Across the Stars: Book Three of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

  Two thirty-hour Orian days passed before Iriken found Erika. One afternoon, he discovered that she had been taken to a storage facility that was surrounded by guards. Iriken enquired about their duty—seeing no reason to withhold the information, they told him that an elite traitor had been confined at the Great Leader’s request, and that they had been instructed to let no one inside.

  Iriken spent days trying to determine how to set Erika free. Yet as his desperation grew, he found he could not think clearly. Then finally, seizing upon a momentary insight, he devised a plan. It occurred to Iriken that in his preoccupation, Sargon might not have informed his elite of the change in Iriken’s status; one morning, Iriken decided to take the chance that he hadn’t. Iriken strode forward towards the ad-hoc holding facility in a sudden burst of courage; the dozen guards outside her cell looked up and parted upon sighting the Garen designate, taking no notice of his strained aspect and manner.

  Iriken felt relieved beyond measure, yet he knew he had to keep it to himself as he neared them or else be discovered.

  “I wish to speak with the prisoner—privately,” Iriken ordered, hoping he still commanded their obedience.

  “Yes, sir.” One of the guards signaled to the others, and they moved ahead and out of earshot. Iriken hurried into the darkened cell, looking for any sign of movement.

  “Erika!” he whispered, but urgently.

  In the holding cell, Erika lifted her head weakly, recognizing Iriken’s voice. Suddenly he turned around a pile of provisions near the entrance; at once she saw the change in him. Was this her dispassionate, disciplined brother? She knew it was, and yet his expression seemed so different that she almost would have not known him. How long had it been since they had spoken? she wondered, suddenly, inexplicably, distressed. She had no memories of the days just after he had disappeared; there was only a long, recurring nightmare she feared to remember, and a vague, disquieting sense that she had done something she was ashamed of. What, though, was this change in him?

  As she looked at him, her expression lost and forlorn, Iriken smiled gently, and with a pang of joy, she saw that he had at last claimed himself from the Great Leader’s poison. Her heart leaped, but her happiness was soon quenched by his words.

  “I’ve come to save you, sister.” Iriken explained, hurrying towards her. “I’m going to ask the guards to transfer you when the ten-hour guard changes—in the name of the Great Leader. I’ll be waiting outside the containment cell near the entrance to the civilian sector. There will only be two guards—if they do not relinquish you to me without confirmation, I’ll stun them. Do you understand everything?” He asked, and she nodded slightly, but her eyes were still haunted. Iriken smiled to reassure her, then knelt beside her and turned her face. “Don’t despair, Erika. All will turn out well, and you and I will be free.”

  He stood; a moment later, Erika nodded soberly, but inside her heart was breaking. Why should she love him so? she asked herself. Iriken was her brother by ectogenesis, grown in the same batch of elite children but from different genetic contributors. Yet despite her intentions, her love for him had grown beyond all the affections for her other siblings of system 165a.

  It mattered little, since she could not see that kind of love in Iriken’s face.

  * * * * *

  No! No! No! Sargon thought. Not again! He could not bear it again. Selesta had gotten away from him, and she—it had again escaped through the wormhole. If he had received the news with momentary incredulity, his feelings quickly burned away into fury. He had been fooled once again, fooled into believing that destiny intended redemption and reconciliation for him.

  Wake and obey, the voice said. Erika heard it in her dreams and stirred to life, opening her eyes, though now she did not see the holding cell or recognize anything within it. A moment later, she had pulled the door open with new brute strength, not even blinking as the guards rushed towards her.

  Erika thought only of Iriken—and that she must kill him. Having accomplished what the Great Leader could not do himself, she would then, of course, take her own life.

  * * * * *

  Meanwhile, Iriken waited nervously by the elite containment center near the civilian sector. Two more hours would pass before Erika arrived, but he found himself drawn to the spot by anticipation, as though the time would pass more quickly there.

  Suddenly he heard a noise and moved from the side corridor into the main thoroughfare of the Command wing in the upper decks of Enlil.

  Erika stood in the dim light, her head bowed. Iriken halted, surprised that she had arrived so soon, but his excitement dissipated as he became aware of the weapon at her side.

  “So,” she whispered. “You are here.” She laughed maliciously, raising the weapon. As she did so, her head lifted, and she looked into his eyes, expecting to see fear, hoping to see fear.

  Iriken faced her, unmoving, too stunned to move at first, and then because he did not want to rush her. Erika regarded him curiously, and for a second her conviction faltered. Then she gave a triumphant little laugh; still she did not fire her weapon.

  “I—shall enjoy watching you die,” she informed him as Iriken stood his ground.

  “Do what you must, Erika,” he said quietly.

  “What?” She breathed, seeing that he waited bravely for his death. Against her will, her arm began to shake, and she clutched her weapon tighter, bringing her other hand up to assist her.

  “Iriken...” she cried through clenched teeth, and he saw that she had suddenly returned to herself, except that now she was fully aware of what she had become, her recent memories returned to her. The force holding her then suddenly squeezed her fingers, but Erika pulled them away from the trigger, enough to stop herself from firing her weapon at Iriken. However, the effort had its price; Erika screamed in pain as the grip on her mind exerted pressure, crushing her under a wave of blinding pain. She brought her hands to her head, ineffective hands that worked over her hair trying to avert the horrible pain; abruptly she crumpled to the ground.

  “No,” she pushed Iriken away as he rushed to her side. “Leave me! You must leave me!” She urged. “Please, Iriken, you must go to the civilian sectors. You can hide there. He will not care about you any more, once you are there.” For a moment, as she took a deep breath, her pain resided, and he saw the tears that had sprung to her bright eyes.

  “I won’t go without you!” Iriken said and kept stubbornly at her side, then knelt down to pull her to her feet. She shrugged him off as best she could, surprising him with the ferocity of her hands, scraping him with the hard edge of her laser gun.

  “Go!” she screamed, but he ignored her.

  “And leave you here to suffer?” He asked, shaking his head, now succeeding in holding down her arms as her energy waned.

  “Please, you cannot come near me!” She cried. Suddenly Erika stood and staggered back, wrenching herself from Iriken’s grip. With ferocious eyes, she glared at him, with all the fury of one who has recognized futility. “Go, before I kill us both!”

  “Erika...” Iriken swallowed.

  “Please—say nothing,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I know how you feel. And I haven’t forgotten that it was you who arranged for my escape. We did not know how futile that was. I had hoped—but it doesn’t matter. Please, just go. Let me die believing that if any feelings, if any loyalties can still exist among our people—that you loved me, Iriken, with all your heart.”

  “But—what will you do?” Iriken asked, hesitating.

  “They will find me here of course. Now—get out of here!”

  He looked at her, feeling desperation rising in his throat. Her eyes were bright, but dry. Her body shook only a little, a tiny bead of sweat on her forehead the only sign of the magnitude of pain she fought to control with her remaining energy, a brave Orian elite to the last, despite her exile. For the first time, he began to realize what had enabled her to thwart the Great Leader.

  Erika loved him! He could h
ardly believe that he hadn’t seen that before. Yes, she loved him? Yet hadn’t she always? he thought, realizing too late that she had. Dear Erika, he thought, why had it come to this? He had never known what love was. He did care for her. Seeing her like this, he felt a wave of emotion for her that was as near love as he could feel.

  Erika looked at him weakly. Iriken remained facing her only a few feet apart. But to her it was a gulf, one step short of his embrace—and the end of her own control energies that kept her from putting a laser through his heart.

  “Go,” she begged, lowering her head so he could not see her face.

  He could not ignore her again. “For now. But I’ll return for you, Erika,” he vowed, swallowing, knowing that without the Great Leader’s medical officers, she wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving. He turned, feeling the betrayal of doing so, fighting himself with every step, but at last began to run away; yet he only made it a few steps when he heard the loud blast of a laser gun behind him.

  His heart thudded in his chest as he turned around, his face ashen, and ran back to the still form lying on the floor in a pool of violet blood.

  Erika had shot herself through the chest. She had fallen face up onto the floor; he knelt beside her and turned her gently, then caught her head and torso in his arms. She was still alive, but barely; tears flowed from her eyes, though she could not move on her own.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized, “but I couldn’t hold out any more. Luck go with you—dear Iriken. You must go to our people—you—must... find.. be safe...”

  “No, Erika!” Iriken urged, shaking her. “Don’t leave me here! We have always had each other,” he cried in a voice broken by tears, holding her to him, but she had not heard him. Her body stilled in his arms. Iriken felt a horrid wave of despair rising in him and laid her gently on the ground, casting his eyes upward and away from her face. He wished he could deny the reality of her death. Yet he felt so dreadfully alone.

  “Good-bye, Erika,” he whispered softly and leaned over her face, kissing her, suppressing the sobs welling in his young heart. At that moment, the life functions alarm began blaring news of Erika’s death; Iriken rose to his feet, still lingering over her. Already the guards’ footsteps could be heard echoing down the corridor.

  Go! Recalling her voice again in his mind, telling him to seek the civilian sectors, he tore himself away. Yet what was freedom without her? he wondered, even as fulfilled her last wish.

  Iriken fled, never suspecting that he was not alone.

  The man watching him approached the body with unnatural agility, then bent over it and kissed the lifeless cheek of the dead girl.

  As Sargon looked away, he was amazed to discover a wet river of tears coursing down his face.

  He decided to let Iriken go. There was no punishment greater than to lose the woman that you loved.

  * * * * *

  When the Discovery emerged from the wormhole, Zhdanov and the others realized that the prisoner had gotten away. Some of the crew had begun to refer to the ship by its original name, Selesta, but Zhdanov found it difficult to abandon the name it had been given on Earth, as did many of the others. The ship was still Discovery.

  In time, however, as he thought more about the aliens they had discovered preserved in the ship, Zhdanov wondered if they would have shared his sentiment in their own way. How would they feel if they knew about the Discovery’s new crew? Indeed, how long they had lived aboard the ship? He couldn’t help but wonder about what their lives had been like, so long ago. Who they were, where they had come from, and why they had come to the Earth at all. With this in mind days after the jump, Zhdanov asked Kansier if the ship had altered its course recently and if he could have the figures sent to him detailing how many jumps Selesta had made since they left Earth. He thought better of correcting himself, hoping it pleased the ship’s original owners to hear him. It seemed he had finally accepted the Earthlings’ place in the events; he had finally accepted that the passengers from Earth would be changed more by the experiences the ship offered them than they would be able to influence Selesta or even their own future.

  However, some things were more under control than others. Despite the disappointment of losing the alien pilot, Knightwood and Zhdanov’s wedding proceeded according to plan, postponed by only a few days.

  * * * * *

  Initial suspicions that Erin Mathieson’s mind had been influenced by the original alien inhabitants of Selesta died down when she made an appearance at the wedding of Zhdanov and Knightwood as Knightwood’s bridesmaid. Some believed she was merely a human psychic, a new kind of human telepath whose powers proved that there was no limit to the development of the human mind; those who had even begun to suspect that she might be an alien herself dismissed the idea as soon as they saw her. No matter what had happened, they could not doubt their own eyes, and their eyes told them that Erin was human.

  Two weeks later, after the long hiatus of a happy honeymoon, some of Knightwood’s unresolved questions resurfaced to trouble her. How did the Selesta guide them, understand them? she wondered again. Why after all this time could they not even access its main systems? Who were its original owners if not the dead crew below, and what had their purpose been?

  As if determined to answer these questions, Knightwood sought Erin out and found her sitting in the newest Botanical Gardens one afternoon.

  “Oh, hello, Knightwood,” Erin said as Knightwood hesitated behind her. Momentarily surprised that Erin had perceived her, Knightwood sat next to her without a word.

  “So, what are you thinking about?”

  “The alien pilot—how he thought he recognized me.” Erin shrugged ahead, her gaze falling on one of the flowering fruit trees. “Pretty, isn’t it here?”

  “Something wrong?” Knightwood asked.

  “Oh, Knightwood—I want to tell you what it is, honestly I do, but I just can’t. I haven’t been completely honest with anyone, not even with myself.”

  “And you’re scared, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yes,” Erin admitted.

  “Perhaps I can help.”

  “I don’t know if you can understand—if anyone can.” Erin shook her head. “And I’m not sure I want to know the truth myself.”

  “Whatever it is, you don’t need to worry.” Knightwood reassured her. “I promise I’ll never judge you. We all have our secrets—”

  “But Knightwood, this is more than that—”

  “Listen,” Knightwood advised strongly. “Ever since we left the Earth, we’ve all had to adjust to some pretty difficult facts and situations. I don’t think any of us are the same people we were when we left. I’m not even sure it matters anymore what we prove empirically or otherwise—we may never get a chance to bring any of the evidence back to Earth. So—does it really matter? We have to lead our lives as best we can, whatever the circumstances. You’ll have to come to terms with whatever it is that’s bothering you sooner or later—there’s nowhere to run, as big as this ship is. But it might be what you need—to let go of it all and move forward.”

  “Maybe,” Erin said reluctantly.

  “Just tell me, what’s bothering you right now—you’ve been skulking around here for days.”

  “Knightwood,” Erin swallowed and turned to face her. “I let him go. The alien pilot—I let him go.”

  “You did what?” Knightwood cried, remembering the seizures that had affected the guards outside the gardens. By the time the assistant had returned, they had returned to normal and remembered nothing of the experience. Minutes later, the medical team had found that the alien had escaped. With no other explanation, everyone had assumed he had been responsible for the guards’ strange affliction. “How could you have had anything to do with that?” Her eyes narrowed.

  “That’s what I can’t tell anyone,” Erin sighed. “But I couldn’t face what his mind was telling me—that I could be this person responsible for the entire war on Earth.”

  “You aren’t respons
ible.” Knightwood protested. “No matter how you might have been involved, no child can claim such a responsibility, and that’s what you were when the war began.” Knightwood insisted.

  “I see you know the truth, Knightwood,” Erin said, perceiving Knightwood’s suspicions. “Somehow—I also know the truth about myself deep down. Yet you want to know who owned this ship—but that is exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid finding out, because I don’t want to know who I am. I don’t want to change. I want things to stay as they have always been since as long as I can remember. Why can’t we just keep things as they are?”

  “You know how foolish that is,” Knightwood said gently. “Time doesn’t stop for us when we’re happy, just as it doesn’t hurry when we suffer.”

  “But what would my Earth family have thought of me if they knew who I really was?” Erin asked, turning pale.

  She knows I know she’s an alien…

  “I don’t know,” Knightwood admitted. “But I imagine they wouldn’t have thought any less of you for it. They raised you, Erin. How could they not love you for who you are?”

  “Thank you, Knightwood,” Erin said, a faint smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

  “Do you ever wonder who your first mother was? Yet I suppose you didn’t know her,” Knightwood said, then scrutinized her face.

  “No,” Erin agreed. “And if I did know at some point, I’ve forgotten. Something has blocked my early memories—I might even be doing it myself, I suppose. The thing is that I know they’re there, but I can’t recall them. And I’m afraid of them, of losing my personality as I am now if I do remember them. But most of all I’m afraid of what everyone will think of me if—if I turn out to be—”

  “Nonsense. They’ll understand that this war isn’t your fault.” Knightwood disagreed. Erin turned to her, a hollow look of fear in her eyes.

  She knows, Knightwood thought again, certain now that Erin had seen her thoughts that day during the alien interrogation when she recognized the truth. Erin had known since then that Knightwood recognized Erin for what she was: somehow the only living link to the lost civilization that had created Selesta, perhaps even the last one of their race. Erin had only been waiting for Knightwood to come to talk about it, waiting patiently for solace and an assurance that she would not be cast from the ship.