“And as for this city, my friends …” He paused, looked back at his wife and sons. “This city belongs to me and my wife. It is the first city, and Rayna and I are Mother and Father to you all. Therefore, the name is ours to choose. Repeat after me.
“JaRa! JaRa! JaRa!”
The louder the echoes, the more James knew they loved the choice. More important, they accepted the choice. They are children, after all.
His eyes shifted to Valentin, who raised his fist and mouthed the name, but James knew better. His brother shouted nothing. Valentin was wiser than the rest.
Might as well get it over with, James thought.
“Each city of the Divine State will be ruled in perpetuity by Jewel hybrids, their descendants, and others of their species. The eternal maintenance of the Divine State will belong to the eternal race, immortals. You will oversee the efficiency, sustainability, and sanitation of our cities. You will enforce our laws, spread our message, and slaughter those who oppose us. As your population grows through colonial liberation and through pilgrims who volunteer to leave a mortal existence behind, you will have the opportunity to move freely through the Divine State rather than where City Fathers and Mothers send you.
“We must all understand our role. For even in this eternal paradise, we must function as a cooperative society. Two species, both evolved from homo sapiens, working to a unified goal.
“This is our mission. This is our home world. This is our city. And when pilgrims arrive someday, we here will greet them:
“Welcome to JaRa, on the planet Aeterna.”
He raised both fists high. “Thank you all!”
As the celebration began, James turned to his wife and spoke above the cheers.
“Didn’t rehearse once,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Yes, is better this way. I do not always mind surprises.”
“And what about those secrets?”
“You hid them very well. I like the name.”
“Thought you might.”
He sidled up the stairs to greet his fellow hybrids, all of whom expressed unabashed joy at his revelations and his choices for the Divine State. For the first time since he broke them out of the Chancellors’ conditioning web, the others felt on par with James, respected enough to share in the glory of a ruling caste.
Even as he celebrated with them, James remained fully aware the Divine State would not satisfy everyone. Soon he would have to face his brother. This was not going to be pleasant.
Indeed, as the festival began and celebrants crowded the closest avenues of JaRa to partake in food and beverages prepared fresh in the city, James broke from the adulation and worship of others to come face-to-face with Valentin. Minutes into their argument, James said:
“Oh, please, Brother. Am I going to have to kill you again?”
19
T HEY CARRIED THEIR ARGUMENT inside a habitat dome before creating a scandalous public display. Valentin cracked his knuckles and took long, deep breaths before unloading. Nothing he said surprised James.
“You’re going to repeat history, Brother. Don’t you see this? A ruling caste and a worker caste. It will be just like Earth – Chancellors and Solomons. We do all the work and your people claim all the glory.”
“And why shouldn’t we, Valentin? Our lives are finite. Each day holds urgency. It should be celebrated, not labored in the service of others. But your kind will live long after most indigos have forgotten about the ten founders. In a few centuries, you will roll your collective eyes whenever new hybrids take control.”
“Tell me, Brother. Why might we do that?”
“Because you will know who holds the true power. You will be the constant. It’s too soon for you to see it now, but I do. I’ve seen the future’s most likely path. The Divine State is our best chance to maintain stability and balance.”
Valentin burrowed his arms against his chest and scowled as he looked askance in reflection.
“You sound like a Chancellor,” he said. “I’m sure one of them said the same thing hundreds of years ago, right before signing the Solomon Treaty. I’m sure he probably suggested the Chancellory was conceding to a hard bargain. But it was in fact a boon. More leisure time, more wealth. More time to tighten their grip on the colonies. Be honest, James. This was always your plan.”
“Oh, please, Brother. Am I going to have to kill you again?”
“Right there.” Valentin turned away. “The arrogance. Oh, I knew there was always a part of you that thought you deserved to be on the mountaintop alone. But after all we’ve been through together …”
“I am your older brother. You defer to me.”
“I was here before you. I served and sacrificed before you arrived and burned it all down.”
“Our lives began the day we met each other. Anything prior is irrelevant. We have had this conversation too many times.”
“And will have it again until …”
James tuned him out and focused instead on the cheers and laughter outside the dome.
“Do you hear them, Brother? Your people have embraced my plan. You are the only one who protests.”
“Because they don’t understand what you meant. They don’t know you like I do.”
“You’re probably right, but it also doesn’t matter. I made the proclamation. It will not be unmade. The Jewels created this world for my kind. They live within us. Not you. We will command. You will serve. Together, we will create a permanent paradise. Yes?”
Valentin tugged at his blast rifle.
“And if I kill you where you stand, will our paradise be lost?”
James anticipated this moment. He chuckled when it arrived.
“Hard to say. You’d have to ask your seven hundred bloodthirsty enemies outside.”
Valentin fell back into a chair and slumped his shoulders.
“Why, James? Why? I’ve always been at your side.”
“Oh, please. Enough with the phony indignation. You knew this was coming.” Their eyes locked.
For an instant, Valentin showed the same stupefied wonder as he did in the lower level of the Great Plains Metroplex shortly after the brothers met. He lay there on the floor, a knife through his throat, blood pooling, facing an improbable death. James, morphing for the first time into the beast he would become, stood over his dying brother. “You are the abomination,” James said.
James was done wasting time on this matter. He faced a more urgent mission outside the city. The white forest called.
“You knew what I was when I killed you the first time,” he told Valentin. “You knew what I was when you rescued me and Rayna from SkyTower. You knew what I was when you agreed to destroy those Ark Carriers. What did you think was going to happen here? Especially after you allowed Sister Ursula to be murdered.” James winked. Though he never played chess on first Earth, this seemed like checkmate. “As I said months ago, I will always hold you responsible for her.”
James pointed to the door. “I am going to walk outside wearing a smile. You should do the same. And when the party ends, reassign your people to their duties in the fleet and elsewhere. You have five days to produce solid intel on the Chancellory’s new weapon. We are going to attack colonial targets. I prefer accuracy. If you can’t provide it, I’m sure Admiral Kane will.”
He didn’t wait to see Valentin’s response. James reemerged among his adoring masses and celebrated with them. He needed only seconds to realize he assessed the response correctly.
His fellow hybrids walked freely among the smaller immortal soldiers, conversing and joking with them as if they were family. The hybrid children, some afraid to leave their parents’ sides, gravitated to the youngest soldiers, who appeared gentle and encouraging. Like brothers and sisters.
He sampled the fruit and vegetable dishes prepared from the new orchards and gardens. At one station, small pieces of steamed fish caught his eye. The flesh was white, thick, and spongy. He used to eat something like this long ago, on first E
arth. Summer trips to a place whose name almost slipped away. Florida. Pensacola. James vaguely recalled the fleeting joy of those visits. Ignatius Horne took him back there shortly after James crossed the fold. Then fog descended and it vanished … until now.
What is your game, Ignatius?
The white forest was collapsing. The water rose to become a sea, and waves crashed into the trees, shattering them until all that was left were the shards drifting away on the tide.
The paths converged into one.
James found Rayna among the celebrants, talking to Alistair Kwan and his children. He pulled his wife away.
“A great celebration, isn’t it?” He asked her.
“I miss horses. Do we have horses on Aeterna?”
“I’ve never thought about it. I’ll ask.”
She studied him. “What is wrong, husband?”
“Nothing. But I need some time outside the city. The Jewels are calling me. For what purpose, I have no idea.”
“I see. How long?”
“Uncertain, but I don’t want to rouse questions. I intend to bring Benjamin and Peter. They haven’t seen the lake, and it’s time they acclimate themselves to the natural world. I’ll secure the necessary supplies and a cargo rifter.”
“Does Valentin know?”
“If he needs me, he should go through you. But I doubt he will. The Supreme Admiral has a very busy agenda.”
They shared a kiss. “Indeed. It will give him time to see things clearly. No?”
“I wouldn’t count on it, my love.”
James called out to his sons and looked back inside his mind. The white forest was gone but for a single piece of driftwood, on which lay a gray cloak.
20
T HE LAKE FOUR KILOMETERS SOUTHWEST of JaRa rippled under a steady breeze. Waterfowl with red and yellow plumage landed in flocks. The crying birds who dominated the acacia trees dive-bombed into the water and resurfaced, each with a fish for its prize. The sun was sinking; rows of slim clouds peeled across the western sky, breaking up the waning orange light. Benjamin and Peter grew anxious. Were they actually going to stay out here until nightfall? Their father laughed.
“You’ve lived your entire lives in space, and you’re afraid of the dark?” James stood at the water’s edge and took in the fragrant breeze. “Don’t worry. It’ll be a clear night. When the stars come out, you’ll feel right at home.”
“And then what, Father?” Peter asked.
“Then you appreciate what you have.”
The lake, yet to be named, brought back memories James preferred to put aside. Like Lake Vernon, Alabama, where he spent most of his final hours on first Earth, this lake stretched more than a mile across and extended five miles long. It was fed by the river that roiled from a waterfall and flowed past the edge of JaRa. Other rivers converged here as well, starting from the southern and western borders of the defense sector.
Benjamin pointed to the dive-bombing birds.
“Is that where the fish come from?”
“Yes. Did you try any samples at the festival?”
“No, Father. Why would we eat something that lives underwater?”
“What you really mean is, ‘Why eat something that doesn’t come from a kiosk?’ Those are for space, Benjamin. Here, you eat what the planet provides. Time to adapt.”
“Have you eaten fish, Father?”
“Many times. Learned how to catch them, too.”
Peter jumped up, excited. “Will you show us how, Father? Please?”
For an instant, James felt a surge of nostalgia but turned it off with an angry wave.
“One step at a time. You’ll find fish in your food packs. Try everything with an open mind. Yes?”
“And what about you, Father?”
“I have somewhere to be. Until I return, entertain each other. Count the stars. If I’m not back by then, talk to the other children inside the collective. Tell them about your experience. If I’m still not back, you have blankets. Lay them out. Sleep.”
“But Father …” Benjamin began with an indignant tone.
“Father, nothing. This is your home until the day you die. The Jewels gave it to me, and I give it to you. Am I understood?”
In unison: “Yes, Father. Absolutely, Father.”
James didn’t look back as he started east long the shoreline. He was surprised the boys didn’t call after him. Maybe they weren’t as fragile as he thought. Valentin warned him many times about accelerating their growth too quickly. James never listened, of course, but he did pause to consider his brother’s central argument: Would the Jewels’ energy grow them into complete men? Or would they be rendered so immature as to undermine their physical strength and intellect?
“No,” he argued as he marched onward while the sun set. “The sons of gods will be gods. They’re incapable of being weak.”
That’s where James left the discussion. He pushed the boys out of his mind – and for the time being, out of his heart – as he plowed on through the soft, wet sand inches from the gently lapping waves.
A half-mile on, the acacia forest receded, and tall, spiky brush dominated the horizon. He passed tangled bundles of giant bromeliads, pineapple bushes, and sawgrass palmettos.
As sunset turned to dusk, the wind dropped but a new smell drifted his way. Smoke. Minutes later, he saw a flickering yellow glow beyond the brush. Closer still, he heard the crackling fire.
When James reached the target, he wasn’t surprised to see a man in a gray cloak adjusting the campfire. Sitting on a log, the man shoveled a large stick under the fire, releasing a stream of embers. A grate settled over the flames, and on it a pan. James didn’t need much of a nose to recognize the smell of frying fish.
“I wasn’t sure you’d make it before dark,” the cloaked man said. He tapped the log with his free hand. “Plenty of room for the both of us. No sense trying to find your own log.” He coughed, deep and raw. “That’s the problem with a new world. When you’re only twenty-eight years into terraforming, it’s hard to find a dead tree.”
James advanced. “Pull back your hood.”
The man complied. His appearance startled James. Old, withered, a face pockmarked and sun-battered. A scar extending from his left ear beneath his chin and down his neck. One eye opened farther than the other. Bedraggled silver hair, far beneath his shoulders.
“You’re not Ignatius Horne.”
The old man looked away as if insulted and tended the fire.
“I would hope not. He’s been dead almost forty years.”
“You can’t be here. We scanned this planet. There was no human life when we arrived.”
“Poor scanners, I’d suggest.”
James saw through the act. “You’re a Jewel, manifesting yourself as human. Trying a new way to manipulate me.”
“If I was a Jewel, why do this to myself?” He waved a hand over his ragged features. “Please, Brother James. Take a seat and put your theories to rest.”
“You know who I am, so you also know what I’m capable of. You will give me answers.”
The old man lifted his free hand toward the heavens.
“Ah, yes. What you’re capable of. Control over life and death. Able to incinerate a man with your breath. That’s a new one. They told me, of course. Told me your entire life story, but I drew the line at breaths of fire. I told them to show me. They did.” Again, he tapped the log. “You were on Brahma close to a year ago? Yes? It’s OK to nod, James.
“I must say, your cruelty should have sickened me. But the truth is, after all I’ve seen …” The man leaned back and sighed. “After all I’ve done, yours is no worse. Just more theatrical.”
James fought back the rising tide of impatience.
“Who are you?”
“If you were a god, you would have recognized me by now. You’re more in denial than they suggested. Now, for the last time, I invite you to take a seat. My fish will be done soon, and I have two plates.”
James despised
such insolence, but he acceded to his host.
“Cud,” the old man said, looking up. “You’re much more of a monster in person. Did you know you’re terrifying to behold?”
“What?”
“Your features, I mean. I’m sure you’d crush any challenger’s skull. But you are quite an ugly beast, Brother James. Has anyone ever told you? The facial muscles and bone structure are all wrong. You seem more like a machine than a man. And those eyes? A nightmare given form. Horrifying.”
The red pistils expanded into orange cinders. His fists clinched.
“I did not come all this way to be insulted. I could turn you to ash, old man.”
“Feel free to try. It won’t work on me. And if it did, I wouldn’t mind. I was only going to see one more sunrise anyway, and this is my last dinner. And here I am, offering to share. Generous. Yes?”
“If you are not a Jewel and not Ignatius, how do you know so much about me?”
The old man reached into the pan and grabbed a sizzling fish with his bare hand. He dropped it on a plate and handed it to James.
“We’re both good with fire,” he said. “These hands are calloused. They’re like Guard body armor. And pain receptors? Can’t remember when I lost those.”
James received the plate and recognized the pattern.
“These plates are ours. How did you …?”
“Steal them? James, your city is managed by children. Speaking of which, I was touched by what you told your boys earlier. Telling them to appreciate what they have. Ironic, coming from you, but a good mantra nonetheless.”
“That’s enough.” James grabbed the fish and reared back to hurl it into the lake. “Why am I here? Who are you?”
The old man rolled his eyes and pointed to the fish.
“What a waste. If you don’t want it, I’ll eat double. You wish to know about me? Fair enough. But first, don’t be a rude guest.”
James conceded again. Besting his wife and brother was easier than this. The old man grabbed another dish and plated the second fish. He lifted it close to his nose.
“Fortunately, I haven’t lost my sense of smell or taste. Try yours, James. Tell me what you think.”
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 120
