“Ellie!” Isa rushed her daughter, the full range of her conflicted emotions were apparent in her expression, even without the advantage of diodal communication. Ellie could barely hold back her own feelings as Isa let out a small gasping noise before succumbing to the tears she could not hold back. “I can’t begin to apologize for what I have done.”
“It’s okay Mom,” Ellie assured her, patting her mother on the back as the two embraced. “I understand. I… I don’t blame you for what you couldn’t control.”
“But I do,” Isa said, pulling back with a sniff to look her daughter in the eye.
“We have bigger worries at the moment.” Ellie said as Richard rushed onto the bridge, a look of pure relief washed over as his eyes landed on his wife.
“Indeed,” he said, glancing nervously at Svoryk’s body. “There will be plenty of time for catching up, but we have got to get everyone off this ship now.”
“Right,” Ellie said with a deep breath and turned back to her grandmother, who still stood silently observing the reunion. The ravages of the degenerative disease, the same one that threatened the ship’s stability, stood out prominently in the garish light of the bridge. “This vessel is damaged,” she said, not wishing to address the source just yet. “We need to find and evacuate everyone aboard. My ship should be able to accommodate everyone, but if not, there is—”
“Your ship will accommodate everyone, including the prisoner.”
It was all Ellie could do not to run and jump into Julian’s arms as he returned to the bridge, but somehow, she kept her composure. She wasn’t quite ready to fracture her family’s new found stability with the revelation of her feelings just yet. Julian slung the unconscious Emperor over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing.
“I shut down the hologram, so you can dump his tush in the stasis,” Vito instructed Julian as he too entered the bridge.
“No,” Ellie all but shouted, shivering at the thought as several eyes, including her grandmother’s turned to her.
“Ellie, we must bring him before the Alliance leaders to stand trial,” Isa said.
“I know that, Mom,” Ellie rolled her eyes. “I just meant I don’t want to use the stasis cell.”
“It’s the best option.”
“No, it’s not. I spent five minutes in one to make that hologram. I won’t wish that on anyone, not even Svoryk.”
“Still thinking like an Earthling,” Isa said with a smirk. “I assure you, Ellie, uncomfortable or not, stasis is a harmless and secure method of prisoner transport.
“On matters such as this, yes, I’ll always be a human of Earth,” she said, putting her foot down. “The ship is capable of keeping him on lockdown. I’d prefer that. We can discuss later the finer points of this highly advanced civilization I come from.”
“El’iadrylline is correct,” Julian assured Isa. “Her vessel is vastly superior to this as well as to most of the Eidyn fleet. I will make certain Svoryk is secured and remains in a sleep state before we begin allowing others to board.”
Ellie followed as he carried Svoryk down to the bay where her ship was docked. An uncomfortable buzz had started up in her head while on the bridge and she’d hoped getting away from the chaos as everyone scrambled to evacuate might help, but as she neared her ship, the buzzing intensified.
“You’ll make a fair leader, El’iadrylline.”
Ellie jumped at the sound of Dryova’s voice. She hadn’t noticed the woman following her.
“Thanks, but I’m certainly not planning to be a leader,” she said with a polite smile.
“Modest too, it seems.” Her grandmother shook her head and let loose with a melodic chuckle that sent chills down her spine. “Of course you are. Altruism is a common flaw amongst those whose crippling sense of self-importance would be their undoing.”
“What did you say?” Ellie looked up in surprise, but her grandmother’s smiling face betrayed no hint of the malice she was certain she heard.
“Ellie!”
At the sound of Julian’s voice, she turned her head. Rather, she tried to, but suddenly it felt as if the air had turned to concrete. A hand came down on her shoulder just as a bright light flashed. Ellie thought she heard shouting, but she couldn’t be sure it was voices or the roar inside her own head, which felt as if it was imploding, reforming, and imploding again.
A moment later, one that felt simultaneously like a nanosecond and several hours, she was jarred back into consciousness. Her surroundings returned abruptly, but they were wrong. The stark, empty space was familiar. It looked every bit like her own ship had back when Julian had taken her from Earth the first time, but she felt no connection.
In fact, she felt nothing at all except the ever worsening fuzzy feeling inside her head.
“There, much better.”
Through the fuzzy buzzing, the voice was muffled and seemed to be coming from far away, but Ellie recognized it as her grandmother’s. She tried to turn toward the voice and found she could only just turn herself enough to recognize the woman she thought was her grandmother standing in front of the console. Yes, this was her ship, but the reason she could sense nothing brought with it waves of dread. She was again inside the stasis chamber.
“The plot thickens,” Ellie said with bravado she certainly didn’t feel. “So you’re not truly my grandmother, after all, are you, Andressa?”
“If only that were an easy question to answer,” the woman said with a mirthless chuckle. “You come from a line of meddlers, El’iadrylline. Your very existence proves this has not changed. But to answer your question, yes, I am your grandmother, but yes, I am also Andressa.”
Chapter 24
Between the buzzing in her head and the disorientation of being in her ship, but not connected to it, the revelation didn’t have a dramatic impact, but it confused Ellie nevertheless.
“So you are Andressa,” she said in a voice that denoted tired sarcasm. “I can’t say that I’m terribly shocked. Good to know our highly advanced civilization still operates at the same level of soap operas on Earth.”
Perhaps her mother had been right, Ellie thought to herself with an inward smirk. Maybe she had spent too much time in New York because clearly, Bethany’s snark was contagious.
“You misunderstand me. Not surprising given your upbringing. Andressa and Dryova were artificial constructs, created by the meddling of parents who were not content to let the natural order continue.”
Ellie nodded. “Yeah, I talked to my dad. I know this. So which one are you?”
The woman laughed. “Neither, child, and yet, both. I am Andryvessa, the daughter who should have been born to Androyo and Essava, torn asunder before I had the chance to accept the destiny that should have been mine.”
“So, there’s another one of you?” Admittedly, the buzzing static wasn’t helping, but Ellie was even more confused.
“No, you foolish child,” Andryvessa snapped. “I have always been one person, split into two inferior bodies. I’ve corrected part of the damage and I intend now to complete my restoration.”
“But that’s not…” Surely, she couldn’t possibly mean that she was a single being who had once been two separate people. And yet, it was true that the split had been forced against nature, “Is it possible?” Ellie stumbled over the concept.
She stared openly at the woman, thinking she might see something that would confirm whether or not her grandmother was telling the truth. Aside from the damage to her diodal matrix, she didn’t appear any different from any other Eidyn she’d seen.
“That I was able to correct the damage our father and mother did? Surprisingly, yes. Simply even. They attempted to defy nature."
This, Ellie understood. Even with the knowledge of Eidyssic pattern weaving, she could not fathom how it was that her great grandparents managed to split a single pattern for conception into two. Especially since prenatal Eidyn develop in a manner that in no way mimics the embryonic stages of human birth. The knowledge, of course, resided within th
e Kyroibi, but with the static buzz blocking her mind, she couldn’t look up the information even if she wanted to.
“Okay, so you did it. You’re a whole person now, but not without consequence.” Ellie stared pointedly at the clouded protrusions of the woman’s diodal matrix. “You’re dying. You are dying of the same disease that took your son’s life. Why the villain act?”
“Villain act,” Andryvessa mimicked in a dry tone. “Morality itself is a skewed concept constructed by those who would have order over that which they have no business to command. Our ancestors were perhaps too hasty in their judgments of lesser civilizations. But remorsefully shrinking into the background while the universe flounders forward was quite the overcorrection, no?”
“Most certainly no,” Ellie countered. “You say your parents defied nature and yet when the Eidyn stepped back and allowed nature to flourish you scorn them for it? Sounds hypocritical and self-serving to me.”
“You’ll soon change your mind.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“You’ll not have a choice.” Andryvessa’s tone held a note of smug amusement. “I’ll see to that. You will soon return to Ghowrn, victorious in your battle against the dictator, Svoryk. His lifeless body shall be perfectly preserved in the vacuum chamber you were so generous enough to provide.”
Andryvessa’s words sent a chill up Ellie’s spine.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your misplaced compassion,” she said with a sinister smile. “Had you allowed your prisoner to be transported in stasis, it would have mattered little, but this is far cleaner and less hands on. All it took was one simple command to quickly, efficiently, and neatly eliminate the oaf who has outlasted his usefulness.”
“You killed Svoryk?”
“No, darling, you did.” Andryvessa held up her hand, displaying a sickly grayish light emanating from the clouded diodes. “Silicate degeneration is a nasty disease. Painful, incurable, and ultimately lethal, but there is one advantageous side effect in that it masks me completely. This vessel can only sense you and the Kyroibi. It is most fortunate that I was once a master.”
She placed her hand on the console and a view screen appeared. Svoryk lay unmoving upon the provided bed. His skin an unnatural and waxen shade. Ellie might have been able to convince herself he was still unconscious were it not for the readout below the display, showing her that the environment in the room closely matched that of the empty void outside the ship.
A shadow passed over Ellie’s heart. The Emperor was not a good man and for all she knew, a death sentence awaited him when they reached Ghowrn, but killing him in cold blood was never her intention. Guilty or not, he was, after all, merely a puppet being used by the true villain. In some way, he wasn’t all that different from her mother. The unwelcome thought of her mother in Svoryk’s place sent a wave of sadness.
“You weep for the Emperor?”
Ellie blinked and sure enough, a teardrop dripped from her eyelash to her cheek. She wanted to reach up and wipe it away, but trapped as she was within the stasis chamber, she could not.
“As well as my family, friends, the people of Ghowrn,” Ellie replied, turning to the woman with a sniff. “Even you.”
Andryvessa said nothing, but the haughty mask of indifference slipped, revealing momentary confusion and anger.
“How could I not?” Ellie went on. “One life torn asunder by those who only wished to satisfy their curiosity, knowing not that in doing so, they caused a lifetime of suffering that would cumulate into revenge. Revenge that would one day tear apart the peace and unity of an entire star system. Of course I weep, grandmother.”
“Touching.” Andryvessa’s voice dripped with acid. “I suggest then you have your cry and be done with it. It’s bad enough you’re mostly soft tissues. I’ll not occupy a host marred by leaking mucus and saline as well.”
“Occupy?” Ellie straightened as much as she could. “Is that your intention? You want to replace your dying body with mine? But that’s…”
“Preposterous?” A malevolent smile spread across the woman’s face. “Impossible? Against all that is known?”
“Not to mention kind of rude seeing as I’m currently occupying my body.”
Andryvessa ignored the sarcastic retort and continued.
“You forget that I once had what you have now. Though my dominion over the knowledge was brief, I was efficient in gaining all that was needed to come to this.”
At that, Ellie narrowed her eyes.
“You knew when you became Kyroibi master that you would lose the Kyroibi to your son, who would then hide the Kyroibi in the pattern of his unborn daughter on a remote planet, and that someday you would occupy her body to take it back?”
“Do they not teach subtleties and abstract concepts on that primitive planet?” Andryvessa snapped. “No, child, when my parents decided to rip me in half for their own curiosity, it was not simply my abstractive root they damaged. My first priority was self-preservation. My parents were not the first of our kind to defy natural order. I learned how to mend the rotting shells of both Dryova and Andressa. In doing so I bought myself time, but as you can see, the damage is done.” She held up a thin, sickly arm and scowled her displeasure at the milky protrusions.
“Maybe that’s a sign that you should accept your fate.”
“Fate is an archaic concept for the superstitious. No, El’iadrylline. In my search, I found that there were others, long ago, who experimented successfully with transference. I will have your body as my vessel. And in doing so, I will again have what is rightfully mine.”
“The Kyroibi, of course.”
Ellie could not keep the bite of sarcasm from her voice. She’d been to the Kyri temple. She knew exactly what it was that caused her people to create the Kyroibi in the first place. She even understood why it was so important that she continue on as the guardian of the knowledge housed within. What she still could not fathom was why anyone, Eidyn or otherwise, would risk everything, including their own humanity, to wield such power as a weapon.
“That you lack the proper respect and reverence proves you were never meant to hold such power.” Andryvessa fussed with the console again and Ellie felt the stasis field tighten around her, further restricting her movement.
“Funny, everyone else tells me a different story,” Ellie snapped, but immediately regretted her outburst as the stasis field trapped her fully.
“Silence,” Andryvessa ordered, stepping around the console with her arms outstretched. Diodes on every exposed surface pulsed with a sickly grey light, refracted by the broken surface of the crystalized growths. But it wasn’t the dying light of the diodes that had Ellie worried. Rather, the pulsing blue glow that seemed to be separating itself from the woman, creating a duplicate form of pure energy.
“You won’t get away with this,” Ellie said, though even as she did, she cringed at the hollow and melodramatic threat.
“Cute, but wrong again. I will and I am.” Andryvessa stepped forward and Ellie felt the buzzing intensify.
“I’m not kidding,” Ellie went on, fighting through the strain as the stasis field pressed in on her as well as the augmented buzzing. “Fine, you take over my body and wear me like a puppet. You go on to rule the galaxy. But then what? What happens a few years down the road when you’re dying of the same degenerative disease?”
“That won’t happen.”
“My father inherited the diseased imprint from you,” Ellie pointed out. “It stands to reason that if there is no cure, no eradicating it, that I would carry the same pattern for degeneration in my genetic makeup.”
“No, your father’s pattern was created properly, using all of the needed genetic material to create a perfect being. Dryova made sure her child would be pure, perfect, everything that mother and father neglected in our creation.”
“My father was dying of the same illness,” Ellie hissed.
“Yes, he was. However, that was because I infected h
im.”
“You what?”
“I gave him the degeneration and planned to be at his side when the Kyroibi severed from the host. That he was clever enough to divest himself of the Kyroibi was an unfortunate and unforeseen foil to my plan, but we shall take care of that now.”
Ellie blinked, which was about all she could do in the stasis field, taken aback by the casual confession. Damaged or not, El’iadryov was her son and yet Andryvessa clearly felt no guilt in murdering him. Not just murdering. A clean, quick death would have been bad enough, but she willfully infected her only child with a disease that would cause long term pain and suffering.
“You’re a monster.”
“Another term for the superstitious. Monsters are fiction. I am merely taking that which is rightfully mine. But to answer your unspoken question, no, I cannot feel remorse for the death of you or your father as neither of you would have existed had I been granted my proper birthright.”
The words were meant to hurt and were they all that there was, Ellie might have passed them off as the ranting of a madwoman. But the added layer of diodal communication drove an icy knife through Ellie’s heart. Grandmother or not, Andryvessa truly saw Ellie as nothing but a means to a selfish end. And unless a miracle happened, that would be sooner rather than later.
“Wait!”
Ellie gasped as the stasis field around her suddenly disappeared. Of course. It wouldn’t make sense for Andryvessa to take over her body while she was trapped in stasis. She lurched forward, intending to take advantage of the brief freedom, but instead fell to her knees as the buzzing reached the worst levels.
“What are you doing?” Andryvessa hissed, pulling back sharply.
Ellie held up a hand. The light of her own diodes flared, but they too were dark. Darker even than the grey light of her grandmother, who backed away with a shriek just as Ellie thought the pain would make her head burst open.
“What have you done?”
“Me?” Ellie gasped, grateful for the retreat, which brought the humming back to bearable levels. “You’re the one trying to snatch my body.”
A Space Girl from Earth (The Kyroibi Trilogy Book 1) Page 23
