Star Gods: Book Four of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

  “She loves me?” Kiel echoed, as though he couldn’t believe what he heard.

  “For as long as I’ve known her.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “That’s half of your problem, Kiel. The other half is admitting how you feel. Stop following her around all over this ship and talk to her.”

  “How could I possibly change the way things have always been between us?” Kiel was incredulous. “What would I say?”

  “What do you want to say, when you imagine talking to her? What is it that you keep to yourself? Tell her that. It would be a start.”

  “Gerryls, you’re right.”

  “I am?”

  “I do. I do love her, and I mean that. Even though we’re all closer than any people have a right to be.”

  Alessia staggered back from the door and hurried away down the corridor and through a security wall at the end; it closed again behind her without a sound, cutting off the rest of Kiel's words.

  Kiel loved her, after all of these years!

  It was some time before she returned to her senses. By then, she had reached the specimen museum.

  As she looked at one of the creatures of Kiel3, she suddenly thought to wonder what the two scientists had been talking about before she heard Kiel’s confession.

  Hinev’s solutions? What were they doing with Hinev’s solutions? She didn’t think there were very many left. Most of the serum-integrated mixtures that allowed the explorers to temporarily alter their pigmentation to blend into a planetary population of humanoids were gone, but for a few. What would experimenting with them accomplish?

  Were they nearing a planet, so soon?

  Kiel–Kiel loved her?! she thought, forgetting anything else, forgetting to be afraid.

  * * * * *

  “This is by far the best piece of tiragh that I’ve ever tasted,” Celekar said, sitting in one of the mess halls of the maze of crews’ quarters. “My compliments to the chef.”

  “I’m sure that the food facilitation unit appreciates your enthusiasm,” Ioka said with a laugh.

  “Oh no, Onracey’s heading for the cake,” Kellar laughed, pointing. “Honestly, how do you keep your figure, Onracey?” he asked with a flash of mirth, as Onracey returned to their table with a peaked mountain of white that nearly subdued his plate.

  “Ok, ok.”

  “That’s my brother for you. When we were children he used to eat my sweet rations.” Filaria sighed.

  “My family used to spend the Summer Solstice Day in the mountains near Kerrai,” Derstan said suddenly.

  Loud, garish laughter sounded from one of the nearby tables, where a group of mixed Seynorynaelian and half-race Seynorynaelians were carousing, singing, and drinking spirit rations in celebration of the ancient holiday. It was a different group each night, with more than fifty thousand Seynorynaelians on board and hundreds of mess halls, each of which could seat nearly a thousand; the explorer crew now often dined among the Seynorynaelian survivors, at first to make their transition easier, then because they enjoyed the company of the people who had joined them.

  However, twelve years had passed, and many of the Seynorynaelians kept to their own ways and their own lifestyles, which the explorers themselves couldn’t adjust to, and a new generation had grown on board the ship, a new generation that held the attitude that Silerista belonged to them.

  Many were friendly and grateful to the explorers, in particular the elder generation, but some of the younger refugees didn’t even recognize their benefactors; there were thousands of garbs and uniforms floating around the ship, and only thirty-one of Hinev’s explorers.

  “Where did Alessia go?” Kellar suddenly asked, looking about the room. She heard them from the other side of the mess hall, where she was now waiting for some sign of Kiel. Figuring he and Gerryls were still working on their secret project, she turned aside to return to the others.

  “Hello, fellows, will you look at this?” One of the Seynorynaelian youths, a young man with a body like a strong steel wire, said to his group of friends, his eye straying to her. He stood and made himself an obstacle in her path. “Look at the pretty bird I’ve caught.” He laughed, pleased when she was forced to stop in front of him.

  “Ask her to dine with us, Weiorgn,” one of the others shouted to him.

  Alessia stared at the youth, reading from his eyes that he thought she was near to his own age.

  “Well, my beauty, would you care for a drink?” Weiorgn said, bowing to the table. She cast it a skeptical eye.

  “I think that you’ve had enough there already.” She said, thinking about how very little actually changed in humans, given superficial changes of time and place.

  “She’s going to sit with me!” Weiorgn laughed, drawing close to her, clucking her under the chin. “Come on,” he said, taking her arm.

  She pulled it away, accidentally drawing a line of blood on Weiorgn’s bare, muscled arm with her fingernail.

  “So, beware of this one, she might scratch you!” he cried, sporting with her, while the others hooted and laughed in encouragement. “Come, have a drink, my lovely. It will cure you of your temper.” He said, taking her by the arm, his other hand falling on the small of her back to lead her.

  “You would do well to stop there.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you won’t like it, sir, if you force me to defend myself.”

  “I think, rather, that I would.” He said, the hand on his arm moving to stroke her hair.

  “Watch where you’re putting your hands,” a dark voice threatened. Alessia’s eyes flicked past Weiorgn to Kellar. “You’ve just crossed the line, there.”

  “Go get me another drink, lovely.” Weiorgn said, pulling her behind him. “I’ll meet you in a moment,” he added, turning to face the silver-clad man.

  “Watch out, Weiorgn, there are two of them now,” one of his friends called out to him.

  “I’ll wipe the floor with that smile–”

  “Easy Kellar,” Celekar said behind him, clasping him on the shoulder.

  “Alessia is an explorer, friend. She isn’t here to fetch your food.” Celekar said, standing, his eyes flashing.

  “That girl? You’re lying. She’s one of us, not you.” Weiorgn laughed, his playful manner subjugated by a malicious sneer.

  “Apologize to her.” Celekar ordered firmly. “Now.”

  The Seynorynaelian youth smiled. “Why should I?”

  “Celekar, don’t bother,” Alessia said, stepping around him slowly. “He’s just a snotty kid without anything else to do.”

  “But–”

  “No,” Alessia said, sensing what Celekar was about to do. “Don’t try to force him to see what you see.”

  “I wouldn’t treat a woman the way that man spoke to you,” Kellar put in, agreeing with Celekar.

  “You don’t know how much I appreciate how you feel,” she said, glancing between them, “but at the same time, I think we just need to go.”

  “They call themselves explorers, and they’re afraid to fight me?” Weiorgn said a moment later. “Cowards all, aren’t they, fellows? I’d make a better explorer myself!”

  A chorus of cheers sounded at his table.

  “I doubt he’d even have made it into flight school,” Kellar said, turning away.

 

  * * * * *

  The next morning, Alessia was finishing routine monitoring of the tachiyon engine energy level output when Kiel found her.

  “Alessia,” he said, pleased that he had startled her.

  “What?” she cried, narrowing her eyes at him, then sighed and directed her attention back to the monitor.

  “I have something to say to you.” His voice was grave, but furtive, also.

  She turned around.

  “I–that is–what do y
ou say to a picnic?” He suggested, breaking a self-satisfied smile.

  “I’d be delighted.” She replied. “But can the ship spare you today?”

  “I think everyone will manage without me.”

  “All right then–today?”

  He nodded. "Gerryls and I are going to be busy with some research in the labs until the evening meal hour, but after that, I’m free to go wherever luck bids me.”

  “I’ll be finished with my duties by then, I’m sure.”

  “Good. Then I’ll stop by the meal facilitation units and pick up something for us.” He nodded, content that all was going well; his eyes, however, held a rare glimmer of excitement.

  “Then I guess I’ll see you later.” She said, smiling.

  “Alessia,” he said, his features darkening. “I want to confess something.”

  “You do?”

  “I know you heard about Calendra.” He explained. “In many ways, she was my first love. The truth is, I held her death against you for a long time, because I wanted her to be one of the explorers–rather than you.”

  “Oh.”

  “You probably never knew it, but I had to clear my conscience. I just want to say that I was wrong, to admit how unjust I was to you. And I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for the refugees these past few years. It hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “I wanted to say that I’m sorry I misjudged you, all these years. I–can’t imagine what my life would have been without you in it.”

  Her smile faded into surprise.

  “Alessia?”

  “Yes?”

  “I look forward to our picnic.”

  She nodded numbly, then nodded again.

  “You’re going to the tutorial center today?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Stop by the laboratory then, if you do.”

  He took a step closer, as though hesitating over something; she looked at him expectantly, but he appeared to have decided not to interrupt her work.

  “Well, I’ll see you later,” he said.

  She watched him leave, wondering about all the time he had spent with Gerryls in the labs, working on their secret project over the past few years. She knew that his sense of guilt over Seynorynael's destruction had fueled his desire to make amends, but she trusted him, even though she had seen this kind of behavior before, first in Hinev, and then in Marankeil and Ornenkai. She even saw it in herself, and had struggled to conquer it.

  An obsession had all but taken control of him.

  * * * * *

  "Explosion in the ninth level laboratory." The computer's even voice interrupted the tranquillity on the bridge later that afternoon.

  Alessia, Kilran, Derstan, and Broah were on duty for an hour longer; the rest of the explorer crew were busy around the ship, or else heading to an early dinner. Kiel was supposed to come to the bridge to meet Alessia in just over an hour.

  The ninth level laboratory? Alessia stopped to listen, feeling dread creep over her limbs like a cold shadow approaching from behind.

  Kiel was working in the ninth laboratory with Gerryls.

  What kind of explosion?

  “Kellar,” Derstan said. “Contact Kellar.”

  Yes, that was it, Alessia thought. Kellar, Mindra, In-nekel, and Vala would know what was going on–they were in the adjoining laboratory.

  They never got the chance.

  “Something’s happening,” Derstan realized, shuddering, sensing the remote pain of others of their kind, as they were struck by some unknown catastrophe. All of the explorers on the bridge felt it, heard mindcalls that echoed from the depths of the ship, mindcalls that struck fear into their hearts.

  Before they could react, the intercom suddenly came on. A desperate voice, cracked with pain and the strain of failing vocal chords sent a chilling message to the crew.

  "This is Kiel–ordering all explorers to get away!" Behind him they heard blood-curdling screams, screams of terror, screams of panic.

  Alessia recognized the sound. Kiel had made that kind of scream long ago, only this one, this one–the agony of it was beyond anything they had ever heard.

  The first collective entity faded, disconnecting its thoughts from the explorer group, and they knew one of their number had somehow perished, perished beyond any powers of restoration.

  Maesan Kellar was dead.

  Without thinking clearly, defying Kiel’s unthinkable command, Alessia rushed to the ninth laboratory, hearing nothing but the screams, the run of thoughts of her dearest friends. She saw memories and experiences floating around her like ghosts. The air was saturated by telepathic electricity, as if a great catalyst had driven out the memories of the dead explorers out all at once. The billowing spearhead of a great greenish-yellow cloud rapidly flew past her, dissipating into all corners of the ship.

  Explorers? Yes, now Gerryls, In-nekel, Vala...

  She heard the screams fading and resolved to dissolve her body into energy, to recollect herself in the laboratory and save the precious moments that slipped by, but found she could not harness the energy to transform her cellular structure. She could barely just compel her feet forward.

  A dreadful silence descended, and the screams were no more. But she ran on, determined to find Kiel. She would save him from whatever had happened even if it cost her her own life. That much she promised herself.

  Alessia reached the ninth laboratory, coughing in the air that was contaminated with a concentration of the acrid yellow-green vapors. Kellar, In-nekel, Vala, and Mindra had rushed in after the explosion to help Gerryls and Kiel.

  A cry escaped her lips as she saw their lifeless bodies, staring up at the ceiling in an expression of horror.

  Beside them, the weakening leader of the explorers was gasping for breath, as though his lungs could no longer hold air.

  Kiel was still alive! her heart pounded heavily with relief. She rushed towards his body stretched out on the floor and then saw what he had done.

  If only she had listened more carefully to what she had overheard that day! Kiel and Gerryls had been secretly following Hinev's experiments, hoping to perfect his serum and trying to grant immortality to the mortal Seynorynaelians on board without the risks and pain involved with the blood transfusions. Hinev's explorers had been created that way, but though Kiel had heard of Hinev's failures, he had not known that the integrated serum might only metamorphosize half of the survivors, as it had done with Hinev's candidates–the others would no doubt become shells of their former selves, suffering dementia, memory loss, delusions of deity, or split-personality disorders, and all of them the most extreme pain.

  Kiel had thought that if he used the mixtures once integrated with Hinev's serum, he could extract the serum component and purify it, strengthening the lyra and tri-nucleated cells artificially in the hopes that he could re-create Hinev's life-giving elixir. He had avoided the transfusions, hoping that his own new serum might ease the negative effects of the metamorphosis, the pain he and the others had felt before their transformation.

  But their experiment had backfired as they reached the end result, releasing a noxious anti-serum vapor cloud and artificial "virus" into the atmosphere. The stronger lyra and tri-nucleated cells had unexpectedly attacked all serum-altered cells. By the time the explorers realized what to do, it would be too late to stop the cloud that spread throughout the ship.

  Their days were at an end.

  Kiel lay dying, stretched out on the floor. Alessia felt his mind reaching to her, lost, afraid, unable to comprehend what was happening.

  "Alessia, I see you now. Yes, I see you at Firien,” he smiled, and his smile was like that of a content child. She dropped to her knees before him, reached out to gather her hand behind his shoulder support him up as he followed her with his eyes. “Bilka–why Hinev wan
ted you. I see the leaves in your hair, the mud on your feet–” He laughed, looking past her now, looking to a day in the past, while the look on his face in the present was of one not long for this world. He had no use for decorum any more, only pure honesty, the honesty of his heart, but he had no time to rationally process his thoughts. His feelings merely escaped from him, slipping unfiltered from his soul when he had no more energy to repress their power.

  “It was you, you who made it all possible. Why, why did you never trust me with your secrets?" He blinked, confused. “I–I would have understood. You should have given me that chance.”

  “Kiel. Kiel, I’m so sorry–” she cried, trying to hold his hands steady in hers. “It’s my fault this has happened. If I’d only said something before–”

  Perhaps you wouldn’t have tried to recreate the serum.

  “Hush,” he said, rasping for breath, shocked to see how much he had meant to her, and that with her hopes so close to being fulfilled, it was he who had taken them away.

  Forgive me, Alessia. It was my folly, not yours, and I take full responsibility for it. He looked at her, remorse in his eyes, hardly able to speak aloud now. I thought to give Hinev's gift to all Seynorynaelians–to preserve what little remains of our race, our civilization. I see now that Hinev didn’t perfect his serum alone–perhaps it is not too late for some of us to survive the vapors, but you must flush out the vapor cloud–get away from here at once!

  "I won't leave you, Kiel. I won’t. I can’t. I can’t just leave you here!" she cried, cradling his weary head in her arms, lowering her own head to the thick wash of vapors that swirled just above the ground. She could hear his breath, a precious sound beneath her, and was conscious of the fact that he also heard hers, her head now so close to his own.

  Leave him? Never!! she vowed. She wanted to die here, here lying beside him, not somewhere far away.

  Please go, Alessia! I would hate to see you die for my mistake.

  She pulled back, let him go, turned aside, because she wanted to see his face. Yet he also turned his head to the side, and horrified, saw Gerryls' lifeless body; in a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut and turned away, looked back at her.

  "You didn’t work alone, Kiel," Alessia reminded him. He seemed just to stare at her, as though wishing for things that could never be.

  "Alessia, please, try to survive,” he croaked. “Save the others, and survive for me–" he coughed, unable to finish.