Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.07 AE
Haven-1: Palace of the Eternal Emperor
Supreme Commander-General Jophiel
Jophiel
A brown dragon-like snout peered out the door where she stood waiting, flanked by the two Cherubim guards who had been instructed to usher her inside the moment she arrived. The moment he spied her, a pleased grin appeared on Dephar's face.
“Ahh! Jophiel! Come in!" The Muqqibat dragon held open the door as his golden eyes glowed brighter, the mark of a pre-ascended creature. "You'll find him in the usual place." He pointed down the endless rows of cages, piled floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall with life forms the Emperor tinkered with.
She thanked the wingless dragon, slender and tall like the serpents that flanked both sides of Asclepius's caduceus, a symbol of knowledge and wisdom. Dephar had always made her feel welcome here, even when she showed up unexpectedly to disturb the Emperor's research on an important matter of military urgency, and she enjoyed his company. She shifted the sleeping Uriel to her hip so she could give the Emperor's top research genius a proper salute, and inquired about Dephar's own research before making her way through the labyrinth of narrow cages, all piled helter-skelter despite the best efforts of the army of laboratory technicians and scientists the Emperor kept in his employ to keep things organized.
The Emperor's laboratory was a vibrant place, resisting organization or classification. No matter how hard his subjects tried to pigeonhole his work, things just turned out the way they were meant to be. She found him bent over an experiment, laboratory coat buttoned up wrong, but Jophiel didn't take offense when he didn't acknowledge her right away. The Emperor's work required absolute concentration. She waited for him to finish pondering whatever great thought occupied his considerable genius and glance up before announcing she'd arrived.
“Reporting for duty, Sir!" She grabbed the sling to make sure Uriel didn't drop out onto his head. She'd not yet adjusted to the way his weight tugged her off-balance. Twelve babies she'd borne the Alliance, but this was the first time she'd actually needed to care for one of them. It was a lot more work than she'd anticipated!
“Shhhh …. it's about to hatch."
The Emperor motioned for her to step closer to the incubator so she could see creation in progress. Hashem was fully manifested into the material realms at the moment, wearing his usual form of a wingless human male.
Fist-sized leathery eggs, perhaps belonging to a lizard, turtle, or snake, wiggled as they began to hatch. Although most subjects thought of the Emperor as a god-like creature sitting on his magnificent throne, this is how Jophiel loved him best. In his lab, wearing crumpled clothing that looked as though it had been slept in, white hair and bushy eyebrows tussled like a mad scientist, up to his elbows creating variations of life.
“What are they?" She watched what could be a beak or a claw begin to chip through one of the eggs.
“Gourocks from Gemini-28." The Emperor focused intently on his new creations as they pecked their way into the world. “Miniature land dragons. Nearly extinct. I've given them a little enhancement. We shall see if that pushes them over the top so they can survive.”
“What is the enhancement?”
“Look and see,” he said. “You tell me.”
Jophiel studied the first baby dragon to push its way out of the shell and give a little squeak. Soon, two dozen more followed. All were identical except for the last one, which didn't hatch. The Emperor took the egg and studied it.
“It should hatch…” he said perplexed. “My tests showed all of the eggs were viable and had developing embryos.”
“I don't see what the enhancement is,” Jophiel said. “I'm not familiar with gourocks.”
“Let’s see how their mama reacts to them." The Emperor rolled over a larger cage until the doors lined up, and then lifted them so the dog-sized adult gourock whose eggs had been enhanced could view her offspring. “C’mon, mama….” Hashem coaxed. “Let’s see how you like your new babies.”
The mother tasted the air with her forked tongue and walked in, claws splayed for balance upon the ground. She was a creature who had evolved in a dry environment. She recognized her eggs and studied the babies. Giving them a sniff, she accepted them, uttering a reptilian bark to call her babies to her side. At the same time, the last remaining egg began to shudder as a tiny claw picked its way through the shell.
“Oh … I see it now!” Jophiel whispered, amazed at the subtlety of the Emperor’s tinkering. “They have webbed feet and their skin is just a little different. Water dragons! These babies can survive a wetter environment!”
“Yes,” the Emperor said as he watched the last egg hatch. “And they're smarter, too. Gemini-28 has been experiencing climate change. The sea levels are rising. Soon, there won't be much dry land left to walk upon. These babies will survive a marshy environment.”
“Here’s the last one!” Jophiel whispered. “C’mon, little guy…”
The last baby hatched, but its evolution from desert to swamp creature was more extreme. Whereas the others had just the hint of webbed feet and aquatic skin, the last one’s aquatic features were more pronounced. The feet were fully webbed, the skin soft like a frogs, and the tail had a paddle to propel it through the water. The head was streamlined so it could swim with less resistance, but longer to fit a larger brain pan. The mother gourock hissed and swatted it with her tail, rejecting it. The baby gourock curled up into a ball and whimpered.
“And those are the consequences of tinkering with the work of She-who-is." The Emperor picked up the little lizard and put it into a separate cage. Millions of such cages lined the walls of the Emperor’s laboratory, a testament to the consequences of his constant tinkering.
“Poor little guy." Jophiel pulled Uriel closer. “His mama didn't want him.”
“I used to think I could just create life and it would be good,” the Emperor said. “But the older I get, the more I realize everyone needs a family." He looked Jophiel in the eye. “She-who-is has just reminded me of that fact. So what are we going to do to rectify this problem?”
“I would like to tender my resignation, Sir,” Jophiel said. “With the baby taking up so much of my time, I don't see how I can defend your Alliance and take care of Uriel.”
The Emperor pondered her request.
“Jophie,” he said. “You're my most trusted advisor. Without you, I'm afraid the Alliance would collapse. Without a strong military deterrent, Shay’tan will invade this sector and enslave millions.”
“But, Sir,” she protested. “It's only been two weeks and already hybrids are refusing to give up their babies. They say they want to raise their own offspring because I'm doing it. Please … discharge me as a traitor and condemn my actions. Your empire depends upon it!”
“That's something Shay’tan would do,” the Emperor sighed. “He scapegoats another when he makes a mistake. This is my mistake, and I'll bear the consequences of it.”
“But, Sir!”
“But, nothing,” he said. “Resignation denied. I'm assigning a full-time Delphinium nanny to help you care for Uriel on your command carrier. I have assembled a team of experts to figure out how I can let Alliance hybrids have more access to their offspring without jeopardizing the stability of the fleet. You're my first test subject.”
“Oh?" Jophiel was not sure what to say. “Test subject?”
“I'm also recommending you promote that wonderfully efficient personal assistant of yours, Captain Klik'rr, to Major,” he said. “And assign him a half dozen assistants to take up the slack. It's about time we started promoting the newer sentient races into the upper ranks of the military. Don't you agree?”
“Th-thank you, your eminence!" What he'd just handed her was better than her wildest dreams.
“Now let me see that fine son of yours.”
Over the next hour, Hashem played with Uriel and picked Jophiel’s brain for ideas about how to allow the hybrid races, who were the legs his
empire stood upon, to have their cake and eat it too. At some point, one of the Emperor’s lab technicians came in to take the Mama and baby lizards back to Gemini-28 and release them into the general population.
The conversation turned back to the Emperor’s favorite subject, tinkering with the DNA which made up life. The new genetic traits he'd just instilled in the gourocks would be dominant. Within several generations, most gourocks would inherit the adaptation which would allow them to survive their changing climate. All but the poor little guy who'd been rejected. If his own mother rejected him, it was unlikely any mate would accept him, either. Sending him back to the homeworld to die was pointless.
As she went to leave, the Emperor gave her a gift.
“Here … he won’t be happy here alone." He handed her the cage. “Everybody needs a family to belong to. Maybe Uriel will enjoy having a water dragon for a pet?”
Chapter 86
Chapter 111
Epilogue
Prince of Tyre
ABOUT Anna Erishkigal
OTHER BOOKS by Anna Erishkigal
List of Species
Acknowledgements
Copyright
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