by Tim C Taylor
“Birds,” Indiya murmured in awe. “They’re birds.”
He realized she was right. At the front of each fiery trail an avian form could be glimpsed, shooting forward in a blur of flaming wings. It was over in a matter of seconds. The thunder, the roiling flashes of lightning were gone, and the mist seemed to settle, to recede a little, as if gathering in on itself. The birds had all disappeared, presumably distributed across the jungle without, miraculously, setting any of it alight.
“Firebirds,” the Emperor proclaimed. “A wonder, don’t you think?”
Arun could only agree.
“The Flek plays a vital part in their life cycle, the Emperor continued. “Only when concentrations reach a critical level are the birds able to breed – a spectacle you’ve just witnessed. You’re fortunate to have arrived when you did. For each colony this only happens twice a year at most – sometimes just once – and there are only two colonies of the birds remaining in all of Athena.”
Arun couldn’t help wonder how big a part luck had played if any; he wouldn’t put it past the White Knights to manipulate the Flek levels here as they had to defend the citadel so that it reached the correct concentration to trigger the birds’ breeding frenzy. For all that, the more time he spent in the presence of the Emperor and these other, mostly silent, courtiers, the less in awe of them he felt. Whatever their purpose in arranging this ‘grand tour’, he had a feeling his growing familiarity and the confidence it brought would prove to be the most beneficial result; for him, if not for the White Knights.
“Now,” the Emperor said, with a definite ephemeral cobweb of wrinkles in the corner of each eye, “time for refreshments, I believe.”
——
“There is a certain irony, do you not think, in the fact that among all our client species you humans are the ones who most closely resemble my own royal form?”
It was the second day of the tour. Indiya had departed the previous night, and Admiral Kreippil had flown out to replace her as Arun’s aide. The Littorane looked awkward in his heavy suit, and Arun had the impression he would have given much to be somewhere else; anywhere else.
The resemblance the Emperor referred to hadn’t escaped Arun. He wondered if this might have been a factor in the Night Hummers’ decision to develop humans as the instruments of their lofty schemes – or one of the instruments at any rate. He still wasn’t entirely clear as to how the Hummers’ politics panned out and where the Hardits fitted in. Was it really a case of different factions developing rival strategies, as Indiya seemed convinced, or was this all part of one grand scheme, the nature of which eluded the poor puppets destined to dance to the Hummers’ tune? He wouldn’t put it past those gas-breathing slugs to be playing a long game, which humans and Hardits alike were so close to, so immersed in, that they couldn’t step back and grasp the broader picture.
“Yes,” was all he said by way of reply – accompanied by the obligatory smile.
They didn’t have far to travel for their first destination that day, flitting to a region on the far side of the mountain range from where they’d seen the firebirds. Here a broad river plunged over a cliff edge to produce a spectacular waterfall. The sound was deafening, and so much spray arose that for a moment Arun could make out an ephemeral rainbow.
“At this season more than 120,000 cubic meters of water plunge over the crest-line of the falls every minute,” the Emperor explained, “dropping over fifty meters to the Lower River.”
Arun couldn’t help reflect that he was being shown around by surely the wealthiest and most powerful tour guide in history, and that continued to bother him. He didn’t believe for a moment that the Emperor did anything without a clear purpose, and the longer the tour went on the less convinced Arun became that the trip was designed merely to impress him.
After leaving the falls they followed the Lower River to the sea and then skimmed along the coastline to a lagoon where great sea leviathans fought – the ship’s hull once again enabling them to see more than the naked eye could have hoped to, piercing the surface of the ocean to show the combat in gory detail. The beasts, identified by the Emperor as Nahjin, tore at each other with sharp talons and the single spiral horn that each bore, a horn that emerged from their ridged foreheads just above the eyes.
Text appeared as Arun watched, providing sub-titles that explained how the male Nahjin shed both horns and talons following the mating season, the forelimbs resuming their customary form as flippers, which were far more practical once the beasts returned to their natural home in the ocean’s deepest reaches. Here they would remain for two full Athenian years, until the imperative to mate once more brought them from the depths to seek their traditional courting lagoons.
Once every two years. Again, it would appear that Arun’s arrival involved some very fortuitous timing. How lucky was he?
The subtitles were a new development, causing Arun to glance around in the direction of his host. The Emperor was conversing with his advisors, and nobody apart from the ‘humans’ seemed remotely interested in the spectacle below. Arun bit back his anger, convinced more than ever that the White Knights were deliberately wasting his time.
“Very interesting,” Arun said loudly, cutting across the Emperor’s conversation, “if a little blood-thirsty.” The Nahjin were giving no quarter, and the sea was rapidly churning with so much blood that at times even the plane’s capabilities to produce a clear image were challenged.
“Indeed,” the Emperor replied, breaking away from his conversation. “I thought it might appeal to your martial instincts.”
Arun exchanged glances with the general.
The next stop on the tour brought them to a vast swath of open farmland, where regimented rows of upright green plants marched away towards every horizon. Here and there among these sentry-straight stems long-legged creatures paced, pecking intently at the ground. They would have come up to Arun’s knees, back in the days when he could stand. Another type of bird, he judged, although they seemed to lack feathers and their wings had regressed to the point where they were no more than residual stumps.
“We raise both for food,” the Emperor explained, “the cereal and larchen alike. The whole process is entirely automated, of course. It’s an efficient symbiotic system – the larchen feed on a diet of dropped seeds and insects, in the process helping to keep parasites at bay. The plants provide the birds with shelter and food, the birds protect the plants by disposing of harmful insects while also enriching the soil with their guano.”
“And then you eat both,” Arun observed. “Do you grow all your own food, then?”
“By no means. If the entire surface of Athena were devoted to food production, there would still be too little to sustain the population of the Habitat. No, the vast majority of what we consume is synthesized, but there remains a nostalgic pleasure in eating food grown naturally. We consider it a delicacy.”
“I’ve seen no sign of industry anywhere,” Arun remarked. Everything he had been shown so far had been either rural idyll or wild spectacle. He realized that the Emperor – or whoever was advising him – was picking and choosing the itinerary and, in all likelihood, would steer him away from less savory sights, but Arun was keen to see the dirty underbelly of White Knight society as well, assuming that such a thing existed.
“Nor will you find any,” the Emperor replied. The Emperor’s face remained bland, unreadable to human eyes, but Arun fancied he caught the ghost of disdain, just for a moment. “We are the White Knights. We do not participate in ‘industry’.”
“Of course not,” Arun murmured. “You have subject races for that sort of thing.”
“We do. Subject races and automation. There are vast areas of the Habitat – which you call the Tree – dedicated to processing and production, but we do not get directly involved in such things.”
Arun caught a glimpse then of a decadent society, for whom every task was performed by others, leaving them with nothing to occupy their time except for
time itself. “What do you do, then?” he asked, curiosity making him bold.
“We rule.”
——
The third day of the tour saw Del-Marie arrive to join Arun. He looked tired, and frustrated.
“Going well?” Arun asked.
“Not exactly.”
While Arun and the Emperor were proceeding across the surface of Athena, Del had begun the real work, negotiating with a party of Imperial advisors. The idea being that, between them, they would have thrashed out some of the ground rules and found common areas of consensus for when Arun and the Emperor joined them at the tour’s conclusion.
“We’re going round in circles,” Del explained. “The White Knights are showing no real interest in negotiating at all; they’re stalling, buying time, I’m certain of it.”
“What for?”
Del shrugged. “The Emperor’s return, perhaps?”
Arun hoped that was all it was. Del’s assessment gelled uncomfortably with his own suspicions. Initially, he had seen the grand tour as an attempt by the Emperor to woo his favor, but he now couldn’t escape the conviction that it was nothing more than a deliberate waste of his time, intended to distract him. But from what?
“Have Indiya put the fleet on alert,” he said, quietly, not convinced that the Imperial’s couldn’t eavesdrop if they chose to but seeing no other choice. “And use the Hummers. Get reports in from every sector.”
“Looking for what, exactly?”
“Anything: unusual activity, suspicious shipping movements… I don’t know. I just feel we ought to be looking over our shoulders.”
Del met his gaze and nodded.
——
Perhaps inspired by Arun’s comments regarding a lack of industry, the tour took a new turn on this third day. The royal plane landed on a platform in the side of one of the great towers that supported the Tree. Arun wasn’t sure how far up they were from the ground, but, glancing down, he would guess several kilometers, which still meant they were only part of the way towards the vast artificial shell that enveloped Athena.
From a distance, these towers appeared to be slender, spindly things, far too fragile to support the great shell. Close up, this one at least was revealed to be a vast and solid construct, capable of supporting almost anything. Questions flashed through Arun’s mind – not his own so much as excited queries raised by the freaks and others on the science staff: are the towers really supporting the tree or are they merely providing a physical link between planet and shell? Has the additional mass of the Tree slowed Athena’s orbit or rotation? If not, how have the Knights compensated? If so, what effect has this had on Athena’s climate and geology…? Arun dismissed the questions. Doubtless those curious enough would get their answers, and when they did, he’d be happy to hear them. For now, though, he was content to accept that the White Knights were capable of doing almost anything.
As soon as the plane settled the platform retracted, bringing them into the enclosed environment of the tower. Arun could not have been more pleased. There were only so many fields and forests a man could take, at least this man, and over the previous two days he had seen more than his fill. Raised on the subterranean world of Tranquility and having spent most of his adult life cocooned within the confining environment of one ship or another, he felt far more comfortable in the tower’s interior than he did under open blue skies, however contrived those blue skies might have been.
From the plane they decanted to an elevator, giving Arun little chance to take in his surroundings. Metal conduits, blisters and protrusions of opaque purpose, and a vague impression of activity despite the fact they encountered only a few people – all of them White Knights – and then their party was being whisked upwards. It took a matter of seconds to complete an ascent that must have covered a considerable distance – ten klicks, twenty? – but seemed as smooth as silk.
“Here we are,” the Emperor said as they stepped out onto surprisingly comfortable flooring. “The Habitat.”
Arun wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but the reality confounded any preconception. They were in a vast room – though the ceiling was comparatively low, perhaps twice the Emperor’s height. The industrial feel of the tower he had glimpsed so briefly before entering the elevator had done nothing to prepare him for this. Soft lighting, with furniture – at least he assumed it was furniture, though it certainly hadn’t been designed for any human form – placed in clusters around the room, and beneath his chair there was carpet, or something like it. Soft, springy, but seemingly alive – he could swear he saw the fibers adjusting to people as they shifted their feet and weight. Everything was curved and rounded – the chairs bore no corners, the room was ovoid in design, with the walls arcing to become the ceiling rather than simply joining it, and the color of the décor varied from off-white to a very pale yet warm orange.
The whole scene was so far removed from anything Arun would have associated with the White Knights that for a moment all he could do was stare. And it was then that he heard it. A sound; so quiet that at first he wondered if he’d imagined it. He found himself straining to be certain, to isolate this, what, music? No, not that. Murmured conversation? No, not that either. Something mechanical…? No, this was none of those. It was… in truth, he couldn’t work out what it might be.
“What’s that sound?” he asked, fearing that he risked making a fool of himself.
“Ah.” The Emperor appraised him for a moment. “We call it aichajor, and well done: I was wondering if you would be able to detect it. The Habitat is vast and, despite the number of us living here, there are times when any one of us may enter a space such as this,” and he gestured to take in the empty room, “and find ourselves alone. Aichajor prevents that. Pitched to fall just short of our conscious grasp of sound, it conveys a sense of something happening just out of sight, of a quiet conversation taking place around the corner. Aichajor permeates every corner of the Habitat. It fills the gaps in sentient experience and ensures that no White Knight need ever feel alone.
“Psychological balance is important to us, and this is one of the ways we maintain it. Now, let me show you another.”
The Emperor led the way to the right hand side of the room, where the apparently seamless wall split apart at their approach, granting access to a long arc-walled corridor – a tube with a flat floor – in which the mellow color scheme and soft flooring continued, as did the aichajor, its constant presence leading Arun to wonder how this almost-sound could ever be considered comforting. He was finding it just plain annoying, more likely to drive a person mad as they strained to capture it than aid their ‘psychological balance’.
“Is all the Habitat like this?” Arun asked. “Carpeted and so…” Cozy, bland? “…comfortable?” he finished.
“Much of it, yes,” the Emperor confirmed, “though there are quarters far more elegantly appointed, and sectors that are industrial in nature, or so I believe – for food production, power generation, that sort of thing.”
“And do White Knights work in these industrial sectors?”
“You already know the answer.”
Interesting. The Emperor had already mentioned that industry was conducted by lesser races, and the Legion had captured millions of servants and workers in their seizure of Australia, largely permitting them to go about their business. But Arun wanted to know more. If the White Knights were outnumbered on their own world, what kept them in power? And could their hold on power be disrupted?
“Much of it is automated, of course,” the Emperor added, as if sensing the direction of his thoughts.
“Of course.”
They reached the far side of the corridor, which ended in a blank wall. One of the royal entourage gestured and the wall turned translucent. What lay beyond sent a chill down Arun’s spine: a roiling turmoil of orange-brown mist.
“Flek!”
“Indeed.”
Looking at the corridor filled with churning gas, Arun was reminded again of t
he Night Hummers swimming in their sealed chambers. “Why?” he asked, ignoring a warning look from Del. Diplomacy could go hang itself. “Why bring Flek up here?” For surely it had to have been deliberately installed, whether ferried from the surface or artificially created here. He could accept that Flek was a natural phenomenon on Athena, but why would any sane being choose to take this poisonous stuff with them when given the chance to escape from the surface and leave it behind?
“Our race evolved under the constant shadow of Flek.” The Emperor’s words were delivered in the same majestic manner that all his speech was, but this time more than ever Arun felt that he was being talked down to, that he was a child having the obvious explained to them by a far more knowledgeable adult. “As a result, Flek has played a crucial role in shaping the race you know as the White Knights, in enabling us to evolve into a superior lifeform that has established dominion over such a large sector of space.”
Arun kept his thoughts to himself on the ‘superior’ part; even he couldn’t deny that the Knights’ achievements were remarkable, made all the more so because they had sustained their dominion for such an impressively long time.
“It is important you understand this,” the Emperor continued, “for only then can you hope to understand us and appreciate the nature of our rule. Emerging in an environment dominated by Flek has made us stronger by forcing our ancestors to adapt or perish. Flek is a mutagen, an avatar of evolution. Those who survive its touch are changed, which has enabled our race to evolve at a giddy rate, new forms emerging in the space of a generation that would normally have taken centuries or millennia to develop, while adaptations that may never have been realized in the natural order of things, might never have emerged from the tangled confusion of genetic potential, have become viable and established.