The Elders had practiced similar means of coercion on other worlds, sending governors to rule in the place of the native leaders. Many planetary delegates lived on Seynorynael as exiles in order to ensure loyalty to the Empire.
Almost a thousand years ago, the descendants of the many exiles and the rest of the population of the lost planet Feiar, with some Seynorynaelian-born Tulorians and Kayrians, had sought out the small Feiar-Seynorynaelian colony of Celestian and reverted to its simple way of life. Not a word had been heard of them in all that time.
Most recently, a hundred years before the explorer's return, rumors had it that a large section of Seynorynaelians had left Aryalsynai to join the Ayan colony. People had called them eccentrics for their protests against Imperial practices. Many said good riddance to them. Like the original settlers, they had disappeared in the rural colony of Celestian.
"...you'll find none other like it across the Empire," the guide continued to explain, but Alessia had not been listening. Something about the luxury of the accommodations provided for them until their next meeting with Marankeil, she guessed, as he gestured around the wing of the Imperial Palace that they had entered, a central room that radiated rooms in a spherical cluster around it. "I hope that you will be comfortable. I’ll return to lead you to the council tomorrow." The guide added, and left them on their own.
* * * * *
"What have we done?" Celekar finally broke the silence no one else would. "This Empire. All that has happened—it’s our doing!”
“He was from Eretae4,” Lierva said, shaking her head in disbelief. “When was it that we left them–two hundred and thirty-seven thousand years by our time, but somehow only twelve thousand have passed in this galaxy!”
“How did we return to Seynorynael in such a short time?” Vala interrupted. “I know the centipede hole gates disrupt time–but how could we even be here by that account? We can’t be two or more places at once! Can we?" She shook her head, paralyzed by all of the paradoxes her scientific mind told her were impossible, miracles she had nonetheless experienced or witnessed with her own eyes. Was there something to Fate? She wondered suddenly. Was there some guiding force in the Universe that could break its own rules when it suited itself to do so? A guiding force that made pawns of them all?...
A guiding force that perhaps followed some as yet unknown, undiscovered universal law...
Alessia started, suddenly feeling as though a part of her, a shadow of her still existed in many more places than she currently existed, even perhaps–even on its way to Kiel3?
Could that have been what the singularity was about? Was it really created by the people Marankeil feared–and had it or its creators prevented them from going to Kiel3 in their own time? Had it made their journey there into the future possible?
"The time-loops we created make me nervous. Talking about them doesn’t do us any good.” Celekar’s voice held a definite chill in it.
“All I know is that I was the one who stepped first on Eretae4 with our banner of truce and peace,” Lierva bit out. “Only to lead our armies there so that it could be conquered." Agitated, Lierva stood up and paced a bit. "We gave them our word that they would join our Federation. Our kindness lowered their resistance.”
“Lierva–” Celekar said, but she wouldn’t listen.
“Celekar, you know it’s our fault! We enticed them into slavery!" She cried.
“The slavery of untold millions,” Derstan added, with growing distress.
"Kiel, in the time it took the Empire to reach them–could they have prepared for an uncertain encounter, if we hadn’t been so convincing?” Lierva resumed her argument, turning to Kiel. “Our telepathy–Hinev's gifts–we overwhelmed them with our power, our so-called spirit of cooperation, our telepathic lies!”
“We didn’t know,” Kiel said, his lips tight, but his voice betrayed nothing.
“Yet those populations prepared for the Federation and peace, not an Empire and its greed,” Gerryls put in unexpectedly. “How could they not but fall easily to our advance?" He was not given to such outbursts, but in that moment he had expressed the feelings of them all, the unbearable guilt that had fallen upon them in the last few hours.
Kiel’s face was like stone.
He was their leader.
"Will they blame us for the deception?" Celekar wondered. "Or have we already lived with the mark of their hatred for years?"
Alessia shuddered. If what Celekar had implied was true, then Hinev's explorers had long been branded as deceivers–throughout fifteen thousand long years of history.
How could they ever forgive themselves for what they had done?
* * * * *
Marankeil waited several days to call some of the explorers to his meeting. Kiel and several others left the Imperial Palace the second day after they had arrived to try to find anyone in the city who might not support the Empire and was willing to admit it. The glimmering tall white buildings of the Seynorynael they remembered, built from expensive but exquisite Cordan, had been replaced by a technological sea of hard plastics and metallic and crystalloid alloys. Even pedestrian traffic no longer existed–the trees and parks between the city streets and buildings had been uprooted long ago.
The clear skyway passages above the city had been rendered unnecessary–the buildings were connected underground and above, by spokes of horizontal corridors built into the structures. Traffic above the city had been regulated to control the flow of small transports, but to Alessia the entire scene she observed from the Imperial Palace seemed a regression into disorder and inefficiency, an open submission to avarice.
When Kiel and the others returned, Lierva and Vala came and tapped her shoulder. She picked herself up from the lounge panel and headed across the large, well-furnished room, a step behind Vala.
Kiel led them to the Headquarters of the Martial Force, where their presence went unnoticed for some time. Kellar had suggested fooling the officers into believing that there was no one there–a telepathic illusion of invisibility, so to speak.
The explorers' telepathic messages seeped into the minds of those around them, imprinting a suggestion that nothing was there, though the peoples’ eyes would have registered the presence of visitors, if they had been able to recognize what they saw. Instead, invisible to detection, to the minds all around, Kiel and the others watched and wandered about, listening and gathering information about the Empire and its history.
Nevertheless in time, one of the Advisory Council Elders appeared, seemingly by accident, and discovered them in the Martial Force Command Center. Kiel had received no orders restricting the movement of his crew and protested against any punitive measures, yet he was unduly warned not to leave the Imperial Palace again.
Kiel responded with an unprecedented action.
He wasn’t ready to leave, not until he had said what he wanted to say.
Without a word, he activated the receivers of the Martial Force Command Center telekinetically; he was going to address the people himself, the explorers saw with a sense of wonder.
Rallying behind him, the gathered explorers added their mind force to his, preventing the isolated Elder and the other officers from touching them as Kiel set up the receiver to broadcast a message to the people. Kiel’s own fury and bitterness at being made Imperial pawns had finally swelled beyond his powers of self-control to contain. He was lost, lost in the tempest around him, but he knew what he had to do to steer his conscience clear.
With eyes keen, glowing with the power that is truth and conviction, he appeared before the Empire peoples, identifying himself as one of the ancient heroic explorers of legend, whom, rumor had it, had at long last returned. His appearance alone left no doubt, even stirred a general feeling of awe. Kiel explained what the explorers’ mission had been, conjuring images of glorious wonders they all knew. He appealed to the people to und
erstand that the intended purpose of their ancestors' explorations had been cooperation; even in the Empire, they might still allow that spirit to guide their actions, if they wished, if they chose to let it guide them. Each one could do his part to keep alive the ancient legacy of an honorable Seynorynael.
After a while, Kiel came to realize that his words were falling on deaf ears.
Too much hate and bitterness ruled the Empire in the hearts of the human races.
* * * * *
Later that day, back in their chamber, the rest of the explorers learned from the guard in the Imperial Palace that brought them supplies that discussions concerning Kiel's broadcast from the Martial Force building now swept across the city. Despite the people’s initial rejection of his words, curiosity it would seem, had begun to work its magic on the people’s subconscious, and speculation began to arise as to what the explorers' purpose could have been in making the broadcast and what they now hoped to change.
What was this “Federation” the explorer spoke of? What had it been about? So few of them aside from the bitter off-worlders knew the answer. Yet at the same time, they were afraid of knowing. They did not want to give up what they had. They feared Marankeil as much as they revered them—he had slaughtered millions of beings by now in retaliations against those who did not accept his rule.
And would this explorer’s words bring rebellion and civil disorder? Perhaps even to Seynorynael herself? It was a difficult enough task quelling rebellion on the new worlds they would have had join the Empire, worlds which fought to maintain their independence and would, without a doubt, take this Seynorynaelian explorer’s words as inspiration, as long as they never discovered it had been this man’s explorers who brought their land under Imperial subjugation in the days of antiquity.
Yet from what the leader Fielikor Kiel had claimed, his explorers had not known that they were to be the major instruments used in orchestrating the beginnings of Marankeil’s Empire. The explorers claimed that they had been betrayed by a long-ago Federation Council.
What did any of that matter now? The population wondered. The Seynorynael the explorers had known was no more; moreover, how could the explorers reasonably have expected the world to stand still until they returned?
After years of wars and rebellions, Seynorynael had at last established some semblance of intergalactic peace.
If the explorers didn’t like what they found, the people concluded, they had only themselves to blame for outliving their own era of time.
* * * * *
Alessia, how good to see you again, Marankeil's voice feigned politeness.
She glanced around at the others, at Kellar, at Lierva, to gauge whether or not Marankeil had directed his thoughts to her alone.
The twisting coils around the columns holding up the Imperial Throne Room had caught Kellar’s attention.
She guessed that Marankeil hadn’t spoken to anyone else.
Marankeil, among the other Elders, ostensibly listened patiently to Kiel's protests, but Alessia heard nothing. How had Marankeil mastered telepathy, living as a clone? Or did he direct his thoughts to her by linking to the nearby Main Terminus, where his electromagnetic, telepathic mechanical entity lived on, synchronized to the cloned creature in human form that occupied the lavish throne before them, at the head of a ring of Advisory Council Seats?
The ancient Seynorynaelian Council had indeed become Marankeil’s Advisory Council, and all of them had been transferred back into humanoid clones, or so she assumed; Ornenkai, the Vice Emperor, was conspicuously missing from the present interrogation.
Alessia shifted from one foot to another, conscious of Marankeil’s unflinching gaze studying her, staring past Kiel at her. If only she knew why! she thought. She had only ever met him a few times in all her life, after all!
The moving mechanized unit attachments to the main memory terminus had been replaced by humanoid clones; yet as a clone, Marankeil seemed even more intimidating to Alessia, for the youthful face tried to take them off their guard–as though they might judge the philosophy of its inner soul from the human shell they observed. Marankeil had not lived as a human form for many long eons; returning to that form could not change that fact. Alessia sensed the inhumanity, the cruelty, behind his cobalt colored eyes, human as he appeared.
Human he was not.
"What exactly did you hope to accomplish by that little display at the Martial Force Center?" Marankeil turned his attention to reprimand Kiel and the others, speaking for the first time.
They stopped, stunned into silence, not by Marankeil’s words but by his voice.
The voice of the Emperor addressed them in the same ancient variation of Seynorynaelian that Hinev had used; it was an unspeakably beautiful voice, composed of deep resonating chords, slow and unhurried, like the enchanting whisper of a sun-warmed stream in summertime.
How? Kiel thought, in a state of shock. How could such an evil being create such a magnificent sound? Marankeil’s former mechanized voice had conveyed the sense of the unfeeling creature that he had become. Yet the clone’s voice would have tamed any man or beast who stilled to listen to it. Kiel had no intention of listening, however.
"Did you believe that you could win over my Martial Force?" Marankeil laughed. “They won’t listen to you. They know that their loyalty to me will be worth more than anything you could possibly offer them.”
Alessia almost believed him, but then she thought she sensed a trace of irritation behind the emperor’s outward composure. Marankeil's eyes suddenly flicked in her direction for a moment, as if he had registered her unexpected presence in his mind. Neither she nor anyone else had never broken through before, not even for a moment!
In that second, though, she had seen the truth.
Marankeil did fear Kiel. He feared that Kiel’s words would spread like a poison. Any epidemic always began with a small isolated case! But Marankeil had made plans to heal the damage as soon as possible and eliminate the threat once and for all.
"However, if you will swear loyalty to the new Empire, I shall overlook it." Marankeil continued, his eyes on Alessia again. "In either case, you have no choice–if you do not,” he paused, “I shall have to arrange some circumstances which might persuade you.” He returned his attention to Kiel. “Many of the territories you claimed for me are, so very–precious, yes, so very pure. So easy to corrupt or destroy."
Kiel looked up at the Elder with venomous eyes but said nothing.
“We wouldn’t want anything to interfere with these precious–defenseless–sweet little children.” Marankeil added in a disturbingly dulcet tone.
Marankeil–Marankeil knew them well!
Whether or not Hinev’s explorers’ names lived forever in history branded as deceivers, Kiel knew that he could bear this injustice better than to know that his own stubbornness, his own pride had cost billions of beings their lives or freedom, billions who might now be threatened because of the empty promises he and the other explorers had made long ago.
The explorers’ ignorance of Marankeil’s intention to seize an Empire was no excuse; at least, Kiel would not let this ignorance excuse him, as their leader, from any culpability in having helped the foundation of Marankeil’s empire. He would bear the responsibility, though he knew it was only a step towards making amends, even if the Empire never knew what he now sacrificed to atone for his crimes.
"I cannot speak for the others," Kiel said, in a quiet, steady voice, detached from emotion, "but for my part, I swear loyalty to Marankeil, Emperor of Seynorynael and the Great Cluster. I will raise no hand in open war against him, and shall endeavor to fulfill his wishes even to my dying breath."
Kiel spoke only to protect the innocent lives of the beings he had enticed into slavery.
The explorers bristled at his words, fitting as it was that Kiel had repeated the last lines of the age-old Pledge of
Seynorynael's ancient line of Great Leaders. The Great Leaders of ancient history had been replaced by a democratic council and then the Federation Council even before Hinev's youth, finally to be replaced by a regression towards the ancient tradition of imperialism.
Why had she lived to see this reality? Alessia wondered. The barbaric treatment of non-ranking off worlders and the regression in Seynorynaelian culture, the decline of tolerance towards the newest incorporated cultures and disregard of evidence that proved the First Race Theory all added up to her previous conclusion that Marankeil had as firm a control over his people and their development, or lack of it, as the ancient Great Leaders had.
But where the authoritarian control of the past had been designed to protect the people in times of necessity, when threats against human survival had rallied the people around a leader, Marankeil's regime had been formed solely to promote his own glory and the wealth of those loyal to him.
In the moment of Marankeil's weakness, Alessia had also seen a glimmer of his thoughts–no matter what Kiel promised, he would always fear and distrust Hinev's explorers.
For they also were immortal. And they alone knew how to use Selesta.
She saw the truth, suddenly. Marankeil was evil, but also lived in a kind of semi-state of terror. He could assuage his own fears for long lengths of time, but he did fear being overthrown. He had good reason to fear that Hinev's explorers might have returned to unleash some secret force that might depose him, she admitted, for perhaps only they could ever possibly pose a threat to him.
Marankeil couldn’t allow it. Or that their technology and knowledge of how to manipulate the centipede hole time tunnels would lead to another world's erasing his empire before it began. That knowledge could not be given to an enemy.
As much as Marankeil wished to seize the Selesta for his own and as much as it irritated him to lose the great ship, Selesta was the only ship that could rid him of the explorers for good, that much he knew.