Ryk E. Spoor's Blog, page 16

Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 11

Varan and his friends had apparently reached an accord with the Thovians..

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Chapter 11.

Varan:

Emerging from the forest onto the grassy slope of a wide alpine meadow, I stopped and looked – really looked – around me, and I suddenly realized where we were. The mountains we were slowly ascending from the west curved gently away from us both north and south, a curve that I could just make out at this altitude and from this vantage point. If that curve continued it would be a circle something close to five hundred kilometers across, a feature that would be – and had been – easily visible from orbit.

"But that's impossible," I heard myself say.

Hargan glanced back at us. "So you have placed yourself at last, Sasham Varan."

"There wasn't much opportunity to do it before," I said distractedly, trying to comprehend what had happened. That crater was on the other side of the planet from where we landed! "You ended the Togron Gon Roltav after you declared yourself pleased with my last answer, and to be honest all of us were pretty much exhausted; whatever you used to knock us out before moving us, it didn't really let us rest up. So we went to sleep and then you kicked us awake just after dawn, got us fed, and started us hiking. Besides, you didn't leave us our comm equipment, so I couldn't query the ship, and I don't know your local stars."

"You are of course correct," Hargan said.

The Eönwyl had figured out what we were talking about. "But he's right. How can we be here? Did your drug or whatever cost us weeks? How long has it been?"

"Not weeks, certainly," said Chondu Hok Chondu, pushing her immense black wood bow aside to pass through some brush. "It is now almost ninety hours since you landed on Thovia to aid the victims of the landslide."

I did a quick calculation in my head. That was about two and a half days of Thovia's rotation, which meant that at most it had taken fifteen hours to get us around the planet.

Which, from what we knew of Thovia, was completely impossible. Unless… "You commandeered The Eönwyl? Or one of the local Imperial shuttles?"

Boduras' laugh echoed across the clearing. "Certainly not, Sasham Varan. All of your vessels are, sadly, designed for stunted little creatures like you. Can you imagine your friend Guvthor in the Eönwyl's piloting seat? Of course you cannot; the idea is sheer fantasy."

I stopped, as did The Eönwyl and Vick; after a moment, Guvthor did as well, though his expression was not nearly so nonplussed or resolute as ours. "Then I think it is past time for some real explanation. We've been patient as all the Hells given the questions we've had; Guvthor played all mysterious and then promised us answers, and now you're taking everything we can tell you and giving us nothing in return."

Hargan gave a deep rumble – of amusement, anger, or something else I couldn't tell – and turned to face us fully, pulling forth her great sword. "Hrrrm. And so here you draw weapon and demand answer, on the slopes of Revashuzanin Tal Kaslu, surrounded by the Thov Hok Shu, three tiny creatures alone."

I hadn't actually drawn weapons, but from their ritual of greeting and discussion I could guess that this was a figurative thing – that she'd just made literal. "I do." I reached back and pulled, and held my vya-shadu before me, parallel in the ancient way. "You've played your game of secrets long enough and right now we have no reason to believe that you're going to stop playing it tonight, tomorrow, or a month from now."

"And they are not entirely alone." Guvthor unslung the Makthu Hok Guvthor. "I am guilty of the same game – by the oaths and commands laid upon me by this same council – but in this I stand with my friends."

Nor are you wise to speak as though we are at your mercy, Thovians. Vick's mindvoice was hard, but filled with a fierce joy and anticipation. I am one of the People, the R'Thann, and my birthright is now mine. If you be ready to speak, then speak; if instead it is to be battle, know that you shall be Tested indeed, to the depths of your souls. The sharp claws flexed and his crest stood stiff and high.

The Eönwyl wasn't so dramatic; she simply drew her pistol. "You left us armed. A rannai doesn't much care about size."

For a few moments, there was silence, and tension began to rise; even armed and aided by the psionics Vick and I could wield along with Guvthor's strength and speed, I knew we wouldn't really stand much of a chance against more than twenty Thovians. Then Hargan raised her sword and looked around at the others of the Thov Hok Shu. "Meldas San Kolon'Mak Shasto," she said, and her sword was sheathed. "Your resolve has equaled our steel and we greet you as equals. I shall begin the explanations as we continue. Will that suffice?"

"As long as they're explanations and not more evasions." I breathed a sigh of relief as I returned my swords to their scabbards. I can't afford fights with people who could be allies.

"Then let us continue. They will be explanations, though at first you may not completely comprehend them; there is much to explain." She gestured for Boduras to lead and fell back to walk alongside us.

"Do you know what Thov Hok Shu means in your language, Sasham Varan?" She didn't wait for my negative reply, but continued, "Roughly, it means the Remembrance of the World, or Those Who Remember for the World.

"You will have scanned our world as you approached. I will be surprised if you did not detect traces of cities like your own, buried beneath the earth?"

The Eönwyl nodded. "Most habitable worlds have something like them; the collapse of the ancient civilization they were part of, the 'Atlantaea' of Varan's myths, is obvious in these ruins."

"In much of the Galaxy, yes." Hargan was silent for a moment, appearing to think. "But in the case of Thovia, those ruins are not the remains of this Atlantaea. For Thovia was one of the very few worlds which had not, in fact, joined mighty Atlantaea before the day of her fall."

Vick's low hiss echoed my own astonishment. "You… how do you know that?"

"Because so was it told to us by our parents, who were told it by theirs, and so, to the beginning," Hargan said, and I recognized the same tone in her voice as I had when speaking from the Book of the Fall. "When the World had soared to its first great height and lifted its ships from the seas and set them in the skies, when the People stood upon the decks of those ships and thought to reach out our hands to the stars and make them our own, in those days did the People look into the night and see other great ships plying the ocean of stars, and we sent them a challenge and greeting, and found that the others had steel bright and strong enough to blind.

"And in those days also was Daramanda Hok Thov, wise man, teacher, speaker of things past and the walking of the past to the future, and Daramanda spoke to the People, and warned them that they went too far, too fast, and sought the stars without remembering the ground and the trees and the weight of worry from which the heights had been born. And some listened and thought, but more ignored the warning, for the bright-steel ships and singing death-armed warriors were of Atlantaea, the eternal, the ever-soaring, and we would reach for those heights as well; and their joyful enemies, with praises to their Lady, priests and warriors all, they came too from beyond the darkness to the World, and all spilled blood to bind the brotherhood; for both sides saw the People were strong and eager and sought their favor in the great contest, and long and spirited was the debate as to the path the People would take."

We were back now in deep forest with the huge trees of Thovia looming above, casting shadows of mysterious green across Hargan's face; and though I saw this, I was also seeing a distant past of legend.

"But Daramanda saw a great darkness behind darkness, and again he warned the People, yes, and the ever-children of Atlantaea and the proud warriors of naked claw and fang who opposed them in noble war; but their eyes were looking up, ever upward into the stars, and would not turn downwards to see that darkness which swallowed their past, their foundations, their strength and made it hollow and weak; and then the day came, and the bright-steel joyful Empire fell, screams of terror shattering stars, and even the Lady's Warriors fled, fled back to the darkness beyond dark to escape the Fall that came from that which was darker still; and the People, too, fled back to our World, seeing the Truth, knowing it was near too late, but not quite.

"And Daramanda stood between the People and the darkness and bade the People light a great fire, the greatest fire of all, and the People obeyed, as the lights of the stars faded, and in that light returned to that which had been left behind."

Hargan fell silent, and for a few minutes I walked without saying anything, trying to grasp what she had just recited. "Hargan… are you saying this is a true history of your people?"

"Do you believe the story you gave us – of your Eternal King – is true?"

"I… Yes, I do."

She nodded. "Then it is at least as true as that story."

"I'm not usually one for trying to interpret legends, I'm sorry to say," the Eönwyl said. "What exactly does all that mean?"

"Well… if I get it all right – and please correct me, Hargan, if I don't – Thovia had just gone through its great industrial advances and was building its own first starships when Atlantaea made contact with them. At the same time they were also contacted by some group…" Something was nagging at me. Their Lady? Warriors and priests? It couldn't be… but they have some legends that would fit… "… some other group that was actually fighting Atlantaea, but it sounds almost like a sort of contest, a friendly rivalry rather than all-out war, and both sides were trying to convince Thovia to join their cause." I glanced over, Hargan nodded, so I continued. "Now there was someone – sounds like a holy man, a priest of some kind, Daramanda, who I guess felt that all the speed of technological progress and maybe social progress had separated them from, well, their roots, and predicted a great disaster if they kept going. So when Atlantaea fell, his prediction was vindicated and the Thovians rallied to his cause in terror and…" …light a great fire… Torline's Swords! "… and put their cities to the torch."

WHAT? What sort of insanity was THAT? Vick's mindvoice was utterly boggled.

"Our people are not inherently rational," Hargan said quietly but with a tiny hint of humor in her voice. "Any more than are yours, R'Thann, or any others I am aware of. Legend has it that Daramanda's prophecies were confirmed, and that the People therefore followed his philosophy with zeal, destroying the cities and technology above the most basic." Her smile could not hide an expression of tragedy. "Of course, this led to the deaths of most of the People. But Daramanda's Creed had gained great strength, and – as one might expect – rather than blame Daramanda's, or rather his more extreme followers', anti-technological beliefs for all the deaths, the blame was laid on how far we had gone from our basic and original nature."

I winced, but couldn't restrain a sad laugh. "Oh, vorces, I wish I could be laughing because it would never happen to us, but that's all too familiar. There are probably a hundred or a thousand legends and stories similar to that one in the Empire, on a hundred different worlds. The only real difference is that none of them claim this goes back to Atlantaea. How can you be sure of that part?"

"A fair question," Hargan said. "Because that was only the beginning. Eventually, of course, after a long time, we recovered and – despite the teachings – began to rebuild. Cautiously, trying always to figure out a way to maintain that 'connection' between our work and our World, but still building up, re-learning the science and technology we had lost.

"And once more, as we began to reach out for the stars, we met others – humans, with their 'bright-steel ships and joyous courage', already reclaiming the Galaxy they had lost. The Federation of Melossa contacted us and invited us to join."

Melossa! I knew that name, but not from my own studies. That was one of the most ancient civilizations after Atlantaea, one that I knew because Taelin's sister Mishel had been involved in studying Melossan ruins. If Melossa had truly contacted Thovia after they were rebuilding, it pretty much clinched the identity of the first civilization they had met; it had to be Atlantaea itself.

Which made that recitation of Hargan's the first clear record from the days of Atlantaea that wasn't part of the Book of the Fall or one of its derivations or related writings.

"The debate was furious on Thovia, for the teachings of Daramanda were still strong; but at the same time, we wished – very much – to step farther out, to become part of the living Galaxy. And the exact interpretation of Daramanda's Creed was not agreed upon; there were at least two major … denominations, you might call them – similar to what I have heard of the difference between your Repentants and your Seekers."

I nodded my understanding, and looked up to see that we were now entering a very large cave. Echoes began to chase around us as we continued speaking, and lent an even more powerful effect to Hargan's next words.

"And then it happened again. Melossa, the powerful and proud, the united and strong, fragmented, almost without warning, world turning against world, fleet against fleet, as though they had all gone mad in the space of a few months or years."

Hargan nodded as we stared. "And we, too, began to repeat our actions. Was this not a sign? We had begun to move beyond our world, to surpass where we had been the first time we had fallen. Perhaps we, too, had lost our way, ignored the roots that held us steady and firm.

"But one denomination of Daramanda's Way believed that it was important to avoid the terrible deaths. Yes, we had lost our way, but we must be civilized at all times. If it was time to find our true selves again, we must do it wisely and with caution; this view – barely – prevailed. And so, as the last cries of Melossa faded from the skies, we carefully retreated from the cities, dismantled them over many years, and the inner circle of Daramanda recorded these events and that which was abandoned."

"The Thov Hok Shu," I said.

"Its beginnings, yes. And in the years that followed, the People came to understand that the problem with civilization was that when one came to be too advanced, one had left behind the true knowledge of our primitive selves, the people we remained in our essence, and this lack of understanding would inevitably lead to a collapse – civil war, a turning-inward of the civilization to decadence, or some other course which would end in the fall of that civilization. But such a fall wipes out nearly all that was learned, and thus no civilization can truly reach its peak and remain there."

"But that –"

"—Isn't precisely true, no, but you must understand that much of these beliefs were developed following just such collapses; even the attempt to carefully orchestrate a "retreat" was not as successful as the first Thov Hok Shu would have liked. Still, the argument progressed a great deal in the centuries that followed. Our ancestors – and, in time of need, our selves today – used to live with great vigor and growth in the spring and summer, but would retreat and our bodies slow, become almost inert, in the depths of winter. What the teachings eventually came to say was that a true civilization must go through such cycles regularly, but not collapses; a revisiting of the old ways, a return to the roots, followed by a re-ascension, one that each time reaches a greater peak than the last as it is guided by the Custodians, those who retain the records and the knowledge so that they are not forever lost."

"Wait. Hold on." I shook my head, trying to take it all in, as we descended a long slideway with guide ropes that prevented this from becoming a complete disaster. "So you're claiming that Thovia … what, builds up a civilization, cities, ships… and then backs up, goes to what we see now, and then does it all over again, every few hundred or thousand years?"

"We claim this because it is the truth, Sasham Varan." Boduras turned to face us as we reached the bottom and saw in front of us a huge door – a door not of stone, nor of wood, nor of simple beaten bronze or forged iron, but of a smooth, shining alloy whose blue-touched silver looked like Imperial battle armor. "But the Custodians do not merely retain knowledge. They watch. They wait.

"For in Melossa's fall, we saw the unexplainable, as we did in distant Atlantaea's. There was no reason for the sudden unrest, no collapse due to anomie or despair or rootlessness. And while some of us believed that it was the way of the All – that those who rose too high would be brought low, as Daramanda had taught, by their very height and separation from their essential selves – others of us saw in this the hand of something else, something for which we had no name, but something which was not fate, but hate – something that sought destruction and had toppled Melossa, perhaps Atlantaea as well, and had spared us only because we were not so high, and had brought ourselves low before it could turn its hatred upon us." The great door began to slide open, splitting down the center, multiple layers separating in interlocking order, a meter, two meters thick, and light began to shine through, obliterating the ruddy glow of the torches our escorts carried.

"And so we also hide our greatest truths, and sheathe our weapons in darkness, against that time that the eyes of hatred turn towards us, the moment when we see what lies behind the fall of those who were once our allies."

The light blazed out and we stepped forward. We stood upon a ledge that looked across a cavern so stupendous that misty clouds drifted nearly level with our eyes at the peak of that impossible space, a cavern supported not just by the bones of the world but by shining-alloy braces that protected and strengthened the stone, held it above the square-soaring buildings of cast-stone and crystal and steel and streets of hard cloud-gray. The sound of engines and generators and people at work echoed through the cavern as we stared at the underground city, and then at each other.

"Welcome, Sasham Varan, for we believe – from your words, and those of our brother Guvthor, and from what we have already seen – that at last we have found what lies behind that hatred, have a chance to confront that which brought low Atlantaea and Melossa.

"Welcome to Thalam Hok Shuvan, the Shield of Knowledge."

 

 

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Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 10

Time to look in on the other side of this game...

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Chapter 10.

Shagrath:

"Prime Monitor Shagrath. I thank you for coming so promptly."

He executed a perfect Six-and-One. "When your Imperial Majesty commands my appearance unexpectedly, I must presume it is urgent."

Emperor Galata Nin Salrein returned his salute with a distracted air. "I believe it is."

Shagrath watched without comment as the Emperor rose from the Throne of Seven and stretched. At his full height, Emperor Galata was more than six centimeters taller than Shagrath and, though his hair was silver and face lined, was in excellent shape for a man over two hundred years old. "Walk with me."

The Prime Monitor followed without speaking; the Emperor clearly had something of import to discuss and wished to do so away from even his guards, as he led Shagrath to the concealed elevator which could whisk the Emperor to a shielded bunker kilometers below ground – below even those provided for the city's residents in case the unthinkable happened and an alien force were to attack the homeworld – or to the very highest spire of the castle.

It was the second choice today, and the Emperor remained silent until they had exited the elevator and walked to the railing to gaze over the entirety of the capital, Salreinal, which in the (somewhat mangled) original Atlantaean would have meant something close to "City of Seven". The city reflected its name, and from this height of three and a half kilometers the seven-pointed star that was its foundation was easily seen.

The Emperor took out a scanner and waved it carefully around the entire area, finally replacing it in his pocket as Shagrath observed with raised eyebrows. "That serious, Majesty?"

"A precaution," the Emperor replied, and seated himself in the seat nearest the rail. "Please, Kerlamin, sit down."

He did so, wondering which of several things might be on the Emperor's mind. The Emperor was still – at the moment – the man he appeared to be. In truth, Shagrath had expected the finale of the current cycle to take place several more years down the line, when the next Emperor would be in place. The more recent events were accelerating the timeline, and it might be wise to… recruit the ruler soon.

"I have received a response from the Vmee Zschorza, in which they deny any involvement in Vhelekin or any other activities within our borders."

"That is, of course, hardly a surprise."

The Emperor nodded slowly. "Truly said. Yet, Kerlamin, their response bothers me. It bothers me a great deal indeed. Many are the communiqués I have exchanged with our stellar neighbors, in peace and in war. I have viewed many angry denials, grim acceptances, defiance in the face of our Navy, abject surrender, I have seen and heard them all many times. And they fall into patterns in my mind. You understand, do you not?"

Far better than you might believe, Shagrath thought. Patterns were the key to manipulation, but they were also its greatest enemy. Aloud, he said, "Of course, Majesty. The analysis of such things, of the patterns of word and action, are inevitably a key element of the work of the Monitors and Imperial Intelligence."

The Emperor nodded with a quick, flashing smile that emphasized his deep black eyes and skin scarcely lighter. "Then you must guess my concern. The response of my honorable opponents, the rulers of Zchorada, the Vmee Zschorza, their response was not worded in the way I expected. A denial of truth is… more emphatic than a denial in truth. In their words I heard both shock and fear, as though they thought WE were the ones seeking them injury."

"I understand, Majesty. Yet we now have numerous confessions as well as additional evidence."

"And additional executions," the Emperor said, with a glance down at the city that was filled with regret.

"You would not have us do otherwise?" He was careful with the tone. While it was extremely important to him that the executions continue, the part he was playing would not personally care, and the last thing he needed now was for the Emperor to become a wild card. He could not simply remove the Emperor, arranging an accident would take time, and the Five would be most suspicious of nearly any death or incapacitating event. Even with some of the Five already in his camp, so to speak, that would be a very undesirable event.

"No, no." The Emperor's voice was sad, but hard. "Those who are actually traitors to the Empire, who have chosen to turn their backs on us, to ally themselves with our enemies? Execution is the only reasonable punishment. Their actions have already resulted in many deaths of my people; I betray their trust in me if I allow their killers to live. As long," the Emperor's head came up and those sharp black eyes looked narrowly into Shagrath's mirrored gaze, "as long as all the requirements are met. Interrogations must be conducted according to the Accords, recorded and reviewed each by the other – yours by Imperial Security, theirs by the Monitors. And of course a member of the Five may be present at any time they desire."

"And they have been, Majesty. No torture, truth induction only, and – naturally – considerable psychological manipulation. With some clemency for those with truly useful information to impart, or those who truly did not understand the import of their actions."

Naturally, Shagrath had made sure that the guilty believed what they confessed to. And those confessions had been designed very carefully. "It is possible," he continued, "that the Vmee Zschorza's denial is completely honest, and yet the confessions are true. Unlike the Reborn Empire, the Zchorada still have considerable… factionalism present, despite the popular impression of their species as being more cooperative and collectivist than humanity and many of our associated species."

"So one of the rival Nests may have begun this without the dominant Nest and the Vmee being aware of it." The Emperor considered that for a few moments. "That is an unfortunate possibility, as it limits our reasonable responses. The last thing any of us truly want is a war. We have been at a state of near-war with the Zchorada for enough of the century and a half I have been Emperor.

"At the same time, this is the second provocation of this sort we have seen in recent years, the first being the attack on Tangia Station. One apparently rogue faction attack I might believe; I am less inclined to believe it a second time."

"You aren't considering –"

"Declaring war?" The Emperor shook his head. "Not quite yet. But I must do something. The latest security directives pain me, Kerlamin. It pains me even more to see that they come from young Lukhas. Borell, now, he has been hardened, but Lukhas…"

"I know, Majesty." The fondness of the Emperor for the Mel'Tasne family had been evident for many years – unsurprising, Shagrath had to admit, for the three children and many of their close relatives had always been brightly burning in the public eye when the others of the Five were often secretive and private. "I'm afraid I rather expected such a reaction."

"Hm. And their loss is mine – and the Empire's. Demons take this curse of psionic powers! Why the other species can wield them and we cannot we still do not understand… but worse is how unpredictable it is. Sasham Varan, one of the few not of the Families who has stood before me more than once, whose name I knew, Kerlamin, whose face echoed the very inspiration of our people, cut down and made a monster in the very year he became one of those who would guide our future!"

The Emperor gave vent to a curse he would never permit himself in public. "And now we are close to imprisoning one of our oldest allied species because some of them are being used as pawns and, sometimes, traitors – and psionics, again, at the heart of the danger." The Emperor stood and looked out over his city. "I will support you and White Controller Mel'Tasne in any actions you deem necessary, though at this time I will withhold any declaration of war. But I wish you to redouble research on psionics and defenses against them. If we cannot use them, we must find a way to protect ourselves against them, to restrain them – and perhaps to cure them in humanity. I will have Lukhas outline the directive and distribute it across the Empire."

"Understood, Majesty." He waited a moment, and the Emperor made a gesture of dismissal.

"You may go, Kerlamin. I wish to be alone for a while."

"As you will. Seven Standing, Majesty."

"Standing and Unfallen, Prime Monitor."

In the elevator, he allowed himself a very broad grin. It was almost precisely what he wanted. It wasn't quite time for a war yet. He needed the rest of the galaxy stirred up a bit, so that when war came it would be the sort of war to bring down every participant, shatter their interconnections, turn ally against ally and in the end dissolve even the Reborn Empire into civil war, bringing Shagrath one step closer to returning home. Perhaps in a few thousand more years I can be sure enough. One more cycle, maybe two.

It would not, of course, be wise to return without being very, very sure.

He took his leave of the Imperial Castle, walking as though deep in thought.

The shrieking chorus began the instant he left the mindshields. Lost is Thovia! Another of Us is perished!

For a moment he couldn't believe what he was hearing; he paused momentarily in his walk, then forced himself to continue, locked the pensive expression on his face as a mask. What do you mean, lost? Who has dared attack you?

A cascade of images, the last seen and sent by the Captain of the Thovian outpost, a rumbling roar and the movement of trees, the screaming crash and tilting of the world, a smell of earth and stone filling the nostrils…

An avalanche. An avalanche! Do the very mountains conspire against me?

He ignored the voices complaining about the loss of another of their limited number. Enough. I understand you have no more to spare at this time. I will send a vessel there. Less subtle a trap than I would have preferred, but if Varan is there we shall take him.

You believe the landslide was deliberate?

He could not quite restrain a grim chuckle. Say rather that I do not discount the possibility.

He looked back at the tower; with his vision, vastly better than anything human, he could still make out the Emperor standing at the rail, gazing out over the capital of Oro and the Empire, and he considered again the timeline. Assuming these conditions… and if we act exactly so… yes.

He smiled, and if any of those passing could have really looked at that smile they would have shrank back and sought refuge or weapons. It is time to begin to advance our timetable, my friends. I will play my hunches; there are several vessels in that area which I can arrange to act. It is time to create your Nexus, and it is time to begin to expand your ranks.

The voices were eager, disbelieving. Truly? We can assemble in your system and begin?

Here at Oro, yes. Only to build the beginnings of your Nexus. But that should be enough. He looked up again. And you shall begin by assuring us that the Emperor will always support our policies.

 

The post Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 10 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 9

Varan and company had completed their rescues, and were waiting to find out WHY Guvthor had wanted them to visit...

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Chapter 9.

Varan:

I shook my head to clear it, found that wasn't doing much good. In fact, I wasn't even sure where I was.

[anger-and-confusion-curse]! Whatever has done this I shall visit with talon and Hunger!

Vick's mindvoice was muzzy, about the way my own thoughts felt. I was finally aware I was sitting on something, face slumped down on what felt like wood. A table?

I could hear a faint moan of pain from the Eönwyl on my left and farther to the right I heard a deep-voiced grunt from Guvthor. A wave of dizziness surged over me; I waited for it to subside while I tried to remember something – anything – that might tell me what had happened.

We'd had our night of rest and recovery, as Guvthor had put it – a relatively quiet celebration of survivors coupled with remembrance of the lost. The next day, Guvthor had sent word out to the other clan leaders (who apparently had no objection to using a few Imperial communicators to eliminate days, weeks, or even months of messengers running across continents to get everyone involved up to date). There had been no immediate response, which left Guvthor looking a bit disappointed and – I thought – slightly concerned. When I'd asked him about it, he'd shrugged. "They may be discussing the meeting time and location amongst themselves," he said with an attempt at a casual air. "These things can take some time. Hopefully not too long."

And so we'd had another meal and gone to sleep, and that was all I could remember.

I forced my head up and got my eyes open.

"Torline's Swords!"

The urgency in my curse caused Vick's head to snap upright and the Eönwyl to look up; Guvthor tried to rise and nearly fell to the ground.

Adrenalin had completely cleared my head as I found myself staring into the deep, dark eyes of at least two dozen Thovians, all seated around a tremendous semicircular table that faced us, under a sky roofed over with the branches of some of the largest trees I had yet seen, a roof of branches and leaves through which some stars flickered and on which danced the orange-yellow of firelight from immense firepits spaced around the clearing. We were at a smaller semicircular table – no, I corrected myself as I took a quick glance backwards, they were both halves of a pair of circular tables positioned with the smaller one like the bullseye of a target.

With us as the bullseye.

Guvthor shook himself all over, drew a breath, and rose to his full impressive height, glaring at the others and reaching over his shoulder, drawing out the immense battleaxe and raising it over his head.

To my surprise, I discovered that not only was I properly dressed, my Maradan 500F was still on my hip. I didn't draw the rannai pistol, though; I didn't feel all that steady on my feet, and I wanted to see what in the Emperor's Name was going on here.

"Makthur Chak Nantu!" Guvthor bellowed. When there was no response, he leapt completely over the table, wobbling only a bit on landing, and raised the great axe again. "Makthur Chak Nantu, Rogh!"

For several long seconds, there was no response – not a growl, not a movement, nothing but the eyes now all fixed on the Thovian astrophysicist. As the moments slid by, I saw Guvthor's pose begin to shift, hands moving to a combat grip, not a ceremonial one.

Abruptly one – at or near the center of the watching group – rose to her feet, fur gleaming red and gold in the firelight, and drew forth a sword nearly twice as long as I was tall. "Rodur Chak Nantu," she answered.

Guvthor's hands relaxed the tiniest bit. "Meldas San Kolon'Mak Shasto."

Another pause, but shorter, but this time the other Thovian slashed her sword through the air at Guvthor. "Shasto Nok Guvthor, Goro Thov!"

Whatever that meant, it shocked Guvthor enough that his axe dropped halfway to the ground. Then he let out a roar and swung, burying the axe deep into the table in front of the female (who was almost his size) and launched into a torrent of Thovian which seemed equal parts outrage, argument, and pleading – the last being something I'd never expected to hear in Guvthor's voice.

The others responded – first the older female with the sword, then more of them, until the entire clearing echoed with the deep-throated bellows of a dozen three-to-four-meter tall Thovians – and sometimes to quick clashes of weapons, as those arguing often punctuated their incomprehensible points with a swing of a weapon which was parried by their opposite number.

I couldn't make out the actual meaning; Guvthor had been telling the truth about his people's resistance to psionic abilities. Not one of them was radiating thought concepts that could be grasped – it was like trying to make out shapes through frosted crystal. You could tell there were thoughts there, sometimes get an idea of how intense the emotions with them were, but actually reading what they were thinking would require that I bore through those defenses – something that would undoubtedly be at a minimum rude and, at worst, an immediately fatal offense.

I glanced over at the Eönwyl and Vick. The Eönwyl had drawn her pistol and was behind the tall pillar-like chair she'd been seated on – similar to the one I was still perched atop. Vick's eyes were narrow and his tail lashing, but he was not – quite – acting.

But the debate was still getting louder, and I thought there was a darker edge to it now, with tones of fear and anger now on both sides, and weapons – bows, swords, spears, axes, massive hammers – were all out and waving threateningly; a few seemed to be taking Guvthor's side, but most were not.

I had to do something. I had no idea exactly what was going on, but it wasn't good for us, of that I was sinking sure. I couldn't shoot them. I couldn't run up there with my own swords, unless I was hoping to stop this by making them all laugh; that might work but I sure wasn't planning on counting on that. Jumping on one of them and trying Tor combat maneuvers was even sillier.

That left some kind of psi stunt. I couldn't affect them…

… but I could affect things around them. I remembered one of the greatest of the psi horror stories, the legend of Maldron the Earthshaker. I couldn't possibly do what he did, but I had gotten a lot stronger in my telekinetic abilities since that long-ago time I'd been tested by Vick in Shagrath's presence…

I reached out, sensed the bedrock not far under this mountain grove, concentrated, reaching deep within me, stretching mentally until I realized I was doing so physically, my visualization echoed in action. I went with it, rising to my full height and then punching downward with every iota of power I could channel.

The concussion rocked the entire clearing like the detonation of a K-series mine. Guvthor and the other Thovians staggered and went to their knees, the massive tables wobbled, even the trees above shuddered, dropping a shower of dirt and leaves. I nearly fell myself, not from the shockwave – which I'd suppressed in my location – but from complete shock at the magnitude of the effect. I could see more Thovians – tending the firepits and associated ovens and stoves – had also fallen or tripped. Surprisingly, The Eönwyl remained standing as though the shockwave hadn't even reached her.

By the Final Light… Vick's mental voice was both awed and … joyful in a predatory fashion. The power does continue to increase. A triumph, a triumph indeed!

For a moment, there was absolute silence except for the faint, fluttering sound of leaves and dust still sifting slowly to the ground.

"No offense," I said, trying to project my voice across the clearing without shouting, "but whatever you're arguing about has to do with us, and I think we need to know who you all are, why you're arguing, and what in the name of the Eternal is going on here."

 

The older Thovian woman rose slowly to her feet, staring at me. After a pause, she gave a knee-dipping bow. "I am Hargan Hok Hargan, savant of the Keiladonarondalam, holder of the Rodur Hok Hargan. You are the Imperial that the Guvthor has brought to speak with the Thov Hok Shu."

"Sasham Varan, once Captain of the Mada, the Navy of the Reborn Empire, yes," I confirmed. "Now what seems to be the problem?"

"Guvthor Hok Guvthor used authority given him by the Thov Hok Shu for purposes we are not agreed upon as necessary," another Thovian – black-furred, broad, also female. "We were discussing the matter."

"You were 'discussing' the matter," repeated The Eönwyl, who was now up and standing near me. "To us, it appeared you were about to discuss it by lopping off some heads on one or both sides of the debate."

"If you are not prepared to die for your beliefs, are they worth considering?" Hargan said matter-of-factly. "Usually our discussions end with little or no bloodshed, but there are serious matters indeed involved. This axe-eager stripling," she said with a gesture at Guvthor, who looked slightly offended, "has taken actions which, if we are not very lucky, will put us at odds with your Reborn Empire. That is a weighty decision, not one to be made by one person, no matter how intelligent or convinced of his own correctness."

A "weighty decision"? I thought. More like suicidal, and in that point of view they're right. "You're saying – as we suspected – that Guvthor arranged the landslide?"

"He arranged for it to be triggered in one of the patterns we had determined likely, yes," answered yet another Thovian – a brown-furred huge-gutted mountain of a creature, not quite as tall as Guvthor but possibly twice his mass. "Your pardon – Boduras Hok Boduras, holder of the Beidal Hok Boduras. You must realize that while we permitted your Empire a foothold here, to offer us trade and education," his smile was strangely cynical, "we have never been the sort to trust in the strength of another without strength of our own. We devised multiple methods of removing the Imperial presence from our world if we deemed it necessary."

Vick was studying the group narrowly, as a predator might size up another predator intruding on its territory. He glanced at me at the last sentence.

That was a … very disquieting concept. This primitive world, with natives who were still building stone and wood shelters against their weather and using fireplaces as their heat source, had calmly decided to make sure they could erase the Imperial presence whenever they thought it necessary? They had to have a grasp by now of just what kind of power the Reborn Empire wielded; this argument showed they were quite aware of the dangers. What kind of people would nonetheless have arranged such a monstrously lethal way of erasing their visitors from the planet?

As I tried to formulate a useful question, Hargan gestured to another group of Thovians who had been hovering at the edges of the argument and barked something at them. "But your, hm, rather emphatic way of recalling our attention to you has reminded me that we must keep our manners. We had you brought here without your knowledge so that none of you – even Guvthor – can say where the Thov Hok Shu spoke with you, if we elect to return you without further discussion. But we are all hungry, and it is time for Togron Gon Roltav. We can make no decision unless we understand you, and that cannot be done if we speak not to you, and you have no chance to speak with us.

"So take your seats again, please, and food shall be brought, and then – once we have reached the state of comfort, if not completion, in our eating, the Questions may begin."

"I trust you've checked all the food you're going to serve to make sure it's safe." The Eönwyl made it a statement.

"For human consumption, certainly," Hargan replied, then glanced at Vick with some uncertainty. "For R'Thann…?"

The blade-sharp smile flickered under the brilliant crest. If it bled as it died, I can eat it. If it still lives, so much the better, for then I shall drink its life. The People are… a most efficient species.

Guvthor nodded slowly. "I have heard tales, indeed."

"As have we all," Hargan said. "Another reason we question your judgment, Guvthor Hok Guvthor. Never before have any of the R'Thann set foot on Thovia and lived to speak of it; if this is to be an exception, we must be well convinced."

I might have found the thought that none of my species had ever been allowed to leave a planet a little intimidating; by the way Vick's crest rose and the rippling hiss he gave, it seemed he was almost pleased at the thought.

Huge platters of food were placed on the tables; I realized I could probably have laid down lengthwise on the platters and had plenty of room, and the amount of food they carried was fitting. Much of it was meat – not surprising, given our hosts' dentition and what I knew of Guvthor's own preferences – but there were roasted vegetables, several types of breads – flat and rising –baked in wood-fired ovens, and more complex dishes not immediately identifiable.

For some time we ate, with little conversation on either side; we had a lot to think about, and I'd guess so did they. Finally Hargan – who was clearly the head of this Thov Hok Shu – put down her feeding tines and glanced to Guvthor. "First we shall have your… report, Guvthor Hok Guvthor. Make it a summary and speak only of what you know to be true. Guesses we will hear at a later time. Speak in our own tongue, as I wish your words to have no influence on those of your companions."

Even a summary report took a lot of time when it covered well over a year that had been as busy as this one. I had time to finish my main courses and start picking at various desserts while the rumbling, sonorous sound of Thovian swirled incomprehensibly around me.

Finally, however, Guvthor stopped speaking and the other Thovians, after a brief dialogue amongst themselves, indicated their acceptance of Guvthor's description.

"Our turn," I said; Hargan looked almost ready to argue, then shrugged and nodded; obviously she realized that if they were going to be playing this by their rules, they'd better stick to the rules if they wanted me to play at all. "You used the word report deliberately. Guvthor was sent by you, wasn't he?" I looked her in the eye. "As a spy on the Empire itself."

She returned the gaze with a grave nod… yet there was another disquieting twinkle in her eye as well. "Precisely so. Guvthor Hok Guvthor volunteered – as did others – to allow the Imperium to educate them in appropriate fields and then become part of the Reborn Empire for some years, eventually to return here and tell us of the current state of the Galaxy around us. We will not pretend that this is anything other than spying; whether we agree with his most recent actions, Guvthor's loyalty was always to Thovia and the Thov Hok Shu, never to your Empire, and always intended to return whatever information he might gain while there to us, to allow us to truly assess the promise, and potential threat, of the Reborn Empire."

I blinked at the implications of that answer. But she shook her head with a smile of bared teeth. "As you said, our turn now." Hargan studied us in silence for a moment, then nodded at Boduras, who heaved himself slightly more upright to gaze at us, finally settling his stare at me. "Tell us a story, Sasham Varan. Something that will tell us something of who you are, or who you were, or what you believe."

I had known something like this was coming – Guvthor had been preparing us for this in his own way – but now that the time had come I didn't know exactly what to choose. Certainly the story of our escape from Teraikon was known already – that had to have been part of Guvthor's report. At the same time, I felt a little embarrassed to talk about any of the so-called heroic things I'd been involved with. I'd already told those to my companions and telling them again would sound like bragging.

But Boduras had said "what you believe". So… yes. Exactly.

"I am what my people call one of the Seekers. I believe in the legend of Atlantaea, in the Eternal King and the Eternal Queen, and how a reign of a thousand centuries ended in a single day of black fire and betrayal and demon-hate," I began. "And the story I remember most now, the story which takes me through the very path of darkness and back to the light, is from that very day, from the very moment that Torline Valanhavhi returned to hear the screaming of his world and the dying cry of his Queen, saw only the shadow of her killer and then the black outline of the King of All Hells, bestriding the First City as he struck the final blow that would send the Galaxy into darkness, and the ground shuddered, and Torline's city, his first city, began its descent into ruin."

I felt the words coming back to me as they were written in the Book of the Fall, as they had come to me the last time I told this story… to myself, on my way to Oro, and – though I hadn't known it at the time – to Taelin as he watched me. "And as the Tower of Eternity sank beneath the waves, he took up the body of his Queen, and strode across the waters, never looking back, for he knew that a heart can break more than once." I told of his journey as the stars went out and the land was changed, carrying the Queen still until he came to a place where a single ray of sun illuminated the shore of an island of gold and emerald, where he laid her at last to rest.

"And Torline turned, and left the place where forever would lie Niaadea, his Eternal Queen whose eternity was ended," I continued, feeling my throat burn at the memories this made real again; but I pushed on, through the Eternal King's greatest battle, a battle not against the forces of Hell, but against the mightiest of sins, despair, and how in the final moment he triumphed. "And so he taught, and so we pray, that always there is hope." And I heard in the back of my mind Taelin's voice, echoing the final line, as though he was still there.

The Thov Hok Shu were silent until Boduras leaned back slowly. "And do you believe in hope, or only in prayers for hope?"

I looked at my friends and allies, and looked back to the gathered council with a smile and an unexpected lifting of my heart. "The universe has showed me that even in moments of despair, there is always hope. You just have to be willing to see it."

I gestured to the three of them, Vick, The Eönwyl, Guvthor. "Three times I could see no escape from certain death, or worse; but three times I believed that there must be some chance, and reached out, fought for that chance – and it was there; an exile willing to risk his own life for mine, a scientist offering escape instead of death, a trader willing to bet her ship on a dream.

"So I do not believe in hope; I know there is always hope."

And by the slow smile that spread across Hargan's face, I knew that here, too, was hope.

 

 

The post Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 9 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 8

The Eonwyl and Varan were on a rescue mission...

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Chapter 8.

Eönwyl:

Ten people. Ten that just might still be alive.

But the very technology that made it possible that some of the people were alive was blocking her probes. Damn Imperial shielding; the passives built into the material are too sinking good.

And time was of the essence. No one knew that better than a miner, than someone who had lost friends in the horrific crushing black. She glanced coldly over at Guvthor, who was exerting his immense strength to shift a multi-ton boulder. If this was your doing, Thovian, you will have a great deal to answer for.

Varan was adjusting the hand sensors with the practiced skill of an engineer, but having no better luck.

Abruptly, she heard Sooovickalassa give a steamkettle hiss of contempt and rattle his crest in derision. Enough of this waste of time! I will show you where the survivors are!

The R'Thann scientist scuttled through the debris with supreme confidence, darting from point to point like an arrow. Here. Here. Two under this pile of rubble. Three here, one severely injured – lifeforce fading, must get to him first. Two more over here, and the last one, also badly injured, beneath this mound.

"How…?" She trailed off and then wanted to smack herself in the head. Varan very nearly did. Vick's species was psionic, so of course it seemed obvious to him that you would use psionic abilities to seek out hidden people.

Explaining that to the surviving Imperials might be difficult. Better to explain it another way…

"Dr. Sooovickalassa thinks he can smell where the survivors are!" she heard Varan shout, echoing her own thoughts. "He says he smells blood strongly here," he indicated the pile where Vick had indicated three survivors, one badly injured, "and here."

"Captain?" inquired Lieutenant Mansteros dubiously. "I would hate to question any assistance, but the Thovians have some of the most sensitive noses of any I've seen, and they can't smell anything in this mess yet. Can you confirm anything of this?"

"Possibly – if I concentrate my ship's scans on this precise area…" A very hazy scan built up on her screen… hazy, but just enough to show a dark area, a void. "I can confirm one thing. There's a space right under there, one large enough for three people – part of," she checked the outpost layout, "Geological Research, I think."

"Three… there would be three people there." Mansteros reached a decision quickly. "Follow his directions, people! It looks like Dr. Sooovickalassa is on the right track!"

Guvthor nodded slowly. "It is said indeed that the R'Thann have an especially keen… nose… for life, as hunters."

The R'Thann's answering smile seemed even more blade-edged than usual.

With dozens of Thovians, surviving humans, and the remaining machinery, the debris began to be cleared swiftly from the indicated spot. For the Eönwyl, it seemed both an eternity and only a few moments before a shout rose up from a man who had wriggled through a dark opening revealed by the excavation. "Bring a trauma unit! It's Raher, Zahel, and Khaster! Khaster's bad hurt, but they're all three alive!"

With the R'Thann's senses proven beyond any shadow of a doubt, the rescue party redoubled their efforts. The Eönwyl clawed for purchase on stone, hurled twisted pieces of metal aside as she helped clear the next site. More Thovians joined in, concentrating on the different locations Vick indicated.

Tons of debris were being moved every minute now, as hope and worry drove the rescuers onward. But a landslide is not a safe place to assume the ground remains stable, and the Eönwyl was suddenly reminded of that as a cracking, groaning noise sounded out. A huge mass of earth, led by a stone nearly eight meters long and four high, began to sweep down across the rescue ground – straight for Sasham Varan and the small knot of people with him.

"Sasham!" she shouted, and started forward – knowing that it was already too late, even Guvthor couldn't stop that mass –

Varan spun around, saw the monolith of rock sliding toward him, striking the white mass of a projecting support and crushing it, continuing on. But instead of dodging, he spun again, grabbing another stone, levering it up with desperate speed as he stood between the oncoming slide and the other four people – one Thovian, three human – who were frozen with startled fear.

And then the stone swept over them along with a hundred tons and more of earth and lesser rock, scarcely a jolt to mark its passage, stopping suddenly as it hit a depression and came to rest with the debris pooling around it like filthy water.

She shouted Varan's name again and found herself at the new mound of crushing stone, tearing at it in a completely uncontrolled fury that startled her. Then Guvthor was at her side, digging with more control but equal intensity, and Sooovickalassa, tossing aside boulders with a strength vastly out of proportion to his tiny frame.

Guvthor's arm broke through with startling abruptness, and there was a growl of pain from within. Thovian strength caught at stone and rock and hurled it away.

Sasham Varan was braced against the stone he had thrown up, legs dug knee-deep into the debris beneath him, holding up that stone which had formed the one support and bulwark that had – just barely – forced the immense boulder to pass over the others as they had thrown themselves flat. He looked up and redoubled his efforts; she saw with horror that the mass of stone and earth above was still trying to shift, still pressing down to erase the five small lives beneath it. "Get… the others… out!" Varan coughed, dust and earth covering his face.

Guvthor grasped his fellow Thovian and pulled him free with one arm, lifting three meters and half a ton from the grasp of fallen earth as though uprooting a sapling. Vick and The Eönwyl dragged Meinar Forrant out; Forrant's wife Nadha scrambled free herself and helped to pull the last man, Ghidein, from the loose earth. All were bleeding from scrapes but seemed otherwise unharmed.

"Don't… think I can… jump free. Stuff… will move real fast."

He's right, she thought. He shouldn't be able to hold it at all; she realized that he had to be using his psionics to reinforce his body and increase his strength. But if he stopped even for the instant needed to jump free, the pressure above would send hundreds of tons of more debris right over him before he could free his legs.

"If all of you will move well away," Guvthor's voice rumbled gently, "I believe I can get our friend out."

Part of her wanted to protest – for some reason, she did not want to move away from that desperate, grim face. But she realized that Guvthor was right; he was probably the only one capable of getting Varan out. There was not enough time to rig one of the excavators, no way to put a safety harness on him and pull him free. Only the immense Guvthor Hok Guvthor might both be able to reach Varan and yank him out with the necessary strength and speed… and still manage to get both of them clear of the slide which would result.

"This may hurt a bit," she heard Guvthor say as she backed to a safer distance.

"It already hurts." Varan's voice still held a pained note of humor. "If it still hurts after you do it, I'm alive."

"True enough, and well said." The Thovian astrophysicist balanced himself on the unstable ground below him, took a breath audible fifty feet away, and plunged his huge hand into the hollow beneath.

In a single fluid movement he scooped the hand up and rolled away as stone and earth lunged downward, erasing the tiny refuge, catching up the original stone and plowing downward for another hundred and fifty meters with irresistible force.

Guvthor was sprawled just clear of the edge of the fall, face down, back bent to shield himself.

From beneath the scientist came a familiar voice. "Yes, it does still hurt."

The Eönwyl found herself – uncharacteristically -- giggling in sheer relief. Guvthor joined her with a deep chuckle, and suddenly everyone on the mountainside was laughing, even Sasham Varan as he crawled from under his rescuer. She ran to him and helped him up.

"That was… that was amazing!" Lieutenant Jan Mansteros said as he reached them. "Sasham Varan… I knew the name was familiar! You're the Sasham Varan – the one that held off the Zchorada at Tangia Station, the one who –"

"Who keeps getting himself in these situations, yes, I am." Varan's smile and tone kept that from being a dismissal, made it more of a self-deprecating acceptance. "But thank you for the kind words."

"You acted to save others and not yourself," Guvthor said, standing. "You did so with quick wits and a tenacity worthy of one of my people, and did so before many who witnessed it. In its way, a fortunate occurrence."

"Talking enough is!" Vick snapped. In her mind, she heard, Or would you ignore the fact that others still remain?

The simple words were enough to remind them of the other trapped people; the recent close call enough to make all more alert to the treacherous shifting of the slide. There were no more accidents as they quickly retrieved the remaining survivors.

"Well done," Guvthor said as they sat down finally. "All who could be rescued, have been. A night for rest and recovery. And then," he said with a bow to both herself and Varan as well as Vick, "and then, my friends, you will begin to learn why we have come here."

 

The post Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 8 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

My ALBACON schedule!

Friday:

11AM: "Punching up your endings"

2PM: "Plotter VS Pantser"

3PM: Marketing your work

6PM: Has Disney Ruined Star Wars?

8PM: Ice Cream Social

9PM: Improv Storytelling

Saturday:

11AM: Kathleen and I both do autographing!

12:30PM: Reading from Kathleen's and my Fall of Veils novel _French Roast Apocalypse_ and maybe teasing _Jamaica Blue Magic_

1PM - 4PM : I run "On-Site for the Apocalypse", an RPG (D20 Modern) set in the world of _Princess Holy Aura_. Maximum 6 players.

3PM: Kathleen will be in the Essential SF Films panel.

5PM: Both Kathy and I in "Stop-Motion VS CGI"

7PM: Reading (1 hour, so I'll have time to read a fair amount)

Sunday:

10AM: Inspired by Lovecraft

12PM: Things Everyone Likes But I Don't

The post My ALBACON schedule! appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Demons of the Past:REVOLUTION, Chapter 7

Time to look in on Varan's friend Taelin...

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Chapter 7.

Taelin:

Taelin waved Pinesa and Melysa off as he got his jacket on. "Not tonight," he said with a regretful half-smile. "I've got a race tomorrow morning."

Pinesa gave a momentary pout but then threw back her mane of black hair and smiled. "Tomorrow night, then," she said, with a wink as she and Melysa gave him a good-bye kiss, bracketing his golden blonde with sunset red and night-dark for a moment.

He gave each of them a quick kiss. "Count on it!"

Once well away from the Sariman estate, he let out a small sigh. I can't pretend none of this is fun; sometimes it's almost like an extended vacation.

But I'd trade a thousand of them and all the races, all the challenges, for one more day with Trey.

It was a necessary part of who he was – or, at least, who he was playing – now, though. Taelin Ardan, née Mel'Tasne, perhaps not entirely cynical but going in that direction, kattasi who pretended to be perfectly happy with that. Rogue Great or Lesser family member now, running through whatever resources he had, supplementing them with racing winnings, wandering through the galaxy on a yacht that once had been the symbol of one of the Five.

A yacht that required very expensive upkeep.

He was slightly unsteady on his feet, Taelin noted with a bit of surprise. I must have not been tracking my drinking as well as I thought. Or some of those scent-sticks were more than just scent. That wasn’t really a problem, though; it just added verisimilitude to the pretense. I have to stop thinking of it as pretense, at least some of the time. I have to convince myself of this, live it, so that my reactions as "Taelin Ardan" are automatic, unconscious, reflexive.

     I just don't like Taelin Ardan very much.

The slightest sound behind him alerted him to the fact that he was not alone. He turned his head slightly, to see a well-dressed gentleman not far away – not quite so close as to be threatening, close enough to make it clear that he wished to speak with Taelin.

"An interesting place to seek conversation," Taelin said, voicing his thoughts.

"Convenient for privacy, however – something of which I am sure a young man of your background is quite aware." The man's dark hair fell somewhat carelessly to one side of his face – an artful carelessness, the sort of disarranged hairstyle that Taelin himself often favored and which cost a great deal to maintain. The face framed by the hair was narrow, lined, with an elegant gray-streaked beard framing the mouth that had lines of both smiles and frowns graven heavily about it. He bowed and performed an excellent Six-and-One. "Donthis Curitanei," he said, introducing himself.

Curitanei… I think that's one of the Lesser Families. "Taelin Ardan," he said, with an answering Six-and-One, and just the slightest hesitation where normally the name "Mel'Tasne" would have been spoken. "What does the Curitanei family seek of me?"

Donthis chuckled. "I am afraid I do not speak for all the Family. This is purely a matter of personal business; certainly some of my Family is involved, but it isn't Family business, as you understand."

We all have private ventures, yes… but not usually ones requiring discussions in isolated alleys. "I'm where I am because I found Family business boring, so that's good." I have to sound convincing. It's so hard to do, though. "Not that business per se is necessarily better. Let's drive to the center; what do you want, Donthis?"

"A direct young man, as I had heard. Of course, let us do so. You have a marvelous ship and, it seems, an even more marvelous skill for maneuvering her and other racing vessels. My business could profit greatly from your application of that skill in precise ways."

He shrugged. "I fly for my own reasons," Taelin said, and continued walking down the alley towards the landing field. "What do you offer that I can't get that way?"

"Money, of course. I know how very expensive it must be to maintain a vessel like the Valabacal – I know very well. Something over a million a month, I would think. Leaving aside fuel and any unusual expenses from racing in particular circumstances. And a young man in your… current position probably finds that a difficult payment to meet."

He's well-informed. After they declared kattasi I lost all my Family resources and my private ones really don't cover this level of maintenance. Which was of course part of the point. "All right. What do you want me to do?"

"Very little more than you're doing now, in truth. Keep travelling, entering the finest races, all that kind of thing. Just – every once in a while – fly perhaps just slightly less well than you know you can."

Taelin's hand very nearly lashed out of its own accord; only the control drilled into him since he was born prevented it. No! This is exactly the kind of direction I need. I need to look fallen, devoid of care, reachable, so that when I arrive at critical places there are those who believe I am not only no threat, but perhaps a useful tool.

     But by the Seven I would so wish it was otherwise.

Even the Taelin Ardan he was playing, of course, would not take the implication calmly. "You are saying you want me to cheat?" he said with cold anger, turning with narrowed eyes on Donthis.

Donthis stepped back a pace, clearly unnerved; he knew that kattasi did absolutely nothing to make a member of the Five any less dangerous to offend. "Cheat? That's a hard and cold way to put it. Any man can have an off-day, can he not? Even one who was once of the Five. Perhaps," he continued with a thin and venomous smile, "perhaps especially one who was once of the Five but is no longer."

It took little acting to let his eyes blaze and teeth bare themselves in a momentary snarl. He took a deep breath and then spoke in a voice so quiet that the deadly cold tone was all the more clear. "You may have a point, Curitanei. A point you would be extremely well advised to never, ever mention again, but a point, nonetheless."

Donthis Curitanei's gaze had flickered sideways, both directions, as Taelin glared at him, and despite the danger he had seemed to actually relax fractionally. Without so much as a shift of gaze from the man in front of him, Taelin stepped back, hands whipping out to both sides and smashing with precise force into the midsections of the two men who had been closing in behind. Even through their body armor the impact jolted, just enough to throw their reaction off as Taelin continued the zairaka sequence, dropping flat to the ground and scissoring his legs to cut both men's feet out from under them, rolling backward, reach-and-grasp and leap to his feet, now holding a pistol in each hand, pointed at the two bodyguards. Heh. Lukhas would be proud of that, anyway. Almost textbook-perfect.

Curitanei turned pale, his dark beard now looking more like a prop than an immaculately-trimmed part of his face. "S… sir. I…"

"I trust I have made my point very, very clear?"

"Abundantly clear, Taelin. I apologize most profusely for the offense."

Taelin could see the two guards breathe sighs of relief when their weapons – rannai, high quality though not military, Taelin noted – hit the ground in front of them. "Apology accepted. And… let us say, for the moment, that I was willing to entertain your proposition. What would my compensation be, in that case?"

"In such a case, I would venture to say that you would find yourself in possession of an income which one might use to maintain two such vessels, if you had them."

Two million Eternals a month. That would certainly extend my potential reach. I'd have to keep doing a fair amount of racing, though. The scheme was a common one in concept, but to actually pull it off in a convincing way would be almost impossible. You'd need someone who could actually win virtually all the races he entered, and who therefore was essentially always favored to win, so that you could arrange betting across large chunks of the Empire for major races which he'd have to throw. Any other way of rigging it would be far too easy to catch, and if Curitanei was smart – and he seemed to be – you'd only do it periodically, on a schedule that would be statistically very hard to catch, especially across Imperial distances.

No wonder Curitanei had approached him; at a rough guess, even if he only was asked to throw one or two races a year, Curitanei's organization could make thousands of times as much as he was proposing to pay Taelin.

It would also be the sort of thing that people might eventually suspect but would be nigh-impossible to prove; just the kind of undefinable stain on his reputation that he was looking for.

Even so, it was almost impossible to manage the cynical, bitter smile. "I suppose that might even be adequate… assuming, of course, that there was an extremely secure and clever way to arrange both for that payment, and for my notification of when I might find myself not quite in top form, so to speak."

Curitanei's smile was just the slightest bit predatory. He knew, now, that the hook was set. Taelin's implied question on arrangements told him that.

Outwardly calm, Taelin found his stomach once more in a burning, nauseated knot. I really need to convince myself that this is me. I'm not sure how many more victories like this I can take.

 

 

The post Demons of the Past:REVOLUTION, Chapter 7 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 6

Varan and Company had just discovered that Guvthor could do "creepy" far too well...

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Chapter 6.

Varan:

For the first time in a long time, I was more nervous about one of my allies than my enemies. We had no idea what, if anything, Outpost Thovia knew about me – news updates to places this far out often went on six month cycles – but most of the Outpost had just gotten wiped out by a landslide.

A landslide that, it seemed, our jovial and friendly astrophysicist had somehow arranged, and done so with one short transmission and the hour or so it had taken The Eönwyl to get from Downbreak point to orbit. A landslide which had obviously seemed perfectly natural, if terrifying, to the Imperials on the ground – no sensor warnings, nothing to put the base on attack alert, just one of the natural disasters that the Empire can control on heavily civilized worlds but not on some remote outpost.

And neither our shields, nor I, nor you, sensed anything psionic. Yet it surpasses belief that this is merely a convenient coincidence, and that [untranslatable concept of insult] Thovian's tone and behavior confirm it.

Oh, I have no doubt he arranged it somehow. But I can't figure out how, and I can't even guess at why he did it.

A mental snort. Elimination of witnesses? In that case perhaps his haste led to a lack of complete efficiency, as there are survivors.

Maybe. Maybe. Vick's suggestion was obvious enough that I should have thought of it, but I had not previously considered Guvthor to be that ruthless. Vick, yes. His people were aggressively meritocratic to the point of insanity from most people's points of view; I'd gotten the impression that the Thovians were, however, much more interested in friendship, accommodation, and good times (even if those good times might occasionally involve battleaxes or more advanced weaponry). But he seemed very pleased with himself. My gut feeling is that if he did arrange this, he meant there to be survivors.

Which, naturally, makes him, or his people, even more dangerous. The backdrop of Vick's thoughts, contrary to mine, brightened and filled with anticipation at this thought. I wonder if they have been Tested… or, audacity itself, think to Test us? This may indeed be a fine choice we have made, Varan!

The last thing I thought we needed was more of what Vick thought of as "Testing" and I thought of as "being placed in desperately dangerous circumstances", but I felt more than heard a crunching sound as The Eönwyl set down. "Time to do what we can."

The loading ramp was already lowering by the time we reached Guvthor's bay. The huge Thovian scientist was already standing at the top of the ramp, and his expression showed no sign of the prior dark humor; he was grim and tense, and preceded us both down the ramp.

The first thing that struck me – literally – was the gravity. Thovia's gravity was nearly one-third greater than Imperial normal, making the natives' size even more unusual. Many high-gravity worlds had creatures and plants that tended more to the low and squat; here it seemed that both Thovian animals and Thovian plants took the gravity as a challenge and pushed themselves to extravagant extremes.

The air was next; cool, moving, sharp with scents of living plants that I had never smelled before, something that would have been invigorating and inspiring had it not been for the other smells and the pall of grey dust that still hung and drifted over the mountainside, brimstone-smell of broken rock, deep-wet smell of masses of turned earth, and the sharper, urgent, throat-raw stench of overloaded and burning electronics, plastics, overheated steel and smoldering paint.

We emerged into sunlight of a slightly brighter yellow than Oro's, though the sun was also somewhat smaller at this distance, and saw a line of Thovians waiting for us some distance away.

That had an impact all its own. Guvthor alone was impressive, a towering and powerful presence, but as we approached, the shifting mob of immense fur-covered people loomed almost like the mountains around them. Guvthor, I saw, was big, even for his people – most of them were close to sixty centimeters shorter than the astrophysicist – but those average Thovians stood three meters high and must have massed over half a ton. Even the children who peeked out from behind their parents or – in some cases – started to dash out to meet us before being yanked back were considerably larger than I was, let alone tiny Vick, whose brilliantly golden crest and bright green scales clearly attracted a lot of attention.

A smaller and very different figure emerged from the mob at nearly a run, heading for The Eönwyl, who had now caught up with us. Lieutenant Jan Mansteros, as his Pentriyal accent had caused me to guess, was tall for a human, broad, with hair nearly as gold as Taelin's but around a face that was rougher and a lot redder with effort and, probably, windburn. "Eönwyl, thank the Towers!" the Lieutenant gasped. "Is that – you have medical supplies?"

"I don't know if it will be enough, but there are three field trauma and maintenance units, standard Guardsman issue, and I've got supplies for a Naval forward emergency medical treatment post."

I had been startled myself to find out just how much medical material The Eönwyl had on hand, and clearly Lieutenant Mansteros was even more surprised and gratified. "I'd almost call that a miracle! Why…?

"Because," she cut him off, "I have spent a lot of time travelling in very remote areas, and I don't dare rely on someone else having the right equipment."

She glanced up, to where we could see, through drifting haze, the huge scooped-out scar on the mountainside that seemed to have come straight towards where we stood, only to have missed by a few hundred yards. "Enough talking. This is Sasham Varan, and Dr. Sooovickalassa, passengers, and Guvthor Hok Guvthor, whom we have just brought home."

We were of course alert for any sudden reaction as she introduced us, and Mansteros did indeed stop dead in his tracks. But to my surprise, he turned abruptly to our Thovian friend. "Guvthor Hok Guvthor?" he repeated, his green eyes widening visibly. He began some kind of strange bow, but Guvthor caught his shoulder.

"No formalities necessary at this time, young Lieutenant," Guvthor said. "I am but one of many."

So directed, the Lieutenant did not attempt to repeat the formal greeting, but did continue talking, partly in Thovian; it was clear that Mansteros was one of the main contact "speakers", a person intended to mingle with the native population and learn how they thought, how they behaved, what their rituals meant and how they might intersect – or might not – with Imperial traditions and values. The appearance of Guvthor also gave him some momentary distraction from what we were heading for.

It would seem both that your fame does not precede you, and that our Thovian friend has fame we did not previously recognize, Vick thought.

Yeah. Thinking on prior conversations and the little Thovian we've learned and looking at his name, I think it's actually a title. He's "The Guvthor of Guvthor", a lord, a tribal or clan head, something like that. Enough that tradition would demand a proper greeting, anyway.

We moved through a forest whose trees were more like the Seven Pillars supporting the Imperial Palace, trunks wider than The Eönwyl's main hull rising for possibly three hundred meters, maybe more. The whole world is built to a grander scale; these trees make even the Thovians look small. Perhaps there would be lots of underbrush in the deeper forest, but this was settled country; here and there I could see collections of cabins, buildings of smaller logs, stone slabs, wooden planking, roofs of shingled stone – slate or something like it, I thought.

And then the forest came to an end, as sharp as a sword-cut, and we could look unobstructed up the mountain to the center of that ugly scar, and down, down more than two kilometers to where the nigh-unstoppable force had finally met its match in the immovable object of the valley floor, piling the splintered wreckage of once-proud forest giants mingled with the white cast-stone and silver-bronze metal of an Imperial Outpost in a jumbled matrix of black, deep earth, grey stone, and brown soil that formed an immense bulwark across the valley; already a small lake was beginning to form where the landslide blocked a distant river, while farther down the river's course dried up in the slanting sunshine.

"No point in going down there," I said quietly, just loud enough to be heard over the hissing-rattling-clinking of the settling slide. "Anything that went down that far… no survivors possible."

"How many people are we looking for?"

The Lieutenant almost managed a smile. "Not… as many as I first thought." We could see now a number of human beings with a scattering of other non-Thovian species near the only intact building (a few others had partially survived). A few of these were already actively working with Thovians trying to dig out the mangled remains of the other buildings, but many looked to be in shock. "A lot of the main contact team was in a… well, call it a school celebration, not to get into details… and were on the one side of the camp, saw the slide coming, and most of them got clear, or mostly clear.

"Really it's only about fifteen or twenty people – mostly the garrison and command staff, I'm afraid. I appear to be ranking survivor, actually."

Even an outpost like this would rate a Captain as CO, simply because it was an independently operating island of the Empire in an alien setting. But I was unsettled by the convenience of the event. If Shagrath were playing a deeper game, he might not have allowed certain news to reach Thovia, keeping it a military secret in case we showed up – so we could be trapped without realizing it.

But in that case… was it possible that whatever Guvthor had ordered could have been arranged to be that precise? A surgical strike via avalanche? The idea was in some ways one of the most frightening things I'd yet encountered.

"You have the layout of the base as it was?" The Eönwyl asked. "… good. All right, I have penetration scans going. Some of the rock here appears to be metal ores, unfortunately, which combined with Imperial alloys is making detailed viewing difficult. Still, we can manage an overlay. If any survived, it would be the basement structures or in the lee of major structural components that did not fall. Move your excavations from there to here, here, and here."

I shook my head and shoved the mysteries aside; no matter what the answers, right now, there were people dead or dying, and they and the living needed our help more than our questions.

 

 

 

 

The post Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 6 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 5

Let's get our friends to Thovia, since that's where they've been heading...

-----

Chapter 5.

The Eönwyl:

"Everyone in their positions?" she asked once more. She knew the answer, but in this case, it was best to make sure.

"Secured at secondary station," Varan confirmed.

I am secured and ready to administer shielding needs, Vick thought calmly.

"Indeed, I am strapped in as well as can be managed. I am ready to come home." Guvthor's voice was particularly cheerful; she couldn't blame him, she felt rather cheerful herself. She had come to like her shipmates better in the past six months, but still, six months was a long, long time to spend on a vessel with only three other people. It was different when you were completely alone.

"Then prepare for Downbreak into Thovia system."

"You have made the appropriate fine calculations? I mean no disrespect, of course, but the accuracy needed for this particular maneuver –"

"Is taken care of. Trust me, Doctor, I know exactly what I'm doing. If you'll recall, that's why we dropped out of TC eleven lightyears back, so I could make sure we had that level of accuracy." Three minutes, the indicators reminded her. "Assuming, of course, that the information you have given me on the Thovian system is of equal precision."

The astrophysicist chuckled. "Of that you may rest completely assured. I will then await our emergence with equanimity."

It was true that what Guvthor wanted them to do – emerge at the very edge of the conversion limit in the Thovian system, at a specific location which would place them precisely opposite from the Imperial contact settlement – was an impressively difficult challenge. On the other hand, she remembered her last entry to Fanabulax system; that had been even more precise than this.

"Don't know whether it matters," Varan muttered as the seconds counted down. "They may have picket satellites everywhere by now."

"Not if they are willing to abide by my people's wishes in the matter," Guvthor said, having overheard. "Several of our Gan Hok Rin – what you might call spirit guides? Priests? Well, no matter, several of them have expressed our strong preference that no artificial satellites be placed within our sky unless they are properly tested and blessed by our tradition, and I am afraid that there has hardly been time for that to occur."

She saw Varan chewing on that. While she didn't harbor delusions that the Reborn Empire would never mislead native cultures, it would be very hard to maintain such a lie if you were taking some of its people and educating them, like Guvthor himself, to the point that they'd be able to detect your satellites using their own equipment.

"Downbreak in thirty seconds. We will emerge with all D-tech down or at minimal power so that only the emergence flare can betray us. If passives show no response thirty seconds later, The Eönwyl will power up and follow the course previously discussed."

Ten seconds. Five. Three. Two… one…

The shrill whine of the Downbreak echoed through the ship and all systems went dim, off or at standby, except the passive sensors. Ahead, a broad dark disk was stamped out of Thovia's sun; they were directly opposite Thovia's "day" side, on which – if time-matching were correct – the Imperial presence should be located.

"Such excellent piloting," Guvthor said in a hushed voice, as though their voices might also be heard. "My compliments, Eönwyl."

She said nothing, watching the D-scanners tensely. For several seconds, there was nothing.

She almost missed it, at seventeen seconds, when several swift, low-power spikes manifested. She leaned forward, replayed the data, overrode the automatic power-up.

"Eönwyl?" Varan asked tensely.

"Something just barely out of the noise. But something, I'm pretty sure. Spread-spectrum with a lot of tricks – a communication, I think. Without my comm countermeasures suite I'd never have seen it."

Varan reached for his controls. "If we've been detected, we'd better –"

"I'm not sure we have. Wait a few more minutes; I'm still analyzing this. It was an isolated event, which makes some things difficult…"

But there were some indications, the most disquieting being that there was in fact a small but detectable difference in signal strength between the signals detected at the bow array and those in the arc arrays. Which could only mean…

She spoke into the intercom. "Dr. Guvthor, did you activate any equipment following our Downbreak?"

There was a pause. When he answered, Guvthor's good-humored voice held a note of chagrin. "I cannot deny it, Captain," he said, her title being spoken without a trace of irony. "I had not expected even your sensor suite to detect it."

"I will have an explanation, Doctor, and I will have one now," she said in an iron tone. No one plays games with me on my ship!

"I am afraid not quite yet, Captain." His response met her steel with his, though there was still nothing but respect in his voice. "You will understand the necessity soon enough, but I must ask you to respect my need to say no more on the matter until then."

She debated with herself. She still controlled the ship. She could turn The Eönwyl around and Convert out of there, fly onward into the unexplored galaxy, back to the Empire, or anywhere else, and eventually Guvthor could talk or end up marooned on whatever planet amused her fancy.

But that would make the whole trip pointless; they'd come here on Guvthor's word. Presumably whatever he was doing fit with that plan. He couldn't be an Imperial spy; he'd had ample opportunity to betray them if he were.

She glanced at Varan, who looked almost ready to explode himself, but was restraining himself out of respect for her position. All right. "Very well, Doctor. But understand that I will not tolerate this level of secrecy or game-playing again, no matter what your cause – and you had better have a very, very good explanation for this time, or you will never set foot on my ship again."

"Your objections are noted and completely reasonable, Captain, and I apologize for this secrecy. It will not be necessary in the future, and you will, I am confident, agree that it was both necessary and appropriate for this particular time."

She said nothing. Aside from Guvthor's mysterious short-lived signal, there hadn't been a sign of activity anywhere in the system. "All systems powering up." She nodded to Varan.

The former Imperial officer efficiently laid in a course on DD-drive which would take them to orbit and thence to landing, once they decided on a landing site. "I'm assuming a synchronous orbit – keep us away from the Imperial presence."

"No, not at all," Guvthor said to her surprise. "A lower orbit. Let us survey the area; few locations, or – I should say – few habitable locations on Thovia are suitable for even small spacecraft landing sites, and it may be the only reasonable ones available are at the Imperial outpost. It was important to enter the Thovian system without being seen, but now that we are in orbit, such stealth is unnecessary, perhaps even undesirable."

She stared at the speakers as though the huge Thovian were standing in front of her.

"That makes no sense whatsoever, Guvthor," Varan said finally.

It makes perfect sense if we assume the Thovian has gone mad, Vick pointed out. Otherwise it is utter nonsense!

Guvthor's chuckle echoed through the ship. "I assure you it is neither madness nor senseless, and all shall be obvious in time."

She gave a sigh and shrugged. "We've come this far on your word, I suppose we are bound to follow it to the end."

In about an hour they entered a low orbit around Thovia's equator. The planet, as shown in the data Guvthor had given them, had three major continents spaced roughly equidistant around the equator, all of them mountainous to a significant degree; plate tectonics were very active here. There was a minimal axial tilt, minimizing the seasonal shifts from one hemisphere to the other; overall the world seemed slightly colder than Imperial ideal, with significant icecaps on both poles and a lot of tundra edging the icecaps. The very large temperate zones were heavily forested on all three continents, although rainshadow in some areas led to wide, grassy plains regions that the Eönwyl commented looked perfectly good to set down on.

"Oh, indeed they are," agreed the huge alien. "But we do not like the plains areas at all, and so meeting any of us would become problematic."

So that's what he meant by "habitable locations". Places his people are willing to live.

It became quickly obvious that this meant, basically, temperate lowland and mountain forests. The narrow tropics and subtropics were sparsely populated and always in forested, mountainous regions.

There were a few other features of interest – the immense impact crater which had been on the night side when they arrived but which was now coming into dawning view, so huge that it needed no magnification to be seen from thousands of kilometers away. Sensitive night imagery of the dark side of the planet showed faint but detectable glows at many of the river intersections; like nearly all species, the Thovians clearly followed watercourses and built villages or even towns at them.

She did note, unsurprised, that scans showed some evidence of heavy metals, ancient stonework, and other remnants of civilization at many of these primitive locations. Almost every planet in the galaxy has remnants of the Fall. They, too, must have fallen and – only now – recovered.

"I could just clear a landing spot. As a vertical –"

"ABSOLUTELY not, Captain. Under no circumstances must you damage any of the forest unless it is utterly necessary, which it is not. We will contact the Imperial outpost now."

"Since you've decided to give the directions, shall I contact them as The Eönwyl, or would you prefer I claim to be Guvthor Hok Guvthor?"

The booming laugh nearly deafened her. "An audacious lie that would be, but alas, unlikely to be convincing. Be yourself."

By the Testing I hope this mad Thovian truly knows what he is doing.

"Torline and Niaadea, I second that," Varan murmured.

And after evading it, we head straight into the dragon's jaws. She activated the D-comm. "Thovia base, this is Free Trader The Eönwyl calling, requesting clearance to land."

For long moments, there was no response. Puzzled, she verified the transmission band; their orbit was taking them almost directly over the Imperial outpost. It was impossible that they weren't receiving. "Thovia base," she repeated, "Free Trader The Eönwyl currently in orbit, requesting clearance to land."

Another pause so long that she was opening her mouth to repeat her request a third time when an agitated voice suddenly crackled from the speakers.

"Eönwyl, Eönwyl, this is Imperial Contact Outpost Thovia, repeat, Imperial Contact Outpost Thovia. We request that you land immediately and provide assistance!"

The request was so utterly different from anything she expected that, for a moment, she found herself unable to do anything other than stare into Sasham Varan's equally dumbfounded eyes. "Um… Outpost Thovia, this is The Eönwyl, we are willing to render assistance." She was focusing the scanners on the area more closely. "Would you clarify the nature of your…"

"Torline's Swords."

The telescopic images of the small Imperial outpost snapped into clarity and suddenly it was not necessary to ask Outpost Thovia what had happened. A gray and brown smear cut through the almost universal dense blue-green of Thovia's forests, an ugly, ragged-edged stain that began high up on the mountain flank and cut directly through Outpost Thovia. Dust still lingered so thickly in the air that the few remaining buildings were blurred.

"They were lucky any transmitters survived at all," Varan said grimly.

"Outpost Thovia, this is The Eönwyl. We are on our way. Estimate arrival in twenty minutes. If possible, please get as clear an accounting of personnel as you can so that we know how many people we are looking for. With whom are we speaking?"

The voice on the other end was young, and it shook. Probably, she guessed, because its owner is still shaking at the nearness of death. "E... Eönwyl, thank you, it's a miracle you're here in time. We weren't expecting…" The owner of the voice caught himself, got under control. "Eönwyl, this is Lieutenant Jan Mansteros, Imperial Contact Forces."

She felt the first tiny vibrations of atmosphere. "Lieutenant, we will be there shortly. Can the natives assist?"

"They are already doing what they can, but all our modern equipment… was in the Outpost buildings."

That will mean they have no useful medical tools at all short of splints and bandages. She glanced over, saw that Varan had already unstrapped himself. "This could get bumpy."

A tiny smile flashed out and she realized he was already steadying himself as only a psi could, within the double-walled shielding Vick had installed. "Don't worry about me. I'm getting all the medical supplies we have together."

"Good." She shifted the image focus, saw the cleared strip of lighter green and brown, reactivated the comm. "Lieutenant, the landing field appears clear; I will be putting down there unless you advise otherwise."

"I … I certainly have no objection. Please land there immediately!"

"In moments only. Seven Standing, Outpost Thovia."

"Standing and Unfallen," Lieutenant Mansteros' tone shifted very slightly; she thought that he might have actually recognized the irony in his situation and the traditional expression. "Standing and Unfallen, Eönwyl. Outpost Thovia out."

"Gentlemen," she said over the shipwide comm, "it appears we have arrived just in time to be useful."

How very convenient.

The three words sent a chill down her spine, though the thought had already been there, waiting to be acknowledged, before Dr. Sooovickalassa's diamond-hard telepathic words brought it forward.

"Is it not?" agreed the cheerful voice of Guvthor, a voice that somehow seemed much deeper, much darker.

"Is it not convenient, indeed?"

 

The post Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 5 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 4

They're en route to Thovia...

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Chapter 4.

Varan:

"Sasham, are you sure this is entirely wise?" Guvthor inquired.

I shrugged. "The Eönwyl and I discussed it for quite a while, and neither of us sees any likely risks."

We could, nonetheless, remain safely in Conversion. What is the benefit that justifies even the unlikely risk?

"Up-to-date information," The Eönwyl answered. "We're about to leave Imperial space, and we've crossed most of the Empire in complete isolation. Given that the Imperial Relay network is set up to send information directly to and from Oro via Nexus drive wherever possible, and given my own experience, I've picked us a system that's less than one day from a Relay system – close enough that they always have a courier with news going back and forth."

"And since Imperial News Updates are automatically broadcast for passing vessels," I continued, "we don't have to land or even come close enough to be identified. And this way we get a full update on what's happened up until about a week ago rather than over three months. Which is bound to be a lot."

Guvthor nodded thoughtfully. "A most efficient method of distributing information, given the limitations. All Stellar Nexus points are required to have courier or messaging ships on station, then?"

I grinned, as The Eönwyl turned to prepare for Tach Downbreak. "Not quite THAT efficient. That'd be expensive, keeping a synched messaging connection open, or having Nexus vessels always waiting. There's regular update schedules, usually once a week. If there's some really VERY important event – Imperial coronation, declaration of war, something like that – all seventeen Nexuses in Oro system will have synched connections open before the announcement and the announcement gets transmitted in real time."

"Seventeen?" The involuntary exclamation showed how startled Guvthor was; he was usually the most controlled individual I knew, even if his demeanor tended to make it seem more simply easy-going.

"Seventeen. One of the major reasons we chose Oro as the capital, actually. Now, some of the systems on the other end of the Oro Nexuses will also have synched relays to other systems, but not all of them. Still, those announcements go out very fast. Given that a lot of connections have to ferry across to other nearby systems – not all systems have a working Nexus point to any usable system – average speed to a given Imperial world is usually about ten or fifteen times greater than a straight flight with a fast TC courier."

"Downbreak in two minutes. Everyone take your places," The Eönwyl said, cutting the discussion short. "I don't expect trouble, but we don't want to be unprepared for it, either."

Shortly the screeching, diminishing whine of Downbreak resonated through The Eönwyl and the viewplates cleared to show the normal star-dotted space as seen from the unremarkable system of Rullat.

I activated the D-Comm system. "INU system shows active… accepting query ping…"

The Eönwyl was quiet, watching all other sensors for any sign of interest. Rullat was a common through-stop system, a short distance from several major systems, and thus one more vessel should be completely unnoticeable… but we had no idea what level of resources Shagrath had to watch for us, specifically, or how good they might be. The screaming-voiced things would undoubtedly recognize us even from a huge distance if even a hint of our minds could be sensed through the screens, and there was so far no telling how many of those monsters Shagrath had at his command.

"Date range determined… Parameters of interest accepted… downloading data now." At that, I saw The Eönwyl begin setting up the next Conversion jump – presumably, direct to Thovia itself.

Several minutes went by; D-Comms have unfortunately somewhat limited bandwidth over long in-system distances, and we were getting a lot of info even by restricting it to some fairly narrow parameters – though not narrow enough to signal who we were, in case someone had set up alarms for people searching for a particular set of circumstances, subjects, or individuals. "Update complete!"

She didn't wait for me to say anything else; the hum rose to a whine and The Eönwyl lunged forward into the streaming opalescence of Conversion space. "No sign of any interest in us whatsoever," she reported with quiet satisfaction.

Then we have your news and are on our way?

"We do indeed," I said, opening and decompressing the data package. "Enough to keep all of us busy looking for anything interesting, at least until our next dinner-and-questions, and maybe for the next several days."

"Ahh, it's good to have new things to occupy us," Guvthor said cheerfully. "After all, we have yet another three months ahead of us. But I am glad you all still seem to find value in the Togron Gon Roltav."

"Togron Gon Roltav" was the phrase which Guvthor said referred to an ancient Thovian tradition and translated roughly as "Dinner-and-questions" or possibly "Dinner of interrogation". It was the way in which separate groups – I got the impression of anything ranging from clans to large tribal or even primitive nation groupings – of Thovians would learn of each other and begin conducting negotiations. Representatives of the groups would have a dinner together and each would in turn relate some incident of their past which they felt might interest or enlighten the group. I got the impression of something that combined competitive bragging, veiled threats, honest history, and rule-of-thumb psychology to allow all sides to gain an insight into the kind of people they were facing.

"Of course," Guvthor had said, with a sharp-toothed grin that was clearly meant to be unsettling, "If the story is offensive, the meaning is hostile, or some of the food is poisoned, it may proceed to Voltan Hok Roltav – Feast of Combat – immediately."

Fortunately, we had managed to avoid that in the three Dinner-and-Questions so far. It was overall a really good idea, I had to admit, and even The Eönwyl had agreed after an initial reluctance; the four of us might be bound together by necessity, but we needed to really understand each other – probably both the good and bad – before we could be united, and I thought we needed to be united.

But right now, the news was the important thing. As it was now available over the main ship systems, we all could search through it to see what items of interest might be seen.

It comes as no surprise that the murderous psionic Sasham Varan is a major news item, Vick said dryly in his telepathic voice. At least you may be pleased to know that you remain the very best at what you do; you are considered by far the most-wanted criminal in Imperial space.

I said nothing, but I felt a sting of tears I refused to shed. I had known this would come, but there was still a tearingly painful wrongness at seeing myself displayed under the Imperial Fugitive: Most Dangerous code as I had seen so many others. Not for the first time, I wondered now how many of those others had been something other than what they were claimed to be. None? One? Dozens? I supposed I would never know, until and unless we managed to defeat Shagrath and his allies.

"Now that is… interesting," Guvthor said slowly, some time later. The word "interesting" was said in the same way one might use it when coming across an infestation of Ghek-nan in your hometown.

"What?"

"The update contains a full transcript of the records of the Teraikon," he said, pointing us all to the relevant section. "It shows the entire battle between you and Monitor Frankel. Except that what it shows is not what happened."

"So they faked it; this is no great feat," The Eönwyl said, unimpressed. "Of course they're going to have all sorts of faked evidence to back up their story. We have the actual recording you brought with you."

I felt my mouth going dry with horror as I examined the files. "Torline's Swords. That… That should be impossible." At her confused glance, I beckoned her over to my screen. "It's not just the video record, Eönwyl. It's the actual record transcript. It's got the full authentication embed layers, all of them, and they all check out perfectly."

Now she went pale and said something under her breath that translated to something like "collapsing tunnels" – an expression that made a lot of sense now that I knew she'd been a contract miner. "You're right. That should not be possible."

But it obviously is possible, so waste no more time in incredulity, Vick thought coldly. We now gain a greater insight into the capabilities of our foe, and see that we were even more justified in fleeing than we had thought. See here, testimony from all of the crew. All of them have had their memories re-written.

"That frozen-hearted tzil." I ground my teeth at the thought. "So everything we went through to convince them is completely wiped out."

Perhaps not completely, Vick said after a pause. The soul does not forget, its history is recorded thereupon. But the mind and brain can be more easily changed, and if the brain does not support your memory, it is hard indeed for the soul's knowledge to be expressed as anything other than vague feelings and the occasional dream.

We continued going through the news summary. The fall of Missitrill Base was noted and passed on by The Eönwyl, and as I read the commentary and preliminary reactions, I felt a hollow pit opening inside me, aching and empty. "Towers, no." It was made even worse by seeing the name attached to many of the new security directives: Lukhas Kaje Mel'Tasne, White Controller.

And my name was being cited there. And in more detail under a resolution for more anti-psi research. And yet again, with pictures of a devastated, pillaged city and witnesses claiming I'd directed the entire attack, with my two alien lieutenants Sooovickalassa and Guvthor.

"Two?" inquired Guvthor.

To our surprise, there was almost no mention of The Eönwyl. It was as though our escape had been described specifically to make it so that I was personally responsible for the destruction of the two hangars plus a Marjaav-class patrol vessel. "But why in the name of the Emperor would they just leave you out?"

The Eönwyl shrugged, clearly as puzzled as the rest of us. It was Vick who finally came up with an answer.

They wish to know when you are found. When you are seen on some world. But ideally they wish to capture or destroy you themselves, not through other agents. So they keep the precise identity of your transportation to themselves. Shagrath knows. Trusted agents – your Monitors – will know. But the general population will not. This allows them to make some use of the general population, spotting you, myself, or the Thovian, but not allowing anyone but their agents to be able to identify you via a specific vessel at a distance. Thus, no mention in the public release of The Eönwyl, but tremendously many of you.

My name, it turned out, was the third-most-common significant search term in the entire data feed, after "Emperor/Empire/Imperial" and "The Five".

Skimming the rest, feeling almost numb, I caught mention of another familiar name, moved back. "Well, what do you know. There's some good news. Taelin won the Osean Seven Stars!"

Our two alien scientists didn't appear to recognize the name, but The Eönwyl turned. "Really? That's very good even for one of the Five."

"Taelin is very good, even for one of the Five." I grinned as I continued to read, and then felt the grin – and my momentary cheer – drain away.

The Eönwyl was – surprisingly – next to me. "Sasham? Sash, what is it? You look like you're going to cry!"

I tried to speak, but I found I just couldn't; all I could do was point.

The Eönwyl read aloud: "Taelin Ardan's victory must have felt like a deliberate and studied insult to the Empire, as The Five had declared Taelin Ardan Mel'Tasne kattasi only one day previously. In accordance with the declaration, Taelin dropped the Five-name and is, at least temporarily, going only as Taelin Ardan.

"There is speculation as to whether he will join one of the known Great Families. However, the grim tragedy which seems to have broken what was once one of the Five's most shining lights – the discovery that one of his closest friends, newly-elevated by his own actions, Captain Sasham Varan, had become a psychopathic ultrapsionic whose first act had been to kill one of their mutual friends – continues; unless Taelin Ardan takes up his responsibilities again, even the Greater Families will be forced to reject him…" she trailed off.

I got up slowly. "I… need to be alone now."

My cabin was no comfort, but at least there I could scream my rage, smash my fist into Atlantaean hull with futility and pain, even cry. There were other ways to interpret the desperate message I'd sent Taelin those months ago, but he would have trusted me, maybe, even if he knew I was a psionic… but not now. Not when he could see what I'd done to Frankel, not when he could check the authentication codes and see that this was nothing but truth, that in one year his friend had become a monster.

In some ways, seeing this – that the irrepressible, ever-cheerful, ever-resourceful paragon of the Five, Taelin, was now shattered – was the worst thing Shagrath had done. And it explained Lukhas' behavior, too. Lukh had lost his brother and me, and all that was left was to protect the Empire… from me.

I could almost hear Shagrath laughing.

Finally I rose from my bed and took a deep breath. I won't let this break me. I won't let him win.

"You hear me, Shagrath?" I shouted at the empty air. "I won't let you win. Someday I'll find Taelin and let him know the truth. Someday I'll talk to Lukhas face-to-face and he'll know he's been had.

"And when that day comes, Shagrath," I said, my voice still raw but iron hard, quiet, certain, "when that day comes, the Five will trap you, the Five will corner you and your monsters, and then I swear, by Torline and Niaadea, by the Six and One, by the Eternal King and by the Reborn Empire, I will be the last living thing you will ever see."

The words fell into empty air… but somehow they filled my heart again, because I meant those words. I didn't believe Taelin could be forever broken. I didn't believe Lukhas could be forever fooled, that Shagrath could keep playing this game with the Five Families and not have them catch him.

More, I knew that the very fact he was spending this much effort to do it meant that he was very, very worried about me, about Sooovickalassa and Guvthor and The Eönwyl taking Captain Sasham Varan somewhere he did not control.

And so the most important thing in the Galaxy was that I never, ever let him break me.

There was a knock at my door. "Sasham?"

I opened it, and as The Eönwyl's concerned gaze met mine, I felt everything click back into place, and I smiled. "I'm all right," I said, and saw lines of worry smoothing out beneath that starburst of hair.

"You're sure?"

Without quite knowing why, I took her hand and gripped it between mine. "Now I am. He wants to break me. He's afraid of me, somewhere deep down, I think. And as long as I keep myself, as long as I don't let him break me… then maybe I can keep him afraid."

 

 

The post Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 4 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

Demons of the Past: REVOLUTION, Chapter 3

We've seen the other two sides of this game, let's look in on the third side...

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Chapter 3.

Shagrath:

You have still not located him. The thought was a statement, not a question; Shagrath knew that his allies would have told him instantly had they even a guess where Varan was. The point was to drive home the fact that though many things were going according to plan, there was still a dangerous random factor going unchecked.

Not located. Departed for unknown destination, galaxy is wide, wide, and none of our pieces have seen the ship or any of its passengers. The shrieking, multilayered mindvoice was soothing to Shagrath's sensibilities, and especially when it carried the undertone of defensive nervousness. Only now were they beginning to recover from their losses due to Varan and his unexpected allies, sustained over a month ago, and they were still all too aware that Shagrath's power outmatched theirs, especially now.

The galaxy is wide, yes, but his choice of destinations is exceedingly narrow within the Empire, and not tremendously abundant outside of that, he reminded them.

No more are we, his allies reminded him, not without a hint of bitterness. Dispersed, scattered across the Reborn Empire, stretched and weak. Perhaps others of Us exist, but they will have their own Nexus. Will you support us against them?

That was indeed a point he had not considered in some time. This group had been terribly weak when he had found them, but it was quite possible – even probable, he supposed – that another nest of the beings already existed somewhere in the galaxy, and by their nature two separate groups would be very much unlikely to cooperate.

He could not afford the loss of these allies; not when those of his own people numbered less than the fingers of his current hands, and most of those were tending to other indispensable duties. Yes, I shall. I shall of course give them the option to simply join forces, but if they do not, I will not permit them to destroy you. As long as you serve me faithfully, you need not fear that, at the least.

He could sense their gratitude, cold and self-serving as it was, and he smiled inwardly. They might suspect, but could not know, that he hadn't the slightest intention of letting any of them survive in the long run; their powers were much too dangerous even to one such as he, especially if they understood enough about what they faced, and in the end this group would understand enough. That is settled, then, but your difficulties are noted. Still, there are those areas outside of the Empire he may go.

The Zchoradan Meld?

He thought about that. Perhaps. A bold move that would be, indeed… but one that I believe is hopeless, and I think he would think so as well. His name is already known to them, and not kindly, and in the current circumstances… well, the Vmee Zschorza would use him as a bargaining chip with us. He knew the ruling body of the Zchoradan Meld only through official communications, but had little doubt how they would react to a renegade psionic coming to them with a fantastic story of some kind of treacherous super-being manipulating the Empire.

It is well, for we would be all too likely sensed there, not in our power, not strong to hide. Same, as well, for Ptial. There we will not go.

That was a bit more of a concern, for there he would not go either, not if he had any choice. Though they were vastly fallen from what they had been in ages past, separated from their main forces when the Ptilians had fled from the Fall into the intergalactic depths, still they had certain … connections that he was very loath to test. Earth was fallen, and mostly secure, though some of his people reported disturbing activity in the last few centuries. Ptial remained an unknown factor. Understood. Some of your people will be in the forces that picket the Ptilian border, but I ask none of you to travel to their worlds.

He also wouldn't ask them to even attempt to spy on the R'Thann; that was a place they would not go until their strength had peaked. But…

     A thought that had been nagging at him for days finally broke through, and he cursed in a language older than the Fall. There is one other place.

They were neither stupid nor slow, and he did not even finish forming the thought before they understood. Thovia! The clouded world.

Yes. The untouched yet thrice-fallen.

The shrieking thought patterns were grim. We shall send a part of us thence immediately. Clouded they are, but they have little to sense us directly and know not of us to seek. But we like that world little, it disturbs us nearly as much as the Black Place.

One of the few pieces of commonality between all species. Shagrath had found no one – not even himself – who found Fanabulax pleasant. He doubted he ever would. Thovia disturbs me as well, for reasons you know. But all I need from you is the knowledge that Varan is there.

It shall be done. He shall be found, be it on Thovia or on any of the thousands of worlds of the Empire.

 

He allowed himself a tiny smile as he strode to the small bathroom and checked his appearance. Keep watching. But for now it is not a terrible problem. His absence has certain benefits. But we must discover him sooner or later, and I would much rather it be sooner. He cut off communications; he would be entering mind-shields soon enough anyway.

This was the unfortunately inevitable downside to this approach; by increasing fear and paranoia of psionics, one could indeed drive all sorts of useful changes in the way the Empire ran things, but that also meant that anyone who was anyone would have at least one mindshield active around any installation of note, and would be trying to get something installed on their vehicles and anywhere else. Were it not for the absolutely prohibitive energy drain, every city in the Empire would be clamoring for city-wide shielding. Even Dimensional Tap technology had its limits in that area.

As he passed from his private quarters back into the main secure area of Silan-Luria, he felt the constricting weight of the shield drop upon him like a suffocating blanket. Mindshields everywhere. He was thus severely restricted in his capabilities within most Imperial domains, and certainly in any of the Five Families' holdings (which posed some rather amusing difficulties for Borell Dellitama and others who were now Shagrath's allies and much more dependent on the powers of the mind than even Shagrath). Oh, he could always call on the ancient powers if he had to, but that was definitely something for true desperation, or for very long-planned deep policy.

Fortunately, the wealth of interrogations and executions could be used for more than one purpose; in the next few months he expected he would regain all of that power he had expended in rewriting the knowledge and records of the Teraikon and her crew. If he could maintain the current schedule, he might well achieve a level of power that had not been seen in the galaxy in millennia.

But tend to the present first, for the future will follow in its own time, he reminded himself, and entered the conference room.

Somewhat to his surprise, the Emperor himself was there, seated at the far end of the goldwood-panelled room in the high chair, almost a throne, reserved for him. The Emperor was showing some signs of age now – he was nearing two hundred, after all – but his black, rather curly hair was still thick (if touched with gray), his dark brown skin only beginning to wrinkle, and his brown eyes still sharp. I suppose it's just as well, he thought. In accordance with operations I'd have had to go and brief him on the meeting; this saves time. He performed the Six-and-One with military precision and saw it returned, then performed a more perfunctory salute to the others at the table, who returned it with equally casual gestures – all except one, who returned it with flair and emphasis. Lukhas Mel'Tasne, naturally.

"Thank you for waiting, your Majesty, milords," he began. All the others present were technically nobility; he, Shagrath, was the only one who might be considered ordinary in rank, something he had chosen deliberately – but that still, sometimes, chafed him. Still, he had more power than any of them save the Emperor… and the Emperor would not be a problem.

"No thanks needed, Prime Monitor," Lukhas said gravely. "You implied there were issues of great importance to discuss, so a few minutes matters little." A quick smile (perhaps with a hint of mockery? It was very hard to tell, and given Lukhas' current position he'd be taking quite a risk). "And the Emperor had some most exquisite delicacies served while we waited."

Did he, now? "Importance indeed. Unfortunately not news of joyous import. You know, of course, that following the increased security probes we located a significant number of psispies whose allegiances were hard to determine, even under… rather extensive questioning."

Heldan Khardan grunted, an uncouth noise from so small and delicate-looking a man. "But with certain… subtle indications, based on what little back history we could determine."

"Subtle indications no more, I am afraid." He activated the projector.

"Based on several tips directed to us by Imperial Security," he nodded to Lukhas, "we raided Missitrill Base on Vhelekin, a Chakron colony located near Tangia sector. The report arrived only a few hours ago; this is what we found."

The image had the sharp yet amateurish look that field recorders always gave these kind of reports, but for those present – used to seeing such reports – that very quality brought home the immediacy and reality of the imagery, and that made the impact even greater.

Even without it, the events unfolding would have held most of them spellbound; armored troops of the Empire pushed into the base, but found themselves opposed by dozens, hundreds of Chakrons also in Imperial armor. More, waves of invisible force hammered into the strikeforce; some of the men staggered, screamed, fell without so much as a mark on them. The firefight intensified, Imperials slaying Imperials with their own weapons, then a wall of impossibly intense flame materialized within the attackers' ranks, incinerating a dozen of them – and several of the centipedal defenders as well. Despite this the defenders kept fighting.

The commanding officer ordered a secondary force to do a flanking maneuver using override codes through the next section of the base; the report switched to the secondary force's commander. His force managed to use swift movement and a precision strike from one of the support vessels to out-flank the main body – and come directly in contact with the source of the preternatural forces: several Chakrons, or so it appeared, in a fortified interior bunker. Flames and ice and phantom force slaughtered most of the strike force, but the commander managed to reach the secondary control panel and override central command, bringing up the psi-shields inside the base. A final volley of fire silenced the beings within the bunker.

"And here we have the truly crucial part of the report," Shagrath said quietly, as the recording crew inspected the bunker, to find some disquietingly familiar equipment hidden within … and the camera focused in tightly on the remaining bodies, particular parts of their exoskeletons, patterns, angles…

"Fallen Towers. Those aren't Chakrons, they're Zchorada," Lukhas said suddenly.

"Precisely so, White Controller. And many of the troops involved never knew it. Our people killed each other and, for the most part, both sides were fighting the good fight as far as they knew."

"You are saying," the Emperor said slowly, "that one of my bases, one of my military bases, was in the control of Zchoradan psis?"

He bowed his head. "I am afraid that is precisely the case, Majesty."

"This is absolutely intolerable. It is an act of war in any possible definition," Ralia Ha'Ni Rishak said after a horrified pause. "And the loss of security… What have they learned from this?"

 

"It is far too early to tell exactly what information may have been sent back," Shagrath said, keeping the grave, regretful expression on his face; it was sometimes difficult to manage that when the real expression would be… quite inappropriate. "Especially since the Zchorada went to considerable lengths to make their connections with the homeworlds vague indeed. It would seem obvious that such a thing could not possibly have been done without the knowledge and direction of the Vmee Zschorza… yet we cannot prove it."

The Emperor looked at him with a cold glare. "Are you telling us that the Zchorada have infiltrated and controlled one of our bases, and that we should do nothing because we cannot prove it?"

"Not at all, Majesty," he said quickly. "I am saying, however, that despite – as Milady Rishak said – the intolerable nature of this offense, we could not actually prove it an act of war. And in truth, we are not fully prepared for war against the Zchorada. We need more time to prepare the proper forces, to determine the full nature and extent of their current alliances, and so on."

Lukhas was frowning, but not at his words. I think you see some of what lies ahead, human. How you react to it – both now, and in days to come – will tell me whether you can be used, or are a threat to my plans.

The others were whispering amongst themselves, and Khardan finally spoke. "We can at least lodge a strong protest. They may deny it, but if we send some very powerful forces to the border, it might put more appropriate fear into them, especially since we've uncovered such a well-covered plot."

"I agree," the Emperor said, "and it shall be done. However, Prime Monitor, I believe I see a much greater problem."

"Yes…" Lukhas said, very slowly. "Chakrons."

Shagrath allowed an expression of relief to show as the Emperor nodded. "I did not wish to bring that subject up alone. But yes. If the Zchorada have succeeded in this, I believe it demonstrates something that we have been afraid of: that they can use this species, so similar to their own, as cover, and perhaps some of them are deliberate traitors. There were at least a few such in Missitrill Base; in addition, of course, many of them were mind-controlled and of those some may never be the same – may never be trustworthy again, through no fault of their own."

"What are you saying?" Kyrell Dellitama said, face going pale. "That we must lock up each and every Chakron in the Empire?"

"No, no!" Shagrath said hastily. "We must hope and pray it would never come to that. But we must be aware that Chakrons are a higher-risk group. They may not be what they appear, or they may sympathize with the Zchorada, or be mind controlled – even with the extensive current use of mind shields. I simply think we need to alert our forces to be more aware of Chakron activities, keep a closer eye on them. For their own good as well – most of the Chakron are loyal and valuable citizens of the Empire; they don't want their good name and their appearance used against them."

The Emperor looked somewhat torn; several others of the Five Families' representatives wore similar expressions. Lukhas, however, simply tightened his lips, then nodded. "We will need to phrase things very carefully, at least at first. Additional security surveillance can be added in increments, once the initial shock is past."

My, my, my, what truths are now revealed. He had always suspected that even the apparently noble Lukhas Mel'Tasne harbored the same ambitions and desire for power and control that the prior White Controller had possessed; after all, he didn't believe anyone sought such positions if that wasn't one of their essential features. But so gratifying to see him stepping forward to defend his Empire with such vigor that he will destroy an entire species' freedom in the name of protecting them. He considered whether, perhaps, Lukhas might not have reacted this way a few months ago… before he was forced to declare his little brother Taelin kattasi and reduce him to a member of the Great Families… with every likelihood that he'd have to demote Taelin even farther soon. Such losses harden a man; when you sacrifice your beloved brother, what care you for the sacrifices of others a thousand lightyears away?

Perhaps we can indeed reach an accord, Lukhas Mel'Tasne. Perhaps we can.

 

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