The Last Immortal : Book One of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

Two busy tendays on Tiasenne flew by. I spent the mornings meeting with the Orian Ambassador and Fer-innyera Orashean, discussing plans for seeding Orian’s arable farmland areas. In the afternoons, I traveled to the Adad Academy to instruct agriculturalists from both worlds how to manufacture high-yielding, environmentally safe fertilizers. I did whatever they requested, and for a time I even enjoyed it.

  It surprised me at first that Orashean supported the plan to help feed Orian. But the agricultural project would also benefit his people. If the Orians’ food shortage problems could be solved, there would be no need for them to colonize Tiasenne. And if there was another war, Orashean might well fear that Orian would win.

  I often marveled at how quickly and readily the people of Tiasenne and Orian accepted me. I gave the best impression of cooperation that I could, and the image of optimism that kept everything going. If they were suspicious of me still, underneath, at least they were not afraid of me. Anything that could maintain a cease-fire would be preferable to any alternative actions.

  After some time living in Inen, I learned that the Orians trusted me for religious as well as scientific reasons. They believed optimistically that their God would never allow a dangerous foe to come from the stars to destroy them. The Tiasennians, on the other hand, reasoned that an intelligent species would not come so far out of its way merely to pick a fight. And if I had wanted to conquer their world, that would have been clear from the beginning.

  Orashean never asked how long I intended to stay, or where I had been going before I came. Maybe he wasn’t interested, or else he was waiting until everything he needed from me worked out. It seemed to me that neither he nor Ai-derian Suraeno were prepared to jeopardize my cooperation and aid by asking me questions. And, both sides were so wrapped up in what they wanted that they didn’t think to be curious about what mission I had returned from, until later.

  For two long months, Selesta dwarfed everything near Tiasenne’s sprawling capital city. There was no way of hiding its existence. Orashean and his government did not want the Tiasennian public to know about me, so they sent a public message that the ship was a freighter-sized transport ship bringing ores for the many factories of Inen. After some time, the people’s fears calmed down, but the inhabitants of the city never quite forgot what they had seen.

  I couldn’t sleep during the first few nights. Orashean had provided me the Hermes suite of rooms in the Government apartments adjacent to the Headquarters Building. I was excited. We were planning for the future. I had to believe that it would be a good one. I didn’t want to feel that I was trying to mold and shape the people I met into what I wanted them to be. I didn’t want to feel as though I was interfering or trying to regain what I had lost. So I had to believe that the future would be good. And that what I did every day was going to achieve it.

  I was excited because there was life all around me. I was no longer living in isolation. I was living on the surface of a planet again, where no one really knew me.

  And I thought about how excellent the dinner had been that first evening, in such good company. That little boy Terin had lightened my heart. We got along so well.

  As the third tenday passed and with the plans for the new agricultural project completed, I returned to my ship to collect the precious samplings. The envoys accompanying me, which included the Orian Ambassador and Fer-innyera Orashean, waited outside for me to return. I refused to allow them to enter Selesta.

  I would not have minded showing Selesta to some of the Tiasennians—scientists perhaps, or those who did not wish to use its power for their own purposes. But I knew I wasn’t going to be presented with that opportunity.

  After we returned to Inen, Orashean requested that I should remain on Tiasenne for a year, and then I would go to Orian for half a year. Until I left for Orian to oversee the planting of the seeds at the beginning of the warm season, I spent a lot of time meeting Tiasennian scientists who were anxious to learn what they could about Seynorynaelian technology.

  Though I was helpful to them, I was careful to guard the secrets of my people’s technology. I was afraid to give these people weapons to use against each other. They were the last remnant of my people’s race, and I didn’t want to see them kill each other.

  Gradually, as there were fewer demands on my time, Orashean began to be more comfortable with me. As a token gesture, he gave me the freedom of the city and offered me a permanent suite in a separate apartment building. I asked to keep my suite on the twenty-second floor of the Headquarters Building instead, and Orashean reluctantly agreed to give it to me. That meant that I could stay near the Ambassador and his son for as long as any of us wanted. Taking advantage of my new freedom of the city, I visited the Records Department to research the history of Tiasenne and its people.

  It was true that no one here knew that Tiasenne and Orian were colonies. But there was the proof, in that I never found a history of Tiasennian civilization dating further back than a thousand years. The records of how Inen had been founded were imprecise, and history books endlessly conjectured where the people had first developed cities. There had been so many wars on Tiasenne, with small groups fighting each other, that the origins of their race had been lost, and most Tiasennians accepted that fact. I began to wonder if something similar had not happened on Orian.

  I spent an afternoon investigating the green fields outside Inen, and took a day trip around the coast.

  After a while, I was asked to attend fewer meetings with the Tiasennian Council. Strangely enough, it worked out that I began spending more time with the Ambassador’s son, Terin. He insisted I join him and his father for morning and evening meals and persisted tirelessly in his persuasive efforts until he won. After being around ruthless and narrow-minded politicians, his company made a refreshing change for me.

  The spirited and quick-witted little boy also had a mind full of ideals. He valued ideals of goodness, greatness, honor, justice, tolerance, and mercy. But he had a good sense of humor and mischief. It was so wonderful to be around him that I felt young at heart again, despite the aeons of time that I had known.

  I tried to treat him as an equal and guide him as I thought a suitable mentor should.

  Terin followed me wherever he could inside the Headquarters building. Occasionally, I felt hounded by this, but since Terin’s environment kept him from making many other friends, I allowed him. And soon I didn’t really mind. He made remarkably good conversation for one so young, having always been surrounded by people more than twice his age, whether politicians, officers, tutors, scientists, or his father’s aides.

  Besides, I couldn’t have escaped him if I tried. On the days when I was called away, he sat encamped in the corridor, waiting like a scout for me to return. For the first time in his life it seemed Terin had found someone to trust, someone whom he instinctively knew wouldn’t deliberately abandon or disappoint him. His face erupted with glowing smiles and his mouth started running some amazing, intriguing story or other as soon as I appeared. I knew he had been lonely; how could he be otherwise with his father constantly away?

  In fact, many nights—and days, according to the Tiasennian sleep period—his father never returned, and I took over the task of reading Terin bed-time stories, usually of noble deeds by ancient Orian heroes from a book Ai-derian had brought with him, but sometimes Tiasennian legends as well, which were often surprisingly similar. I would tickle him until he hollered for mercy. Sometimes, we had pillow fights or played games. We taught each other how to make several alternatives to urbin stew—I was still getting used to everything new on Tiasenne. Sometimes, we would just talk about nothing seemingly important, about the stars, about dreams and hopes, about people we had met, anything and everything.

  At first, I felt a little awkward in the domestic setting, but in time, it was the end of the day I looked forward to most, and my little charge I longed to see. No one I had known or who had known me would have believed that I could ever look after a child. Too long I had
been a key player in a grand struggle for power and control of the universe, a struggle for power and immortality that now seemed surreal and unimportant. After half a year on Tiasenne, I found I did not want anything to change, and that I had come to love living there.

  Though Terin emulated his father, I knew I also had a chance to make a difference in Terin’s life, as Hinev had in mine by taking care of me. I understood Terin’s isolation—we shared a bond unlike any two other people around us—in everything we loved. It was a bond I felt in my soul. I was determined to make it easier for him.

  All day of every day before I arrived, he stayed in the Ambassador’s chambers or drifted down the corridors of the Headquarters Building, until the guards finally decided to escort him back. There wasn’t any other place for him to go or any other children for him to play with. He spent a lot of time learning in the morning, and then being bored and dissatisfied by restrictions to what he could do.

  After learning about my ship from his science and philosophy tutor, Senka Emeritas Korrince, he greeted me in an agitated state, all kinds of questions streaming forth before I even sat down.

  “Senka Korrince says you came to Tiasenne in a gigantic spaceship. Is it true? Are you really a space person with a gigantic spaceship all your own?” He finally stopped when he ran out of breath.

  “Yes, it’s true, it’s all true,” I said.

  “How big is it?” he asked.

  “Enormous.”

  “Wow!” It took him a moment to let this thought sink in. “Wait,” his curiosity suddenly gave way to fear. “You aren’t leaving us, are you?”

  “Not any time soon,” I said, trying to smooth things over.

  “Can I see your ship?” he asked.

  “Maybe sometime,” I answered unenthusiastically, realizing instantly that I had made a mistake. The expression in Terin’s eyes told that he had filed this away as a promise. I knew then he was going to hold me to it. I had already discovered the futility of trying to let him down, or waiting for him to forget. He had a strong memory, and an even stronger will, despite his tender years. He was neither fickle nor hypocritical. To be fair, while Terin expected loyalty and integrity from others, he also never made a promise he didn’t intend to keep.

  Days later, it occurred to him to ask me what I did.

  “Alessia, what are you?”

  “Your friend,” I said.

  “I meant that, for example, my dad is an ambassador. Senka Korrince teaches me things, but he’s supposed to. What are you? You aren’t a prisoner, are you?”

  “No,” I laughed. “I came here to help other people keep the peace.” I said.

  “Oh,” he laughed with me.

  Children are far more perceptive than adults give them credit for, I suddenly thought. I had begrudged the lack of freedom in my life on many occasions.

  “I’m a kind of scientist.” I told him. “And I was an explorer in space.”

  “Then I’m going to be a scientist when I grow up, too,” he said. “We don’t have space explorers on Orian.”

  “I thought you wanted to become a military leader of some kind?”

  “I can’t,” he said. “Dad says we don’t want to go to war anymore. So that means that I can’t be brave and fight for Orian.”

  “You can still fight for the people,” I reminded him. “What about becoming a great speaker or a doctor that might cure people’s illnesses?”

  “If I become a scientist, we can work together,” he said with an eager expression.

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” he said, angry and hurt. “You don’t think I can do it?” he demanded.

  “I do, I have faith in you.” I said.

  “I don’t like it when you laugh at me,” he said, unplacated.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at you. I was laughing because I liked the idea.”

  “Oh,” his expression immediately brightened. “That’s good. I’m going to be one of the best there ever was.”

  “I’m sure you will,” I agreed. The truth was I actually thought so. Despite his naïveté, sense of fun, and noble ideals, Terin had twice surprised me with an intensely serious side that was not so valorous. It was possessive, dark, and ambitious.

  Terin’s mind was not easily invaded. I could have persisted below the surface, but I never did. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had stopped using telepathy around people I cared about, or people who I would be working with a lot; there were so many things about people’s secret lives I had no desire to know.