Bria showed her teeth.
“Do not be self-satisfied, Commander,” Preeajitala barked. “Your race is given to extremes. Worse, even among Sussurats, you are extreme, hurrying toward extraordinary risks. You caused a strain in interstellar relations. You put Neelee-ornor in grave danger. You disobeyed many commands. Your own world’s government wants to question you about your treatment of the interrogator they sent. And those monument plates you returned to us from the Ulltrian world, they cause disorder among the people of Neelee-ornor. You are a very dangerous asset, Harmonizer.”
Bria opened her eyes wide. “Life is dangerous.”
The irises of Preeajitala’s huge eyes pulsed, an expression of mixed emotions: impatience and concern and anger. And perhaps… shame.
“You have new orders,” Preeajitala said. “Complete your report before you leave.”
Data fell back into the room, make it seem suddenly crowded. Without another word, Bria left the Special Advisor to her strategies.
_____
Captain Nereenital stood with his back to the elevator, looking at Neelee-ornor through the clear walls of his command quarters. The destroyed rings left a black band of ash visible against the green of the planet, like a stripe of pale, sickly smoke. Savannah Runner accelerated out of orbit now, heading for the outer reaches of the system.
“Captain,” Tarkos said, stepping off the elevator. “You summoned me?”
“You have been asked by the Council to resign,” Nereenital said, without turning around, and without a tap of a hoof to show courtesy.
“I refused,” Tarkos said.
“As did your Commander.”
“Yes.”
“You will never rise above your station. You are both tainted now. You are known to be unreliable. You will never be a commander, and Briaathursiasalientiormethesess will never rise above commander.”
Tarkos considered this for a long while. Finally, he let his anger overwhelm his discretion. “Pietro Danielle would not have helped me if you had not told him to.”
The Captain said nothing, but his ears pressed flat against his long head.
“You used us,” Tarkos said. “You knew that the Council was moving too slowly. You knew the Councilors could not imagine and prepare for unexpected threats. So you and Preeajitala gave us free action, but in a way that allowed you to deny involvement. So condemn me, Captain, if you must. Save yourself at our expense. I will not object. I will never again say what I just said now. But when we are alone here, in your command office, do not insult me. And do not insult the memory of Pietro Danielle, who died helping me save your world.”
The Captain turned around to face Tarkos. He stood silent a very long time, while behind him the desolate black band around the planet slowly turned. Finally Nereenital barked, very softly, “Do you know what ‘Neelee-ornor’ means?”
“No,” Tarkos said.
“It means, ‘ring of the Neelee.’ Every one of our greatest poets wrote one poem—her or his greatest effort—about the rings. Our greatest musical works are odes to the rings. Children call them ‘the arms of the world.’ Lovers swear to love as long as the rings arch through the sky.”
“And I took the rings away,” Tarkos said.
“And you took all that away.”
“I would do it again.” Tarkos took a step forward. “There was no time to find another solution, Captain. And to save the planet, I would do it all again.”
Nereenital’s huge green and blue eyes looked at him without blinking. They seemed to consume Tarkos.
“When I came to Neelee-ornor,” Tarkos said, “as a recruit of the Harmonizers—my first night there—” he pointed at the planet below, “My first night on your world—I actually….” Tarkos hesitated, not knowing the Galactic word for “wept,” and also not knowing whether Nereenital would understand the concept of weeping for joy. So he said, “I was overcome with happiness. I had landed in the capital, in Paeneerasa. I wandered, lost with wonder. Here was a city as great as any in the Galaxy. And here was a forest as great as any in the Galaxy. And they were together, one thing. In that moment, I gave my soul wholly, completely to the Alliance. I saw what was possible. Civilization, vast technological accomplishments, art and science, justice—and riotous, wild, thick, dangerous forest—all coexisting.”
Tarkos found himself surprised that he felt again, suddenly, as overwhelmed with emotion as he had felt then as a recruit. Maybe he could make sense of Pala Eydis’s death, and of Pietro Danielle’s death, if he reminded himself what they fought for. Tears welled in his eyes. “That’s what Neelee-ornor represents. The dream of Galactic Civilization. Life and technology and art and justice all thriving together, and spreading together through the Galaxy. The rings were beautiful. But they did not matter much compared to what is down there. Not much at all.”
Nereenital blinked and his ears dropped. “Preeajitala told me that Briaathursiasalientiormethesess had shamed her. Now you shame me, Harmonizer, with your savage honesty. Your race is terrible and dangerous. I will not thank you. But I will not force you from the Harmonizers. And neither will Preeajitala.”
Nereenital turned back to the wall, and looked down at the planet. “Your commander has been released. She awaits you on your cruiser. You are being sent on a mission to Earth.”
“To Earth?” Tarkos asked. Earth being of any interest in this conflict could only be bad news for his species. “Why does Earth matter now?”
But Nereenital did not answer. Tarkos sighed and walked to the elevator. When the door opened, the Captain called to him.
“Wait.” Nereenital walked across the room, his hoofs clacking at the crystal floor. “This is the reason I called you here.” He held toward Tarkos a metal cylinder. “Human Pietro Danielle asked that this be gifted to you, should he die and you survive.”
Tarkos took the cylinder and pulled off the top, revealing the dark neck of a wine bottle. He slid it out and read the label. Barolo, thirty years old. Very, very good wine.
“I did not know him well, but I liked him,” Tarkos said. He gently sealed the bottle back in its case.
“I knew him very well,” Nereenital said, “and liked him very well.”
Tarkos stepped into the elevator. Nereenital turned and gazed at his homeworld, where it floated alone among the stars. The doors closed, and Amir Tarkos hurried away, toward his own world, another orphan of the dark.
The End
The Predator Space Chronicles
continue in:
Omega Threshold
THE PREDATOR SPACE CHRONICLES
The Predator Space Chronicles appear in periodic installments.
If you have not yet read or heard the story of the meeting of Tarkos and Bria, visit EscapePod and listen for free to “Asteroid Monte” at:
http://escapepod.org/2012/02/23/ep333-asteroid-monte/
Additional information about Predator Space Chronicles can be found at the author’s website: www.craigdelancey.com.
To be added to the Predator Space email list, which will send you updates when new Predator Space material becomes available, send an email with the subject “Add me to the list” to: [email protected].
OTHER WORKS BY CRAIG DELANCEY
GODS OF EARTH
Thousands of years after a war against the gods drove humanity nearly extinct, something divine stirs. It awakens the Guardian, an ancient being pledged to destroy the gods—a task it believes long-accomplished. Through deep caverns, he makes his way to the desolate surface of the Earth and stalks toward the last human settlements, seeking the source of this strange power.
Far away, the orphan Chance Kyrien is turning seventeen and will be confirmed as a Puriman. Ambitious, rebellious, but fiercely devout, Chance dreams only of being a farmer and winemaker…and marrying the girl he loves, the Ranger Sarah Michaels.
But violence and destruction turns Chance and Sarah’s peaceful world upside down. Aided by his loyal friends and the Guardian, the young
man must travel through time and space to battle the last remaining god. For the destinies of Chance and this final deity are fatally intertwined, and only one of them can survive.
Multiple Hugo and Nebula Award Winning Novelist Nancy Kress says of the novel: “Gods of Earth begins with Chance Kyrien, a simple winemaker in a rural village, and then opens up to a vast, complex future populated by men, machines, gods old and new, and creatures that are none of these. To save this world, Chance must conquer space and time, the gods that humans fashion from both, and the god-like power within himself. Craig DeLancey has created an astonishing, genuinely original fantasy world of exciting action and thought-provoking questions.”
Available on 47 North Press as a trade paperback, ebook, and as an audiobook read by Nick Podehl.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig DeLancey is a writer and philosopher. He has published dozens of short stories in magazines like Analog, Cosmos, Shimmer, The Mississippi Review Online, and Nature Physics. His novel Gods of Earth is available now with 47North Press. He also writes plays, many of which have received staged readings and performances in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne, and elsewhere. His short story “Julie is Three” won the Anlab Readers’ Choice award in 2012 and his short play “My Tunguska Event” was a finalist in 2011 for the Heideman Award, given by the Actors Theatre of Louisville. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, he now makes his home in upstate New York and, in addition to writing, teaches philosophy at Oswego State, part of the State University of New York (SUNY).
This is a work of fiction, and names, characters, and events herein are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual business establishments, places, events, or persons living or dead is coincidental. The author does take all credit, however, for descriptions of future conditions that later prove to come true.
EVOLUTION COMMANDOS:
ICE SKY STORM
Predator Space Chronicles, Number 3
Copyright 2014, Craig DeLancey
496 Perfect Number Press
First edition
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