Filitt looked from Valerian to Laureline, and found no sympathy there.
He did not dare look at the Pearls. He could not permit himself to think of them as anything other than obstacles to humanity.
“Is it?” he pressed. Spittle flew from his mouth. “Leading them into ruin and degradation? Forcing them to go a thousand years backward? The Council saw fit to protect our fellow citizens. First and foremost. Is that not its duty?”
He thumped his chest hard as he said, “And mine? And yours? Isn’t it, agents? Or would you rather we risk wrecking our economy for the sake of a bunch of…” He wheeled on the emperor, looking at him with a mix of loathing and resentment, words failing him.
“Savages?” offered Laureline.
Filitt wheeled on her. “Sergeant! You are totally under the influence of this creature! Don’t confuse the issue. He’s the threat! He’s our enemy!”
The emperor, still impossibly patient, stepped forward toward the commander, placing his forefinger on the man’s chest.
“You are your own worst enemy, Commander,” he said compassionately. “Unless you make peace with your past, you won’t have a future.”
The commander backed away, dazed by the emperor’s words. No. He was wrong. He had to be. The only way for humanity to be safe, for himself to be safe, was if this problem went away now. It could. It almost had. He had almost wiped them from the universe’s memory.
He could still do it. “Major!” Filitt barked. “I order you to arrest this man. Do you hear me?”
“Can we talk man to man for a second?” Valerian asked.
Slightly wild-eyed, Filitt turned to stare at him. “What?”
The punch came so swiftly Commander Arun Filitt didn’t even have time to blink.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The commander crumpled to the floor. Valerian winced and shook his aching hand. He’d put a lot of feeling into that blow.
“Good talk,” he said to the unconscious form. He turned to the emperor. “Look, this was fun, but we need to report back to our people. Here. This is yours.”
He took out the pearl and handed it to the emperor. He stared at the tiny, perfect orb nestled in his palm, then closed his fingers around it and lifted shining, grateful eyes to Valerian.
“We’ll make this right,” Valerian assured him. “You have my word.” He glanced back down at the commander and a smile quirked his lips. “Let me take this guy off your hands.”
As he turned, he noticed Laureline speaking with the empress. The Pearl’s eyes were full of tears, and Laureline was reaching into her belt. Her hands came out holding the converter.
“Hey!” Valerian shouted. “What are you doing?”
Laureline said, as if it were self-explanatory, “You gave them the pearl. They also need the converter.”
“I know, but—” He turned to the emperor and gave him a smile that was more like a grimace. “Will you excuse us a second?”
Valerian marched over to his partner, grabbed her arm, and steered her away. “Listen,” he said, keeping his voice low, “the converter is government property. And most likely it’s the last one in the whole universe.”
“Oh,” Laureline said, her eyes narrowing in anger, “so you buy into the commander’s what’s-mine-is-mine-and-what’s-yours-is-mine philosophy? Is that what you’re saying?” “No,” Valerian shot back, stung, “I ‘buy into’ my oath of allegiance! We have no authority to hand this over to the Pearls.”
“Valerian, the Federation messed up and must make amends.” Laureline was adamant.
“I agree, but that’s not for us to decide. We have to leave it to the courts.”
He knew Laureline well enough to know when she was hanging onto her temper by a thread. Right now, that thread snapped. “They’re eighteen light years away, Valerian! Only we can make this right!”
He pressed his lips together tightly. “Laureline, I’m a soldier. I play by the rules. It’s what makes me who I am.”
There was a long pause. The righteous anger faded from Laureline’s face. Then she said quietly, a trace of sorrow lacing her words, “You see? That’s why I don’t want to marry you. Because you don’t really know what love is.”
“Come on!” exclaimed Valerian, fear making his words sharp. “This situation has nothing to do with love, or even you and me!”
Tears glistened in Laureline’s eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. Love, real love, it’s more powerful than anything else, Valerian. It’s more powerful than rules and laws. More powerful than any army or government.”
She looked over at the empress. “Look at her,” she said, her voice full of admiration. “She had her whole people and one of her children taken from her, and she’s prepared to forgive. That’s love. It’s the trust you place in someone.” Laureline turned back to him. “And I thought I could be that someone. That… that I could be the most important thing in your life, Valerian.”
“You are,” Valerian said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I’d die for you.”
But that was not the right answer. Laureline shook her blonde head, frustrated. “You don’t understand. I’m not asking you to die for me. I’m asking you to trust me.”
They stared at one another. Her face was radiant with intensity, with longing—a yearning for connection. Valerian wanted very badly to be what she needed. To really understand what she needed.
Finally, Valerian said, hesitantly, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“No,” Laureline said bluntly, startling him. “But I know that if a whole race is wiped out because you have no faith in me, I’ll never be able to look at you again.”
And then, Valerian understood. Trust. Of course it would be trust, wouldn’t it? Courage, loyalty, even love— he could give those easily. But he had known betrayal, and trust—real, perfect trust—came harder to him than anything else.
But he trusted Laureline.
Valerian nodded tentatively. “All right,” he said at last. “Give it to them.”
Laureline smiled. Not with her lips, or even her eyes, but her whole face—her whole being—lit up like a sun. And Valerian knew, whatever happened, that he had made the right choice. She wiped at her eyes, then stepped forward and kissed him.
Her lips were warm and soft, and there was something sweet and powerful in that kiss. Valerian felt dizzy and clear-minded all at once. He had trusted Laureline, and now she had offered him a kiss that was stirring, sweet, unguarded, and absolutely real. He melted into it, offering himself up to her in the same way, and when she pulled back and whispered, “Thank you,” it was all right. She was Laureline, and he trusted her.
She held the converter in her arms, and walked over to the empress. With a final, farewell pat, she held the little creature out to Aloi. It chirped and squirmed happily as it ducked its head under the empress’s throat.
“Here,” Laureline said. “We are to blame for the loss of your planet. We would be honored to help you get it back.”
“Melinama!” said the empress, tears in her own eyes as she embraced the converter.
“It means ‘thank you,’” Valerian said.
“Come with us,” the emperor said. “You should see what your compassion will accomplish.”
The two agents followed him as he approached a small crater. Valerian was reminded of a similar one on Mül, where the fishermen emptied their catch. The emperor handed the pearl to his wife. She held it in one hand, the Mül converter in the other. The little animal sniffed at the pearl, then opened its narrow snout and swallowed. Valerian watched as its reptilian top portion changed colors, like a sunset bleeding from one hue into the next. He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from it and was only dimly aware that the rest of the Pearls had come up to them, enclosing them inside a circle of joined hands.
The empress stroked the converter with affection, then held it out over the crater. It shivered and grew larger—and then began to eject perfect, lustrous pearls into the crater.
A strange, haunting, beautiful sound rose around Valerian, and he realized the Pearls were beginning to sing. His heart was racing and his breath was shallow with wonder.
A bright, clean, white light emanated from the crater. Then, like an erupting volcano spewing lightning instead of lava, fingers of white crackled through the air, racing along the curving sides of the zeppelin. A wind picked up out of quite literally nowhere, whipping Valerian and Laureline’s hair. Colors, the radiant hues of an opalescent shell, snaked over and along and around them, and then the grids along the side of the zeppelin were obscured. Sky burst into being over their heads—a sky Valerian recognized, filled with rounded moons and a slight freckling of stars in the darker blue.
Rocks jutted upward as if sketched into existence by the dancing strands of light. Valerian felt the hardness of the flooring give slightly beneath his feet as it was transformed into sand.
He and Laureline were watching the birth of a world.
The crackling of the creative force ceased, and the wind died down to a gentle breeze. Soft, gentle rain pattered down on Valerian’s upturned face and he closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to discover there was nothing left to be seen of the walls of the zeppelin.
Instead, Valerian beheld myriad rainbows, sparkling everywhere after the rain. With a faint rustling sound almost inaudible to his ears, lush vegetation started to grow from the rocks, sending forth questing roots and bursting leaves and flowers. All the pair of astonished spatio-temporal agents could see now were endless panoramas with clear blue sky stretching to the horizon.
Valerian and Laureline stood back to back, each beholding the wonder exploding into being around them. Impulsively Valerian extended his hand, reaching for Laureline’s.
She was already reaching for him. Their hands met and clasped, fingers entwining, the simple touch of human flesh in its own way as beautiful and magical as what was happening around them.
The empress still held the converter. It had returned to its normal size, its ears and tail drooping as if from exhaustion. Valerian couldn’t blame the little fellow. He’d just completed quite a task.
No, he wasn’t done yet. There was a final cough, and a few more pearls fell into the crater.
They heard it before they saw it: a rushing, deep, primal sound. And then, the sea, so beloved by the Pearls, could be glimpsed as a sliver of silver on the horizon, surging forward, its waves high. For an instant, Valerian was terrified the Pearls had inadvertently created a tsunami, but even as the thought formed, the sea was tamed, and by the time it reached the white stretch of sand beneath their feet, it lapped gently.
He smiled a little. These were Pearls. Their whole culture, their whole world, was based upon harmony and tranquility. All that had ever been harsh on Mül had come from outside. They would never birth a world with harm in it.
Laureline squeezed his hand, then turned toward him, grinning. “Didn’t you say you wanted to go to the beach?”
The empress walked toward them, reaching out her long, pale fingers to Valerian. Laureline released his hand, allowing the Aloi to take both of Valerian’s in hers.
She smiled serenely at him. “Our daughter made a good choice. She can rest in peace now.”
The smile Valerian gave her was shaky with emotion, and he felt heat rise in his cheeks. Laureline smiled too, catching him blushing. He took a deep breath and knew the empress was right. As he exhaled, he felt a tingling along his entire body and a gentle but excited trembling in the pit of his stomach. No fear, only peace. And then the blue wave rippled through, around, and from him, momentarily coloring his vision the same exquisite hue as the new world’s sky.
All that was Lïho-Minaa slipped away, like a leaf borne on the last of autumn’s wind. She was gone, and Valerian knew she was, indeed, at peace.
But there was an emptiness he had not known he possessed until a Pearl’s spirit had filled it, and he felt oddly bereft.
“We must leave now,” said the emperor. Valerian nodded, and the empress squeezed his hands one final time, then released them, stepping back to stand beside her husband. “May you and your people live in peace, wherever you may venture in space and time.”
Tsûuri’s voice came, quick and sharp, disrupting the calm atmosphere. “Father, there are hundreds of soldiers surrounding the ship. They’ve placed explosives on our walls!”
“We will be gone in a minute,” his father reassured him.
But Valerian and Laureline were not reassured at all. They knew exactly what Tsûuri’s words meant. “If the troops are in position,” Valerian said quickly, “you don’t have a minute. You have no means of communication with the outside world?”
“We do, but we have been jamming signals,” Tsûuri said. “If we stop that, we are defenseless.”
“If you don’t allow me to communicate with them, you will be defenseless forever!” Valerian said. He looked around desperately, and his gaze fell on the Destiny capsule lying on the soft sand. It was old, but it would do.
“Just one call,” he said.
The emperor searched his eyes, then nodded. To his son, he said, “They have proven worthy of our trust. Disarm the signal.”
* * *
The wall abruptly stopped moving.
Captain Kris glanced at the dozens of mines that had been affixed to the wall a few moments earlier. He had contacted General Okto-Bar and informed him that the explosives would be detonated on the general’s command.
Now he stared at the suddenly still wall, then his gaze flickered around at the hundreds of troops lying in wait behind him.
“Unit in position,” he reported to Okto-Bar. “But the wall has stopped moving. Something’s going on.”
Okto-Bar’s sigh was audible over the radio. “Our countdown is at six minutes and counting. Maintain your position. We’re trying to analyze what’s happening.”
All at once, the K-TRONs snapped to attention, their rifles clattering in their metallic hands as they took aim at a handful of the mysterious aliens who had abruptly materialized in front of them, calmly regarding the robots, the soldiers, and Kris himself.
“K-TRON warriors at attention. Contact with the enemy. It’s the same creatures who kidnapped the commander.”
“Are they showing signs of hostility?” Okto-Bar demanded.
“Not really,” Kris had to admit, adding, “Not so far.”
* * *
Help us. You have what we need.
The dying alien’s words had haunted Okto-Bar since he first heard them uttered. He couldn’t shake them, and now, here the beings were again.
“General?” said Neza, breaking into Okto-Bar’s thoughts. “I can’t believe this but—we’re picking up a radio signal.” He looked over at the general, his eyes wide. “From the 2005 Destiny module.”
“What?” Okto-Bar was incredulous.
“It—sir, it sounds like Major Valerian!” the soldier said.
Okto-Bar couldn’t believe his ears. “Patch him through.”
The seconds seemed to last forever, and then:
“Hello?”
It was, indeed, Valerian’s voice. Okto-Bar let out a short bark of astonishment. “Major?”
“Yes, sir!” The voice was full of relief. “Major Valerian and Sergeant Laureline here! We’re alive and on the inside, on the other side of the wall. Call off the assault immediately!”
“Major,” Okto-Bar said, hating every word, “I’d like to believe it’s you, but I can’t read your DNA code, and you know the procedure. I need proof that this is not a hoax, and that—”
“This is no time for dumbass procedures!”
Neza and Okto-Bar exchanged glances. The voice certainly sounded like Sergeant Laureline. “We’re in here, dammit! With a whole species you already wiped out once! The Pearls from planet Mül. So tell your men to back off before you commit a second genocide!”
Okto-Bar was reeling. He was a calm, thoughtful man, and procedure had always served him well his
entire career. Now, he was unsure as to what to do.
“That’s definitely her temper,” Neza observed.
Okto-Bar had to agree. “But…” he stammered, slightly dazed at the potential upending of so much he had believed to be true, “planet Mül was uninhabited!”
“You know that’s not true!” Valerian shouted. “Commander Filitt was there. He gave the orders. And he organized this whole operation to eliminate the survivors, the living proof of his mistake. Stop the procedure!”
Neza stepped close to his commanding officer. Softly, so that he would not be overheard, he murmured, “Maybe that would explain why the commander was interrogating that creature.”
It all came together in dreadful, heartbreaking sense that even now Okto-Bar wished he could deny.
He stopped the countdown at three minutes, fourteen seconds.
* * *
“Countdown paused.”
Laureline and Valerian both blew out sighs of relief at the general’s words. “Is the commander with you?” he continued.
Laureline and Valerian shared a glance, then, as one, got up, hauled the groggy commander to his feet, and threw him into a seat in the capsule. His head lolled and he resumed snoring.
With perhaps a bit more enjoyment than he ought to have felt, Valerian slapped Filitt’s slack face.
“Come on!” Valerian said, loudly and cheerfully. “Wakey wakey! There’s a call for you.”
“Commander?” came Okto-Bar’s voice. “Do you read me?”
Still no response.
Laureline slapped the commander harder than Valerian had. Now he did lurch awake, muttering, “Ouch!”
“Come on, my friend,” Valerian said. “It’s time to confess.”
Filitt blinked dazedly. He frowned as he looked around, clearly puzzled that he didn’t see the general. Hesitantly, he said in a slightly slurred voice, “Hel… lo?”
“Commander Filitt, this is General Okto-Bar. Do you read me? We can’t get a DNA code on you, but we do have a voice wave match.”
The commander sat up, wincing. His eyes became focused and his voice was clear as he responded. “I read you. What’s going on?”
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Page 20
