Colony - Seeds of War (Colony - The Saga of Earth's First Civilizaton Book 4)

by Gene Stiles

  Noting the nods of consensus from the council, she continued firmly. “I brought this to Cronus immediately. He commanded me to determine how this could be, to find the cause of the drain. I came to a troubling conclusion and reported to him. He scoffed at my findings and asked that I keep them to myself. I, unfortunately, obeyed his wishes, at the time believing my worries would have no relevance on our new lives here.”

  “I was wrong,” she said, dropping her head in shame. “Had I brought it to the council years ago, we might not be in the dire situation we now find ourselves in. Please forgive me.”

  Thea reached over from her chair beside Thorina and placed her soft, long-fingered hand upon her. Her golden smile burned the dense emotional fog from this portion of the chamber, her sparkling, bright green eyes shining up at Thorina.

  “You have done nothing, my dear,” she whispered. “You only followed your heart and the will of Cronus. You should be free of any guilt. Please, lady, tell us the story.”

  “Thank you, Thea. I do appreciate your kind words.” Thorina raised eyes glistening with a touch of moisture and addressed the council once again. “My conclusion was thus,” she stated firmly. “We slept for almost sixty-five million years.”

  “Great Creator!” Crius shouted, so uncharacteristically. The black curls framing his smooth, boyish face bounced around him like a maddened nest of baby snakes as he leaped from his chair. It flew so far behind him that the chair struck the edge of the small table next to the couch, toppling it along with the carefully arranged data pyramids stacked there, scattered them across the smooth stone floor. His mouth open in a large O, Crius blushed a bright red that set the top his ears on fire.

  “I…I…I am so sorry,” he stammered, kneeling to pick up the scattered crystals.

  Those around the Table could not help but smile at the youngest brother of Cronus, usually as timid as to be virtually invisible at council. Even Thorina, the barer of such horrendous tidings, found herself warmed at the sight of her secret love on hands and knees on the polished granite floor. Crius muttered quietly to himself as he tucked the sparkling modules in the folds of his plain, soft blue robe. His mishap brought a momentary lightness to the darkness of the room easing the tension such revelations had wrought.

  Crius dumped the crystals upon the couch, picked up his chair and, with his head down to hide the crimson flush of his cheeks, returned to his place at council. The other members quietly waited until he placed his arms before him, his hands gripped together, before returning to the momentous discoveries now facing them.

  “Many things now make sense to me,” Oceanus nodded, running a thick, strong hand over the bald dome of his skull. “When we first arrived on Terra, after we crashed the asteroid here to change the environment, the air was so thick with debris and the sky still dark with cloud, we could not breathe - even with our respirators. That is why we decided to sleep in the first place. Now we are able to breathe, though most of the People still require thinning filters to function in this dense atmosphere.”

  “The foliage has changed dramatically from our initial scans,” Phoebe interjected, brushing her platinum hair over her gently sloped shoulder. “One moment, if you would,” she added, gliding toward the haphazard pile of crystals on the couch. Her pale blue eyes scanned their markings until she found the one she sought. She placed it in the palm of her ivory hand, her long, delicate fingers touching the dim red spot on its side.

  The holographic image of the Proto-Sun was replaced by images of the forests that had once surrounded the twelve ships of the People. As the image moved, a hush fell over the room as thick as a morning fog. The sight of the arks that brought them to this world, their silver borithium hulls blazing like globes of white light in the rising sun, filled the assembly with a soul-crushing sadness and a mind-numbing awe. Memories of the Atlan that was flooded their hearts with such melancholy that, for an instant in time, they forgot why they were here. The conflicting emotions squirming in the hollows of each person there transported them to another place, another time.

  “Look closely at the tree leaves and the underbrush,” Phoebe continued, jarring each of them from their private hells as if a hammer had pounded upon the table. “They are wide and thick, barbs lining the edges. Massive vines crawl between the trunks and encircle them like a serpent’s embrace. There is no sign of the oaks and evergreens we now see surrounding us.”

  Phoebe stepped within the scene, turning the module in the palm. Her ruby red lips shown like sensuous beacons upon her alabaster skin. No one could help but gaze at her well-appointed figure and exotic visage, each male envious of Coeus and the undying bond of love they shared. Her small feet glided over sodden, murky swamps, the waters dank and dirty. Sickly looking, yellow patches of grass on tiny hillocks dotted the grimy landscape.

  “This dingy quagmire is no long here.” She slipped her fingers over to another side of the pyramid and the current panorama of green meadows and fields of wheat and maize replaced the dreary images of the past. “It would have taken eons for these changes to take place.”

  “There is one other pertinent thing of note,” Thea interrupted calmly, pointing a long, delicate finger toward a spot not far from the front of the line of shimmering ships. “Look at the spot where the One Tree now grows.”

  The ramifications of so many millenniums past stunned the gathering into a sullen stupor. It was not only the thoughts of such a passage of time that curled the soul into knots. Not only the consequences to the power sources. No, there was a more mind-searing question that burned within each of them.

  “If what you say is true,” Rhea whispered, her voice quivering, facing the fear eating at all of them, “why were we not awakened sooner? What happened to our brothers and sisters that fled to Sirius? Why did they not return for us?”

  “There is no way of knowing,” Phoebe spoke softly, glittering tears streaking her gentle face as the shock of her own proclamations sunk in for the first time. “Did they complete their journey? Did they meet dilemmas that prevented their return? Were they so wrapped up in their own quandaries and difficulties that, over time, they simply forgot we were here? Who knowns?”

  “Who cares?” Hyperion laughed, cracking the rising tension like a boulder might shatter thin ice upon a lake. All eyes stared at him as if he had gone insane which he banished with a bright, radiant smile. He sat slouched in his black leather chair, one long, muscular leg crossed over the other. His oiled, black curls were held back from his tan forehead with a golden, richly tooled headband that matched the glistening robe he wore over a pure white, V-neck blouse. His leggings were of the same silky material, banded at the waist by an ornate aureate belt, which billowed loosely down to dusky colored, high-top boots. He sipped a fruit-fill, pinkish drink from a tall crystal goblet, nibbling on a polished green apple seemingly immune to the depths of the conversations around him.

  “We are here. This is now.” His boyish smile widened, bathing the room in a white glow that pushed away the mists of despondency clouding the minds within. Hyperion rubbed the apple on the long sleeve of his robe and dropped it, unfinished, on a stone plate on the table in front of him. Leaning on one elbow, he picked absently at the other fruits and nuts scattered on the platter and swept his luminous green eyes, filled with an almost childish humor, over the room, drawing them into their depths.

  “You are such a worthless frap,” Iapetus rumbled, his black eyes burning into his brother. “I often wonder why you attend the council at all.”

  “You miss my meaning, big brother.” Hyperion’s answering laughter brushed away the sharp retort as if it were naught but a tiny insect unworthy of notice. He rose from his seat and strode to where Iapetus stood, planted like the One Tree near the muted windows, and patted the giant in the center of his oaken chest. He steadfastly ignored the glare of disdain he received in return, instead turning his dazzling charms upon table.

  “Look outside of your crystal windows for once,” Hyperion
grinned, sweeping his hand over the grand vistas beyond. He walked slowly around those seated around the table, touching each on the shoulder as he passed.

  “See not the past or what may or may not be. Observe, instead, the beauty and grandeur of nature, our incredible city and all manner of life that surrounds us. We have new lives to build, new lands to explore and fantastic adventures to be had!”

  “And I do not just mean those found in the arms of a beautiful, willing consort,” he smiled disarmingly, kissing Thea on her upturned forehead. She flushed warmly, gave Hyperion a small knowing smile and lowered her lovely face.

  “We will not be able to explore and build as you say, Hyperion,” Thorina replied gravely, her blazing red mane swirling around her, “if we cannot maintain our technology.”

  She rose from her chair and took her place next to Phoebe at the far end of the Table. With a turn of the crystal pyramid in her hand, the Proto-Sun returned to the projection screen behind her. She gave a thank you nod to her sister who graciously returned to her seat and drew the council back to the present. The holographic image rotated slowly, the reds and oranges of the plasmatic discharges within the globe, even muted, filled the chamber with such a glow that vision was difficult. Thorina dialed down the brilliance with a deft touch, but shifting after images still burned within the eyes of her audience.

  “Watch carefully as nighttime energy is increased,” Thorina intoned. “The destructive reaction lasts only seconds currently, thus I have slowed the image so you can witness it for yourselves.”

  The Proto-Sun pulsed brighter, the swirling, thick protoplasmic clouds changing in hue, ejecting ropey bursts that bounced against the crystalline globe as if angrily seeking escape. The energy contained within the magnetic sphere surged outward, caught in the palms of the borithium hands holding it, and throbbed down the arms, into the distribution systems beneath the base of the Great Pyramid, lighting the city in a shimmering, colorful glow.

  Suddenly, a malignant dark mass formed near the base of the globe. It spread out like a cancerous poison, venomously attacking the reddish seas and turning them into black, noxious clouds. The ominous mass sent out serpentine tendrils, eating away at the pure, golden ocean of energy as would some murderous monster seeking to destroy the light. The pernicious process faded into brightness as quickly as it had reared its ugly head, but the maleficent menace it foretold seared into the souls of every heart around the room. It sent a grim shutter up the spine of even the mighty Iapetus as he gripped his hands on the back of his leather chair to hide any signs of their trembling from the others.

  “This poisonous process, I promise you, will only increase in virulence,” Thorina direly prophesied, shivering the souls within the chamber. “We must immediately search for and find a suitable replacement for the uridium core or face a cataclysmic loss of all of our technology. The primary basis for our entire civilization will be lost forever.

  Thorina’s emerald eyes burned with green fire, her full, sensuous lips bit out each deadly word. “And it will happen within four short years.”

  Chapter II

  Cronus shivered even in the hot, burning winds that pelted his tortured body like angry wasps of stinging sand. He trudged bare chested, tattered remains of a filthy black shirt wrapped like a mask over his bleeding lips. The foul air was thick with choking dust, acidic and loathsome as he drew it into his laboring lungs. Tiny streams of blackened blood from a thousand wounds congealed instantly in the deadly heat, marking his muscular, naked torso with sickly tattoos. His golden red hair lay plastered against his boulder-like head by a mixture of dirt and dried sweat. He could not open his heavily crusted eyelids, yet he shuffled onward, drawn ahead by the whispering voices that called out his name, insistent and demanding.

  His parched throat screamed out for the smallest taste of moisture but the arid air heard him not. His body fought the dehydration and weakness that made his powerful legs feel soft and quivery. Cronus expelled dried blood and greenish globs from his wide, blistered nostrils, coughing harshly as desiccant air seared the inside of his nasal passages as he unintentionally inhaled through his uncovered nose. He doubled over, dropping to his knees on the stony plain.

  ‘Get up,’ the whispering voices demanded softly within his tangled mind. ‘Come to us,’ they prodded insistently. ‘All will be well. You know the way. You just have to find us. We love you.’

  Cronus wished not to listen to them. His great head hung down as if sightlessly staring at the ground in shame. He dug his huge hands into the barren, shifting sands between his bend knees, the brittle nails cracking to the quick. He cupped them upon his lap, cracked palms up, feeling the moistureless dirt sift between his thick fingers.

  Cronus knelt for an eternity in that forsaken, desolate desert, no sounds save for the incessant winds whipping around him, hoping only that the Creator would have pity upon him and end his suffering. His prayers went unanswered in the emptiness, loneliness and despair that were his only companions, clouding all reason from his dank, disturbed mind. Drifts of fine, red granules buried his muscular legs, covered his hands and crawled like a mountain of insects up to his waist threating to entomb him in their choking embrace. He no longer cared. He had not the strength nor the desire to move on any further.

  ‘Why?’ he questioned the Creator. ‘Why would you end me thus? Have I not always done my best to insure your People survive? Have I not given them new life in the paradise you provided for them? Did I not overcome every obstacle and destroy every enemy sent before us…including my own father…in protection of your People? What did I do so wrong as to earn your wrath? What more could I do?’

  ‘There is much more for you to do,’ a tender, familiar voice responded. ‘Your long, perilous journey is yet to be over. Do not give up so easily.’

  Cronus could not quite place the murmurs though he knew he should recognize the speech. Soft, delicate hands wrapped around his encased fingers as if his sandy shroud was naught but milky mist. He fought against their tender tugging, fearing he was unworthy of their touch, but a cool, white light, pure and clean, spread along his arms where skin met fevered skin. It traveled through sinew and bone, across blistered biceps and down stiffened spine. Wherever the brightness blossomed, emaciated muscles strengthened and strained to shift.

  ‘Rise, my son,’ a loving, authoritative voice commanded, drawing Cronus upward on trembling legs. ‘The People have need of you. You are the Heart of the People. You are their strength, their soul, their spirit. You are the roots of the One Tree that binds them together.’

  ‘But not as you were, my dear, Cronus,’ the gentle, feminine voice returned. ‘You have darkened and lost the love and respect of so many. You must regain the trust of the People. You must restore the love of your wife. She searches for it…and for the you that was. Allow her to find it.’

  ‘Beware though,’ his father’s rumbling voice forewarned, ‘you will be called upon to do things you deem atrocious, make plans most nefarious yet necessary. Keep these things hidden from all others and even from you except in your deepest, most private dreams. And never, never forget my last living words to you. If you do, you will be destroyed by the very son you sire and all will be undone.’

  ‘You must yet give your brothers and sisters something,’ his mother’s kind and caring words interceded. ‘Something that helps them understand your pain and your actions past and in the future. Share with them so they will help you in all things.’

  ‘Now awaken, sweet son,’ his mother said softly. She took his great brow between her sympathetic fingers, lightly caressed his incrusted eyelids and whispered, ‘Awaken.’

  A dim, golden glow, the color of sun-ripened wheat, radiated from her full, warm lips bringing ambrosia tears to his eyes. The dust locking his lids to his sunburned face melted away, trickling down his caked cheeks like muddy rivers. Oranges and reds danced over his jade green eyes, sparkling as if a million new stars crowded his vision. He was drawn to the burgeon
ing sky as a young night bird might test newly granted wings filled with joy and fluttering with freedom.

  Cronus opened his watering eyes and turned his weary head to witness true stars glimmering in a cloudless, moonless nighttime above a dimmed and silent city. A thick, reddish toned, un-patterned blanket covered his naked body up to the base of his neck. He threw it quickly off as if it threatened to choke him beneath folds of constricting sand like some half-remembered nightmare. His breath caught in his lungs, afraid for a moment to suck in fresh, clean air.

  The sudden panic left him as quickly as it came, a sweet peace rolling over him as unheard words and unfelt fingers calmed his soul. Cronus lifted himself on his elbows and propped his back against the piles of fluffy burgundy pillows at the head of his giant, four-poster bed. His night-sight scanned his hushed quarters, mellowed by its soothing familiarity. Rich tapestries graced the blue-marbled walls, muted in the dimness of the night. A long, thin table lined the wall at the foot of bed, formless shapes of Atlantean and Terrain mementoes cluttering the polished mahogany top.

  His gaze came to a stop when Cronus looked upon the black, heavily padded couch that took up half of the remaining wall. The starlit windows above it and the deep shadows of darkness beneath them made it almost invisible, which made the light turquois wrapped body stand out like some surreal ghost. For the first time in oh, so very long, Cronus smiled, his ruggedly handsome features almost creaking with unused muscles.

  Rhea lay curled like a newborn child, her head resting in the crook of her elbow against the cushioned arm of the sofa. Her honey-blond hair was tussled loosely around her beautiful, sleeping visage like a golden crown that caught the glimmering stars in a haloed web that flowed over her cloak and across her drawn up knees.