The Split Skies (The Possessor Wars, Book 4): The Possessor Wars, Book 4

by Chad Spencer

  “Y … yes, Captain.”

  “Rick, Nuraiyana, and Mayu-san, you’re with me. We don’t have Sebastian or Kasumi to teleport us, so we’ll just have to fly down.”

  Silently, Akio exited the ship through a hatch on the side of the bridge. As soon as he emerged, the music stopped and a shout of “Ho!” erupted from the crowd. He drifted downward and landed at the end of the carpet with the others flanking him. Mayu-san stood to his left, behind his crewmembers.

  Mayu-san called out in a loud voice, “Onii-sama de gozaimasu! (This is the Honorable Elder Brother.)”

  Because Mayu-san had told him to speak Japanese, Akio announced, “Miyamoto Akio desu. Dozo, yoroshiku onegai shimasu (I am Akio Miyamoto. It’s nice to meet you.).

  As one, the delegation bowed themselves to the tarmac with their foreheads touching the ground between their hands. Some were openly weeping.

  Akio was floored. From far away, he heard a sound that he couldn’t identify at first. Then he understood.

  “Cheering,” he muttered. “I hear cheering.”

  “Yes, Onii-sama. The whole city is watching on TV and cheering. Actually, our whole nation is watching and cheering. We have waited and you have come.”

  ‘Ok, I really don’t know what to say to that,’ he thought.

  Three small girls, probably no more than 8 years old, strode hesitantly down the red carpet. Each girl, dressed in a brightly-colored kimono and with her hair elaborately arranged, carried a garland of flowers. One by one they approached and placed the garlands over the heads and around the necks of the three travelers. They bowed themselves to the ground and took their places behind the delegation.

  A man in a deep purple kimono stepped forward and gave them a long and very elaborate greeting in formal, flowery language that Akio found hard to follow. When he finished, he bowed to the ground before them and returned to the delegation.

  An elderly woman in a formal black kimono introduced herself as the country’s Prime Minister. She indicated that they should accompany her. Slowly, and with great precision, she walked down the red carpet toward the airport terminal. Akio followed, careful to match his pace to the woman’s. His crewmembers followed one after the other.

  They were taken in air cars to a long and somewhat tedious televised welcoming ceremony. There were speeches, performers who danced traditional Japanese dances, and choirs singing.

  ‘I hope this doesn’t go on much longer. I have to go to the bathroom.’ Akio was relieved when the ceremonies ended before it became a problem. After a quick pit stop, they were whooshed away to a banquet at the most expensive hotel that Akio had ever seen.

  After the meal, Akio told Mayu-san, “Look, I appreciate all of this, I really do. But I want to find my brother. Now.”

  Mayu-san bowed deeply and told him, “Yes Onii-sama. You will be taken to the First Ancestor right away.”

  As the sun set, they exited the hotel to find crowds cheering outside. The air cars zipped over the city while the cheering continued. Everywhere people were hanging out of windows, calling out from rooftops, and flooding the streets in happiness. Akio didn’t really get it. ‘But I guess I’ll go with it for now. As long as it helps me find Akifumi.’

  Their cars arrived at a massive, sprawling building at the center of the city. They were taken inside and shown to one of the upper floors. Mayu-san ushered them into a large room. Akio gasped when he looked around him. Everywhere there were clear spheres suspended from the high, vaulted ceiling by green, tube-like vines. The expansive room was filled with them. And inside the spheres floated oversized, mushroom-shaped brains that connected to the vines in a mesh of filaments. In the center of the room was a dais that glowed slightly. It all gave Akio the creeps.

  “This is the central computing core for this facility,” Mayu-san explained. “This room is the core of our entire civilization. The First Ancestor told us to bring you here when we found you.”

  “Why? “ asked Akio, puzzled.

  “The First Ancestor will explain.”

  “Wha … ?”

  A hologram appeared on the dais. It was the hologram of an old, old man. Akio stared in disbelief.

  “Father?” he gasped. The image was much older than his father, but otherwise nearly identical. Surprisingly, the hologram looked right at him and chuckled.

  “I always did look more like Father than you did, Akio.”

  “You … you can hear what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, Akio. I’m an interactive hologram of your brother.”

  “WHAT? Akifumi? Where is he? WHERE'S THE REAL AKIFUMI?”

  The hologram chuckled again in a way that Akio realized was familiar. It reminded him of his father–and Akifumi.

  “Calm down, Akio. Everything’s ok. I’m what’s left of Akifumi. I have all of his memories and his personality. I’m essentially your brother.”

  “You’re not Akifumi! What have you done with him?” Akio’s mindswords appeared and darkness slowly began to gather around him. “Tell me what you’ve done with my brother.” Akio’s voice dropped to an almost inhumanly low pitch. “Tell me now.”

  “Akio,” the old man in the hologram replied gently as a warm light wreathed around him. “I’m ok. I guess I mean that Akifumi’s ok. Look, Akio, I think it’s best if you just talk to me as if you were talking to your brother. I was made by Akifumi especially for you. Like I said, I have all of his memories and his personality. Anything he would say, I’ll say. He made me just for this moment.”

  Warily, Akio took a few steps forward. “What do you mean, Akifumi made you?”

  “Akio, I’m going to talk to you just as if I were the real, living Akifumi. And Akio, I want you to know that I’m really grateful that I had a brother like you.”

  “What do you mean, had?”

  “Akio, I died long ago. I left this hologram here for you because I knew you’d come for me. You always come for me.” The hologram looked at him with pride and admiration in its eyes.

  “No! Akifumi can’t be dead!”

  The hologram gently continued, “I am dead, Akio. Parts of the wormhole you came through into this universe through were unstable in time. My life pod was thrown more than 10,000 years into the past.”

  “No! It can’t be!” yelled Akio, shaking.

  Gently, the hologram replied, “Yes, Akio. It can. I was in a life pod with Eric Dunlap. Eric was an engineer and a mining supervisor. He was on the way to the Colorado system to run a mine there. When we fell into the atmosphere of this planet, he had the idea of locking the alignment of the gravity mirrors to keep us aloft. He saved our lives.”

  The Akifumi hologram told Akio, “Eric and I eventually found a large floating island. The people there were very poor after suffering through a terrible war. We were able to help out with our advanced technology. We were made leaders in the community.”

  “Eric married almost right away,” Akifumi explained. “After about ten years passed, I got married and started having kids too. Eric grew old and died. I didn’t because I have korei. My korei reproduced. Two of them took my wife, Denya, as a host. So Denya and I lived on, leading our people. Over time, our island and our population grew. I decided early in my marriage that I wanted to preserve our culture, just like Father taught us to.”

  Numbly, Akio nodded, remembering his father’s last words. He realized that his mindswords had disappeared.

  Akifumi said, “Denya was really good to me. Even though she wasn’t Japanese, she took on as much of our culture as she could. She learned Japanese and made kimonos to wear. She even changed her name to Mio.” Akifumi drooped in wistful sadness, seemingly immersed in his memories.

  “The people in our community eventually copied me,” sighed Akifumi. “They saw how advanced my knowledge was and how the korei gave me power. They copied everything about me.”

  He chuckled again in that way that was so familiar, and then shook his head. “The people on our island became more Japanese than me, Akio. I
had an overmind in the pod with all of the information from our ship. They asked it to teach them to be Japanese and it did. It was so amazing to watch as the decades and then centuries went by. Not one of them was ethnically Japanese, but the Japanese culture was reborn again right before my eyes. So I guess in my own way, I did what Father wanted. I preserved what was uniquely ours.”

  Akifumi’s gaze seemed to ask for Akio’s approval. ‘He wants me to be proud of him,’ he realized. “You did a great thing, Akifumi. Father would be happy.”

  Sorrowfully, Akio asked, “How … how long have you been dead?”

  Akifumi smiled sadly, “Just over a thousand years, Akio. I waited for you. I knew you would come. But after a while I figured out that I was thrown backward in time. I lived for almost 9,000 years, Akio. All that time I never gave up hope that you’d come. But I just couldn’t live long enough. So I made this hologram for you. I knew that one day you’d see it. I knew that no matter what, you’d come. You always do. I believed in you, Akio.”

  Akio was shaking. He could barely stand. Grief choked in his throat. “You … can’t … be … dead,” he struggled to get out. “You … you … can’t … be.”

  He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, a reassuring hand. He turned his head to see Nuraiyana. For the first time, he didn’t pull away. He just let her touch him as he stood there and tried to control himself.

  But then he couldn’t. Akio sobbed, “I’m … so … sorry. I’m so sorry … I didn’t come … in time. I wanted to protect you. I wanted to give you a good life. I’m so sorry, Akifumi.”

  Tenderly, the aged hologram stepped toward him, still surrounded by a warm glow. “Akio,” it said. “You DID come in time. You’re right here, right now. And you DID protect me. You told me that we’d fly away and find a peaceful life. You told me that we were on the way home. You were right, Akio. You were right! I got everything you promised me and so much more.”

  With a sweeping gesture, Akifumi explained, “This place became my home. I had a wonderful life in a wonderful home with the most amazing wife a man could ask for. We had fantastic children. And they had children and they had children. I’ve seen so many generations of my family go by, Akio–of our family. I’ve loved them all and watched over them all just like you watched over me. I tried to be just like you. I tried everything I could to protect my people, to teach them, and to make their lives better just like you did for me, and just like you did for everyone back in the Shizukawa system. Because of you, many, many people have lived and had good lives–both in our universe and in this one.”

  But Akio wasn’t consoled. Tears streamed down his face. A deep, draining sorrow welled up in him.

  Apparently the Akifumi hologram could read his emotions just like the real Akifumi. “Don’t be sad, Akio,” it encouraged. “I really did have a wonderful life. We became the most advanced civilization in this world. I couldn’t find or make most of the elements that I needed to recreate our technology, so I invented a new one with the knowledge from our ship. I used the life pod’s computer and the information in the overmind to go to cyberuniversity. I got degrees in biology and genetics, and more. You’ve seen what I built. I used biotechnology to create computer systems, communications systems, vehicles, homes, and everything else we needed. We built everything we could with genetic engineering. That way, we could just grow it from the elements we could get.”

  Nuraiyana asked, “Was it you that engineered the telerent plants and the naralls and things?”

  Akifumi shook his head. “No, that wasn’t us. Those were genetically engineered by the first humans who came here. There’ve been several advanced civilizations on this world since humans first came here about 100,000 years ago. Ours is only the most recent. Usually they start fighting with each other after a while and a lot of people end up dead. Everything collapses. Lots of technology and knowledge gets lost each time it happens. Our civilization has had peace for about 10,000 years. We leave everyone else alone, and because of our technology, they leave us alone. Unfortunately, we never did make it back into space. But in the end, I guess it didn’t matter. This has been a good place to have a home.”

  “So … so what do I do now?” Akio choked out. “Everything I’ve done since I came here has been about finding you.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Akio,” reassured Akifumi. “Go forward. Find a place for yourself. Find happiness for yourself. You have people around you who care about you. You always have. Don’t be sad, you gave me everything you promised me. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you.”

  Akio didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. Absently, he asked, “What is this place? What are those brain things?”

  Akifumi smiled. “They’re biological computers. They’re modeled after the overmind, but these are much more advanced. We grow them organically. After we made them, I was able to download all of the programming from the overmind I had with me and make it available to all of my people. Almost everything we had back home, we were able to reproduce here through biotech. That includes this central computing core and the hologram that you’re talking to now. We just couldn’t get what we needed to go back into space.”

  Not knowing what else to say, Akio fell silent. But Akifumi grew serious.

  “Akio,” Akifumi said, “You have to go back. I can’t fight any more, but the fight isn’t over. Have you seen the flashes in the sky? I’ve been monitoring them with our telescope array. They’re tahkti ships coming through the wormhole. And there’s been a lot of them over the last week. The tahkti invasion has begun.”

  “But we can’t stop it,” objected Akio. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  Akifumi contradicted, “Yes, Akio. There is. My people tell me that you have a working fighter.”

  “It’s broken. And we can’t get the materials to repair it and get back into space. We can’t fight. Our weapons are down.”

  “Yes you can. Look, Akio. Bring your fighter here and have it just start eating this continent. It’ll take some time, but it will make everything it needs to repair itself. And then I need you to make seeds, lots of seeds. Plant them in the ground here. Please, Akio, please get my people out of this universe before it’s overrun by the tahkti. I love these people, Akio. Many of them are my descendants–your distant relatives. Please save them. Please don’t let the tahkti take them and make slaves of them. I know it’s asking a lot. But you can do this. And if you don’t do it, it simply won’t be done. And all that I spent my life building will be gone. Please don’t let that happen, Akio. We need you. I’m sorry, but you must go on. You must continue the fight. No one else can.”

  Heaving a huge sigh, Akio gazed at the hologram of his brother. He saw an earnest face, a kind face. It was the face of a man who truly cared for his people.

  ‘This is the kind of man my parents wanted me to become,’ he realized. But it made him ache and miss them terribly. There was so much of his father in Akifumi. How could he let his father down? How could he let Akifumi down? ‘I can’t. I just can’t. I’ll do what Akifumi wants and protect his people. It’s the least I can do for him.’

  Nodding, Akio wiped away his tears. “I’ll do it,” he told his brother. “I’ll get your people out of here. But it’ll take time. I’m not sure we have that.”

  Akifumi chuckled. “Well, about that …”

  Part 4

  Departure

  “When someone we care about dies, it hurts to be left behind. When we leave places we love, it hurts too. For example, my friends and I traveled through the pocket universe telling people they had to leave the places–and sometimes the people–that they loved in order to survive. That was terribly painful for them. But that pain is part of life. It’s what makes the good memories we have of the people and places we’ve left behind all the more sweet.” Thoughts on Life, Hugh Benson, p.194.

  39

  The uncomfortable journey to Krolus took only a day. They weren’t fed and they had to sleep on the f
loor of the crate-like train car. And their hands and feet were shackled. But Jeff and Amanda put up with it so that they could find Joonen and Tolool.

  Krolus looked more like a prison than a city. It was surrounded by a high wall. Everyone lived in the same grey, drab apartment buildings that they had seen in Ulvionus. As they were marched from the train station to a truck with a cage on the back, the pair saw that the dirty, sprawling heap that was Krolus was grungy, joyless, and stifling.

  As the truck heaved its way over the broken, pothole-filled roads, Jeff couldn’t help thinking how repulsive the whole place was. Even though it was filled with people, Krolus looked like a ghost town. Everyone everywhere was hunkered down and walking hunched in on themselves, afraid to stand out lest they be thought of as violating someone’s “safe space.” No one looked directly at them as they rode through the narrow streets in the cage. Jeff could see that people glanced toward them out of the corners of their eyes and then quickly turned away.

  ‘They probably think we’re on our way to be killed. I wonder if they feel sorry for us, or if it only makes them more afraid? No one should have to live like this.’

  When they reached their destination, they were ordered out of the truck and into a massive, decaying building with a huge dome on top. The expansive dome was mostly windows. ‘It must be their central government building,’ speculated Jeff.

  He was right. They were directed down a series of claustrophobic corridors and into the vast room under the dome. Joonen and Tolool were there waiting in an attitude of dread.

  “Hi, guys,” greeted Jeff brightly. “You ready to get out of here?”

  Neither of them responded. Instead, they stared fearfully around them.

  The chairs around them on the floor of the room were filled with men and women, most of whom were old and fat. Around the high walls were bleachers and balconies that stretched upward many stories. Their occupants tended to be younger the higher you went up.