“In any event,” she said, “Mysentia is yours once more.”
I nodded.
“And you are… satisfied? You have personal fulfillment?”
I started to nod again, then remembered our earlier conversation, during our long journey together. A touch of anger flared within me, but I quashed it with surprising ease, and merely smiled.
“Somewhat,” I said.
A knowing smile playing about her lips, she looked away for a moment, then turned back to me, her eyes moving toward the knot of officers gathered about the tables.
“The admirals were a bit nervous about your demand that I captain this mission,” she said.
“If I have to spend time in the company of Terrans,” I replied, “the least they can do is to make one of them an old friend.”
She smiled, then looked around the room at the array of bigwigs and muckety-mucks filling most of the space.
“So, you’re going to make a truce with us, then. With the Alliance.”
“It seems prudent.” I shrugged. “And perhaps, as well, I have found some… deeply personal motivations… to work toward better relations between the Outer Worlds and your government.”
“Until the time comes to launch your next attack, either on one of your neighbors or against us,” she suggested, only half-playfully. “I know how you think.”
I placed a hand over my heart. “You wound me, lady. Surely you see that I have become a man of peace.”
She leaned in closer, looking at my hand.
“You’re not fooling me,” she said, shaking her head. “I already know there’s nothing under there.”
Then she laughed, and I deflated a bit and joined her.
“I would hate to think that were so,” I said then.
She paused, looking around the room again, and I waited. Part of me once again looked on from above in shock that a human could so disconcert me. Another part of me—now the greater part—rejoiced in her company once more. Yet it was all so awkward, so different from before. Perhaps we had both moved on, I reasoned. Perhaps I should have just been grateful for the time I had spent with her, and for what I had learned about myself during that time, and left it at that.
Turning back to me then, she bowed slightly and started to move away.
“I have to get back to running the ship,” she said.
“Of course…”
I frowned, attempting to turn my thoughts back to diplomacy and business. Behind me, the two groups of delegates were seating themselves around a large conference table.
Then she poked me in the stomach with a finger, and I looked back at her, startled.
“When this session has adjourned,” she said quietly, “we should catch up on things.”
She pressed a small chip into my hand.
“This will grant you access to the living quarters of my ship, and will register you as a welcome guest on our security monitors.”
I nodded dumbly.
“Maybe that way,” she said, “no one among my crew will try to earn a reputation by capturing the dreaded Markos the Liberator, in the act of breaking and entering.”
She smiled again, then turned and started back toward her ship.
“It couldn’t be easier,” she added, looking back. “No jumping out of trees, no ripping holes in the fabric of the universe.”
She smiled, and that smile warmed me as nothing else had in months.
“Just follow the signs,” she said.
# # #
And now five hours have passed; five long, dull hours of diplomatic wrangling and military arguments and map drawing and re-drawing, during which I could scarcely pay attention at all.
And now the meeting stands at recess, and I stand before the hatch to the captain’s quarters; and I, who have ruled worlds and commanded armies and slain gods and emperors, fairly shake with nerves and fear. I summon up some of the forcefulness of my younger days and bring my hand up high, and I knock.
Abandon all hope, I once told a crew of explorers lost on unfriendly shores. As Lucian, the dark lord, I believed those words, or thought I did. I surely believed in power and glory and victory above all.
I have known power and glory, and I have known defeat and loss and bitter guilt that dogged me down through the centuries. And now, I believe I can know peace, and happiness, and love; or as much of those things as an erstwhile dark god is entitled to know.
Amazing, I think to myself as the door opens before me and I see her sparkling eyes once more. Amazing that I could have been alive so very many years and, until now, never really known how to live.
About the Author
Van Allen Plexico is a professor of political science and history and a freelance writer/editor. He writes and edits New Pulp, science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction analysis and commentary for a variety of print and online publishers. His writing has been nominated for multiple awards and his best-known works include Lucian, the Assembled! books, and the groundbreaking Sentinels series—the first ongoing, multi-volume cosmic superhero saga in prose form. He has lived in Atlanta, Singapore, Alabama, and Washington, DC, and now resides in the St. Louis area along with his wife, two daughters and assorted river otters.
All of his books are available for Kindle and in paperback at Amazon.com. Learn more by visiting www.plexico.net and
www.whiterocketbooks.com
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