Chapter Fourteen
"Hinev? What is it?"
The voice startled the man sitting on the deck of a balcony overlooking the rough water of the Kilkoran Sea. The chill air was heavy and dank with moisture but not oppressive, tasting of a passing storm cloud that hung low over the sea, with its splotches of rolling dark grey.
“What?” The violet-eyed man turned, and looked at the face of a middle-aged Seynorynaelian woman who had become third-in-charge of the Celestian colony. Her great-grandparents had come to the colony only ninety-seven years earlier with the large groups of Seynorynaelians who had sought out the peaceful Celestian haven, and Celestian life was all Mirako Riarsenn knew. Hinev himself had taught her much about politics and had come to rely upon her when his own mind track failed him—no, his mental condition had grown far worse than that.
There were times when he was surprised by Mirako’s loyalty to him, for when Fynals Hinev ceased to be and became one of a million identities inhabiting the shell of his immortal body, the creature he became was indeed capable of anything, moral or immoral, violent and barbaric or highly civilized—and over the power of those invading memories, memories surfacing from the depths and murkiness of Hinev’s subconscious, his own identity had absolutely no control.
Once, long ago, Fynals Hinev had been able to control the memories, but no longer. His own conscience had conspired with them to create a living purgatory for him.
There was no escape for him, no escape but for death to find him, and she had long ago given up hope on him.
“Are you—”
“No,” Hinev said with a laugh. “I’m still here.”
“Who are you?” Mirako asked carefully, in a way that suggested she’d been obliged to ask before.
“Fynals Hinev,” he replied, with a keen eye.
Mirako appeared relieved.
“Shall we keep discussing the plan or do you want me to go?”
“I assure you I’m fine,” Hinev said quickly, “and we’ve got to finish the plan before someone betrays us to the Council—”
Mirako’s eyes flared wide.
“I have no doubt Marankeil would like any excuse to put a permanent end to our little subversive colony.” Hinev explained.
“Surely no one here would betray the colony—” Mirako protested, aghast.
Hinev laughed, a laugh of wisdom.
“Perhaps there might not be any spies here among us,” Hinev amended himself, sensing Mirako’s fear, “but if even one man among our recent arrivals inadvertently betrays our plans in a social communiqué to friends he has left behind, we could be discovered. And nothing we send is not unmonitored, of course.”
Mirako nodded soberly. “I know.”
“Yes.”
“But I still don’t like the idea of splitting the colony into two spaceships.” Mirako said, resuming the discussion. “I realize that any kind of trip outside the Kudenka ring will mean we’ve got to provide ourselves with plenty of supplies, and if you say we shouldn’t stop and resupply ourselves on an Imperial planet, I won’t question that. But an extended space journey—most of us don’t even know how to pilot a transport, Hinev. How many of them do you think will want to get on board a spaceship, much less live out the rest of their lives on one heading to some far off planet? And then to hear that you want to break up the colony for however long it takes to get there—”
“There is no ship big enough to hold the entire colony, except the Grand Fleet, and Selesta—”
“Sill-what?” Mirako asked, benignly curious.
“Nothing,” Hinev said quietly, and shook his head. “Nothing at all.” He said, but at the same time, a faraway look crept over his face. "I'm sorry, but we'll have to resume our discussion later," he said absently.
“You all right?”
“No, but at least I’m still myself.” Hinev replied.
Mirako sighed, then nodded and took her leave, retreating from the deck into Hinev’s dwelling and then down to catch a transport to the other side of the colony, where the newest buildings had been constructed on the undulating meadows.
Hinev sat for a long time, then shot bolt upright.
The air of Celestian had never tasted more electric, even though the storm clouds had dissipated somewhat. Hinev stared out at the horizon, into the wind that compressed his face.
Where was it? he thought, with the giddy enthusiasm of a child. He broke into a run and scrambled deftly into his dwelling, like the wild young boy he had been in the forests of Firien.
He found the primitive long-range communications device, activated it, and waited, listening, tense as a taut wire. He waited in that position for several long hours until he heard the groundshaking news, news that had the power to immobilize his soul.
After nearly fifteen thousand years away from Seynorynael, Selesta had returned at last to the Valerian system.
Hinev arrived in Aryalsynai the evening before the Selesta was expected to land in the capital; with him were his two most trusted subordinates from the Celestian colony, Mirako Riarsenn and Gian Holmze.
Fynals Hinev could hardly remember the last time he had been to Aryalsynai; the current city using that name was unrecognizable to him. As the trio traveled through the city, even Mirako and Gian found it difficult to communicate with fellow Seynorynaelians, whose speech had become truncated and strangely accented in the two hundred years since the latest Celestian colonists brought Imperial culture to Celestian.
The Celestian colony was still recovering from the discovery that the Federation was no more and had been replaced by the Seynorynaelian Empire for nearly fifteen thousand years! And, though Hinev had used his mental powers to dull the memories from the weary refugees who had sought out the colony, the Celestian peoples were slowly being re-exposed to the culture their ancestors had fought to escape.
Hinev knew that the Celestian colony must leave Seynorynael in order to survive. Disturbing rumors of Imperial retaliation against subversive factions had begun to reach even the remote Celestian colony. Sadly enough, the man known as Hinev, who had protected the Celestian peoples since antiquity, was becoming less and less capable of protecting the colony, and he was aware of this himself.
Hinev had planned to do everything in his power to help the Celestian colonists escape Seynorynael and rebuild their lives, perhaps even restore the flower of Seynorynaelian civilization, on another planet.
Mirako and the noble, amiable Gian stood by Fynals Hinev on the observation deck of the tower room they had taken in Aryalsynai's visitor center when the Selesta appeared in the clear turquoise skies above the capital, growing from a distant glimmer until the minutest detail of it could be made out.
The ship passed by. Hinev stared at it, with an expression of wonder more profound than that which impacted any of the astonished onlookers throughout this southern part of Aryalsynai. To them, the return of Selesta was merely a fleeting curiosity.
There was no way of describing all that Selesta’s return meant to Hinev.
Hinev stood blinking at it, his eyes just barely moistened as he compressed them together forcefully and dared a new look with every passing second.
Selesta loomed close, and the rounded command center near the bow turned aside. Above the ship, attached almost seamlessly, was another vessel of different hue and origin, the smaller starship Sesylendae that had been home to Fynals Hinev and the remaining circle of six in his own explorer days. The last microunit of the stern passed before the trio; after that, Selesta began to shrink once more, gradually descending towards the appropriate astroport where the air authorities had directed her to land.
Several tendays after the Selesta had landed, Hinev was still busily trying to contact Kiel, Alessia, and the other explorers who had been taken to the Imperial Palace. He had no doubts that he could have gained access to the building, but any meeting he orchestrated could not
remain secret in Marankeil's domain, and Hinev had no desire to go anywhere near the Emperor himself, for the sake of the Celestian people, and for his own. Hinev was afraid, afraid to risk Marankeil's thoughts entering his mind now that his own mental control had deteriorated.
Hinev simply could not enter the Imperial Palace without risking Marankeil discovering his plans.
Hinev heard that Marankeil had recently canceled the proposed mission launching site for future explorers that was to have been established on the Celestian planets in the white-star Rigell system. Not only were the planets too remote to outfit, but Marankeil had no taste for the territory where they were located, next-door to the lai-nen system. He had only wanted the Celestian worlds when the lai-nen occupied the Rigell system, but all of the lai-nen had supposedly been killed, and their home world and colonies destroyed. No word had ever been heard of the lai-nen who had been rumored to have survived that annihilation so many thousands of years ago.
When Hinev learned that there were no immediate plans for the uninhabited Rigell system, he made a decision.
He was going to take the Celestian colonies to the remote Rigell system.
Rigell, yes Rigell was the only territory he could think of where the Celestian peoples could go and live in peace. The nearest centipede star gate to the Celestian worlds had been created by the lai-nen and collapsed when the mechanisms holding its porthole open were destroyed; many of the lai-nen's gates and innovations had even been destroyed by their own race near the end of their empire, to prevent Seynorynael from acquiring them. So a journey to the Celestian system was going to take many years even from the closest Empire star gate, and hopefully the distance would prevent Empire interference once the Celestian colony had been relocated.
Hinev found Ornenkai in the Seynorynaelian Arboretum a few tendays after Selesta had landed. Hinev ventured there alone, without Mirako and Gian, who would never have been able to gain access to the Arboretum unaided; but of course, the security gates of the Imperial Forum had no power to keep back an immortal.
“Creator above! Hinev!” Ornenkai cried, strolling past the near-extinct keln tree collection when a half-race man of striking violet eyes met him from the nearest intersection.
It had been more than seven thousand years since they had last met, and only a few short years since Hinev had sent his gift to Ornenkai.
Ornenkai and Hinev stood facing each other, each thinking that the man they surveyed was no longer a man the other knew.
Hinev’s eyes had a strange dark glimmer to them, an unhealthy brightness that made Ornenkai uneasy. It seemed that suddenly all of the years of Hinev’s life had caught up with him at once, not in appearance, but in the unending memories following him, surrounding him, weighing upon his soul like exotic matter itself.
Hinev was a man being hunted into oblivion, while Ornenkai, in contrast, had the appearance of a man whose eyes would search to the end of oblivion and the end of the universe to find something to believe in; neither had any understanding of where their self-destructive journeys would lead.
"I came to ask a favor," Hinev said without any word of greeting. Again, as always, he used the language of the ancients with Ornenkai.
"Perhaps I can guess.” Ornenkai said in the same forgotten speech, struck by how immediately familiar the two of them were once more. Was it so easy to resurrect the ancient days with the power of this speech? “You would like me to organize a meeting between you and the explorers.” Ornenkai said, laughing, laughing for the first time in a century, and his laugh had the broken quality of a rusty hinge.
Hinev nodded.
Ornenkai’s eyes clouded over with an unreadable look of distraction.
"I'm sorry, Hinev,” he said at last, moving away from the keln trees and onto the broad pathway, “but even I am not permitted to enter the section of the Imperial Palace where they have been detained, or I would have already gone there myself." Ornenkai took a moment to shrug; Hinev knew it was artificial, this outward composure Ornenkai chose to wear for public display.
Hinev looked at him with keen eyes, then broke off and walked away a few steps; he sat heavily on the bench panel by the keln grove.
Watching him, Ornenkai was struck by an odd pang of pity. The strength of Hinev's once sharp senses had all but disappeared; the brilliance of Fynals Hinev struggled against drowning in misery, and after twenty thousand years, the immortal man was on the verge of losing that fight.
Ornenkai was momentarily overwhelmed by a lost feeling. Why was he living in the present, in this here and now?
"Marankeil's trust in friendship must be failing him, among other things," Hinev laughed abruptly, absurdly amused by his own comment. “Imagine—a Vice-Emperor who cannot go where he wishes.”
Ornenkai walked over to join him at the view, but he remained standing. He looked at Hinev without any malice, without taking offense to Hinev’s comment.
I don't suppose you’ve heard, Hinev, but—I might as well tell you that Marankeil has plans to return himself and the other Elders to mechanized form."
Hinev stopped breathing, blinked, swallowed, then summoned the courage to look Ornenkai in the eye. He said nothing.
“You’re surprised?” Ornenkai laughed without mirth. “So was I. In part, anyway. Marankeil is—well, he grows more fearful day to day of being destroyed by the ill will of revolutionaries, to put it kindly. He sees a conspiracy where there is only a suggestion of discontent. He will not remain as a clone for much longer.”
When Hinev still said nothing, Ornenkai leaned back on the bench and let the silence reign a moment; the only sound in the quiet Arboretum, an Arboretum of an elite that now little cared for idle tranquillity, was a soft, stirring breeze and the random chirps of a limeesi bird.
"Marankeil has already planned to send the explorers on another mission.” Ornenkai said a moment later, his voice deliberately steady.
“What?” Hinev turned to him, in a voice that sounded strangled.
“He intends to keep Selesta—Kiel and the others—away from Seynorynael—perhaps forever.” Ornenkai said. “I discovered it recently, yes, when I made inquiries. There seems to be so much going on without my approval or consent.” He laughed, a hollow, dry, short little laugh.
“Ornenkai—”
“Hinev, had you ever thought what was going to happen when Kiel and the others found out about the Empire?”
Hinev’s eyes narrowed. “Have they—”
“I don’t know. But if they don’t yet know about it, it won’t be long before they do. But—”
“You don’t want to be there, right?” Hinev said.
“No, I don’t.” Ornenkai admitted. “I would rather not have to face their judgment at the moment. Or face them when—Marankeil is already planning to force them to swear loyalty before the Council—”
“What?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. He’ll find a way to do it, I have little doubt. And I believe the mission he has devised for them is his way of ensuring that they keep their vow. He—he still thinks Alessia—that Alessia—”
“What about Alessia?” Hinev demanded, his voice suddenly solid and resonant, as it had been so very long ago.
“Nothing,” Ornenkai laughed.
Hinev shrugged, but Ornenkai wondered how much he suspected. Did Hinev know that Alessia was the one destined to destroy the Emperor Marankeil? And should he—should Ornenkai trust any information to a man who could not control his own mind, who could easily leak information to Marankeil through no fault of his own?
“So, my friend, I see you have yet to make use of my gift to you.” Hinev said, his voice laced with secret amusement.
"No,” Ornenkai admitted, coming out of his own thoughts. “Not yet.”
“I wonder how Marankeil will feel about it,” Hinev laughed. “You have told him you aren’t planning on resuming your m
echanized unit form, haven’t you?”
“No. I imagine he assumes I will follow the others, since so many of them agree with him.”
“They do?”
“You may think it foolish, but perhaps you never learned that several of our Elders within the Advisory Council have died in recent years before they could record years of experiences. Their surviving mechanized unit forms decided not to re-imprint memories into the new clones waiting for them under the Main Terminus. They decided it was intolerable to lose a thousand years of experience, what seemed to them like awakening a thousand years in the future—”
Ornenkai broke off; Hinev thought of Calendra at the same time.
"In any event, all of the Elders will be reincarnated into the mechanized units." Ornenkai explained. "The price of betrayal is death, even for an Elder. As you may have heard, Elder Baladahn is no more, and his memories have been erased for his betrayal against Marankeil with several groups of revolutionaries. And Marankeil seldom talks of resuming the experimental serum transfers as he once did.”
“So he will no longer require my services,” Hinev surmised. “Either for his clone incarnations, or to resurrect the serum—and of course, he will no longer have a reason to preserve the Celestian colony—”
“Yes,” Ornenkai agreed. “Though he may still be deliberating his course of action, I think—rather, the truth is that we were machines for too long. We lost our humanity for too long to ever be able to re-claim it entirely."
Hinev said nothing for a while, but in a moment of clarity, he stared hard at Ornenkai and seemed to read the Vice-Emperor’s thoughts.
“So, I see,” Hinev said. “You aren’t going to use my gift, after all.”
Ornenkai turned to face him sharply, in acute surprise.
“But, Ornenkai,” Hinev added, “you don’t strike me as a man preparing to meekly return to his mechanized unit form, either.”
“Truly?” Ornenkai said.
“You’re planning something, my friend.”
“Perhaps,” Ornenkai admitted. “Marankeil doesn’t listen to what happens here,” he said, when Hinev looked around warily, nervous in case their conversation were being monitored by Praetorian guards or by hidden monitoring devices Hinev hadn’t detected, even with his highly acute senses. “This is my Arboretum,” Ornenkai insisted, when Hinev seemed to question his sincerity.
“Perhaps,” Hinev agreed. “But there is little point in my tarrying here, is there? I suppose I shall have to find another way to speak with Alessia.”
Ornenkai flinched, but barely.
“I would like to know what you’re planning,” Hinev said, “but as you know, it wouldn’t be safe to trust me with your information, nor I with you. Will you, though, Ornenkai?”
“Will I what?”
“I wonder, will you choose her, or yourself?”
Ornenkai stared at Hinev as the man got up to leave.
“You knew—your gift—”
“Every possibility is a test, Ornenkai.” Hinev laughed. “Because as you well know, for every choice we make, for every path we choose to lead, we must sacrifice the other possibility. Will you find a way to infiltrate Selesta, or will you choose human immortality? No, don’t tell me, Ornenkai. I did not ask in order to pass judgment on you. I should be the last man alive to sit in judgment over his fellows—”
“Hinev,” Ornenkai said, looking hard at the remarkable man, a brilliant light holding out against his own damnation.
“Yes, this is likely to be the last time we will see each other in this world.” Hinev said cryptically, reaching forward to clasp Ornenkai’s outstretched hand briefly.
“Good-bye then, Hinev, my friend.” Ornenkai said, as the other man slowly departed; a moment later, Hinev disappeared among the lyra trees on the path far ahead.
Ornenkai sat for the longest time, his thoughts sifting over the eternity of his life.
“There is no Ilika any more,” he said suddenly and rose from the grove of Keln trees with a decisive step he had never taken in all of his life.
“And no matter what it takes for me to achieve it, this Empire—and Marankeil himself—will die.”
With all the creeping quiet of a mere shadow, Selerael found her way into the dark, echoing hold that contained the greatest explorer spaceship of Seynorynael, now grounded on its home planet.
Selesta.
Selerael had resisted its lure for several tendays, ever since she learned that Selesta's crew had been drawn away to the Imperial Palace.
Selerael’s feet seemed to have found their way to Selesta of their own accord, and she would not fight them. She lingered a moment under the broad arch before the gigantic hold, the docking bay of the southern Aryalsynai astroport, and there, as she looked upon the liquid blue luster of the spaceship she knew as intimately as her own body, she felt her breath still in her throat and her heart racing wild.
She had not seen the home of her youth in more than thirty thousand years. Oh, Selesta, her heart cried to it; here was the ship that held her most precious memories for her, when she had been obliged to put them by in order to move on and fulfill the mission for which she had been born.
Time toys with me, she thought. But doesn’t it toy with us all? Allowing us to remember what we can never have again, taking youth and life from human bodies while allowing memories of youth to remain?
Precious Selesta, bless God for allowing you to stay with me all these years, Selerael thought as she headed towards her.
Passing secretly through the ship's security perimeters, Selerael headed into the Great Bay, past the thousands of Valerian fighters and down the main corridor towards the crew quarters and then onto the bridge. She lost countless hours wandering the familiar hallways; nothing had changed, while she had become a stranger to herself.
As she entered the Seynorynaelian lyra forest, she felt the energy of the trees reaching out to touch her. She reminded herself to telekinetically erase the marks she had made in the familiar dirt pathway before she left and headed down to the bridge over the stony river deep in the hold.
When she awoke from a long sleep by the earthen banks where Faulkner had died and her own family, and her lost husband Dimitriev had enjoyed their days together, she turned from the forest for the last time.
There was nothing here for her now, nothing but memories that pained her, nothing but emptiness and the shining lyra, wise and solemn, whispering to her.
Now she understood what they said, but she didn’t want to listen any more.
She left the forest and continued a brief tour of the ship, unable to resist the grain of desire driving her. Then, near the bottom stern of the ship, she heard a noise ahead and hid in the shadows of an intersecting corridor.
Who was it? she wondered. No ordinary person could gain access to Selesta, and all of the explorers were in the Imperial Palace!
A man hidden within his vermilion robes passed by her, hauling several loaders, followed by a slow-moving Elder's mechanized unit. Surely this wasn’t Marankeil! she told herself. She knew to speak to him was to risk exposing herself, but curiosity won over caution, and she searched the air for brain impulses, escaped thoughts that might give her a clue as to the Elder's purpose but not directly alert him to her presence.
Meanwhile, Elder Ornenkai stopped before another terminal, unaware of his silent observer. His mind was focused upon his task, and upon fulfilling the long-deliberated decision he had just made.
Selerael recognized the man: it was the Vice-Emperor.
And Ornenkai’s mind was abruptly intent upon one thing and one thing only: to remain with Alessia by any means necessary. Clasping the thought was the only way to prepare and empower himself for what he was about to do. He put on the metallic helmet that connected him to the mechanized unit behind him and transferred his thoughts and experiences for the last time. Then, at th
e clone's instruction, the mechanized unit that held all of his memories moved closer and attached its arms and head into the imput terminal.
At last Ornenkai's mission became clear. He had come to give his memories to Selesta. Selerael realized she was witnessing the process that had left Ornenkai's being trapped in the main computer that was Selesta's central nervous system.
Ornenkai...
She turned away and closed her mind off to the scream.
The pain, pain as cruel as Hinev’s serum had inflicted, went on for a considerable time, and the scream seized the walls, echoing down like a faint whisper of Selesta’s horror.
The ship wailed with him for a long time, until at last it itself surrendered to its creator and master, and the walls were at once imbued with a new sentience.
Why? Selerael wondered pointlessly. Why had Ornenkai done it?
Marankeil’s plan was now to return to a machine existence, Selerael learned in the moments just before Ornenkai’s soul merged with Selesta’s computer; she learned this news with a sense of horror. She knew what fate Marankeil had now chosen; Marankeil would truly become a machine that viewed life itself as a threat to its existence—and then no world, no culture, or individual being would be safe.
That was why Ornenkai had betrayed him. Of course, she knew that he had deliberated against taking sides against his childhood friend. After all, Ornenkai had traveled the same path as Marankeil, and she had followed them both for many long years.
It was clear to her that Ornenkai clung to his new faith, a new faith that the Seynorynaelian Empire could be destroyed, as the Enorian legend had once predicted. After all, hadn’t he seen Alessia in the Arboretum before Selesta returned from its first mission? He had believed she had risked seeing him that day to ensure that he knew what she was doing and joined her cause. He would help her retrieve the singularity that the legends of Enor had said would come from Kiel3, so that she could return to the past as she had clearly done already. Then at last she would return to do what he could not, to destroy Ilikan Marankeil.
And by doing so, save Ornenkai’s soul the only way possible.
Long moments passed before the empty mechanized unit that had once held Ornenkai’s sentience detached, and it nodded. Selerael felt the memories in the mechanized unit fading to the point of basic programming. Ornenkai had imparted his soul into Selesta; the equally dying clone, now holding but shadowed memories of Ornenkai’s former life, looked towards the computer terminal with sad eyes. The sensation of impending nothingness that approached filled the clone’s heart with pain.
As the mechanized unit and clone prepared to leave, she watched them load the strange suspended animation capsule off one of the loaders and followed them down the corridor where long ago she had found the bodies of Selesta's crew. Not daring to come too close, she watched from a distance as the pair entered the chamber and then re-appeared without the clear suspension capsule they had towed. The capsule wasn’t like anything she had ever seen, not like the one she was doomed to sleep within on her journey to Earth, or like the ones that would one day hold the dead bodies of Hinev’s explorers until their disappearance in the white hole singularity of Kai-rek.
The clone's thoughts were now centered upon something odd, something she remembered from seeing her mother’s memories. Ornenkai had given his mechanized unit one last mission: to deliver a programmed message to Kiel and his explorers within the next few days, a message that he had betrayed Marankeil to help them, a message that would urge them to make the journey to Kiel3 once more, where the Enorian singularity fated to destroy the Seynorynaelian Empire might be found. As for the clone, it had but one more action to make—to return to the Arboretum to die.
Yes, it had to appear as though Elder Ornenkai had tired of living and had simply orchestrated his own demise. Ornenkai had already done the unthinkable in programming his memory bank stored in the Main Terminus to self-destruct after the Selesta's launch.
Selerael had never before realized how very tortured a soul Ornenkai was, or how great his sacrifice had been when he voluntarily condemned himself to his tomb, the computerized memory bank of Selesta.
Ornenkai—the ship was unaware of her, for she had taken pains to conceal herself, there in the corridor, but she sensed the horror within; Ornenkai had yet to recover from the shock of finding his soul trapped in an impotent machine incapable of any physical feeling once more.
She turned away, her head bent low, then followed the clone and mechanized unit at a distance out into the Great Bay and outside into the astroport's main hold.
The mechanized unit turned and headed towards the exit, hurrying away to the Imperial Science Center to continue the facade of Elder Ornenkai's existence until it was time for the explorers to depart.
The clone, however, remained several moments longer in the holding area, gazing up the side of the towering space vessel before it left. Selerael followed it into a transport back to the city, and finally into the Arboretum itself.
Why? she wondered. Why was she following him? Why could she not leave him to die in his loneliness?
"Elder Ornenkai," she said at last, as the clone came to a weary halt under the high, arching bow of a sedwi tree.
Startled, the clone turned towards the musical voice that had spoke in ancient Seynorynaelian, the dialect of Alessia’s youth. As the clone spied Selerael standing in the pathway behind him, a slight smile appeared around the corners of his mouth.
"Ah, Alessia, you have returned," he said, in a voice overwhelmed by joy. "I knew it was you I saw all those years ago." He stepped blindly towards her, but she was beside him in a moment. He reached out and haltingly touched her cheek with infinite tenderness.
Selerael winced inwardly, considering that she should let the Elder know her true identity—or should she let him believe what he wanted to believe? He took her hesitation as a sign that he had guessed correctly, that she was afraid he might tell the other Elders that Alessia had returned to the past.
Marankeil has suspected all these years—I wonder, did he recognize Alessia from an accidental meeting with her future self sometime in his past? Ornenkai thought. Yet why is she here, now? Unless—can it be that in the future, Ornenkai has won her heart at last?
Selerael suppressed a smile, but a shadow of it appeared on her lips. She had been listening to the clone's private thoughts, but her telepathic invasion only confirmed his assessment of her identity in his mind.
"Alessia, there’s no need to worry. I won’t reveal your secret," Ornenkai reassured her. "I won’t be returning to the Council. Marankeil will learn nothing of this meeting—I have not much longer to live. But you already know that, don't you?"
Selerael said nothing. Some unknown realization struck the clone then, and it hurriedly looked away.
"Please, don’t look at me. I want to read nothing in your eyes. You see, I am no longer Ornenkai. I am nothing, but I hold a shadow of his memories... and I wish to know nothing of what his future might bring because—it is a future I can never share." The clone swallowed.
"Ornenkai, you have to listen—" she said; strangely, he turned to her, unable to fight against his own curiosity.
“I see,” he said, sobering after judging her face a moment; he did not elucidate further what he had seen. “Alessia, wait—I have remembered something,” he added a moment later, his eyes at once uneasy.
“Yes?” she said; she wasn’t going anywhere!
“I fear I must speak quickly before my memory fails.” He told her, growing increasingly animated.
Creator above, don’t let me forget now! he thought. Let me know myself, here! Don’t let me forget her now that she is here with me in this place!
“Ornenkai, you won’t forget, not for a while—”
He didn’t seem to believe her. His face took on a quality of panic; she tried to calm him, holding his arms, but
he only clasped her more tightly. Finally she succeeded in getting him to sit on the bare, gnarled ground, where he could conserve his remaining energy.
“Alessia, you are here to destroy the Empire, that I know, but you will never be able to destroy the back-up systems of Marankeil alone. You must search my memory now, before you do anything else. There was once a list in my mind that will allow you to find all of Marankeil's clones and mechanized units. With it should be the access program that will allow you past the memory lock to reprogram the units.
"The clones are sealed in suspension capsules I helped to create. The access code to open the capsule's monitoring systems should still be the same. Marankeil would trust only Maerodach and me with the codes, but he is able to do so because he believes none of the Elders will ever leave the planet or risk being terminated—”
“Ornenkai—” she could hardly believe he was so willing to tell her how best to destroy Marankeil, the spectre that had haunted his life.
He had given her the key to the end of the Empire.
"But remember, Alessia, you must only reprogram the units.” He interrupted with a note of urgency. “The security systems are set up to alert the territorial governors if any of them are destroyed. The safeguards are not against erasing the memories the units contain, and few have thought to attempt what might seem impossible fearing it might sound a warning—”
“Then how—”
“Hear me out.” He said, then resumed where he had been interrupted. “You can, however, approach the units without them reading your intent, and the access code will override the back-up systems. Marankeil made sure of that in case one of his own units decided to usurp his authority. They maintain only passive memory, and can’t act unless threatened.”
Her eyes lit up with comprehension. Could it be? Could it be Ornenkai who would make her mission possible?
"Now, in order to terminate the clones, you should set the capsule life cycle maintenance on low.” Ornenkai explained; his voice was weakening, but he seemed oblivious to it. “The clones will begin to decay slowly, but the capsule will keep them alive. So no one will suspect your interference. However, the moment the capsule is opened again, they will immediately cease to function. You see, if you try to kill the clones directly, the monitoring system will register a termination, and Marankeil will be alerted to the assassination attempt. He will immediately check to ensure that the other units are safe, and if they have been tampered with, he will be more careful to protect them in the future. In that event, you will never again get such a chance to succeed.
"Don't worry," he added gently, as though sensing her concerns. "Marankeil won’t learn that I have told you how to destroy him. I have only a few hours left of life, and my ability to remember is failing—fast, I fear. And there are no monitoring devices here in the Arboretum."
"Thank you, Ornenkai," Selerael said, her eyes glistening with bitter tears betraying her feelings to him. Ornenkai's expression softened as he looked at her.
“Alessia—”
"I have the programs." She said after she had searched his memory and found them. “Thank you, Ornenkai.”
“Good,” he sighed. “Do what you must with them.”
"I will, Ornenkai.” She said. “I swear to you that your sacrifice will be justified. And I thank you—for all you have done."
“Yet isn’t it strange?” the clone laughed. “The Ornenkai that will live beyond this day might never know how close he came to fulfilling his mission. I am the only part of Ornenkai that will ever know that you are here for certain, that you will bring the Empire to an end, and I shall die before the sun sets today.” She allowed him to lean against her as they sat there under the boughs. He sighed, contented to rest his head against her shoulder.
“Alessia?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper now.
“Yes?” she said, not denying the identity.
“Will you stay here with me until I die?”
“Yes, Ornenkai, I’ll stay with you.” She said softly.
The clone that had been Ornenkai had no longer any energy left to speak.
When the clone died in her arms, as the last rays of the afternoon sun cascaded through the dome of Aralsynai, she lifted the body in her arms and carried it to a resting place on the smooth, age-worn roots of a sprawling sherin tree.
On the morning following the death of the clone of Ornenkai, Selerael passed through the more crowded upper sections of the main astroport on her way to the disembarkation lounge that would take her on a starship to the third moon of Maerus. Selesta would be leaving soon; the mechanized unit of Ornenkai would deliver its message to Hinev’s explorers and stage Ornenkai’s death, probably within the next few days.
Selerael had already decided that she could not remain on Seynorynael. One moment longer, and she knew she would give in to the temptation of arranging a meeting with her mother, Alessia, and that would be catastrophic to her mission.
Instead, Selerael had decided to leave the planet and investigate what Ornenkai had told her about the Emperor and Advisory Council’s back-ups units. She had to concentrate on a plan of how best to destroy them all.
However, she could not have picked a worse—or better—moment to catch the Maerus transport, if indeed some small part of her hadn’t deliberately chosen this time and place to quit the planet. As she passed through the astroport on her way to the Maerus departure gate, milling groups of all worlds moved along the moving corridors. Others loitered in the small overhead transporter tunnels. Some relaxed in lounges and trading stations until they could catch interstellar connection starships and local transports.
Selerael felt overwhelmed by the density of living beings in the confining space and decided to head down the moving corridor past the main passenger holding area and into a less-traveled section of the upper levels. There she was suddenly distracted by something she saw away on her right and hopped off of the moving corridor.
Standing under the holofield that identified the many holding areas, she stared up at the sign that marked the holding cell for the two grounded ships Narae and Hernendor.
She started laughing, but the people around her only stopped to look at her a moment, eyeing her as though she were quite strange.
For a long time she lingered under the sign, when two men and a woman passed by her in a hurry and almost ran into her; they seemed to be heading into the restricted access corridor, and they were headed there without hesitation. Ahead the trio halted, and the man at the head of the group turned around to speak with the others, his features lit up as he stood under the dim lighting of the corridor.
Selerael heart her heartbeats quickening.
Fynals Hinev! The man she had longed to contact for so many long years in the times of her greatest loneliness, of all people the one being with whose destiny she dared not interfere.
He was Adam’s descendent, her descendent, a descendent of Alessia, the very child he had raised, but he had never even known it. And her own mother, Alessia, had never known it.
Only Selerael had known, these many long years.
Oh, how much she wanted to speak with him, to comfort him, to ease his suffering and her own with one brief moment of human contact—with the only human being who understood how much she had suffered eternally estranged from the life around her.
Selerael stared in open wonder, her eyes focusing on the face of the man with dark hair and violet eyes. For many long years she had avoided him intentionally, but in the end, Fynals Hinev had slipped silently past her and not noticed her at all.
Selerael had often wondered why she had not been affected by the same multi-personality that plagued Hinev, but perhaps it was Alessia's memories, and the memories of the other explorers she had carried, that had saved her from the mental isolation that had affected Hinev. Or perhaps it was also her own memories of her time on Earth that had saved her—sh
e didn’t know.
As she stared at Hinev, he seemed to have become aware of a presence in the room that was different from any of the others. He stopped, or rather, his mind stilled to listen, even as his body went through the motions, even as he outwardly listened to his companions Mirako and Gian.
A moment later, the half-race face finished his conversation with his companions and peered back into the main thoroughfare to check for regulators. Selerael hurriedly pulled out of view and stood in the shadows with a desire to look back growing irresistibly in her mind. After several moments, she heard the sudden sound of distant laughter. She turned back to inspect the corridor, and found a pair of alarming violet eyes searching deep into her own.
Hinev’s eyes flickered, his brows drawing together in an expression of contemplation. Then there was a great calm. Hinev wouldn’t let go of her eyes; he was staring at her in wonderment, growing wonderment.
He knew exactly who she was.
And know also knew of the time-loop; that he was a descendant of Alessia.
“Hinev?” Mirako asked, drawing his gaze for a moment. When he turned back to the corridor, the Enorian woman was gone.
A light smile played on Hinev’s lips.
Alessia—
"So why do you want Attorea?” Mirako demanded. “That ship’s not fit for anything but cargo these days.”
Hinev looked to her; he found himself wondering if the Enorian woman was eavesdropping as he answered.
“I won’t argue with you, Mirako. After I set the mechanized navigation, you’ll take the Narae and Gian will take the Hernendor. I’ll distract the Council by taking Attorea and follow you in a few hours. You two can begin to load our people on board the two ships while I arrange a communication with Marankeil. If he grants us permission to leave, Attorea and I will see you above Seynorynael, just outside the magnetosphere. If the Emperor refuses to let us go, then I’ll send you a signal to go on without me. Narae and Hernendor will continue on course to the Rigell system, and I’ll stay with Attorea to distract the Grand Fleet and meet you later on the way.”
“I still don’t like it,” Mirako mumbled. “Too many ifs and chances, if you ask me.”
“There’s nothing else we can do,” Gian reminded her.
"Wait, Hinev, is the Attorea capable of relativistic travel?" Mirako suddenly thought to ask.
"Don’t worry, Mirako." Hinev laughed, but his laugh seemed empty. "Everything is going to turn out for the best.”
Selerael waited, but heard nothing more. Hinev and his companions had passed through the security doors and out of her reach.
Marankeil had been lounging on the Imperial Throne as he argued over the communications network with Hinev. Hinev kept entreating the Emperor to allow the Celestian colony to colonize the Rigell system, and Marankeil had refused just to spite him, yet they continued to press the issue, and now, Hinev had involved Hinev’s explorers on the other side of his communications sphere.
Then, against all expectations, the half-race man abruptly cut off communication!
Marankeil felt a current of red-hot rage igniting within him but managed to keep his composure, even though there was no one present in the Throne Room. Hours passed, and he summoned his Praetorian Guard to the Throne Room in case Hinev made an appearance there; at the same time, Marankeil heard reports that the half-race man had stolen Attorea, as well as the Narae and Hernendor.
Another hour passed, until the Martial Force legionary finally brought word that Narae and Hernendor were both within range of the Velastria II’s main anti-matter weapons.
The captain of the Velastria II waited obediently, his head bowed in the relayed image of the holo-sphere. At a word from the Emperor, the Velastria II would blast the renegade crew of the Narae and Hernendor out of the sky, not to mention the Attorea that had yet to rendezvous with the others.
Marankeil was, however, already preoccupied listening to the communications between Hinev and his Celestian colonists that The Imperial Palace had intercepted.
Then it seemed Marankeil had tired of listening to the messages. The crew of the Velastria II watched the transmissions from the Emperor; Marankeil stood, his finger pointing lazily in mid-air, his elbow bent, as though poised in contemplation on how best to order the Celestian colonists’ annihilation.
“Message from the Hernendor to Attorea. Come in Attorea,” the transmission sphere of the Imperial Throne Room picked up the random, blurred vidigital communication coming from Hernendor. In a moment, the solemn voice began to use prosaic vernacular; apparently the Celestian colonist shifting about at his communications console wasn’t really familiar with established military protocol. “Do you read us, Hinev?” he asked. Gian wants to know your present coordinates—Hinev? Come in Attorea, this is communications specialist Erlenkov, trying to reach Fynals Hinev...”
“Emperor Marankeil?” one of the regulators said; the clone form of Marankeil had suddenly turned pale.
Erlenkov…
“Where is Ornenkai?!” Marankeil bellowed suddenly. Did he need Ornenkai to be near?
“I don’t—”
“Find him!” Marankeil said, his eyes frozen, intent upon the image of the Celestian refugees manning the bridge of the Hernendor. He peered closer, watching every slight movement of the man in the communications chair, this oblivious, gesturing creature, this man who called himself Erlenkov.
“Sir, Ornenkai is nowhere to be found.” One of the other Martial Force officers informed the Emperor, cringing in case the Emperor decided to punish the bearer of displeasing news. “His signal is inactive at this moment.”
Marankeil stood silent a moment, but made no move against the officer who had spoken. The Emperor was still looking at the relayed image of the bridge of the Hernendor. There was but a moment to destroy the ship and the other traveling just beyond, or else the Martial Force would be obliged to send out a legion of cruisers if they hoped to catch and destroy the fleeing refugees. There was but one moment to make a decision, and the officers of the Grand Fleet waited for the word of authorization to obliterate the refugees.
“Let them go,” Marankeil said quietly.
“What?” the officer protested for only a moment before realizing what he had done; he threw himself to the floor in horror, hoping against hope that the Emperor would be merciful and not have him tortured and executed in a public spectacle for questioning an Imperial command.
But the Emperor Marankeil just turned and walked away.
And the Hernendor and the Narae continued unimpeded on their course for the Rigell system.
As the transport for Maerus' third moon launched, a commotion of signals disrupted the activities on board the vessel Shiran. The news that three renegade vessels had left the Celestian colony for the old lai-nen sector had the thousand passengers on board rushing to the observation windows for a glimpse of the starships. The blue-white globe of Seynorynael still filled the viewport, surrounded by the heavy traffic of satellites, space stations, and millions of ships coming in and out near the Seynorynaelian centipede gates.
But Selerael saw the crash in the distance, a small short-lived blast into silence as the oxygen within Hinev’s ship Attorea was swallowed by the near-vacuum and dispersed into the void.
Undina, Reneja... the ghosts whispered, but of all on board the Shiran, Selerael was the only one who heard them.
Selerael closed her eyes to shut herself off from the intrusive reality around her. The world was empty, all emptiness to her now.
Now that Fynals Hinev was dead.
It was whispered throughout the Empire, that upon the sudden death of the Vice-Emperor, Rilien Kilaen Ornenkai, in the year 14.693 L.I.I., the Emperor Marankeil wept openly before the Imperial Advisory Council for the first time that had ever been recorded in the long annals of history.
Some tendays later, perhaps a decade sooner than plann
ed, Emperor Marankeil embraced the mechanized unit as his sole entity, and then had the ashes of his clone form buried in the Seynorynaelian Arboretum.