As Attorea exploded, Fynals Hinev, greatest scientist of Seynorynael, her father, channeled his mind energy, forcing his atoms to lose their conglomeracy and the semi-sentience that compelled them to resist change. Alessia felt the instant his will fought his own body as though time stood still–or simply began moving again. It wrenched her heart as he struggled, and then it was over. Finally, the soul of the great man was at peace.
And now they knew that they could die.
* * * * *
Alessia awoke from her dream with a shiver of horror.
Her pulse raced. She glanced around, but the comforting walls of her old quarters aboard Selesta did not shut out the lingering memory of the strange visions her dream had shown her. To sleep, to dream–to think she had at last been able to, only to find her dreams haunted by echoes of the living world.
Ornenkai, she remembered Ornenkai. In her dream, he had stood before the Selesta in the spaceport's empty cargo hold on the outskirts of Aryalsynai, a humanoid once again, but a shadowed figure; his face remained darkened, turned away from her, out of her reach, though she felt drawn towards him against her will. Ornenkai himself was entirely distracted by his own actions, taking no note of her presence, yet meanwhile she rebuked her own masochistic curiosity that compelled her closer. Why was she suddenly powerless? Why could she not turn and run away from this place and from him?
Then, as her thoughts centered on Ornenkai and what he was doing, she became Ornenkai. Or, at least, she saw him clearly, saw his thoughts, knew inexplicably somehow what he felt, as so often happened in dreams.
What he felt? She could hardly believe it, but here, in this dream, she sensed nothing that would indicate that the Elder had lived years as a mechanized being. His feelings, his thoughts, they were as human in nature as anyone’s, and at the moment, some unknown decision was tearing Ornenkai in two. Nevertheless, though his heart seemed unable to register any emotion beyond its own misery, Ornenkai’s conscious mind refused to allow himself any moment of self-pity.
After a moment, frustration overwhelmed him with its directionless chaos. Vague thoughts of the other Elders filled his mind; that was when his thoughts shifted–to Hinev. Hinev! A secret concerning Hinev was there, something she couldn’t reach. Hinev had succeeded, if only with him...
With what? Alessia demanded to know, but Ornenkai’s thoughts abruptly shifted.
Some other presence was there, in the astroport, a presence that had caught the Elder Ornenkai off his guard.
"I cannot stay." He said, as though talking to the air. "I see now what I must do. If I am foolish, then let me be. But I will never succumb to your will again, my friend. I have ignored my own conscience, and my own destiny, for too long."
The presence faded, but then, after some time, Ornenkai again looked up, only now it seemed as though he was looking directly at her.
She saw the image in his mind's eye, of a suspension capsule, similar to the one that had contained Calendra. But how had he known–
Ornenkai had been there when Calendra was released! Hinev had contacted him, had sought the help of the other great scientist of ancient times so that the two of them might attempt to restore Calendra’s life. As though Hinev knew Ornenkai had other reasons to wish that they might succeed. As though Hinev knew how much it would mean to Ornenkai if they could restore a body from imperfect suspension after so many years. For there was another suspension capsule in Ornenkai’s mind's eye.
As Alessia looked closer, she saw the depth of the sadness that lingered around him. Even though–his wish had been granted! Yes, though years had passed after Calendra's death, and the discovery came too late to revive her, Ornenkai had at last found the key to restore the ancient body of one in suspension.
Yet he hesitated, even though time was short, and the window of opportunity to restore the crippled body of his own first human body in suspension diminished as time passed. He would have to act soon, or that body's decay could not be reversed.
Yet he hesitated. The explorers were leaving, perhaps never to return. He knew they would never allow an Elder to join them, in any recognizable form.
What, what else could he do? He could not bear to be parted from the one he loved, the one whose life had restored meaning into his own. No, he thought, facing the truth, there was no other way. The body would have to remain in suspended animation, even though it would not survive the long years.
Instead he chose to be near her, though she would never know, and if she discovered him, he knew she would see him as the mechanized creature he had always been, or something worse, for now he would have to sacrifice all mobility. Yet, it was the only decision he could live with. He would guide and protect her, no matter what the cost. He would reveal the Enorian legacy that Marankeil had hidden and lead the explorers to fulfill their destiny.
Love left him no other choice.
At the same time, he knew exactly what it was he sacrificed. Never to be seen as human again, to know human love again, to have the power of life which is movement, he who had been the all-powerful Elder and Vice-Emperor Ornenkai. Yet what, what was Elder Ornenkai doing? She wondered, for she could no longer see.
Then, moments later, she heard a scream, a scream of terror, and of pain, pain that had not been expected, terror that had not been anticipated, and all the while a knowledge that there would never be an end.
She woke suddenly, away from the horror of it.
She was glad that it began to fade, back into that place where nightmares remained buried in the light of day. Yet now, as she glanced around at the room, the walls of Selesta seemed charged with electricity, with a sentience and energy she had not sensed before.
* * * * *
“Bring me that last batch of urbin roots, will you, Alessia?” The indefatigable Onracey said from the top of the loading ladder, bestowing a smile on her.
“One moment,” she said, lifting the heavy preservation unit and carrying it to the loading belt.
The explorers worked in the echoing cargo hold, helping the mechanized androids load up the smaller, staggered holds of Selesta with provisions for her third voyage.
The past three days had been busy, but at last the launch time drew near. They had assembled before dawn; now beams of natural light fell through the open air lock. Only a few more hours, and the Selesta would be cleared for departure. As the explorers were finishing stowing the last few supplies that the technicians had overlooked, the access door on the far side of the hold activated, and a mechanized unit in a vermilion robe entered from the central corridor that connected the spaceport to the city center.
“What’s Elder Ornenkai doing here?” Talden asked, in suspicious tones.
“Let’s give the Elder time to explain himself,” Kiel said, his tone reserved.
Kellar nodded. Hadn’t Ornenkai once been Hinev’s colleague, and deeply involved in the Firien Project?
Kiel himself wanted to trust Ornenkai, for all the help that Ornenkai had given Hinev’s explorers, but Ornenkai was, after all, one of the Elders. They could never allow themselves to forget that fact.
When was the last time she had seen Ornenkai? Alessia wondered at the same time. He hadn’t been present in any of their interrogations in the Main Terminus. And, she thought, didn’t rumor have it that Ornenkai preferred his clone form? Why had he decided to pay them a visit, then, through the medium of his ancient mechanized unit?
"Greetings, Hinev's explorers," the artificial voice of the ancient mechanized unit rasped as it approached. "I bring a message to you. Will you hear it, Fielikor Kiel?" His voice seemed strangely stilted, even for a mechanized unit.
Alessia cast a critical eye over the machine. Something was wrong, her intuition told her–but what? Her nightmare, those clouded visions–they had been wrong, by all appearances. So why did she feel so reluctant to accept the mechanized uni
t for what, or whom, it appeared to be?
“We will,” Kiel replied, flicking his eyes to Gerryls, who also wondered why Ornenkai’s voice held such small range of feeling, when they knew Ornenkai, unlike the other Elders, was still capable of some emotion.
Alessia felt less inclined towards giving him the benefit of the doubt on that issue. She had never forgiven Ornenkai for the simple fact that he was an Elder, and therefore, partly responsible for taking her from her home, the event that finally destroyed her mother, Nerena. After Alessia had been taken, Nerena could no longer bear living and had drowned herself in Lake Firien.
Nevertheless, Ornenkai's attempts at kindness had not been lost on Alessia, as much as she hated to admit it, and she still wondered why he had bothered, especially considering that he could not be ignorant as to her opinion of him.
This was not the Ornenkai she remembered. There was no spark, no trace of feeling in the mechanized unit. Only the superficial shell reminded her of him; the manner and attitude were indeed machine-like, not Ornenkai at all. It had said it brought a message, as if it had been programmed, she observed.
However, Kiel and the others didn’t seem to notice that.
The mechanized unit gave a gesture reminiscent of a nod. "Then listen well, explorers." It said, with perfectly even intonation. "I would help you on your mission.”
“Oh?” Celekar and Onracey hopped down from the loading ladder to listen.
“I know that you are not intended to return, that you know this is Marankeil's order and that perhaps you might feel inclined to comply, if only for your own sakes, so that you can escape beyond the regions of his control, away from where his orders might lead you.” Ornenkai continued.
“Perhaps,” Cerdko admitted, his eyes flashing.
“Yet I also heard Hinev's transmission to you, and if the esteem you feel towards him is as great as I expect it to be, I am certain that you will endeavor in any way to rectify his contribution, and yours, to the founding of our Empire." Ornenkai continued.
"Why should that be of your concern, Elder?” Vala demanded, when even Lierva kept silent; that group, Lierva, Kiel, Kellar, and Celekar, all from the Firien Project–none of them said a word.
“Why would you help us?” Derstan asked. “Even if we wished to honor Hinev's request, I doubt anyone could find a way to do it."
Ornenkai moved closer. "Perhaps your intentions are to warn the civilizations of the Great Cluster we have not yet reached, to prepare them for war. Listen when I tell you that you will accomplish little in that effort. There is a better way to bring down Marankeil's council, to keep his touch from contaminating the entire supercluster."
"Even if I believed you knew of a way to stop Emperor Marankeil, why should an Elder help us to do it?" Kiel asked, eyeing Ornenkai closely.
"That I will answer in a moment. But will you hear my news? Will you take my counsel to heart?" Ornenkai asked, his voice sounding as far from threatening as a mechanized unit could.
Kiel looked at the others, and sensing their accord, nodded marginally.
"In my youth, just as in Hinev's, remnants of knowledge from our ancient past still lived.” Ornenkai began, as though on cue. “Scattered clues of our history remained across the planet, of days when the human races on our world had not lived as we know them now.”
“You speak as though there were more than one,” Gerryls commented.
“Indeed.” Ornenkai nodded. “Though at first we did not understand how the pieces of the past fit together. Since my youth, I had searched for answers, for evidence of some ancient golden age of our people. I never did find what I sought in Ariyalsynai–
"Suffice it to say that I did not understand the implications of what I observed, and I was unconsciously trying to prove something that had never existed. I thought that the Seynorynaelian relics of the past had decayed as radiation destroyed our bodies, leaving few traces that any great civilization had once existed and fallen into decline.
"Only after some time did I begin to see–that a greater story buried in our past did exist but it was not ours alone. With that revelation, we–my friend Ilika and I–set out to find a place called the "Havens" that had only existed in children's tales and in ancient lore, a place that had been turned into myth and legend because the Havens had never been found. The ruins by Lake Firien seemed the only likely connection to the comet riders of legend, our ancestors that supposedly rode the white tails of a flaming comet that crashed on our world. Tales of the Havens sounded, if anything, more entrenched in groundless myth.
"I cannot say why I felt so strongly that they must have existed. Puzzles seemed to taunt me in every direction I turned, even in the very mysteries of the origin of our language. I felt sure they must have had some solid historical foundation in order to have entered our one language, from Firien all the way to the Kilkoran Sea.
"After I finished my specialist studies in science at school, my closest friend Ilika and I searched together, until at last we found the Havens of Enor."
Kiel’s eye flashed. Was it true? Had Ornenkai found the ancient ruins of the legendary ancestral race?! Enor was a name that he recalled hearing maybe once or twice in his childhood, but the very echo of that word had always sent a strange shudder down his spine. To those of his time, it was a sacred name, surrounded in mystery, having something to do with their origins. Some thought it another name for the Great One's paradise and that its creatures, its haven-masters, were His messengers, or angels.
"Ilika and I discovered the legend inscribed by the Enorians, one I have never repeated until now, and never will again.”
Ornenkai now had their undivided attention.
“It was written by one of the haven-masters that a singularity would come from Kiel3 to destroy the ruling Council of Seynorynael forever. Therefore,” he said, facing them squarely, “you must return to Kiel3 if you hope to end Marankeil's reign."
Return to Kiel3?! Alessia’s thoughts froze at the words. Return? Search all over again, only to–yes perhaps only to fail?
"Whatever happened to your friend Ilika who found the Havens with you?" Kellar asked.
"Ilika still lives, though none call him by his personal name, and it has been lost in time to all but me. However all know him by his more familiar family name. He is the one whom you would disempower. Ilika is the Emperor of the Council–Marankeil."
Kellar nodded, wishing he hadn’t asked. But was that why Ornenkai had remained loyal to Marankeil so long, despite the rumors they had heard from Hinev that he was not content with the policies of the other Elders? Could Ornenkai really be a creature trustworthy on his own, and could he be trusted?
Kiel found himself willing to believe the Elder. It would be hard to betray a former friend of so many long years, he thought, even if all traces of his humanity had been corroded by time. And one who could destroy so many if threatened, he reflected.
"Was Marankeil always as corrupt as he is now?" Lierva asked. Apparently all of the explorers were thinking the same thing.
"No, he was once a good man. But I believe his obsession with the Enorians got the best of him. Though there are times—I do not know why we fell to such great evil. Perhaps it was absolute power, that slowly took all feeling from us, and turned us to evil."
"I don't understand. Did he think the Enorian legend would add to his power and make it absolute?" Broah suggested, but the android Ornenkai shook his head to the side once with the slight whine of sliding metal.
"It was more complicated than that. Marankeil knew from the lore that the Enorians saw that an Empire would emerge, that it was in our destiny to rebuild. Marankeil wanted that ruler to be him. And for none other to emerge but himself alone, he tried to deny Hinev's First Race Theory so that no one else would seek to become that leader.
"To him, only Seynorynaelians could be descended from a grea
t race and destined for glory–with few legitimate heirs, his chance of being selected as the leader of the Federation turned Empire increased. And he refused to disclose the location of the Havens or tell its legend to anyone. He even managed to suppress any interest in the ancient lore and legends, to keep us all in ignorance." Ornenkai looked down.
"That was what caused the great culture of our race to dwindle. That is why our descendants have no idea who they are, why they are content to be ruled by him as long as they can rule the galaxies. What little any of them knows of Enor or of the various eras of our post convinces them they are better off now than ever before. They do not realize that the exploitation of the misfortunate and the pursuit of selfish pleasures were not in the Seynorynael ideal of our past. Nor that we can maintain a stranglehold over trillions and trillions of lives forever. It must all come to an end. For our evil, it must all come to an end!"
"Why then did Marankeil send us to Kiel3 before, if he thought something from that world would bring about the end of his Empire? You said he knew the legend–how could he authorize a mission that might fulfill that destiny?" Kiel demanded, his eyes flicking towards Kellar.
"He knew that a threat to his reign existed on Kiel3, but he sent you there to determine what that was, for him to destroy it. Perhaps that had been and was the Enorian home world, he did not know. But he had to find out. When you reported nothing was found there after your return, he began to fear that you explorers had discovered the singularity of the legend and were hiding it, that you were learning to use it to destroy him, or else were in league with some remaining Enorian force that would depose him. So he will continue to send you away forever, to keep your power away from him, to prevent you from taking away his absolute control.
"He knows there is a time-loop somewhere in our destiny. He knew it before you proved it to be true, when we first began to amass the Grand Fleet. We lost many trading ships around the black holes. One of them emerged back into the same point in space after thousands of our years, after only seconds by the crew's accounts. And other shifts in the temporal dimension occurred. Marankeil hopes to escape those who would return to the past to destroy him and to escape the supernova of Valeria, and the end of our empire. He believes the time-loop will be over when he escapes the destruction of Seynorynael and finds another world from which to rule.