They parked next to one of the buildings, the smallest of the three, and Char placed a guiding hand on the hover chair as Yelia pushed Gar out of the vehicle from behind.
“Come on in,” Bo said, opening a door in the side of the building. Inside, was a hanger, as they had all guessed, through it was mostly empty. There was space for a number of ships, but only one sat inside, parked in the middle, a squat and ugly thing with multi-colored panels about the body, no doubt hasty repairs. Bo waved them on and they followed, Yelia still pushing Gar. Near the back of the building was another door, this one leading into a small office with a desk and a chair, and another door which opened to small living quarters. “Bathroom there,” Bo said, pointing to yet another door.
The living quarters were sparse, with a bed along one wall, a couch along another, and a table in the middle of the room. It suited Gar, he didn't plan on staying long.
“Well,” he said, looking around the room, “let’s get to work.”
Chapter Three
Henry stood at the front of his small ship, watching the stars streak by. They were moving quickly, but he didn’t know to where. He was simply plotting a course and then changing it every few hours, unable to decide on a plan.
Henry. He had begun to think of himself like that. A lifetime of not having a name, and now he was Henry. It made him feel… something. He didn’t know what. His quick mind was working fast, but it was coming up with nothing. He couldn’t focus. He just kept coming back to Henry.
He opened his mouth, slightly, his thin, blue lips pulling away from one another. He dared to speak. He had a tongue, he had a mouth, he could speak, he was sure of that, and the Aeon’s knew that at one point their ancestors had indeed used their mouths to speak, but eventually they had evolved, and the speaking could be done brain to brain, and their oral cavities were used for nothing but eating. Sustenance. Was that enough for a mouth?
Henry listened to Sarah speak. It was beautiful. In your head, everyone sounded the same. They felt different, you could tell who was speaking, but it was the same. No tone, no rises and falls of inflection, no passion, no emotion. Sarah was different. He could read her mind if he had wanted, but she preferred to speak to him, and slowly he had come to prefer it as well.
“Hen-ry,” the alien said, and then he slapped his mouth shut and felt... a twinge. Shame? Excitement? Maybe both twisted up together.
He turned away from the viewport, the swirling stars suddenly making him nauseous. What was he going to do? The proper thing to do would be to turn his prisoners in to his people. No. Sarah was not a prisoner. He must not think like that. The other one, the Zaytarian, she was. But he was taking care of her, wasn’t he? He would get something from her. He had a bot torturing her. He would get information. Information he couldn’t get with his mind. Most military Zaytarian’s had been coached on how to resist mind probes. If he used his mind, he may miss something. The bot would miss nothing. She would scream and scream and then she would talk.
If he got something from her, maybe he could save himself and Sarah. Maybe his people would let them go. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? To leave? This war, all of it, meant nothing to him. He had found something with Sarah, and she had found it, too. She had been poisoned against him. It wasn’t fair. Of course, he could do just what she said he could. He could walk right into the room and have her naked and willing to serve him in a second.
The thought of it made him grow hard, but he pushed it from his mind. That was not what he would do. He cared for the Earthling. He would not force her.
But she had been right, hadn’t she? Earlier? He had forced her, in the beginning, hadn't he?
No. He hadn’t. He couldn't have. She loved him. She had fallen in love with him as quickly as he had with her. He wanted to believe that, but he couldn’t. He had forced her.
Rage built up in Henry and he left the cockpit, leaving the flying to the ship itself, as he had the whole time they had been in space.
He went toward the back of the ship and hesitated outside Sarah’s room. He turned then, and entered the room where he was holding the Zaytarian.
She was nude and strapped to a table, which had been tilted forward. Her body was covered in welts and burns. The bot was hovering off to the side, waiting. The Zaytarian had passed out. Henry waved his hand and the bot left. And then he sat on the edge of another table, this one built into the wall, and waited for his enemy to wake.
When she saw him, she spat. “Kill me now and be done with it,” she said in her own language, but of course Henry could understand her. He could understand anyone, learning their language from their mind as soon as they began to speak it.
“I do not want to kill you,” Henry said, right into the Zaytarian’s brain. “What is your name?”
“I won’t tell you,” Fib said, but she thought of her name, just for a second, and Henry had it.
“Fib. Your friends call you that.”
“You are not my friend.”
“Sarah is. She is my friend, too. She named me Henry. I did not have a name before, but I do now. I like it. Do you?”
“I don’t want to speak with you. I won’t tell you anything. I don’t know anything. Kill me, or let me go. Let Sarah go, too. Is she alive?”
“Of course. I love her. We will be together,” Henry said.
“She does not love you. She never did. You forced that upon her.”
The Zaytarian was trying to get a rise out of Henry, but he would not let her. He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them. His eyes traveled over the nude form of the Zaytarian. She was strong but feminine. It was pleasing, but he would not let himself be sidetracked.
“My people will want you. I’m taking you there now. You destroyed our home. You killed billions.”
“Good,” Fib said, spitting again.
“It is not good. Not for you. Our home is gone. Our weapon is gone, there are fewer of us, but that does not help you. It helps your people, but not you.”
“I did it to help my people. Sarah did it to help. She threw it into the damned volcano. She killed your people. Do you understand that?”
Henry could feel himself getting angry then. He closed his eyes again, trying to clamp down on the anger, to keep it from bubbling to the surface.
“You have brainwashed her. You all have. She is no killer. She would not have done that if you had not forced her.”
“She wanted you dead. All of you. She knows that you are wrong. She knows what evil looks like.”
Henry knew he should just leave the room. The dirty Zaytarian was trying to bait him, to get a rise out of him, and she was succeeding. It was strange, how little the Zaytarian’s always seemed to value their own safety. Henry and his species was not the same. He would do almost anything to escape pain, or worse. This filthy female thing was trying to make him angry, and to what end? Did she want to be killed? That was the next step, he would simply have the bot kill her. She had to know that.
Everything she was saying was wrong at any rate, Henry knew that. If she had been the one to throw the crystal into the weapon, she had been coerced to do it. Henry shut his eyes again. He wasn’t being truthful to himself. The crystal had bonded with Sarah. No one else could have done the job and got the same result. The utter destruction of his planet; which was still ongoing, massive eruptions across the whole abandoned globe proved that Sarah had been the one to do it, but still, his other point still stood. Somehow, they had brainwashed her. She was kind, and gentle, and soft, though in a good way. She would not have willingly killed so many. Women and children, they had all died. Sarah could not have done that through her own free will.
“I do not know what you did to her,” Henry said to the female Zaytarian’s brain, “but I will save her from you.”
Fib laughed and spat once more. “No,” she said. “I saved her from your lot once. I will do so again.”
“We shall see,” Henry said. He turned away from the dirty Zaytarian and left
the room. The silver bot was floating just outside the door, and the Aeon waved it back inside.
Chapter Four
The sun was setting, a burning orange ball in the distance, and Yelia thought it looked beautiful. She was standing at the edge of the paved landing pad, Bo’s hangar directly behind her.
“Pretty,” a voice said, and the young Zaytarian turned to see Char making his way to her. She smiled and looked back to the sun as he stopped beside her.
“It is. I miss it when I’m out there. Space is so black.”
Char smiled and looked over to her, wondering if he should tell her that he hadn’t quite meant that the sunset was beautiful. He had never been more attracted to someone in his life. He had gotten to know Fib well, working with her so often, and he held her in high regard, and he had to admit she was very pretty herself, but there was something about her younger sister. The blueish green of her skin, the soft purple eyes, and shockingly white hair, it all worked in perfect harmony.
She wasn’t only nice to look at. She was smart, and feisty, and had a biting sense of humor, though she had been so upset lately about her sister that Char had not been lucky enough to experience it more than a handful of times. In all, she was the perfect woman.
“Space can be pretty, too,” Char said finally, and she looked at him with an incredulous look etched across her face.
“How? It’s like turning the light out in a museum. I guess there could be pretty stuff there, but I sure as hell can’t see it.”
“I don’t know,” Char said with a shrug. He looked up and pointed. The sun was nearly gone now, leaving the sky purple, and stars had begun to shine above their head, faint due to the light, but soon they would be strong and twinkling. “Stars are nice. And nebulas. If you look, you can find beauty in anything.”
Yelia looked back to the setting sun but glanced at the man from the corner of her eye. “I didn’t know you were so poetic,” she said.
Char turned to face her. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he said. Yelia smiled, but she quickly forced such a thing from her face.
“Char,” she said, her voice low. She reached over and placed a hand on his arm. She knew there was something between them, something they could both feel. She had known him from her sister, of course. Fib and Char had been partners for a long time. She had always wondered if there was something between the two, and she still wasn’t sure if there was or wasn’t. Since Char had brought Gar back, and her sister had been missing, well over a week now, she had spent so much time with the man that it had been impossible for her to not fall for him, at least to some degree. And, she was pretty sure he had fallen for her, too.
Maybe fallen was too strong a word, but there was something there. Chemistry, a spark.
But what awful timing. Yelia was little more than an anxious ball of worry. She worried for her sister, the only family she had in the world, their parents having died in an accident when they were children. There was Fib, and there was Yelia, and that was all they needed. The younger sister would not rest until she had saved her older sister, or until she knew she was truly gone.
“I know,” Char said, not needing to be able to read minds to tell where the conversation had been heading, so he cut it off before the young woman could even begin. “Let’s save your sister and the girl from Earth.”
“And then... we’ll see?” Yelia asked.
“And then we’ll see,” Char said with a grin. It was good enough for him.
“Hey you two love birds, come on in,” Bo called from behind them, and they turned to see the older Zaytarian standing at the small door to the left of the giant hangar doors, waving to them.
Char bristled with embarrassment at being called a lovebird, but Yelia had not seemed to mind. She offered a quick smile to Char, touching his arm again, sending electric shocks through his body, and then she was gone, turning away and jogging toward the hangar. Char sighed and followed along.
Gar was up and out of the hovering chair, which had been shoved into the corner of the cramped living space. He was standing so he could lean against the wall, his arms crossed over his wide chest.
“What do you have?” Char asked, coming in last and taking a seat at the small wooden table they had been eating at.
“A plan,” Gar said. He then gave the floor to Bo. The big Zaytarian smiled.
“We know how to find our two missing members,” Bo said. “That’s the good part. The bad part is that it is going to be a difficult task just to locate them. We may die before we get that far.”
“How are we going to find them? They could be anywhere.”
“They are anywhere. It isn’t going to matter to us,” Bo said. “Have you ever heard of the Calvers?”
Yelia shook her head, but Char snapped his fingers. “Extinct species, tall things with red skin, horns, basically giant assholes.”
“Giant indeed,” Bo said. “Know anything about them?”
“Built ships, escaped their planet, had a religion they spread throughout the galaxy, they eventually all died, not sure from what.”
“They killed themselves,” Bo said.
“All of them?” Yelia asked.
“Pretty much. They were all very into that religion of theirs, and a certain time came, and I guess it was said that they would leave this world and journey to a higher one. So they helped themselves along. Drank poison, swallowed a slug, jumped off a building. All at the same time, three thousand years ago.”
“So how are they going to help find my sister? And Gar’s lady?”
“Well, that’s the neat thing. They built this massive citadel in space, near their home planet. It’s a funky thing, I saw it once with my own eyes, kind of looks like a castle. Spires on spires, all jutting out in weird spots. There’s this machine within it, it helped the Calvers find their own. I don’t know how it works, they claimed it was mystical, but who knows. I just know it does work.”
“Well great, but they’re dead. How is that going to help us?” Char asked. “Fib isn’t a Calver, and neither is Sarah.”
“No, they aren’t. But the machine didn’t only find Calvers, that’s just what it was used for. A Calver stepped in, and they were shown the way to their blood relations.”
“I can use it to find Fib?” Yelia asked, standing up from the seat she had taken just minutes ago.
“Yes, I think so,” Bo said.
“Why is this just coming up now?” she asked.
“Well, I didn’t really remember about it. Gar and I have been doing research, making sure it would work. The other thing... uh, Gar?”
“The citadel used to be in Calver’s space. Now they’re dead,” Gar said.
“Who owns the space now?” Char asked, an uneasy feeling growing within his stomach.
“Destune.”
A silence filled the room. Destune space was dead space. Literally. The Destune people were mostly dead, brought back to life by machinery and what some called black magic. Highly religious, as well. It made sense that they had decided to call the citadel their home.
“No one goes into Destune territory and comes out alive,” Yelia said.
“That’s true. But we haven’t tried yet,” Bo said.
Char looked to the woman he was beginning to care deeply about, and was impressed when he could see the steely resolve spread through her features. “When do we go?” she asked.
“When are you ready?” Bo asked.
“Now,” Yelia said, and the old, fat Zaytarian smiled and nodded.
“How about in the morning?” Bo asked, and Yelia conceded.
*****
Char woke early in the morning. There was one small window in the living quarters, and the sky beyond was still dark. Char sat up and rubbed his eyes, looking over to where Yelia had been sleeping without even realizing he was doing so. She was gone.
Char’s heart thundered in his chest without warning. Where was she? Was she okay? Had someone come for her.
He laug
hed a little and forced himself to calm down. It had been so long… the war… that he didn’t know what to do with himself now that things were winding down. Who would have come for Yelia? Who would have taken her? He stood and pulled pants and a shirt on, and then stepped quietly outside.
“Can’t sleep?” Yelia said before he even saw her. He turned around quickly. She laughed.
“Up,” she said, and he craned his neck to see the bottom of her bare feet, swinging inches above his head. She was sitting on the edge of the low roof, lower at the end of the hangar where the living quarters were.
“How did you get up there?” he asked.
“Strength,” she said with a grin, and he jumped lightly to grab the edge of the roof and then pulled himself up to sit beside her.
“What are you doing up here?” he asked.
She grinned again and lifted a clear bottle she had been holding between her legs. A yellowish liquor swirled in the bottom of the bottle.
“Tell me that wasn’t full when you got up here,” Char said, taking it from her and taking a swig.
“Half full. I’m not a total drunk.”
“Just a sort of drunk,” Char teased, grimacing as he swallowed the acidic alcohol before he spoke.
“Yeah, just a sort of drunk. Fib was the one who could really drink.”
“Oh, I know. I saw it firsthand.”
Yelia sighed. “It seems like you got to spend more time with her than I have the last few years.”
“That’s probably true,” Char admitted. “But I’m sure she would have replaced me with you in a heartbeat.”
“That’s definitely true,” Yelia said, and they both laughed.
“I miss her, you know,” Char said. “It’s important that we get her back.”
Yelia smiled. “I miss her like crazy. I keep thinking about this time, it was right after our parents died, I was only seven, and she was eleven, and we were worried we would be separated. We didn’t have any other family, and we were going to have to be given to a foster family, and if they couldn’t find one to take us both, well then, that would be it. I was scared, and I think she was too, but she was trying to be the big sister, trying to be the one to hold it together, so she gave me this rock. It was just a rock, but it was smooth and kind of shiny, and to a small child it looked magical. She gave me the rock and told me that if I ever missed her or wanted to talk to her or something like that, I just needed to hold the rock in my hand and say her name, and she would be able to hear me. She couldn’t talk back, because she only had the one magic rock, but she would hear me.”
Aeon Ending Page 2
