by Yronwode
Sally had taken the doll and promptly dropped it. Pieta had snapped at her, and then asked Alkema what he had brought for her. She had squealed when Alkema withdrew a diamond necklace and matching earrings from his pack. Diamonds had been somewhat precious on Bodicéa,
Max Jordan returned to the suite a short time later after he had cleared his medical check, still wearing his warfighter uniform, which was caked in Yronwodean sand at the cuffs and collar. His brother Sam was overjoyed to see him, but only cracked a little smile, and slapped him across the shoulder.
Sam Jordan was fifteen now, the red in his hair had diminished to a dark strawberry blond, thick and curly, making his face look a little too small. He lacked Max’s easy athleticism, and was by nature quieter. He liked to draw and design things.
His chamber was covered with drawings of ships and transport pods.
“I brought you something,” Max Jordan told Sam. He opened his own pack and brought out a polished rock about the size of a fist, red with bright yellow and black striations.
“You brought me a rock?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, it’s like a piece of the planet. And, it’s unique because… well, because it’s from a planet no one’s ever supposed to come back from. So, it’s like, nobody can ever have a rock from that planet again.” He shrugged. “It was Trajan Lear’s idea.”
“Neg, it’s cool,” Sam Jordan tried to reassure him unconvincingly.
Later, when Pieta was not around, Max would give him the Xirong battle-knife he had taken off a dead terrorist in Xiyyon. That would be received with more enthusiasm.
For now, he settled for showing Sam Jordan and Pieta the medal the Midians had given him for saving the city, and the plaque given to him by the Pontifex for the same deed. “Technically, it was Caliph who disarmed the bomb,” he told them.
“Za, but you and Rook were in the firefight with the terrorists on the landing pad of the Medical Center,” Alkema reminded him.
“Did you meet any girls?” Pieta asked.
“A … few,” Max Jordan answered, blushing a little bit. Then, he showed them another medal given to every member of the Action Team who rescued Alban Stratos.
“You sure did shoot a lot of people on this mission,” Sam Jordan observed.
“More than usual,” Max conceded.
“I liked the medal you got on that other planet better,” Pieta said, munching some crisp bread smeared with a mixture of cream and vegetables.
“Are you okay?” Sam Jordan asked. “You seem a little, I don’t know, different.” Max Jordan smiled. “I’m glad to be back on this ship, that’s all.” About that time, Johnny Rook had shown up with his wife Anaconda his newborn daughter, Skua Taurus Rook, and a huge smile on his face.
It was all good.
Pegasus – Officer’s Cocktail Lounge
The Officer’s Cocktail Lounge was as busy ever. An android Goneril Lear in a white cocktail dress finished distributing drinks to a table occupied by Matthew Driver, Eddie Roebuck, and Eliza Jane Change.
“It’s been a long time since we drank together, us three,” Eddie Roebuck remarked, picking up his glass of fortified wine, but seeming in no hurry to drink it.
Change asked him. “How long are you going to keep wearing those purple robes?”
“They happen to be extremely comfortable.” Eddie put his wine aside. “Also, I’m giving up the Slam-n-Jam. I’m going to devote the rest of my life to studying and preaching Brianism.”
“I thought you said it was a nutty religion,” Matthew Driver.
“As a Holy Man, he would be exempt from his service requirement,” Change observed. “And as the only Brianist on board, he would not have much liturgical work to perform.”
“You are both right, but also both wrong,” Eddie stated patiently. “True, Brianism is a nutty religion when you look at it a certain way, but it’s also nutty to believe that the Allbeing allowed His Son to be nailed to a tree because we weren’t good enough to get into heaven, otherwise. It’s also nutty to believe that Allbeing sent His Daughter to redeem humanity because we had screwed things up so badly we were on the verge of extinction and he wanted to give us a second chance. It’s also nutty to believe that there is no Allbeing and that this entire universe resulted from a one in a trillion fluctuation in a probability field.”
Eddie stopped for breath, then addressed Change. “And I know you don’t think I’m for real, but I am. I should be really pissed about how the Starcrossers set me up and used me; I should be really really pissed about that. But I’m not. Because when I was out there, on the Plain of Salvation, and seven centuries of the True Pontifex’s powers were flowing through me, I felt it every molecule in this planet’s atmosphere. I felt every drop of water in the sea, every rock, every grain of sand. And I moved them to create storms and earthquakes. I had the power of God in me.”
“Technically, Pegasus’s gravity engines created the earthquakes,” Change said.
“Pegasus wouldn’t have survived if K-Rock and I weren’t using so much of the planet’s energy,” Roebuck replied. “The point is, even if their religion can do that, even through all the craziness, there is something real there. Maybe I have to peel through a lot of the dogma and silliness to get through to the truth, but it’s definitely there.
“Besides which, that Archonex guy told me that when we die, we spend eternity with people just like ourselves. At first, I thought that would be really cool. Then, I really, really thought about it.” Eddie paused for a long, thoughtful of pair of seconds. “If it’s just I and I for all of eternity, I should try and become someone I can stand to be around.” Eddie turned back to Matthew Driver. “And you, Captain Sky-Pilot, did you find what you were looking for?”
“Nay, I did not,” Driver told him quite determinedly. “Ever since we, since Trajan and I, got back from the Chronos universe, I’ve been questioning my spirituality. I had thought that by spending time at the Temple in Atonement, I’d receive a sense of religious renewal. But that didn’t happen.”
“Elaborate,” Eliza Jane Change commanded him.
Driver struggled a bit to put his feelings into words. “I have always had a problem never feeling the presence of the Allbeing, and feeling like my prayers were just … not heard by anyone or anything. I thought spending time at the Temple would help, but it didn’t.”
“Does this mean you don’t believe in the Allbeing,” Eddied asked, with a tone of genuine concern.
“Of course I believe in the Allbeing,” Driver spoke back. “I just don’t feel connected to the Allbeing. I’ve accepted that I probably never will, so maybe that is something.”
Eddie grinned. “It’s ironic that you feel that way.”
“Why is that?” Driver asked.
Eddie fixed Matthew Driver with a hard stare. “I don’t have hardly any power left from being the Pontifex, but I know some truths. Some truths about you.”
“About me?”
“Serious. You just don’t know that you know it,” Eddie told him. Eddie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, they were glowing faintly.
He reached across the table and laid a hand on Driver’s forehead.
“Oh my stars,” Driver looked glazed over and stunned, and spoke as if he were in a kind of trance.
“What?” Change asked.
“I can remember,” Driver said. “I can remember my time in the Chronos universe with absolute clarity.”
“One event in particular,” Eddie prompted.
Driver kept talking, words spilling out from him. “There was a ship, a liner, called the Ra. It had 4,400 people on board, including 400 Starcross missionaries bound for Maya colony.
“Trajan and I were trying to interlink the StarLock controls with Prudence’s shipmind. We thought if we could understand the technology, we could use it to get back to our normal universe. But, somehow, we corrupted the system just as Ra was passing a StarLock in the fifty-first century. I remember the Silver Lady
screaming at us. ‘What have you done? What have you done?’”
“What did you do?” Eddie prompted.
“We corrupted the temporal calibrations somehow. We sent Ra 8,000 years into the past from its entry point.” Driver clarified for Change. “Ra actually entered the StarLock in the Solar Year 5021, but since there is no dimension of time in the Chronos universe, ship passages appear to happen randomly…”
“I know,” Change said icily. “How else could it work?”
“Ra crash-landed on the first Terra class planet they found,” Roebuck filled in.
“They called their world Terra Maya, and Ra was their first settlement. Terra Maya Ra.
Taramayara! The Starcross Missionaries had brought their sacred text with them.
That’s why the Fifth Testament was not written by the hand of man, it fell out of time.
When Brian Kingman found Taramayara, he found the Fifth Testament the colonists had taken with them. He completed the circle.”
Driver rubbed his temples, as thought he suddenly had a fierce headache.
“In a sense,” Eddie Roebuck told him. “You started the whole Starcross religion.
But you didn’t really, the Allbeing merely used you to help create a religion so bizarre that believing in it would test the faithless.”
Change rolled her eyes. Before she could express an opinion though, Phil Redfire, looking quite dashing and sophisticated in his white dinner jacket came up and put his arms around her from behind. “Are you finished with your friends?” he said nuzzling her earlobe.
“I believe so,” she answered.
Redfire flashed his eyes toward Driver and Roebuck, “Excuse me, gentlemen.
Much as I hate to break this up, if you knew you’d be spending an evening with this exquisite creature…”
“It’s understood,” Roebuck assured him.
The Boss remained in his suite for several days after returning. I think it was only partly because of the extent of his physical injuries. As a result, mission finalization briefings were held in the suite.
Pegasus – Commander Keeler’s Quarters
“The planetology reports have been approved,” Lt. Commander Alkema reported. He was sitting on a plush couch in the commander’s living room, with Commander Keeler, Lt. Commander Kitaen, a tray of the commander’s favorite neat-to-eat treats, and a typically wide assortment of beverages.
“Does that mean we can leave?” Keeler asked. He was sitting in a large over-stuffed chair, with a large glass of something brown and flammable in his hands.
His head was still bandaged.
“We need a pithy mission assessment for the Executive Summary,” Alkema informed him. “You know, for all the people who won’t get any deeper into the report than that.”
Keeler had a suggestion. “How’s this for a mission assessment: We came, we started a war, we left, nothing changed.”
“That’s not quite true,” argued Kitaen, standing shirtless before the hearth, muscles rippling resplendently, blue warpaint lining his eyes. “We did seriously disrupt the political situation on the planet. The leadership of the ten largest tribes have been assassinated.”
“That is not our problem,” Keeler said.
“You assassinated them,” Kitaen reminded the commander.
“And I don’t doubt that all of them have since been replaced by chieftains whose only difference is their name,” Keeler told him, placing his glass on a tray next to the bottle. “And maybe their smell, but not bloody likely.”
“The Midians never admitted it,” Alkema put in. “But I think they were grateful for that. The Xirong are going to be fighting among themselves for quite a while until, instead of attacking Midian.”
“That and the technology they took from us,” Kitaen added.
This prompted Keeler to ask. “Mr. Kitaen, what is your assessment of the tactical situation on Yronwode, from the Midian perspective.”
“The Midians are fully capable of repelling even a massive Xirong attack,” Kitaen reported. “And with the improvements to their weapons systems derived from the technology they ‘acquired’ from us, their military capabilities should be significantly enhanced. Their security situation for the next several years is decidedly better.” In frustration, Keeler smacked his glass and bottle onto the floor, where they landed on the plush carpet and stained it a brown tea color.
“You seem slightly perturbed,” Alkema told the commander.
“No flirking snit!” Keeler exclaimed. “I killed 40,000 people down there, some with my bare hands. What the hell?”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Alkema argued. “And, in any case, you probably shouldn’t take it out on innocent booze.”
Keeler looked down at the booze staining his carpet and immediately fell onto his knees, tipping the bottle upright and picking up the glass. “Daddy’s sorry, little baby.
It won’t happen again.”
Alkema handed him a towel. “It could have been any one of us that was captured by the Xirong, drugged, and manipulated into becoming heartless killing machines.”
“Just the same,” Keeler protested. “All those people who died because of me.
And maybe they weren’t bad people. And maybe they weren’t good people. Maybe I don’t even know what they were. I never saw any regular Xirong. I only saw the tribal leaders. I only saw the regular people at a distance, and when I did, I was drugged out of my mind.”
“Sort of like being a university chancellor again,” Alkema suggested.
Keeler regained his chair, and just drank straight from the bottle. “Neg… it was exactly like being a university chancellor again.”
“Getting back to the Xirong…” Kitaen prompted.
“Should I feel bad for them?” Keeler lamented. “For the regular people, I mean?
They can’t help the circumstances they were born into. Surely, they wouldn’t choose to live a life where they are just pawns, exploited by unscrupulous chieftains for personal gain brainwashed into hating the only people on the planet that could help them.”
“That would appear to be the run of their culture,” Kitaen offered. “The Midians tried for hundreds of years to bring civilization and order to the planet. In the end, they were beaten back to a tiny strip of land, because the Xirong rejected them, except for a few.”
“Just another screwed up human colony like all the others,” Keeler sighed.
“Except Independemce, Bountiful, Rainier III,” thought Alkema.
“I miss Sapphire,” Keeler whispered to his bottle of booze.
Recovering a little, Keeler added, “Are we any closer to finding Earth?” Alkema and Kitaen had to admit that they were not.
“What about that guy…” Keeler asked.
“Eddie Roebuck,” Alkema filled in.
“Za, him, Freddy Warbuck. What did he say about some king of doomsday weapon on Earth?”
Alkema recalled. “A device for transforming human beings into beings capable of controlling the forces of the universe.”
“That might be worth finding Earth for,” Keeler granted.
“It would be better if we found it before anyone else did,” Alkema observed.
“Like, for example, our friends the Aurelians.”
“I can see how the Aurelians might want that,” Keeler said. “But there’s no hurry.
Right? I mean, the Aurelians are on the other side of the galaxy.” Alkema had some bad news on that front. “Technical Core managed to decrypt the files Zim was able to steal from the Midian library concerning their encounter with the Kariad.”
“It’s not good is it?” Keeler saw the look on Alkema’s face, and took a generous swig from his bottle.
Alkema picked up his datapad, and recited from it. “The Kariad visitors were described as being over two-and-a-half meters in height, with two beating hearts.” Keeler drank again, an even larger amount. “So, the Kariad were Aurelians?”
“Maybe,” Alkema said. “Although it is
possible there are other races of enormous humanoids with two hearts.”
Kitaen grunted in agreement. “Who else would be arrogant enough to try and reorder an entire planet’s society?”
“On the other hand, theKariad didn’t conquer the planet,” Alkema put in. “That’s not typical Aurelian behavior, as far as we know.”
“So, they might not be Aurelians?” Keeler asked hopefully.
“We don’t have nearly enough data,” Alkema conceded. “We do know that their arrival completely changed the planet’s social structure. The Midians had to abandon their settlements outside Midian, and the Xirong became hyper-aggressive.” Keeler sat back in his chair and cradled his bottle like a small child. “Try this for a post-mission assessment: Yronwode was the Commonwealth’s prison world, the end of the line for humans who were beyond redemption. A few missionaries, brave or misguided, went to the planet and tried to redeem them anyway. They remain to this day, trapped in a planet that’s a prison for both of them. We did not change anything important. Also, there might have been some Aurelians there. The End.” When they had gone, Keeler repaired to an alcove of his room and rapped on the cover a shiny black casket with the crest of his homeworld picked out in silver.
“Wake up old man.”
The spectral figure of his long deceased ancestor appeared. “I never sleep,” it said.
“Do you have any memories of this planet from your life?” Keeler asked. “If you had, it would have been good of you to share them.”
The Old Man laughed at him. “I remembered Yronwode. And I would have warned you not to go to it, but I chose to let you explore the planet anyway.”
“Why?”
“I had my reasons.”
“Could you at least have told us how to get off the planet?” Live Keeler asked.
“Change never asked me,” Dead Keeler lamented. “But she did all right on her own. She’s much more than she appears to be.”
Keeler took a slug of his whiskey, then continued. “When I was down on the planet, you came to me in a dream. I didn’t recognize you.” Keeler met the old man’s bright, glowing white eyes. “I just want to know how you did it and why.”
