The Empire: Book Six of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

  Chapter Eleven

  Four armed guards of the Martial Scientific Force escorted the half-race man on the shuttle that would take them to the Federation Science Building. The corridors of the ancient science center were filled with curious on-lookers hoping to catch a glimpse of the man who claimed to be the famous scientist of long ago, Fynals Hinev himself, who had disappeared more than two thousand years ago.

  He certainly looks the part, one of the scientists observed as the strange assembly passed by. The dark hair and violet eyes of the half-race man betrayed Kayrian as well as Seynorynaelian heritage. He had answered an old summons for any scientist calling himself by that name to report to the Council, that much the scientists knew. Word had circulated early that morning when the strange communication had been received, transmitted from Ariyalsynai's main astroport.

  Ornenkai was already waiting in a private atrium.

  The half-race man smiled to himself as he approached the door, memories of long ago returning to him.

  The guards remained behind as their charge entered the room. Ornenkai was seated on a chair in the lounge area. But Hinev recognized nothing in the room. Everything that he had once owned had been removed.

  But Marankeil didn’t find the serum, Hinev laughed to himself. I used it all. All of the serum secrets were locked in Hinev's mind—and what little he had imparted to Kiel and Gerryls. He had never made any written calculations—he would have no one follow his experiments.

  "So Hinev, you have returned at last," Ornenkai said.

  “Yes,” Hinev nodded. “I couldn’t stay away any longer, but you knew that.”

  “I did.” Ornenkai admitted.

  “So tell me, my friend, how is your health these days?”

  “Don’t jest with me,” Ornenkai said in a low tone.

  “Pardon me.” Hinev said, with a bare hint of a smile.

  “Where have you been?” Ornenkai asked.

  Hinev’s eyes clouded over. “To purgatory and beyond.”

  “I’m serious, Hinev. Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been out admiring your handiwork.”

  “What handiwork?”

  “The work of the Seynorynaelian Federation. It’s quite an achievement, what you’ve done to establish order and prosperity across this great galaxy of ours.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is. The era of intergalactic wars is nearing an end—”

  Hinev laughed. “Perhaps for now.”

  “What is the matter with you, Hinev?”

  “I should ask the same of you, Ornenkai.”

  “There is nothing wrong with me.”

  “Truly? But, Ornenkai, you’ve become so political. Don’t think I haven’t seen what you’ve been up to all these years, how unjust you and your Council have been in establishing your perfect order.”

  “I despise categories, Hinev.” Ornenkai threw back, defensively. “I’m unjust?—ha! What kind of an accusation is that? Who says I am unjust? I am Ornenkai, and I live by one rule, and that is that I wish to survive as I am. If I am unjust, it is only a matter of opinion, and a minority opinion at that. I think I have done what had to be done. I don’t regret a thing.”

  “Well, well. ‘You despise’?” Hinev echoed calmly.

  Ornenkai narrowed his eyes on Hinev in profound irritation. “Despise, dislike, disdain—what does a word mean? I use whatever term I can come up with to convey the point to you, and the degree of my sincerity and integrity, which you can’t pick apart.” Ornenkai returned.

  “I see.” Hinev said, shrugging. “Still... you have changed my friend.”

  “Have I?” Ornenkai demanded angrily.

  “You never used to believe that each of us has more than one side to him.” Hinev explained, in a perfectly calm manner. “And though that speaks well of you, you seem to have abandoned the few principles you still had when I knew you last.”

  “Such as?” Ornenkai persisted.

  “You were a fair man, and a reasonable one, even if you tended to be judgmental. Now that you are no longer judgmental, you’ve lost all capacity of preserving justice.”

  “What do you know about me?” Ornenkai laughed. “I believe in order. Anyway, justice and injustice, partial justice, the common good—we’ll never be able to conclusively define anything touching upon these issues. In practicality, justice can only be achieved under the law.”

  “Oh? Is that your opinion, or Marankeil’s?”

  “Mine,” Ornenkai said firmly.

  “Yet you once told me that the value is in the attempt to be just, in what we can learn, not in denying the possibility that there is always more to be understood on the subject.”

  “Perhaps I did.” Ornenkai admitted. “But times change, and people change. You call me unjust, but it isn’t easy to be just to everyone, when thousands of different groups oppose each other.”

  Hinev laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Ornenkai demanded.

  “You, my friend. You don’t believe in anything anymore, do you?”

  Ornenkai was silent a moment.

  “Just get on with your cloning, old man, and well discuss ethics later.”

  Though the clone body had finally begun to near its late-life years, the body showed little signs of aging; a few white hairs had appeared at the temples several hundred years before, and the supple line and strength in the clone body had waned so gradually that it was hardly noticeable. But he had noticed. And the eyes—they would have to be corrected. The clone eyes had never been adequate, not entirely to his liking, anyway. The clone eyes were not quite as bright as his original ones had been and not the same color exactly, but, he admitted, at least they were human eyes!

  Hinev looked up at the sound of the door opening. He watched the intruder enter his laboratory but said nothing.

  "Well, Hinev, I have heard that Ornenkai is scheduled to receive his new clone body in a few days."

  "Yes," Hinev answered evenly, but his visitor appeared certain that his reply had been confrontational.

  "And were you going to deny my request? Need I remind you that if you refuse to comply, you will in effect put others at risk? If I must, I will find another scientist who can initiate a transferal, no matter how long it takes—perhaps then I might even reclaim the initial test subjects, hmmm? Perhaps I should use the body of Alessia Enassa Zadúmchov in the new transferal. We both know what she represents—why the serum worked so successfully upon her. Her body would be a valuable asset."

  "You know the transfer is impossible once a subject has received the serum." Hinev's voice was calm.

  "Are you willing to take the chance that I will never be capable of it? You achieved the metamorphosis many years ago, but technology moves on. Would it not pain you to hear my soul speaking through the body of one of your precious explorers? Fielikor Kiel—it was he whom I selected for the transferal long ago."

  "An excellent choice, Marankeil, but I’m afraid the host body lacked enough ambition to match yours," Ornenkai interrupted, approaching from the other side of the laboratory where he had silently watched the exchange.

  I will never let you do anything to Alessia, Ornenkai thought to himself in the depths of his mind that neither Marankeil nor Hinev could reach, watching Marankeil with a deliberately benign expression. Alessia—how long had it been since he dared to allow himself to think of her? Had she been the one he saw, the one on the steps of the Council building? He told himself that had only been his imagination.

  "Elder Ornenkai—dear friend—I did not know you were here," Marankeil offered in a tone that mustered amusement effectively. "But do convince our colleague here that it is in his best interest to meet the demands of a Federation Councilor." Marankeil turned again to Hinev to regard him with keen cobalt eyes.

  "A new clone for you already waits for the transferal, Elder Maran
keil." Hinev said, ignoring Marankeil's impatience. "I didn’t inform you of its creation because you didn’t bother to enquire for further information on my progress." Hinev settled back into his work.

  Marankeil watched the scientist for several moments, angered by his undeferential behavior. Then slowly Marankeil began to laugh, as though some simple truth had dawned on him. Ornenkai watched, confused, feeling uneasy. It was as though Marankeil had prodded Hinev's soul, and found a hidden weakness. Marankeil departed a moment later, his manner alarmingly triumphant.

  "Meragh," Hinev cursed in what Ornenkai recognized as Mrawlitz as he tried to assemble his data on the monitors, making an odd gesture as he returned to his calculations.

  As Ornenkai observed Hinev the remainder of that afternoon, he did begin to notice a slight change in the man since the last time they had worked together on Selesta—Hinev kept forgetting what he was doing, kept changing his opinions; he seemed to digress from reason to sentimentality rapidly, and voiced discursive thoughts aloud.

  Hinev began mumbling about Tulor at one point, and didn’t respond to his own name.

  At that point the horror of what was happening to Hinev sunk in; Ornenkai wondered why he hadn’t noticed Hinev’s bizarre behavior before, but it occurred to him that the changes had been gradual, and that at times Hinev could still be as lucid as daylight; yet now it was clear to Ornenkai that in the years of Hinev’s disappearance, the dreamer had seen too much.

  Fynals Hinev had changed, and his mind was haunted by the minds he had invaded with a mindlink. The invaded minds had in turn become the invaders.

  The sun had only begun to send magenta beams through the dark sky when Ornenkai rose for his morning walk in the public Arboretum, the arboretum museum. The city of Ariyalsynai was always busy, but within the Council dome, traffic and visitors did not usually make an appearance until long after sunrise.

  Ornenkai turned around a corner to inspect a large jigfal tree whose branches were drooping when he heard a cry if surprise. He quickly looked to his right, where a young woman he had bumped into had fallen.

  Her face and features were obscured by the darkness in the garden. She wore a plain uniform, but it was not yet bright enough to read the markings and insignia. Reflexively, Ornenkai reached out to his second mechanized unit, the back-up machine located within the Arboretum grounds, to make a telepathic link from his own mechanized unit to the woman's mind. To his surprise, he found himself unable to read the woman's thoughts.

  He peered at her closely—no, his heart raced within his breast. Could it be?! He knew that face; he knew those eyes—

  There was something different about them, though. They seemed far sadder and wiser than he remembered them, full of the memory of long years, yet they were still eyes that embraced the light, and goodness!

  Yes, it was Alessia! His heart was racing again; he could hardly think clearly. She had already gotten up and walked several paces away. He moved silently towards her, trying hard to control himself from any overt motion towards her, suppressing the desire to run to her and pin her down, to touch her hair, her skin, her body, to declare his identity to her and watch her surprise. If he could only reach her before she left! She would see him as a man at last, not as the horrid dark, passionless creature hewn of metal, of insensate matter.

  Selerael sensed his presence and looked back, meeting the eyes of the man who had found her, but the sight of his mystified face initiated a strong reaction in her. She gave a little gasp Ornenkai’s senses enjoyed.

  Until he realized this wasn’t Alessia. As she stopped, staring as much at him as he stared at her, he began to doubt that he was right. This stranger wasn’t Alessia, he told himself, but the eyes, the features, almost convinced him that he was wrong. Who then? He wondered. Who? Who else had those eyes? Whoever she was, the woman appeared shaken and in a great hurry to leave. She acted as though she had been trapped, as if she had been caught doing something wrong, something she should feel guilty about. But Ornenkai was not prepared to let her go yet. No—creator above, he must know!

  "Just a minute," he said, catching up to her and grabbing her arm, but the delicious pleasure of the contact was dulled by his uncertainty. "Who are you? Don't I... know you?”

  The woman nodded slightly, turning her face aside to keep him from looking at her.

  Ornenkai, Selerael realized. This was Ornenkai! The computerized voice that had been with her so very long ago when she was a child, that had spoken to her on Earth and urged her to search for the singularity—the Enorian singularity. This was the man who had taken her from her mother Alessia, the creature who had been with her throughout her long journeys in Selesta, the computer that had known—or would know—her son Adam and her beloved friends on Earth, but not for many years. In the future.

  This young man with ancient eyes, staring at her, almost angelic in his appearance, in his handsome features, was Ornenkai, the future Vice-Emperor of the Seynorynaelian Empire!

  Why hadn’t she sensed him nearby? She only knew that she had come to the Arboretum because it reminded her of the Seynorynaelian Forest in Selesta. Who would have thought he would also come here so early, just past sunrise? Didn’t the great Elder have better things to do with his time than to stroll through the Arboretum?

  "So are you going to tell me who you are?" he asked, taking her arm. She was struck by the odd thought that she had known Ornenkai her entire life long, and this was the first time he had ever touched her, the first time she had ever felt him as a humanoid being.

  “No." She said quietly, her eye straying to his hand on her arm, then back to his face.

  “No?” He looked at her—was this Alessia? Did she know who he was? Was there any way he could will her to answer him? If she were Alessia, there was nothing he could do to impel her. She was safe from him, horribly, inescapably safe from him. But if she wasn’t Alessia, who could she be? No one else in all the world but Hinev and his explorers could keep their thoughts safe from the Seynorynaelian Elders, who possessed rudimentary telepathic powers even in their clone forms.

  "I think I've seen you before.” He said, a crease forming between his brows as he tried to remember where.

  “No, you must be mistaken—” she protested, trying to move away. He felt the steel tension in her arm and looked at her harder; the tension went slack as he did. Did she know that her strength would betray her identity to him?

  Only Hinev’s explorers were so strong.

  Suddenly, Ornenkai remembered her. "You’re the woman who was there by the Council Building when that revolutionary force appeared a few years ago!" He stepped back and let go of her arm, waiting, watching her.

  "Yes," the woman admitted. "That must be why you thought you knew me," she added.

  Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, but it didn't matter to Ornenkai. Now he was certain that he knew the young woman, that he had heard that voice before. And the look in her eyes was one of recognition, as though she too had seen him before. Was this Alessia, changed by time? Several moments passed as they stood their ground without speaking, and the sun began to climb above the horizon of Ariyalsynai's most distant buildings.

  "Elder Ornenkai—message from council." Ornenkai's personal communicator interrupted. "The Selesta has sent a message from just outside our solar system. She will be arriving today."

  "Message received," Ornenkai acknowledged, but his sudden excitement was cut short as he looked over at the young woman. Her bright, expressive eyes had suddenly widened, paralyzing him. As she looked at him, he began to picture the spaceship Selesta—but why? Why was he associating her face with Selesta?

  The Selesta and Alessia were both far away from this place.

  Selerael saw her chance to move away when another call interrupted them, and Ornenkai turned aside to examine the holo-message that had been sent to him.

  "Tel
l them I'll come," Ornenkai said as the message ended, not bothering to mask the irritation in his voice.

  He turned around quickly—where was she? The messages must have betrayed his identity to the young woman—yes, Alessia would have run from Elder Ornenkai! He cursed and threw the communicator to the ground, crushing it under his heel. The damned thing had given her the chance to escape, and she had fled, as always.

  At long last, Selesta had returned. The ship was docked now in the small astroport just south of Ariyalsynai.

  Ornenkai immediately altered his plans for the season, as did every other scientist and politician across the planet Seynorynael; many others were to arrive in Ariyalsynai in the coming tendays from other planets across the Federation, yet the crew of Selesta were inexplicably confined to their lounge in the astroport shortly after their arrival. At least, that was the common report being circulated around the elite circles of the city.

  Ornenkai left the Council meeting to discuss the return of Hinev’s explorers earlier than expected. Not even Marankeil guessed that Ornenkai was furious at the other Elders as he departed, furious at Marankeil most of all; Ornenkai was angry that in the course of the discussion, Marankeil had made Ornenkai feel more a sinecure than the second Elder of Seynorynael’s Council, for all the worth Ornenkai’s voice had been given in the debates.

  The Council had only granted clearance to the Selesta's leader Kiel to leave the ship, in order to contain the potentially harmful specimens on board and the returning explorers who had been exposed to unknown alien environments. And though Ornenkai argued that the returning explorers deserved at the least a hero’s welcome from the city, Marankeil kept the explorers isolated in the small astroport outside Ariyalsynai; Ornenkai was under no illusions as to the real reason for this—Marankeil simply didn't want them to have the chance to undermine his authority and hadn’t yet figured out how to keep them suitably under control once they left their temporary quarters.

  Several days later, Gerryls sent the explorers’ findings and ship log to the Federation Council members, and Marankeil called another meeting to deal with the ambassadors that had accompanied Selesta's crew, humanoids from the planet Feiar. Ornenkai was absent from the meeting, and only later learned that Kiel had been summoned to attend.

  A strange attack of conscience had struck Ornenkai in the intervening days.

  Ornenkai was beginning to dread a confrontation with Kiel and the others, as though he felt guilty for some unspecified crime Hinev’s explorers might level against him; yes, there was no doubt that they would see that Ornenkai had grown comfortable with the power he had achieved, the control he now had over the fate of the Federation—yet a part of Ornenkai desperately wished to meet the explorers again. That part of him harbored an instinctive urge to help them in whatever they wished to do now, an urge that the rest of Ornenkai, that Ornenkai’s reasoning intellect, couldn’t seem to fathom.

  Several tendays passed, and Ornenkai finally located Hinev, having looked for the scientist out of a casual interest in discovering the man’s reaction to the return of Hinev’s explorers. Hinev was, in the end, not difficult to find. Having disappeared from his laboratory against orders, the scientist had been confined to a holding cell in southern Ariyalsynai, as far from the Selesta as possible. Hinev had not agreed to abstain from contacting the explorer team, but Marankeil must have worked out an arrangement to contain and hold the scientist, and had done so, somehow; Ornenkai doubted Marankeil had been able to do so without some kind of threat. Hinev would not have allowed himself to be restricted from the explorers’ company otherwise.

  However, Ornenkai soon discovered how easy it must have been for Marankeil to confine Hinev. Ornenkai claimed to want to see Hinev to ask his opinion about all of the fuss concerning the revitalized First Race Theory that was all the talk in the scientific circles of Ariyalsynai. But when Ornenkai entered Hinev’s cell, Fynals Hinev didn’t appear to recognize Ornenkai at first. For a time, Hinev seemed to have forgotten who he was. Ornenkai gave up trying to communicate after a while and returned the following day.

  On Ornenkai's second visit, Hinev was more or less his old self and seemed interested to hear about the talk circulating in the scientific circles of Ariyalsynai about his revitalized First Race Theory. It seemed that Hinev's explorers had brought the evidence that gave the Council reason to believe that the ancient Seynorynaelian civilization had seeded the galaxies with humanoid populations—for they would not believe that the first race was the Enorians.

  "Don't you want to visit Alessia, and the returning explorers?" Ornenkai asked Hinev with a ghost of a laugh, looking around at the confining walls of the holding cell; as Ornenkai spoke, he realized he was communicating a communal wish they both shared. Hinev had spoken so wistfully of his memories of the launch and the days that Alessia had been his assistant that Ornenkai felt sure he would be willing to trade all forbidden future contact to negotiate one meeting with his adoptive daughter, but would he be able to meet her?

  Ornenkai realized that the Council could publicize a meeting between Alessia and Hinev for the entertainment of the people, announcing the participants as descendants of the mission creators, and Marankeil would no longer need to fear the reunion, because he could monitor the interchange and keep Hinev from them in the future by his own word in exchange for the opportunity. Marankeil would certainly also profit as the Elder responsible for such a clever reunion.

  Ornenkai was so caught up in his idea, so convinced that it would come about, that Hinev’s response shocked him.

  "No, I don’t want to see them," Hinev said, turning away.

  Ornenkai made no attempt to hide his surprise or disappointment.

  If Hinev had met Alessia, Ornenkai would have been present—he would have at last been able to meet Alessia as a humanoid being. The meeting might be the only excuse for Alessia to leave Selesta and the explorer’s temporary quarters in the Ariyalsynai astroport before Marankeil carried the plan Ornenkai expected him to propose soon—that Hinev’s explorers speedily set out once more on their next mission.

  “You don’t mean that,” Ornenkai protested.

  Hinev turned bleary eyes to him. "I don't want her to see me like this," Hinev explained, waving his hand dismissively. "I know what is happening to me, Ornenkai," he added, meeting the Elder's gaze. Ornenkai caught it with a shiver. He knew exactly what Hinev meant by that; Hinev apparently knew and accepted the fact that he was changing with alien memories into a creature no longer himself. "I don't want her or the others to fear the future, to wonder if perhaps such a thing could happen to them." Hinev added, in a voice that was but a bare echo of the dynamic speech he had once possessed.

  Ornenkai regarded him with a sensation of pity. Years of isolation from other beings like him, altered by the serum, had begun to destroy him. The line between Hinev’s own entity and the memories of others had clearly been blurred in the man’s mind. And even when he knew himself, there were moments in which Hinev apparently could not distinguish between the present and the past.

  When Ornenkai discovered that he could do nothing to change Hinev’s mind, however, he left the man in his holding cell, left him to himself, and did not return.

  After nearly half a year since Selesta’s return, Ornenkai heard that three of Hinev's explorers, Kiel, Gerryls, and Kellar, would be attending a meeting at the Council building in Ariyalsynai. Ornenkai received the news too late to arrange to be present; Ornenkai was furious at himself for missing the meeting, but for once, he didn’t blame the other Elders that he hadn’t been informed of the meeting in time. Ornenkai was often the last to hear news from the Council, but his detachment from the workings of the Council was entirely self-imposed, self-imposed because Ornenkai chose to do as he pleased more and more and to estrange himself from the Council’s intrigues and gossip.

  Most of the Federation Council and Seynorynaelian Council held the m
ysterious Ornenkai in awe and missed his absence, for he and Marankeil were the oldest Elders and had been the closest of friends in their early days, and the younger representatives regarded Elder Ornenkai as something of an enigma, a relic from a bygone aeon, a wise, discriminating, and discerning man who was Marankeil’s closest ally. Ornenkai never openly opposed Marankeil, and even when Ornenkai felt subtly slighted by Marankeil, Ornenkai kept up his usual farce of reticence and supreme impassivity.

  People often said that Ornenkai’s silence marked the quiet nobility of his nature; Ornenkai decided that this reputation was better than being disrespected and never sought to correct his peers on the matter of his character.

  If anything, Ornenkai felt fortunate that the slights made against him by Marankeil were far too subtle in nature for anyone else to catch, anyone who didn’t know Marankeil as well as he did. The other Elders revered Ornenkai nearly as much as Marankeil, who often relied upon his friend for a differing opinion when the other Elders were too afraid to suggest any. And on the recent proposal for a new explorer mission, the two had seemed to be entirely in agreement.

  Had Marankeil and Ornenkai ever argued or disagreed openly?

  How close the two were was a matter often debated; in truth, Ornenkai himself often wondered about their relationship. It was true that he had often privately disagreed with Marankeil's decisions, but he could never actively oppose him. Their friendship did, as Marankeil had once said, extend beyond the bounds of time, and it was so solidly rooted in the passing ages that Ornenkai felt certain that under no circumstances would he ever be able to actively betray Ilikan Marankeil.

  Moreover, despite Ornenkai's misgivings on occasion, in fact perhaps because of them, it was clear to all of the Council that Marankeil trusted Ornenkai implicitly, far more than Marankeil trusted any of the other Elders. They did not know that Ornenkai was in fact the only being that Marankeil trusted. For Marankeil knew Ornenkai better than anyone. Marankeil often seemed able to discern Ornenkai's thoughts almost before Ornenkai had formed them himself, and Marankeil also knew exactly how to manipulate Ornenkai to his own advantage.

  At the same time, Ornenkai knew his friend almost as well.

  On the afternoon of the Council’s meeting with the explorers, Ornenkai was returning to record his memories into the permanent mechanized unit in the Main Terminus, when he suddenly spied Kiel leaving the Council Building, escorted by guards. Ornenkai hadn’t arranged to meet with him; but he was pleased that he had come across Lieutenant Kiel by chance.

  Ornenkai took several steps towards Kiel as the explorer waited for the transport to collect him and shuttle him back to their temporary quarters; Kiel’s gaze passed over Ornenkai as Ornenkai approached, but the leader of Hinev’s explorers showed no outward sign of recognizing Ornenkai in his present clone form. Nearby, a strange assembly of alien delegates had just arrived on the planet and were being escorted into the Council Building; they turned and stared at Ornenkai. Kiel followed their gaze and gave the Elder an uncertain look. After a moment, Ornenkai felt a shadow pass over his mind.

  Ornenkai relinquished nothing to the presence—a clone Elder was not easily interrogated, especially so close to the Main Terminus. That was how Kiel discovered Ornenkai’s identity—only the mechanized Elders could resist the telepathic powers of Hinev’s explorers, and Marankeil and the others had been present at the recent Council meeting.

  "Elder Ornenkai?!" Kiel exclaimed as Ornenkai narrowed the distance between them to but a few paces away. "I didn't recognize you.” Kiel laughed; the guards flanking him stepped away in deference to Ornenkai.

  “I should imagine not.” Ornenkai agreed.

  “I must say I was surprised when we returned and Marankeil was presented to me as a human clone. You know, I half expected you’d be at the meeting today."

  The two fell to talking; Kiel asked several questions, some about why Hinev's explorers had been kept on board Selesta, and what the new proposed explorer mission was really about.

  Ornenkai looked away, reluctant to answer. He had finally approved of Marankeil's proposed new explorer mission, a venture outside the Great Cluster Galaxy into several other galaxies, one of them the small group that he remembered from an ancient illustration they had found in the Enorian Havens; at the same time, Ornenkai wished for nothing more than Hinev’s explorers to remain on Seynorynael for a significant length of time before the new mission. Only Marankeil would never allow it.

  Marankeil still feared Hinev’s explorers.

  "You sense it, too, don’t you, Ornenkai?” Kiel asked at length.

  “What?”

  “That for some reason Marankeil wants to keep us—to keep Selesta away from Seynorynael, away from the Federation." Kiel said, with a steady gaze that met Ornenkai’s eyes.

  Ornenkai nodded. “Yes,” he replied after a moment. “Yes, you know that he does. But consider his reasons,” Ornenkai added. “Not only can you do his work for him by augmenting Seynorynaelian power and expanding our sphere of influence across new territories, but he will no longer need to fear that you will use your abilities to usurp power on our world. I believe Marankeil imagines he is acting to preserve peace and maintain order."

  Kiel laughed hard; Ornenkai kept silent, despite a hidden inclination to laugh along with Kiel. Kiel quieted, digesting the information; Ornenkai's opinion reinforced what he had long believed. "I hear that the Federation actually disapproved of Marankeil's suggestions.” Kiel said after a moment. “They thought visiting that small galaxy group so far away from The Great Cluster will be a waste of time and resources."

  "Yes, they didn’t approve right away." Ornenkai shrugged. "But you will find none so bold as to disagree—well, not strongly enough to permanently object against the idea.”

  “No.” Kiel agreed. “I know. In fact, they’ve just approved the mission.”

  “So then, when does Selesta leave?” Ornenkai ventured, keeping his voice steady.

  “As soon as the technicians finish stowing supplies on board.” Kiel replied with a mild sigh. “Ornenkai, is anything wrong?” Kiel enquired after a moment.

  Ornenkai stood still. He had suddenly noticed how loud the traffic of transports sounded high above them, in the upper skies of the dome.

  “No.” Ornenkai said, looking to Kiel. “So tell me what was discussed in the meeting?” he added, brightening.

  As Kiel went into the particulars of the meeting, Ornenkai listened absently.

  All Ornenkai could think about was that Selesta was leaving, leaving soon. And Ornenkai wouldn’t be able to meet with Hinev’s explorers, whom he had not seen since the long gone days of The Firien Project. Why had Marankeil deliberately kept them away from Ornenkai? Ornenkai wondered.

  Could it be that Marankeil was jealous of Ornenkai’s familiarity with the explorers, that he feared that Ornenkai might be sympathetic to them? Wasn’t this a reasonable fear, though, in light of Ornenkai’s involvement in The Firien Project so long ago? And could it be that Ornenkai had returned to his old feelings from that era of time?

  Ornenkai rejected that thought. At the same time, he considered, what if Marankeil should ever discover Ornenkai’s feelings for Alessia Zadúmchov? Or did Marankeil suspect them already?

  To what ends those feelings might have prompted his own actions, Ornenkai would never know. Hinev’s explorers were leaving Seynorynael once more, perhaps never to return.

  Yet Ornenkai suppressed a strong desire to help them, a growing idea that he would try to turn over the Council’s decision. He allowed the idea to take form and pondered it several moments with enthusiasm.

  Then, after a time, Ornenkai was able to master himself once more; he felt a disappointing sensation while admitting to himself that this was what he had known he would do all along, despite the momentary, idealistic and noble self-delusion he had just indulged in. Ornenkai grappled wi
th a sense of self-disgust at his own cowardice and watched Kiel, half-regretting his decision to ignore the nascent thought of rebellion against the council; yet he was also relieved that the rebellion had been safely aborted before it matured to fruition and life.

  Ornenkai simply found it impossible to betray Marankeil. Something, he knew not what exactly, kept him from the very thought of betraying Marankeil. However, at the same time, Ornenkai really was torn in his loyalties, torn in a way that he himself could little understand.

  Kiel, Gerryls, and the others from Firien commanded a portion of those mixed loyalties, yet it was Alessia who complicated them most significantly.

  Alessia…

  At the very thought of her, Ornenkai’s unsettled conscience could find no peace. What was this love he harbored for Alessia, this meaningless passion that should have died long ago? he asked himself. What was this feeling in his breast that should be insignificant, this passion of a man who should care more for the power and conquest he had had achieved and who should now be looking forward towards a new dream rather than spiraling down a destructive path in a vain desire for an unattainable fantasy?

  But was that all she was to him?

  Ornenkai tried his best to forget Hinev’s explorers after that day; for if he had admitted it to himself, he no longer even knew which side he was on apart from his own.

 

  Almost two tendays later, Selesta was launched again, though all but three of her crew had been barred from leaving the ship the entire time it had been grounded.

  Ornenkai felt mixed emotions as he watched the launch, aware that he was in part responsible for preventing the reunion he had long anticipated between Alessia and himself. His own torn conscience had asked him to make a stand to prevent the explorers’ departure, but only now that it was too late did he really begin to regret his indecision.

  Alessia—separated from her all of these years—now to be separated for many, many more—he should have abandoned his thoughts of her, he told himself. It was the only thing to do to preserve his heart.

  He had thought that was what he would do, the only thing he could do, and that he would recover from losing her. He had planned to sever himself from all future thoughts of her, and had even convinced himself that Selesta’s departure would make this relatively easy.

  Only when the ship had gone did he understand that he had been fooling himself.

  When the madness of the take-off celebrations died, Ornenkai looked about at the lovely white city of Ariyalsynai with its wide avenues and glittering ornate buildings, its gardens, fountains, forums, and he felt as though he had been left adrift in a dream, because everything he surveyed seemed to him suddenly as meaningless as the substance of a fantasy.

  Ornenkai returned to the Arboretum, the arboretum museum, that had once given him such pleasure to haunt, and no longer felt any satisfaction ensconced there as he once had; it seemed that everywhere he went, there was a great emptiness around him, that moved always with him, impenetrable. The trees were horribly silent. The world was horribly spiritless. And he felt horribly alone, even more so when he returned to the Elders’ Building, when he attended parties for several prominent delegates in the coming tendays, when he was surrounded by the hordes of humanity who as always passed through his life like shadows.

  The world was nothing without the source of his love. What else mattered but his love for Alessia? he demanded of himself, torturing himself for his cowardice and blindness. What would she say if she knew him for the creature he had become? He hadn’t deserved to meet her again, he told himself. Perhaps that was why he had submitted to Marankeil’s decision. Ornenkai knew that in Alessia’s eyes, he remained more than a monster, no matter what outward form he might have taken.

  And for the first time, he knew also that his love had grown beyond his ability to contain it. Ornenkai defied the idea that great, all-consuming love was doomed to exhaust itself; to his mind, real, deep love could never die but turned into ardent devotion, whose inexhaustible power fueled such love indefinitely. Ornenkai recognized that Alessia was no longer merely an obsession to him. From that day onward, from the day of Selesta’s second departure, she was the constant force within him, compelling him, watching over his actions—she became his conscience. The thought of her reaction to whatever he might do guided him through his movements—he imagined her approval and criticism over all he did and in this way found peace in his actions.

  Though the odds of Selesta surviving the unknown were slim, Ornenkai found he could not lose all hope that her crew would return; to lose all hope would have been the end of him. For there was one hope that filled him and kept him alive. He knew that when Selesta returned again, when Alessia returned again, he would make sure that he never left her side, no matter what it took, no matter what he had to sacrifice to make it possible, he would stay with her, yes—by any means necessary.