I extended an elbow. “May I escort the lady of the house?”
“You may not live to see tomorrow if you keep it up,” she said as she stormed away. Lots of spirit, that wife of mine.
Even as I entered, three darling looking kids in the range of four to eight were group-hugging mom’s waist. The old woman who’d watched them clumped into the room, leaning heavily on her cane. She looked exhausted.
“Ah, Mrs. Weldsot, I can’t thank you enough…” Cellardoor began to say.
Weldsot jerked a hang-on-a-minute hand. “I’m too tired to be listening to anything. I’ll bid you both a g’night and be on my way.” She angled toward the door.
“Surely you’ll spend one more night. It’s late and you live…”
“Close enough. No, I’ll lay my head on my own pillow tonight. And don’t ye bother offering to walk me home, Mr. Pontared. I’ll not be seen with a drunkard at any hour, especially a late one such as this.”
By the time Cellardoor was finished, Weldsot was already out the door and gone.
“I guess she thinks I’m your dead husband.”
“Or that I only wed drunks. She has a vicious tongue, that woman. But, seeing how I owe her so much, I’ll not mention that.”
“Ah, I think you already did.”
She looked me up and down. “Yeah, but you are a drunkard. You’ll never remember.” She really couldn’t help herself. She smiled and began to chuckle. “All right. Let’s get the lot of you to bed,” she announced loudly as she herded the kids toward the back of the house.
I raised a hand. “Am I in the lot?”
“You most certainly are not. You’re on the couch, and I’m pleased to say it’s lumpier than it looks. Good night, sir.”
They family disappeared down a hallway, but I could hear their chatter until the last of them was asleep half an hour later. I sat on the couch thinking back on my families, my kids too excited to sleep. I missed them. I missed them all. I missed Mirri and Slapgren too, maybe even a bit more.
The next few days of labor were a breeze. I was certain Fuffefer was giving us cushy assignments. Maybe there weren’t any horrible jobs currently available. Either way, Cellardoor didn’t mind cooking for a bunch of hard-working men. I certainly didn’t mind cleaning up Fuffefer’s backyard. Yeah, that was the “debris around building” back-breaker he’d mentioned. Hey, I didn’t miss the sewer or the dump. By the time our two-week sentence was up, old Fuffefer’s yard was the envy of the entire neighborhood.
He came out to watch me finish that last afternoon. “I mentioned you were a hard worker, Josbelub Pontared.”
“Yes, you did. Thank you.”
“It is not a compliment it is merely an observation.” He rested his arms behind his back and rocked on his hind legs. “Your people are strange to me, Josbelub Pontared. Many conquered races are, I suppose. But yours is most peculiar to me.”
Hmm. Where oh where was this heading?
“How so?”
“They seem lifeless and empty.”
That was a strange opinion. “Could you be more specific. I don’t see us like that.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t. You’re too close to them, naturally.”
“Naturally,” I agreed.
I flashed on an image of Cellardoor’s face, one where we were close together. She didn’t look lifeless and empty to me. There was a strength and calm in her eyes. No, not strength, certainty. Yes. She was calm and certain and, that was it, she was contented. I rifled through files of as many locals as I could quickly. Yup. They all had the same tranquil bliss on their faces. Odd I hadn’t articulated it until then. Here these people are conquered by the nastiest of invaders, and they’re still happy.
“The look that bothers you is one of contentment, I think. They are a fundamentally happy race. It's all a matter of focusing on the good and trying to downplay the bad.”
“You said they.”
Oops. I needed to be more careful.
“That is a telling slip of the tongue Josbelub Pontared, because you are the only one of them who is missing that look. In your eyes I see longing, I see pain, and mostly I see fight. You are unique among your people in that you are a warrior.” He grunted a laugh. “I sorry I didn’t confront you as we swept across this fart-bubble of a planet.” He closed his eyes and smiled. “That would have been a worthy battle, you and me.”
He opened his eyes and looked down. “Oh, your people resisted us, but they had no heart for the fight, for the killing. They had lost the war before our first ship landed. Pitiful wretches.”
This Fuffefer was smarter than he looked. I just prayed he didn’t intuit any more about me.
“Don’t the Adamant experience contentment, moments of peace?”
He looked at me critically. He was uncomfortable divulging either personal or potentially strategic insights. Then his face eased. He was, I think he realized, talking to a slave who’d be dead sooner than he could have imagined.
“No. Those are alien emotions, literally. They have no utility. They can in no way advance the empire.”
“What if there comes a time that the empire no longer needs to expand? You’d be better off having such releases before you hit the wall emotionally.”
He squinted. “You are a worldly male. That is a well-constructed and logical observation. Again, you are unique among your otherwise dull, unmotivated species. That time will never come. The empire expanded for longer than our records can record. Much longer than anyone can remember, to be certain. Why, warrior among sheep, would we stop conquering?”
“When you control enough. It happens to all races. They rise, the dominate, then surely, they ebb. Their time passes, and they return to the cosmic dust.”
He harrumphed.
“Have you ever seen or heard of a human, a former inhabitant of Earth?”
“No,” he shot back. “Why?”
“They once controlled a significant part of this galaxy. They spread among the stars and were as numerous as the stars in the sky. Now, you’ve never even heard of them. If the Adamant meet a similar fate, having cultivated a set of softer emotions would be handy. Just sayin’.”
“And how is it you do know of them, Ungalaymian farmer?”
“Do you recall that big building on the main square, the one with the statues in front of it?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And do you recall what happened to it?”
“Certainly. We blew it to pieces.”
“That was our main library. It contained books and data files older than the dust we are standing on. That’s how I know of that lost civilization.”
“Ah. Well, such knowledge is not productive. It’s good we resolved the issue. No one will miss the library.”
“I do.”
He shuffled his paws in the dust. “It might have kept you from the hard work that you do so well.”
“And I’d be either more content and happy or more lifeless and empty, depending on who you ask.”
“Things will be changing on this planet soon, Josbelub Pontared. I can tell you no more, but change is coming. I would offer you a chance to serve me as my assistant. You would be less subject to…the changes.”
Sounded like the time for accommodating the locals was nearing an end. The LGM must be about to take on all the grunt work.
“And my family? Does that umbrella cover them too?”
“Why worry about your family? Would you allow concerns for them to hold you back?”
“Are you serious?”
“I am always serious. Why would you?”
“Because they’re my family. I love them.”
He shook his head in an irritated manner. “You see, again, this sentimentality is so counterproductive. Among my kind, family is who spawned you. Our allegiance, my sole allegiance, is to the pack. To the empire.”
“To each his own, for now.” I couldn’t help that last jab, unwise as it was.
“If you serve me as a house serv
ant, I will allow your family to come also. But you must promise I will never see or hear from your pups.” He held up a claw. “Not once. Is that acceptable?”
“It is. When do I start?”
“You already have.” He swept an arm across his backyard. “My Packlet-Wedge will show you to your quarters. Then you may retrieve your precious family.” With that he spun on a heel and walked into his house.
Oh boy. Cellardoor was not going to take the news of her new home well. But, hey, I was her husband. She had to obey me, right?
NINE
She finished counting to eight in her head to calm herself. “No, I have not. I have many duties. The experimentation on the—”
“Whatever it is you do can’t be more important than this. I’m afraid I’ll have to insist you make the study of the Deft your number one priority.” He squinted his muzzle to hike his glasses up as he glared at her.
When she’d finished counting to sixteen, she folded her paws gently in front of her. They happened to be right next to the blaster, by chance. “I will consider your opinion, Physician Level Six Pastersal.” She really hit the six hard, to make certain he recalled it was less than Level Twelve. That would still have been below her rank, but only just.
He absently glanced at the insignia on his sleeve, then set the reams of paper on her desk. “This is part of the results. These are generally histological and gross anatomical data. There’s some physiology, but most of those tests are still pending.”
“Why don’t you set them on my desk,” she said after he had.
“I just did,” he said confused.
“Then I thank you. You see, if you had set something on my desk without asking permission first,” she picked up the gun, “I’d be forced to kill you.” She aimed right between his eyes. Her paw was as steady as a rock.
Pastersal licked nervously at his lips. Finally, he said, “I’m not sure that’s an appropriate jest, Malraff.”
“You are correct. It is not a jest.” She moved her hand a fraction to one side and whizzed a bolt so close to his ear it drew blood.
He squealed like the frightened dog he was and jumped backward. “Don’t think that I won’t report this outrage to His Imperial Lord personally.”
“Oh, I think you won’t.” She sliced a matching nick in his other ear. “If you did, I might become so distracted that my aim would fail me. Trust me, you couldn’t live with yourself if that were the case.” She set the gun down gently and smiled up at him. “Now, were you just about to say you would take these documents with you and be in your laboratory studying them like a first-year student?”
“Y…yes.”
“And that with all your duties, I’m not likely to see you for at least three days and only then if I were to send for you?”
“Y…yes,” he growled back.
“Good day and good luck to you then. Leave the door as you found it,—closed.” She pivoted her chair and, with her back to him, opened a document on a large screen.
TEN
“So, you cut a deal to move my children—who are not your children, least you’ve forgotten—and me into that monster’s house so we can be his permanent slaves? And you did all that without bothering to ask me first?”
“You could summarize it that way if you were being tragically unfair to me,” I sheepishly responded.
“Well that is how I see it, and the answer is no, ten thousand times no. I’d rather die than lick his paws.”
“That, my love, may be the actual choice you’re making. The one for your kids too, I hate to add.”
“One, don’t ever call me love.” She raised a threatening digit. “Ever. Two, why are you always so damn dramatic?”
“My burning ears. You swearing? Now I know the universe is about to come crashing to an end.”
“You…you bring it out of a body, even one that abhors such language.” She wagged a finger at me this time.
I spite of the tension in the air, something hit me. The way she did the finger thing. It was so human. I thought back to all the digits and digit-like appendages I’d seen in my long life. Yes. Her finger was distinct and different in a very human manner. I took a long hard scientific look at her. There was human in her. In all the Ungalies. Was I talking to my distant relative?
“Cellardoor, I’m going to do something important you probably won’t like. There’s no risk or harm, so bear with me.”
I raised my left hand at her.
“I was married to a lousy man. I know what comes next, and I forbid it.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Ya. That’s what he always—”
I cut her off by shooting my probe fibers. They gently enveloped her. They also rapidly shut her up. She froze, except for her eyes, which bounded in every direction trying to take in what was happening.
In my head, I asked, What are you? Genetics and physiology.
Female, age thirty-three years Earth standard. G4:P3, currently cycling in menses. Organs are all typical of Homo sapiens, though spleen is much smaller. Brain volume consistent with human values. DNA has twenty-three paired helical strands. Homology with Homo sapiens' DNA display eighteen percent divergence. Approximately twenty-three thousand coding genes …
I stopped the report. She was as human as I was. Two billion years of evolution had altered her. The inhabitants of Ungalaym were like those of the Galapagos back when there was such an island chain. Isolated from their main gene pool, they drifted to be new species. But they retained much of their original nature. Her DNA was tweaked, but it was a certainty where it had evolved from. I had been looking for the humans in this timeline. I had just forgot to recall Professor Darwin’s laws. They were right in front of me. We had survived. All my efforts, all my suffering wasn’t for naught.
Well frack me with a laser beam set on high, I had done good. I was talking with one of my Nth removed grand kids.
Then I snapped back to the reality of Cellardoor’s tongue lashing.
“What in the name of the three heavens was that, and how dare you do that to me with or without my permission. And what’s that glazed, stupefied, lobotomized look in your eyes? Hmm? Cat got your tongue?”
Crap, at the dump, there were cats all over the place. We’d brought kitty cats with us into the far future. Dang, I bet there were rats too. Always with the rats. We tried to keep them contained, but I bet they lurked in the walls of Cellardoor’s house and nibbled at her cheese.
The resounding slap on my face returned me to present times.
“What’d you do that for?” I asked, rubbing my cheek instinctively.
“If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand the answer. Out. I want you out of my home, out of my life, and most of all out of the reach of whatever devil’s-own handiwork you just violated me with.”
“Tell me of your people, Cellardoor. Where did they come from? What is your origin myth?”
She did not expect those questions. She sat back down and seemed to visually scan the floor for a response.
“I’m sorry I did what I did. I am a lot different than you can imagine. I had to.”
“I’m beginning to believe you are more than a lot different.” The stunned look vanished. “Who and what are you, Jon Ryan? Are you an angel? A demon from perdition sent to test me?”
I chuckled softly. “Neither such extreme, my dear. You want the long or the short version?”
“I want the truth,” she replied, setting her jaw.
Oh boy. This was going to take a while.
Three hours, eight intrusions by kids, two potty breaks for her, and five cups of tea later, I’d pretty much brought Cellardoor up to speed on my wild story. After the first fifteen minutes she even stopped bothering to interrupt me and listened with her mouth agape.
“That’s truly unbelievable story, Jon.”
“Yet here I sit before you. Plus, I do wish to remind you of the need to respect your elders.”
“There you go. You create this ma
gical moment, and then you bash it by being an ass.”
“Yeah. Aren’t I wonderful?”
“That is not the word that's flashing in my mind.” She sipped her cold tea. “I’ve so many questions I don’t know where to begin.”
“There’s no rush. The only rush is to get your family to the relative safety of Fuffefer’s household.”
“But why? You could fly us away in your spaceship. If the Adamant are going to rain holly hell down on us again, why risk hanging around for the final moment?”
“No can do. I’m here on a mission. I need to infiltrate the Adamant and save my kids, like I said. If I leave now I’ll be bailing on a good opportunity. It’s really better than I could have prayed for.”
“But, you could save some of us. We’re your kin, Jon Ryan. Maybe your mission needs to change?”
Oh crap. Now came the tough part, the part she couldn’t possibly understand or accept.
“No, Cellardoor. That’s not how it’s going down. Before you ask why or try to sway me, let me tell you why.” I took a deep breath. “In my two billion years of experience, I’ve come to know a few things as absolutes. One is that evil will always come looking for you, and it will always find you. It’ll generally win too. Even if you somehow come out on top, the losses are staggering. I mean that internally, to your soul. People are going to die at the hands of evil. They always have and always will. I can’t change that. Believe me, I’ve tried. It can’t be done.
“I learned to choose my battles and not let them choose me. Every victory will eventually just lead to some other defeat. I could save you, I could save a hundred of your closest kin. Maybe I could save the current population of your planet. Or I could not. It’s all the same. So, I make little commitments because those are the ones that please me. I made one to the Deft kids, and I’ll keep it or die trying.”
“But that makes no sense. Why put the safety of two ahead of the safety of many?”
“Because, like I just said, nothing matters in the long run. Look. Okay, I shuttle everyone off this rock. Where do I take them? Where will there be enough food? Where won’t the Adamant just re-conquer them? How about I kill every fucking Adamant within ten parsecs? Guess what? They’ll just send more. Probably a lot more. And if I kill them, they’ll print more and send them too. No.” I lowered my head. “I stick to my plan. If I can save you, I will. If I could really save Ungalaym, maybe I would. But I can’t. The wheels of the cosmos are as mysterious to me as they are to you, but I know they’re turning, and I know I can’t even slow them down so I don’t bother to try anymore. I just die a little more, or a lot more, and I go on. I go on because someone has to, I guess, and because I said I’d save those kids.” I looked at her void of compassion or humanity. “That’s my plan.”
Firestorm: Galaxy On Fire, Book 3 Page 5
