The Sunseed Saga

by Brett Bam

  “Good morning gentlemen. How may I help you?”

  The Minister of the Interior leaned forward and began to speak. “Agent Jericho. You have the boy in custody?”

  “I do, sir. He’s in transfer right now to be removed to an outer satellite holding cell.”

  There was a stir at the table.

  “Cease and desist agent. That boy will not leave this asteroid.”

  Jericho was alarmed. “Sir, the boy is dangerous. He hurt a great many people.”

  “Did he? We saw him slap a guard. We watched as he was shot while on his knees. He’s just a boy, why have you treated him like this?”

  “He’s obviously a very dangerous young man and he should be ejected from this asteroid immediately.” Kedesh Jericho spoke passionately. “Eglon Arad is lying comatose in a hospital ward and the doctors can find no cause for it. He was facing the boy at the time. He is in possession of some very sophisticated software that seems capable of breaching every firewall we have with almost no effort. Everywhere he goes people are found comatose or amnesiac. We discovered him in the presence of this asteroid’s most eminent member about to perpetrate an attack. I am of the opinion that my squad and I managed to subdue him and avoid a much larger crisis thanks to the devoted effort of our commander. We have no choice but to remove him from this asteroid.”

  The Minister of the Interior spoke again. “We saw nothing but a boy brutalised by police. You will release him.”

  “I am shocked and displeased to hear this request. I have deemed him a clear and present danger. Why would the office of the Pope become involved in this matter?”

  Jericho saw the others at the table become flustered and angry at his involvement of the Pope until the holy man himself held up his hand.

  “I must admit to some curiosity about this boy. I do not believe an attack was imminent, nor do I believe that this boy poses a danger. In fact, I had just given him my blessing.”

  Jericho was shocked. He looked to his superior officer seated at the table.

  “Are these your orders too sir?”

  The Security Chief, a large robust man with grey hair and deeply brown skin, shook his head solemnly. “If my agent thinks this boy is so dangerous, we cannot release him. However, we also do not have to remove him from the chamber until we have investigated the accusations. We have somewhere to hold him here that will be perfectly safe and secure.”

  Jericho found himself on his feet. “Sir, I object. You simply cannot afford the risk to keep him here.”

  “My good investigator, I’ll thank you to keep your tone down in this hallowed place, please. Violence and piety don’t go together no matter what history you study.”

  Jericho reddened at this rebuke from the most powerful and influential man in Gamaridia.

  “Prepare a level seven holding cell and put him there. Notify this office as soon as the task is complete,” the Security Chief demanded.

  “And make sure he’s getting the best medical attention,” said the Health Minister, just before they signed off. Jericho was left wondering just who was in charge of this place, elected officials or elected priests? And why would Comfort want this boy kept on the asteroid so desperately? What could the priest want with the boy?

  Chapter 20

  Kulen De Sol

  5 days before the flare

  “He is sick sir.”

  Jeremiah Comfort stood in a room covered with surveillance equipment. Several of the large screens were displaying the prone body of the young boy called Kulen De Sol. He was lying in a sterile environment, enshrined in white sheets on a comfortable but austere bed. His face was pale and clammy, and beneath his closed eyelids the thrashing of his dreams was evident. The images he was watching flickered blue and then stopped, frozen on a moment. The boy in the bed.

  “I should like to see him.”

  “Certainly sir. I’ll arrange for an escort.”

  “There is no need, I will go alone.”

  “But sir, he is a security risk, I can’t let you…”

  The young officer withered under the glare of the holy man.

  “Um, sorry sir, certainly sir, whatever you wish.”

  “I wish my conversation with him to be off the record. Turn off your machines.”

  Comfort allowed himself to be guided to an elevator. The doors swished open and he entered the small compartment alone, smiling as he watched them disconnect their security monitoring system from the boy’s cell. The doors shut silently and he felt the lift begin to move. He dropped for a long time, deep into the outer skin of the massive asteroid. The longer he dropped the closer he came to the naked vacuum of empty space, that envelope of cosmic radiation outside his world. He knew that the cell that held Kulen was still a full 400 metres from the outside, but could not shake the feeling of exposure. It was the closest he had come to the outer skin in a decade.

  Kulen was being held at the bottom of a long steel shaft, the gravity increased significantly as the elevator approached the bottom and the centrifugal spin of the station grew stronger. It was a formidable prison cell. The only way out of the surrounding kilometres of rock was up through the shaft, against apparent gravity. There was no way that could be done without notifying the sentries in the control room. One way in, one way out, a bubble deep in stone.

  The increasing sense of weight above and around him added power to his feeling of oppression and enclosure. Comfort offered a small prayer to himself to steady his nerves as the elevator slowed and stopped. The doors opened and he was standing before the most dangerous person on the asteroid, who was apparently sleeping.

  The holy man entered the room and looked around. It was a stark place. Harshly lit and bare of any furniture except for the bed. There was a small sanitary space on the far wall, and nowhere in the room was private or unmonitored. Comfort approached the bed and looked down at the youth sleeping there. The first thing Comfort noticed was his youthful beauty.

  His hair was thick, black and healthy. His features were finely shaped, with long lustrous lashes framing sleeping eyes above a fine slender aquiline nose and thick, full lips.

  Comfort sat on the side of the bed and looked carefully at the face that held so much potential. The movement behind the eyelids stopped, and they flicked open.

  The eyes were mesmerising, they did not have a colour, or rather flashed and swirled with many colours. The colours of a rainbow trapped in the gaze of a boy. The lights flickered and almost went out, startling Comfort. The boy blinked slowly and the lights stabilised to a soft golden shine. Kulen sat up quickly and moved to the corner of his cot, small and vulnerable.

  “Hello Kulen.”

  “Hello Jeremiah.”

  Comfort was startled again.

  “You know me?”

  “You were in the square, when they hurt me. You bit me.”

  “Yes, I suppose I did. Do you want to know why?”

  “No.” Kulen was very calm. “I already know why.”

  Comfort couldn’t take his eyes from the boy’s.

  “What is it you think you know?” There was a dangerous edge in his tone which Kulen ignored completely.

  “You want to eat me. You think my flesh will make you strong.”

  The moment left Jeremiah Comfort feeling unashamedly transparent. He revelled in being exposed in such a manner, before a mere boy, who would soon be his victim.

  “You are beautiful Kulen.”

  Kulen looked plainly at him and Comfort felt his gaze as a physical weight. His eyes were suddenly dark and deep. Comfort was unused to people being relaxed in his presence, he felt the need to unsettle the boy, not be unsettled by him.

  “Why did you hurt those people?”

  Kulen thought for a moment.

  “I hurt no-one.”

  “There are several people in the hospital that would disagree with you.”

  “They are not hurt. Their minds will return to them, they were simply blown about by the wind.” Kulen’s hair s
eemed to twitch at the mention of the wind, like a breeze tossing his hair in this place where a breeze was impossible, Comfort felt a stab of excitement.

  “The wind?”

  “It comes at my bidding and is capable of many things I don’t understand.”

  “And what can the wind do, boy?”

  Kulen broke eye contact with him for the first time and Comfort felt a great and hot light leave his soul. He felt relief to be out from under that gaze, yet his lust demanded more. Kulen lifted his silver hand from the sheets and held it up.

  “It can do anything, and it comes from this.”

  Now Comfort had a new torture, a fresh temptation. All of a sudden, Kulen’s eyes weren’t the most rapturous thing in the room. The silver glove held him transfixed, and he did not understand why. All he understood was the depth of his sudden desire of the thing. It was an impulse he had never once denied himself. If he wanted something he took it, he consumed it, he became it. And he wanted this thing more than any other. In it, he sensed his salvation, his freedom. It was the ultimate prize, even if it was not fully understood. It was the king of jewels, and he lusted for it.

  “What is it Kulen?”

  “It is the heart of the Machine.”

  “Which machine?” Comfort reached out and touched a silver finger, obscene hunger apparent on his face.

  “The machine. You know it as the Protocol. It is theirs. It created them and they created it.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “It is mine. It called to me and I took it. It is why they chase me, it is why they killed Berea. They want it back.”

  “I am a wealthy man Kulen De Sol. I can make your dreams come true.”

  Kulen thought about the dreams he had and how terrible it would be if they became real.

  “What is there that you require, Kulen? What is it you want? I can give it to you. We can trade, fairly. I can make you rich and powerful. I can keep your friends safe. I can give you this asteroid. I can teach these people to worship you. I can teach billions more to worship the ground you walk on as they do for me. I can make you famous. I can satisfy your desires. I can give you whatever you want, in return for a sliver of that glove.”

  Kulen smiled then and turned his eyes back to Comfort, the hot searing light flooded into him again. This was a creature of power, he knew it now. This was not a mere boy but something new in the universe. Comfort was suddenly unsure at this final revelation. Was the boy too dangerous? Was he a threat? He felt a small twist of fear.

  “Nothing you have can tempt me Jeremiah. Why would I want anything you could offer when I have this? It can do anything. It is the source of the wind and it can unravel the otherplace and the real place. You would call it an infinite power source, a matter transmuter, a quantum generator. It can unstitch the fabric of screams. It tells me many things Jeremiah. It helps me to understand, and to see to the heart of matters. You wish this thing for yourself, but that is a pointless dream. You could not work it. It is mine.”

  As he spoke Kulen moved his hand. The silver glove began to wobble and lose its form. It flowed on to Kulen’s palm as he rotated his hand in tight circles. Then he closed his fist and the silver globe was compressed. For a second Kulen sat looking at the amazed priest. Then he held up his fist and dropped a coin from it into his other hand. The first was followed by a second, and then a third, and then a torrent. Kulen caught them all in his other hand and then reversed the process. He sat on the bed cascading silver coins from hand to hand, long streams of them, without ever dropping a single one. Then he closed his fist, crushing the fragile coins. They ground together as he manipulated them and the coins cracked and splintered and became dust. Finally, he opened his fist to show the pile of dust in his palm.

  “This machine is beyond you Jeremiah. Put away your greed and accept your fate.”

  Kulen blew hard on the handful of dust and it made a dense little cloud in the air which just hung there without falling. Kulen put his hand into it and slowly clenched his fist. The cloud condensed around his hand, back to the silver glove it had been.

  “Could I learn to work it?” asked Comfort hungrily.

  “No.” There was no malice in the word, simply a statement of fact, “I am sorry for that because I see you want it very greatly. I see the need in you.”

  Comfort looked into that hot light in the boy’s eyes and laughed.

  “Well boy. You see what I am, but can you understand what I am?”

  Kulen shook his head. “It does not matter.”

  “I have you in my power Kulen. It is for me to decide if you live or die, if you keep your trinket, or if you do not. I could take it from your corpse, if I wished. But that is not what I want. I want you to give this trinket to me. I want you to beg me to take it. If it is what you claim it to be, it can accomplish a great many things.”

  “Yes, it can, but not in your hands. In your hands this would be a very different thing.”

  Comfort leaned back at this. His face, old and lined and shaded, sank deep into the darkness beneath his hood. “Well, the one thing we have plenty of here is time. You are safe and secure. I can come and see you whenever I like. Perhaps a bit of time alone would be in order. You must pay a penance for your actions, my son.”

  Kulen said nothing. Comfort stood and walked away, into the elevator and up out of the hole.

  It was a relief to drop all that extra weight, to escape that tight and merciless place. He was very happy the boy was down there, safe and secure, at his mercy. Except he wasn’t really at Comfort’s mercy, not his true mercy. He was safe and enclosed from all sides. He was watched by many eyes, and was recorded. Comfort could do nothing under those circumstances. He needed the boy in another cage. He needed the boy truly vulnerable somewhere Comfort could indulge himself.

  He was silent, lost in thought on his journey back to the church. He did not notice the traffic on the Spiral Highway, or the falling sensation of lesser gravity as they passed through the central bracelet of architecture splitting the main chamber. He barely noticed the light squall of rain which fell from a twisting cloud forming in the light centripetal gravity at the centre of the city, throwing thunderbolts and forks of lightning haphazardly. It was a designated wet period in the weather cycle. Light drizzle would precede a slight rainfall before normal moisture levels returned. Sports gliders circled the storm cloud, soaring free of the gravity well. Balloons and cages attached to zip lines buzzed here and there on a complicated web strung across the chamber. Comfort noticed none of it. Completely absorbed with the problem of transporting Kulen to the church under his guard. Once back in his office, he shut and locked the door to his sanctum. He did not stop in the room but walked to the large bookcase on one wall. A section opened to reveal a harshly lit stairwell spiralling down into the rock. Comfort entered and his shoulders brushed the walls as he wound his way through darkness and light and darkness again. This is where he would keep Kulen. He fantasised that the young man was walking down the steps in front of him, and his breath quickened.

  He descended a long way. As he walked deeper, a smell became greatly apparent. The stench of decay, sickly sweet, vulgar and rotten. But as the odour increased, so did Comfort’s excitement. He came to the bottom of the stairs. A large steel door opened when he brushed its burnished face, keyed to his touch. The smell which poured out was horrendous but Comfort did not flinch. He strode into the room and lit a single candle. The light flared and erupted, pushing the darkness back to reveal not just a table, but a kitchen. Steel work surfaces and large stoves, pots, an oven, a cutting board. Hooks and chains. Sheets of sheer plastic protected a sprinkler system in a roof gantry suspended over a stainless-steel pit with a grate at the bottom. For six minutes, Comfort moved around the room lighting candles. The atmosphere was hot and oppressive, the stench of decay was sharp and dominating.

  As the room lit up, the skulls became apparent. The walls of this chamber were lined with simple steel shelving covered by cle
ar clean glass. The window panes were riveted into the walls and behind the glass were the impeccably displayed, dismembered heads of hundreds of people.

  They were his, his trophies, his conquests. They were the heads of the people Jeremiah Comfort had devoured here in this very room.

  From time out of memory, Comfort had preyed upon the lesser people in this rock. He had saved them from themselves. Thanks to him they were all redeemed, their sins removed, their way to Paradise clear and unburdened. He loved every one of them, he had suffered great guilt and lust and gluttony under this labour, but he had provided them with a pathway to paradise. They all owed him their eternal lives. He had liberated them.

  He often came down here to speak to them, to tell them of his love, to remember how they had died, how they had been released from this horrible mortal realm and into the bosom of God. The cuts he had made in their flesh. This was his true holy work, this was his true service to God and to community. He took their sins upon himself so they might go onto the next life with a clean soul. It was a noble work.

  He stroked the blood-stained altar and the rough knife which lay there and he felt a hot flush as he imagined that perfect creature lying there, naked under his blade. He would be stripped of his burden, he would be stripped of his life and sent to a better place. Comfort would cut that thing from his hand and wield it himself. And when the boy was dead and consumed, with his skull resting in its proper place, Comfort would have that bauble for his very own and all things would become possible. Comfort was giving in to his craving now, allowing his desire to grow. He began to undo hidden buttons, to strip the robes of office from his body. Soon he stood in the centre of the chamber with a blade in his hand. He was naked and aroused and his eyes gleamed darkly in the candlelight. His cravings swept him away and Jeremiah Comfort knew he would go hunting tonight.