After so many test creatures, the animal's lifespan appeared to increase, and for nearly a year the viedurg remained in its infant stage. Later, Hinev suddenly found that he had made a miscalculation in the serum proportions. The animal died suddenly–after a series of horrible spasms. The controlled cancer had suddenly reacted and spread, growing more rapidly than any natural cancer ever had. In moments the lyrachloroplasts of Hinev’s test serum had permeated the animal's tissues and produced an unexpected, bright burst of radiation that left the corpse in cinders.
Nevertheless Hinev’s failure was itself a breakthrough.
After appropriately altering the serum, this time adding extracts from the proto-telepaths’ brain matter, Hinev reworked the proportions. Then he decided to use himself as a living guinea pig again, as he had when testing the lyra cells.
This time he planned to use electromagnetic waves in conjunction with the serum to try to shock his cells into accepting the serum.
Only the final test waited.
Hinev filled an injection tube with the final serum...
* * * * *
He had nearly destroyed his laboratory, thrashing about and breaking the vials by the time the pain died away. Then, looking about, he felt the distribution of particles and atoms moving about him, in concert with his own body, obeying the laws of the universe, an entity he had finally joined.
The metamorphosis was incomplete, but as he had predicted, his mental abilities had expanded. He didn’t know why he felt the process had not yet been completed, but having unlocked new areas of his mind, he calculated his mistakes. He had to control the transformation process within him using this mental energy as he attempted further injections, to guide an even greater accelerated evolution.
The small lyra he had taken from the edge of the forest whispered to him, warning him that he approached a boundary from which he could never return.
Hinev wasn't listening. Relieved that the serum he had created remained intact in its indestructible vial despite the chaos he had recently created, Hinev approached the lyra tree and extracted more of its inner fluid. Opening the serum vial, he watched as the serum absorbed the clear liquid...
* * * * *
Hinev listened to the thoughts around him. His colleague's decisions, concerns, preoccupations, selfish desires–all had been exposed like a raw wound that burned in the air. After three tendays, he came to know just how difficult it was to reject the cloud of thoughts that reached out to the attractive channel of his mind.
Too many thoughts! How could he think clearly?!
He recovered, but there was no stopping now.
The process of metamorphosis had not yet been perfected. Hinev’s telekinetic powers remained marginal–he could easily absorb the energy around him but could not assert control over it–and the most massive object he had raised thus far was a small silica rod. When a tone sounded signaling an intruder, the rod fell to the floor and crashed into a hundred pieces.
"Message from the Elder Council," the officer announced. "Report to the Seynorynaelian Council in the Federation Council Building in two hours."
* * * * *
...The unflinching circle of mammoth faces regarded him a long time before addressing him, their metallic faces expressionless.
Hinev was genuinely surprised to find that he couldn’t read their thoughts.
Suddenly a rumbling sound broke out across the room, the deep, sardonic laugh of the oldest Elder, Marankeil.
"No, Hinev. You cannot reach us, not as we are. But now we can find you," he laughed again, triumphantly, and Hinev heard an unspoken voice fill his mind.
Did you think I would not perceive what you had done? it asked. Was it not I that made the resources you required so readily available when you needed them, and allowed you time when you would leave?
How are you able to speak to me? Hinev thought.
Until now we could not contact a human, only each other, the voice answered, but you have made it easy for our thoughts to enter your mind. Listen to the others, if you wish. I cannot hear what they say to you, nor can they hear what I have said. We have the power to control brainwaves.
Hinev shook his head and spoke aloud. "Why have I been summoned, Elder Marankeil?" He demanded. How could they hurt him now? He was not afraid. Except–he had not yet perfected the serum. Would they try to stop him?
Marankeil responded by projecting an image to him, an ancient memory deep within its computerized entity of a time when the mechanized being had lived as a human.
Stopping him was not their intention.
* * * * *
Marankeil and Ornenkai stumbled away from the ruins, Ornenkai clutching a small scrap of ancient writing, Marankeil holding a map of an unknown star system. Marankeil had felt his friend's curious eyes upon him on that day; his expression must have betrayed his inner thoughts. For it was then that Marankeil had begun to conceive a way to hold on to eternity, until he could inherit the legacy of the beings that had vanished from the ruins.
The Enorians.
Marankeil had grown dissatisfied with the limitations of the physical form, his own weakness of body that suffered from pain, fatigue, and disease and obsessed with his own search for immortality. Marankeil returned to the Center of Scientific Learning. At last he found a way to transfer his mind into a computer and into a super-android form to preserve his knowledge and being where his real, mortal body would fail...
"Come Ornenkai, my friend. Join me and we guide the evolution of our kind." He had said. The prospect of becoming immortal had also tempted the younger man–the human Ornenkai regarded his newly transformed friend Marankeil and knew that immortality could be his, was only a step away.
"We shall have unlimited time to decipher the Enorian markings and discover our people's past, to raise our culture to its former glory, to help our people take up their destiny and live in a better world." Marankeil smiled, knowing he had already won and that Ornenkai would join him.
Ornenkai soon followed Marankeil, and became a super-android known as a mechanized unit.
After Ornenkai’s transformation into a mechanized unit, many years passed before Marankeil found appropriate council representatives to join as permanent mechanized members of the Seynorynaelian Council. Marankeil offered mechanized eternity as a reward for those who would serve him upon the Seynorynaelian Council and elevate him as its informal leader. Those who wished for immortality could earn the right to be rendered into machines by controlling the scientists and the development of technology, by enforcing restrictions upon inferior physical and mortal subordinates.
They achieved a stranglehold on science and technology on their world in the years that followed.
Soon changes to the Federation Scientific Building were proposed and established. Though the Federation council perceived the venture as a gesture of cooperation, Marankeil's secure grasp governed its activities, ensuring that no new discoveries greatly advanced human welfare. Security, the status quo–these maintained a content society.
Time solidified the order of things–and Marankeil's supremacy. A few of the Federation Council found their way into his mechanized elite, though others came and went following the natural law.
But Marankeil's promise to Ornenkai disturbed the oldest Elder with each passing year. Ornenkai had never fully given up the idea of returning to a physical body, though Marankeil openly despised the notion. The truth was that Marankeil himself had become dissatisfied with the limitations of his machine body and yearned for his original desire: immortality within a physical body, as well. His promise to Ornenkai had been his own secret obsession–to regain the power of Enor.
* * * * *
So, Hinev laughed inwardly, drawing away from Marankeil’s thoughts, Marankeil does want to possess an eternal life and regain his mortal body rather than the computerized
mind that has stored his being for centuries, for milennia. But Hinev found he could not presently reach the other Elders’ minds to confide what he had learned.
Still, they might not have been concerned. If Marankeil ever succeeded in achieving a physical state of immortality, each of the others might hope to gain the same: a new, perfect human body. Hinev's efforts had not been kept from them, and they knew his process of transformation, though incomplete, had opened the long invisible path. Yet–what was this Enor? His father had known little of it, but it was a legendary place Hinev had always heard about. Yet it was also the name of the other world beyond death, in the ancient writings of their people.
We will allow your work to continue, support you, grant you unlimited resources and personal glory if you can begin our work. You must find a way to transfer our minds back into a physical form, a perfect physical body that has undergone treatment with the serum. Either clone new ones for us or give us the bodies of your subjects, but we must have life again.
Hinev received an image of the sleeping shells far beneath the council Building, the spiritless matter that had once been Marankeil, Ornenkai, and the others. Their natural bodies slept in suspended animation.
If you can recreate the form that I once knew, then use them, take the replicator information you need, Marankeil perceived Hinev’s idea and gave his approval. But experiment upon someone else first, perhaps a group. Test and perfect your serum. Then if you can use our old replicator information to clone new living bodies with minds we can take over, you may take them. Dispose of them then as you wish.
"I still have not tested my own abilities. I'm not even sure I can complete the serum to make all of this possible," Hinev protested.
What do you need? the Elder persisted.
"I should require a living proto-telepath to exercise my new abilities. And an assistant to aid in my experiment."
And test subjects–do not evade the issue, dear Hinev. Children we can control.
Children? Hinev repeated, bemused.
Human beings are all the same to us. Directionless children. But the younger the better. Creatures too young to realize the futility of ambition. And if you cannot perfect our cloned bodies, we will require them as youthful containers to be ready for the transfer, at the peak of their mental and physical powers. Yes–choose the best of our race for us.
"If I refuse?" Hinev hesitated.
You cannot refuse. I see the ambition in your eyes. You believe that you can achieve it all–perfect your own transformation, recreate our ancient forms, transform a group of subjects without the need to destroy their beings, all in the name of enlightenment–achieving a grander society, capable of the depth of emotion and harmony you only begin to perceive with your new abilities.
There is no human emotion left in your heart, Hinev observed.
But you hope to change us. You cannot conceive of us maintaining our views in an enlightened physical state. Marankeil laughed. Where were the Enorian Havens, the ruins of that ancient race? he suddenly asked, toying with Hinev's shifting thoughts. That I will not tell you. No “first race” will exist but us. Yet perhaps after you have completed our task, I will give you the information you seek, as a reward. I see that you are a man who must have answers. You cannot live without them, can you?
How do you propose to control my test subjects once they have been transformed? Hinev's mind formed a question.
We already have that taken care of, or shall soon. Have faith, Hinev. Or do you imagine to comprehend more about technology than I?
What do you mean? Hinev demanded suspiciously.
If you needed to know that, I would have told you already.
And why will I create pawns for you?
You do not believe that we can control them after the serum has been given. And if we join them, will we not see the futility of power?
Where shall I find a test subject? Hinev wondered.
Marankeil's synthesized voice sounded amused. "Let us first concentrate upon perfecting your abilities. But I have already located your assistant. And you will appreciate the choice–she is a half-race child like you."
Who is she?
"She is called Alessia, the granddaughter of General Zadúmchov."
"The great coordinator of the expansion?"
"Yes. While you were out roaming the galaxy. After Ornenkai suggested we rebuild the ruins of Lake Firien as our new space exploration vessel, Zadúmchov was sent to monitor the area.”
I hear that after one visit, he refused to return. Hinev thought.
"Yes. The man actually refused to be near his daughter. You seem confused–”
What did she do to deserve that kind of treatment?
“You might be amused. Nerena disgraced her father when she left Ariyalsynai to marry an unknown alien.”
A truly unpardonable crime.
“Of course I understand your feelings regarding that issue. In any event, Hinev, reports from the child's school registered Nerena's daughter as an empath, a possible proto-telepath.”
Her father...
No, Hinev, the father is unknown. You are remembering the population near Lake Firien, the proto-telepaths. How do I know of them? A remnant remained of that ancient community in my youth as well. And never forget that I also have studied the ancient lore of our world. But the girl's father was an alien, not of Firien, not Seynorynaelian. General Zadúmchov's memory of that is clear. Yes, we are sure of her ability. Do you doubt me?
I wouldn’t dare. Why her?
Because at long last she has provided us with a name for the ancient ship.
The name??
"Verify it for yourself, Hinev, but you will find that the symbols indeed read, 'Selesta'."
* * * * *
...Why? Why had he let himself grow to love this girl? Hinev never intended to care for the girl Alessia, but then he had made the decision not to care for her before he met her. And he had never had a family of his own, had never cared for another human being since the loss of Undina and Reneja. With his own telepathy expanding, he was able to read her thoughts and memories. With it, he discovered that Alessia and he were similar creatures.
Both had lost their fathers at a young age, and circumstances had separated them from their mothers. Without any other known family, Alessia was also alone in the world.
Moreover, her very existence proved Hinev's idea that a first race had colonized the galaxies–that without genetic alteration Nerena and Alessia’s father had been able to have a child. Hinev had searched his records from the explorer missions but did not find a humanoid race that matched the man from the memory in Alessia's mind. Either she had remembered him incorrectly, or–
He had come to Seynorynael on his own.
Hinev did not doubt that he had been the source of Alessia's strange abilities, her proto-telepathy that in rare moments of an excited emotional state allowed her to break through to his mind without his help. As the time of her complete maturation approached, he would have to begin the ultimate test upon Alessia. The serum had been completed. But Hinev hesitated. Would the Alessia he had discovered and grown to love be no more?
Could he live with himself if her identity or even she herself died with the serum?
* * * * *
Hinev left for Firien at the Elders' summons. It was there that he happened to discover the fate of Alessia's mother.
He just couldn’t tell the child, not yet.
Nerena had drowned herself in the sea the morning after Alessia had been taken from her, not far from the very site where lieutenant Kiel and the other Martial Scientific Force officers worked on the infrastructure of the ship Selesta.
Lieutenant Fielikor Kiel, an engineer in the MSF, had shown Hinev around the site. The Elders had chosen well, Hinev thought. Kiel would make the perfect test subject, if he coul
d be made to undergo the serum, and Bilka was already there, trying to persuade him that he would make an ideal explorer for the mission when it was finally launched. Young, energetic, sharp-minded, handsome, strong, a born fighter and leader, Kiel was strong-willed and independent...
* * * * *
When Hinev returned, he knew he could allow himself no time to change his mind. He prepared the serum as quickly as possible, and set up the instruments for a complete study of Alessia's transformation.
He had prepared to guide the process of her metamorphosis with his telekinetic abilities, to help the serum infiltrate her cells and take control of them, but encountered an unexpected barrier. Alessia's immune system fought the invader with an uncanny strength. She held out for two months, delirious, in acute pain. Such acute pain that it made him regret what he had done to her.
Then suddenly Hinev was no longer alone. Alessia finally woke. Her survival after so long was indeed a miracle... Her entity shielded itself from his mind; this was a comfort to him somehow. In his own obsessed pursuit of eternal life, he had not realized that he needed humanity, the challenge of an equal intellect to feed his mind, to progress and refine his own enlightenment…
* * * * *
–Alessia pulled herself from his mind abruptly as she reached his most recent thoughts. She did not need to know what had happened to her. She already knew–
And her mother, Nerena, was dead?!—
Yet Hinev wouldn’t let her mind escape him, not yet.
* * * * *
...Alessia seemed to have recovered. And she seemed willing to help him, to allow him to analyze and document her transformation. She permitted him to run tests upon her, monitoring her new abilities, as much as she hated the testing. He could only guess that she had accepted her fate, knowing that regrets served her no purpose. He did not really know, though, for she continued to shield her mind's thoughts from him.
When he examined the results, Hinev forgot to breathe for a moment.
This can’t be! he thought, then called Alessia back to repeat the blood test.