by Watts, Peter
To the victors go the spoils… he mused. Either way, you're a prisoner. Across thousands of light years, and the takeover of hundreds of galaxies, he had cultivated many such bitter truths. In addition, his race had learned the hard way that staying on a single planet, even in a single solar system, was not the way to provide for the hordes of subjects that depended on their governance for food and raw materials. Whether perceived as gods or tyrants, their needs were unchanging: resistance, while expected, was generally irrelevant. One way or another, his people had been clever enough to avoid more advanced civilizations, and ruthless enough to totally assimilate those that were less developed. It mattered not if there was anything cultural to be gleaned; culture was cheap, and DNA was cheaper. All that mattered was the continued existence of The Righteous, and unconditional acceptance of the divine eternal: the One.
After a few more minutes of daydreaming, Irfan muttered, his mouth dry, his throat tight: "Poor bastards. History's littered with the remains of the 'virtuous,' but written by the winners." He regarded the book on the table of his stuffy sleeper, a recent, sanitized bestseller about the New Crusades: Our Continuing Struggle: Triumph of The Righteous. He moved his scrutiny once more out the window: "Haven't you fucking… things ever heard that before?" By now the snow was driving quite hard, the wind blowing it into drifts. The coach lurched forward abruptly as the train finally departed, jolting him from his previous thoughts, and propelling him into others; an introspective individual, times like this always gave him pause: He wished the plan had gone a different course. In the hundred-odd years since the end of the New Crusades, there had been many uprisings, and threats of more, as the people of Earth continued to fight the reality of their new masters. With such churn in the current geo-political sphere, he despaired that this little planet was as ill-equipped to resolve its differences as it had been over a century ago.
Just like all the rest… A few early successes don't equal victory. Besides, diplomacy didn't work.
Earthlings and Mosaics—humans and enslaved intergalactic specimens that had been genetically combined—seemed to have learned nothing after the subjugation of the so-called American Empire by The Righteous. They persisted in continuing the same loathsome infighting, petty squabbles, and neo-tribal chest-thumping that had closed the 22nd Century; as though a cluster of splintered, marginalized factions could organize and overcome their conquerors with the paltry tools of the Internet, social media, and secret meetings. The idea of these unsophisticated, stinking denizens contesting The Righteous was laughable to Irfan; humans had already learned the terrible realities that Enhanced Psionics were much more efficient than any computer network, that Neural Displacement beams were infinitely more powerful than conventional ballistics, that GeneBombs and mutagenic payloads were deadlier than any atomic weapon. The nickname the humans had for the domination of Earth was as fitting an epitaph as any: The Thirty Day Conquest.
As the last night train pulled away from the Terminal, gathering power and silent speed, all along the fence the grimy mob had begun to chant their oddly-understandable, yet foreign slogans; they strained to grasp at the passing behemoth in a pathetic demonstration of their obscene gestures; some even threw rotten food at the Ambassador's official car, shaking the huge fence with such raw anger he thought it might give way.
One day that barricade will fail… he thought. Seems it always does.
"But," Irfan said at last, snapping closed his cabin shade, suddenly chilly, "not tonight, savages."
II.
At first, he was adrift on a sea of red… "Otec?"
Perspective moved—suddenly he was at the gates… The doors of the camp… they were thrusting out of the pure white ground… The edges of everything were hazy, indistinct…
His father was slumped on the earth… He was sobbing, holding something… Something familiar…
Irfan jolted awake, confused for an instant as to where he was. His sleep always grew more fitful when he was summoned to the Old City. In the past 300 or so solar passages, he never managed to get decent rest on the eve of PазумLink.
There was a knock on the door of his cabin.
"Prosím." The door slid open as the train glided quietly through the darkness outside Paladinsk.
"Pozdravy, Ambassador Aral'ucaRd," a young woman said as she stood in the threshold. "May I enter your chamber?" Clear, ice-blue irises signified her status as servant-class; her gold-toned skin gleamed in the ambient light of the overhead LED lamps, and he thought he detected the delicate smell of saffron—perhaps her perfume. Though taboo to act upon, Irfan had always found the slave girls from Țepeștan sexually attractive. It shamed him when he recalled the rapes that his squadron had perpetrated during the New Crusades against the Țepeștany women.
He smiled at her. "Please." He gestured for her to enter. She quickly returned the smile as she gathered the floor-length shawl around her body and stepped inside. The door slid shut. For a moment they mutely studied one another, the train rocketing through the night.
"Have we gone through the Plateau yet?" Irfan asked, crossing his arms. He stroked his chin contemplatively as he watched her.
She hesitated, straightening. "No." She looked down. "Are you requiring anything else at the moment, Ambassador?"
Part of him relished this feeling: power. She was at his mercy, and he could literally have anything he wanted. At the same time, the tiniest shadow of pity crossed his soul… ever since the murder of his wife, he'd been much more sensitive to the emotional cues of others; sometimes it was disconcerting, but, mostly, he was appreciative—even if he could not consciously articulate it. He mentally scanned her mind: Her PsyMask appeared clear—free of distracting thoughts. All he detected were fragmented contemplations about her family, and minor electrical firings about a child.
Finally, he asked: "Where is my regular domestic, D'Lahlm? I didn't realize there would be a change in the service staff before such an important trip."
The woman bowed her head. "I understand, Ambassador. I was in training with her; she took ill suddenly and could not attend to your needs. It was an engineered retroviral contaminant from her last excursion with Bishop Wallach, possibly contracted during their brief tour of the Shuttered District. I am told she will recover fully, but they were concerned that you might have come down with her ailment."
Irfan nodded. "Present your hands." The young woman complied, holding her hands in front of her, as though inspecting her nails. Irfan lightly gripped them: They were cold to the touch, as the skin of poikilotherms usually was, with small osteoderms embedded just under the epidermis, but mostly the golden scales were tiny, the flesh quite soft, even supple. Gently, he turned her hands over, inspecting the light orange fingertips, and the translucent blue, slightly curving claws tipping the fused digits. No fingerprints. Undeveloped Mosaics and numerous GeneBomb survivors—especially those affected by the biochemical agent responsible for their glowing marks, Bacterial Pseudoporphyria Luciferins—usually had tell-tale friction ridge skin tangles on their fingers, known as Digital Labyrinths. Though a complete lack of fingerprints was uncommon, it could also be a sign of Developed Conversion—highly desirable in a servant.
"You are safe," Irfan declared. "What are you called?" She bowed again, and her shawl slipped off one shoulder, revealing larger, decorative scales that spiraled up her neck, disappearing under her head scarf. Irfan found her erotic, even beautiful. Also strangely familiar.
"I am J'Dorul, Ambassador."
III.
"During the earliest days of The Struggle, the humans had declared that they would never subject to the One. The Bishops convened and decreed that it would be necessary to Purify them…
After some time, during May Day Rituals, it was deemed insufficient to continue PазумSlaughter by way of dream states, and PазумLink was discontinued in favor of First Contact…
In spite of this fair arrangement—that Earth would remain intact, and Cerebral Erasure would guarante
e families be spared seeing parents rendered into food, or the indignities of children retired into Mosaic Procreator Service—all overtures were rejected… How were we to thrive without new worlds? Without renewed assets and food sources?
Perhaps most terrible of all, the One was disparaged, was denied. After these terms of surrender were rebuffed, we were repeatedly, and viciously, attacked…"
Irfan put the book down, still unable to sleep. He remembered that horrible time as though it were last week. It was a black period; as one of the first families to venture to Earth during what would be described later as the New Crusades, his mother, father, and siblings, once discovered, had been gathered into a camp with others of his kind in a massive effort by the humans to contain, try, and possibly eradicate them. The folly of it: Even though the humans had practically invited them to Earth by sending radio broadcasts and space-going vessels throughout the galaxy, it was chilling to contemplate that they had no idea how to conduct themselves once their transmissions were intercepted and answered. It was also incredible to Irfan that they had never heard of the One. It held all of consciousness together: The One was all; the One was everything; the One was nothingness; the One was eternity. It still revolted him that humanoids would not accept this basic concept. Instead, they insulted his kind; murdered them, imprisoned them in gated encampments, tried to force them to deny the One with torture…
He rubbed the scars on his face, tuning in to the gentle rocking of the train as it hurtled toward the Old City, the place the Earthlings had once referred to as 'Bucharest.' He had received those scars in the human prison camps: They had cut him, beat him, tortured him and his entire family. For some reason, they were offended by the feeding customs of Irfan's people, calling him strange things as they had whipped him, burned him, slapped him: "nosferatu," "vampire," "psycho."
He opened the shade of his window and peered out into the blank darkness: They were moving through one of the Inhospitable Zones, he noted; the full moon loomed large and low in the sky, casting waxy light over the perpetual fires that burned in what he thought might be the Arid Plateau. Mosaics and humans somehow lived in these places still. Indeed, they caused much chaos and upheaval with their improvised rockets; their weapons, though crude, could still deliver an occasional surprise blow to the large cities, causing unrest in people's hearts, raising doubts in their minds, especially the Converted humans and Mosaics.
The One always provides, though. The One is on the side of The Righteous, and no other.
He took comfort in that motto, even as it brought him the sadness of recalling his father's dying words at the camp, just hours before reinforcements had liberated them all and they had taken the Earth's capital cities: "Trust in the One, Irfan. We… cannot understand the mind or intentions of the One. We must simply… accept what the One allows…"
A wise person, his father.
IV.
He was sobbing, and holding something… Something familiar…
Irfan walked closer, but the faster he walked, the farther away his father seemed to recede against the gates… The pure white environment was blinding.
"Otec! What is that you have? Where is Matka?" Irfan's voice echoed once, then was swallowed in complete silence.
His father looked up at him… He moved slowly, so very slowly. He raised his hands to his face, pulling them down his cheeks… Streaks of black.
The object in his lap moved—
The knock at his door interrupted his sleep, but Irfan was not ungrateful. The nightmares had been getting more powerful as the time of PазумLink drew closer.
"Prosím."
Once again, the door slid open and J'Dorul appeared. This time she held a tray with covered bowls on it. "I took the liberty. I suspected that you might be hungry. My deepest apologies if I have offended you, Ambassador." She gingerly bowed her head.
Irfan smiled. "No. Thank you, J'Dorul. Please put it there." He motioned to a small table near the window, which still had the blind open. Outside, the horizon glowed in a hellish display of the infernal Arid Plateau. The door closed behind her.
She walked to the table and placed the tray on it in silence, her traditional slipper shoes noiseless across the floor. She turned and regarded him thoughtfully. "I will leave you now."
Irfan raised his hand: "No. Please. Would you stay? I am in need of… some companionship." He regarded her uncomfortable expression, saying: "I don't expect you to eat with me; I know your people are vegetarians. I-I would just—" He paused, suddenly aware of heat rising in his face. "I think we should get to know one another since we're working together, that's all."
After a moment, she nodded in agreement and sat down at the modest table.
Irfan nodded in return, taking a seat opposite. He looked at the tray, then pulled the coverings from the bowls: Deep red liquids, one thin and oily, the other thick and mottled, reflected the overhead lights. He smiled at her.
"Fantastic—a warm and cold dish each."
"Yes—the chef pureed them especially from fetal hominid sources this morning. He said that you preferred a little bit of clotting in your stews, as well as a plasma skim on the warm platters."
He placed a course linen napkin on his lap and used a spoon to stir the yellowish upper broth of the warm soup: "Good man!" The soup mixed like a fine miso. "Delicious… So," Irfan looked up at her as he ate. "Tell me more about you. Where is your family? Where do you live?"
J'Dorul regarded him impassively, her penetrating stare fixed on the table. After a moment, she said: "I lived at one time in a Plateau near Paladinsk."
He stopped eating for a moment. "I see."
She continued. "You said you wanted me to speak—"
"And I do—"
"Then allow me, Ambassador." Her aspect was frosty, detached, her words clipped.
After a pause, he waved his spoon. "Carry on, excuse me, J'Dorul."
She nodded. "Well, I lived there for many years with my family. My parents and siblings, my husband, our young son—"
"And where are they? Are they in the city now?" He had moved on to the cold stew of minced flesh, offal, and blood: "Mm. Amazing! Smells incredible… Pardon me; carry on."
"Strange you would want to know, Ambassador." She gathered the top of her cloak around her shoulders, as though suddenly cold, in spite of the fact that the room was still uncomfortably warm.
Irfan smiled at her. "Well, why wouldn't I?" He took another spoonful of stew, wiping his reddened lips as he chewed.
"Indeed… Indeed… Well, the truth is this: They were murdered, Ambassador. All of them."
He stopped in mid-chew, eyes wide. J'Dorul held his gaze, her irises like chipped ice: "Yes. By your people. By the adherents of the One."
Silence. She continued: "We were selected in the Lottery, then taken in for the Conversion Process. They lied to us, of course, to everyone. They said that we were 'Chosen' and that we would be treated well, not forced to endure the savage, hard-scrabble life of the Plateau any longer. That we would be privileged." J'Dorul stopped, a strange half-grin shading her features. "But it was all a hoax. A big lie. Now, we had heard the stories of people that had been picked in the Lottery, even seen the interviews of their new, glamorous lives after the Conversion. We were so excited! It was what we had dreamed for so long… Except that it was not a dream, Ambassador—it was a nightmare." She paused, taking a deep breath. The train jostled in the nocturnal quiet; Irfan was riveted to her story, his spoon suspended halfway between the bowl and his mouth. J'Dorul continued: "We were stripped, mocked, ridiculed—especially for our disdain of flesh-eating. They tormented us for our lack of 'belief,' saving the worst punishments they could inflict as acts of purification in the name of your One… Mind you, we weren't even humans, 'only' Mosaics. Our family, as you might have suspected, were Herptile Amalgams—genetically-developed by the Bishops, for Enlightenment, more than 100 years before Earth's invasion. After the New Crusades, we were relegated to permanent servant-class
to make up the deficiencies due to casualties from the battles… So our family 'won' the Lottery, along with hundreds of others from our Plateau; after we were interviewed, screened for disease, and forced to make holodocs about our new life, they took us in… Shuttled us to the Grande Basilicas," she paused again, staring into him. "Just after we left the Sacred Chambers in the House of the One, they began dividing us into cloistered groups." J'Dorul half-smiled again in pained remembrance. "There, Ambassador, I saw terrible things; but the sounds… the sounds were even more pitiful. I watched the soldiers of the One suck the blood right out of my father's gaping wounds, laughing at his protests to spare me, my mother. Instead, they raped her, then took her away. I never saw her again. They killed my brothers and sisters in front of me, declaring that they were to be fodder for the Grinder; rendered into corpseflesh. Honestly, they wanted blood more than sex, I think. Your kind were frenzied for it. Your filthy kind, Ambassador."