Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

by Christie Golden

  But he didn’t have that luxury, and so he placed his hand on the scanner.

  “Pull up the file on the Mül operation.”

  “Request authorized.”

  Documents flashed up on the screen. Okto-Bar skimmed the information as it scrolled by. It was a list of the names of hundreds of warships, their identification numbers and firepower.

  This was the army humanity had fronted in one of the worst wars of its entire checkered history—the War against the Southern Territories. It was largely because of this war, with its years of violence and astronomical numbers of casualties on both sides, that humanity had firmly rededicated itself to pursuing peace if at all possible.

  Peace bought with the bloodiest of prices, Okto-Bar remembered his father saying. He continued to read the list of ships and their captains.

  But one piece of information was conspicuous by its absence. “Who was commanding the operation?” Okto-Bar asked the computer.

  A message flashed up: Information not available.

  The general frowned. He was not fond of mysteries or puzzles. He was particularly not fond of things that seemed to make no sense at all.

  And this didn’t smell good.

  * * *

  They had fallen some forty feet, but had landed safely, if malodorously. Valerian had noticed the Boulan-Bathor servers dumping the uneaten food beside the emperor’s throne, and sure enough, it had been a room-sized trash can. Valerian didn’t want to think about what might be composing—or decomposing—the orchestra of smells that were assaulting their nostrils.

  Above, the guards were shouting in anger and frustration. “They’re too big to get through,” Valerian reassured his companions.

  “They’ll find a way to get to us, and we’re trapped in here!” Laureline retorted.

  “No, we’re not,” Valerian replied. “There’s got to be a way to empty the trash, so that means there has to be a door.”

  They looked at each other, then down at the dead carcasses, rotting fruit, and other unsavory items that were doubtless piled layers thick beneath their feet.

  Abruptly, they were falling again, this time along with all the trash surrounding them and tumbling over their heads. Gasping, they clawed their way desperately to where they could breathe. Valerian looked around triumphantly.

  “I told you there was a door,” Valerian said reasonably.

  Laureline got up awkwardly, plucking a scale the size of her palm from her hair. “You didn’t study the plans before you came rushing in. As usual.”

  As she finished extricating herself, she came face to face with a humanoid skeleton. She blinked, swallowed, checked out its clothing, and began to remove it. Valerian did think it was somewhat less filthy than what she was wearing.

  “You’d rather I got here after the main event?” Valerian asked, indicating the skeleton.

  Laureline sighed. “I’d rather you took me someplace other than a giant trash can!”

  Valerian scowled. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be brainless right now!”

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, Laureline grinned. “That would make two of us.”

  “Oh yeah?” Valerian shot back. He was starting to get really pissed off now. “And who got it into her head to go butterfly hunting near canyons?”

  “And who can’t even drive a Sky Jet?” She glared at him.

  “And who nearly got me killed because she can’t read numbers the right way up?”

  “Who would be one arm lighter if I hadn’t been able to repair a transmitter in under thirty seconds?”

  Valerian was almost purple with outrage. “I just saved your life and that’s the thanks I get?”

  “I saved yours, remember? And I nearly got my brain sucked by a jellyfish to find you!”

  “What is it with you and almost losing your brain?” exclaimed Valerian.

  “Hey… guys?” The soft voice belonged to Bubble.

  The arguing pair turned and, as one, snapped, “What?”

  “I don’t feel so good…”

  Valerian’s anger vanished, to be replaced by concern. Bubble had almost, but not entirely, resumed a female human shape. And instead of the cool blue he remembered her natural color being, she was turning the ugly purple of a bruise. She lifted a featureless face up to him as he slogged through the trash over to where she had propped herself up.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, worried now.

  “I must’ve been injured during the fight.” Her voice was faint, and as she spoke her body began to turn from purple to red. Bubble strained, wincing, and for an instant the features of the cabaret dancer flitted across the blank canvas of her face.

  The fight… Valerian had fought like a madman, certain that the blades wielded by the guards weren’t even touching him because he was just that good. Of course the weapons hadn’t struck him—Bubble had protected him with her own body, taking blows meant for him. He hadn’t even thought about her—he was too busy being headstrong, impulsive Valerian. And now—

  “Bubble!” he murmured. “No, no… I’m so sorry. Tell me what to do!”

  The slit of her mouth turned upward in a lopsided attempt at a smile that broke his heart.

  “There’s not much you can do. It’s all right. Where I come from, death is less painful than life.”

  The words were a knife. “Don’t say that!”

  Bubble gave him a faint smile. “Unfortunately, it’s true. Life’s a drag when you never have an identity to call your own.”

  Taken aback, Valerian suddenly smiled at Bubble. He cradled her in his arms, very tenderly. “But you do have an identity. You’re a hero. And more than that—you’re the greatest artiste I have ever seen.”

  Bubble’s blank eyes filled with scarlet tears. “I thank you. It was a pleasure performing for you. Just… one last role…”

  Her face screwed up with effort. Then, suddenly, her color shimmered, cutting through the red into white cloth, gold jewelry, smooth brown skin, and sleek black hair. Eyes decorated with exaggerated black lines crinkled in a smile.

  Nefertiti.

  “I leave you my kingdom,” she said, her voice sonorous and strong, though her body was failing. “Take good care of it.”

  “I will,” Valerian promised her solemnly.

  Through her pain, Bubble continued to struggle to speak. “Most importantly…”

  “Yes?”

  The Queen of Egypt—or more importantly to Valerian, a big-hearted glamopod—extended an arm in the direction of Laureline, who stood a few steps away, eyes wide and silent. “Take good care of her. Love her without measure.” She smiled gently. “‘There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.’”

  Bubble closed her eyes and sank back into Valerian’s arms. As he held her and watched in grieving, respectful silence, her body began to solidify until it became rock hard—an ancient statue of Nefertiti. Then, in the space of a heartbeat, she crumbled into sand, trickling through Valerian’s arms till nothing was there.

  Valerian stared at the pile of sand, feeling lost and alone. Something brushed his shoulder, and he looked up to see Laureline gazing down at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

  Valerian’s own eyes filled as well as he reached up and took her hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  General Okto-Bar stood at the console. His eyes were on the ships gathering in preparation for… what? War? Evacuation of the station? The more facts that came to light, the murkier everything seemed to become.

  Sergeant Neza stepped beside his commanding officer. “All the battleships have docked, General,” Neza informed him.

  Okto-Bar glanced at the map. He saw no signal from his agents. But he did see that the red spot in the center of the station had increased.

  “I want Section One operative now,” Okto-Bar ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” His eyes flitted to the doorway—and the large, featureless, black metal robot that stood there. “What is this K-TRON doing
here?”

  “Commander Filitt’s orders,” Neza answered. “He personally programmed them, and he’s therefore the only one who can deactivate them.”

  What the hell did he program them to do if he was killed? Okto-Bar wondered, but did not say. The general eyed them. They endured the scrutiny with their usual stoic silence. “So, we’re stuck with them until we find their master?”

  “No, sir, not at all. Once you choose the section to execute the operation, the K-TRON will follow and assist them.”

  “Great,” grumbled the general. “That’s all we need.”

  * * *

  Valerian and Laureline walked along a trail that became ever narrower and rockier, as if they were headed into the center of a planet. They moved steadily and briskly, but there was a somberness that dogged their steps. So much had happened in so short a time, and they were still no closer to finding out what had happened with Commander Filitt, or the identities of the mysterious aliens who had kidnapped him—including the one who Valerian knew he had seen before. They hadn’t spoken much since… since Bubble.

  At one point, they passed the wreck of a spaceship, and Laureline asked, “You know where you’re going?”

  “Sure. I mean, I guess…” Valerian replied. He frowned a little.

  “You’re sure, or you guess?” prodded Laureline.

  He gave an exasperated little grunt and looked at her. “Don’t ask how, but the princess, the one in my dream… she’s guiding me.”

  “The princess is guiding you?”

  Valerian made a face. “Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but… it’s like she’s been with me the whole time.”

  Laureline came to a halt. “Wait just a minute,” she said. “You mean… you have a woman inside you? Since the beginning of this mission?”

  Valerian sighed. The whole thing made him both uncomfortable and confident in ways he couldn’t even begin to articulate. “Laureline, can we keep going and talk about this later?”

  “Sure,” she said, and then smothered an impish smile as she extended an arm, indicating that he should precede her. “Ladies first?”

  “Hilarious,” Valerian said flatly.

  But he stepped forward.

  * * *

  Captain Kris was the leader of Section One. Forty years old, his scarred face was mute testimony to the fact that he had seen his share of battle. He was honored that his unit had been tapped to lead the mission to infiltrate the center of the station and recover the abducted Arun Filitt. The ship docked with the station, sealed, and then the steel door opened. On their captain’s orders, dozens of heavily armed soldiers sprinted inside the station. Kris brought up the rear and moved to one side.

  “Captain Kris, Section One operational, General Okto-Bar,” he reported.

  “Good,” came Okto-Bar’s voice. “You may proceed. Be advised that a unit of K-TRONs will join you.”

  Kris’s lips thinned. He had no fondness for the silent, hulking robots. He had fought enough battles to know that while robots and androids had their uses, in the thick of battle, you wanted a sentient, thinking, feeling being beside you. He admired Okto-Bar’s reputation, but wondered if the general had been away from active fighting too long to understand that sending in a unit of K-TRONs was an insult to an elite team like Section One. “That won’t be necessary, sir. My people can handle this.”

  “It’s an order, Captain.”

  “Copy that.”

  Even as he spoke, the promised unit of robots clattered up. They halted as one, weapons in hand, perfectly still, awaiting his orders. Kris swallowed his annoyance.

  “Elite unit, with me.”

  They followed his team obediently as he led them into the heart of the station.

  * * *

  Guided by a mysterious, literal “dream girl,” feeling the little tugs inside that said this way and over here, Valerian guided Laureline deeper into the heart of Alpha Station. The desolate landscape, looking as if it had been abandoned for years, did nothing to improve his mood.

  He wondered if he should keep his conclusions to himself, but decided not to. Laureline was his partner. She deserved to know.

  “We’ve been manipulated from the start.” Valerian’s face was grim.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Right now, we’re in the middle of the so-called dead zone. And we can breathe normally.”

  Little rodents scurried past, pausing to look up at them curiously before scampering about on ratty business.

  “We’re that far in?”

  He nodded somberly.

  “You’re right… and there’s absolutely no trace of contamination,” said Laureline, looking around.

  “This whole mission is a set up,” Valerian said, angrily. “We’ve been played, Laureline. Out and out lied to. Everyone has, including General Okto-Bar. The commander was fully aware of what was behind this so-called ‘absolute evil’.”

  “What?” Laureline stared at him aghast. He was moving quickly now, following the prods in the back of his mind, and she was struggling to keep up.

  Turn here, the inner guidance said.

  Valerian obeyed—and the two agents found themselves at the foot of a huge wall. In contrast with the derelict nature of the rest of the surroundings, this barrier looked new and imposing, comprised of large plates of some kind of matter completely unfamiliar to Valerian. As he and Laureline stared at the wall, the plates moved, shifting and overlapping.

  Then things grew even stranger when, without warning, a figure—tall, willowy, pale, and quite beautiful—stepped through the wall, to stand gracefully in front of them. Moments later, four others joined him, all beautiful, all luminous and apparently benevolent.

  “Pearls!” gasped Valerian.

  “Okay,” Laureline said, in an admiring whisper, “that’s not at all how I pictured absolute evil.”

  “My name is Tsûuri,” said the first one who had stepped through. He was looking at Valerian with a strange expression—half-longing, half-eager. “I am the emperor’s son.”

  “Great,” said Valerian. Two emperors in one day. Emotions were churning inside him, and he knew that some of them weren’t his emotions at all. He was struggling to stay in control of the wave. “How about you introduce us to Daddy?”

  “He is expecting you,” said Tsûuri. “Follow me.”

  He turned and vanished through the wall. Valerian hesitated, stepped closer, and reached out.

  His hand went through the wall.

  He squared his shoulders. “Try to contact the general and get everybody down here,” he said to Laureline. “Meanwhile, I’ll try to buy us some time.”

  “Uh-uh,” Laureline said, tossing her head. “How about you run backup for a change?” And without another word she strode resolutely through the wall.

  Valerian sighed. “Unbelievable,” he muttered, and followed his partner.

  He emerged to find Laureline and Tsûuri waiting for him. Inside, everything was completely different from the austere outside landscape and the moving wall. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but wasn’t sure he could even find the words. The closest comparison Valerian could draw was that he stood inside an enormous zeppelin, but its curving, ribbed walls were made not of cold metal, but of organic matter. Large, woven baskets of some sort adorned the walls, looking like they had been crafted from twigs or grass. He wondered if they served the Pearls for sleeping containers, and thought of the beautiful shell houses of his dream.

  There were several Pearls present, and it was clear the ship was modeled to be what its people were—simple, in touch with what came from nature, and at the same time highly advanced. Tsûuri led them through this ship that had become a village. All turned their pale, kind faces toward the pair and inclined their heads in welcome. Some bore weapons, deceptively primitive in design, that were surely much more than they seemed to be, but no one made a threatening movement toward the two humans.

  Still others clung to the walls, strong and
lithe, reweaving, mending, caretaking with a calm and pure focus. Tsûuri led the way to what seemed to be the center of this “village.” Valerian noticed a few small vessels, like the ones he had chased. Nearby, what appeared to be extremely sophisticated machines were hooked up together to create another, even bigger one.

  In the center of the village was something that both he and Laureline recognized from their history lessons.

  It was the Destiny module, once a primary research lab that had been part of the International Space Station in the Earth year 2001. In many ways, it was the true and perfect center, and origin, of Alpha Space Station.

  The Pearl emperor sat in the capsule’s tailpipe as if it were a throne, but he was the most casual, accessible royalty Valerian could imagine. Even more handsome than his radiant son, he smiled gently in welcome. Beside him was a stunningly beautiful female Pearl. They clasped one another’s hand, tenderly, familiarly, and Valerian knew instantly that whatever age these beings were, they had been in love a long, long time.

  Then his eye fell to a straw mattress on the ship’s floor.

  Commander Arun Filitt was sprawled, unmoving, at the emperor’s feet. From this distance, Valerian couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead.

  “I present to you my father, the emperor,” Tsûuri said solemnly.

  “My name is Haban-Limaï, and this is my wife, Aloi,” the emperor said. His voice was as beautiful as he was, as everything here was, and Valerian shivered at the sound.

  The empress’s face lit up with joy. “Melo hiné! We are so pleased to welcome you here.”

  Valerian’s gaze darted again to Tsûuri. The movement did not escape the emperor’s notice. “You ran into my son this morning, I understand,” Haban-Limaï observed.

  “Briefly, between bullets,” Valerian responded.

  Haban-Limaï looked at Tsûuri with great affection. Then he said, “My son sensed the presence of his sister, Princess Lïho-Minaa.”

  He turned his mesmerizing, deep blue eyes upon Valerian. His cheeks suffused with a soft, luminous pink hue. “It seems she chose you.”