Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  “Winning this war gained her much confidence,” Kalder observed. “It’ll be good for her. Whatever strengthens her strengthens us at this point. Have you set the course for our next stop?”

  “I have. We’ll be departing in three hours. Our drones are doing a last roundup of some of the slag orbiting the moon, and we’re gonna get that to the prefab room ASAP.”

  “Excellent. You’ve done well, Admiral Desh. You’ve come a long way from that dive on Monarch.”

  “I have you to thank, sir.”

  Kalder gave the tip of his beard a flick. “But we’re only halfway there. We must remain stalwart and focused, or all this momentum will be squandered. Let me know if you need anything, and it shall be done.”

  “Yes, sir,” Desh said, and signed off.

  Julian stepped forward. “Do you want something to eat, sir?”

  “Yes. Bring me something from the galley, doesn’t matter what. Or wait…yes, it does matter. Bring me the basest gruel. I will not allow myself to be pampered now.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “And some Old Staz’s Reserve. Just a finger, maybe two.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Julian stepped out, Dolstoy stepped in. The woman was finely dressed, as always, as though the cameras might ambush her at any moment and she needed to be ready to give a quote. “We need to talk,” she said.

  “Have a seat.” Kalder had prepared for this, for Julian had written it into his schedule. He knew what was coming.

  “There’s been some talk in social circles, and Faith 6A is showing that common people have an interest in the debate, as well.”

  “Go on,” Kalder said, wincing as he leaned forward. The zero-point energy that had been channeled through his body during those last days of the campaign had riddled his body with more aches and pains than he could count. Stretching and good diet had helped with some of it, and though the best medics among the Brotherhood had recommended lots of sleep, his work ethic had prevailed.

  “People are concerned about your wife-to-be,” Dolstoy said. “She’s made some fine speeches these last few days—she speaks English Standard very well for a woman who supposedly heard it for the first time a year ago—and while her appearance is captivating and her fervor to fight on against the Brood has stirred the hearts of many, she’s made some alarming remarks recently.”

  “Concerning?”

  “Xenos. She hates them. Unabashedly. She does not thank either the Faedyans, Isoshi, or Grennal. She says it was all you, her betrothed. She says it was a human mind conducting the inferior alien creatures. That’s what she called them, creatures. It’s a more hardline stance than yours, I was thinking you might contact her and make sure she feathers her words a bit, puts them more in alignment with your own.”

  “I will not reproach the woman I haven’t even met yet, and to whose father I gave my word. I will not have the first words she hears from me be an order to silence.” Kalder stroked the tangles in his beard. “I will reiterate the importance that we not lean now on any corpus alienum, that we endure as homo sapiens, masters of our own destiny.”

  “But you can’t just discount all the help they gave us.”

  “You’re right, and I won’t try, but it’s important that the people know it was us that set it all in motion. Let the xeno governments spin the victory their own way. I’m sure they won’t take offense to us doing the same, they categorically ignore anything we do anyway. They’ll probably laugh to themselves when they hear us trying to take the credit, but let them. All that matters is that humanity believes it.”

  Dolstoy nodded. “Respectfully, I encourage you to reconsider speaking with your soon-to-be wife—”

  “I’ve considered it.”

  “Very well. Will you be ready for your interview later this evening?”

  “As long as I have a moment to meditate alone, I should be fine.”

  The media specialist rose, and walked to the door. She turned back. “You look like shit, sir. I know you try not to look too concerned with vanity, but…”

  He looked at her.

  Dolstoy sighed and showed herself out.

  Once alone, Kalder turned to face the wall behind him, where The Traveler painting was hung. He’d had Julian move it here months ago, and stared at it, as he did now, while breathing in slowly through his nose, then through his lips. He inflated his stomach first, then his chest, held his breath just long enough for it to become painful, then exhaled. He repeated this ten times, looking at the ship in the painting and wondering where its pilot was going.

  “THERE IS A POEM,” Kalder said into the camera, “that has occurred to me, time and again, down through the many years I’ve held public office. Indeed, it stuck with me even before then. I found it one day while reading articles on LOG that concerned Ancient Earth poetry. Very little of it now survives, but one such poem survives by a man named Dylan Thomas. And it goes like this.

  “Do not go gentle into that good night,

  Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  “Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

  Because their words had forked no lightning they

  Do not go gentle into that good night.

  “I’m sure that many others smarter than me can dissect the poem, piece by piece, but for me it means do not die easily, do not lie down and just let the darkness have its way with you. We must rage, rage against the darkness. Even though we may understand that, in the end—that is, at the end of all time—the universe will become cold and dark, it does not mean we have to go into that final night without a fight. Though light fades, and hope may turn to dust, we are living, breathing creatures of thought, and just as the stars have their ways, so too do we have ours. And our way is to fight against the dying of the light.

  “I am so glad for the many that stuck with the idea of the Crusade, even at its darkest hour. Your spirit and faith helped us all rage against an enemy vast beyond imagining, and we inspired various corpus alienums to our side, and led them to victory. We showed the galaxy what humanity can do. Our Knights of Sol proved to be the most lethal ground force in existence, our Navy the most clever and powerful conglomerate of ships and captains ever assembled, and, most importantly, our people as the most unified of any multi-planet government in history.

  “I speak to you now, those people who endured ridicule for supporting Kalder the Dreaded. It is because of your support that I sit here, accepting victory, and negotiating terms for continued coalition with governments of the Grennal, the Faedyans, and the Isoshi, and why Taka-Renault, though tragically damaged, remains alive and habitable. It is because of you, never forget.

  “We must be cautious, though, in the days ahead. For even though many xeno governments came to our aid, we still are inherently incompatible with them. Their languages, their customs, even their very psychologies, are too divergent for us to ever make any true understanding of one another. We may work together on occasion, but we must remain thoroughly separate. It is for the best. We must preserve what we have reclaimed here at Taka-Renault, just as we must preserve our own heritage. We cannot risk handing over too much control to a corpus alienum, not if we wish to endure.

  “However,” he said, raising his lecturing finger, “there is valuable information to be gleaned from those who came here before us. The Isoshi and the Faedyans have an incredible amount of knowledge, much of which came before Man built his first fire. And, of course, there are the Strangers, whose technology came to our rescue in our time of need, because we obviously met some great requirement of theirs. We passed their test. We have been chosen.”

  He paused for a moment, letting that sink in for effect.

  “But the journey is not over. This was but one worldship. A few broodlings. A small fraction of the Brood forces scattered across the Milky Way.” He added, “Milky Way Cradle. This is our home, where we were born. Life comes through phases of ev
olution, stages of struggle, where one life-form must prove its betterness over all others. Evolution has chosen us. The Strangers have chosen us. It is time we accept our place in the cosmos as rightful rulers.

  “I am honored by the nomination my party gave me, and I am also glad that the Corporate and Liberty Arms have both accepted it. And as Imperator of Homo Sapiens Eternaes, I promise you that I will continue the Crusade, I will continue the search for Man’s lost colonies, I will hunt for more solutions to the Brood problem, and I will never stop seeking the truth of the Strangers. I will cement mankind as a power that will endure not for millions, but for billions of years to come. And when the final sun winks out, and the dying of the light is complete, it will be a human who is there to record it, and write the last stanza of the last poem in its honor.

  “Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Let us close the chapter on the Fall of Man, and let the Rise of Man commence. Thank you, my friends, my countrymen, my fellow humans. Long may we endure, far may our enemies run.”

  : Deirdra

  Upon setting foot on Deirdra for the first time, Kalder saw a large honor guard accompanying the Chief Presider of the UCP. The leader of Deirdra’s largest government did not offer to shake hands, for he had learned through emissaries the customs of Zeroists. Here, in the flesh, the two men met for the first time. Kalder also met an envoy from the Duke of Helmsworth’Lok. The Duke himself hadn’t been able to make it due to ill health, but the envoy promised Kalder he could meet his wife-to-be this very day if he so wished.

  They flew him over much of the destruction done to Andamont City, a major financial center for the United Congress of Pelgotham. Interpreter bots, armed now with a better understanding of the style of Deidran English, helped the leaders to communicate. Kalder thanked them all profusely for their hard word in collaborating with Republican space forces, and voiced his enthusiasm for their help in drawing up the new constitution for the Home Sapiens Eternaes.

  The day’s work was long, there were many greetings and many consolations given. The entire world had been in a constant state of mourning for nearly three years now. So much destruction was impossible to outline for Kalder’s benefit, but he assured them that he would help them rebuild. Their desperate need all but guaranteed they would welcome a membership into the Eternaes.

  Wherever they went, people marveled at the first human they had seen from beyond their solar system. For thousands of years, they had only heard stories about their past—myths and legends about how they had come from some other offshoot of humanity among the stars. The Deirdrans were now seeing physical proof that they were not alone in the universe—indeed, there weren’t just aliens out there, but more humans.

  Julian kept to Kalder’s side as he walked the gray, dusty grounds of devastation, whispering to his mentor the names of delegates that were most important. Kalder looked into the hollow eyes of ashen-faced survivors. He did not touch them, and perhaps that gave him an ominous air, but he came with Knights of Sol, who were bearing food and other relief supplies. In the last few decades, the Republic had gotten good at mobilizing relief aid.

  Finally, when night came, Kalder found himself with a moment alone, standing inside the room of one of the many castles belonging to the Duke of Helmsworth’Lok. The staff made sure he felt like a guest. The home was rich and well appointed, it could have been on another planet, where no alien-caused holocaust had ever occurred. There were cobblestone floors and angled ceilings made out of some black wood he’d never seen before, along with electronic doors and vidscreens. He knocked on columns made of wood, and heard a hollow metallic sound. He would have to inquire about it later, for perhaps the Deirdrans had bred their own master race of trees.

  A chime in his ear. He waved his hands to receive the call.

  “Sir, she’s here,” said Julian.

  “Send her in.”

  A minute later, the door to his guest room opened, and in walked a woman draped in black, but with a white scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth, revealing only her storm-cloud eyes. Kalder walked over to her. One hand rested ladylike over her belly, while the other touched the Cross of Christ that hung in the plunging neckline between her breasts. She was beautiful for a woman nearly fifty, and who had never enjoyed the magic of regens.

  “My betrothed,” she said, her voice as mellifluous as the first time Kalder had met her year. That had been nearly a decade ago, and she was still as lovely as ever. Of course, it was never enough to tempt him, his tastes had always skewed the other way, and he hadn’t even felt those stirrings in many years.

  “My lady,” he said stiffly, wondering how much he could reveal in the moment.

  “We can speak freely here,” the duchess said, reading his mind as always. “This is a room for my own private use at times, when my father is visiting colleagues in the city.”

  Kalder relaxed a little. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “You too, Holace. You did it. You achieved the impossible.”

  “No. We did it. You and I. It was a carefully done thing,” he told her, “and many of your suggestions I followed closely. Your notions were very good for a woman whose never set foot off this planet.”

  “Politics is politics, no matter where you go,” she said. Then she beamed her huge, wide smile. “But you’ve done it! You’ve achieved Imperator. You have shown the people they may yet live and now they have chosen you as their leader.”

  “Humanity must endure, and for that to happen it must have a strong leader, just as you always said.” He looked into the eyes of his oldest and most secret accomplice. “You were right when you said Imperatorship was essential. It is the only way.”

  She nodded. “It’s fate that we met, Holace. The stellarpath you sent to explore Trevor’s Cluster could have ended up in either the Fidhar or Cropulakit System, but she found Taka-Renault first, and she landed in just the right space on Deirdra when she came bearing news of the Republic’s existence. My father was wise to keep her visit a secret, as well as your communications with him.”

  Kalder nodded, recalling sending the stellarpath Besandra, as though it had been a thousand years ago. He wondered if he ought to tell the duchess that it was no accident Besandra had found her and her father, that he, Kalder, had known of the Weapon’s existence for quite some time, and knew that it rested on Deirdra. Should he tell the duchess how he knew? Should he tell her about his time aboard a Brood worldship, and the horrors he’d endured for two hundred seventy-eight miserable days, while more than a thousand years passed him by? Should he tell her what he discovered once he finally escaped, the truth of the Weapon, and why it had come to rest in Taka-Renault?

  Could this woman, ambitious as she is, comprehend it?

  No. It was best to keep her in the dark, and let her have her faith. For some people, faith was all they had. He didn’t begrudge them, he pitied them, and if they needed the beacon of some deity to guide them, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d coddled such a mind. Let her believe her God was what won us the day.

  For Holace Kalder, withholding information was as much for the benefit of others as himself. For instance, not even Julian knew of his collusion with this woman. And no one, not even the woman herself, knew that Kalder had followed old clues on ancient Scrolls to Deirdra. No one knew what he’d seen in his own vision aboard the Quamachic Watchtower. He’d never told anyone of the vision that allowed him to witness the construction of the Weapon, and how it came to rest on Deirdra.

  “Your father wisely listened to your council,” he said in response to her humbleness. “Just as I’m sure it was you who advised him when, exactly to come to our aid.” Kalder knew the woman had no small wiles of her own. Doubtless, she had conspiracies at work within the patriarchy here.

  The duchess demurred. “I might have made suggestions.”

  “But you did not come forth with the Weapon, as we agreed,” Kalder said evenly.

  “I was confident we would win, and so
I thought it best to keep the Weapon a secret, just as my family has for generations. Why change that now?”

  “How could you be so certain we would win without it?”

  “You know the answer to that, Holace.”

  He looked down at the golden cross between her breasts, which she brushed with her fingers. “You prayed?” he said skeptically.

  “I did. And I asked God to grant us the strength to destroy the misshapen demons from the void. And He spoke to me, telling me that as long as I did not waver in my faith, He would not waver in His promise.”

  “There is no God, my lady. I would’ve thought you would remember that, since our discussions over Zeroistic philosophies.”

  “You believe in gods, too, Holace, only yours came from starships, and lived two billion years ago.”

  “The Strangers’ power is absolute, they speak to us from the future,” he said. “The Watchtower is proof of their genius, their works speak for themselves. They sent us those works, to make us what we are, what we must become.”

  “Then we both have faith in our guided destiny,” she said.

  Kalder said nothing to that.

  They stared at one another at length, until finally she said, “Come, let us sit by the window and look up at the stars, at the streaks of meteorites. Let’s look upon our own works. Night is coming. I have a telescope, and we can see the Watchtower from here. Come, educate me some more on the Zeroistic philosophies.”

  Kalder nodded. And, without thinking, he stuck out his hand and took hers, and let her guide him over to the window. They looked up at the thin, thin tendrils of debris flashing incandescently against the moon. Twinkling flashes joined the stars in the sky for mere seconds, their lifespans as fleeting as a dream. The Isoshi had been able to banish most of the dead worldship into the Midway, and many starships up there were on cleanup duty, but small pieces still made it into Deirdra’s atmosphere.