The main housing area looked as he remembered, people living in squalor, dirty and sick. Illness ran rampant in Ioshia’s poor circulated atmosphere. Black soot covered the ceiling where the people started fires to keep warm when the life support system failed. Charles wondered how many people died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The dead jettisoned into space to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, forgotten.
The people were clothed in rags, no better than what breeders wore, and made due with what they had. Their hollow expressions flooded Charles’ memories of his time on Ioshia. He shuttered to think he’d been like them once. He fought to put those dark times behind him.
When Charles saw the effigies erected of high-born likenesses he paused. The shrines looked like prayer alters to the rich. The similarities of Iris Lexor, Hek’Dara Tannador and Brandon Hyguard were uncanny.
“Unsettling isn’t it?” the pilot asked.
Charles shook his head, and said, “I’d heard rumors that this kind of thing was happening. I didn’t put stock into it… until now.”
“It started about ten years ago. No one knows why, but the theologians sprung up slow at first. Then over time, similar sects popped up around the different families. The Pikes, the Hyguard, the Anders… all of them… there’s even a church dedicated to Moyah Everhart, even though no one has seen her in recent memory.”
Charles studied cropping religions in old Earth cultures, but most of those based on superstition and ignorance faded away over time. He thought of many reasons the inhabitants of Ioshia would worship mythical deities, gods or goddesses fabricated by those looking for something greater than themselves. To make a high-born their gods made little sense. Perhaps it’s better to worship what you can see, rather than what you can’t. Charles dismissed that thought. His whole life he’d looked to science as his religion. For him tangible hard facts were all he needed. The proof through reasoning and science was all he needed to believe in.
At the long stretch of corridor leading to Duncan’s guarded home, Charles saw a young boy no more than thirteen years old, kneeling on the floor. The boy’s hollow eyes stared out through the vaulted glass ceiling into space. Charles looked up, and he saw the high-born platforms. A fetid smell surrounded the boy and Charles covered his nose with the back of his hand.
“What do you see?” Charles asked. The boy looked at him; his pale washed downtrodden expression gave Charles cold chills.
The boy looked back up toward the high-born ships and said in a congested tone, “Hope…”
Charles stared at the child, studied the boys grimy matted hair. Dirty, his skin flaked on his face and his clothes, ripped, tattered and old. Before he said anything, Charles noticed the young pilot motioning for him to follow.
“Some of the people here see the high-born as saviors,” the pilot said ushering Charles along.
“Some?” Charles asked.
“There are others… like Mr. Duncan who is aware of the real agenda of the high-born.” The pilot tugged at Charles’ arm urging him inside. “We haven’t much time… I need to get you back to Requiem before our window of opportunity closes.”
Charles turned away from the boy, but he couldn’t get the image of him out of his head. He turned back to take another look. “Who is he?”
“His parents were killed when an airlock failed last month. He’s been sitting there ever since. Please professor we have to hurry.”
For a moment Charles forgot the real reason he’d come to Ioshia. He looked back at the boy one last time then followed the pilot into Duncan’s home.
Oliver Duncan stood in the main living room when Charles entered. The cluttered space filled with many trinkets from old green tarnished hookahs, stacks of cracked china to jumbles of seashells that were now contraband. Rows of old paintings, classical works of art from Alberto Durero, Gustave Courbet and Artemisia Gentileschi were among many that Charles saw from a glance.
Oliver Duncan, a man of resources and power, Charles knew the man to be neither browbeaten nor intimidated by anyone, including the Orlander security forces. Secretive, Duncan kept a lot about his earlier life to himself. Though Charles filled in the blanks of his benefactor’s life, with bits and pieces he learned from the man over the years.
Born to a breeder and raised as a slave, Oliver escaped after killing a guard in his early teens. Charles always wondered how he got away. The Orlanders were good at hunting down escaped slaves.
Charles thought someone must have helped him. It might have been someone in the security force, but he dismissed the idea. Orlanders were loyal to a fault. Oliver said in passing several years ago, that sexual favors bent a man’s loyalty. Charles saw first-hand, while in Oliver’s employ, that sex never lost its appeal. Even he partook in oral favors when it meant getting extra money or information.
While in his employ, Oliver Duncan kept Charles on a tight leash, but treated him fairly. Where he would pistol whip a man for looking at him the wrong way, he would allow Charles to speak his mind, Charles respected his benefactor.
The rugged, squared jawed man had withered with time. Charles couldn’t stop looking at the hideous, uncombed locks and remembered the dark lusty hair he once had.
Oliver stood lopsided. His old weathered hand gripped a cane to balance himself. “You took goddamn long enough,” he said with a rough drumming voice.
“I’m sorry, sir, it couldn’t be helped” the pilot said.
Duncan waved his hand back and forth dismissing the apology. “What do you think of my brash young pilot?” he asked Charles.
“Not your regular run of the mill employee, is he?” Charles asked.
Duncan laughed with a snort. “Carl, if you’ll leave us I’d like to speak with my old friend alone.”
Charles couldn’t remember Duncan ever calling him old friend before. Maybe he’d call him son of lesbian bitches, or fatherless bastard – but never friend. It appeared Duncan mellowed with age. At seventy-nine the heartless young man turned into a soft old man.
“Where is the cask?” Charles asked.
Duncan slowly walked to a chair in the center of the room and sat down. He let out a soft groan, and said with a faint smile, “You were never one for small talk, were you?”
Charles’ brow hardened.
Duncan pointed at a rusted metal cabinet. “It’s unlocked.”
The handles on the door were tight and hard to turn. With a firm grip Charles applied enough force to them until they finally turned. The hinges squalled when he opened the duel metal doors. At eye level he found the gold cask. He paused a moment before removing it from the shelf.
Charles placed the cask on a table and began to examine the markings on all four sides. The main mark, the Z symbol, only appeared on one side. The rest of the markings were foreign to him. Charles’ mouth turned dry with anticipation. He wanted to begin work right that minute. He brought all his ciphers and notes he just needed time to study.
Duncan cleared his throat, and warned, “Charles won’t you be missed on your ship?”
Charles heard Duncan but ignored him. A find as rare as the cask needed investigating right away.
“It won’t open,” Duncan said. “I’ve tried everything but explosives.”
“It might be a puzzle box of some kind. Where did you get this?”
“I picked it up from a scavenger ship. Told me they’d been trailing the family Xavier to a planet… don’t ask me which one. Their last excavation site I’d assume. Does it matter?”
Charles recognized a hint of mistruth in Oliver’s voice. “Everything is important, especially when it comes to this Z symbol. We’ve found it on every planet we’ve visited. Sometime within the last millennium there was a war. Not just a war between worlds, but a collective war against a sentient being that threatened every life in the galaxy.”
“I take it by the sound of your voice it didn’t go well,” Oliver said.
Charles tried to sum up everything he recorded and investigated over the last t
en years, so Oliver understood. “Information is sporadic. What details there are, are difficult to decipher. The devastation on each excavation site is unparalleled. Nowhere that we have visited, have we found a living soul. The war killed everyone.”
“A war with whom?” Oliver asked.
Charles shrugged and looked at the cask. “I’m not sure. Hopefully we find something on or in here that will give me some answers.”
“Then it’s significant?”
“Everything in archeology has some significance. How much?”
“How much?” Duncan asked confused.
“How much money do you want for the cask?” Charles asked waiting to hear an astronomical amount.
Duncan shook his head, and waved his arm, said, “I don’t want money.”
Charles wasn’t sure if he heard right. Oliver Duncan’s two passions in life were money and sex; the former outweighing the latter. “Are you sick?”
“No money… I want a favor?” Duncan said.
Not his usual price, Charles agreed.
“I want you to take Carl with you on your ship,” Duncan said and produced a small interface drive from inside his inner shirt pocket. “All the information you must put into your ships systems as an assistant is recorded on this interface. It’s not safe here anymore and sooner or later he will fall into the corruption on this station.”
Charles stood away from the cask and looked at his old benefactor and questioned, “There’s more isn’t there?”
“What more?” Duncan asked in a huff and stood from the chair. He turned his back on Charles and did not move.
“Duncan,” Charles said in a firm tone. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Duncan looked back; the deep lines of age marked on his face ran together. “He’s my son,” he said in a low voice. “I gave him a job when he came of age. His mother couldn’t provide for him and I wanted him to be safe. I’m getting old, Charles. I can’t protect him anymore. I need you to watch over him for me.”
“Does he know?”
“No –” Duncan snapped. “He must never know. You must promise me that.”
Charles’ chest tightened. Getting Carl’s information into Requiem’s computer system wouldn’t be the problem. Getting everyone to believe that he’s always been on board could be impossible. Charles looked at the cask, and said, “I’ll keep your secret, Duncan. I owe you for everything you did for me growing up. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have went to college, let alone finish it.”
Duncan reached out his hand and Charles clasped his hand inside it with a firm grip. “Thank you, Charles.”
“Don’t thank me,” Charles said picking up the cask and cradling it in his arms like a child. “You taught me a long time ago that business is business. I bought this with a promise. I just hope I can keep it.”
Tannador House – High Earth Orbit
The formal ballroom
April 17, 2442
Hek’Dara Tannador stood next to his son in the receiving line while guests paraded by them during the arrival ceremony. The whiskers on Hek’Dara’s face furrowed with a vivacity of its own while he spoke. The dark facial hair – a sharp contrast to his beaming white hair that brandished his head – helped keep his youthful exposure. In truth Hek’Dara colored his beard every morning. Over the years it became his trademark and symbolized him throughout the Great Families. He wanted everyone to visualize his beard when they spoke about him in private circles. He liked being etched in everyone’s memories.
The large amounts of alcohol consumed fueled the gayety throughout the ballroom. Slaves passed around trays of long stem glasses filled with Tannador wine, a family tradition for ten generations. Like Hek’Dara’s beard, the wine became synonymous with the family’s name. Fermented and processed from hybrid grapes harvested on private growth platforms. Platforms that kept the sun turned toward its growth hydro pods all the time. The growth stations provided grapes all year long producing the sweetest of wines – each bottle crested with the family’s sigil – the single red rose.
Besides the prestige the family Tannador received from their accomplishments throughout the Earth, their family customs seemed secure. Hek’Dara relished the idea that his family led the expansion into space. Tannador House, the first constructed of its kind had no equal. Of all the families, the Tannadors were the wealthiest, even though they were not the most popular – Hek’Dara hoped with Quinton that might change.
Driven to keep his dynasty’s earnings unmatched by any other family, Hek’Dara refused to be seen weak in the eyes of his peers, especially the Lexors. When he heard Avery Lexor and his sister, Candace announced at the entrance of the ballroom, he withdrew from the reception line. He patted Quinton’s back and gave a fake smile to those who waited to meet him. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, providing no explanation why he left the line. Hek’Dara saw a glib stare from Quinton before he turned.
Protected by four of their armed défenseur security men, Avery and his sister made their way through the crowd unmolested. The people stood aside allowing them to pass without so much of a nod signifying their presence. The Lexors were not a welcome sight by anyone. No one wanted to be acquainted with the family who were the custodians of the ORACLE system. The look on Avery and Candace’s faces were that of contempt for everyone in the room. They made no eye contact with anyone, their aloof demeanor matched their colorless, bland clothing – lifeless and without emotion.
Hek’Dara crossed the ballroom floor, sidestepping people dancing, and those who wanted to speak with him. His phony smile faded from his face, his hazel eyes followed Avery through the ambush of people. In the confusion he lost sight of Candace and two of their elite guards. Hek’Dara looked about but he couldn’t find her.
He increased his stride and Hek’Dara met Avery near a raised deck that overlooked a decorative observation window. The défenseur guards blocked his approach.
“That’s all right,” Avery said with a raise of his hand.
Cautious, the two guards separated and allowed Hek’Dara through.
“If I might have a moment of your time,” Hek’Dara said motioning toward the platform.
Avery nodded and followed Hek’Dara up onto the raised deck near the window. Hek’Dara looked back out over the ballroom. He knew an impromptu meeting like this wouldn’t go unnoticed.
“I didn’t suspect you’d be attending the arrival party,” Hek’Dara said focusing his attention on Avery.
“Mother insisted,” Avery responded, he too, looked out over the ballroom. “My sister seems to have disappeared.”
“For the better,” Hek’Dara said. “I wanted to thank you for overlooking my daughter’s indiscretion and allowing her to pass undetected by the watcheye. Now, I hope we are even?”
“Yes – my debt to you is paid in full. Still… I’m puzzled why you didn’t alert my mother I’ve been aiding the Highlanders on Earth. You could have been indebted to her.”
Hek’Dara turned his back to the crowd in the ballroom, so no one could make out what he said, and whispered, “Your mother is never in debt to anyone, that includes someone like me. I helped you out of necessity. I don’t condone what you’ve been doing Avery. You’re feeding a cause for rebellion. With every nomadic tribe free to incite violence, you weaken our influence – even over rebels, like the Highlanders. Slaves see them as heroes. The last thing we need is for the slaves to think of freedom. Remember what happened with the last uprising?” Hek’Dara remembered. Thirty years ago, the slaves decided they no longer wanted to serve. That they wanted to go back to the Earth and live as free men. They torched breeding facilities burning them to the ground. Riots on all the nine family’s orbital platforms broke out and private security forces could not quell the discontent. For over eight weeks the riots raged from one platform to another, spreading to the low-born space stations.
It affected all outlets of Earth production. Eighteen people lost their lives. Hek’Dara remembered touring the ha
rvester a day after the riot.
“It was a minor skirmish,” Avery replied. “Many believe if our civilization is to survive we need to return to the Earth.”
Return to the Earth? “You realize most of the planet is a death zone and can’t support life?” Hek’Dara wanted to laugh at Avery’s notion of returning to Earth. The population that lived in orbit couldn’t survive on the small patch that supported a limited amount of life.
“It’s not that farfetched,” Avery said.
“And who will lead the people back to Earth – you?”
“In every revolution there is someone with a vision.”
“Subjugation seems to run in the Lexor blood doesn’t?”
“Harsh words, Hek’Dara. You think you have all the answers.”
“I won’t give you a history lesson Avery of something you know. But I will give you advice. Be prepared for your mother to learn of your humanitarian efforts, because when she does, she might find a connection to us. I’m not willing to be implicated in something I don’t endorse.”
“Are you afraid of my mother?” Avery asked with a glib smile.
“No, but I am cautious. I have survived to be this ripe old age by following three simple rules. One of them is never cross the person with all the secrets. Nothing gets past your mother. Sooner or later the Watchtower will get a whiff of your activities. When it does, I want to be left out of it or you and I will have a serious problem.”
Avery’s eyes glazed over and he took a step back away from Hek’Dara.
“Father,” Quinton called.
Hek’Dara turned to find his son sequestered by Avery’s défenseur just beyond the balcony.
Quinton stared past the guards with a steely gaze, and said, “It’s time to make the announcements.”
Hek’Dara replaced the fake smile on his face and said, “You’re right. It’s time we get this over. Collect your sister and meet me at the center stage.”
Quinton gave Hek’Dara and Avery an irritated glance and said, “I’ll go find Da’Mira.”
Origin Expedition Page 13