The Empire: Book Six of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

  Chapter Five

  Nerena Zadúmchov walked alone by the water.

  The warm season had ended, and the cold season was bringing a dark, rolling storm over Lake Firien and the Firien province. The wind blew in great gales over the water, exciting white-crested waves that crashed on the jagged boulders, cutting through the woman wandering up and along the rocky shore and sending up spindrift into a face bereft of tears.

  Nerena stopped as she came to a small pebbled beach sealed within a cove and faced the harsh winds, her hair billowing behind her, sometimes scratching by her cheek as the wind changed direction. The last of the kiri birds had flown away south. Only the moaning wind and the endless, unstoppable crash of the waves continued.

  Nerena's gaze lifted from the shoreline to the horizon where Lake Firien began unseen beyond the miles of open water. The senseless swirling, chaotic swirling reminded her of her own confusion, and sent her mind back to the same unanswered questions.

  After her husband had died, Nerena had searched among his belongings for records of his origins, some clue as to where he had come from, but she had found nothing but a blue cloak softer than kiri down feathers and a few strange objects that only left her with more questions.

  Why had he gone so soon? Why, why—the word held her thoughts stagnant, so much that she could think of nothing else.

  Without him, she had forgotten the reason why she went on living. At first it was only the fear of death, but as time passed, she no longer cared about that. The agony of living on had grown too much for her to bear. Only Alessia had tied her to the world.

  Now Alessia—the child who shared the face that still haunted her—Alessia had been taken from her by the odious representative Bilka, taken to Ariyalsynai to serve Elder Marankeil for some unknown purpose, and Nerena was powerless to change anything.

  Nerena's heart swelled with deep, hollow, painful regret; her regret seemed like a corrosive that had eaten away everything vital in her body.

  What memories would Alessia have of her? Memories that Nerena had neglected her to day to day, that she had often ignored her or abused her with harsh language, that she had been unable to express the love she had for her child?

  Why had she done the same thing to Alessia that Nalya had done to her? she kept asking herself. She had been worse than Nalya, worse than her own mother, who openly disdained her child.

  She was back to that horrid word again—why.

  Every time she looked into her daughter's face, she had seen him. And she had wanted to shout, to cry out, to ask the powers that controlled her fate why he had to leave her.

  She had taken her pain out on Alessia. The memory of what she had done brought a wave of self-loathing. Now it was too late, too late to tell Alessia the things she had always meant to say. Alessia would never now how much Nerena had loved her—oh how much she did! She loved her daughter, destructive though that love had been, a love that was misdirected, but with enough intensity to burn away the oceans.

  But now Alessia wasn’t coming back—just like her father. The council would be certain to keep her.

  Had it all been a dream? A dream that began on the day she came back to Firien?

  A stifled sob escaped Nerena's lips.

  She had seldom ever cried before in all her life.

  She wanted it all to be over.

  Without thinking, she waded ankle-deep into the water, and then buried her toes in the cold, clinging sand.

  And then she prayed that the powers controlling life and the fates of mortal beings would have mercy upon her. She prayed that Death would reunite her with her departed husband. Clinging to that hope, she embraced the enveloping waters, her arms spread wide but low like bird wings across the rising water. Then she swam; she took herself out into the deep, plunging into the highest waves, heading to a place far enough away that she knew she would never be able to swim back to the shore.

  "Where is Hinev?" Ornenkai asked one of the guards on duty in the biology department of the Federation Science building; his voice was imperious, commanding. Could they hear the underlying impatience, the irritation? When was the last time he had been impatient, he who was immortal and owned all of time for himself?

  "He should be in his laboratory," the guard answered promptly.

  Ornenkai headed down the corridor.

  Ornenkai had returned to Ariyalsynai to see the scientist, to make sure that Hinev’s immortality serum project was in full swing. It had been nearly five years since Kudenka's explorers had returned, and ten tendays since Hinev had last visited Firien. Ornenkai had last seen Hinev on that visit, half a year after his first successful serum injection, just days before Representative Bilka finally took the child Alessia from her mother.

  Ornenkai had been glad to see Bilka leave after he had spent so many tendays interfering with The Firien Project, but he had given little thought as to the fate of the young girl Bilka had taken with him. He knew that she was to become Hinev's assistant while he continued to perfect his serum. Ornenkai had worried that Hinev's was attempting to stall Marankeil with claims that the serum was imperfect in order to avoid implementing the experiment to transfer the mechanized Elder Councilors into immortal human bodies.

  But he now knew that it was not so.

  The first time Ornenkai had met Hinev, he had been inclined to dislike the man in favor of the unknown hero he had cherished as a child. But now Ornenkai felt differently about him.

  Damn that Hinev! Ornenkai had thought after that first meeting, only half-serious.

  Damn him! Ornenkai had thought, with a wave of self-reproach. Because Fynals Hinev had turned out to be an exemplary man of great character, worth, and intellect. All that he had imagined Hinev to be, and more.

  Hinev was ambitious, yes, and had never before failed in anything he set out to do. He was a brilliant scientist, whose regard for the ancient lore intrigued Ornenkai. But it was his obsession with breaking the barrier to immortal life that Ornenkai was most interested in.

  Hinev's last visit had lasted a tenday. Ornenkai had seen that nothing would stop Hinev from the challenge he had accepted: to create an immortality serum. Ornenkai also saw that he had made a mistake in underestimating the scientist after their initial meetings. Hinev had come several times in the last five years to help the project at Lake Firien, each time leaving Ornenkai with a growing respect for his ingenuity.

  Ornenkai wanted to find a reason to dislike Hinev, but could not.

  Ornenkai entered the laboratory through its retracting doors. But instead of finding Hinev, Ornenkai saw a young girl seated at a microscanner. She jumped back from her seat, regarding him with hostile suspicion.

  He felt every inch of his mechanical body struggle to flee from that face, from that expression.

  Ornenkai recognized the face of the child Alessia he had seen in Bilka's report.

  He hadn’t looked at the image since that first day. He kept her report always among his things, yet he couldn’t muster the strength to look at her again; yet he knew she had been chosen to be Hinev’s first test candidate, as soon as he perfected his immortality serum. He also knew that the girl herself had no idea why she had been brought to Ariyalsynai.

  "I must speak with Hinev," he managed.

  He was staring at her as though there was a void between them, as though the entire world was that void, and they were the only animate creatures in existence.

  She moved, lightly, freely, so agile—even so young, she was a warm breathing creature with passion and fire, while he stood cold and detached, removed from her and all the living world he plunged through, an object, a bare naked soul, nothing but a shell of inhumanity keeping him in the world.

  He felt very vulnerable.

  He shrugged off that feeling. He was the all-powerful Ornenkai, dependent on nothing, no physical object in the world—

  No, his
soul revolted. He had ceased to be that Ornenkai the moment he saw her and knew that his entire existence depended on her. How? Why? How was it that she, this fragile, wild little thing, was so powerful? How was it that she could capture his soul, without so much as a trace of understanding it? She had no idea that there was any force, any feeling, any power beyond their control connecting them to each other, connecting their fates to each other’s. Or did she?

  She stared defiantly at him, suspicious and hateful, until he made a slight movement, and then she recoiled.

  Why should she recoil? He knew the reason, knew she was justified, and he almost hated her for it. But the wounded sensitivity in her—he saw it, and his heart was moved again.

  He stared at her. Could he make it known to her that she already belonged to his fate, that she had not merely wandered in and out of his life, that she was to be a participant in his destiny? And how did he know this? What power was telling him so, telling him so fiercely that he felt paralyzed by its voice?

  He willed her to know that she would be a part of his life with all the passion of his being, willed her to know that she was a force to be reckoned with, a force he recognized and met as an equal, a force that he would one day deal with and be contented or destroyed. He willed her to know all of this with all the might he had once mustered as a child, hoping to direct Fate to do as he willed, trying to force upon the universe the future plans that he desired for himself.

  Why was he doing and thinking this?! Ornenkai thought to wonder. His feelings for this child were irrational, and he struggled against them; he refused to accept that Fate existed and had tied their destinies together, even though he keenly felt a strange and compelling power connecting her to him.

  Alessia, however, saw nothing but the shell of a mechanized Elder who had brought her from her home to this comfortless place.

  He was about to say something, when Hinev appeared.

  "Elder Ornenkai, forgive me for not receiving you, but I was given word you were not to arrive until tomorrow." Ornenkai heard Hinev's voice suddenly behind him, and turned around quickly to allow him to enter. Ornenkai headed towards the table in the middle of the laboratory.

  "Marankeil wishes me to observe your progress first-hand." Ornenkai quickly explained. "So I have extended my visit to two tendays. Then I'm afraid I must get back to the project at Lake Firien.

  "Elder Ornenkai, let me introduce my assistant—" Hinev began.

  "Alessia. I know who she is." Ornenkai said. “Zadúmchov’s grand-daughter, it seems.”

  Alessia must have sensed some of his feelings, he thought; she took a step further behind Hinev, afraid, but all-powerful. Ornenkai felt his heart wrench. The sight of him repulsed her, scared her.

  You have the look of a hunter, her eyes said to him. Chase me all you want. I can’t be caught.

  She clearly thought of him only as some inhuman creature, a machine incapable of any natural feeling. He wanted to tell her that he wanted nothing from her, that he didn’t approve of the council's decision to bring her here. He would have kept her in the rural north of Firien, where her wild heart was secure from the world, from his world.

  But as much as he hated it, that would have been a lie.

  Kiel glanced out the silica screen from his quarters on the twelfth floor to the courtyard below. It seemed a lifetime ago that he had been sitting there on the grass on that day when the one of the MSF found him and forced him to take the examination for entrance into training.

  It was hard to believe that he had been at the Federation Science Building ever since, but now he and Kellar were going to join The Firien Project. Kiel could hardly believe that they would be working under Major Kazankov, and working with the mechanized Elder Ornenkai himself, who spent his time between Firien and Ariyalsynai.

  Unfortunately, their departure for Firien had been delayed by several meetings going on in the Federation Science Building; Kiel, Kellar, and several of the other engineers heading to Firien that year had been instructed to wait until Kudenka’s explorers’ data had been processed fully and to take the data out to Firien and use it to the benefit of their new ship designs. Kudenka himself was supposed to be working on it.

  Kudenka—the name alone sent a shiver through Kiel; Kudenka, Hinev—these were legendary figures brought back to life from time long past, figures walking around out there somewhere, he knew it, they all knew it and thought about it. Kiel wondered just how many of the cadets at the center harbored fantasies about running into the explorers, knowing there was at least the smallest statistical chance that it could happen. Everyone wanted to meet Kudenka’s explorers, but so far very few people had been able to, even though Kudenka, Mindier, and Hinev had been permanently detained at the Federation Science Building. Word had it that Hinev would disappear for extended periods of time; no one yet knew exactly where it was that he went.

  Kiel sat in contemplation, reading over the Firien history for the hundredth time, when a troop of MSF officers appeared across the courtyard, distracting his wayward eye. The MSF guard stepped onto the smooth white field, heading across it from their position to an adjacent building—

  No, they couldn’t be headed towards Kudenka’s suite, could they?

  He shook off the thought. There were hundreds of other suites in and around the building in their direct path. Why would they even go through the courtyard, instead of traveling inside the building, though?

  He couldn’t imagine what they were doing. The cold season was approaching; it was already below freezing outside.

  As the guards passed into the middle of the courtyard, Kiel spotted a girl in between them walking as fast as she could just to keep up; the tiny creature was wearing thin, black-soled shoes ill-suited to the snow and simple garments, not much more than a loose shirt and pants. Why should the guards be escorting her? Kiel wondered. Did they think they needed to keep her from escaping?

  His amusement at the absurdity vanished; he found himself remembering the day that the regulators of Ariyalsynai had found him and trapped him like a deloch, days when he had been dressed no better than the wild-haired girl in the courtyard. She seemed like a tiny, trapped bird, there alone on the field, so thin and pale; Kiel bristled at the sight, certain they couldn’t be treating her like that if she were a cadet. It was disrespectful, even negligent of them. Who was she? He couldn’t even imagine what she was doing there, but it made him angry. Yet what could he do for her in his present situation?

  By the end of his training into the MSF, Kiel had come to several conclusions about the kind of man he wanted to be: he had decided that he would never forsake anyone “unimportant”, that he really wanted to make an effort to give people the benefit of the doubt, if it seemed right to do so; he had realized that nature gave its gifts indiscriminately, independent of social position, and that even the most intelligent and educated in the galaxy could be hard-hearted and without a moral or social conscience.

  He thought again of Jinderian, the kind, noble-hearted instructor who had lived for a worthy cause and died unsung, except by one insignificant, orphaned boy whose life he had changed forever—

  “Hey, Kiel. Are you ready?” Kellar called out, stepping through the door. Kiel turned around; Kellar noticed Kiel’s interest and headed over to the silica screen, then peered out. “Poor kid. I wonder what she did to end up out there.”

  “I don’t think she’s a cadet.” Kiel opined.

  “Maybe not, but I’ll wager she’s being punished for something.” Kellar said.

  “I don’t think so. Anyway, why are you here? I thought you were going to the city today.”

  “That trip’s been canceled.” Kellar returned, turning to Kiel with a mischievous eye.

  “Wait a minute—you’ve got news.”

  “I do.” Kellar nodded. “Kudenka finished the reports this morning. We’re scheduled on a tra
nsport to Firien tomorrow morning.”

  “What is it?”

  “I just remembered I don’t have any snow boots.”

  Kiel laughed.

  “Honestly, you think they would have fixed the air temperature problems by now! It’s getting almost as cold inside the Ariyalsynai dome as it is outside!”

  “Maybe someone in the energy department is secretly trying to conserve our fuel reserves.” Kiel said in jest, wearing a wry grin.

  Kellar smiled. “You could be right.” He paused. “Hard to believe that Ungarn’s leaving.” Kellar said with a sigh and paced towards the drink facilitator. He punched in the code for sherin juice, retrieved and downed a cylinder of the stuff.

  “I know.”

  “We’ll be the last group of MSF cadets to complete two levels of training at the Federation Science Building.” Kellar shrugged, putting the empty juice cylinder back into the facilitator for decontamination.

  “Where’s Ungarn going, do you know?” Kiel asked, turning back to the courtyard.

  “The Ariyalsynai Scientific Center. He’s fed up with all of the politics going on here.”

  “What about Kudenka’s explorers? Are they going to stay here?” Kiel turned back around.

  “I think so. Actually, I don’t know.” Kellar shrugged. “The researchers have been complaining for years about the overcrowding here, since before even I got here. I guess the Scientific Committee wants to diminish the training programs and focus on research. At least, they’re trying to get rid of the old officers and assign them new posts, but I heard Ungarn volunteered to leave. You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I think I feel sorry for the all of the cadets who’ll be missing out on coming here.”

  “You don’t like change much, do you, Kellar?”

  “Change for the better, yes. But I can’t see that this reorganization is good or bad. I just think I’m going to miss the way it used to be.” Kellar leaned against the near wall, crossing his ankles and folding his arms across his chest.

  “I’ve never heard you talk this way.”

  “No, and you probably won’t again. I suppose I’m just a little nervous about leaving. I have been here forever, remember? Well, maybe not quite that long, but sometimes it seems like it.”

  “Here.” Kiel said, pulling out a pack from his belongings clustered on his sleep panel; he tossed it to Kellar, who reacted quickly, standing fully.

  “What’s this?” Kellar said, catching the pack in both hands.

  “And extra pair of snow boots.” Kiel said, with a half-smile. “If it’s snowing here already, you’ll certainly need them in Firien.”