THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

by Ivan Cat

  "Jenette! Consul!" Karr called as she rolled in glittering pollen.

  "Lindal!" she cried, a smile splitting her face. She rushed through the flowers, threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug.

  "Ouch," Karr flinched.

  "Oops," Jenette giggled, drawing back with an expression of exaggerated regret. "Sooorrr-y." She removed the spiky starlure and dropped it into the flowers. She gave Karr another hug and then twirled giddily in the sunlight. "I've had the most wonderful dreams, Lindal!"

  Karr nodded knowingly; non-Pilots dreamed heavily under fugue. "I'm sure you have."

  "Everything was perfect," Jenette bubbled on, "all beautiful and peaceful and Utopian. And then I woke up and it was all true!" She stopped spinning. Her attention fixed on Karr, her thoughts turning mischievous. "I bet you'd look pretty good without those silly tights on."

  "Pardon?"

  Jenette paced sultrily closer. "That geeksuit...."

  "Ghimpsuit."

  "Whatever. Take it off."

  Karr blushed, acutely aware that Jenette wore nothing more than a few streaks of pollen. Saffron smudges curved fully where a young woman should curve fully and stretched long where a young woman should stretch long. Her breasts sat high and perfect. Her hips beckoned seductively. Karr's breath became shallow and rapid.

  "I don't think you really mean that," he said quickly.

  "I don't? Why wouldn't I mean what I say?"

  "Because you're sick."

  "I feel great."

  Karr stumbled backward as she drew nearer. "Oh?" he stammered. "You didn't feel sick after waking up, not at all?"

  "Weellll," Jenette admitted, "at first I threw up. But I feel fabulous now." She grabbed hold of Karr's ghimpsuit. "How does this unfasten?"

  "Never mind that," Karr objected. "You are suffering from post-fugue euphoria. If you just wait a while, it will pass."

  "I don't want it to pass."

  "But it's not real."

  "It's as real as we want to make it."

  "It's biochemically induced!"

  Jenette abruptly seized Karr's face in her hands. "Look here, gloomy-man, do you love me or not?"

  Karr gulped. He glanced around, but there was no one around to help him. He could not even see his ship, the emotional anchor of most of his adult life; it was blocked by a cluster of newly grown trees. He was truly on his own. "Ummm..."

  "Not the right answer."

  "I suppose... that is, I guess—"

  "Nope. Unacceptable." Jenette shook Karr's head from side to side. "Try again."

  Karr sighed. "I don't want to take advantage. I don't want you to do anything you might regret later."

  Jenette fixed an icy Tesla stare on him. "Don't think, Pilot Lindal Karr, that just because I feel euphoric that I would do anything I don't want to do. I'm not a little girl."

  "No," Karr agreed, sweating. "I can see that you're not."

  "So?"

  "So..." Karr said, abruptly resembling the sad and vulnerable little boy who was taken from the Planet of Industry so many centuries ago. "So, I love you."

  "That's better," Jenette said, kissing him hard, "because I love you, too."

  LV

  Three things being a Pilot will do for you: It will take you to a crossroads. It will harden you. It will kill you.

  —Bondir Malda's suicide note,

  Two months after retirement from Kismet.

  Jenette dreamed:

  The proto-man lays before her, in its clothes of white, the color of true love. She has taken good care of it. The seam around its cranium hardly shows. In a jar nearby is its boy-brain. She sweeps the container to the floor. Crash. That won't be necessary any longer.

  She opens a ceramite chest. Within, cradled in satin, is a shiny, new brain. Long she searched for it. Hardships she surmounted to acquire it. Tears she cried to feed it. And now it is just right.

  It is a man-brain.

  She unlocks the man-body's head. Places the man-brain in the empty cavity. Seals it up.

  Now the man-body is alive. Now she cannot play with it like a toy. It has its own will. Its own wants. Its own—she hopes—lusts. Now they must play together, woman body to man-brain, man-body to woman-brain, or not play at all.

  It grabs her. She is afraid, but excited, too. How will this dream end?

  It ends in blossoms.

  Her lips wandered over his lips. Exposing, teasing, pressing. He enwrapped her in his arms and she entwined him in her legs, pressing him into her. They moved in the yellow sunlight, caressing, moving with one another as yellow flowers changed color and bloomed white around them, unfurling. Velveteen petals and stems caressed them, changing in perfume as their passion peaked and renewed, reinventing and reinvigorating. The woman, the man, and the field of blossoms made love as the planet made life about them.

  Karr held Jenette tightly when it was at last over.

  "I've found my home," he said.

  Liberty, naked and looking disheveled, wandered into view. Karr lay on his back with Jenette draped lazily over him, both equally as unclothed as the Guard. She spotted the couple and waved.

  "I've had sex!" she shouted, sauntering over and looking like the cat that ate the canary. "Six times!" she elaborated. "With three different guys! And they wanted to. I think the lot of them grew balls overnight. Not that I'm complaining!"

  "I'm glad," Karr said, smiling rather stiffly. Liberty was a stunning, heavily framed woman. Muscles rippled when she moved. Karr had an unsettling image of her popping his head between her strong legs like a grape.

  "Thanks," said Liberty. She clenched a fist victoriously. "It was great! Say," she added, on a second thought, "you two are cute. You wouldn't want to, you know, have some fun...? Nah, didn't think so. Catch you later!"

  Liberty sauntered on, presumably in search of her next conquests.

  "It's pretty amazing about the Khafra," Jenette commented in an idle moment, later.

  "What is?"

  "How they didn't fall asleep from the fugue."

  "They didn't?"

  "Nope. Not a single one of them."

  "Wow," said Karr. That explained why in-bob had not fallen into fugue-coma inside of Long Reach. It wasn't because of a billion in a billion chance. It was because he was part of an entire race of potential Pilots. "Wow," Karr repeated. It made sense. Immune venom was related to fugue. Khafra had to be resistant to its paralyzing effects, otherwise every Khafra Karr had ever encountered would have been lying in suspended animation. He knew of some Pilot Academy instructors who would love to know about New Ascension's secret.

  "I've got one for you," Karr said. "The Ferals think that it was me who caused the last fugueship-spawn to explode. It wasn't. It was in-bob." Karr told Jenette the story of the minutes leading up to the spawning.

  "A Pact saved a piece of the light after all," Jenette observed. "A real indigenous Pact, not a doppelganger Pact like you. The Prophecy was right. The Judges will be happy to know that."

  "Maybe we should tell somebody."

  "Mmm," Jenette replied, a purr entering her voice, "but we don't have to tell them right away, do we?"

  "Decidedly not," Karr said in response to her naughty, roaming fingers.

  They resumed playing dueling reproductive games with the flowers.

  A few duels later, Tlalok appeared, striding into view with the Judges scurrying along behind him. He honed in on Jenette and Karr like a heat seeking missile.

  "Human Karr, human Jenette," Tlalok greeted. "Tlalok has been searching for you."

  Jenette said, "Hello, oh Keeper of the Roots of Wisdom, oh Radiance of the Pack of Gnosis."

  "I guess that means he succeeded Kthulah?" Karr mumbled to Jenette.

  Jenette nodded.

  "Congratulations," Karr said, a bit awkwardly, to Tlalok; Karr was still a bit intimidated by the fierce Khafra. Tlalok bowed his head slightly. "And please thank Kitrika for digging me out," Karr added.

  "Urrkurrkurrk," Tlalok
rumbled. His colors formed unsettled, regret-tinged splotches.

  Jenette hissed at Karr. "The Radiance of the Pack of Gnosis must have no bondmate. All lesser-radiant Khafra offer up small amounts of Pact to keep him, and the Judges, alive. That way Khafra leaders are sort of bonded to those they lead. It keeps them Balanced."

  "Ah," said Karr, not understanding, and not truly wanting to, either. Alien mysticism was always a brain-bender.

  "Developments unfold," Tlalok said, impatiently, to Jenette. "Forces of Gnosis have captured traitor humans on Jenette's home island."

  Jenette, who had been quite relaxed, was suddenly all business. "How many?" she asked, sitting up and brushing pollen off her breasts and thighs.

  Tlalok was oblivious to the humans' state of undress. His muzzle curled into an expression of dislike. "All of them, as far as Tlalok knows." His colors became hopeful. "Shall Tlalok kill them for Jenette?"

  "No, no," Jenette said quickly.

  "Tlalok would not be inconvenienced."

  "I must talk to them," Jenette insisted in a friendly manner.

  Tlalok was clearly disappointed. He turned his attention to Karr. "The human Karr owes Tlalok a sacrifice."

  Karr felt as though the newly formed ground had been pulled out from under him. At long last he had found a place to belong. It wasn't perfect, with the death of his ship always nagging somewhere in a corner of his mind, but it was as good as it had ever been. And now this.

  "Tlalok will collect now," the alien said. "Not for the original reasons. For new reasons. Tlalok has seen that he was wrong about some things. Wrong about the False Radiance. Wrong about humans. The Balance has righted itself, as wise Kthulah once told a savage it would. Humans and Khafra can exist in harmony. And it is good. Tlalok must quell his instincts to fight. Tlalok must not lead the Pack of Gnosis back into imBalance. The new harmony must endure. But... Tlalok hears whispers. Other humans are saying that the 'fugue' from the 'fugueship-spawn' will wear off. And when it does old human needs will be as strong as before. Is this true?"

  "It is true," Karr admitted.

  "It must not be," Tlalok said firmly. "There must be another source of fugue for humans!"

  Tlalok was talking about Long Reach, Karr realized. He felt sick to his stomach at where he saw Tlalok's reasoning headed. "The Burning Heart of Night must die. It wants to die. It deserves to die. Even your Prophecy says it must."

  "Let the Prophecy be cursed!" Tlalok swore. "Tlalok will make new Prophecy."

  The Judges looked on calmly. Fortunately for them, they would never be able to hear, let along understand, human language. Karr hung his head.

  "Can the Pilot Karr not extend the Burning Heart's life?" Tlalok demanded.

  "Maybe," Karr answered truthfully.

  "Then maybe will have to be enough," Tlalok decided. "This is the sacrifice Tlalok demands."

  "When?" Karr asked simply.

  "Now," said Tlalok.

  Karr turned to Jenette. It was doubly awful. He must now go against the wishes of his beloved ship and keep it alive long after its natural time to die was passed. And he was losing Jenette. He would return to his ship, to fuguetime. Days would pass, perhaps even months; he did, after all, know his Pilot skills very well. He might be able to keep Long Reach alive and in torment for a very long time. When he came out again, Jenette would be gone.

  "You will be keeping us all alive while our scientists search for a cure," Jenette said, equally aware of what was about to happen, and just as sad.

  Karr took her hands and clasped them in his own.

  "Come with me," he asked. "You will go to sleep, and dream pleasant dreams, and wake up and it will be like no time has passed. We can continue our lives just like nothing happened...."

  One look at Jenette's ice-blue, watering eyes was enough for Karr to see that such a fantasy could not be.

  Jenette was a prisoner of her duty as much as Karr was a prisoner of his, and she knew it.

  No matter how hard she had fought it, it had found her. Just like her father always said it would. His dying words were a trap that had snapped tightly about her. She must do what she thought was right, always. She must make the hard decisions. And she must be responsible for every single human on the planet she must guide, cajole, manipulate, threaten, and punish—but never abandon.

  Jenette had not promised her father that she would abide by those principals, but now she found that it did not matter. He had ingrained them into her by example. She could not now abandon those traitor humans back on the Enclave, no matter how repugnant their behavior had been, no matter how much she wanted to go with Karr—and she wanted to go with Karr very, very much. No, she had to find a way to bring those errant humans back into the fold, to drag them kicking and screaming into the new harmony forged between humans and Ferals.

  She was, after all, a Tesla.

  "I cannot," she said to Karr.

  Karr kissed her and left with Tlalok. The Judges lingered, sensing the grief of their new human friend. Consulting their tallies, they sighed, <>

  <>

  <>

  <>

  Arrou sat in the middle of the field, tearing up grass.

  He was free.

  The fugue in the exploding fugueship-spawn had given freedom to all domestics, and all Ferals too. It was the time when all bonds are broken, all Pacts made anew. Most Ferals were now re-bonding with their bondmates, reaffirming old attachments with new vigor. But Arrou did not know what to do. He was concerned about his friend Jenette. He still cared about her. That would never change. But he did not have to go and find her right now. It was enough for him to have heard from Liberty that Jenette was all right. He would, of course, go and see Jenette soon. But first he must sort through his confusion.

  Arrou had never wanted to be free.

  In his estimation, everyone served something, it was just a matter of what. The trick was to find the right thing to serve. He had been lucky before; that choice had been made for him. So why fight to be free from that which he would have chosen anyway? But now he must choose for himself. What would he do? Probably, he would help Jenette, he decided. There was still much to be done to make things right. Probably she would still want his help. It would just be in a slightly different way from how he had helped her before. That made him feel a bit better. If it did not completely fill the strange void that his new freedom left in his heart, then, well... maybe he just needed to be patient.

  Arrou kept pulling grass, pawful by pawful, slowly turning on his haunches to reach more stalks.

  A female feral appeared prowling across the field. It was Kitrika. She padded closer and observed Arrou's activity. Arrou had denuded all plant growth an arm's length from himself in every direction.

  <> Kitrika flashed.

  <>

  <>

  Arrou thought he had no answer, but one popped into his head and he said it, <> The scientist's death had troubled Arrou much lately. He told Kitrika how he had spared in-robert's life and what the inhuman had done to Bigelow.

  <>

  Arrou sighed. <> New Ascension plant growth would fill the raw ghutzu ring in no time once Arrou stopped plucking it. Green shoots were already squirming into the brown circle.

  Kitrika sparkled sympathetically. <>

  Kitrika moved a few paces from Arrou. Raking her powerful rear talons across the ground, and spinning on her forepaws, she rapidly cleared a large circle of nothing.

  <>
<
br />   <> Arrou said. <>

  <>

  <>

  <> Kitrika flashed mirthfully, <>

  "Urrr?"

  In short order, Kitrika made circles of nothing for sunny days, pushing friends into cold sinkhole bogs when they aren't expecting it's and sleeping late. Eventually Arrou's mood lightened, he laughed and, using Kitrika's faster technique, made nothing circles for being high-up, telling embarrassing secrets about people you don't like, and especially for going fast.

  Lastly, they made a big one together, rotating in opposite directions and bumping together where the circle closed upon itself.

  <> Arrou asked as the dust settled.

  < Kitrika said coyly.

  Karr stepped up to the iris-portal. He turned back, looking around, but no one was there besides Tlalok and the Judges. Jenette was watching, hiding in a copse of distant jungle plants, but she did not wave or otherwise give away her position. She hated drawn-out good-byes. Squaring his shoulders, Karr stepped into his ship and out of her life.

  PART SEVEN:

  BALANCE

  LVI

  When wind blows through scattered farfalla grasses, they do not hold its whispers after it has gone. When wild clouds dance over ocean, the water does not retain shadows after clouds have passed. So too our hearts must be full only when an event occurs and rest, void, when the matter ends.

  —Feral Wisdom

  Prime Consul Jenette Tesla stepped out of the heavy lifter's passenger module and drew an apprehensive breath of night air. She felt like a different person.

  Twenty years of hard choices had done it.