The Empire: Book Six of Seeds of a Fallen Empire Page 4

  Chapter Four

  “Creator above, will someone please ask the touring transports to stop traipsing by my astrofield?” Major Lierva Kazankov thundered once she had reached the communication center inside the dome.

  A great dome had been built around the ruined field where The Firien Project was under way. The Firien Project was an ongoing great project of the Council to rebuild a colossal starship from ruins found near the edge of Lake Firien, the vast ocean-like Lake far to the West of the capital, Ariyalsynai.

  Lierva carried her helmet lightly in one hand and dropped it at the door. Several of the communications officers turned and nodded; some of the consulting technicians huddled in conference in the corner of the room tried hard not to chuckle.

  Lierva’s eyes shifted abruptly towards them; she bestowed a sharp, ice-edged glare upon them.

  Young Major Kazankov had long, muscular limbs and clear, long-lashed eyes that slanted upward at the farthest edges; she had a feral look about her, and that combined with an asperity of temper had timid technicians and subordinates running for cover the moment she headed their way.

  “We’ll get on it right away,” one of the communicators nodded eagerly.

  Lierva relaxed.

  “Major Kazankov,” one of the subalterns piped up from his seat at the communication console.

  “Yes?”

  “Elder Ornenkai sent you a message from Ariyalsynai that he wants to consult with you about the change in plans. He imagines that the Council is going to have our new batch of explorers come here to Firien as soon as they’re debriefed, and he wants you to prepare a report for them to look over.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lierva turned to the communications officer with an irritated curiosity.

  “Haven’t you heard?” The communications officer asked.

  “Heard what?”

  “The Sesylendae has returned.”

  Lierva paled. “Sesylendae?”

  “It just docked in Ariyalsynai today.”

  “What, you mean—Kudenka’s explorers have returned from their long exploration journey?” She said, now in a slight state of shock.

  “Yes, sir.” The officer nodded.

  Lierva sighed, a long, deep, completely controlled sigh.

  “Oh, and General Zadúmchov’s coming tomorrow to check our progress. He says he’s looking forward to a tour.”

  “Fabulous.” Lierva said, kneading her forehead.

  ”Sir?”

  “Nothing.” Lierva said.

  Zadúmchov—why did he insist on being a thorn in their sides? Lierva had never met the man, but rumor had it he was as irascible as they came and had yet to find a single thing about The Firien Project to his liking; the project team, including Lierva, was no exception. And every time the Grand Marshall found something not to his liking, the entire project was reorganized, technicians shuffled about, engineers fired; if the Grand Marshall made any more changes it was likely that the project wouldn’t be completed in anyone present’s lifetime, except perhaps Elder Ornenkai, who was an immortal robotic being.

  “Blast it!” Lierva sighed, returning to her quarters.

  Lierva thought Ornenkai was little help to anyone; the Elder still kept living in Ariyalsynai, involving himself in the daily activities going on at Firien only when he had a complaint to make, as far as Lierva could tell.

  Ornenkai made frequent threats to come out to Firien himself to oversee The Firien Project permanently, but so far he hadn’t carried it out. Between the Grand Marshall and the Elder, the project was far behind schedule; Lierva was still waiting for a team of designers to replace the ones who had quitted the post. The “Firien prototype”, the future space vessel, was little more than a collection of completed hull plates arranged around an ancient spaceship skeleton, without a mastermind to fit together the puzzle pieces and two itinerant authorities who kept interfering and juggling the pieces around.

  “Aaahhh!” Lierva said in exasperation as she slipped off her boots.

  So, Kudenka’s explorers had returned from three thousand years in space—was that an auspicious event? Would it stimulate The Firien project towards completion? Lierva could only hope. She had yet to have a project under her command fail, and she had never cared about one as much as she cared about this explorer spaceship, her latest project; why, she didn’t really know.

  Zadúmchov arrived early at the site of The Firien Project the next afternoon with an armed guard; Lierva stood by the descending platform in crisp white MSF—Martial Scientific Force—attire, waiting for him. Lierva was a major in the MSF.

  Zadúmchov, she noticed, was noble-looking, regal, unhurried, and descended the steps with a slow, complacent stride.

  Lierva scratched the neckline of her collar and shifted to her other foot. The transport had been late, very late.

  Zadúmchov and his entourage headed towards her, as she was the only one waiting outside the astrofield, apart from the pilot of the air-shuttle behind her; Zadúmchov kept looking about as he approached, as though he expected someone else to appear.

  “You’re in charge?” He asked finally as he approached, surmising that no one else had appeared on command.

  “Yes, actually,” Lierva said, trying to be polite. He had no idea how difficult that was for her. ”I’m in charge of all the MSF here. Major Lierva Kazankov of the Martial Scientific Force, sir.” She saluted.

  Zadúmchov eyed her up and down, noting her slim, athletic body.

  She suppressed a sudden desire to strike him. That would certainly put an end to her career, she reminded herself. Perhaps if his glance hadn’t been so condescending she might even have taken his apparent approval as a compliment.

  “Well, miss Lierva,” he said, heading towards the shuttle. “I hope you can explain why The Firien Project is behind schedule. The last report led me to believe that there had been more progress on resurfacing the infrastructure, but Ornenkai informs me that no one has removed the skeleton and spherical generator. The current design still doesn’t meet proper spacecraft engineering codes, I take it?”

  Lierva suppressed an urge to laugh. What did this Zadúmchov know about anything? All he was worried about were regulations, political policies, and conformity. Didn’t he know that the spaceship wasn’t being built from scratch? Didn’t he know that it was never going to conform to Federation standards? That it wasn’t supposed to?

  “I’m sure that the starship technicians can inform you of all the details when we arrive at the site, sir.” She said, with a tight little smile.

  “Yes,” Zadúmchov said. He sat down in the shuttle and never said anything until they reached the site.

  Home at long last from outer space, the explorer Hinev, a member of Kudenka’s explorers, didn’t know what else to do, so he went home to Lake Firien, where he had lived before going off on Kudenka’s explorer mission.

  Was it to be believed? The entire planet, no—the entire Federation, was being run by a group of mechanized Elders! After Kudenka's explorer crew had given their reports to the Seynorynaelian and Federation Councils, which they now understood to be led by the mechanized robotic entity of a man once called Marankeil, Hinev decided to return to his home with a short leave he had been granted before he had to return to Ariyalsynai.

  While Hinev was in outer space, Marankeil had murdered Hinev’s mother, Undina. That was the way Hinev saw it, even though his rational mind told him that she was already nearly dead in her suspended animation capsule the day that he left for outer space.

  Marankeil had apparently thought Undina could contaminate the living with the virus in her, the virus that had nearly killed her thousands of years ago. That was why she was put into suspended animation—Hinev was looking for a cure in outer space all the while, and hoping to return to cure his mother with the many new antibodies he had found on alien worlds.


  There had been no real reason to fear that the virus afflicting Undina’s body could start an epidemic—and the returning Hinev had been excited to return home, for he had at last found the cure for the disease his mother had been carrying.

  But now it was too late. Undina, helpless in her stasis capsule, had been killed on Marankeil’s order, and she was gone. There was nothing Hinev could do nothing to revive her. Marankeil himself had ordered her stasis capsule in the lower, inaccessible levels of the Federation Science Building to be opened to allow her to die.

  But how had she died? Hinev’s imagination wrenched his heart. Had she died in agony, alone, alone in the dark? Had she been aware that she was dying, that her son was lost to her? Had she thought that Hinev had abandoned her?

  Undina, so young even back when she had been afflicted by the viral epidemic that cost her her life—had she been afraid? Unwilling to go? Or had she gone willingly, thinking to meet up with her dead husband Jerekkil in the unknown?

  Hinev tormented himself for leaving her.

  First Reneja, his true love, had been lost to him for many years, and now Undina. Undina—the thought of being able to revive her when Hinev returned from space had kept him from feeling the full weight of Reneja’s loss.

  “How I loved her,” he thought, with a pang of memory.

  He tried not to wonder what had happened to Reneja, as much as he had loved her. When he had gone on the mission, she had stayed behind on Seynorynael. Hinev didn’t want to know if she had grown to love another man, if she had lived happily for so many years without him. That thought was agony to him; he had wanted her for himself, not this nameless, unknown man who had gotten to love her!

  Now Hinev knew that he hated this Marankeil—for he had decided that Undina should die.

  In torment, Hinev had returned to the dwelling of his youth, to the lyra forest he knew so well, now half-filled with sedwi, sherin and other trees in the gaps where the irreplaceable lyra had been harvested for wood by human hands. Hinev returned to the lyra forest where he and Undina had gathered sherin logs for a fire in the middle of a snowstorm, where Hinev and his forebears had passed the bright days of youth.

  The dwelling of his family was now nothing more than an empty ruin, a slab of indestructible foundation, while the building had decayed to nothing.

  Hinev’s footsteps crunched over the familiar pathway as he approached the ruin; and there, sparkling with a bright, unquenchable light of silver-gold, was the small lyra where he had sat that day when his father Jerekkil the explorer returned from the stars.

  Hinev sat underneath it as he had so very long ago, but this time, he lay down under it, and stared up at the sky. He had no idea what to do anymore.

  The lyra was still alive. He noticed. And it had hardly grown.

  It took him a moment to realize how extraordinary that was.

  Then, as he thought of Undina, a burning fire entered his soul. It had begun long ago, when she got sick, before he left on his explorer mission with Kudenka. And now it was stronger than ever.

  Hinev had a purpose; yes, he knew what he had to do.

  He would keep Undina’s memory alive—in him. And in her memorial, he would try to save lives—and keep them alive, forever.

  This shall be my legacy, the Elder Ornenkai thought in satisfaction, looking at the beginnings of a spaceship built from ruins found at the edge of the water; at long last, Ornenkai was in the Firien province, and there he meant to stay.

  “Such beauty. A glorious day.”

  Ornenkai stood at the edge of the sands by Lake Firien where the ruins of the unnamed ancient starship had been unearthed, watching the insentient androids unloading the latest shipment of raw materials for the latest construction.

  “If only we knew where it had come from.” He thought to himself, for no one still knew what the ruins were or how they had gotten there. Perhaps an old but grand exploration vessel, whose origins were buried in time? No one knew. Was it an alien ship, that had crash-landed to Seynorynael in early history? No one knew.

  Though Marankeil had devised the new explorer mission, it had been Ornenkai's plan to rebuild the ruins of Lake Firien for the new space exploration vessel. The project had been planned and in haphazard stages of development for more then five years now, and several simple component constructions had already been created, but Ornenkai had only just arrived in Firien for the first time.

  How excited he was!

  Ornenkai had decided to oversee the construction himself when Marankeil's chief officer Zadúmchov left for unknown reasons.

  Poor Zadúmchov, something had gone wrong with him. Zadúmchov’s sudden departure had been generally denounced by the elite in Ariyalsynai, and his position had temporarily been passed to a younger cousin; Ornenkai spared not much of a moment to wonder what had happened to the Great Coordinator. He was far too irritated by the nuisance that Zadúmchov’s absence was to him.

  With Zadúmchov’s absence, The Firien Project had been negatively affected by delays and problems.

  In order to implement Ornenkai's new spaceship plan—The Firien Project—Marankeil had asked Zadúmchov many things. Zadúmchov was to coordinate a route of the galactic systems for the second explorer mission, a far more ambitious one than Kudenka’s explorers’ mission. Zadúmchov had not only considered star graphs and spectral and stellar observations, but had taken into account the possible effects of space travel on the mental state of the Martial Scientific Force candidates.

  Now all of that data was gone with Zadúmchov.

  Ornenkai in particular had been curious as to how long any explorer could continue in the empty stretches of space before experiencing adverse psychological effects. Kudenka’s explorers had not been gone many years according to the clocks on their ship the Sesylendae. However, owing to the effects of time dilation, three thousand and more years had passed on Seynorynael in their absence.

  This time, however, Ornenkai wanted to send a team of explorers out for longer—explorers that might not return for many thousands of years. It had been crucial for the Great Coordinator to predict an adequate number of possible inhabitable systems for each planetary stop, or at some point the new explorers might never reach the next solar system on their mission guideline.

  According to the guideline, the explorer's main concern would be to link up the other parts of the universe by creating centipede star-gate tunnels—at present, it had been planned that each successive mission would follow the last further into space using these stellar gateways.

  Zadúmchov had been sent to Firien to monitor the progress of the thousand crews of shipbuilders hard at work documenting the dimensions of the ancient ship from its remaining infrastructure, but after his recent visit, Zadúmchov had refused to return, and the ship had been left out on the sand while the construction of its hull began in the industrial south.

  “Blast that man!” Ornenkai thought again, uncharitably.

  Ornenkai had been present at the Grand Marshall's recent resignation in Ariyalsynai. He had staunchly refused to remain near Firien where his daughter, Nerena, lived. Why no one knew. They had been estranged now for many years.

  What kind of idiocy! Ornenkai was glad to be rid of Zadúmchov if he let such weak and petty irritations interfere with his duty.

  Perhaps Zadúmchov’s absence would have been mourned had not the sudden return of the Kudenka's explorers breathed new life into the newest proposed explorer mission. But it was not the controversy surrounding the new alterations to Ornenkai’s plans that concerned Ornenkai; he acknowledged that Hinev had voiced legitimate concerns concerning the new star ship's interior systems.

  It was now Fynals Hinev who had all of The Martial Scientific Force talking.

  Again.

  Ornenkai spared a moment to reflect upon the cruel bias of history. Hinev’s name, once so renowned for his “science
of individualism”, renowned so highly in Ornenkai’s own childhood, had been buried in time. No one had given him much thought when Kudenka’s explorers returned. But Hinev had been famous many thousands of years before, before he left on the explorer mission. Indeed, that was why he had been chosen for it.

  Now, Hinev was becoming famous once again, for a different reason.

  Ornenkai had registered what happened with detachment; Kudenka’s name lived on, as he had been the leader of the explorers, but even the image of Kudenka’s face was only now familiar to the population outside the scientific community, who scurried to and fro to contact these revered exploration heroes.

  None of the scientists paid much attention to Hinev above the other explorers until shortly after Kudenka’s explorers’ return.

  Hinev had then submitted something called a “First Race Thoery”.

  Ornenkai had expected Hinev to stir up trouble again after he read the dispatches about this theory. Yet he found himself secretly pleased by the thought that Hienv was challenging the opinion of the entire scientific community with this theory of his.

  Ornenkai still remembered that when he and Marankeil were small boys, Hinev was their hero.

  And how those figures who had disembarked on the astrofield recently still held him in such fascination! He knew that Hinev and Kudenka and the others had been his own childhood heroes and always would be, in a way.

  It was sad that no one remembered them or cared in their modern world except beings many thousands of years old.

  It was with a pang of pain that Ornenkai saw that the general excitement of his peers did not match his own. They hadn’t been excited that Kudenka’s explorers returned—they had considered it a strange curiosity.

  The present population wasn’t interested in the idea of the living anachronisms of the ancient past, but more interested in spreading rumor and spinning tales about them; the population little respected them, but they appreciated a good story.

  Soon, however, Fynals Hinev forced them all to take notice of him.

  With his new “First Race Theory”, Fynals Hinev had made the audacious claim that all of the true humanoid races in the Great Cluster were descended from one. This wasn’t what the Seynorynaelian Scientific Council or anyone in the Federation believed.

  Ludicrous! The world protested.

  Ornenkai heard that many Federation scientsts denied the merit of Hinev’s theory. But Ornenkai secretly found himself believing it after receiving the Kudenka scientists’ new reports.

  If, as Hinev claimed, all humanoid life had evolved from a single race of humanoid progenitors, it would explain why so many of the races–as well as the living beings of their worlds—that had joined the Federation in the past three thousand years were so similar despite relatively recent evolutionary modifications.

  It would explain the existence of the comet riders, the Enorians.

  And that was who Ornenkai believed had left the strange ruined vessel at Lake Firien, though no one knew for sure. It was only a legend, a legend that once upon a time, a group of alien, celestial beings known as the Enorians, had come to the planet Seynorynael, and intermingled with the population.

  “How was it possible,” Ornenkai thought, “that so many humanoids existed in their galaxy? Indeed, that so many could intermarry and breed together?”

  Thus far, no one had ever before presented a theory that explained both the massive convergence of the human form and the reason the intermingling of races had been possible. Mostly because it seemed coincidental that any races were similar; only Seynorynaelians among thousands of humanoid races were able to have half-race children without the use of ectogenesis and DNA chromosome alteration.

  No doubt the debate was still going on, but Ornenkai had left the capital for Firien to get away from it.

  Let them all talk themselves dry, he thought as he watched the other androids busy at their labor.

  Hinev was always making news, and would again, no doubt.

  A new thought struck Ornenkai. Hinev was a genius, and therefore, dangerous. Could he be used?

  “What are you looking at, Kiel?” Kellar asked, drawing alongside his best friend on the moving strip steps of a large building; they had gone to the Ephor exhibit south of the Federation Science Building on an off-duty day. Despite the fact that Kiel had been training in Ungarn’s engineering division, they still saw each other off and on.

  Kiel stared at a group of children playing in the open forum before the exhibit, then shook his head.

  “Nothing.”

  “That Ephoran armored flightsuit was incredible,” Kellar whistled. “Can you imagine trying to navigate that thing in flight? You wouldn’t really even need a fighter.”

  “I don’t know.” Kiel shook his head, descending the last step. “The Ephors are larger than us, so of course the merani suits are intimidating, but they’re not that different from the boots our regulators use, and they’re nothing to the boots of the explorer spacesuits.”

  “Can you imagine owning a pair of those?” Kellar laughed. “I hear that even back in Kudenka’s day, it took ten years to make them and more money than it costs to renovate Ariyalsynai.”

  “Strange, isn’t it, that we still haven’t improved on the design very much.”

  “How do you know?” Kellar wondered, as the two headed towards the clear transport tunnel that would take them to the Framweard arboretum.

  “I read about it a long time ago, I can’t remember where—”

  “It would be fantastic to have one of the special suits, though, wouldn’t it? Imagine, you could fly to the top of a volcano just with the powered boots alone, and the temperature wouldn’t affect you! Or jump right into the middle of Lake Melacre and plunge straight to the bottom without being crushed! And the one-way vision! I hear that you can see through the entire helmet, and not just the eyeguard!”

  “It sounds like you chose the wrong profession, Kellar.”

  “Huh?”

  “You should have tried to become an explorer.”

  “Yeah, but who knows when the next mission will be launched, if it ever will.”

  “I intend to ask for a post at The Firien Project.”

  “What? Kiel, you’re crazy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because. You could earn so much more society credit by designing the off-world shuttle starships, and save yourself a lot of grief. Maybe even get a suite in the elite towers.”

  “I don’t want one.” Kiel shrugged.

  “So, Firien, is it? You know what you’ll be getting yourself into, don’t you? Elder Ornenkai goes through hundreds of engineers every year, and none of them have managed to get the prototype going.”

  “Ah, because they were posted there.”

  “I don’t understand your point.”

  “They didn’t want to go, Kellar. But I do.”

  “I can’t change your mind?”

  “No.”

  “Then, I suppose I’ll have to go with you.” Kellar said after a moment of ponderous thought.

  “What about the elite towers?”

  “Ah, forget the elite towers,” Kellar said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I grew up in one, and they’re not really so special. Besides, it would be a great adventure to leave Ariyalsynai for good, wouldn’t it? I’ve never been to Firien. You know, it might not be such a bad place. And Firien’s where the real challenge is for us engineers, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But what if we can’t get the post?”

  “Then there’s always the elite towers, I suppose,” Kellar laughed.

  “Blast that man!” Ornenkai thought again. It was always Hinev who was the one to vex him.

  Ornenkai had recently received the council's decision to recruit candidates for Hinev's genetic experiment.

  “What is he doing?�
� Ornenkai could only wonder. A genetic experiment…

  “Why wasn’t I present during Hinev's interview?” he thought in irritation. That was only a mild sentiment, however, and it passed quickly.

  “I did tell them not to disturb my work out here,” Ornenkai thought to himself, looking again over at the Firien spaceship.

  Ornenkai's work on the new exploration vessel kept him far from Ariyalsynai, but the truth was that he had distanced himself more than necessary. Ornenkai's mechanized unit form had not linked up to the Main Terminus memory vault in nearly a year, nor had he kept a direct communication with the Council to monitor its activities.

  For reasons even he could not entirely pinpoint even to himself, Ornenkai had lost himself in his current project at Lake Firien and didn’t want to have anything to do with the council.

  He was sick of it all. Firien was a world away, a remote and peaceful world away.

  Then the unexpected news arrived.

  Fynals Hinev had created what he called a metamorphosis “serum”. Ornenkai found himself in an agitated state.

  Could it be true?! Fynals Hinev was in the process of creating the elixir of eternal youth!

  “A serum… could it be used by the Elders?” Ornenkai wondered. By all accounts, Hinev’s “serum” wasn’t quite perfect yet, though; according to the report, Hinev had already devised a test serum after several years and employed it with partial success. Ornenkai knew that Marankeil would be the first to want it for himself.

  The report was unbelievable, but by all accounts, Hinev had proved what he claimed!

  Hinev had managed to slow down the aging process in his own body, and had developed a raw kind of telepathy. His serum had tapped unbelievable psychic abilities within the human brain and body, and his serum had induced a bio-chemical change within his body.

  With his new psychic abilities and the powers of his mind expanding, Hinev seemed confident he could devise and perfect a second serum even more potent than the first; how long it would take him to perfect it, however, no one yet knew.

  That, Ornenkai supposed, had created the need for human guinea pigs—hence Hinev’s “genetic experiment”.

  Ornenkai sat, stood, marched about, tried to grasp the concept, tried to make himself believe it. He wanted to see Hinev first before his heart would let him believe. But wasn’t he himself living proof that the impossible could be reached and attained?

  Yes—if Marankeil believed Hinev was well on the road towards creating the serum of eternal youth, it might be true.

  Ornenkai let that thought sink in.

  Could this be it? His chance at human immortality? This could only be what Marankeil had foreseen was possible at long last! And did he not deserve it, after living so long as a machine?

  Ornenkai wondered, though, moments after the first wave of enthusiasm died down, could he be human? He had long since forgotten desire.

  Too much pleasure, such as that he could induce, was like pain. It was too easy, nothing, meaningless, just a temporary illusion of feeling.

  It was only then that he realized how deeply dissatisfaction had permeated his being. His heart ached to be human once again. Suddenly he couldn’t bear to live in his current state any longer.

  He didn’t want to die, of course, not after growing comfortable in his immortality. But now—could it be possible to have both his desires?

  The genius of Hinev—unbelievable!

  Recently, after the first reports of Hinev’s serum were received, Marankeil had set Hinev the task of finding an experimental group upon which to test his serum as soon as it was perfected. Perhaps after the serum was perfected, then the mechanized Elders could live as humans again, but with the promise of immortality.

  “To live, to breathe the fresh air, to see again, with my own human eyes!” Ornenkai had all the enthusiasm of a child at this thought.

  Still, Ornenkai wavered. He had never before stopped to consider how he would feel about this possibility.

  To be human or not—his mind was in torment. What could he do? Could he be human, really—did he want to face his conscience if he became human once more and subject to human laws and morals? Or would he prefer to remain a machine man with none?

  He had never known until then how the past three thousand years as a machine had weighed upon him, how irreparably they had damaged his human soul.

  He remembered what it was like to care, to feel, to appreciate life—but he quashed those memories.

  He had become a different being. The Ornenkai of the present could not relate to humanity. His initial enthusiasm after receiving the report had begun to wane in the past few hours as he contemplated whether or not he was beyond saving, even if Hinev's serum was a success.

  Ornenkai heard a noise behind him, but he had been expecting the councilor's arrival.

  He's late, Ornenkai thought. Marankeil's report said he would be here by morning.

  "What is it?" He hurled at the human representative Bilka, who had come from Ariyalsynai a few days before to confirm various pieces of information sent by Martial Scientific Force officers living in Firien City. If Bilka reacted to Ornenkai's hostility, he did not let it lessen his composure. Ornenkai turned to look at him; Bilka was a middle-aged Seynorynaelian, with dull eyes and a bilious temperament.

  "Elder Ornenkai, Elder Marankeil requested that I present these reports to you," Representative Bilka offered Ornenkai the computer board that held the information he had gathered on activities in the Firien province.

  "What is this?" Ornenkai asked after a minute and stopped glancing over the various files, suddenly intrigued by one of them.

  "It's the segment I took at the northern sector Firien education center—that girl who claimed to have read the words on the ruin.” Bilka explained. “Marankeil wants me to keep an eye on her, and to ask you if the translation is accurate."

  A girl? Ornenkai thought. Surely he wasn’t really talking about a child?

  "A girl living here claimed to have read the words?” Ornenkai asked. “ I thought Marankeil offered his translation," Ornenkai added, but his mechanized face could not convey his sudden discomfort. He had only received the translation of "Selesta" in yesterday's report, but hadn't gone to confirm it yet.

  He had assumed that Marankeil had interpreted it!

  Now, now all he could think about was testing its accuracy.

  "No—but it doesn't really matter, does it?” Bilka shrugged. “No doubt the child is only playing some kind of game. Still, to be sure, Marankeil has suggested I bring her in for an assessment—to see if she is possibly a proto-telepath. In the past, they have been the ones to keep the ancient lore—Marankeil thinks maybe this girl knew the name because of something she heard. Few still live in the ancient community these days where it is said the proto-telepaths came from, but she and her mother live there, alone. Anyway, it's worth looking into." Bilka shrugged again, unconcerned either way.

  A proto-telepath... the words haunted the edge of Ornenkai’s memory. Ordinarily, he didn’t believe in such unscientific, irrational nonsense, but—what if the proto-telepaths had really existed, here in Firien where the comet riders once crashed? Could it be that there really had been a scientific explanation for the proto-telepaths? And that, that was why Marankeil had forced the settlers of Firien to relocate, to scatter the descendants of Enor, so that none would be strong enough to oppose him.

  Ornenkai decided to glance over the file—and suppressed a sudden desire to laugh hysterically.

  "Did you know that—this girl is Zadúmchov's granddaughter?" Ornenkai asked calmly for all the world.

  "Of course," Bilka said, shaking his head. "But you should have known all of this, Elder Ornenkai. When was the last time you loaded information from the Main Terminus?" He added with a note of accusation in his voice, as though he considered Ornenkai but an inferior ad
junct to Elder Marankeil who needed to be reprimanded by a minor representative.

  Ornenkai glared at him, but he laughed, a cold, sardonic laugh. Representative Bilka's desire to become the next mechanized Elder was obvious to him, even if it remained officially unspoken. Bilka's servile behavior in following Ornenkai's requests was only superseded by the man's enthusiasm in doing everything for Marakeil.

  Bilka immediately adopted an obsequious posture.

  "Do you require a report of my whereabouts?” Ornenkai demanded.

  Bilka cringed.

  “Well, I've been busy," Ornenkai added, gesturing to the new construction on the ruins lying on the sands before them.

  Ornenkai looked back at the file; Bilka seemed content to watch the slow progress of the welders going on in front of them. The man stood staring at the bright sparks blinking on and off like fireflies, but the darkness was unnatural. A dome twenty units in diameter had been erected over the site, obscuring the view of Lake Firien.

  A sound disturbed Bilka, and he turned to the Elder Ornenkai. Ornenkai had gripped the computer board, nearly crushing it in his powerful metallic hands.

  Suddenly, he headed over to the elevation device. Bilka rushed behind him, hopping on the device before it began to descend to the makeshift museum below the observation tower. Ornenkai headed towards the largest of the fragments that had been taken from the original ruins for study. The engineers of the Martial Scientific Force had been using the analysis of the fragments' structure as a guideline for the new hull in Ariyalsynai, but Ornenkai had kept the largest fragment at Firien, hoping one day to decipher the inscription on the ancient hull plate.

  "Sel-es-ta—" Ornenkai's voice faded as he began to mentally match the sounds with the characters. Marankeil knows this girl is right, the thought staggered him. That was why Marankeil sent Bilka to the Firien province to investigate.

  "What is your opinion?" Bilka asked calmly.

  "Yes, keep an eye on her—this girl.”

  "And the translation?" Bilka persisted.

  "It will take me some time before I can check the accuracy for certain. Tell Marankeil I will arrange a communication with him tomorrow."

  Bilka nodded, but Ornenkai sensed the representative's irritation that he would be excluded from Ornenkai's reply. Bilka withdrew for a moment, leaving Ornenkai alone with the computer board.

  Ornenkai searched the files a few minutes longer for some more information on the child. He reached to her personal file. Her name—Alessia. The computer board registered little more than the basic information, but the interview Bilka had taken of the girl's claim at the training center was still on file. Ornenkai decided to watch the interchange for himself, and activated the recording.

  The image that appeared in the holo-projection sphere above the computer board sent a jolt through Ornenkai.

  He tried to shut off the image, but his hand, his words, were frozen. He just stared at her, listened to her lyrical voice, in profound fascination.

  What was she? What was this expression of wonderment in her eyes, this unattainable shining light in her face that his darkened soul wanted to devour for his own nourishment?

  The idea of drawing near her filled him with horror, horror and disgust at himself. Why?

  He had never before felt so valueless, so utterly lost.

  What was he? Was he this black hearted thing he had been? What would she say if she saw him for what he was?

  The child was like a little angel, he thought, a messenger of Enor. She was beautiful in a way that he had never seen before, hair soft like a wild bird’s, skin smooth as a flower petal.

  The expression of innocence and secret knowledge in her eyes was enough to plunge his heavy soul into madness. He thought of touching her, taking some of her joy and wonder into his heart, but the thought of his cold, vice-like fingers on her skin repelled him; he repelled himself. Still, he wanted to touch her; she knew the light, only the wonder, only the enchantment of life, yes, she knew and embraced it, and it was all to her. She had seen and known things he hadn’t known for all his years, things that came naturally to her, the unknown mysteries that only invited themselves into a wild, untamed heart such as hers.

  He sensed she had known sorrow. Sorrow chased her, chased her mad like an animal intent upon extinguishing her joy; her eyes told him that she felt its cold chill creeping upon her, sensed its proximity, but let it creep upon her!

  He felt the shadow of all the world where she was not descend upon him. He stared at her greedily, at the light where his soul wanted to go.

  Where only his soul could go, because his body was already lost to him.

  Ah, the torment of her visage to him! He wanted to take some of that integrity of feeling from her, not to steal it, but to fill the horrible void in him.

  He wished, wished so very much, that he were human once more.

  He felt disgusted with himself; he was an undying creature, and she was but a child.

  She was only a child, but he wanted to drown in the comforting, all-encompassing depths of her eyes, lost to an oblivion that knew only radiant wonder, that was a part of life, surging with life.

  “Elder Ornenkai, is there something amiss?” Bilka asked, waiting.

  Ornenkai looked up, and said nothing. He slowly shut off the file, aware for the first time that he had no tears to shed.