Some were in the water up to their waists, gathering up filigree-fine nets laden with pearls of all sizes. They brought them to the shore, moving gracefully, their bodies pearls themselves. Children and adults clustered around the nets, eager to help remove the precious orbs and place them in large seashell-baskets that were then hoisted onto the backs of adults for carrying.
Further inland were small craters in the earth, about the size made when one extended one’s arms and made a circle, fingers touching. Smiling, their faces bathed with the milky glow, those who bore the pearl-filled shells emptied them into the waiting earth.
The very ancientness of the routine was comforting. Lïho-Minaa turned her face up toward the rising sun and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she beheld a bright streak across the dawn-dappled sky—a shooting star.
It was not alone. Another joined it… and then another…
Fear closed around the princess’s heart as the first chunk of something unknown—but definitely not star matter—slammed into the water. It smashed a shell house into jagged pieces. Others came too swiftly to count, sending spouts of water in the air as they struck the ocean making angry craters, wounds on the world.
Cries of terror erupted and people began to flee. But where could they run? The princess stared up at the sky, which had once contained nothing but stars and moons and sunlight, as chunks of metal ranging from the size of a fist to the size of a house rained down mercilessly upon the frightened populace.
She turned, helplessly, to gaze at another part of the sky—and then she saw it.
The scope of it was gargantuan, inconceivable, and she understood at once that it was not simply a vessel, but death.
Lïho-Minaa dwelt near the ocean, soothed by, and loving in return, its lulls and song and smell. Her family, wishing to be in the heart of the population they ruled with a gentle hand, lived in the village.
And the still-burning ship would crash directly into it.
All around her was the awful, never-before-heard cacophony of screaming.
But the princess did not scream.
She ran.
* * *
The village was a layered collection of shells, their graceful, sloping forms clustered companionably together around spiral steps and open plaza areas. The royal palace, home to Emperor Haban-Limaï and his family, was a collection of shells adorned with exquisite carvings and metalwork. It sat in a place of honor, at the highest point of the village, overlooking the shore and the ocean. In front of it was the largest plaza in the village. Once, it had been the sight of performances, both oratory and musical; it had showcased dancing and art, and had been a place for pleasant gatherings.
Now, it was crowded with frightened people, their eyes gazing skyward, round and terror-filled, as pieces of something that had once been huge and was now broken and alien and dangerous slammed down everywhere they looked.
The emperor was a calm individual, who had led his people wisely and with care. All eyes turned to him, hoping against hope that he would somehow be able to stop whatever was happening.
He turned to one of his guards as he emerged from his dwelling. The guard’s forehead and eyes were black with fear. “What’s happening?” he said in the musical tongue spoken by his people.
“There! Look!” The guard pointed beyond the elegant curves of the village at a huge plume of black smoke rising into the sky. Not everyone lived in the heart of the village. Many still lived close by.
Many lived where the ugly black tower of smoke was.
But that was not all that concerned him. He had lived a very long time, and he knew what a meteor impact was like. This was no such thing. This was much worse.
His own people would not be the only ones injured or dying.
“By all the stars!” cried the emperor. “Sound the alarm! We must contribute to the rescue effort!”
They ran, a sea of pale, pearlescent skin, foreheads dark with their distress and black, wide, worried eyes, toward the smoldering wreckage. The closer they drew, the less hope the emperor had of finding survivors.
It was massive, twisted, broken, burned black metal lying atop the pretty shards of smashed shells. There had been no war, no violence, on Mül for so long that it was the stuff of legends and folklore. The emperor had hoped that the ship had fallen from the sky because of some mechanical error, but he realized that it was a grim casualty of war, taking with it much more than the lives it had borne within its metal walls.
Closer they came, but saw no one staggering out, coughing or limping, wounded but alive. Only a single hatch was open, where a few of the ill-fated vessel’s crew members had tried with bitter futility to escape the inferno.
Nonetheless, an effort had to be made. Surely not everyone aboard such a mammoth vessel was dead…
“Search for survivors and begin salvage operations,” the emperor ordered. He took the first courageous steps himself, entering the doomed ship. He had no idea what he would find, only knew he had to see. Had to help.
The worried suspicion turned to cold certainty. Inside, they found only charred bodies that had once been living, laughing beings, who had never stood a chance. It was no longer a rescue mission, but those who had died so badly deserved more than to have their bodies forsaken.
He stepped outside, but as he began to tell the sad news, a shadow fell over them, as if something unspeakably huge was attempting to swallow the sun. Haban-Limaï looked up. His grief for the unknown aliens who had fallen to the violence of war was replaced by sick horror.
A ship about seven miles in length was falling out of the sky.
The emperor thought of the beautiful, but ultimately fragile, homes the debris from this ship had already crushed to sharp pieces. Without a doubt, their shell domiciles would never survive what was about to happen.
But perhaps this ill-fated vessel might have one final gift to offer those who had come to help its crew.
“Everybody inside!” he shouted. “Take cover! Hurry!”
There was not much time left before the end. The emperor kept one eye on the encroaching disaster and the other on his people as they rushed, carrying children, as fast as they could toward the only possible safety. Fear stabbed him when some of his guards ran up with his own family.
One of them held a terrified five-year-old Tsûuri in his arms.
Another bore the ominously still form of his wife, Aloi. Her beautiful flowing robes were torn and spattered with blood. Relief flooded him when she moaned slightly and her head rolled in his direction. She was injured—but alive.
“Get them inside! Hurry!”
The two guards hastened to obey. Fear still gripped the emperor’s heart as he seized the arm of another guard and he asked, hoping against hope, “My daughter?”
The guard’s eyes filled with sorrow as he shook his head. “I have not seen her,” he said.
The emperor thought of the chunks of debris that had fallen like pieces of stars, and his heart cracked. But he could not afford the luxury of grief, not now, when he needed to stay calm and care for as many of his people as he still could.
In the distance, the ship finally fell. The earth shivered violently, as if it was a living thing in tremendous pain. Sounds that attacked the ears with the force of a sharp spike accompanied the ghastly spectacle as the ship plowed its way through the soil even as it cracked and exploded into a roiling fireball.
His eyes glued on the ship in its death throes, the emperor waited until the last possible minute, until the final few stragglers flung themselves inside sobbing and shaking, and then he, too, darted into the safety of the first ship and pulled the massive door shut with all his strength. His muscles strained as he gripped onto the strange latch, turning it until he felt it grind forward and lock into place. He leaned against it for a moment, panting.
His eyes fell on the survivors. Shivering, in shock, they stared blankly at him as they huddled on the metal floor. His wife was being tended, and his son lo
oked up at him, tears streaming down his small, perfect face. The emperor scooped up the boy and held him tight, pressing his face into the soft flesh of the child’s neck. Tsûuri clung tightly to his father, as if he would never let go.
There was a pounding on the hatch. The emperor went cold. He did not want to see who it was. He did not want to look into the frightened eyes of one of his beloved people who was a bitterly tragic few moments too late. Nonetheless, these were his people. He owed them what comfort he could, in this, their last moments.
He went to the porthole.
He had thought he could bear no more pain.
He had been wrong.
The frightened face of his sweet, beloved daughter stared back at him, her glorious blue eyes huge. Her face had been dark with fear, but now it receded as she gazed at her father, a soft pink suffusing her cheeks.
Was there time, even now? It would be but the work of a few seconds—
But her death, the death of the world, was approaching with vicious speed. A gargantuan fireball was on his daughter’s heels, a cruel yellow-orange wave of incineration. If he opened the hatch now—if he let her in, saved her life—he would put everyone else inside at risk if he could not get the door closed in time. The fireball would scamper greedily through the faintest crack, and then everyone on board would join the burned, motionless shapes of the vessel’s original crew.
She saw it in his eyes, and hers flew open wider. She struck the portal window with her small fists. All he could do was look with profound grief at her, his first-born, the embodiment of all the goodness he saw daily in the world.
After a few seconds, the pounding slowed, stopped. Tears poured down her face, but there was no longer terror in her expression. Only understanding, and sorrow.
Oh, my little girl…
Shaking, she pressed her forehead to the circular window.
“Lïho!” he cried, brokenly.
“Dadda!”
They wept, father and daughter, a few inches apart, a universe apart. Though a benevolent ruler, Haban-Limaï had a staggering amount of power at his disposal. There was very little he could not do.
But he could not save his precious child.
Unused to utter helplessness, the emperor pressed his hand to the porthole. The princess gulped and lifted her own hand. It was not real contact, a loving connection of flesh to flesh, but it was all he could give her. Even so, the feeble gesture seemed to calm her. She blinked back the crystal tears and swallowed hard, straightening. Haban’s heart, so battered this day, shattered into pieces at the expression of resolve on Lïho’s exquisite face.
The wave was coming, an orange, hungry beast, ready to devour anything in its path. Ready to turn her to blackened bones and charred flesh, or worse.
Lïho gave her father one last smile. Not tremulous, not fragile. It was strong, and peaceful, and certain, and he thought he had never admired anyone more in all his long years.
She turned from him, to face her death. She would make it count.
Lïho-Minaa spread her arms and tilted her head back, opening herself to the fiery embrace. Her father did not want to watch, but he could not avert his gaze. He needed to honor her courage. He needed to bear witness to what would come.
And in the instant before the flames engulfed her slender form, before they rendered her into ash and memory, a powerful blue wave emanated from Lïho-Minaa’s body.
The wave raced at staggering speed, whirling up from the beleaguered planet Mül, sweeping up into the stars, soaring across the immensity of space, luminous as the girl whose death had birthed it, rushing straight into—
CHAPTER TWO
The young man bolted upright, his heart slamming against his chest, gasping for breath. He blinked, rubbing his eyes with one hand as the welcome realization penetrated his brain: A nightmare. Just a bad dream. Not real.
He forced his breathing to slow as he took in his surroundings—perhaps not as ethereally, magically beautiful as the ocean and seashore of the nightmare, but a good deal less… well… terrifying.
He looked out at the rolling, peaceful waters of a turquoise sea as the waves lapped gently against a pristine white sand beach. The sound was calming, and Valerian took a deep breath and let out the last bit of tension that still lingered in the knot of his muscles and watched the slow sway of green-fronded palm trees.
His mood brightened as he watched the slowly swaying hips of a young, fair-haired woman who was, in his opinion, even more gorgeous than the lovely princess of his dreams.
Like him, this vision was dressed for the beach in a swimsuit. But he was pretty sure his swimming trunks used up more fabric than the young woman’s black bikini—top and bottom—did.
She had studied ballet when she was a child, developing an interest in martial arts as she grew older. As she moved, her grace and the sleek strength promised by her slender but athletic form announced that biographical fact to anyone with eyes. And he definitely had eyes—eyes that were very appreciative at this particular moment.
Her long legs halted their gliding stride in front of him. One hand held a sweating glass of something bright orange and topped with a straw and a tiny, flower-patterned umbrella.
“You okay?” Laureline asked, lips curved in a frown of slight concern. She lifted the glass and pursed her lips around the straw, her high brow furrowed in worry as she stood in front of him as he lay on the lounger.
“Yeah. Just a bad dream.” Valerian grinned, now that he was in her proximity. “I feel better now.”
“Well, good. Maybe now you’ll be up for running through our assignment.” She took a long pull on the straw, regarding him seriously.
It seemed to Valerian that Laureline never let her hair down. Well, not figuratively, at least. But even literally, she presently had it pulled back in an efficient, sleek ponytail. He imagined it unfettered, blowing softly around her perfect face and practically begging for him to tangle his fingers in the soft length.
“That’s the last thing I feel like doing,” he said in reply to her statement.
“We really should prepare,” she insisted.
Valerian pretended to consider the prospect. “Well…’’ he mused, “that’s thirsty work, you know.”
Quick as a thought, Valerian seized her drink in his right hand, grabbed her left hand with his own, and tugged her around and down, flipping Laureline so she lay beside him while he propped himself up on his elbow and grinned down at her. He took a sip of the too-sweet beverage and said, “Ah, that’s better.”
Laureline eyed him as one might eye a toddler whom one found particularly trying. “Not very professional, Major,” she said, her voice heavy with mock disappointment.
“Don’t worry, Sergeant, I scored a perfect two hundred on my memory test.”
“When was that? Ten years ago?”
“Yesterday!” Valerian said, defensively.
“Impressive. But the major still forgot something today.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Valerian replied airily. Then, as doubt flickered in his expression, he asked with careful casualness, “What?”
“My birthday.”
Worst. Thing. Ever.
“Oh, no!” Valerian sagged, mortified and kicking himself from here all the way back to Earth.
Laureline took advantage of his distressed state to link one long, lovely, and deceptively strong leg around his waist, used Valerian’s own weight against him, and to his surprise flipped him as neatly as he had her a few moments ago. Smirking slightly, she relieved him of the cool beverage.
He gazed up at her as she took a sip, not at all unhappy with the moment. Laureline was at once both completely dependable and highly mercurial—a neat trick, one he’d never seen anyone other than her master. They had worked together for two years, and in that time, she had blown all his previous partners out of the water. There was quite literally nothing he didn’t admire or respect about her. Even as he had the thought he amended it; Laureline appeared to be
completely immune to Valerian’s charms, which were considerable, even if he did say so himself.
But for the present moment, all was well in his world. Laureline made no move to change her position, continuing to sip her drink and peruse him with blue eyes bright with humor.
“They say memory blanks are the first sign that you’re getting old,” she said. Her eyes narrowed, focusing in on something. “After gray hairs,” she corrected. With the comment, she reached out to stroke his hair—and plucked one.
“Ouch!” he yelped.
She brandished it toward him like a weapon, with a triumphant, “See?”
His hair was dark brown. The treasonous hair she showed him was most definitely not. He stared at it for a moment, then his gaze slid to Laureline, dark with suspicion.
“You dyed it while I was sleeping!” Valerian said.
Laureline laughed. “Right,” she said, still grinning. “Like I’ve got nothing better to do.”
Gray hairs. He was getting old at twenty-seven. It was not a happy thought. He returned his focus to the gorgeous woman in front of him, her own hair shining in the sun, glorious and most definitely not gray.
He reached up and brushed a small, rebellious strand from her face, lingering on her skin. “I feel horrible that I forgot,” he said. Then, with a slightly lascivious smile, he asked, “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“Beginning descent in three minutes,” came a clipped, polished voice. Next to them, a small black pod started to flash a red light. Valerian closed his eyes in misery. Talk about bad timing, he thought.
“Nothing that you can get done in three minutes,” quipped Laureline, her grin broad as she slipped out of his grasp.
Valerian reached out, both playful and pleading. “C’mon…” he wheedled, under no illusion that she would acquiesce but, apparently, incapable of not trying anyway.
Laureline scolded him, pretending to be serious, though her slight smile betrayed her. “Now, now, don’t start something you can’t finish!”
“Who taught you a dumb saying like that?”
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Page 2
