* * * * *
Five hours later, the shuttle touched down on the surface of Orian. As we came closer to the planet, the hazy red glow of its surface loomed closer, covered only scantily by a few thready cirrus clouds. The area surrounding the capital city appeared more fertile than other parts of the planet that I had seen from the air, despite the powdery soil, and as we landed on the air strip just beyond the city, swirling dust blew up and blocked my view through the transport’s small passenger window.
I had seen gigantic mountain ranges, deep gorges and canyons, chains of active volcanoes, vast sweeping deserts, and small seas from my vantage point high in the sky.
Looking into the city, my eye was affronted by towering metal buildings with pointed peaks that pierced the infinite blue monotony of sky. The sun was setting, tinging the skies with gold. In the distance, just over a range of cliffs, lightening streaked through a lonely cloud, and the rolling echo of thunder fell upon the city like a harbinger of doom.
Hinev would not have chosen to found a new colony on this planet! I thought, nor would his Celestian colonists have chosen it. They would have known that Seynorynael’s explorers had used terraforming to make Orian viable only for a semi-permanent explorer station. I could only assume that some unforeseen accident must have caused the Narae to land on Celestian Two instead of following the Hernendor to Celestian One.
The buildings had been packed closely together, ctenoid structures separated only by narrow lanes. Blocked from the light, the surface of the city remained eternally darkened, the gloomy shadows lingering even when the sun rode high in the sky. From these dirt-lined avenues, the city seemed like a nightmare world intruding into reality’s domain, cold and damp, where the thunder echoed on but never offered the promise of cleansing rains.
I felt the anguish of thousands of minds.
I had to close my mind to force away the images and the sensation of nausea that welled in my gut. What a contrast this world was from the cool air, the voluminous oceans, and the green splendor of its sister planet. No wonder they surveyed Tiasenne with greedy eyes!
As I stepped from the shuttle, the chill night air struck at my lungs. A transport waited below the platform. As I took a deep breath, I noticed immediately how much thinner Orian’s atmosphere was than Tiasenne’s. I felt as though I were slowly suffocating.
Although my genetically altered body could survive without oxygen and without atmospheric pressure, I still experienced the sensation of suffocation, still felt the discomfort as my internal chemistry changed and my body’s systems of energy extraction took over. The stronger gravity of Orian I didn’t much mind; it simply sapped more energy in movement.
We left the small astroport and came to the first of many buildings which stretched like an endless sea of grass to the cliffs. Beren had designed his headquarters to be the finest and largest. Several somber-faced guards stood at attention; others waited on its front steps to escort me inside. Leader Beren’s office was on the third level, his windows on the wall facing away from the other buildings, no doubt affording a panoramic view of the empty horizon.
A few guards clad in maroon and grey uniforms stood at either side of the entrance of his main office, their stultifying gazes fixed directly ahead, their faces unmoving. The officers led me through the double doors and into a brightly lit room that was dominated by a rectangular black table, etched in silver, at the head of which sat Leader Beren. The escort retreated just as I was noticing the wide, open windows in his office. There were various wall hangings depicting the hunt of fleet-footed gazelle-like creatures. Also, a fine carved statue of the Orian god of war.
Leader Lucianvar Beren and his advisory council greeted me in Orian fashion, clasping both hands on my one. There was an extraordinary family resemblance between Beren and his half-brother, the Orian Ambassador. They had the same clear blue eyes and fine avian facial structure, with high cheek bones and a moderately high and broad forehead. But Leader Beren was a larger man than Ai-derian, and considerably older, with streaks of white hair slicked behind his ears.
Leader Beren gave a slight nod and then indicated that I should sit down with him at his council table. The Tiasennian Ambassador followed, and soon we began an amiable conversation. Ambassador Regorr’s emerald eyes were like a predatory bird’s, unyielding and sharp. His skin had been stretched over a frame of awkward bones, but his jaunty, confident gait was surprisingly graceful. The wind had matted his honey-colored hair in the aircar on the way over. He’d combed his fingers through it several times, but it refused to lie down.
While Regorr talked about his ordeal getting here, I briefly searched Beren’s mind. This proved somewhat difficult; his thinking tended to be erratic and complicated, sharp but not linear as he shifted focus randomly to new issues, yet his depth of knowledge was impressive.
I could have absorbed every memory of his life, his entire collection of identifying memories and not just his barest superficial thoughts, but I would need to force a mindlink to reach those subconscious memories, and I would never risk one of those again. Mindlinks had been the end of Hinev, who had been left alone on Seynorynael. They had destroyed his mind, and I would not have them destroy mine, too. All of Hinev’s explorers had abandoned using even ordinary surface telepathy except when exigency arose. I tried to use this power as little as possible, but it was important to understand the leader of the Orians if I ever hoped to know what was going on on Orian.
I learned that Leader Beren had never been attached. He spent a lot of his time organizing his arguments and writing proposals to the Tiasennian government, pressuring them to admit a limited number of colonists. He himself was desperate to escape Orian and retire to Tiasenne.
If only he hadn’t so many other thoughts in his mind at the same time, I could weed out that buried scrap of information. But at the moment these other thoughts, the true motives behind benevolent suggestions he made for his people, were so repulsive that I couldn’t bear to probe him any longer.
I pulled away from his mind, watching with concealed disgust as he expressed convincing concern for his people and then thanked me profusely. Despite his magnetic personality and warm manner, I found I didn’t like him at all, but I knew this unpleasant discovery was the penalty I paid for invading his mind. Beren was only interested in himself, and harbored little feeling for others; I was amazed by how different he and Ai-derian really were despite their more obvious outward similarities.
For more than an hour, the Tiasennian Ambassador Regorr and I listened to Leader Beren and his contrived speeches. Then I enquired when we would be leaving for our tour of the agricultural region and our departure was planned for sunrise, but that sunrise was still over thirty hours away. I had known other planets like Orian; scorching heat that seemed never to die away when the sun shone, aphotic nights that dropped degrees by the hour—planets that supported almost no indigenous life.
After this introductory meeting, an aide led me to a guest chamber to rest from my journey. I spent the long night sitting in contemplation by an east-facing window. The glass was cold as ice, and as I opened the window, a chill draft gusted into the warmth of the room.
Unlike the other buildings in the city, Beren’s Aries Headquarters stood at least thirty meters apart from any other building. But I could make out little faces of pale and gaunt children peering out of the darkness with wide eyes at this rare beacon of light.
Twelve hours before sunrise, a clatter came from the floor below as the building stirred to life at the end of the sleep period. Hours passed. No one came for me. As I waited I was struck by a strange sense of premonition, as though natural forces were gathering to bring irreversible damage to this world with no regard for humanity’s objections. The rushing wind blew harshly over the weathered cliffs surrounding Nayin, bringing whispered groans from the deep dark places of the world and omens of a coming metamorphosis.
The Last Immortal : Book One of Seeds of a Fallen Empire Page 16
