Eden's Revenge (Eden Paradox Book 3)

by Barry Kirwan

  “Be still, Micah,” Chahat-Me said. “They are showing him his crime.”

  Micah stood transfixed, as Fornasson hung there, rigid, spellbound, fingers flexing as if he were being electrocuted. It lasted long, torturous minutes. The man’s mouth was agape, as if shouting, but no sound issued forth. Suddenly, Fornasson dropped to his knees, the light beams still pouring into his eyes. One of his hands shot to his mouth, knuckles first, and Micah saw him bite down hard. Micah glanced at Chahat-Me, but she shook her head.

  The light beams shut off. Fornasson’s head bowed to the ground, and Micah saw drops of blood drip to the glass floor as the man’s upper body shivered. The spiders shuffled past him and left, disappearing down the ramp.

  Micah was released, and he rushed over to Fornasson, grabbing him by the shoulders. His face lifted, and stared vaguely in Micah’s direction.

  “Micah, is that you?”

  It took Micah a second to realise what had been done. He helped Fornasson to his feet, and faced Chahat-Me. “They blinded him?”

  Chahat-Me nodded. Fornasson was in a daze, staring at the floor – no, Micah realised, staring at the images left there by the spiders.

  “You could cure him,” Micah said. “You are doctors.”

  One of the other Ossyrians took a step forward, but Chahat-Me stalled her with a gesture from her right paw, not taking her eyes off Micah’s.

  Chahat-Me approached Micah very close, her snout centimetres from his face. Her jaw opened, the mesh of blue and white fibres tightening and vibrating as she spoke.

  “Be quiet, Micah. Do not say anything in the next minute.” She turned her head to Fornasson. “Erik Fornasson,” she began. “They have taken your eyesight away as punishment, but spared your life.” Chahat-Me raised a paw and three toes leant on Micah’s chest just below his throat to enforce his silence. “Erik Fornasson. Do you wish us to restore your eyesight?”

  Micah stared at Fornasson, who looked as if he’d been broken on the inside. The farmer lifted his head, managing to stare in the rough direction of Chahat-Me. He raised himself up, swallowed hard. “Their judgement,” he began, but his voice cracked. He coughed, cleared his throat, and shook his head.

  The toes on Micah’s chest stayed him a little longer.

  “We need to be clear,” Chahat-Me continued. “Do you wish us to restore your eyesight?”

  Micah watched the man’s eyes mist, his jaw clench, but he stood proud again.

  “No.”

  Whatever Micah had thought of saying deserted him. Two Ossyrians escorted Fornasson back to the chariot, and they departed.

  Micah had a hunch, knowing from Petra of Chahat-Me’s compassionate side. “Will he really stay blind?”

  Chahat-Me lowered her voice. “In ten years the effects will wear off and he will see again. The images of what he has done will stay with him till his end. The spider representatives agreed with this sentence. Erik Fornasson was lucky. The spiders are one of the most pacifist and forgiving races we have ever encountered. Most other species would have killed him, after long and painful torture.”

  “Including yours?”

  Chahat-Me’s mercurial eyes stayed unusually still. The other three Ossyrians left. She laid a paw on his shoulder. “Micah, we must talk.”

  Micah was suddenly tired, then had an idea, mundane as it was. He needed to get the sour taste out of his throat. “Kat told me once that you make a mean Cafarino.”

  Chahat-Me’s eyes glittered.

  They glided through triangular corridors proceeding upwards, though a locally-controlled gravity gradient made it feel like he was strolling across flat ground. Ahead, pulsing rainbow shades invited them into a voluminous domed chamber. The bitter aroma of bubbling Cafarino, a coffee substitute derived from a local mountain herb, quickened his pace. They emerged into the vast, kaleidoscopic atrium where Ossyrians milled about, clustered in small groups around tall, narrow racks of tubes from which the Ossyrians sipped the grainy purple liquid, all the time ‘talking’ with their quicksilver eyes, shapes rising and falling in complex, almost subliminal patterns. His vision cast around; still nothing resembling a male, not that he was sure how they would look.

  Chahat-Me paused at the entrance, and shook her head. “Kat introduced Cafarino to us, contaminated us with it. It is not so good for human physiology, worse for ours.” She made a movement with her shoulders, resembling a shrug, and led Micah to a free rack. Micah closed his eyes as he sipped, savouring the clove and cinnamon melange in his mouth, then swallowed, careful not to crack down on the small grains. His head warmed and cleared at the same time, and he felt a trickle of energy run down his spine as his tension released – this blend was good! Within seconds he felt more alert than he had for days – years, he decided. Whatever they had added to it had an almost narcotic effect, and he felt his shoulders relax, his chest open. He licked his lips afterwards, and found himself grinning at Chahat-Me. Then a gong sounded, and the atrium quickly emptied. His good humour dried up, knowing the dispute he was about to have with Chahat-Me. It wasn’t that they were running out of time; rather, to Micah, it felt like they had all been standing still for a whole generation, and now time was rushing towards them.

  Micah paced up and down the only square room in the pyramid, one the Ossyrians had fashioned for the yearly meeting held with the human Council, to make them feel more at ease. But after three hours of debate he grew increasingly frustrated, not helped by the withdrawal from their damned spiced coffee. He smacked his hand down on the table.

  “What was the point of saving us, keeping us alive, if you desert us now? We could be annihilated in days. Are they out there, now, waiting? Can you at least tell me that much?”

  Chahat-Me and three other Ossyrians sat in their golden, high-backed chairs, front paws folded in their laps. The others had evidently decided to leave the talking to Chahat-Me, but he had no doubt they understood every word, nuance and inflexion, even if they couldn’t formulate human speech properly themselves. He pushed. “We have two ships, one is a transport, the other a Q’Roth Hunter Class vessel. Not exactly a fleet, is it? How long do you think we’ll last? Where are the reinforcements you promised?”

  Chahat-Me glanced at her colleagues, flashing the ultra-rapid communication mode that only Pierre had ever mastered.

  “We have been recalled, Micah,” Chahat-Me answered. “The war is going badly. We requested your extraction a year ago, but you must understand there are other priorities.”

  Micah threw in his ace, courtesy of Kat’s message. “Qorall is headed here, isn’t he?” He noticed the other three ruffle their manes.

  Chahat-Me touched something on her armrest and an image appeared, a holo. Micah stared at it; his anger stalled, then freefell.

  Ossyria was one of the most beautiful planets he’d ever seen, unique in the whole galaxy, a giant marble divided into ten horizontal slices that rotated at different speeds. Three of its five turquoise oceans were bisected, and cumulous cloud layers swirled at the edges, and would have created permanent hurricanes were it not for advanced weather control systems. The re-designing of their original planet, which had taken thousands of years to implement, led to unlimited geothermal energy, feeding the continent-sized hospital and city-sized clinical research complexes, the medical engine underpinning Grid Society.

  Yet what Micah saw now was a charred, shattered, lump of rock, its horizontal fault lines cracked open by crust-breaker weapons. Their homeworld had been destroyed. No wonder the Ossyrians had been pre-occupied these past months, as Qorall’s forces had drawn ever closer.

  “I don’t know what to say, other than to express how deeply sorry I am for you all. You should have told me earlier. You have other planets, right?”

  One of the other Ossyrians made a noise like a snarl, and Chahat-Me turned to her, silencing her with a quicksilver look.

  Micah felt he should add more. “It must have been difficult for all of you, being here while this was ongoing.”
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br />   The one who had snarled stared at him, her quicksilver eyes unmoving. Micah didn’t know what that meant.

  Chahat-Me closed down the holo, much to the relief of everyone in the room. “We have all been recalled. Two ships sent for your extraction have been destroyed en route.”

  Micah stared at Chahat-Me. “I’m sorry for those aboard. Does that mean –”

  “We have no information on who destroyed the ships. Debris from a Q’Roth vessel was found at one of the sites.”

  “But they are on your side – our side – surely, they are fighting against Qorall, aren’t they?” This news quickened his pulse.

  “We do not jump to conclusions, Micah, they could just as well have been defending the Ossyrian ship. Nevertheless, it has given us cause for concern for your welfare.”

  Micah sat down on the bench on one side of the room. Q’Roth, again, waiting to finish the job? His voice sounded flat. “What do you propose?”

  “We leave in two days. Fill your transport vessel. It will take half the population. They can follow us, we will protect them. For the rest –”

  An oval door irised open out of the far wall. Petra stepped through, short but like a cat ready to spring, followed by Gabriel. They both wore combat fatigues, Gabriel’s famous long blond curls shorn. Around his left eye was a fresh tattoo, a darker, curved maze. Micah didn’t like the look of it.

  “I have a better idea,” Gabriel said. His hands were closed by his side. He opened them, and two small metal balls fell towards the floor. Micah didn’t hear them hit the ground.

  Micah awoke with ringing in his ears. As consciousness returned fully, it rose to a screeching din. He made to get up, but couldn’t decide where ‘up’ was. But that made no sense: he could see Gabriel and Petra standing at a console in front of a luminous window, but his inner ear was playing havoc with his sense of balance. He manoeuvred into a sitting position, and placed a finger behind each ear, pressing. A buzzing ensued as his nannites got the message.

  He looked around. Three Ossyrians lay slumped in a pile a few metres away. One loosely held something in its front paw, a weapon drawn too late. With great relief, Micah saw their chests rise and fall beneath their tunics. He crawled on all fours toward the weapon.

  “Told you.”

  He could barely hear Petra’s voice through the high-pitched whine. Micah reached the Ossyrian, and sat back on his knees. He had no idea what the weapon did, and didn’t much care. Slipping the loop off the Ossyrian’s wrist, and expecting to get shot by Gabriel at any moment, he turned around and levelled his arm at Gabriel who, together with Petra, stared at him, arms folded. Micah tried to speak, but couldn’t hear himself properly, and gave it up. Gabriel didn’t budge, so Micah pulled what seemed to be a trigger. Nothing happened.

  Gabriel walked over, crouched down, took the weapon from Micah, and mouthed two words. Micah frowned, and then got it the second time. Like this. Gabriel flicked some kind of switch on its handle, and fired point blank at Micah’s leg.

  Pain exploded in Micah’s thigh. Agony accompanied the crackling blue electric arcs that engulfed his leg, then spread upwards to his waist. His eyes rolled back, but through the haze of electrifying shock he saw Petra walk over, snatch the device and do something to it, then fire at him again. The pain shut off as if it had never been there.

  The screeching lowered in intensity. He could make out a few words as Petra spoke close to his face.

  “… injured two of us ... icah … ship … ours. No Ossyr… dead … sthetised. They can mo… ery fast.”

  He felt an itching behind his right ear, then a crack, as if a bone had just snapped back into place. Suddenly he could hear.

  “… coming down in ten minutes. Then –”

  “No need to shout,” he said.

  Petra grinned. “Told you, Gabe. Better watch him.” She strolled back to the console.

  Gabriel scrutinised Micah. “Pierre. Pierre did something to you, didn’t he, before he left?”

  Micah struggled to his feet. “Gabriel, listen to me.”

  “We were listening, Micah, all three hours of that field-manure. Petra bugged you.”

  Micah felt he’d been slapped. He thought about it: when she’d hugged him on the back of the skimmer. Petra didn’t turn around, instead studying a display in front of her. Micah stowed it for later. Gabriel continued.

  “They’re screwing us over, Micah. Not necessarily the ones here, but their lords and masters. ‘Following orders. A question of priorities.’ Do those refrains sound familiar? And you, no disrespect, but you have no leverage with them, do you?”

  Micah glowered. “What did you do to them?”

  “Sonic grenade, adapted to their physiology.” He turned his head slightly, and Micah noticed a small disk in his ear.

  “Not sure how you’re conscious, though, let alone standing. Petra said you were special.”

  Micah got up, and they both joined her at the console. The flat part, at waist height, was fluid, shifting braids of colour. Petra’s hands glided over them, tightening reds with one hand, blues with another, then sent them twisting around each other into one corner of the display. Micah had no idea what the console did, what she was doing, or how she knew what to do.

  As if sensing his question, she spoke. “Chahat-Me used to bring me up here when I was a kid. The others scolded her, but she had a soft spot for me.”

  Micah remembered something he’d heard. “But it shouldn’t work for you. The ship’s controls are genetically coded for Ossyrians.” Then he recalled. “Ah… the climbing accident?”

  She nodded.

  He remembered it well. It had nearly given him a heart attack. Petra had been just six years old when she’d skipped school and accepted a dare to free-climb the Eastern face of Mt. Cerebus. No one had managed it yet, and Petra had almost made it. When the Ossyrians got to the site, Petra’s skull was literally cracked open. Chahat-Me had used some of her own flesh and blood to heal her on the spot.

  “Nice way to repay her,” Micah said.

  Petra’s head dipped as she peered deeper into the display.

  “Don’t be too hard on her, Micah. This was my plan. We’re doing this to save everyone, Steaders and Genners alike.” Gabriel cocked his head at Micah. “You taught us how to fight, how to strategise, remember?”

  “Done!” Petra announced. A wave of fluorescent orange swept from one end of the display to the other, rebounded and headed back to its origin. The entire display flickered and went off, revealing a dull metal surface.

  “What just happened?” Micah asked.

  Gabriel patted Petra on the shoulder. She tensed, almost flinched. Gabriel withdrew his hand. “Petra has primed the barrier for de-energising. Once the tip of the ship reaches it, we enter the access code. No more quarantine.”

  Micah stared in disbelief. “What? You’re insane! We’ll be defenceless!”

  Gabriel shook his head. “No Micah, for the first time we will have the ultimate weapon.”

  Micah thought about it. The timeworn weapon of choice when faced with a larger, more powerful foe. Surprise. If there was an enemy waiting, all they’d observe was an Ossyrian ship departing, a bunch of harmless medical doctors. He had to admit, right now he didn’t have a better plan, and the Ossyrians were only capable of taking half the human population, something few people including himself were likely to accept. Still, he felt like they were all groping in the dark, unknowing of who or what lay just outside scanning range.

  “How long have you been planning this?”

  Petra answered. “Two years, Uncle. Fornasson gave us the distraction we needed, saved us manufacturing one. Twelve Genners are aboard. We have control and access to Ossyrian bio-weaponry, as well as delivery systems.”

  He stared at her, feeling like a father who has just realised his daughter is grown up and about to leave home. She held his gaze, raised her chin a little, then turned away.

  A radio message filled the silence, using G
enner click language. Micah’s resident translated: Gabriel, two parties are headed our way, fast: Vasquez and Blake.

  Gabriel clicked back a receipt of message, and then addressed Micah. “Time for you to leave.”

  Micah folded his arms, splaying his legs. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re going into battle. You’re smart, but still inexperienced. Besides, I have someone to look after. I made a promise to both her parents.”

  Petra didn’t turn around.

  Gabriel faced Micah. “Give me one good reason why I should allow you to stay onboard.”

  Micah studied the young man, a born leader, a natural hero. But there were nasty, treacherous minds out there. “Who do you think we’ll find waiting for us, Gabriel? I assume Petra told you about Louise.”

  Gabriel nodded. “And I predict that Sister Esma will be there waiting with her, too.”

  Micah nodded absently. “Ah, so you see you do need me. If they are both there, that could actually be better than one of them alone.”

  Gabriel’s brow creased.

  “I think he’s got you there, Gabe. As Ramires always said, know your enemy. Micah knows them both, especially Lou –”

  “Thank you, Petra,” Micah said.

  Gabriel eyed him then nodded. “So be it. Take us up, Petra. And Micah, don’t try anything. You might beat me in a holosim, but in a fight you’d be no match at all.”

  Micah willed his nannites to stand down. “Agreed.”

  Petra touched a control and the panel flooded with a sea of blues. She sank her fingers knuckle-deep into a gelatinous part of the display, and then lifted them out slowly, blue slime cloying to her fingers. The pyramid, stationary for eighteen years, rose into the air as smoothly and silently as a weather balloon.

  Micah walked around the console and leaned forward against the glass to see his town, the one he had founded and led through so many crises. He’d never seen it from the air. In that moment, Micah realised how much he cared for it, for his people. This is all that’s left of us, he thought, small and fragile, driven by love and fear in equal measure, desperate to survive. Only twenty thousand souls remaining out of almost seven billion. As the Pteraxia rose higher and faster, and stars pierced the darkening sky, it felt like seven billion pairs of phantom eyes waiting in the darkness, watching.