The Last Days of Krypton

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Many of them were barely out of their teens, with fire in their blood. What they lacked in experience and reasonable caution they made up for with radical enthusiasm. They were young enough to be naïve, convinced of their own righteousness, never imagining that their closely held beliefs might be wrong. They were perfect for what Zod had in mind.

  At a glance, he could see that some were doubtful that Commissioner Zod would be any different from previous government officials—skeptical, just as Aethyr had originally been. He simply smiled at them. “The old Council is gone, and so is our old way of life. Not one of you will mourn that. Do not pretend otherwise.” He could tell by their shocked expressions that he had grabbed their attention. “In order to achieve my goals, I need a cadre of close advisers to stand with me as I do what must be done, for Krypton’s sake. Will you listen to what I have to say?”

  The younger nobles glanced at one another, some muttering questions while others remained silent. Koll-Em said brashly, “It does no harm for us to hear you out.”

  “No one’s ever taken us seriously before,” Mon-Ra added. He had a well-muscled body, created by physical sculpting rather than hard labor.

  “Come, let us descend a ways into the crater.” Zod gestured to the sharp drop-off and the uneven switchbacked path Aethyr had marked out.

  She stepped up to the lip. “The Commissioner needs you to touch what actually happened here. Feel it viscerally, grasp the power of one evil alien who uprooted a city and left a hole halfway through the crust. Make yourselves different from those who issue pronouncements while they sit in comfort halfway across the continent.”

  “Like my brother.” Koll-Em’s voice dripped with loathing.

  “Down in the crater?” Vor-On said, alarmed. Only a moment ago, he had been bursting with excitement at the thought of being part of the Commissioner’s inner circle.

  “I have no use for timid advisers, Vor-On. You are welcome to stay in the camp with the other manual laborers.”

  The young man swallowed hard. “No, no. I’ll come…if the rest of you do.” He looked around. His square-cut hair no longer looked terribly stylish.

  Zod took the first step onto the crumbling slope. Pebbles skittered downward, but he found solid footing. “Aethyr explored our route last night. It may be difficult going, but if a simple hike is beyond your abilities, you are not the people I am looking for.”

  None of the seventeen turned down the offer.

  Aethyr led the group, picking her way from boulder to boulder, sliding on loose dirt, holding on to outcroppings. Some of the ground had been fused into glassy patches by Brainiac’s powerful cutting beams. They scrambled deeper and deeper until they were far from the lip, away from the edge and any possible spies. Nam-Ek’s burly silhouette waited for them on top.

  Down here, the air smelled of sulfur and steam, foul water and bitter dust. Zod’s hands were dirty and sore from gripping sharp-edged stones as he worked his way down. One tall, loose-limbed man, Da-Es, slipped and stumbled, dropping almost two meters before Aethyr snagged his tunic and stopped his fall. Da-Es regained his composure and brushed himself off. He looked with scorn at his torn clothing, a smear of blood, the scrapes and bruises.

  “And? Do you want to return, climb up to the top?” Zod prodded him.

  “My ego is more bruised than my body is,” Da-Es said. “I want to hear why you’ve gone to such great lengths so no one will overhear us.”

  After a quarter of an hour of climbing, they reached a shelf of rock. Zod and Aethyr waited as all seventeen gathered on the stable ledge or balanced on rocky protrusions slightly above.

  “As you can guess,” Zod began, “this is not the sort of meeting where we serve refreshments or adhere to rules of order. This is a war council.” The young men looked surprised; some nodded grimly. “Krypton is at war, not just against alien invaders like Brainiac, but also against those of our own people who would keep our great civilization stagnant, as in the old days.”

  Most of the seventeen muttered in agreement, Koll-Em the loudest.

  “Many of us quietly disagreed with the entrenched Kryptonian Council, and now, too late, all can see that their fossilized attitudes left us vulnerable. Now that the footdraggers are gone, I cannot in good conscience allow that to happen again. Ever.” Zod saw that his candidates were waiting anxiously to hear what he proposed. “The older members of your families were vested in the former status quo. They felt entitled to a privileged life. Some of them have already begun talk of reestablishing a Council identical to the old worthless one. They want to lead us back into our naïve and helpless ways.”

  Aethyr added, “We can’t allow your fathers and older brothers to cripple us again.”

  “Of course not,” said Koll-Em. “It’s time for the older ones to step aside and let the more visionary people—like all of us—have our turn.”

  Da-Es said, “It’s not fair that no one ever asks us our opinion.”

  Mon-Ra added, casually flexing his bicep, “We’ve always been prevented from helping when that’s what we most wanted to do.”

  “But they’re our families,” said Vor-On.

  Zod hid his brewing smile behind a grave expression. “I’m not calling your older brothers evil or stupid, but they simply do not realize the damage they’ve caused. Not even now! It is time for me to form a new advisory board and take useless variables out of the equation.”

  “Commissioner, you’re talking about overthrowing the established noble families.” Vor-On sounded very upset. “I wanted to be one of them, not destroy them.” The young man looked at the others crowded on the ledge. The sulfur fumes were making his eyes sting. “You can’t expect us to take part in this…this mutiny.”

  Zod let out a tired sigh. “Very well, Vor-On. I thought I could count on your support, but do what you think is best for Krypton.” He held out his hand in a genial gesture. Relieved, the eager young noble accepted the hand, shaking it as Zod continued, “And I’ll do what I think is best.”

  With an abrupt, violent jerk, he yanked Vor-On over the edge and released him. The young noble was dropping out into the open pit before he even knew he had lost his footing. His yelp of disbelief turned into a fading scream of terror. The walls were sheer, and the crater was very, very deep. The shout cut off when Vor-On struck something, but his body continued to slide and bounce for a long time afterward.

  Ignoring the dwindling noise, Zod turned back to the group on the ledge, expecting to see a scramble of panic or horror. Instead, he saw only grim determination. Excellent. “So, are you willing to be my sixteen advisers? My inner circle? The position is yours if you choose to join me—if you help me make Krypton strong again and swear your loyalty to me.”

  “I swear it,” Aethyr said proudly. “Only Commissioner Zod can save us from our own shortsightedness.”

  Koll-Em said, “Even if we fail, I would rather fail trying to be something than succeed in attempting nothing.”

  “I’ve listened to my brother’s constant talk, and I know what he intends,” said Da-Es, rubbing his scraped knee. “It would be suicide for us to do as the older nobles plan to. You have my support, Commissioner.”

  Very quickly, all of the others threw in their lot with Zod.

  He admired his new inner circle. “In order to symbolize our unity and our vision, I name you my Ring of Strength. Together we will be unbreakable. We will encircle all that was best about Krypton. Follow my lead, obey my orders, and we will bring about a golden age greater than any Krypton has ever seen.”

  When they climbed back out of the crater, the whole group seemed changed, energized, reborn. As they emerged to stand firmly beside Zod and Aethyr with Nam-Ek in front of them, the Commissioner sent criers throughout the camp to gather an audience as swiftly as possible.

  People came streaming from the canals and tents and work sites to hear the announcement. No one seemed to notice that Vor-On was gone. With all of Kandor lost, who could keep track of every missing
person?

  Zod felt a chill as he confessed quietly to Aethyr, “I am about to make history. I can feel it.”

  She gave him a sidelong glance. “You’ve already made history. What you’re about to do now is create a legend. I will help you make yourself into a veritable demigod.”

  Standing on a pile of boulders at the crater lip, Zod lifted his hands and shouted, “This is not a time for indecisiveness. This is not a time for debates and factions. This is a time for us to be strong under a single leader with a single vision.” He shouted at the top of his lungs. “This is a time for Zod—the new ruler of Krypton!”

  CHAPTER 42

  When the distant early-warning outpost was completed on the empty plains, all twenty-three receiving dishes turned their detector arrays toward the open sky. They listened for the faintest whispers from the empty heavens. Optical telescopes studied the stars at night, while longer-wavelength sensors combed the neighborhood of space during the day.

  In the design of the facility, Jor-El had provided for the streams of data to be shunted directly to his expanded research building back at the estate. Shortly after the Kandor disaster, his servants and groundskeepers had all departed for the refugee camp to pitch in. Now, except for himself and Lara, the estate was empty, deserted. He didn’t mind at all. The two of them enjoyed their solitude, a time to recover from so many tragedies.

  Very soon now, he was sure he would receive the compelling seismic data his brother had promised. In the meantime, Jor-El devoted a few hours each night to studying the breathtaking new images of space: pools of ionized gas coalescing into fresh stars, false-color plumes of cosmic jets squirting into the vacuum, globular clusters, the whirlpools of distant galaxies.

  The most sensitive radio dish in the array picked up a constant stream of static punctuated by pops, brief whistles, and indecipherable clicks. Jor-El left the speakers on at all times in his laboratory, white noise in the background. Though Donodon had told him that space was peppered with inhabited star systems and unusual civilizations, Krypton’s neighborhood seemed empty and quiet.

  Wanting to stay close, Lara joined him in the research building, and he was glad to have her here. At times he could see she still ached from the loss of her parents and young brother. Jor-El had felt a similar heaviness in his heart since the death of his father. Though the old man’s lingering degeneration had been a long time coming, the sadness at losing him was no less.

  Lara commandeered one of the broad lab tables for herself. After tying back her hair to keep it out of her way, she spread out sketchplates, notes, and piles of documents, working on her own historical documentation. “I like being out here with you.”

  “It’s mutually beneficial,” he said. “You can be very inspirational.”

  She continued diligently writing down lines of text, etching a rough draft before permanently inscribing the words in memory crystals. She mused aloud, “I’ve always kept a journal, but this feels more important now. Somebody has to chronicle these events for posterity. Can you think of a better historian than me?” Her mouth quirked in a teasing smile, warning him that he’d better not contradict her.

  “I can’t think of a better anything than you.” Jor-El leaned over, curious to peek at how she might be portraying him in her journal.

  She self-consciously covered the text, then gave him a mysterious look as if she’d been waiting for exactly the right moment. “I have other news for you, Jor-El. Special news—”

  The background listening-post speakers crackled with a burst of static, a whisper that seemed unnatural. Jor-El discerned sounds that were indisputably words. Startled, he strained his ears. “What’s that?”

  The static roared again, faded, then cleared to be replaced by a deep, somber-sounding voice. “—anyone can hear me. I send this message because I have no other hope. Someone out there must listen.” Another crackle and squeak of static drowned out the next words. “—repeat for as long as I can.”

  Jor-El raced to the control deck and sent a command to pull together other signals from the observation array. By combining the outputs of the twenty-three dishes, he hoped to strengthen this faint transmission, perhaps even find an optical counterpart. He and Lara both stared as a blurred image formed on one of the holographic condensers, then sharpened to show a hairless emerald-skinned man with a heavy brow ridge.

  “My name is J’onn J’onzz from the planet Mars. My race is dying. My civilization is falling to dust. Please save us.”

  Having glimpsed a tantalizing fragment of the message, Jor-El spent hours recording the repeated signal, barely blinking, never turning his attention away. He used every known technique to filter out distortions and anomalous spikes caused by cosmic background interference. The transmission must have been traveling across space for years, if not centuries, and a few hours would certainly make no difference to the fate of the forlorn Martian. But Jor-El was a man of action, and Lara loved him for it.

  She assisted him in hooking up equipment, recording data, adjusting connections. Finally, after the signal had been processed and amplified, the two of them stood together, listening.

  On the crackling screen, the heavy-browed Martian said, “By the time you receive this, my civilization will be dead. History has swept across us like an unquenchable fire. We thought our race would last forever. We thought nothing could harm Mars, because we had a perfect society, an advanced people with highly developed technology. We were wrong.”

  The green-skinned man bowed his head. “I am the only one left alive, and how long can I survive? My wife, my family, all lost.” The skin on the alien’s face rippled and sagged. His form shifted as if he himself were composed of wavering flame; then he seemed to restore himself. Lara didn’t think it was a signal distortion; the Martian had actually altered his own shape.

  His message was old, from a far-off star system, yet his grief seemed fresh. The Martian man overlaid old images of his beloved world as he spoke, showing red cliffs and rock pinnacles, domed cities and dusty arches now in ruins, green-skinned people like ghosts walking through now-empty complexes, then fading into blurred smoke. Lara saw idealistic images of another green Martian, a female with supple skin and a pointed head crest, standing beside two children. They looked happy. She was sure these must be the alien man’s family.

  Then came monstrous white-skinned counterparts to the peaceful green people. The pale ones had severe features, angular heads, deep-set dark eyes, and sharp teeth.

  The grieving survivor said, “All died…white Martians, green Martians. Except for me. I survived. I am alone. I beg you to help me—or if that is impossible, then please at least remember.”

  Remember. Just as Jor-El’s father had said with his last breath.

  The heart-wrenching message replayed, and Lara also felt the longing, the loss. She was reminded of Kandor and her own parents. “That magnificent civilization. Did you see their cities, Jor-El? Those people, how intelligent they were! And yet it’s gone. How could that happen?”

  Jor-El shook his head, unable to comprehend how the Mars in the transmission could have been swept into the dusts of time. “There’s nothing I can do to help them, is there? It’s too far away and too long ago.”

  Lara saw what he needed, and she knew she could give it to him. She had learned the news only that morning, and she’d been waiting for the right moment to deliver her announcement. There could be no better time than now.

  “I know things seem bleak, but there is always hope.” She smiled and hugged him. “I’m pregnant, Jor-El. I’m going to have our child.”

  CHAPTER 43

  The next day, Jor-El went to his father’s enigmatic translucent tower and cracked open the temporary resin barrier he had used to seal the broken doorway and lock the components of Donodon’s dismantled ship inside. In recent months he had been tugged in many different directions—by the threat of the inquisition, the loss of Kandor, the death of his father, the giant telescope array…and Lara’s pr
egnancy! He was going to be a father. Even now, Jor-El still hadn’t had time to fully absorb the wonderful news Lara had given him. They were going to bring new life to Krypton in the wake of so much recent tragedy and suffering. One baby could do little to counteract all that grief, yet Jor-El felt a new hope.

  Now, after hearing the message from Mars, he was eager to begin his long-delayed work of studying Donodon’s vessel. The blue-skinned alien had been a curious investigator; he would have wanted Jor-El to learn as much as possible from him. Each one of the components the Commissioner had delivered was like a piece of a much larger puzzle.

  And maybe in his explorations Donodon had learned something about the lost civilization on the dusty red planet….

  The thought of the curious, insightful alien explorer brought back memories of his own father as a vibrant and incisive man. Both of his sons had looked up to Yar-El, awed by all the things he had accomplished. For years, Jor-El had left the odd corkscrewing tower intact, preferring to savor the mystery rather than digest the answers.

  When Commissioner Zod had urged him to hide the alien’s spacecraft from the Council, Jor-El had not taken the time to fully investigate the interior of the tower. Now he stepped inside and looked around, drinking in the details, smelling the cool and faintly metallic air.

  Why had his father built this odd structure? The laboratory was a perfectly ser viceable space, well stocked with analytical tools and references. Yar-El had designed and constructed this remarkable place, and then just sealed it off. Had the older man been waiting for something? His cryptic comment from years ago, that Jor-El would know when to enter the tower—what had he meant by that?

  At the time he’d designed the structure, the older genius had already been caught in the claws of the Forgetting Disease. His behavior had gradually grown more irrational as his thoughts, memories, and grasp on reality slipped away. Jor-El had loved his father, but he had not understood what was happening to the man. The best doctors on Krypton had said there was nothing they could do. And that helplessness and confusion—that problem he could never solve—terrified Jor-El.