by J. N. Chaney
“There. That is the reason we brought you here, child,” Falunis said.
Morgan craned her neck back, looking up at the battered wreckage soaring above her. It was another of the mysterious ships. Whole chunks of it were missing, leaving the interior open to the sea. Morgan even saw small creatures swimming in and out of it, casual flips of their fins as the sea, like always, reclaimed whatever it wanted.
“It’s junk. So?”
“Oh, it’s most certainly more than junk, child.”
Morgan shrugged, then looked around. She saw more wreckage scattered across the seafloor around them. The battered remains of ships and chunks of loose debris sprawled off in all directions, vanishing into the blue-black gloom of distance.
“It’s not. It’s just junk. How did it all get here?”
“There was a battle, many cycles ago. A dangerous, violent group of aliens attacked us. The battle started in space but finally made its way down into the atmosphere of this planet. It raged back and forth across the skies above us. As the alien ships were destroyed, they crashed here, into the ocean.” Falunis gestured around. “So you might say it all got here because of the bravery and determination of my people. It is—do you know what a memorial is, child?”
Morgan shook her head.
“A memorial is a way of remembering some great event, usually one that involves some great bravery or terrible sacrifice. That is what this is. It is a memorial. Many Nyctus died that day, defending their homes. Many of them fell here, too. So it allows us to remember them, and the great deeds they did to save us from those who would hurt us, even destroy us.”
“Okay. But I still don’t get why you’re showing me this.” In fact, she was starting to find it all pretty boring. Was that their plan? They couldn’t force her to do the things they wanted her to, so they were just going to bore her until she gave into them?
Morgan chuckled.
“You find something amusing, child?” Falunis asked.
“No,” Morgan said, trying to smooth her face into a serious expression. When they brought her here, the Nyctus had promised they wouldn’t try to see into her thoughts, if she promised to not do anything bad to them in return. But they didn’t have to see into her thoughts to know she was lying about finding it funny because she couldn’t stop herself from snickering again.
Falunis flickered harshly with annoyance. “It is disrespectful to behave this way in a sacred place.”
Morgan’s momentary flash of humor drained away. “You still haven’t said why you brought me here.”
Falunis stared at Morgan for a moment with bulbous eyes, then waved a tentacle at the nearby wreck. “I said this was a memorial. This particular wrecked ship is something else. It’s a miracle.”
Morgan turned and looked up at the smashed hull towering over her. “It just looks like junk to me.”
“Child, reach out to all around you. Feel their minds.”
“Why?”
There was another brief glimmer of irritation, but Falunis quickly smoothed it away into a more calm and controlled display of bioluminescent patience.
“Just indulge me, child. Reach out and feel all of those present around you.”
Morgan sighed and did. She let her consciousness spread from her, expanding her sense of things the way looking through Daddy’s telescope back on Nebo let her see other planets and stars and things much more clearly. Her awareness touched Falunis, whose mind was carefully closed off to her, as though hidden behind a stout wall. And there were the other shamans, and the Nyctus with them, and—
Morgan yanked her consciousness back into herself, then turned and looked at the wreck, her eyes going wide.
“There’s someone inside there!”
“That’s the miracle of this, child. One of our enemies survived, against all odds, even as the remains of its ship settled here, onto the sea floor. We found it barely alive. However, alive it was.”
“So why don’t you get it out of there and help it?”
Falunis gleamed with a display of cold smugness. “Why should we? It and its kind attacked us. We owe it nothing.”
“But you can’t just let it stay in there. It’ll die!”
“We’re making sure that doesn’t happen.” Falunis drifted to within reach of the wreckage and brushed a tentacle along the cold, hard metal, pitted and corroded. “We give it what it needs to survive—air, food, fresh water.” She turned back to Morgan. “Oh, and the will to live, of course. We have told it that, eventually, we will release it and return it to its people, as part of a larger peace agreement with them.”
“So do that!” Morgan moved beside Falunis and touched the cold hardness of the broken hull with her fingers. “It’s so scared and lonely.”
“It is, isn’t it? In any case, returning it to its people wouldn’t be possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re all dead. We killed them all.”
Morgan stared at Falunis for a moment. She didn’t understand. You couldn’t kill everyone.
Could you?
Morgan looked at the old hull, then back to Falunis. She could still feel the desperate loneliness of the creature trapped inside the crashed ship. The—
—constant, gnawing fear. Huddled in the chill darkness, not knowing if or when you would ever be free. That distant speck of hope that you might be, but not really believing that. Sheer terror every time the battered hull creaked or snapped or groaned, and this might be the instant the stressed and corroded metal finally fails under the weight of water and time. Would you feel anything if it did? Would you die instantly, or would it be obscenely slow and painful, an awful, miserable ending to an awful, miserable existence—
Morgan again yanked herself back out of the trapped alien’s thoughts. She spun on Falunis.
“You’re so bad. You’re not like my friends on Tāmtu at all. I hate you!”
Falunis didn’t flinch. “Why? Why do you hate us?”
“Because you do stuff like this!” She pointed at the wreckage. “That’s so bad, so—it’s—it’s—evil.” That was the word. Even speaking it was bitter, but it was the right word.
“These creatures attacked us, child. They killed many of our people. They killed many of our young. What were we supposed to do? Try to be their friends?”
“Yes!”
“We tried. We reached out to them. Their answer was to attack us again.”
Morgan looked back at the looming hulk.
“They were dangerous and violent. They kept attacking us. If we hadn’t done what we did and destroyed them, then I might be the one trapped in a broken ship like this, on one of their worlds,” Falunis said.
Morgan pressed her lips together. Falunis was somehow managing to sound so reasonable about it all. Almost sad, like the Nyctus had no choice. That they wanted to be friendly and peaceful, but these aliens wouldn’t have it.
They were just protecting themselves.
“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing, child? Just protecting yourself? From Thorn Stellers? From us?”
Morgan turned back abruptly. “You’re not supposed to be in my head! You promised!”
Falunis raised a tentacle. “You are right, child, and I apologize. I only wanted to ensure that you were okay. I know this is very distressing.”
Morgan once again turned to the wreckage, but she looked at Falunis sidelong. She said she wanted to make sure Morgan was okay. Morgan almost believed that. Almost.
And then it was so clear. The Nyctus weren’t one people, but two. The ones on Tāmtu, the Radiants, were her friends. They were nice. They were kind and thoughtful and would never keep a creature so horribly imprisoned like this. These ones, though, were the Monsters. They were mean and nasty, cruel, and vicious. They weren’t her friends at all.
Morgan already knew where the Nyctus had come from. She’d accidentally caused them to be made when she tried and failed to bring the old Earth ship, the Pool of Stars, from the past and into the p
resent. She didn’t really understand it very well, but doing that made the Nyctus, and now here they were.
And she knew why there were the Monsters and the Radiants, too. That had also been her doing. She’d made the Nyctus of Tāmtu into the Radiants, so they’d be her friends and protect her.
Maybe she should do that again. Maybe she should make these Nyctus, these Monsters, into Radiants, too. Make them all her friends. Then they wouldn’t do terrible things like this, like keeping this poor creature imprisoned this way.
“I am curious, child. Why do you hate Thorn Stellers so much?” Falunis suddenly asked.
“I—what?” Morgan scowled at the abrupt and unexpected question.
“It is a simple question, child. Why do you hate Thorn Stellers so much? I have been told that you do, but I don’t know why.”
“Because he doesn’t like me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He tried to change me. He wanted to make me into something else, something I’m not.”
“And you don’t believe that’s right? Trying to change something into something it’s not?”
“Well, no! That’s not right at all! Everyone is how they are,” Morgan said, nodding with a firm smile. She wasn’t just convinced of the rightness of her words, she was also proud of how grown-up they sounded.
“Child, what happened to the Nyctus on Tāmtu? How did they become your friends, as you call them? Were they your friends from the moment you arrived there?”
“No, I had to change—” Morgan said, then stopped.
She’d changed them. She’d made them into the Radiants. She’d made them into her friends.
She’d made the Nyctus from the people aboard the Pool of Stars.
“Is someone really your friend if you force them to be?” Falunis asked quietly.
Morgan stared at the broken hull.
“Child—?”
“No! They’re not!” Morgan said, a thick sob choking off her voice. For a while, she just cried. This was suddenly all so confusing. Just like that, Morgan wasn’t sure what to think.
Falunis’s voice became even softer. “Child, it is the things that you say, and that you do, that will convince someone to be their friend.”
Morgan sobbed and shrugged.
“Would you like us to be friends? All of the Nyctus, and not just the ones on Tāmtu? Your real and true friends?”
She shrugged again and just stared at the nearby hull, which was all that separated the lonely alien from the freezing crush of water around it. These were Monsters. She didn’t want Monsters to be her friends.
But—if she did become their friend, then would they still be Monsters?
Morgan suddenly felt as lost and alone as the alien trapped on the other side of the battered hull. She did want to have Falunis and the other Nyctus as friends. She wanted somebody, anybody, to be her friend right now.
Falunis just waited. Morgan finally turned to her. “I would like you to be my friends,” she said.
Falunis flashed with satisfaction. “Very well. Then all you have to do is prove to us that you’ll help us, by keeping us safe. And then we’ll keep you safe in turn.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Falunis gestured at the ship. “We would like you to kill the creature inside there. As long as it’s alive, their threat will never truly be gone.”
Morgan gaped for a moment, then shook her head so hard it almost made her start spinning around. “No! I won’t do that!”
“So you don’t care about us, after all. You really don’t want us to be friends,” Falunis said sadly.
“No, I do! But I don’t want to hurt anyone. Besides, how can the alien inside there still be a threat? He’s all alone, and so scared—”
“Which is why he’s a threat. Even though all of his people are dead, we still can’t release him. If we did, he could come back someday and do terrible harm to our people. Imagine if he found Thorn Stellers.”
Morgan glared at Falunis. “I want us to be friends, but not like that! I won’t kill him just because you’re afraid of him! He can’t even hurt you!”
Falunis sagged slightly. “I was afraid you would say that. I’d hoped you wouldn’t, but here we are.” She seemed to think for a moment, then flicked her tentacles and moved away, toward the closest of the Nyctus armed with one of the wicked-looking guns. “Well, if you won’t do this, then I will. It would be cruel to let the poor creature continue suffering so.” She took the gun from the Nyctus and aimed it at the wreckage.
Morgan swam toward her. “No! Don’t!”
“I’m sorry, child, but all actions have consequences. We offered you friendship, if you did this one little thing for us. You’ve chosen not to. You’re prepared to let this creature go on living in the cold and darkness. Frankly, I don’t know that I’d want someone who would do that as a friend, anyway.”
Before Morgan could move or speak, Falunis fired the gun. A stream of projectiles erupted from it with a sharp, staccato popping noise as their passage ripped open cavities in the water, which instantly collapsed with a snap.
Morgan winced as a terrific clanging slammed through the water in ear-splitting waves. She tried to scream out, to get Falunis to stop, but her voice vanished into the terrible noise of the gun. Chunks of corroded metal were flung in all directions from the impact. Finally, the repeated hammer blows breached the hull, allowing water to thunder inside.
Morgan heard the creature scream in her head.
It went on and on, and Morgan wailed in response, appalled at the raw, desolate terror emanating from the trapped alien. Then a heavy boom shuddered through the wreck, a whole section of the hull around the ragged hole imploded, and that terrible shriek cut suddenly off.
A thick, ponderous silence fell, broken only but the rushing burble of air escaping the shattered wreckage and bubbling up toward the distant surface of the ocean.
Morgan balled her fists. “Why did you do that?”
All of the Nyctus except Falunis raised their guns and trained them on Morgan. At the same time, the shamans flung up a wall of magical defense.
Falunis, though, just drifted calmly back toward Morgan.
“I did that, child, because it needed to be done, and you wouldn’t,” Falunis said.
“You didn’t need to,” Morgan said, her voice almost a hiss.
“Oh, but I did. As I said, the poor creature couldn’t go on like that. But the real tragedy here is that you rejected us. We asked you to show us that you wanted us to be friends, and you refused. So you forced me to do what had to be done.” Falunis’s voice had become slower and sadder as she spoke.
Morgan’s eyes stung, and her throat became a hurtful lump.
Falunis flashed with the somber colors of regret. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave us many choices. We tried the hard way, trying to force you, and not only did that not work, but it was wrong. We know that now. So, we tried this way, giving you a chance to prove that your desire to be friends with us is true. That hasn’t worked, either. So, now we’ll have to try the final way.” Falunis lifted the weapon slightly, not aiming it at Morgan, but close to her.
Morgan pushed her voice past that hard, painful knot stuck in her throat. “And what if that doesn’t work?”
“It doesn’t matter, child, because you won’t be here to see it.”
8
It was good to be back on the Hecate, Thorn thought. Good for him, anyway. His sojourn with the Danzur had been an unwelcome distraction, little more. But he couldn’t just brush it aside, either. Not with Kira still there, now officially part of the formal Allied Stars embassy to the Danzur Sovereignty.
He strode along the Hecate’s main longitudinal corridor, then he rounded one of the ninety-degree bends in the corridor, which were intended to mitigate the effects of any blast that might propagate along it during battle. No sooner had he turned the corner, though, than he slammed into something big.
And green.
Thorn bounced off the big alien, almost stumbling back. Not surprising, because he must weigh a good two-and-a-half times what Thorn did.
“Bertilak, you’re blocking the corridor?” Thorn said, looking up to Bertilak, who remained oddly unmoving.
Thorn stepped back, the nape of his neck tingling. On instinct, he reached for his talisman. Something wasn’t right.
A heartbeat later, though, Bertilak suddenly perked up, blinking. “Thorn, I—I didn’t even see you coming.”
“I know that. You were just standing there, like you were frozen. What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” Bertilak replied, passing a hand over his face, then rubbing his eyes.
Thorn touched his talisman through the fabric of his uniform. If this were any other crewman, he’d be escorting them to the infirmary right now. But this was Bertilak, a magical construct created by Morgan. Thorn really had no idea what made him tick, which meant he also had no idea what sorts of things could go wrong with him.
Bertilak just gave a tired smile, though. “Don’t worry, Thorn. I’m not about to go on some rampage. I do need to talk to you, though, I believe.”
Thorn lowered his hand from his talisman but kept himself wary. “Okay.”
“Not here. Let’s return to my shuttle and speak there.”
Thorn gave Bertilak a narrow-eyed look. “Why?”
“It’s about Morgan.”
Oh.
Thorn gestured for Bertilak to lead the way. Thorn followed him, winding back through the corridors to the airlock where Bertilak’s shuttle had docked with the Hecate.
Once inside, Bertilak closed and sealed the hatch. He didn’t turn to Thorn and start speaking right away, though. Instead, he moved to the viewport facing away from the Hecate, into empty space.
“She’s out there, Thorn.”
“I believe you. I know Kira thinks she’s dead, but I don’t.”
“No, I mean—” Bertilak turned back. “She’s out there. Right now. I can hear her.”