Keeler looked at the nameplate on the side. “Peckwad, ” he read. “Does that name mean anything?”
“No,” Gilligan answered.
“Good, I like it, then. Shall we board?”
“We shall,” Ziang said.
Pegasus – Flight Commandant Jordan’s Quarters
In his dream, Max Jordan was naked, and his skin was covered with strange symbols. He was lying in his quarters, filled with dread, wondering what the symbols meant, thinking he should know what they meant. They covered his legs, his arms, his shoulders, his back… every part of his body except for his face. They glowed, like cat’s eyes in the dark when light catches them. He turned his arm over, and the symbols changed, like test on a flowing display.
He listened, knowing he was going to hear voices. They came, carried on the wind at first, then growing louder.
“…only want to read you… only want to read you… only … want to read you…” He looked up to the ceiling. Manchester was there, his head attached the body of a giant metal spider. He was grinning.
“I only want to read you.” He fell from the ceiling toward the sleeper.
Max Jordan eyes snapped open. Somehow, he was no longer in bed, but standing beside his sleeper, frightened, disoriented, and panting. Dream and wakefulness were not yet distinct, and he was gripped with panic.
He grabbed the side of his sleeper to hold himself up, to anchor himself to a reality. In his fevered mind, he could not place himself on Pegasus. “This is not Bodicéa,” he forced himself to say. “This is Pegasus. This is safe.”
He knew where he was, but the part of his brain that had been programmed in the first twelve years of his life insisted that beyond the walls of his chamber was a jungle, and a hostile planet inhabited by monsters, who wanted to kill him, or worse things. The much less time he had spent on Pegasus had only produced an illusion of security.
Though only a boy, he thought he could see something the Commander, even Tactical TyroCommander Redfire, could not, and that was that the Aurelians were chasing Pegasus, and were chasing him personally. They would pursue him across the galaxy, to any star system, and as far and fast as Pegasus could fly he would never be beyond their grasp.
And in this resignation, a sense of calm came over him.
After a while, his breathing eased. He left his sleeper, and went to crouch in a corner of his room.
Eventually, he fell asleep again.
C h a p t e r S e v e n t e e n
Winter – Somewhere
And Redfire rose, and rose, and rose.
The sensation of flight, of travel without movement, continued, though he lacked any visual reference points, and there was no sensation of wind or motion. There was a sense of transition, as though passing over and beyond some twilit horizon, through a cold, pale, bloody winter sunset and into some dark, starless night. He had left Winter, left Pegasus, left the all-devouring mouth of Mercuria, and had gone into The Dreaming.
As a student, Redfire had dabbled in Sumacian mind tricks. He had been on the Dream Plane before. He knew the rules.
“Never fails, does it?” said a voice. It was indistinct at first, but he knew it belonged to Jordan even before she appeared to him, a ghostly image like a reflection in a milky pond. “Leave you alone on a planet with a beautiful woman, the next thing you know, your marital vows are out the airlock.” Her eyes looked downward, and disapproved. “Look at her, on her knees, slobbering like a dog. How degrading.”
“You’re just a pretender,” Tamarind snapped, suddenly joining Jordan. “You’ve tried Sumacian meditation rites before, but you’ve never been this far, and it took a dirty Aurelian narcotic to do it.”
“Running away again?” Of course, his mother would there as well, looking as she had when he was 12-13 years of age, her hand outstretched, holding a cap that he ought to wear since winter was coming. “You got as far away from your family as you could. You never even let us know when you left. And you’re still out in the cold without a cap.” Redfire did not respond. These were not true images of the dream planes, these were artifacts of residual guilt he had brought with him. The thing to do was ignore them, and he had plenty of practice in that. He looked up toward the sky, and tried to find the very brightest star, to focus on. He needed to go there, or bring its light inside him. Either way, the Guide Star was the key to escaping the Ghosts of Guilt. Soon, the star would take the form of a great bird of prey and descend from the sky to guide him.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around. He saw no one at first, but then realized Max, his wife’s son, was standing there, barefoot and dressed in white.
Redfire turned away from him, but only found Max standing in front of him again, wide-eyed and innocent. “Don’t turn away,” he said. “I’m not an artifact of your residual guilt.”
“That’s just what I would expect an artifact of my residual guilt to say,” Redfire answered him.
“Oing,” said Max, in Redfire’s own voice.
“Are you supposed to be my guide?” Redfire asked.
“Za, … in a way, kinda, sorta.”
“ It’s always been an eagle before.”
Max opened his mouth, and emitted a perfectly pitched version of an eagle’s cry.
“All right, I’m convinced.” Redfire extended his hand.
The boy shook his head. “Not that way. If you want to see the future,” Max told him. “You’re going to have to do something to me. If you can do it to me, you can do it to all of us.” Redfire nodded. Dream informed him of what to do. Dream logic demanded he do as he was told. Max bowed, offering Redfire the back of his neck. Redfire knelt over the boy, kissed him on the space where his head met his neck. He felt could metal plunging into the boy’s neck. Max stiffened and cried out, a puppyish sound. The words, “No, not again,” in Max’s voice echoed across the wind.
Blood and a clear, salty fluid began to pour from the wound Redfire’s kiss had opened. Even as he felt perfect, bottomless horror at what he had done, Redfire eagerly lapped his son’s cranial fluids. As it entered his blood and his brain, every neuron sizzled and burst. He let go, and the boy’s body dropped with a muffled thud.
There was the faint call of an eagle and a sudden clarity.
“Wake up, Ranking Phil,” said someone, urgently.
He opened his eyes to bright sunlight beaming down from an icy blue sky, stinging him. As he crunched his eyes shut against the onslaught of light, this sun was eclipsed by a large, red-cheeked face in a parka. “It’s me, Bill, your captain.” He stretched out a hand. “You’ve just been rescued. Let me help you up.” He grabbed his captain’s hand and was lifted up. He found himself standing on an ice floe, floating in the midst of a great indigo sea. In the distance, he saw smoke, as though a huge building were on fire. It smudged most of the horizon.
“Barely a scratch on you,” said Keeler. “Remarkable considering what you’ve been through.”
“What is this?” Redfire asked.
“This is a possible future that assumes you somehow escape from that Aurelian and are not converted,” Keeler explained. “You sent your mind here to escape the fact that she is currently performing a rather impressive sex act on your body. Personally, I would have stayed.”
“Libertine,” Redfire hissed.
“… but then, I don’t have a wife.”
“Ex-wife.”
Keeler pursed his lips and waved his hand in a brooming motion. “Just a mere technicality.” As he spoke, a second sun burst in the sky like a supernova.
“What’s that?” Redfire asked.
“Oh, that? I imagine it’s the ship being blown up. Isn’t that what she threatened would happen if you did not join her?”
“Za.” He scowled. “Does this mean I should join her, for the sake of the ship?”
“It’s a consideration,” Keeler answered, making it sound like a concession. Shooting stars and fireballs were appearing high in the sky above their heads as the first b
its of Pegasus’s debris hit the atmosphere. “Would you like to assume, for the sake of argument, that we somehow foil the agent she has put on our ship, and the ship will survive regardless of your decision?”
“Will the ship survive regardless of my decision?” He spoke up louder. Debris was now shrieking and roaring down from the sky, filling it with thunder. Soon, the first pieces would hit the sea.
Keeler shrugged. “That’s out of your control.”
“What would happen?” Redfire insisted. Shouting now. Bits of ship were smashing all around them.
Keeler spoke in his normal voice, but Redfire had no difficulty hearing him over the roar. “In the short term, the consequences would not be noticeable.” He held up a hand, and the debris from Pegasus began flying upwards and backwards. Converging on a single point in the sky.
As soon as this was done, the landscape around them changed from arctic ocean to primeval forest. “In the long term,” Keeler went on. “We travel a long path, to a different place. Actually, I should say you, not we, because I don’t make it. For that matter, neither do you… well, sort of, but not really.” Redfire turned, Keeler was no longer visible. He was still there, but he had no physical substance. He moved through the trees until he came to the edge of a large clearing. He heard people in the distance.
There was some sort of city… unlike any city he had ever seen, but somehow familiar, spreading across the hills. He could see people moving in and amongst its buildings. Most of them seemed to be children, not very young children, but adolescents. There was something about its shape, something about the two towers that dominated the city. He realized he was looking at Pegasus, crashed or somehow landed, he could not tell.
“We don’t make it,” Redfire whispered. “How does this happen?”
“You can’t see it because I’m invisible,” the Commander said, “but I’m shrugging.” Redfire awoke.
He was still chained upright to his posts, spread-eagled against the skeletal metal framework. His skin was bare, now, and he was quite naked. His clothes lay in a heap on the floor in front of him. He shivered. The brief Winter night was upon them now and it was bitterly cold.
Mercuria sat before him, legs crossed, back turned, warming herself in the glow of a heater. Sensing he was awake, she turned slowly toward him, her hair sexily mussed, her lips swollen slightly. “It’s about time,” she said as she stood up and approached him.
His lips and mouth were dry, made worse by the dehydrating effect of the drug she had given him.
“You should put some ice on that,” he croaked. “How long was I gone…”
“Far too long. You now have less than sixteen hours to save your ship. On the plus side, I must say, your performance was impressive indeed. The Aalia must have really opened up your inhibitions. It tells me that, deep inside of you, the lust of a true Aurelian burns.” Burns, Redfire thought. Was there something in his dream about burning? “I’m cold,” he said, in a hoarse but sincere-sounding voice.
“Would you like your clothes back?” she said in a tone that said she wanted him to beg, only so she could deny it to him, again and again.
“You could move the heater closer, or bring your warm body close to mine.” She did not fall for that. “You’re either seeking to lower my guard, or the Alaia has not worked its way out of your system.”
“There is a chill in the air tonight that reminds me of autumn on my home planet. It’s something we have not managed to replicate on my ship. There is no pleasure in life quite like sharing a fire with a beautiful woman on a cold night.”
“Would you like some water?”
“I am very thirsty.”
“Are you hungry as well?”
“Za.”
She stood. “See how quickly it comes back to basics. Water. Food. Warmth. Sex. All we are. Two animals, seeking warmth, comfort, food, reproduction. Animals. Nothing but delusion compels us to think of ourselves as anything more,” she purred. She was close to him, breathing on his bare nipples. Her warm hands reached down and cradled his hardening manhood.
Redfire asked her. “If I agreed to join you, how would you know I was not agreeing just to save my ship? How would you know I would not betray you?”
“I fully expect that you will agree with me just to save your ship,” she told him. “However, once you agree to come to our side, we will persuade you to serve us willingly. Your initial agreement is only the first step. We will in time convince you that Aurelia offers a superior vision to whatever it is you believe in now. There will also be controls … and, ultimately, tests of loyalty.”
“Such as?”
“When you’re ready, I will tell you. Until then,” she smiled and drew herself close to him. “I’ll keep you warm, and persuade you that the vision of Aurelia is superior.” She kissed him, intensely,
“So, tell me about Aurelia?” He said when she pulled away again. “I have some right to know the history of the people I am to serve.”
She paused. Obviously, she preferred having sex to discussing history. She sighed. “Where shall I begin?”
“With the beginning. Where is Aurelia? Is it a colony of Earth?”
“Aurelia was once an outer colony of the Commonwealth. It wasn’t called Aurelia, in the Human Era, but that is not important. It was located far out on the rim, on the very edge of the galaxy, above the plane. From one of its hemispheres, you could look out and get some sense of the spiral of the Milky Way…
silly name, don’t you think? Milky Way? A throwback to when humans were simple agrarians, slaves to the rhythm of nature, willingly subservient to their own imagined gods.”
“So, at one time, the Aurelians, the Echelon I mean, they were humans?”
“Before they evolved, yes. Shortly after the fall of the Commonwealth, Aurelia was invaded by aliens called the Aenaugh. They came from outside our galaxy in a ship that encased the whole planet like a great black cloud. The Aenaugh destroyed their cities, ruined the planet’s ecosystems, and made the people their slaves. The Aenaugh fed on them like cattle. Every year, the Aenaugh would descend from the sky to take the weakest part of our population up to their ships to be consumed.”
“What did they look like?” Redfire asked.
She sighed. “The Aenaugh were never seen by the eyes of humans, only their minions. The minions were cyborgs. They snatched us from the fields where we labored, sometimes lining up whole families and settlements, and just choosing whoever looked sick, or dumb.
“It was the Aenaugh who divided our population into the four suits: the Cups, who served; the Swords, who fought; the Pentacles, who performed menial tasks; and the Wands, who perform more challenging tasks.”
“And you liked it so much, you retained it when they were gone?” Redfire interrupted.
“The Aenaugh were cruel and oppressive, but we did not see fit to reject everything they brought. The four suits were orderly and efficient.
“For a thousand of that planet’s years, the Aenaugh ravaged the Aurelian homeworld. Then, a thousand or so of their years ago, a bright light pierced the clouds. A man fell from the sky. His name was Aurelius. Aurelius was not one of their minions. He was human, but he was more than human. He saw how the people of our world were living, and he told them they must rise up and destroy the Aenaugh.
“Aurelius understood the technology of the Aenaugh. He taught his people to fight back, led them on a raid to steal Aurelian weapons. There was a long and terrible war, but in the end, the Aenaugh were driven off. He established the Aurelian ideals of equality, community, peace, and enlightenment.”
“So far so good,” Redfire offered. “So, at what point did the Aurelians start conquering other planets and sucking out people’s brains?”
She would not be baited. “With the technology the Aenaugh had left behind, he raised his people up, advancing human evolution my millennia. By the time Aurelius died, his planet was now populated by a race stronger, more beautiful, and more intelligent than anyone h
ad ever thought possible. They took the technology of Aenaugh, and went forth to spread enlightenment to other worlds. Because they could not bear to leave their world behind, they constructed the first megasphere, using technology from the Aenaugh. Those who left the planet, to spread peace and enlightenment, were called the Echelon.”
“The first human world they found was called Touchstone. The Echelon came in peace, but the human inhabitants were hostile toward them. Touchstone had suffered through many conflicts, and had much weaponry. They rejected the Aurelian way with terrible violence. The Echelon defended themselves with the weapons of the Aenaugh, when it was done, the planet was in ruins, a great burning from pole-to-pole. The Echelon realized they would have to change their strategy.”
“They became invaders.”
“They recognized that they must first prepare a society for their coming. They decided they would insert agents into the population first, to set the stage for the Aurelians, to make sure the population is disarmed, and open to our philosophy. When they arrive, they undertake a massive strike, that wipes the planet clean of the old order.”
“By inflicting so much death, how are they any better than the Aenaugh?” She reached down, dug into her pack and removed a small box of white tubes. One of these she stuck into her mouth and inhaled deeply. It still dangled from her lips when she spoke again. “Aurelia is the destiny of humankind, destroying the past is painful, but it makes the future possible. My forebears lived on a colony called Columbine. The Aurelians liberated us four hundred years ago.”
“Liberated you from what, control of your own destiny?”
“We were liberated from our own ignorance, from our own superstition, from our own small-minded prejudices. We were much like you before the Aurelians came. But now, we are one thread of the infinite and beautiful tapestry that is Aurelia.” She leaned against him, breathed outward, intently.
There was a smell on her breath, a penetrating chemical aroma that stung his nostrils and seared through to his brain. Fireworks began to explode in his mind.
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