The Empire: Book Six of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

  Chapter Seven

  The suite was lovely, everything a rich Elder could ask for: brilliantly designed, excellent quality tapestries and décor, beautiful columns and balustrades… all in a rich shade of cobalt blue with silver accents here and there.

  Hinev found the elder Ornenkai looking over the analysis of Selesta's last systems test in his finely adorned suite of rooms at the barracks of The Firien Project.

  "Ah, Hinev," Ornenkai gestured in welcome. "Come take a look at this," he added, turning back to the computer board.

  "In a while," Hinev answered, shaking his head. Ornenkai looked up from where he was seated and regarded Hinev for a moment, reading something in the scientist's eyes.

  "You know about the official proclamation," Ornenkai stated the question.

  "That Marankeil has suspended further discussions of the First Race Theory until more historical evidence is unearthed? Yes. But I expected as much from him." Hinev looked away at the collection of ancient artifacts around them. “He doesn’t want to believe that there was a first race. The legends of the Comet Riders are nothing more than children’s fantasies…. I’ve heard it all.”

  "Hinev," Ornenkai paused. "Even you have admitted that some of the genetic evidence you chose to submit is conflictory—there are enough similarities to substantiate your hypothesis, but what about the anomalies? Differences in the DNA and gene structure throws doubt on a common origin."

  "You don't believe that a first race existed?" Hinev asked, watching the Elder closely, but Ornenkai chose not to respond to his question.

  Ornenkai kept silent, but he knew about the existence of the Enorians, and said nothing to anyone.

  "What does it matter?” Ornenkai finally said. “Marankeil's criticism of the theory has led most of the scientific community to dismiss it—"

  "No, it can’t help their careers to be against him," Hinev said, his voice angry. "But this isn’t why I came, Ornenkai. I’ve come looking for explorer candidates.”

  “Ah.”

  “Marankeil sent me away just in time—some of the Federation Council still opposes the decision he supported."

  "What did he tell them?" Ornenkai wondered.

  "He explained again that only Seynorynaelians can go.”

  “Any reasons as to why there can’t be any other races on board the Selesta?”

  “The usual ones.” Hinev replied. “Seynorynael is the only planet to have the resources and technology to envision such a grand explorer mission, and it has always been our place to explore, before the Federation existed.

  “Besides which no Federation funds went into Selesta’s creation. Its creation was personally funded by Seynorynaelian MSF, our Council of Elders, and other Seynorynaelian groups. Even though the Federation Council still wants to have its own representatives aboard the ship, Marankeil claims that it would be difficult to house so many groups of aliens together without conflicts.

  “Moreover, the voyage we have planned for Selesta will be long-term and could last generations. Seynorynaelians are by far the longest-lived species in a space environment, and so the choice of crew is an obvious one: our own race, and none others.

  "Ornenkai, what did Marankeil say to defend himself when the Federation Council first found out about the secret project—the reconstruction of Selesta?" Hinev asked.

  "I don’t know since I was at Firien when they found out about the plan." Ornenkai said after a moment. "But I know that Marankeil denied anything was going on here until you, Kudenka's explorers', returned.”

  “I still don’t understand Marankeil’s need for such secrecy. Why couldn’t Marankeil tell the Federation Council about Selesta? They must have known something was going on out here. A lot of people knew about The Firien Project.”

  “I don’t know why Marankeil never presented his plans to the Federation Council. They knew we were rebuilding a spaceship, but not for another explorer mission. News of this was kept hush hush for quite some time to anyone outside the MSF and its training schools, until shortly after Kudenka’s explorers returned.

  “At the time of your return,” Ornenkai went on, “your cooperation was needed to help us with Selesta’s construction, and so Marankeil had to make it official knowledge that The Firien Project was about the construction of an explorer-class space vessel.”

  “I noticed.” Hinev laughed in part-anger. “That Marankeil waited to tell anyone about Selesta until it was too late for the Federation to join in the construction. Wonder why. What he has planned for it and why. Why only a Seynorynaelian crew—I mean what is the real reason.”

  "Well,” Ornenkai said in partial candor, “now some of the Federation Council members are saying that there is no good excuse to excude them. Marankeil has tried to appease his opponents by stressing that we will share any gains incurred from the explorer mission with the Federation when the explorers return.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he will,” Hinev said snidely.

  “Marankeil says that if we were to now consider any Federation candidates for the explorer mission, that this would delay our exploration take-off several more years, because new candidates would not understand the technology that went into the ship and so could not be productive crew members.”

  “That’s not necessarily true,” said Hinev.

  “But it is in part,” countered Ornenkai. “I don't think Marankeil won the Federation Council over, though, until I mentioned some of the risks involved in such an exploration venture."

  Ornenkai laughed, a stilted, mechanical sound like air moving through a grate.

  "But some of the newest Federation Council members think Marankeil is controlling too much of the Federation Council," Hinev added, and Ornenkai nodded understanding. Hinev had learned that little piece of information on his own.

  "They don't know the real reason why Marankeil only wants Seynorynaelian explorers," Hinev added, his voice suddenly serious.

  “I know.”

  “Well, Marankeil wants Seynorynaelians because of the transferal he has planned.”

  “If such a process can work.” Agreed Ornenkai. “You are correct.”

  “Not to deny the Federation putting some of their candidates on the mission under ordinary circumstances, but Marankeil can’t very well tell anyone on the Council that my selections for the explorers are only a pretext for testing the immortality serum.”

  "If you feel so strongly against the transferal, then why cooperate with us?" Ornenkai asked, keeping his voice steady.

  "Because if I have my way, the transferal will never take place, Ornenkai—the candidates I select will become the next explorers as promised. Once I have determined all of my immortality serum's side effects, I can begin to create immortal clones for you, your memories and minds, as it were."

  “He will order you to make transferals if it can be done.”

  “I won’t do it,” said Hinev. “Marankeil will have to get his other scientific specialists to do that part for him. For my part, I am only recruiting explorer candidates for serum testing, so that they can survive the long space journey.”

  "Hinev, Marankeil plans to give the Federation what it wants when we have succeeded in the transferal of our minds into the explorers’ immortal bodies.”

  “I won’t do that for you, as I said.” Hinev shook his head. “You will have to get your other scientists to make the transferals.”

  “It will be done, Hinev.” Ornenkai said, suppressing an image of the grisly reality of what his words entailed—stealing another human being’s body, his flesh, killing his memories and implanting his brain with another’s memories and soul. Stealing the body and destroying the mind of another being—it sounded so cold, so clinical. The actual thought of it mortified Ornenkai.

  Yet Ornenkai tried to keep himself detached. Wasn’t this what he had always wanted? Wouldn’t he do anything to have what he wanted?

  ??
?Marankeil plans to tell the Federation that your explorers were killed in a training maneuver, or were dismissed as inadequate—anything he can think of to explain what happened to them.” Ornenkai continued. “And the Federation won’t question that Marankeil has a new body form—if he tells them that it is merely a clone embodiment.”

  “Will they believe him?”

  “His mechanized unit will interface with the clone, and give its approval.”

  “What I will not do, I cannot stop, I think—but I will try to stop you,” said Hinev quietly.

  Ornenkai shrugged. “You will be the one who is stopped, Hinev. Once you have fulfilled your useful purpose to us.”

  Ornenkai suppressed a sudden sad, fearful feeling. Why he didn’t know, but he kept thinking of Alessia. He thought of her often.

  "Tell me, no matter what, you won’t use Alessia as a subject to test the transfer?" Ornenkai asked.

  Hinev regarded the mechanized Elder. His face and posture revealed nothing. Hinev had known him for many years, and during that time, an odd kind of friendship or cooperation had grown between them, despite Hinev's unabashed hatred for the mechanized Elders in general. But Hinev had not failed to recognize that a spark of humanity lived yet in the heart of Ornenkai.

  Hinev laughed, a hollow laugh. "No, I’m going to send Alessia away to join the Martial Scientific Force. I would never allow her to embody one of your Elders’ minds, either." He said, his words acerbic. "But tell me, why do you ask?”

  "Elder Neliciya has asked for her body." Ornenkai said quickly, clinically. "She has already asked Marankeil for her... her body if the serum experiment is successful, if the first attempted clone transfer you perform is successful."

  Hinev stared, steel-eyed, at Ornenkai. I pity you, Ornenkai, he thought. But his words portrayed a different emotion.

  "You have more influence with Marankeil than anyone."

  "Perhaps," Ornenkai's voice fell, "but I want your assurance that you at least won’t allow it."

  "How can you even ask that?" Hinev laughed at the absurdity. “I would give up my freedom before I let Marankeil harm a single hair on her head. Alessia—is like the child I never had." As he spoke, Hinev regarded Ornenkai. The Elder sighed, a sigh of relief.

  This time, Hinev laughed hard. Ornenkai cast him a questioning gaze.

  "You surprise me, Ornenkai," Hinev said after a moment. "I thought your only concern was for your own life."

  Ornenkai said nothing for a while.

  “You really love her as a daughter?”

  “Yes,” Hinev said, not understanding Ornenkai’s train of thought.

  “Then I am indebted to you.”

  “Indebted to me?”

  “Because you love and respect Alessia so absolutely, Hinev, she loves and reveres you with the same kind of devotion. That’s not an easy thing to accomplish.”

  “Any child can learn to love its father or mother.” Hinev said, shaking his head. “Most children can learn to love, regardless of situation.”

  “I don’t know.” Ornenkai returned.

  “You don’t know? You mean you don’t agree.”

  Ornenkai shook his head. He had no reason to say more, but more was in his heart, from his own childhood, and that of his once best friend, Marankeil.

  “No, I don’t agree,” said Ornenkai. “I think we can only develop the capacity to love and to respect others if we can first learn to love and respect our parents, and for that love to be possible, our parents must also respect us, and not merely love us. You see, a child cannot love the person who does not value and respect him and only loves him blindly.”

  Hinev’s brows drew together a moment; Ornenkai didn’t know how to measure the expression on his face.

  What was Hinev thinking of—of his own mother and father? It struck Ornenkai that he knew very little about Hinev’s background; Hinev was a man young by universal time, even though he had come from another age and had been gone so long. Perhaps the days of his youth, their shared era of youth, seemed not so very long ago to the half-race man.

  “You may have a point.” Hinev said at last.

  “Believe me or not, as you choose,” Ornenkai continued. “But when either that parental love or that parental respect is missing, the child will grow to a man with a gross deficiency, like a black hole at the core of his soul, which no ray of light can penetrate. No matter how much adulation and respect he earns in his life, nothing can stir the black void within him.”

  Hinev looked askance at the Elder; Ornenkai realized that he had said something amiss and shrugged it off.

  Hinev knew all at once that Ornenkai was speaking of the Elder, Marankeil.

  “You know, Hinev, if we don’t get the main engine prototype working, we can forget the explorer mission altogether.”

  “I am aware of the problem.” Hinev laughed.

  “So are you going to tell me about it?” Kiel said, sitting beside Lierva at the dining table in The Firien Project cantina more than a season after Hinev’s arrival.

  “About what?”

  “About what’s bothering you?”

  “What kind of a question is that? Kiel, you know what’s bothering me.”

  “Leaving Firien behind?”

  “Yes.” She said softly.

  “You’ve decided then?” Kiel asked; Lierva turned, bestowing a glare on him.

  “Yes.” She didn’t elaborate. “So tell me, Kiel, what changed your mind about it? Was it Kellar? Did you tell Hinev you’d join the explorer candidates because Kellar wanted to go?”

  “Partly,” Kiel admitted, his heart heavy. Was it fair to have to choose between the closest friend of his life, a man who had become his own brother, his own family, and the woman he loved so completely?

  “And partly because Hinev made me a vow to put Calendra in suspended animation,” Keil added, still uncertain how he was going to feel when the time came for Calendra to go into suspended animation; meanwhile, she was to remain in Firien City while the explorer candidates trained in the capital.

  Lierva turned to Kiel with a look of horror in her eyes.

  “Kiel, you didn’t ask her to do that—”

  “She insisted on undergoing it herself.” Kiel said, in a flat tone.

  “You should have stopped her.”

  “It was her decision.” Kiel said, masking his pain, masking his fear—and his own sense of guilt. He also felt greatly indebted to Calendra; she had made his choice for him, so that he might never really know what he would have done without her interference. He was glad not to know what he would have done. “And—she made it without me. She went to Hinev and secured his promise that he would do this for her.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I had casually told her that Hinev was keeping several suspended animation chambers, and then the next thing I knew, Hinev had already heard from her that we had both agreed to her having one.” As he spoke, he felt annoyed at Hinev; Hinev had said his last but most essential consideration in choosing his explorer candidates was to find people who were willing to do selfless things for each other, and so many of his choices were made among friends and groups of close relations. Who knew better the value of sacrifice than Calendra? Why wasn’t she allowed to become an explorer?

  “Why would she do that, even for you? It’s dangerous, and the people who are revived sometimes don’t live for very long afterwards.” Lierva breathed, surprised, while Kiel sat in thought. And why hadn’t Hinev told her, Lierva, about it? she wondered, wounded that he had kept yet another secret from her. How many secrets were hidden beneath those eyes of his? The longer she knew him, the more she was convinced that he kept himself and his motives from her, and everyone else.

  “I don’t know.” Kiel shook his head. “I’ve never met anyone who was willing to sacrifice so much just because
she loved someone. I think—I think I don’t deserve her.”

  “Kiel, don’t talk like that.” Lierva said, irritated. “You didn’t pressure Calendra to do anything for you, if I know you.”

  “I know, I know. I’ll just have to try to make her proud of me, won’t I?”

  “I’ll just make sure you do.”

  “You’re going to Ariyalsynai then?” Kiel asked, but he didn’t sound at all surprised. He knew that Lierva was desperately in love with Hinev, even though she took pains not to let anyone know about her recent secret relationship with the half-race man, not even her closest friends, not because she was ashamed, but because she had no intention of letting anyone know about her personal life, and partially because Hinev wanted their relation to remain private.

  Kiel could see that Lierva was besotted. Hinev was still at Firien, and the two of them spent a considerable amount of time in each other’s company, which Kiel noticed from the times he had run across them. They held hands but drew apart abruptly when intruded upon; they also went off on excursions together, but kept respectful distance when conversing with each other in anyone else’s company.

  But was Hinev in love with Lierva? Kiel didn’t know; Hinev and Lierva seemed to enjoy each other’s company quite a lot of late, but Hinev never admitted anything openly about their relationship. If he loved Lierva, why would he want her to become an explorer and leave him behind forever when she went off into space? And why would Lierva agree to do this, even if it meant she could be transferred near Hinev for a short while longer? She had to know that Hinev was expected to return to Ariyalsynai after another couple of seasons, but no one knew when exactly he would be calling in his explorer candidates, or if he would change his mind about inviting them into explorer training. Was that why Lierva had decided so quickly, as though that would ensure that Hinev never forgot her?

  “Yes, I’m going—going to be an explorer, if all goes as planned.” Lierva said at last. “But you knew that.”

  “Yes, I figured you would.” Kiel shrugged.

  “Kiel, what do you suppose Hinev meant when he said we’d have to undergo some special ‘genetic experiments’?”

  “If you don’t know that, how should I?” he teased. She sighed in exasperation.

  “I’m going to ignore that.” She informed him. “The reason I asked is—have you ever heard that Kudenka’s explorers had to undergo genetic experiments before their mission?”

  “No,” Kiel admitted, in a manner that suggested he had been contemplating the same thing.

  “So?”

  “I don’t know.” Kiel shook his head. “But Hinev said it’s the only way to survive the mission.”

  “Is that what he told you?” Lierva said.

  “Yes. What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing,” she said, shrugging. “Except—except that when we do get to Ariyalsynai, we’re to be separated into solitary confinement for serum injections.”

  “Yes, he told me that, too.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  “A little, but I imagine we’ll have to be monitored, and he doesn’t want any outside contagions to interfere with the experiments.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Lierva said. “I still think it’s odd.”

  “It is.” Kiel agreed.

  “Any luck with the engines?” Lierva abruptly changed the subject; Kiel frowned. “Sorry I asked,” Lierva laughed. “Well, it might not matter if we ever go into training, if the spaceship Selesta can’t get off the ground.”

  “I don’t want to think about it.” Kiel said.

  “You don’t want to think about it?” Lierva laughed at the absurdity of the entire situation, at the frustration she knew they were all feeling, everyone who knew about the engine problems; Selesta was nearly finished, all but the engine, and the last several test firings had failed. “What about me? I’ve put in more years here than any of you.”

  “Oh, what about Celekar?” Kiel asked; Lierva’s eyes took on an unsettled expression, as though a dark cloud had fallen over her. “He’s been here as long as you.”

  “I know. Celekar’s just as upset as you are about the engine failures.”

  Kiel tried hard not to say anything in response, thinking that a lot of Celekar’s animosity had more to do with Hinev’s relationship with Lierva. Celekar was secretly in love with Lierva.

  “Hinev might change his mind—about Calendra.” Lierva said suddenly.

  “He told you that?” Kiel turned to her with a hopeful expression.

  “No, but I know he said he’s going to wait to see how the training goes before recruiting more explorer candidates. You could help Calendra, once you’ve gone through the training, and then—then maybe she’ll be able to pass it.” Lierva said; Kiel sensed Lierva was thinking about Calendra’s physical condition. Calendra wasn’t very strong physically, and wasn’t likely to pass any kind of physical fitness examination that the explorers might have to undergo.

  “That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.” Kiel said, brightening.