by Josi Russell
SHADOWS OF EMPYRIAD
Copyright ©2016 Josi Russell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © Richard Lance Russell Art
Editors:
Lisa Oldham
Jason Oldham
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Maps
1
Jamal Laska dropped his papers and caught hold of the wall as the ground shuddered beneath his hut. His stomach pitched violently as another shock rolled through the village. Days of earthquakes were beginning to wear on him, and he closed his eyes and swallowed hard, willing his nausea to subside.
When the shaking stopped and the eerie new stillness of Empyriad returned, Laska scooped up the fallen papers from the tile floor. He tried to shove them into his shoulder bag. The bag was already bulging with the weight of his magma notes. He strode to the bed where his suitcase lay open, filled with his clothes.
The ships would be leaving soon, returning to Earth. The aides who were supposed to help pack and load his research should have been here hours ago. It was obvious that they had been caught up in the fear and made for the ships already. And he should have been gone by now, too, but four Empyriad seasons of his life lay in piles around the little hut, and he wouldn't leave them.
In one swift motion, Laska flipped the suitcase over, dumping its contents onto the bed, and righted it, eyeing the space inside. He retrieved the drives with all the data he had entered so far. They took up a third of the space. Next, he grabbed a sheaf of soil efflux measurements and laid them in the case, then went back for the other reports he had arranged while he awaited the aides.
Only half of the hundreds of soil sample analyses, gas density readings, and vent maps he had made would fit into the case. He looked, panicked, at the remaining stacks: hand-written observation notes, charts, and sketches, unduplicatable back on Earth. They had to come with him. Had to. Within them lay the whole of his knowledge of this planet.
But how could he carry all of them himself?
He cast a gaze around the hut. There were baskets, but they were too small to carry all those files. His cooking pot would be too heavy. His blanket made into a sling would be too large and unwieldy.
His blue sweater lay in the tumbled heap of clothing on the bed, and he snatched it, eyeing the neck. It looked pretty strong. It would probably hold. He scooped the papers up and laid them carefully inside the torso of the sweater, across the neck. He stacked them as high as he dared. The few sheaves that he would have to leave were important, but less so. He carefully tied the arms around the sweater to make a loose bundle. The package was bulky and awkward, but it would suffice. If Laska could just get it to the ship, he'd have a compartment in his cabin to stow it all until he got back to his lab on Earth.
The air smelled of sulfur and Laska's eyes stung as he rechecked his shoulder bag. The four notebooks that held the most vital data he had—his magma notes and his journal—were secure. The sight of them calmed Laska a bit. Of all his research, these notes were his greatest achievement. In them lay evidence of the Stracahn power and what Laska believed was a way to understand it. It would not only shine a light on what had happened here, but it could also change life on Earth forever. He pictured the press conference where he would present his findings. Laska pictured, for just a second, the awe of his colleagues as he revealed his discovery. Laska felt himself smile faintly. Empyriad had always offered hope, and even though they had destroyed it, the planet had given them this gift.
The humans had used up Earth’s gifts too quickly.
What else should he take? Laska looked around the hut. There were beautiful blankets woven by the Stracahn, and intricately carved talismans he’d collected. There were mineral samples and bottles of ash from the various sites he’d studied. And there were the things he’d brought from Earth: his texts and his instruments. He walked to the low shelf where he kept the books he had brought from home. He skimmed the titles.
There were geology texts, novels, and history texts, some of them passed down from his parents and unavailable on Earth now due to the Terrene War and the elibrary project. The elibrary only contained books endorsed by the Consolidated Terrene Leadership.
Most of these would have to stay. But one thick green volume would be hard to leave.
It was a history of Earth, written by an academic in the intellectual hub of Shoreline just before her death three years ago. It was very rare, one of the few texts that told the whole truth about the last two hundred years.
Laska opened it, feeling the smooth paper, smelling the ink. He flipped through, looking at the chapter headings.
“The Golden Age.” That chapter discussed the decades just before the middle of the last century when communications, weapons, and technology surpassed expectations. The Coulombic Engine was developed, allowing humans to travel through space with ease. But no one was looking out for the important things like agriculture.
The chapter entitled “The Blind Spot” discussed that oversight. He ran a finger across the exquisite maps printed inside, reading the familiar history.
As people covered the Earth, they needed food. The Earth could certainly have produced enough, but like all natural resources, the grain and meat production areas were unequally distributed. Countries began a feverish quest for arable land. China had invaded Russia and India, seeking sovereignty over the entire Asian Continent and all its grain production, and the conflict had escalated quickly. In eliminating the enemy, all sides had unleashed weapons that not only destroyed human life but also scarred the land, leaving it barren and poisoned. Within five Earth years, the war had ruined the three top grain-producing regions in the world, and the people of Earth began to starve.
Countries banded together and invaded the United States, driving for the farms and ranches and orchards of the West and the Midwest. Canada and many South American nations joined in trying to protect the agricultural lands, and across the globe humans scratched and clawed for food.
As he thought about Earth’s volatile history, Laska grew agitated. He leaned hard on the suitcase and got it sealed, then balanced the unwieldy sweater package atop it. There was no room for the book. He looked through the final chapters.
“The End of the Terrene War” discussed how the conflict had ended when the invading forces were repulsed. It showed photos of the still-fertile arable land in North and South America and photos of the devastation elsewhere. Most of the Asian, African, and European Continents were uninhabitable, and the conflict on the American Continents had driven most of Earth’s wealthy and powerful people to hide out on the Australian Continent, where meat and grain production had remained stable. It was there that the Consolidated Terrene Leadership was born.
The “Consolidated Leadership” chapter discussed how the war had decimated not only the land but also the human race. Earth’s human population numbers had fallen from 11 billion down to just over four billion. Everyone had lost someone. So when the group of leaders who had fled to Australia presented the plan of a united world, under a single government, most humans were ready to embrace it.
Laska had been born into the afte
rmath of the Terrene War. His grandparents had fought in it, his parents had witnessed it, and they all saw in him the potential to begin to repair it. His whole generation had been celebrated as Earth’s new hope.
So they had poured their souls into finding remedies for Earth’s ills. They had searched the stars, every reachable planet, for keys to replenishment. Empyriad had held the most promise. The book ended with a chapter called “Empyriad,” and it was that chapter which had inspired Laska to apply for this assignment.
They had hoped to find new varieties of plant life here, more resistant to harsh conditions. Laska himself had come to study Empyriad’s rocks and dirt, to discover new soil additives that they could bring back to regenerate their damaged planet.
But the science wasn’t all he’d come for. He had also come to break free of the heavy despair that covered much of Earth, the burning regret and resentment that still lingered there.
A rumbling aftershock shook the book from Laska’s hand, and the fear returned. He had to go. He picked up the book and placed it back on the shelf. Choices had to be made. He couldn’t bring it. His research was more important.
Laska reached for the tube of slick skin protectant that lay on the side table. He squeezed some into his hand and slathered it across his arms and face. The native Stracahn had iridescent skin that provided them protection from their sun's rays, but the humans burned badly without this special sunscreen.
But Laska grew impatient with the lotion. It took a lot of rubbing to work it into the skin, and time was short. As if to emphasize the urgency, another tremor shook the hut, and Laska, unprepared, was knocked to his knees. He sucked in his breath at the pain, gritting his teeth. He laid his head on the edge of the bed in front of him, feeling the surface of Empyriad rocking beneath him.
In spite of all these tremors, Laska didn’t know if Kin'achyt'la, the volcano at the edge of the village, would erupt. Laska and his team had been studying it for three of the four seasons he’d been here, and in many ways, it was still a mystery to them.
But, eruption or no eruption, this planet was doomed. He glanced up as the frame of the window jerked around his view of the mountains. Laska winced at the sight of them. They were, now, too like the burned and barren wastes of Earth. When he had first seen them, these slopes were green and verdant, covered with foliage that fed and sheltered the Stracahn and the humans who had arrived.
But now, barren black rock sloped away from the hut, stripped of its living blanket of plants by the tiny fungus Glomerella cingulata, which had hitched a ride on a human crewman's smuggled dried mango. The idiocy that it took to bring an unsterilized fruit to an entirely new planet still baffled Laska. The native species had no resistance and no time to develop any.
The disease had quickly spread across the Stracahn homeworld, destroying the native plants. Empyriad was a covered with a series of small continents, all connected through slender land bridges. The fungus had snaked across them through the vines and trees, through the bushes. Though he had heard that there were still some surviving cactus species in the deserts, all broadleaved plants and grasses had succumbed to the plague. Laska had watched as the verdant planet turned brown around him, its plants dying. He had watched as the peaceful Stracahn felt the wrenching grip of hunger and fear. He had watched discord begin to arise in their peaceful society in proportion to the loss of the plants.
Soon, only the bare rock surface of the planet lay exposed. Seeing the decimated mountains now, and feeling the upheaval that the full heat of Empyriad’s sun was causing in the ground, Laska felt ashamed of his species.
As the rocking continued, the sounds of shouting and screaming in the street outside drew him. He grasped the suitcase and rolled it behind him as he crawled to the door. Opening it, he saw teams of biologists, cartographers, geologists, all scientists like himself, as well as military personnel, all staggering through the village toward the ships.
There were no human children on the planet. For that he was grateful.
But they weren't alone in the streets. The Stracahn, beautiful and mostly silent, made their way toward the ships as well.
Laska had sensed, from his first contact with the Stracahn, that the aliens were powerful. He was surprised at the disdain and pity other humans directed at them. Many humans couldn’t see past the Stracahn’s primitive society—their huts and homemade clothes. Many of his fellow scientists saw them as backward, undeveloped versions of themselves.
And the Stracahn were humanoid. Almost human, really, but for their four-fingered hands, their iridescent skin, and their luminous eyes.
They even had emotions, although Laska admitted that they were not exactly like human emotions. They had a deep calm, a composure that could be disconcerting at times. One theory for their unshakable demeanor was based on the fact that the Stracahn reproduced differently and didn't require vast amounts of hormones pumping through their systems. They were eerily calm, mirroring the usual state of the planet of their birth. But under their tranquility, as under the crust of Empyriad, Laska had sensed a pulsing power. He sensed it now, as they moved around him, toward the ships. He had also seen, in the seasons he had spent here, that new undercurrent of conflict grow within the Stracahn society. Where there had been a unified, content people before the arrival of the humans, factions now had begun to arise, and though there were no outright battles, the Stracahn were increasingly at odds with one another and with their leadership, the Avowed. He saw the growing animosity in the way the Stracahn moved now toward the ships in small groups and in the distrust they held in their eyes.
Salah, an oceanographer that Laska had been spending time with, rushed out of her hut across the wide village road and waved at him. Laska pulled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the handle of his suitcase. They met in the center of the street, clinging to each other for support.
When the tremor stopped, so did they, and Laska tried again to clear his head.
"They're getting worse," Salah said through gritted teeth. She carried only a backpack, and Laska envied the lightness with which she moved. He felt burdened, weighed down with the bulk of the knowledge he was so driven to get back to Earth.
"I'm no Simms," Laska said, hearing the dizzy slur of his words, "but I'd say that thing's gonna blow anytime."
He raised his eyes to the towering volcano sloping away above them. The steam venting from the top and from the lava tubes on the sides was increasing. "I don't know how they're gonna get all these people out in time."
Salah flinched and looked away. "They're not, Jamal." She looked in his eyes. "There aren't enough ships."
Laska searched Salah’s face. He had known this, on some level, but he kept telling himself that Earth would make it right. That the Consolidated Terrene Leadership would save the Stracahn, if not the planet they had destroyed through their carelessness.
"Las-ka!" Laska heard his name, spoken in the Stracahn way: the speaker’s voice catching on the two consonants in Laska's name. "Las-ka!"
Laska turned and saw a group of Stracahn who had worked with him gathering gas samples. He should speak to them, say goodbye. He gestured Salah to go ahead.
"I'll see you on the ship," she said, then hesitated, reaching for Laska. He felt the heat of her hand and the stickiness of the sunscreen on his arm. She leaned in, and he kissed her, long and sweet. She had filled his last few weeks with more than science, for the first time in his life. He allowed himself to imagine the journey home—two months on the ship getting to know her better.
As she pulled away, he smiled broadly. "See you there."
Cev came up beside him, carrying a little bag of belongings. "Las-ka. I have a gift for you." He reminded Laska of a dragonfly from Earth. The Stracahn's iridescent skin was green, then blue, then purple in the sunshine as he leaned forward and slipped a pahuli necklace: a stone talisman of protection, around Laska's neck. The two men continued walking as Laska inspected it.
"It's remarkable," he said, noti
ng for the first time how many of the Stracahn were wearing them.
The pahuli meant parting. It was not only given to loved ones as they left on a journey, but the Stracahn also draped it around the necks of the deceased as a talisman of protection for their journey into the next life.
"I'll see you on Earth," Laska said, then instantly regretted it. He saw the flash of fear in Cev's eyes.
"I hope so. I hear that the ships are filling up quickly." Cev sighed. "I might not make it to Earth this trip."
A Stracahn mother passed them, swinging her baby in the traditional hupta, or carrying wrap, which Laska had grown so used to seeing. Another child followed at her heels, and as he pulled the clumsy suitcase behind him, he tried not to think about their already skeletal frames. The food was gone. The animals were nearly gone. The future was bleak for anyone left on this rock after these ships left.
But they were a calm people, a centered and balanced people. Laska couldn't believe now that Cev was so composed. Cev knew that there were not enough ships. He was aware that staying on the planet meant slow and sure starvation, yet he maintained his composure. They walked in silence, and ahead of them Laska saw the shining hulls of the ships that would take him home.
“Meir himself carved that pahuli,” Cev said. Laska couldn’t tell if he was changing the subject to calm himself or to make his human companion feel less uncomfortable. Either way, the comment made Laska think of Meir. He was at the top of Stracahn society, second only to the Mubareth Ola’an, the child who the Stracahn saw as their chosen one. Meir was arguably the most prominent member of Stracahn society. He led the Avowed, the spiritual and governmental leaders of the Stracahn.
The Avowed had prophesied that humans would come. And the ships came as the Avowed had said they would: on a clear day, from the East. Small, light landing crafts that eased down to the surface, opened, and spilled their passengers out into the intense sunlight.