”
Ione grinn
ed, pointing up. “Good news for us, though. The Ecclesians are scared to be this close, so no prefects trying to make us behave.”
“Truly?” Ione’s guest repeated.
“Truly. No temple cruisers, no confessionals. Might have agents, of course.”
“Agents . . . ?”
“Ah, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Ione waved a dismissive hand. “The only law and order here’s the Nameless Monks. And they don’t wander past the Smashlands.”
“That is . . . fortunate,” the pale man said.
Ione smiled, deciding to not reveal that he’d seen the strange, masked monks wandering about Crashtown, clearly looking for something. Or someone.
“So,” Ione said, leaning forward and speaking quietly, wondering if the old, nosy cyborg at the bar was listening in, “You’re looking for a ship for a job. I’ve got one. The Oeno.”
He grinned, expecting his guest to have heard of it. When it was clear he hadn’t, Ione sighed and explained, “It’s a block freighter, made to haul trains through the Skip. Not much to look at, I’ll admit, but it’s well-armored, has a lot of living space, and it’s very fast when it’s not hauling.”
The pale man considered this and nodded.
“So what else do you need?” Ione asked.
“I need . . . discretion,” Ione’s would-be employer said, also leaning in close. “A . . . private room.”
“Anything else?
“I need to be gone. Soon.”
“We could be,” the captain nodded, “but I don’t fly cheap, friend. Nor blind. So . . . what’s this job, and what’s in it for me?”
The pale man was quiet for a time. He slowly nodded and pulled back enough of his hood to reveal his face.
Ione gasped at what he saw. And as he regained his composure, the mysterious being told him why he needed the Oeno.
* * *
“Finding a massive treasure?” Jesk repeated, pushing a large gravity-box of parts toward their hangar on the edge of the Smashlands.
“Precisely,” Ione said, walking alongside and not helping.
“What kind?”
“He was a little vague on that,” Ione admitted. “‘The greatest thing we will ever see,’ he said.”
“That’s all?”
“There’s . . . a little more than that,” the captain said, “for which I’m willing to overlook some of our anonymous employer’s eccentricities.”
“Such as?” Jesk asked, quite annoyed. She didn’t like being left in the dark. It usually meant falling onto her face.
“Such as . . . things I can’t talk about,” he said, quickly holding up a hand. “Just trust me on this, girl.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
“Now, we’ve been over that—”
“It’s taken me weeks to fix her,” she grumbled, “And you’re going on a feeling?”
“A very good feeling,” the captain insisted, leaning in close. “This fellow? He’s . . . special.”
“Special,” Jesk snorted.
“And he’s also on the run.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Not from the Nameless, we’re not,” Ione said, gazing off at the tall, crumbling monastery, quite some distance away—older than the First Dominion, some said. “The monks are looking for him. He won’t say why. But he knows something. Something big.”
Jesk blinked. “Then you’d better tell me.”
Ione looked at her as if preparing to speak. But then he saw Hrsk lumbering along and just said, “Later.”
Which is why Jesk never found out about the extra hands Ione told the Xard to hire until they all showed up, expecting a cabin.
* * *
A hulking pair of Velerian mercenaries arrived first: all long, black hair, braided mustaches, and red leather. They were either brothers or lovers, both named Rug. Each carried a pair of short, shiny star axes strapped to their backs, spoils from the war against Leng.
An unfortunate veteran of the Ophidian War followed: a clanking, old cyborg—clearly struck by the snakes’ infamous melt-gas—who Ione remembered as the one who’d been listening at the bar. He was so shell-shocked, he couldn’t recall whether his name was Lee or Harl, so he became “Harley,” to his chagrin.
A willowy, web-fingered man just sort of appeared on the bridge, grinning. He was wrapped in a long, blue cloak, wore large boots that masked his footsteps, and sported several large knives. He preferred to remain nameless, which made Jesk dislike him immediately; he found that amusing.
Next, an Endraxian pilgrim strode proudly aboard: four arms, eyes on the sides of his head, and a sideways mouth splitting his skull. He proudly proclaimed himself “Yerg, Who Seeks Splendid Cathuria, Where All Pleasures Lie.”
Their pale and mysterious patron showed up last, hood covering his face, gravity sled hovering three steps behind his billowing cloak. It carried a long, black box, maybe the size of a coffin. He refused to let anyone else touch it and disappeared into his cabin for takeoff.
The crew checked and sealed the ship and strapped everyone in and down. With a disquieting shudder, the Oeno rocketed away from dusty and lawless Nebar, leaving the scum and dregs of the Twenty-Three systems behind.
A departure noted by the Nameless Monks, who had just surrounded Crashtown, and started to burn it down.
* * *
“Can’t we move back?” Jesk said, not liking what she saw outside the bridge windows.
“Afraid not, girl,” Ione said, glad they skipped out well clear of the aging Ophidian convoy. “You know the rules.”
“I know,” she sighed: “Stay put and wait for new coordinates.”
“Snakes,” Harley shuddered, looking at the mottled, olive-green ships, travelling end to end, like a block train. “I remember what they did to me—”
“So you can remember things, half-meat?” the shorter Rug laughed.
“Calm yourself, Harley,” Ione insisted. “We won’t be staying long.”
“It’s Lee,” the cyborg complained, causing both Rugs to chuckle.
“Probably just a ghost fleet,” said the taller Valerian, “asleep since the war.”
“If they’re not all dead,” the shorter one added, “The Second Dominion used poison, remember?”
Ione might have added something to that, but their employer picked that moment to stride onto the bridge. “We have arrived,” he announced.
“So we have,” the captain said. “Where to now?”
“Here,” their employer said, handing over new coordinates.
Ione examined them and handed the paper over to Hrsk. “That’s halfway between Iayatus and the Pels Cascade.”
“Yes,” the pale man said.
“Nothing isss there,” Hrsk said, confused.
“Just another view of the Null.” Jesk shuddered, unable to forget being so close to it, right at the system’s edge before skipping away.
The pale man was silent for a few seconds and responded, “Yes,” before turning to go.
“So what’s he doing?” Harley asked, looking to Ione. “We’re just going in circles around . . . you know.”
“Evading pursuit, I’d say,” the man with webbed fingers answered, now standing by Hrsk’s station.
“It’s been three days,” Jesk grumbled, annoyed by the man’s appearing act. “We should have shaken them by now, whoever they are.”
“Ecclesians,” the shorter Rug proclaimed. “Who else?”
“He seemed more worried about the Nameless Monks,” Ione offered, but something about how he said it made Jesk wonder what he wasn’t saying.
* * *
“We should have been there by now,” Jesk grumbled to Yerg as she ate her quite unsatisfying meal in the galley. “It’s been six full-day skips. And we’re down to emergency rations.”
“Revelation requires hardship,” the Endraxian pilgrim said, arms locked in prayer, one of his telescoping eyes fixed on the pale man’s cabin.
“Well, if this hardship gets an
y staler, there’ll be a riot,” the gunner muttered. “If our thief doesn’t just appear in our employer’s room, anyway.”
“He would not get past me,” Yerg declared. “I have been guarding him since we left.”
“Why?” Jesk asked.
“I seek answers. I believe he has them.”
“Answers to what?”
“To my destination,” Yerg said, focusing one eye upon her: “Splendid, shining Cathuria.”
“I think I’ve heard of it,” Jesk said.
“You have?” the Endraxian said, pleasantly surprised. “May I ask how?”
“The captain . . . well, he wasn’t always like this. Sometimes when he gets drunk, he tells me about his parents’ temple to Tamash on Serania.”
“The God of Illusion,” the pilgrim mused. “Fitting.”
“So,” Jesk asked, “Cathuria?”
The Endraxian considered for a moment and nodded. “My order holds that what we now call the Null was once a glittering expanse of shining stars and lovely worlds, travelled by starships. All manner of beings prospered under the gentle gaze of the Great Ones and were ruled wisely and well by the God Born.”
“Who?”
“The children of the Great Ones and their worshippers,” Yerg answered. “Not quite gods but more than mortal.”
“Okay,” the gunner said.
“It was home to stately Zar, land of dreams lost and half-remembered,” Yerg went on, growing misty-eyed. “Lush and verdant Xura, world of pleasures unimagined. Thalerion, where all starships laid their anchor. And cold and lonely Kadath . . . though that is best left unspoken.
“And in the center of all those amazing worlds lay Cathuria. Where all hopes were brought into being, all desires made real . . .”
“So what happened?” Jesk asked, breaking the pilgrim’s reverie.
“The same thing that always happens to paradise,” the pilgrim said, fixing both eyes upon her. “It is enjoyed, abused, and then taken away.”
“By the Null,” Jesk said.
“Yes,” Yerg said sadly. “They say the White Ship itself was seen leaving Cathuria, a hungry blackness growing in its wake. World after world fell to the doom pronounced by the gods, and none survived. For the gods are mighty, and their judgement absolute.”
Ride the Star Wind: Cthulhu, Space Opera, and the Cosmic Weird Page 17
