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Remembrances
Some history:
Remembrances By Brent Knowles Wrudox watched the
Armada bombers skim Remembrance's hazy skies giving birth to their gaspod offspring. The pods burst as they hit the lower
atmosphere, the gray gas they contained spreading its poisonous vapors across
the pale green, dying jungles. John Aldan, Earth
hero and captain of the First Landing on Remembrance stood by Wrudox's side. "I watched the towerships
land," the blind man said, "Such beauty the hand of man is capable
of. Each ship a work of art, they fell with precision from that violet sky,
spinning as they danced into the earth. They were beautiful. You wouldn't
remember, not really, I suppose." "The All remembers," Wrudox
whispered softly, uneasy with interrupting the ritual, "Through the All
I see the sky give birth to the same city that now lies
dead before us. John Aldan, I watch this dance you
speak of and it is beauty. I mourn the loss." Only the burned husks on the horizon remained from the
First Landing -- human and mthilx both victims to
the bombs of the Second Landing. Wrudox knew
something of the loss John Aldan's words carried.
And other losses, he reflected as he looked for a moment at the sapphire ring
he wore on the chain about his neck. "If this planet falls," John said, rubbing
the back of his hand across the scarred and pitted ruin that was his upper
face, "Saul Sterr will bring his Armada
against Earth. Earth must be made to realize this!" Wrudox
nodded in agreement. John wore only the white robe that Wrudox
had woven with his own hands and a slender chain supporting a St. Christopher
medallion. It promised safe travels and Wrudox
hoped it would work. Most promises of human faith fell far short. "You
are ready, Wrudox?" "Yes John Aldan. And
you?" John sighed. He laid a hand on the smooth, white
arrowhead-shaped starship, which floated centimeters above the jungle
clearing beside the two men, aliens to each other but bonded. The ship was
their last hope. John had named it Vengeance. "The blockade will be
difficult to break. It should be me piloting her." "In a way-" Wrudox
began but a rustling noise stopped him. He stepped away from John and saw the
People assembled on the edges of clearing. The humans wept and the mthilx moaned. "Soon my Samantha," John said and Wrudox bowed his head. John's wife had been taken with
the pilot's sight when the bombs had first fallen. The rustling grew louder and the first vines erupted
into the clearing, thick and fleshy with veins of purple coiling about green
stalks. They wrapped themselves about John's legs and knocked him to his
knees. Other vines looped about his arms and pinned them behind his back. The
entry sphincter of the starship opened and thin, slender, young vines erupted
out of it. Wrudox bowed his head in recognition of
John Aldan's pain. The vines coiled around the hero's neck like snakes and
squeezed. "Give them hell Wrudox,"
John said as he died and his memories bled into the soil. The vines sucked
eagerly and John joined all who'd ever drawn their last breath upon
Remembrance. "The All you become." Wrudox
whispered the holy words, for his people were all mystics, from childhood to
death. If John Aldan cried out in that last moment
of life, Wrudox never heard it. John Aldan was a hero. *** Saul Sterr's Armada stretched
across several star systems, the black starships floating like sharks through
the oceans of space. The bulk of the Armada surrounded Remembrance, the
fifteenth planet of the system and its flagship the Fist drifted contently
while in its bowels Kyran Sterr
slept and dreamed truth. He loomed over her. Again. Long, squishy fingers jabbed
and pinched her like a fat aunt prodding a baby. Her companion smelled of
dirt filled chambers, of warmth and life, so unlike the sterile, filtered
corridors of the battleship. He studied a small object in his massive
paw-hand, gestured with it towards her, poked her
with it. She turned her head and stared instead into the algae-illuminated
cavern pond at their feet. She knew this alien and her lack of fear towards
him frightened her. She stared at her reflection, her face pale and almost
sickly, her skin stretched tightly across her skull while the ebony face of
the alien beside her was many folded, with sagging skin that hung like soft
fruits. His entire body was segmented, the folds between segments visible
even through his white robe. He took her hand in his and she leaned against
his shoulder, remembering now how he had saved her from the sinking escape
pod. How long ago? She quivered in her sleep. Jake, her nanny looked in on
her and grumbled as he stepped over to her bed. In the dream land, the creature beside her growled and Kyran watched as his mouth opened, a gaping maw of
blackness erupting with crooked and cracked teeth. The sound of heavy
shuffling filled the dank cavern and somewhere someone screamed loudly. She
could not turn her head to see the creature beside her but only watched as
its reflection turned to her. Her hand dissolved in his as he crushed it. She
began to shriek. Jake smiled and took his gloved finger away from the
inside of Kyran's slender wrist and watched the
yellow capsule dissolve into her flesh. She began to wake, screaming wildly as the nightmare
blossomed, and she only quieted when he slipped into the bed with her and
slid inside of her. Then Kyran slept peacefully
and dreamed no more. *** Wrudox moaned a
throaty, vibrating cry that echoed throughout the starship. He inhaled deeply of the plant-recycled oxygen and
tasted the mushy vegetative scent of his abandoned planet. A forlorn glance
out of Vengeance's side-window at his beloved jungle planet, with its proud Neyrk trees -- vine covered and moist -- rising
gracefully out of the wet soil, caused his hearts to swell with sorrow and
fondness. His stubby fingers danced across the controls as the
engines whined to life and the gravos pushed the
craft away from the planet at a breakneck speed. Wrudox's fingers grasped
the flight yoke tightly as the force of the ascent pushed him against his
seat, flattening him like a many-wife might squish Neyrk
fruitcakes with her palms. A moment later he found himself in deep space for
the first time in his life. He began to hyperventilate, his chest rising and
falling rapidly. "Without the All, we all are nothing," Wrudox whispered the popular saying. the All whispered
in Wrudox's mind and a human smile spread across
his face as he felt the presence of the All penetrate his mind. To the starship's aft the engines floated in a coral
sea, various roots and plants of Remembrance spreading out from that fertile
font of life and throughout the starship. Soft, musky soil covered the ship's
floor and blue dusk-moss blanketed the walls. A brilliant, white light so
like Remembrance's ivory sun illuminated everything, dimming and brightening
on the same cycle as the planet. Roots dangled and floated everywhere,
fiddling with dials and pressing buttons as needed. His copilot, his captain,
his food, his air -- this was the All. For the first time in all of eternity's memories, a
fragment of the All had left Remembrance. Many mthilx
had been taken from their home as slaves since the Second Landing, but never
the All. Breaking the blockade called for desperate measures and many
sacrifices. Tendrils stroked his cheeks and comforted him, as the
many-wife he never had, might. As he prayed Kyran
might. Her ring felt heavy around his neck and reminded him of his many
responsibilities. He could still remember her smell -- river mist and human
woman's musk -- and he quivered with the memories. "It is not that easy," he whispered. The radar revealed them clearly and a green button on
the control pad flared to life -- the spacecom. He
pressed it and heard a static-filled voice fill the starship. "This is Armada Squad Commander Jenners. Unauthorized starship, you are violating Armada
space. I repeat-" Wrudox cut him off and
replied, "Violating? A human speaks of violation to a
mthilx? You should understand your words before
your tongue spills them from you." He clicked the green button again and
terminated the communication. The three Armada fighters formed a combat triangle and
closed in on him. Be with me John Aldan, Wrudox whispered to the All. John's memories flooded into
his mind, an outpouring of insight. Wrudox engaged all
eight fore lasers and toggled them to cyclic mode -- it took only seconds to
blow a hole through the lead fighter's fore-plating. The rest of the ship tore itself apart. While Wrudox waited for his fore lasers to fully recharge, he
turned the Vengeance in a long sweep and teased several shots across the
second fighter's side. The third fighter fell into step behind the Vengeance.
The Vengeance rocked slightly as its pursuer let go
with full force. The shields held and Wrudox
smiled -- he wondered what his opponent thought of a vessel as small as the
Vengeance being loaded with a full shield array. I will earn my death or my people's salvation this day,
Wrudox swore. Truth. Wrudox fired a
shatter-missile and watched it explode in front of his prey and breached the
vessel's hull. The aft shield lights began to flicker ominously as the
pursuer continued to pummel the Vengeance. Wrudox took a deep
breath and filled his mind with the remembrances of the dead. John Aldan knew the way. A dozen battles flashed through Wrudox's mind before he saw what he needed. He channeled
power from his aft thrusters to his fore brake-thrusts and Vengeance
shuddered and suddenly turned upside down, the fore lasers pointing towards
the pursuer. John would have had a clever battle cry but Wrudox knew none so he set his lips in a grim line of
determination and squeezed the trigger. The enemy ship became a metal coffin,
destined to drift forever through the universe unless captured by scavengers
or pulled from its dead orbit by gravity. Wrudox disagreed with
a honk. "Their blood will wet the empty cosmos and bleed forth a new
beginning." The All stroked and caressed him but still he felt
nervousness for it was time to put the plan into effect. A
galaxy away, fresh-faced university students might debate on a
theoretical level what he would now attempt to put into action. Something no
human pilot would attempt, but it was a tactic the greatest of all Earth's
space jockeys had dreamed up. Wrudox trusted John Aldan. The history of hyperspace was well known, even to the mthilx, for the humans of the First Landing shared their
knowledge freely. And all school children, regardless of origin, knew that to
enter hyperspace required a minimum amount of one light year distance between
source and destination. And one had to ensure that the destination space was
clear of any potential collision matter -- planets, meteors, or starships. "Let it unfold," Wrudox
said and initiated his first jaunt into hyperspace. Into the Armada, far closer than one light year away. *** Kyran lunched with
her father while Jake stood by the cafeteria exit. "So many mistakes," Saul Sterr
said. Kyran looked up at him, sitting across the
oval, plastic table from her, as he floated an archaic novel in herdirection. She glanced at its cover and smirked for it
was old and badly kept. " "Were they truly so wrong, father? I suffered at
their hands and the worms, to me are truly monsters." She shivered at
the memories, so vivid, so real still even though it had been years. "Monsters perhaps but with less brains between the
lot of them than a dog. Savages." Saul pressed his lips together firmly,
moistening them and continued, "If not for the first colonists, the
worms would have caused us no trouble at all. Earth and its meddling. We live
on scraps when we could be harvesting Remembrance!" Kyran humored her
father with a smile. The Armada was far from beggarly. "Soon daddy and the worms will be but mindless
beasts as their plants wither and die. How long then will the First Landers
survive, when the worms turn on them? Saul smiled at his daughter proudly. "Yes, my
Button, the gas will choke the life out of the plants. And then the worms will
become what God meant them to be -- animals, for harvest, slaughter, whatever
that we decide. Without you, we might never have known about this, what
do they call it -- the All?" Kyran nodded and then
looked away for a moment and stared out into the vastness of space through
the porthole beside her. The Nebula II, an escort destroyer, drifted by. "At least some good came of my torment." Kyran said, "They spoke of those vines and plants
and fungi, the All, like a god. They didn't even think to hide it from
me." "All our enemies are fools, which is what makes us
right," Saul said. "Earth wars with itself as it always has, safe in
the false security of their orbital defenses while all their colonies have
fallen to us. We sit here, king and princess of the cosmos. School children
write essays about you and me. Remembrance will become a memory." "Our enemies shall fall and we shall rise," Kyran quoted her father's favorite saying. "We shall rise," Her father said, "You
truly are your father's daughter." She smiled at his praise but noticed his quick glance
towards Jake. "And you sleep well?" She shrugged. "Some nightmares." He asked her
this too often. She stared into her father's gray eyes and tried to fathom
what he sought in hers. "Anything else?" Saul asked as he rose to his
feet, his gravboots clanging softly against the
metal floor as he walked deliberately to his daughter's side and kissed her
forehead. "No Father. Why?" "Old men worry, that is
all Button." He patted Jake on the shoulder as he left the room and
stepped onto the conductor, letting the floor slide him towards the
battleship's control tower. "Take me to my quarters," Kyran
commanded Jake. *** The heart of the blockade, crowded with Armada
warships, cruisers, tugs and research stations was the last place in the
universe that a starship would jaunt into. The slightest contact between two
vessels while one of them rocketed through hyperspace would utterly destroy
both them and anything nearby. Only the foolish or desperate would attempt
it. A gigantic pretzel-shaped Wellship
floated beside the Fist and created a field of force that prevented
hyperspace travel out of the blockade sphere it formed with its network of
sixty-six planet-hugging satellites. But this elaborate blockade could not
stop someone from jaunting into it. Wrudox closed his
eyes, shuttered his auditory membranes and merged completely with the All.
Warships were but silver light, flaring on both sides of him as Wrudox and the All guided the Vengeance through the
packed space. Sharp zips and zaps, zigging and zagging, 90 degree turns, turned nauseatingly upside down
then rightside up. He avoided the research station
by almost smashing into the destroyer, dodging down only to leap left. All the while the Vengeance discharged its special
cargo -- small space mines that magnetically attached themselves to the hull
of the Wellship. The blockade must break. It took him moments to move his hand across the
controls and disengage the hyperdrive. Abruptly, he
was yanked out of hyperspace as easily as a child might snatch a handful of
pollen from a windswept sky. The sublight engines flared
to life, tediously slow compared to the hyperdrive.
Warships turned their broadsides to him, yet they did not dare fire for fear
of striking their companions. He was a fly slipping through the giant's
fingers. The Fist floated to his side, the massive battleship
twice the size of any other ship in Saul's fleet. Somewhere aboard that ship Kyran stood, maybe even watched him and the fighters that
spilled out of the warship's bellies. He whispered a silent prayer for the civilians on the Wellship and then flicked an unmarked switch. The Wellship shattered violently as the pretzel pieces
snapped apart, spinning rapidly away as the field of force blocking
hyperspace travel dissolved. Memories of Kyran
unexpectedly flooded him. He remembered sitting with her in a small warren,
as she handed him her mother's ring and promised to fight for the freedom of
Remembrance. What had happened to that promise? He remembered her eyes, so
passionate and compassionate. But what had her promises brought his people?
He tried to force himself to concentrate, but he found his hands obeying his
hearts, not his head. The Vengeance began to drift towards the Fist. The All chided him but it felt unconvincing,
half-hearted, the words of a young and inexperienced elder. The All did not
know the passion stirring in him and though he felt the All's displeasure, it
spoke no more to him as it read his motivations and understood his decision.
He had to see Kyran -- he did not even need to
speak with her but he wanted to know that she existed still. He turned the spacecom on and
ignored the first flurry of chatter as captains screamed at him. Off on the
inward edge of the blockade, two cruisers had collided when they tried to
avoid Wrudox's reckless hyperspace jaunt. He
smiled, announced his surrender over the spacecom,
and powered down the Vengeance's weapons. Please let them be curious
enough about the ship not to destroy us outright, Wrudox
thought as he climbed out of the ship through the top hatch, wondering of the
many brothers and sisters of his who had done similar when forced on Saul's
spacewalks to construct this very fleet. The flaps of flesh on his body could
hold large amounts of oxygen -- a few hours worth -- as well,
a mthilx's entire body was covered with small,
water filled sacs. A useful mechanism to survive during the dry season on
Remembrance, when the mthilx used to dig themselves
into soil homes and hibernate. The water sacs gave some measure of protection
from the radiation in space and provided limited nourishment. But all the
slaves had eventually died and their bodies and memories had never returned
to Remembrance. John Aldan had told him this. And
in that moment as he crawled, amoeba-like across the hull of the Vengeance,
to move to its underside, he realized that for the first time in all his life
he could not hear the rustle of the All, either through his membranes or in
his mind. And like his unknown, enslaved brethren he cried out in sorrow at
the loss. Calm yourself, he thought, as the tug floated towards
him, escorted by at least two-dozen starfighters.
Isolation madness takes months, even years. The tug locked onto the Vengeance and both ships
bounced as the magnetic couplers attached. The tug began its slow crawl
towards the cavernous belly of the Fist as Wrudox
held tightly to the underside of the Vengeance. *** They stood ankle-deep in the crimson soil, beside the "Such peace." Her hand was held tightly in
another's, her doing not his. "My father must be... will
be stopped. I can convince him. If I return. These weeks I've opened my eyes for the first time in
years." She turned to look at him but the wind picked up and
lifted the sand around in a brilliant red swirl that hid his face. He dropped
her hand and turned his back on her. His body drooped in sorrow. "For this," she said, gesturing to the wind
and sand, to the water and life surrounding them, "It must be
done." A loud alarm blared and Kyran
turned, screamed, "They come!" as she woke in her own bed. Groggily
she remembered that she was aboard the Fist and listened as the emergency
alarms cried. Jake knelt beside her on the bed, a large yellow capsule held
in one gloved hand, his other hand holding her left wrist. "What are you doing?" she mumbled. "You were having... a nightmare," he said,
his face only slightly flushed, pocketing the capsule and rising to his feet,
"but you are awake now." "The alarms?" "I am not certain. They just began." He lifted his com to his mouth and began asking
questions. Kyran stared up at him and wondered what
had been in the capsule. *** The All remained silent as the vines wriggled from
under the belly of the Vengeance. The moment the starship had landed upon the
sterile landing pad and the cargo-doors had sealed themselves
shut, several orifices had opened on the Vengeance and a steady stream of
roots had leapt from them. Wrudox had been almost
knocked down by the process as he hid behind a large loading crate towards
the edge of the landing bay, a short crawl from the Vengeance. He stared down
the hallway before him and saw the evenly spaced handholds. Hand over hand he
began to crawl down the hallway. He did not understand what the All was doing
-- but he had his own mission now. He paused for a moment beside a viewscreen in the empty hall and watched as a prerecorded
image of Saul Sterr with snowy hair and fiery eyes
appeared. "As Director," he said, "it is my
belief... my desire to unite the Universe under one Just and Beneficial
government. I desire an end to conflict between humans. The threats of the mthilx are just the beginning. The human race needs to be
United, needs to stand firm against the alien onslaught that is only now
beginning." And then, most surprising Kyran
appeared beside her father, her soft blond hair trailing down her shoulders.
His hearts stopped and he listened with horror. "The worms must be eradicated. Not just for what
they did to me but for what they would do to you, to your children if their
vile scourge is allowed to spread across the galaxy-" Wrudox pushed himself
away from the viewscreen, his body shaking with
horror. How could Kyran say such lies? The All's
absence burned painfully, a raw ache growing rapidly but this betrayal from Kyran hurt more. An empty sorrow rushed through him. "You promised," he whispered as he stood
there, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Stop there!" Wrudox turned, his
fingers wrapped tightly about the metal handhold to see four marines pointing
weapons at him. *** Jake finished speaking with Saul through the communications
system and said to Kyran, "We must get to the
bridge." "What is going on?" "We captured a ship breaking blockade... a worm
escaped from it. The ship is infecting our systems, like some kind of virus.
It has overridden several systems." "A worm?" Jake tugged her along. Kyran
did not understand how this could be happening. The Fist was safe. Safe from
the aliens and safe from the Earthlings. Her safe place. They could not find
her here -- daddy had promised her that. Jake opened the door and she let his
rough tug lead her right behind him but then he stopped abruptly and she
bumped into him. *** Wrudox noticed another
soldier (without the bug-helmet the marines wore) step out of a room behind
the squad. He looked slightly startled as he turned around and pushed someone
back into the room. Wrudox's quivering and
flattened nostrils caught the slightest whiff of river mist and woman's musk
in the recycled air. "Kyran," Wrudox whispered as he crawled rapidly towards the squad.
Just as the first weapon fired, Wrudox
threw himself from the handholds and rocketed towards them. Two shots hit him
painfully as he bowled into the men, but their gravboots
kept them rigid like statues and he did not knock them to the floor as he had
hoped, so instead he grabbed for soft flesh. The first soldier's neck snapped and he fell forward,
his boots popping off the floor as he floated away. Another taser burned his flesh but Wrudox
gripped one man's gun arm for leverage and lashed out rapidly with arms and
feet. One by one the tasers spun out of lifeless
hands. Blood covered him. His left side tingled and the scorch
marks from the tasers scraped painfully as he began
crawling towards the room where Kyran hid. He must
have looked the sight -- a lumbering whale of a humanoid, crawling hand over
hand down the weightless hall towards the small doorway. He got to it just as it opened -- the guard peeked his head out. Wrudox grasped him by
the throat and began choking him as the man raised his taser.
Smack. Wrudox tossed the man against the metal
doorway with such force that his head cracked. Thick blood floated upwards
from scalp and mouth. The dead man's boots slammed him upright to the floor
and the corpse swayed and jetted blood. Someone screamed hysterically. Wrudox crawled forward and looked into the room. Her hair was longer than the last time he had seen,
her, thick blond curls almost down to her waist. She wore a blue gown that
matched her eyes perfectly and her fingers were bare of any ornamentation. A
necklace of diamond stars embraced her smooth neck. She held a com in her
hands and was screaming into it. "He's found me! Daddy he's found me! Oh, god, oh
god." "It is Wrudox, my Kyran. Your friend. I am not here to hurt," he said.
"You killed Jake," Kyran
whimpered, "please don't hurt me." "What has been done to you?" She would not answer, but she begged for mercy with her
eyes. "I've come to save you." "Save? Me?" she stared at him as if he were
crazy, "No, this is just a nightmare. Just a nightmare!" He reached
out for her but she slapped his hand away. "The crash, don't you remember any of it?" She flinched. "Yes. That's when it began." "What began?" She began to tremble violently and she would have sat
down he thought, if not for her gravboots.
"Please don't hurt me again. Please. No more burning, no more beatings,
I cannot bear it-" She was crazy: wild-eyed, trembling and sweating. He
wanted to hug her but feared she would die from fright if he did. "Kyran, something evil
has been done to you. Memories rightfully yours have been stolen. I can
help," he said though he had no idea how, "you must come with
me." "I will never go with you!" "But you must." Light faded for a moment until red emergency lights
flared to life. The intercom came alive, a powerful and stern voice shouting
for order, "...all crews report to your emergency stations.
This is an evacuation order." "Daddy!" she tried to rush past Wrudox but he grabbed her by the arm. What had the All done? He could feel the ship groan as
it turned abruptly. Kyran stumbled
against the table. Wrudox reached for her, ignored
her screaming and squirming as he hoisted her overtop his shoulder. "For you, I do this Kyran,"
Wrudox said the lie even as he began to doubt his
own truth. *** Kyran cried as she
watched the pale blue discus of light tear the Fist apart, shattering it into
a million pieces. The two large Bulwark engines blew free, one smashing
through a flight of several starfighters,
destroying half of them before it resumed its spin into infinity. The other
penetrated the side of the Nebula II escort destroyer and both dissolved. "Daddy," she whispered as she watched the
flagship of the Armada buckle inwards to oblivion. She wrenched at her
bindings but could do nothing. She inhaled shallowly, the thick, plant smell
overwhelming and full of memory. Tiny black bugs crawled along the vines that bound her
across the waist to the bench. She slapped at them when they walked across
her legs. She watched her captor, her father's murderer,
pilot the ship, his body undulating to the same rhythm as the gentle
vibrations of the plants. Daddy would never kiss her forehead again, would never
hold her tight and call her Button. Daddy was dead. So was Jake. She sucked
in more wet, warm air, just enough to breath. She felt light-headed and tears
streaked her face. She looked down for a moment and when next she raised her
eyes she was staring into the worm's face. The roots moved across the control
panel as the starship leapt into hyperspace. "I am not afraid to die," she lied, her jaw set at a stubborn angle and her eyes flaring
defiantly. "Why would you die Kyran
Sterr?" the alien asked in his frighteningly
gentle voice. He seemed so familiar to her and she knew it meant that he was
one of her captors, one of her torturers. And now he mocked her fear. He laid
a hand on her shoulder and she tried not to tremble more. "That is why... why you wish to bring me to Earth,
so that those cruel planet-locked bastards will hang me. Don't deny it."
"Kyran Sterr, my name is Wrudox. I do
not lie. I bring you to Earth, but not as a prisoner. You are... my friend.
For I love you deeply." And then Kyran understood the
deep violet shade to the worm's eyes and his nervousness. It reminded her of
the fawning puppies that her father used to throw her way, in the hopes of
marrying her to some powerful general or bureaucrat. "Love me?" Kyran
said, "Either you joke cruelly with me, or one has been played upon
you." Wrudox growled. "Everyone knows that worms cannot love, for love
must be centered from the self and the mthilx have
only the group. You can't love me. It isn't in your genetics." "Can you deny my dreams? My pulse now as I sit
across from you races! If I close my eyes I see you. If I were a poet I'd sing
a thousand songs of your grace, of your beauty." "Worm," Kyran spat,
"There is no love in you! Your people are bugs. You have no imagination,
no dreams, no love." She quivered with anger,
her face flushed red and her hands balled into tight fists at her sides. Wrudox stared at her
for a long time before retreating back to the cockpit. *** "Lies," Wrudox
hissed, unable to contain his anger. His people could care, but bonding-love
was impossible. It was not in mthilx nature but
somehow it was in his! "Those days spent beneath my sun, Kyran Sterr, you deny me those
memories too? Our conversations, learning of each other's universes. The
scent of bat blossoms on the air and the silken flow of the river in front of
us as we sit along its crumbling red mud banks. A gentle wind that tousled
your hair as you close your eyes and sit there,
letting my world kiss you. You deny it all?" As a human might, he tapped
the side of his head, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh with some
force. Kyran's face whitened
further and though he longed to wrap his arms about her and let those tears
that he saw marshalling in her blue-green eyes fall on his shoulders, he knew
he could not. His presence frightened her. Could her own father have been cruel enough to modify
her memories? Wrudox thought of the vid-ad he had seen in the Fist's corridors and wondered
what effect Kyran's return from capture had had on
the people of the Armada. "They happened, maybe," Kyran
allowed and for the first time since he captured her, his hearts trilled with
excitement. "I remember what I remember but I remember what you say as
well. But not in the way you remember them -- we may have sat by a river,
maybe even as friends, but nothing more. There is no love between us. I just
want... want to go home... but I can't, can I, because you killed them
all." "They were the enemy," Wrudox
said. He knew as he spoke how weak his words were. "Enemy?" Kyran said
and the white in her face reddened. "You hypocrite. You came here to
stop the slaughter of your innocent people... but what of my innocent people?
And the soldiers that all died here, how many war widows have you made?"
Wrudox did not have
the words in him. Kyran lunged at him, slapping
with her sharp fingers and he winced. He raised his arms to ward off the
blows and she screamed at him. "What is real here worm? What is real! My weeks of
torture... do you want me to describe what I remember you doing to me, oh,
you, my stalwart rescuer. What foolish lines of ill-whispered poetry do you
remember hearing from my lips? I remember the torture and the fear and yet
the fear is only a memory." "It was not me... we have been tricked. Your
father, the All somehow-" "The All? What do plants know about guile and
trickery? That is a human thing and it seems that we had the misfortune of
passing our sophisticated cruelty onto at least one of you savages." Wrudox said, "The
mission was to avoid the Fist and the other starships. I was to go to Earth,
to get their support in our fight for freedom. The All wanted more... they
made me remember you." Wrudox hissed the
vines into silence. Kyran said nothing, her tirade
fading with the flush in her cheeks. "I landed on the Fist to rescue you." And Wrudox knew then the source of his confusion. If the All
could transfer the life memories and experiences of one mthilx
into another, with sufficient training or intervention what else might they
accomplish? Kyran saw something shatter in Wrudox's tiny eyes. "There is more. Something else." Damn you John Aldan. For who
else could have led the All down this path? Wrudox
knew it meant his people's survival but he could not hide his anger and the
All felt it, the vines slipping away from him and the false sun dimming,
casting the ship into the gloom that both Wrudox
and Kyran felt shrouding them regardless. "A mthilx
embraces all equally," Wrudox said, the words
sounded hollow yet rang true. He wanted to weep. He wanted to crush Kyran against him and kiss her with a human's passion. "Did you torture her? Is that real?" Wrudox screamed at the All, the center of his universe
the god of his people. Were her memories true? "They say your memories were made false." "And you believe them? What did they do to you --
they made you love me. They made a worm love a human. What else are they
capable of? They made you steal me away-" Tears flowed shamelessly down
her face. "I do love you though, Kyran,
no matter its source," Wrudox said, slinking
to the floor at her feet in a half crouch. "I can barely live with this
love. You once thought... warmly of me. You gave me this ring, your
mother's." He took the chain from his neck and handed the sapphire ring
to her. Kyran's mouth opened in
a small o. She took his offering but her features hardened, once her fingers
closed over the ring. "This is nothing, means nothing. You probably
stole it from me." "Your words are cruel." "You are a worm. I am human. How can I look upon
you without disgust? Whether my nightmares are fabricated or not matters
little now. I am what I am now. Just as you are." Wrudox's
eyes darkened and Kyran shut her mouth and turned
her gaze from him to stare out the small star port. "If you take me to Earth, they will hang me and
call it war's justice." The thought of her swaying beneath the lonely
sun of Earth filled him with such sadness that he near burst. "I will protect you." "You, who are all Fool
and Knight and Murderer rolled into one disgusting bundle. You either joke
with me or you are as stupid as my father believed." "Then we will go elsewhere. Anyplace you
desire." "I want to be with my father," Kyran said and she touched him, a painful jab to his
chest with her outstretched finger. "Can you arrange that?" "Kyran," Wrudox said, "My hearts are filled with sorrow at
your loss. I cannot take back what we did. I only offer you a future." "That I have no doubt of worm, but what I long for
is an impossibility. Fly us into a sun and our pain
will disappear, for though you think you love me it is a false love, and though I hate you I feel some pity for you. Let
us both die." Kyran cast her gaze upon the
floor. The pain was unbearable. Wrudox
had left all that he had known, watched a good friend sacrifice himself and now this. Had there ever been a more hollow
victory? Wrudox whispered
aloud, "And what of Kyran?" She looked up
at the mention of her name. "Reward!" Wrudox
raged and rose to his feet again. He wrapped his meaty fists around one of
the vines. "I'll reward us all!" He tore the vine in two. The mthilx knew not how to
weep. They could not love. They had little emotion but the raging beast
within them that always rode far under to the surface. Only the All kept it
buried. That was why the space walkers had died, for without the All they had
become savages, tearing each other and their human masters apart. The All
gave sanity and reason to mad animals. "Forgive me," Wrudox
whispered and wished that John Aldan had not died. That John Aldan might still
be the hero to him he once had been. "But you played me cruelly. So very
cruelly." He wailed, a loud song like
that of mourning, but different. The angry song of a human, a mthilx and a monster. *** Kyran wept for Wrudox and herself in the shattered hull of the
Vengeance. Wrudox sat in the
pilot's chair, the destroyed remnants of the plants scattered everywhere.
Liquid oozed out of the broken coral cases. Dead bugs were trampled under
foot. She floated, crouched in a ball, her hair spilling out behind her like
she was a sun without an orbit. Dead things floated everywhere. The starship
smelled dead. Wrudox screamed, his savagery and insanity increasing with each
new link to the All that he slew. When she looked at him she saw the true
monster that a worm might be. She wept freely. Wrudox
had spoken true of those times by the river -- she could remember those. Her
father had given her the nightmares, maybe but he could not erase the
pleasant memories. Jake had twisted her dreams, she supposed, drugging them
into nightmares. She rubbed the sapphire ring on her finger. But she could
not tell Wrudox that now. It was too late. Now the two of them would die. "They say," he growled, rising from his seat,
"that the madness takes weeks, months to... tear away this veil of
sanity. I think Kyran Sterr
that they were wrong. For me the madness covers me. I love you. I hate
you." Wrudox began to crawl
towards her. And Kyran screamed as all her
false nightmares became reality. © Brent
Knowles, 2004 |