Chapter
Marankeil has been more irascible than ever of late, Ornenkai thought as he left an official Federation Council meeting. Finding the Tarkhan representatives Gilhakmorg and Cuelim in the third lounge of the diplomats’ forum by chance dissipated the dark mood hanging over Ornenkai.
Ornenkai had grown familiar with the couple in the course of their official dealings; yet Ornenkai liked them, especially since their people had shown a keen appreciation for Seynorynaelian poetry and music and Federation culture. Ornenkai would have even called them friends, if he still applied that word to ephemeral creatures.
Why Ornenkai liked Gilhakmorg and Cuelim was the same as why he liked their race. Most of the Federation planets worried about what they stood to gain in terms of technology and material comfort first when they joined the Federation; the Tarkhan people were different. They had primarily looked for their souls to profit from new forms of art and literature. And Ornenkai could appreciate people who cared for art and excellence; a desire to profit was only natural, enjoying luxuries were well and good, but profit gluttony for the sake of profit gluttony alone, without an eye for taste, and without the taste to properly appreciate how best profit could be put to good use—the thought quite simply nauseated Ornenkai. He didn’t want to judge, but he couldn’t help what he really felt.
Ornenkai had to admit that he hardly understood the Tarkhans’s ideas of good literature and art, though, but of course that was because of their genetic and genetically-derived cultural differences.
The bi-pedal Tarkhans were not humans or humanoids but were bi-peds. They had a light, leathery grey skin with splotches of white hair concentrated on the face and feet, small ears and noses with one tiny nostril, and they had clear, wide blue-grey eyes, narrow faces and long legs. The planet Tarkhan was as cold as Seynorynael, and the Tarkhan people that came to Ariyalsynai adjusted easily to their new surroundings; many did not even require condensed atmosphere packs to breathe and adjusted to the slight difference in Seynorynaelian air pressure and content.
The Tarkhan representatives were interested in the many dramas being brought to life across the Federation, based on ancient Seynorynaelian lore and legend and upon cultural stories from thousands of worlds brought to Ariyalsynai, the center of the Federation's trade routes and a frequent stop-over between centipede gates. Ornenkai had escorted them to Kilkor, where several plays had been given based on early Gildbaturan wars. The plays intrigued the Tarkhan couple, whose own people had outlawed war almost three hundred Tarkhan years ago.
"I must tell you, Ornenkai, it disturbs me that the Council has voted in support of an attack on the lai-nen Empire," Gilhakmorg said as Ornenkai sat on a lounge chair beside him and punched in the code for a Malddain friasti. Both Gilhakmorg and Cuelim had been present at the Federation Council meeting as cultural correspondents, since their planet didn’t have an official vote in the Council yet.
Not all this bother about the lai-nen again, Ornenkai thought. Why can’t we just sit in peace? Was everyone in the world talking about the lai-nen? Weren’t there other things going on in the Federation?
Ornenkai looked askance at the Tarkhan man, but the other could read nothing in the Elder's expression. Ornenkai knew that Gilhakmorg had instinctively trusted him since shortly after their first meeting twelve years ago. Ornenkai accepted this fact impartially, but he was still trying to determine why Gilhakmorg or anyone would trust him, Elder Ornenkai.
Nevertheless, there was still something dark in Ornenkai's eyes that perhaps Gilhakmorg didn’t entirely discount. This man had seen and done many things no ordinary being had, Gilhakmorg thought often; even if Gilhakmorg had never learned of Ornenkai's mechanized incarnation or multiple clones transfers, he had still recognized something unsettling, something resilient and uncompromising in Ornenkai’s eyes.
Ornenkai never gave away any emotion, perhaps because he had spent so much time as a machine. For all of his superficial humanity, he moved and spoke as though he were still a mechanized unit, and it was precisely his inhumanity that kept others at a distance. And his inhumanity never shone clearer than in his visual organs, his yes, the mirrors to his soul. Gilhakmorg often worried that perhaps the concept of sin meant little to the Elder now.
Ornenkai saw Gilhakmorg’s thoughts even without a link-up to his telepathic mechanized unit and suppressed an urge to laugh. He found it easy to read thoughts through facial expressions, but then he had grown skillful through years of the mechanized unit's telepathic ability.
Gilhakmorg, bless him, he didn’t understand the necessity of Ornenkai's reserve. Ornenkai knew that if he let others see his emotions, Marankeil might also be able to see some emotion in him that even Ornenkai wasn't sure was there, and Ornenkai couldn’t let that happen. Showing the emotions one felt made one vulnerable to the designs of others; Ornenkai believed this in his soul.
"Tell me, Gil, have you ever met a lai-nen native?" Ornenkai asked, turning to the Tarkhans with a meaningful gaze.
Gilhakmorg’s wife, Cuelim, looked up from her drink, a curious expression on her face.
Gilhakmorg shook his head.
“Well, I have,” Ornenkai said.
“You’ve seen one? What do they look like?” Cuelim asked.
"Merely quadruped creatures like us, and they do walk upright, despite what you may have heard," Ornenkai continued, glancing between them, "they’ve got large legs and extremely short arms—and I think, my friend, that even you would find them quite frightening." Ornenkai paused as he sloshed the drink in his hand with a circular motion then contemplated the swirling contents. Finally, he raised his other hand before them and flexed his fingers.
“Frightening?” Cuelim echoed. Of course, the tales about the lai-nen had been frightening people across the Federation for uncounted years, but to hear Elder Ornenkai admit this drove that fact home more than anything else could.
“Indeed.” Ornenkai nodded. “The lai-nen have only four fingers and toes, but they’re agile and fast, faster than they might seem. They can rip apart a humanoid or bi-ped in less time that it takes us to snap our fingers.”
“Really?” Cuelim said, shaking her furry white head.
“Don’t let the fact that they’re descended from plant-eating creatures fool you.” Ornenkai added. “All of the biologists are talking about them—how their species was a plant-eater that then became a successful predator-scavenger millions of years ago, as it was developing.”
“So I’ve heard.” Gilhakmorg nodded. “Yet aren’t they now omnivorous, like your people?”
“Yes,” Ornenkai said. “But I believe they prefer meat to vegetables,” Ornenkai laughed. “And they will take their meat fresh, if you understand. With its heart still beating.”
Cuelim made a face that Ornenkai recognized was a grimace for one of her people.
“Well, what they look like... “ Ornenkai continued. “Ah yes, I believe that the lai-nen’s' physical defenses would also impress you.”
“I’ve heard about the shoulder horns. True?” Cuelim asked.
“Yes,” Ornenkai said. “The horns are vestigial, left over from the defensive plating of their ancient herbivorous ancestor. Likely their tough, leathery khaki skin is also something they kept from that peaceful ancestor. Superb natural defenses and superb natural offenses—paints them as an awfully frightening creature, doesn’t it?” Ornenkai laughed.
"Do they really have such a large head?” Gilhakmorg wondered, setting down his drink. “And what about that business of fantastic forward-set eyes for depth perception?”
“True,” Ornenkai said.
“I heard they have long retractable claws and sharp front teeth for ripping up carcasses.” Cuelim added.
“Again, true.” Ornenkai said.
Cuelim didn’t flinch but considered what Ornenkai had told them. "How can a race that threatens peaceful lif
e manage to create an Empire that spreads from the Black hole Elmries in the Lysciena cluster to the Great Red Nebula?" she asked.
"For all of their hostility, reports indicate that the lai-nen are a highly intelligent race," Ornenkai admitted, "but it is precisely the threat of lai-nen retaliation that keeps many of their subordinate territories under control.”
Cuelim was silent.
“Still,” Ornenkai added, “the lai-nen Empire traders that we permit into our Federation area have been carefully selected by the lai-nen Empire. So of course they won’t tell us much about any resistance to their domination.”
“You think there’s more going on than they tell us?”
“Perhaps,” Ornenkai replied. "On the surface it seems clear that most of the territories, even those with humanoid populations, appear content.”
“What if they aren’t?”
“I think the lai-nen don’t harm humans or humanoid beings because they took so much away from the exchange of cultures,” Ornenkai said, “and the humanoid traders that we have encountered assure us that the lai-nen have brought peace and prosperity to the Lysciena cluster."
"Then why attempt to destroy the lai-nen civilization?" Gilhakmorg was insistent. "They have a right to their own existence, no matter how the Federation feels about them.” He repeated his argument on principle alone; Ornenkai saw that Gilhakmorg had little respect for the lai-nen per se.
“Maybe so.” Ornenkai admitted.
“I’ve heard they have the vast resources of a hundred planets at their disposal.” Gilhakmorg threw out, then took another drink from his friasti.
“Yes.” Ornenkai nodded.
“Well then, what if they should defeat our Federation forces and then launch an attack on a Federation planet?" Gilhakmorg wondered.
"They’ll put up resistance for while—perhaps for several generations," Ornenkai said slowly, ponderously, "and I can’t guarantee that they won’t take a few of our territories with them, but death is only a matter of time for them. Nothing will remain of lai-nen."
"But why?" Cuelim asked. "I haven’t heard that they’re a threat to the Federation."
Ornenkai looked down into his drink, a light smile forming in the corners of his mouth. "I don’t doubt it. But Marankeil has considered the lai-nen a threat ever since we learned of Kudenka and his explorer’s journey to the lai-nen border worlds just beyond Alavia," he said, watching the Tarkhans' reaction from the corner of his eye.
"The lai-nen are cunning,” he continued, “but even though they have been very careful never to provoke us, we have known they don’t like the Federation ever since they began to send ambassadors to Seynorynael. If the opportunity ever arose for them to attack us—if war should ever break out among the Federation planets—then you can be sure that the lai-nen will be ready to take advantage of our weakness.”
“But surely they wouldn’t defeat us.” Cuelim said.
Ornenkai laughed. “Alone, probably not, but as I said, if we were already fighting another battle—maybe they could, Cuelim. While we might be able to bring any of our own conflicts under control, we don't know how the lai-nen factor might unbalance the situation. So Marankeil has decided never to give them the chance to conquer us.”
“So it seems we must destroy them first, if we are to ensure our own security." Cuelim reasoned.
Ornenkai nodded.
"If you are in favor of the attack, why then did you say nothing at the Council meeting?" Gilhakmorg asked.
"And what was all that about a shuttle?" Cuelim added.
Ornenkai shrugged. "Ah yes, the shuttle. Elder Baladahn had the idea of staging its destruction in lai-nen airspace. Then we would have a legitimate reason to retaliate against their empire—"
"You mean the destruction of the Lil-nandia was deliberate?" Cuelim asked.
"Yes—it was an idea that Baladahn took from a past experience with the lai-nen.” Ornenkai replied. “The lai-nen have never trusted us, either, and when a ship from the lai-nen system was lost near the Malddain centipede gate many, many years ago, they blamed us for its disappearance. The investigation later revealed that one of their own territories had launched the missile that destroyed the ship in order to claim compensation.”
“I didn’t know.” Cuelim said in surprise; Ornenkai eyed her patiently and waited until she was listening again.
"Few people do—it’s ancient history, after all. But the Lil-nandia was set to self-destruct, leaving no evidence behind...” Ornenkai explained. “It doesn't really matter, though, because as you saw, the Federation is eager to get rid of what has long been Seynorynael's greatest rival. They aren't especially interested in sorting out the truth or proving the lai-nen Empire's innocence.”
"You should have said something, Ornenkai," Gilhakmorg shook his head. "If you knew the lai-nen weren’t at fault, your voice would have dissuaded the others."
"That may be," Ornenkai admitted with an air of complete indifference, "but frankly,” he laughed, “I don't care what happens to the lai-nen. And I want to see them dead.”
The Seynorynaelian Federation defeated the lai-nen Empire after more than five hundred years of war. The victory celebrations over Seynorynael’s latest heroic triumph lasted more than a generation, and from the Great Red Nebula to the edge of the Great Cluster and beyond, most of the former territories of the lai-nen were incorporated into the Seynorynaelian Empire.
The lai-nen home world just beyond the Great Red Nebula was destroyed, but reports from that area indicated that the lai-nen had fled and rebuilt their home elsewhere, that the lai-nen were lying low, perhaps to build their strength. The Federation Council scoffed at the rumors and denied that it was possible; the Seynorynaelian and Federation peoples were happy to believe that the lai-nen were truly extinct.
Yet Marankeil did nothing to see if the rumors were true; the new lai-nen home world itself, was rumored to be far away, beyond even the Rigell system, too far away for an effective assault; Marankeil never wasted any effort. Keeping the peace in the enlarging Federation was enough difficulty for a small planet such as Seynorynael; protecting the home world from planet destruction assaults by rebellious nations, renegades, and space pirates was now enough of a problem at the moment, without going after the last of a vanquished nation.
Hinev, time is growing short for me. Where are you? Ornenkai wondered one afternoon, as he had on so many other afternoons, his clone form seated under the lyra tree in the Seynorynaelian Arboretum. Ornenkai often retreated to the Arboretum, the arboretum museum, his favorite place in the city. It was the only place to find any peace in all the city, the only reality that followed natural law alone, for the laws and society of mankind meant nothing there.
Where was Hinev? Where had he been all these years? Ornenkai didn’t know and he could think of few reasons that the scientist had to return to Ariyalsynai, but Hinev always returned to Ariyalsynai. Ariyalsynai was the capital of the universe. The only thing left to consider was when he would be returning.
Ornenkai’s own motive for anticipating Hinev's return was entirely selfish. If he and Marankeil were compelled to return to mechanized form as their clone bodies neared expiration, Ornenkai was afraid to risk what remained of his humanity in the mechanized unit; he no longer wanted to try to recreate the clones himself, and live with the imperfections he knew they would have if he fashioned them.
Shortly after the defeat of the lai-nen Empire, Marankeil had decided to send a summons across the Federation for the scientist calling himself Fynals Hinev to report to the council in Ariyalsynai. It was no secret that of all the Elders, Marankeil needed a new clone embodiment the most because a degenerative illness had struck him, but no one aside from the Elders knew that their chief super-cloning expert had disappeared.
In Hinev's absence, the Elders would have to make do with inferior clones with unenhanced physical and mental ab
ilities, and Marankeil would return to his mechanized unit before it came to that. He needed Hinev and his secrets to continue to function in his preferred form, but it had been more than two thousand years since Hinev had been seen.
The world that had known the scientist had changed since then, and Hinev's name was a word forgotten by all but a few. Even the explorers, Hinev’s explorers, who continued to incorporate new civilizations had been largely forgotten about on their home world of Seynorynael.
And now, Marankeil and Ornenkai wondered if Fynals Hinev would ever be found.
Yet Hinev would return, of that Ornenkai was certain. Hinev would not miss the opportunity of a reunion with his former pupil, Alessia, when Hinev’s explorers finally returned. Ornenkai himself tried not to think about the possibility that Hinev’s explorers and Selesta had encountered some hostile species in outer space that even they could not defeat, that could possibly defeat them. He believed that they were still alive, that something hadn’t gone wrong with the metamorphosis, that they hadn’t gotten lost to a faraway galaxy and been doomed to wander forever across time and space.
But Ornenkai had spent more than an aeon trying to forget about them, to forget about Alessia.
He thought he didn’t care if Selesta ever returned. What was a spaceship to him now when he could have anything in all the Federation that he wanted? When his word could destroy or save entire planetary populations?
She heard them coming. Light footsteps sounded in the pedestrian zone that surrounded the Federation Council Building, adjacent Arboretum, and other Council buildings in the center of Ariyalsynai. The creatures that had appeared in the pedestrian courtyard were tall, slender humanoids, their faces obscured by the black helmets that protected them from Seynorynaelian air.
Her mouth worked into a faint smile; she would have mistaken them for the regulator squads of the distant past, if the regulation units hadn’t been disbanded in favor of MSF guards.
The leader of the black-clad unit called out softly in an alien language that the interloper had never heard, signaling the others to follow. It was the middle of the night. Only a few wandering android units patrolled the dimly lit streets; weapons had not been permitted in the city for more than five thousand years.
As the group of aliens began to move towards the steps to the Federation Council Building, a shadow stepped from the intersection ahead and raised an arm.
"Stop," a female voice called in the language of Eretae. "I won’t permit you to go any further." A black-clad woman said, standing erect, facing them, but she wasn’t one of them; her uniform had strange hypnotic blue-green swirls down the sides.
“Who are you?” the leader, Dmerrk, demanded.
The shadow refused to answer.
“How can you speak to us in Eretae!?” Dmerrk asked, paling; the other Eretaens just stood, dumbstruck. The creature had spoken to them in Eretaean—yet Eretae hadn’t yet been discovered in this time!
“Are you an Elder?” Dmerrk asked, remembering rumors that the mechanized Elders could read minds.
“No,” the stranger said.
Dmerrk stared at her a moment. Who else could she be? he wondered. The Eretaean annals said that there were only thirty-one Seynorynaelian explorers capable of reading minds, and they were gone on their mission at this moment in the past—
"Get out of our way," Kfarrn said, taking a step towards the building.
Fool! Dmerrk thought. Didn’t Kfarrn understand that she should never underestimate an enemy? Yet Dmerrk understood her hostility. They had overcome impossible odds to get here, and Kfarrn wasn’t about to give up, no matter who this strange intruder might be.
It had taken careful planning for more than three years to steal the Seynorynaelian Empire's Grand Fleet vessel, the only ships capable of bypassing the time checks and using the centipede star gates to return to the past. The Eretaen renegade military unit had understood that if they succeeded in killing the Seynorynaelian Elders in the distant past, there would be no future Empire, only the Federation, and the prosperity and security it had once guaranteed for all worlds.
They were going to change the future, even if it meant they would be obliterated from existence by doing it.
"I can’t allow you to alter history." The intruder continued, undaunted as the group of twelve slowly took steps towards her.
Dmerrk was stunned. How—how did this stranger know exactly what they intended?!
"Yes, I know what you intend to do." She said, looking Dmerrk directly in the eye. "You have come from the future to assassinate the Emperor before he ever creates the Empire that will engulf your world.”
Dmerrk nodded weakly.
“You must abandon this foolishness.” The stranger said. “The responsibility for the destruction of the Seynorynaelian Empire is not your problem—it is mine."
Dmerrk’s breath caught in his throat. Her responsibility? he thought. What foolishness! Yet how did she know about the future?! Could she only be foretelling what would inevitably happen, or did she really know? Her confidence in her own assessment of their motives surprised and intrigued him. But perhaps she had guessed accurately about the formation of the Empire because she knew what Marankeil had planned, or else—perhaps she really was an Elder herself.
So, Marankeil, one of your own would steal your throne, he thought. Well, whoever you are, your plan failed—I’ve never heard of you in the future. Marankeil is the Emperor. Whatever coup you’re planning, you didn’t succeed. At the same time, Dmerrk knew that if this Elder had managed to overthrow Marankeil, Dmerrk wouldn’t be upset, except that anyone to replace Marankeil might have been just as bad for his people. Any temptation he had to help her or leave Marankeil's destruction to this woman quickly died. She only thought she could see the future, and imagined herself a part of it. But in his future reality, none had deposed the Emperor.
No, this intruder could not see the future—she could not know about the atrocities committed by Seynorynael's future Emperor and still stand in their way.
"Do you know what the Empire has done to our people?" Dmerrk asked, hoping to reason with this stranger to let them pass. Her intrusion could put their mission in jeopardy. "What it has done to all of the other worlds across the Great Cluster and the seven galaxy groups?" He persisted.
"The Council are thieves and murderers. They have eradicated entire civilizations who would not join them and murdered billions among those that did succumb to Empire rule—any world that maintains a resistance faction, no matter how minor, lives under the constant threat of Empire retaliation. The Empire controls all aspects of its subjects' lives. We can’t move from one territory to another without special permission—and then others are forced to relocate to another planet against their will.
"And the Seynorynaelians themselves are no longer safe in my time—Marankeil sends them to other territories and murders millions in the provinces on this world when he imagines them to be of some threat to him. I won’t say that his actions here distress me greatly, for the Seynorynaelian people have lived for thousands of years on the backs of the territories in my time, but I object in that such treatment of his own people proves the Emperor's cruelty and indifference to humanoid life. A creature such as him must be stopped."
The stranger shook her head.
“I understand your feelings, but I still can’t let you alter history.”
“Who are you?” Dmerrk demanded. “Are you an Elder?”
“I am Selerael.” The woman said quietly.
At that moment Kfarrn launched herself at Selerael, brandishing a gun.
Selerael raised a black-clad arm, rigid as a steel bar towards the Eretaen woman racing towards her. Kfarrn was blown back to the ground by a blast of pressurized air, her laser gun clattering away on the steps.
Selerael eyed the rest of the unit.
“Selerael, let us pas
s. We must destroy the Emperor.” Dmerrk said. “We must alter the past.”
Selerael shook her head slowly.
“Space and Time won’t let you,” she said. “And I, as their instrument, will not allow you to. If you try, you will be crushed into oblivion. I am here to save your lives from such a fate before it is too late.”
Dmerrk only shrugged.
Selerael regarded his gesture with a trace of sadness, but she also saw that there was little point in arguing with Dmerrk. The Eretaens' anger would let nothing stop them. If she were them, she could have done no less, she thought, but she already knew that their coup would not succeed. She could only save their lives if she could persuade them to turn back, and they would only do that if they knew that the Empire would someday be crushed.
"You can’t destroy Marankeil this way." Selerael warned them. "I tell you again go back or you will be destroyed." She thought of the Martial Force's officers on patrol in the Federation corridors and the thousand checks and protective measures that lay between these revolutionaries and their target. They would never succeed past those checks, even before Space and Time took measures against them.
“Why should we listen to you? What have we got to lose?” Dmerrk demanded. “Whoever you are, why should we believe that you care anything about us? Especially if you protect the Emperor from us?”
Selerael laughed roughly and removed her helmet, letting it fall to the ground.
“I am not an Elder, now can you see?”
“You’re—Seynorynaelian.” Dmerrk observed, staring at her. “An MSF guard perhaps?”
“No, and you can see that I’m not, can’t you?”
“Perhaps. But then why are you here?”
“To ensure what has to be. I don’t expect you to understand, but—I swear to you I will end the Council's reign," Selerael said. "You can’t do it."
A few of the Eretaeans looked from one to another, temporarily confused. But the two leaders, Dmerrk and Kfarrn, ignored the intruder. Instead of backing away, Dmerrk took several steps towards the interloper. Even if she were an Elder, she was only one against many. They would pass her easily.
Or so they thought.
Then suddenly, Kfarrn shrieked as the intruder reached out with arms that moved faster than a human could, grabbing hold of the leader in a cold grip.
To his surprise, Dmerrk found he couldn't struggle. He turned his head aside to look into the stranger's eyes, and they sent an involuntary shudder through him while his mind also struggled to remain calm so that he might think clearly. "Who are you... to tell us to leave?" He asked, voicing the first thought that came to him. "Why should you care what the Empire has done to other worlds?"
“If I tell you my thoughts, Marankeil will draw them from your mind as you die in your attempt, and then your effort will truly fail,” Selerael said, wishing the Eretaens would only listen to her advice and act upon it. "Please, you must leave." She insisted again, this time for the last time.
Then Selerael pushed Dmerrk back to the others and spread her arms to create an energy barrier to bar their way.
Dmerrk gasped as the creature that stood before them began to glow with a faint light, her hair buffeted about her by invisible electricity, and for a moment he paused, wondering what she planned to do to them.
"Retreat from this area at once," a strange Seynorynaelian voice interrupted the confrontation. Dmerrk watched surprised as the female stranger flinched at the approaching sound of the voice, and the energy surrounding her faded.
So, we've found your weakness, Dmerrk laughed to himself. You’re afraid of being found by the MSF, too!
"Run," the stranger said quickly, urgently, already beginning to retreat from the sound of approaching voices whose owners were still hidden by the velvet night. Selerael’s upraised arm waved the Eretaens to follow her, but the Eretaens stood their ground. "It is an MSF regulation force," Selerael continued urgently, "and they will kill all of you if you remain before the Federation Council Building." Her desperate voice had grown to a shout, but Dmerrk shook his head for her to stop.
They had come here for a reason, and there was no returning to the future. The Eretaen ship had been set to self-destruct, and the fragments would soon be confiscated. After an examination, the Federation would know that a future vessel had returned, though with any luck, the Eretaens had succeeded at least in keeping any information about the future from reaching Marankeil. Dmerrk wanted to ensure that they had not in fact created the Empire they went back to destroy.
Dmerrk gave a signal, and the team rushed forward. If the MSF regulation force had already been alerted, then the team must go as far as it could.
Selerael watched from a distance as the Eretaen revolutionary team was surrounded. She knew she couldn’t interfere or else risk discovery, as much as she wanted to step in and save the Eretaens forcibly; she had done all she could to warn them, without forcing their hands, without taking the power of choice from them. They had chosen their fate, to meet their death in their cause.
Selerael pitied the Eretaens, yet she knew she could never let Marankeil know of her powers until the moment she could execute the Council's destruction. For Marankeil was clever, clever enough to have made Selerael’s future task nearly impossible. The Elders had never been completely assembled in order to prevent an attempt on their lives all together, and Marankeil's two back-up mechanized units wandered the territories, making it impossible for her to destroy all of the Elders at once, even if she could, even if she could destroy the strong humanroid guards of the Council Building that even Hinev’s explorers had acknowledged as potentially formidable adversaries.
Selerael's eyes were drawn to the Eretaen leader Dmerrk as he attempted to press through the Martial Scientific Force regulators, but as more squads arrived, one by one, the revolutionary force was slaughtered on the yellow stone steps of the Council Building.
The sound of a MSF regulation force warning siren outside drew Ornenkai from sleep. He had taken residence in a building near the Arboretum, the arboretum museum not far from the Federation Council Building, but the usual quiet of the innermost city sector contained within the soundproof Council dome had been disturbed by a strange commotion.
Ornenkai wondered if perhaps a shuttle had crashed onto the council dome above, but realized that the echoing voices had come from below. In a moment, he rushed outside to his balcony to overlook the pedestrian zone and see what had happened. Several regulation squads had amassed outside the Council building, their laser guns still glowing from the extreme heat contained within the barrels.
A dozen or so bodies lay on the wide stone steps of the building. Ornenkai squinted in order to try to identify their world origin, but could not tell from the dim light, his position so far away, and from what little unburnt flesh remained. Then, as he was considering returning to his quarters, he spied a figure far to the right of the Council building. The observer appeared to be female, and stood with her profile facing him, watching the scene.
Ornenkai's breath caught in his throat as the figure began to move away towards the shadows, and a random beam of light cascaded across the observer's face.
It can’t be— Alessia? Ornenkai thought at once, his heartbeat suddenly pounding in his chest; did he just want to see her, or was that really her? But how? Was it scientifically possible for her to be here?
Creator above, how his heart was pounding—he could hardly believe it. He had never seen Alessia as a human and felt his reactions to seeing her. He wanted to shout, to cry out, to purge the agony churning in the bottom of his heart—where had it come from? What was happening to him so suddenly, after so many years of contentment?
Had he truly been content these past three thousand years, though? he wondered.
As he stood between the marble pillars of his balcony watching the strange woman far below, she made a ges
ture that left little doubt in his mind; oh how intimately he knew her every gesture. Yet—he tried to force away the feeling that there was something different about her. He had seen this gesture before long ago, when Alessia still lived at the Federation Science Building, before she left Hinev to join the Martial Scientific Force. It had to be her.
It was some time before he processed the significance of her presence, that it meant she had somehow journeyed back in time, or else she could not be in two places at once.
He had no such thoughts at that moment.
Ornenkai hurried into the elevation device and down to the streets below. By the time he emerged into the pedestrian zone, the only sound to be heard was the slap of his feet against the ground and the sound of his own breath in the cold night air, his voice calling out into silence. The intruder had disappeared.
Ornenkai was not the only one who had witnessed the confrontation on the steps of the Council Building. As the regulators dispersed, a shadowed figure had retreated into the entranceway.
So, the shadow has found me again. But it won’t destroy me. It can’t destroy me now.
But in his heart, Marankeil was afraid. He turned from the sight, hurried away from the shadow. And for the first time in aeons, Elder Marankeil found himself heading towards the Arboretum.
He stopped as a rain shower descended heedlessly onto him, onto the cold, near-human shell standing under a sedwi tree.