“So who created it?” Lucien asked.
“Etherus did,” Oorgurak said around a mouthful of food.
“Do you have any proof of that?” Lucien asked. “Anything you could show us?”
Oorgurak swallowed and regarded them with a frown. “Why would I lie to you?”
“It’s not that you would lie… just that it’s easier to believe something if you can see it for yourself. Where we’re from, a lot of people have doubts about who Etherus is. It would help if we could take them some proof.”
The Faro grunted and scratched a hand through the bristly black line of hair running down the center of his otherwise bald green head. “I don’t have any proof. You’re humans, aren’t you?”
Lucien nodded.
“Do you know where you came from?”
“We used to be Etherians. Etherus created us by mixing Etherian DNA with that of a local species of primates on a planet called Earth.”
“And have you met any Etherians?”
“Besides Etherus? A few.”
“You’ve met Etherus, and still you doubt?” Oorgurak smiled, his sharp teeth stained red with blood from his food. “You are more like Abaddon than you realize.”
Lucien narrowed his eyes at the green-skinned alien. “What do you mean?”
“He claimed that Etherus had no right to call himself God, that the creation we witnessed was part of a natural cycle. He believed that anyone could be God if they could find some way to survive from one cycle to the next.
“But Abaddon fooled us all. He argued for a free universe, one where Etherus would allow us to do whatever we liked, but as soon as Etherus gave us our freedom, Abaddon used his freedom to enslave us all to him.”
“If you witnessed the creation of the universe, you must have been watching for a very long time,” Garek said. “It’s not like it was created in a day.”
“Time is relative. You must know this. We watched the creation from the Holy City, where all of the dimensions are one, and time is meaningless.”
“The Holy City?”
“Etherus’s home,” Oorgurak said.
“I thought Etheria was his home?” Addy asked.
“Etheria is just the galaxy where his chosen people, the Etherians, live. It used to be easy to reach—until we destroyed it with our war. Now it lies on the other side of the gate between this universe and the next.”
Lucien was beginning to suspect Oorgurak of insanity. “I see…”
“You do not believe me,” Oorgurak said. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters anymore. We are on our own out here. Etherus will not interfere. We wanted to be free, and our freedom led us into slavery.” Oorgurak barked out a gruff laugh. “Living with the consequences of that is our eternal punishment. I believe this is why Etherus allowed us to have this universe to ourselves.”
“But what about all the innocent species who didn’t take part in your war?” Addy asked.
“What of them?”
“Doesn’t Etherus care that Abaddon is enslaving them, too?”
“Abaddon created them, so he is allowed to do with them as he pleases.”
“How did he create them?” Garek asked.
“He and his Elementals stole the Forge that Etherus built to seed this universe with life, and they used it for themselves.”
“The Forge?” Addy asked. “Is that some kind of… factory?”
“It is far more than that. It is impossibly vast, a monolithic place like no other. It is the tree of life. The origin of all consciousness.”
“But life evolved naturally,” Lucien said. “We have the fossils to prove it.”
“Yes, it evolved,” Oorgurak said, “but life was never meant to take its own course. Abaddon gave the Forge instructions to create a more chaotic form of life—life that could create itself. Then all he had to do was sit back and wait.”
Lucien shook his head. “He had to have waited a long time. Evolution isn’t exactly fast.”
“Time runs differently in the Forge, just as it does in the Holy City.”
“So Abaddon can travel through time?” Addy asked.
“In one direction, yes,” Oorgurak replied. “Time is like a river. You can block or restrict its flow, but you cannot reverse its course.”
“Where is this Forge now?” Lucien asked.
“Only Abaddon knows,” Oorgurak said. “And with good reason. It is the source of his power. From the Forge you can travel anywhere in a fraction of the time that it should take. You can communicate just as easily, and you can even travel to the future by altering the flow of time.
“Some say that Abaddon has sent a copy of himself to every possible location in the present and the future, but that is an exaggeration. What they mean is that he is spreading himself rapidly to all corners of the universe, and that he has been doing this for a long time, so he is almost everywhere by now. Thanks to the Forge, he is able to keep in contact with all of his copies, so what one of them knows, the others will soon learn.”
“That’s what he meant when he said he can’t be killed,” Lucien realized. “He’s copied himself so many times that killing just one copy is meaningless.”
“Yes,” Oorgurak said.
“Who are the Elementals?” Garek asked.
“I was one of them. The only Faro of my color to ever be given that honor.” Oorgurak smirked. “An honor. There is no honor in what they do.”
“And what is that?” Lucien prompted.
“Giving life to abominations, enhancing themselves until they are not even Faros anymore. They turn themselves into gods, and they do as they please. To them, the entire universe exists only for their pleasure and entertainment.”
“That’s how you were able to step outside the shields without a pressure suit,” Lucien realized, thinking back to the frozen world they’d been on less than an hour ago. “And how you healed so fast after Abaddon beat you with his whip.”
“Yes,” Oorgurak said. He scooped another spoonful of raw meat from his plate and nodded to their food. “You are not hungry?”
Brak had already finished his food, but none of the others had done more than sniff it suspiciously.
Lucien’s stomach growled at the mention of food, and he glanced at his plate. The pasta he’d chosen had smelled appetizing enough, so he decided to risk it. He used his tongs and spoon to grab a modest pile of pasta and drop it into his mouth. Addy and Garek watched him, waiting to see his reaction.
The pasta was spicy, and chewier than he’d expected, but tasty enough.
“Not bad,” he managed.
“You are brave to eat Dukartan brain worms,” Oorgurak said. “Few would risk the chance that one of the worms might still be alive and wriggle its way to a new home.”
“Dukaratan…” Lucien snatched a serviette from his tray and spat the pasta into it. He stared at his plate in horror.
Oorgurak laughed. “I jest—” Relief washed through Lucien. “—only one in a million worms survives the cooking process.”
Lucien set his tongs down, feeling suddenly queasy. Garek and Addy stared at their own food with wrinkled noses.
“You said your people used to be slaves,” Lucien said.
Oorgurak nodded.
“How did you free them?”
“Some escape on their own. Others we liberated by force.”
“Then you have a military of some kind, a war fleet?” Lucien asked hopefully.
“We have many warships, yes. Why do you ask?”
“Our people were attacked by the Farosien Empire,” Lucien explained. “We came with a fleet of our own, and one giant ship to serve as our home. There were more than three hundred million of us on board that ship, and we believe that they may have been captured.”
“May have been?” Oorgurak asked. “Did you not see them taken by the Farosiens?”
“No, we ran before they were defeated.”
Oorgurak bared his teeth at them in an ugly sneer. “You abandoned your peopl
e in the middle of a fight?”
“We had no choice. It was that or be captured ourselves, and then we would have no way to help them.”
“How do you plan to help them now?” Oorgurak challenged, his glowing yellow eyes intense. “You are only four. You cannot possibly hope to free millions of slaves.”
Lucien nodded. “I was hoping you and the other Marauders might be willing to help us.”
Oorgurak glanced around the table at each of them in turn. “What have you to offer in exchange?”
Lucien considered that. He wasn’t authorized to offer anything at all, but Oorgurak didn’t know that. He decided to offer the most tempting thing he could think of. “I offer an alliance with the Etherian Empire,” Lucien said. “We have thousands of warships to bring to your fight against the Farosiens.”
“You have no authority to offer us this. You are lying.”
“I am telling the truth,” Lucien insisted.
Oorgurak abruptly stood from the table and leaned over it to grab the collar of Lucien’s exosuit. He yanked Lucien’s face up to his, blinding him with his glowing eyes.
Brak hissed in warning, but the Faro thrust out his palm, and the Gor went flying across the mess hall, knocking over several tables and scattering the people dining there with a crash of falling trays and plates. Brak leapt up and ran at Oorgurak with an angry snarl.
A deadly ball of plasma appeared hovering in the Faro’s hand.
“Stand down, Brak!” Lucien yelled.
The Gor reluctantly stopped his charge, and the ball of plasma vanished.
Brak settled for pacing back and forth, his slitted yellow eyes watching Oorgurak, waiting for an opening to attack.
“You think I cannot read the tone of your thoughts with the mind-reader?” Oorgurak’s breath smelled like rancid meat as it piled hotly on Lucien’s face. The Faro tapped the illuminated band he wore around the back of his head. “Make a real offer! The truth!”
“I…” There was nothing Lucien could say.
Oorgurak nodded slowly and released him with a shove. “That is what I thought.” He sat back down and dug into his food once more.
“I saved your life,” Lucien said.
“And I saved all of yours when I led you here,” Oorgurak countered, spluttering blood from a mouthful of his food.
“We need your help,” Lucien insisted.
Oorgurak wiped his mouth on a clean white serviette, staining it red. “You are asking us to die for strangers. You are in the wrong universe for that.”
Lucien frowned, wondering what Oorgurak meant by that. “Do you speak for your people?” he asked, hoping the answer would be no.
“Do you speak for yours?” Oorgurak countered.
“I asked first,” Lucien said.
“I speak for my crew. You will have to speak to the other Marauder captains if you want to hear their answers, but I can already tell you what those answers will be. You have nothing to offer, so we have no reason to fight for you.”
Lucien’s heart sank with that admission. The Marauders obviously weren’t a cohesive resistance—they were a loosely affiliated group of independent starship captains, each of them out for themselves.
“This is ridiculous,” Addy said. “We all have the same enemy, and you won’t help us fight them?”
“We can barely help ourselves. Even if you had something to offer, what you are asking is impossible. At best, we could help you free a few of your people, but not all of them.”
Oorgurak finished scooping food off his plate, and stood from the table, his tray in hand. He swallowed a giant mouthful and inclined his head to Lucien. “You are welcome to stay here and join the Marauders. I have seen you fight. Any captain would be happy to have you join his crew.” With that, the Faro turned to leave.
“Wait!” Lucien said.
But the alien didn’t turn around.
Brak saw his chance, and he rushed quietly up behind Oorgurak. Just before Brak reached him, the Faro thrust out his palm, and Brak went flying once more, knocking over another table and its occupants.
This time one of them took issue with Brak—an orange biped with a scaly lizard skin—but Brak put the lizard-man down with one blow to its head. He came limping back to the table and sat down once more.
“What are we going to do now?” Addy asked.
“We’re going to get our people back,” Lucien said.
“How?” Garek asked. “The Marauders won’t help us, and Etherus warned us before we left that we’d be on our own out here.”
“We might be able to get him to change his mind. Even if we can’t, New Earth has more than enough resources to send a rescue mission out here. The people who left have to have families and loved ones back home who’d be willing to help us put together a mission.”
“Most of them took their families with them,” Garek said.
“Even if they do send help, it won’t be enough to defeat the Farosiens,” Addy said.
Lucien didn’t reply to that. From what they’d seen, the Farosien Empire spanned the entire universe. It had to be millions of times the size of the Etherian Empire, and their technology was clearly superior as well. If it came to war, there was no doubt that the Faros would win.
“It doesn’t matter,” Garek said. “We’re so far from New Earth that it would take us decades to get home—and we don’t even have a ship to take us.”
“Then we need to find one,” Lucien said.
“Twenty years to get home, and twenty years to get back,” Garek went on, shaking his head. “By the time we return to save everyone, they’ll be scattered all over the universe and impossible to find. As far as we know, that’s already happening. If we’re going to do something, we need to do it fast. I say we steal a ship and fly back to Astralis. If we’re lucky, our people are still there, maybe even still fighting.”
“That’s insane,” Addy said. “We’ll be captured and enslaved with them.”
“You have a better idea?” Garek demanded. The scars on his face pulled taut as he sneered at them. No one said anything. “I didn’t think so,” Garek replied. “You can all wallow in your cowardice, but I’m going to save my daughter, and then I’m going home.”
Garek pushed out from the table and bent to pick up his helmet where he’d left it on the deck beside his chair.
“What about Jalisa?” Lucien asked.
Garek tucked his helmet under his arm and looked up. “She surrendered, so at least we know she’s alive. If I have a chance, I’ll find her copy on Astralis and rescue her, too. If not… she will be remembered.” Garek turned and walked away.
“Does he even know where he’s going?” Addy asked.
“No, but we need to stop him before he gets himself killed. These Marauders aren’t going to take kindly to him trying to steal one of their ships.”
“And then what?” Addy asked. “What are we going to do, Lucien?”
He saw the panic shining in her eyes. He wasn’t far from panicking himself. This wasn’t an adventure anymore. The mission had failed, and they were alone—the last free members of the human race beyond the red line, and one Gor. Lucien thought about Tyra, Troo, Tinker, and Jalisa—even Kip and Pandora—and he realized that they were probably never going to see any of them again.
He was also never going to see his parents or his sister again—not even his Etherian half-brother. He was stranded out here, and he was going to die out here.
Did the Marauders even know how to transfer consciousness to cloned bodies? If they did, Lucien was sure that resurrection wouldn’t be a given right as it was on New Earth. It would be expensive, and as Oorgurak had pointed out, they had nothing to offer.
Signing on with one of the Marauder captains would be dangerous, but it was likely also the only way for them to get money and resources.
What are we going to do?
Lucien didn’t have an answer for Addy. He didn’t even have one for himself. Light-bringer, he thought, with a self-depre
cating smirk. No one could bring light to so much darkness. It was all around them, pressing in and weighing them down.
It would be easy to give up, to write their people off as lost, but Lucien wasn’t ready to do that. He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. He took Addy’s hand in both of his and squeezed.
“We’re Paragons. We’re going to do whatever it takes to save our people, and we’re not going to give up until we’re dead.”
Addy shook her head. “That’s not a plan.”
“Then how’s this—you heard what Oorgurak said, he only speaks for his crew. The other Marauder captains speak for theirs. If we can find a way to unite them against the Farosiens, we’ll have the army we need.”
“Unite them how?”
“We’re not the only ones trying to set our people free,” Lucien replied. “Everyone here has probably lost someone they care about. We can use that. And then there’s the wild card of potential extra-dimensional allies. Those polypus creatures that saved us from our timer implants might be willing to help us again.”
Addy’s eyebrows shot up. “Have you seen them again?”
“No, but if we can find them, we may be able to enlist their help. If they really are higher-dimensional beings as Tyra suggested, then they might be a lot more powerful than Abaddon.”
“So where do we look?”
“I don’t know, but before we do anything, we need to get Garek back on our side.”
“And what if he’s right?” Addy asked. “What if this is his only chance to rescue his daughter?”
“Getting himself killed for stealing a Marauder ship isn’t going to help her.”
Addy nodded, and turned to Brak. “What do you think?”
“To fight a war, you need warriors,” he said. “We unite the captains and go to war with Abaddon. This is our path.”
Lucien made a fist and held it out. Addy made one, too, and touched her knuckles to his. Brak added his fist. “To war, and death to Abaddon,” Lucien said.
“To war, and death to Abaddon!” Addy and Brak shouted, drawing glances from the Marauders dining in the mess hall. They were all wearing the U-shaped mind-reader bands, so they must have understood that battle cry.
Good, Lucien thought. Every fire starts with a spark. Maybe this is ours.
Dark Space Universe by Jasper T. Scott Page 24
