Lucifer suppressed his annoyance. For the past 225 years, the mantle of responsibility had fallen to him. Between Shay’tan and the normal political intrigues which threatened all democratic institutions, Lucifer had to forever outwit his opponents to keep his father on his lofty throne. When Hashem kept him waiting, he couldn't attend to any of the other bazillion things he had on his already ridiculously overscheduled plate.
“What are you working on, father?"
“Miniature water dragons." Hashem barely acknowledged his presence. “They're going extinct. I'm trying to splice in a genetic adaptation so they'll survive.”
“-We- are going extinct, Father." Lucifer's wings twitched with exasperation. “When are you going to give us a genetic adaptation to survive?”
Hashem looked up as though noticing Lucifer for the first time, his golden eyes glowing with the eerie, internal luminescence all ascended beings possessed. Lucifer didn't know what was worse. The two hundred years Hashem had vanished into the ethers after his mother had willed herself to die? Or the fragile, doddering old fool who had only reluctantly returned after the 51-Pegasi-4 genocide had wiped out the entire sub-species of Seraphim Angelics?
“I lost the root stock." Hashem's face was etched with sadness. “And then pirates wiped out the Seraphim control group that still possessed some of their original DNA. Without that, I don't know how to replicate my experiment.”
“Godsdammit, father!!!" Lucifer slammed his fist upon the stainless steel laboratory table. “Why in Shay’tan’s name do you keep putzing around with these insignificant creatures when the armies who defend you are dying?" He picked up the warning glare from the two Cherubim guards. He moderated his tone to the appropriate respect an elected official should have for their Emperor and God.
“You’re all so close to completion,” Hashem muttered like a senile old man. “All you need is a few thousand more years to evolve and you'll be complete. The Seraphim were close. They were so close.”
“Close to what?” Lucifer asked.
“Your mother was almost complete." Hashem turned back to his experiment. “I could have finished her.”
“My mother is DEAD!!!” Lucifer shouted. He waved off the Cherubim guards when they took a clanking step forward. “And my entire species is dying. When will you get your head out of the ascended realms and deal with what is happening down here? We won't be around in a few thousand years!”
“I lost the root race." Hashem's demeanor shifted from that of an absent-minded professor to the hellfire-and-brimstone old god who had once battled Shay’tan. The doddering old fool was gone, replaced by the god who couldn't die … the one who viewed Lucifer as a failed experiment. He spoke with the clinical detachment of a scientist making a presentation before a conference of biologists about a colony of bacteria he'd been running clinical trials on.
“Without the root race, there is nothing I can do to help you. Your only hope is the breeding program. If you increase your genetic diversity through selective breeding, a new strain of Angelic might evolve to take your place.”
Lucifer shuddered. How could a mortal such as himself, whose lifespan was a mere blink of an eye to an ascended being such as his adopted father, hope to make himself heard? He was a plaything, a toy. A tool the Emperor had used to lure his mother, a creature so close to completion that she had approached godhood herself, to stand at his side so he would have somebody besides Shay’tan to talk to as time ground mortal creatures into dust.
In the end, his mother had rejected the Emperor, refusing to drink the elixir he had engineered to complete her DNA. All she'd ever wanted was to follow the mate who'd abandoned the both of them into the grave. The day she had willed herself to die, Hashem had abandoned Lucifer and the Alliance. Lucifer had been carrying the burden ever since.
“What about the Leonids?" Lucifer suppressed the hopelessness he always felt whenever he spoke to his father. “They are down to fewer than 3,500 individuals. We have more Leonid ships than Leonids to man them.”
“The Spiderids will take their place." Hashem spoke as though he were talking about replacing a defective toaster. “Just as the Mantoids filled in the gaps in your ranks. I have ordered the aerospace manufacturers to create a new generation of ships adapted to Spiderid physiology.”
Lucifer shuddered. Replaced. They were being replaced. He'd always known that was the plan, but this was the first time he'd heard the words uttered from the Emperor's own lips.
“I give up!" Lucifer threw his hands into the air. “You’re worse than Shay’tan!" He turned to leave. He got as far as the laboratory door before Hashem called his name. The Cherubim guards stepped to block his exit.
“Lucifer!!!” Hashem ordered. “These trade deals you've been passing in Parliament? You have outsourced too much of our economy to the Sata'an Empire. I want you to rescind the override.”
“Do it yourself,” Lucifer hissed. “For two hundred years I ran your empire while you couldn't even be bothered to show up to sign something. Never once have you thanked me! Never once have you even taken an interest in the impact your one-sided focus on seed worlds has on the older races in this empire. Or the species who defend them!”
“Those who have the means are expected to contribute more,” Hashem said. “Of course older worlds should support emerging ones. If I wanted everybody to fend for themselves, I wouldn't have created you.”
“You can’t keep asking us to pay and pay and pay until they’ve got nothing left to give,” Lucifer said. “For goddess’ sakes!!! Look at your Cherubim guards!!! Jingu is over nine thousand years old and hasn’t been able to produce a new queen!!!"
Lucifer gestured to the ant-like Cherubim guards whose race had once guarded the entire Alliance, but who now numbered mere thousands. The Cherubim only lingered to produce enough guards to guard the Emperor, a duty which had been prolonged when Angelics began dying out instead of stepping up to the plate to replace them. Only love of the Emperor prevented the Cherubim from casting off the mortal shells they had long since outgrown and escaping into the highest ascended realms.
“That’s enough!” Hashem ordered.
“If you won’t look at me, then look at them!" Lucifer's fists clenched as he tried to make his father see reason. “They've guarded your empire even longer than we have, and they are even closer to extinction. You replace them with us, and now you replace us with godsdamned insects!!! Are we really that expendable?”
“You're not expendable." Hashem's shoulders sagged with defeat. The clinical old god disappeared, replaced by the doddering fool. “I just don't know how to fix you.”
“You're a god!” Lucifer pleaded. “Swallow your pride and ask the goddess to help like you did when you created us in the first place.”
Hashem swallowed. Lucifer knew the last thing his father wanted to do was ask the goddess who ruled the universe for help. He'd only met the Architect of the Universe once, at his birth, when she'd handed him over to Hashem for safekeeping. He was a burden Lucifer now understood his adopted father had never wanted.
“Please, Father …” Lucifer pleaded, his rage sputtering. “You're the only father I have ever known. I don't want to be the last of my kind."
Hashem picked up the pipette he'd been using to fertilize the reptile eggs and resumed whatever it was he'd been doing.
“I lost the root race,” Hashem said with resignation. “There is nothing more I can do for you. I'm sorry.”
He turned his back, engrossed in whatever experiment he was conducting once more. The Eternal Emperor was gone. Replaced by the kindly, absent-minded genius who tinkered with inconsequential experiments in his genetics laboratory instead of dealing with the problems facing mortals.
Chapter 24
February – 3,390 BC
Earth: Crash site
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
Mikhail
As promised, Immanu returned with food and items to make their stay more comfortable. This time he did
not come alone, but brought his mate, Ninsianna’s mother, he surmised, by the way she gave the woman a hug. The woman had the same wavy dark hair, golden complexion and curvaceous figure as Ninsianna did, but her eyes were brown instead of her daughter's unusual tawny beige ones. Ninsianna had apparently inherited her good looks from her mother, who was herself a striking woman, and not her father.
“Who … Needa,” Ninsianna introduced her mother. “Mama."
The woman had the same proud bearing as Ninsianna; that look people get when they're accustomed to being looked up to, and obeyed. She was much more direct than her husband, staring unflinchingly into Mikhail's eyes, her lips pursed as she scrutinized his features with the same unreadable expression Mikhail usually wore. She watched intently his interactions with her daughter, no doubt searching to see if he'd broken his promise. He had not, but he understood this was a woman on whose bad side one did not wish to be.
“Tá mé an-sásta bualadh leat [pleased to meet you]."
Mikhail reached out to shake her hand with the same level of formality he would convey to a commanding officer. Immanu translated. By the way the woman barked a command at her husband, it was obvious which spouse wore the pants in this family or, in the case of Ubaid attire, the kilt?
They had long ago devoured the bird Ninsianna had caught for breakfast, but she'd cooked extra tubers in anticipation of her parent's arrival. He was glad they had that small hospitality to offer the traveling couple while Needa spoke to her daughter at length. Standing and straightening her shawl-dress, Needa moved to stand before him, snapping a command at Immanu to no doubt translate.
“My wife would like to examine your injuries,” Immanu said, “to see how well you're healing. Needa is the healer in our village. Ninsianna is still in training.”
Mikhail examined the woman’s face. He'd already been poked and prodded by Ninsianna once today, but to say no might offend her mother. How could he explain that when he allowed someone to touch his wings, it felt … intimate? These people had been nothing but good to him since he'd crash-landed and turned their world upside down. It was obvious that Immanu valued his wife's opinion on things.
“I consent,” Mikhail said. “Although Ninsianna has done a fine job.”
“She has, indeed,” Immanu said. “I don't know how you survived.”
“I'm stubborn."
Mikhail schooled his expression into one of impassive observation as the splint was removed for the second time today. Needa’s touch was much less gentle. Where Ninsianna would caress the area to accustom him to her touch, Needa got right down to business, poking and prodding with single-minded efficiency. He could picture Needa running the triage unit on a hospital ship.
No! Wait! He grasped at the memory fragment as it flitted through his mind and exited as randomly as it had come. Damantia!
“Are your memories returning, yet?” Immanu asked.
Mikhail scrutinized the man, not sure how much he should reveal to someone he didn't really know.
“Just fragments," Mikhail said. "Most don't make any sense.”
“What do you remember?”
“Things about emperors and hospital ships," Mikhail said. "Nothing very helpful.”
“Yet you can still do things that you did in the past?”
“It appears so,” Mikhail frowned. “I know what I know, but I can't remember how I know it." He pointed to his dog tags. "I know from these that I'm a colonel in the Alliance Air Force. I know what that means, but I have no memory of ever serving. I know things a soldier would know, but I only realize I know it when I need it. Does that make any sense?”
“I have seen this problem after injuries such as yours,” Immanu said. “Usually the person regains his memory a short time later. But I've never seen someone so lucid who could remember nothing at all.”
Mikhail stiffened as a sharp pain stabbed into his wing.
“Ouch!” Mikhail turned and glared at Needa, who had cracked a bone in his wing joint back into place without warning him. “Féach ar an sciathán! [Watch the wing!]"
Needa shook her finger at Ninsianna and let loose a string of language he couldn't understand. It was the scolding a parent would give a neglectful child.
“Ninsianna missed a dislocated joint just above the break,” Immanu translated. “It would have left you unable to fly had it healed that way. My wife just snapped it back into place."
Ninsianna looked at her feet, a look of mortification upon her face.
“Please convey my thanks to Needa,” Mikhail reschooled his impassive expression. “And remind Ninsianna that I wouldn't be alive if not for her.”
Needa finished examining his wounds, grunting with satisfaction at the stitch-job Ninsianna had done on his chest, and re-splinted his wing. Needa’s splint was tighter and less comfortable than Ninsianna’s, but he could feel how it gave the limb much more stability. Stepping back so he didn't fan sparks out of the fire, he extended both wings and flapped, just enough to reassure himself he'd regained some mobility. His broken wing still hurt, but at least it no longer hung uselessly from his back.
“I told our village chief about the legends of your people,” Immanu said. “But Jamin is the chief’s son. I fear he bears a grudge against you.”
“What Jamin feels is of no concern to me,” Mikhail said. “As soon as I can make repairs to my ship, I shall contact my people and leave your world.”
“Only the will of his father prevents Jamin from sneaking up here with a band of warriors,” Immanu warned. “He seeks revenge for what he feels is a blow to his manhood. He blames you for stealing Ninsianna away from him.”
“I'm not responsible for whatever relationship this Jamin has, or doesn't have, with your daughter.”
“That's for certain!" Immanu nodded in Ninsianna’s direction as she argued heatedly with her mother about the best way to care for his injuries. “Ninsianna is her own woman. Just like her mother.”
“I don't think there was anything to steal,” Mikhail said. “I watched her punch him in the face.”
Immanu's voice shifted to a more serious tone.
“I know my daughter. She has become very fond of you." The shaman's bushy dark eyebrows came together in concern. "Although we have no recourse against one as powerful as you, I beg you not to take advantage of her affections. When you leave here, it will break her heart to be left behind.”
“I gave you my word,” Mikhail regretted the promise even as the words left his mouth. “And I shall honor that promise."
Ninsianna showed her parents the interior of his wrecked ship. Mikhail hid his amusement … and dismay … as his three visitors rummaged through his cupboards like eager squirrels, attempting to follow their conversation as they contemplated the use of each unfamiliar item, with often amusing interpretations of what things were for. They spent quite some time discussing his broken food replicator, opening and shutting the door and pushing all of the buttons, until at last they turned to ask him a question.
“Mikhail,” Immanu asked. “Ninsianna is perplexed. How can you travel across the stars with no food in your sky canoe?”
“It's a replicator." Mikhail pulled out a little biocube from the storage container underneath the machine and showed it to him. “This contains all of the sub-atomic building blocks contained in most foods. You simply program in whatever you want to eat, for example, fish and potatoes, and the machine reassembles the molecules to make it for you.”
Immanu looked at him as though he were a twelve-headed ollphéist.
“It's magic, but the magic which runs the machine is broken.”
“Oh!" Immanu nodded with understanding. He explained it to Ninsianna and his wife.
Mikhail made a mental note to bring Ninsianna up to speed on modern technology as soon as he was able to teach her his language. She was an intelligent woman. It was not her fault she'd been born on a pre-technological planet. No doubt she would grasp the concepts as soon as he educated her about the science u
nderlying it.
He was relieved when her parents finally left. They were nice people, but her mother scrutinized everything he did as though she were a cat waiting to pounce upon a mouse. Exhaustion caused his speech to pause mid-sentence and he felt like he might simply tumble forward. He couldn't remember how much sleep he'd needed before, but he doubted it was the numerous naps he needed now.
“Gá dom roinnt chodladh,” Mikhail grumbled. “Need … sleep.”
He stumbled to his sleeping quarters and plopped down into his bunk, not even bothering to cover himself before conking out like a dead man. Ninsianna covered him and kissed him on the cheek.
He dreamt of her. Steamy, sensual dreams where she soaped the length of his body with her supple hands. He groaned so loudly he woke himself up, the pleasant dream fading as he realized she was asleep mere inches from where he dreamt. So close, but so far away! Keeping his hands off of her would be one promise he regretted.
Oh well … he'd never promised to not to dream of her. Closing his eyes, he willed himself back into the pleasant dream to finish in the dream realm what he was unable to follow through with in real life.
Chapter 25
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.02 AE
Zulu Sector: Command Carrier ‘Light Emerging’
Colonel Raphael Israfa
Raphael
The Light Emerging hummed reassuringly beneath Raphael's feet as they continued their mission of searching for his missing friend. Major Glicki's communications console beeped, signaling an incoming subspace message. With practiced efficiency his second-in-command tapped the console to acknowledge the signal.
“Colonel Israfa,” Major Glicki said, “Supreme Commander-General Jophiel has sent an encoded message, eyes only. She wishes you to make contact within 10 minutes.”
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 13
