Third Don: Ardulum, #3

by J. S. Fields

  Atalant tried to reach Emn, but Emn was trapped, somehow, behind some mental wall. Sectioned off, even though Emn knew she was present. So, Atalant watched as Emn tentatively poked one of the strands, cautious of this miraculous illusion. The cellulose hopped, and a childish giggle followed. Not from Emn and not from the voice, but from somewhere…from memory, perhaps. The strand hopped again, landed next to another strand, and the two bound together. All within Emn’s mind. Energy released and rocketed into Emn’s body. Real energy, not imaginary.

  The voice urged Emn to continue, and so she did, even as Atalant banged on the partition between them and screamed about the degrading line between fantasy and reality. Emn couldn’t hear. She grabbed, bonded, channeled. The cellulose supply was endless. It was more cellulose than she’d taken from the Risalian cutter all those months ago. More than she’d taken from the Neek planet. It was andal cellulose—pure, as if it had been formed apart from a tree. The crystallites she formed reflected brightly in her mind and whispered to her—of Ardulum, of Atalant, of herself.

  The released energy extended Emn’s range and buoyed her endurance. She could reach anything. Form or destroy anything. The energy sizzled across her Talent markings. Burned them. The broken settee was simply a puzzle to put together and then glue into place. Tabit could be repaired. Any pod could be dismantled. Anything could be dismantled, and Atalant held her breath at the thought, but Emn moved from it quickly. She knew where that road led. As if to reinforce it, the voice sent an image of the destruction of the Ardulan capital. It wasn’t Emn’s memory, nor Atalant’s, and it came through fragmented and colorless, but the message was clear enough.

  Emn tempered her power. She completed reforming the settee around the Neek pilot, stitching it back together with bits of cellulose from the shattered pod. She repaired Tabit’s body and pushed the Neek’s consciousness back inside the shell of bones and skin. Atalant shivered, her own memories fighting for dominance in her mind.

  After a moment of consideration, Emn reached across the battlefield and gathered as many of the beings that floated outside their ships as she could. The Mmnnuggls still lived—their anatomy and electronic components gave them a short window in which they could survive in a vacuum. These beings she pushed towards the largest Mmnnuggl pod. She opened the pod’s docking bay door and scooped the spheres inside.

  The other bodies were more difficult. Some had been dead too long, and their physiology was too complex. These she pulled towards the Kelm, hoping that one of the skiffs would bring them inside. A few, however, had only recently passed. Emn identified a Keft ship with an accessible hangar, opened it, and placed the bodies inside. She did her best to fasten their wavering consciousnesses back into their forms, although that, even with unlimited cellulose, was trying.

  Then, it was done. Emn’s consciousness disentangled from Atalant’s, the thick cords that bound them together pulling back to the faintest touch. Atalant’s vision cleared, but her heart still raced. On the viewscreen, the engagement zone was clear save for the flotsam, the settees, and a few straggling ships that appeared to be in communication with the Lucidity. The Mmnnuggl pods had pulled back from the debris and reformed into their interwoven rings.

  “You’ve got a message, Atalant.” Yorden’s words sounded too loud. Startled, Atalant looked at the console. A thin, green line was flashing.

  “Mmnnuggls,” she said after querying the computer. How long had it been? A minute? Three? Hours? Cellulose still glittered in her mind, as did the feel of Emn and all the channeled energy. “Captain Hhffvnoll. He wants to talk over a secured line.”

  “Beach-balled bastard,” Yorden muttered, but Atalant caught the start of a smile. “Good man. Hope his family is okay, too. Put him on view, Atalant, if you don’t mind. Negotiations should be done face to face.” Yorden turned to Salice, who was leaning against the wall, staring unblinkingly at him. He didn’t say anything, but he smiled and offered her his arm. Salice moved to Yorden’s side and linked her arm through his. Atalant blinked in surprise but didn’t comment.

  The viewscreen changed from the star field to the interior of a Mmnnuggl pod. In the center of the screen was Captain Hhffvnoll. One side of his body was dimpled, perhaps from an impact, and his left ear hung limp. He was also indigo, a color Atalant had never seen on a Mmnnuggl before. Behind him, the bridge was alive with beeping and chittering as lilac spheres zipped from one interface panel to another.

  Atalant had thought Yorden would be the one to speak, but a glance showed that both he and Salice were kneeling and staring up at her. The sphere on the screen chirped twice. His dark-purple coloring began to splotch with lilac.

  Atalant and Yorden hadn’t really talked about this part. She had gotten better at playing ruler on Ardulum, but this was a level beyond that. She stood from her chair, the velvet cushion whistling as it rose back up. Atalant took a step forward and clasped her hands behind her back. Her gold robes hung from her shoulders, wrinkled, sooty, and ripped, but still there.

  “I am Eld,” she said.

  “And you speak for your people, the Neek?” Hhffvnoll asked.

  “I do.”

  Hhffvnoll bobbed. “Do you speak for Ardulum as well?”

  Atalant paused and pushed at Ekimet and Arik. They were there in her mind, as always, watching and listening. It wasn’t them who answered her unspoken query. Instead, a low, thick voice dredged up from her consciousness. She recognized it, from Emn’s mind, but the hair on her arms still rose when it spoke. You do, it said.

  “I— I do,” Atalant repeated, stumbling a bit over the words. The thick voice felt like gravel in her mind and thinned the stuk on her fingers. It felt old and big. A direct connection to this presence made Atalant’s chest hurt much more than it had than when the voice had been tempered through Emn. It brought forth a deep melancholy.

  “Who is responsible for the restored settee?” Hhffvnoll asked. He spun once as the lilac continued to spread. “Officially. You?”

  Atalant nodded, although it hurt to do so. “Yes, me. Well, Ardulum, really.”

  The sphere vibrated. “How did you destroy our hemicellulose ships? The truth. No lies from Ardulum.”

  She wanted to look at Yorden, but knew she couldn’t. Atalant had to make this decision, even though her chest welled with hurt and anticipation and yearning. Those emotions weren’t all hers, but she couldn’t separate them out from everyone else that was listening in.

  Slowly, while she argued with herself, Atalant put her hand in her pocket and pulled out Representative Hepatica. The fungus lay flat in her hand, white strands stilled. Atalant held her hand just below the console and took long, deep breaths as Hepatica’s hyphae wound round her fingers. What should she choose? The truth? More lies?

  Damn Ardulum and its fucking history.

  Atalant lowered her hand back down and slid Hepatica back into her pocket. “Ardulum decides how and when Ardulans use their Talents. It will not let its children come to harm. Hemicellulose, cellulose, lignin. Ardulum commands them all. Except for me.”

  Hhffvnoll didn’t speak. He remained floating at a constant height, swishing slightly from left to right. One small patch of the darker purple remained, just at the top of his body.

  “I control Ardulum,” Atalant said, her voice as even as she could make it. “I apologize for your history with the Ardulans, and for your…our history with the Risalians. I seek to offer reparations, for the past, to all affected worlds. However, Neek is my first priority, and Ardulum will not surrender to you or anyone else. Ardulum will change though—I guarantee you that. No more conquering. As of right now, however, the Neek forests are burned, and the technology and economy of the entire Charted Systems is in danger. Please.” She wiped stuk streaks onto her thighs. “Leave in peace, now. Don’t make me destroy you or your world.”

  The last part might have been too much. Atalant had doubts that Ardulum could really destroy a whole planet, but, then again, with Emn…

 
Hhffvnoll tilted to the left. His good ear twitched. “Emn?” he asked after an extended silence, as if he had read Atalant’s mind. “You threaten us with her? She protects her oppressors?”

  Defensiveness rose in Atalant, but so did another feeling she didn’t immediately recognize. “Her oppressors are dead. The old guardians of Ardulum, of Risal, of Neek, and even Ggllot are all dead. Now is the time for change. Emn will work with me and Ardulum. She is no outcast, nor is she a danger to you, the Risalians, or anyone else. She is not a weapon. She is…” Atalant struggled to find the right words, but quickly realized it didn’t matter. The Mmnnuggls saw Emn one way. There was no point in running from it. “You do not need to fear her. She…is mine.” The words burned in Atalant’s mouth.

  The Mmnnuggl captain floated to the ground, now uniformly lilac. He rotated in languid circles, carefully avoiding his flattened ear.

  “You have my word that I’ll keep them on task,” Yorden said, standing to address the screen. “It’s an easy line to feed your people, Hhffvnoll, and that was a pretty show out there. We’ve given you everything you need to fly away from this with dignity. We will not pursue, and this is a secure line. Tell them what you wish—that you negotiated, that you bowed down. If you want to say Ardulum bowed down, I think we can be okay with that, too. Whatever it takes. Just leave Neek. Leave the Systems, and take the remains of the Alliance with you. You have our word: we will not pursue. Ever.”

  No one spoke for several minutes. The Mmnnuggl captain continued to roll in larger and larger circles. The sound of his body against the textured floor grated at Atalant’s ears, but she forced herself to listen. Forced herself to stay focused on the viewscreen and not on the heaviness in her mind that was slowly pushing everything else out.

  Finally, Hhffvnoll spoke. He rose and curled his undamaged ear into a crescent. The purple faded from his body, leaving only a silvery darkness. “You will visit or offer aid to all the infested worlds?” he asked. “Including those not seeded, merely interfered with? To help, not harm? To undo the damage of your andal tree and your monocultures and your culture.”

  “You have my word,” Atalant promised. She smoothed out the front of her robes, although they had no wrinkles. “That includes Ggllot, if you desire. Only if you desire.”

  A low rumbling sounded from the Mmnnuggl captain before he spoke again. “I will contact the fleet and my homeworld and tell them.” He turned towards Yorden, twitched his good ear, and then rotated back to Atalant.

  The communication terminated. Atalant had wanted to say more, probably should have said more, but the chance was gone. Outside, the Mmnnuggl pods grouped together, forming a giant, lumpy cluster, and opened a tesseract. In another breath, they were gone. The sky was once again black, save for the pinpricks of stars and the scattered stragglers of the other fleets.

  “It’s over,” Atalant breathed, so low she couldn’t even hear her own words. “It’s over, and now… Now…”

  Now, you have to repair your people, Atalant, the heavy, gravelly voice said.

  Atalant sighed. She reached out to the console and turned the Lucidity towards the Kelm. As the ship began its halting thrusts, as Yorden let the silence in the cockpit stretch, and as the weight of the voice slowly seeped from her mind, Atalant let those words chase each other in her head, trying to figure out why they made her so sad.

  Chapter 24: Kelm

  As a final word of caution, remember that all bodies have limits. These creatures may seem as though they have awesome potential, but they lack control and are constrained by the fuel available. They are not of Ardulum. They can never be of Ardulum. Never mistake their abilities as anything other than highly developed microkinesis constrained within a fractured mind.

  —Segment from a transcribed communication from the Ardulan Eld to the Risalian Markin, 2008 CE

  JANUARY 27TH, 2061 CE

  Emn was vaguely aware of sticky hands tugging at her arms and lifting her off the ground. She could hear well enough—the encapsulating exhaustion that had collapsed her onto the floor of the docking bay hadn’t completely dismantled her senses—it was just that the words were only starting to make sense again. She couldn’t remember falling, nor hitting the floor, which she understood must have happened. What Emn did remember was the Mmnnuggl pod destroying the settee. Atalant’s desperation and the lack of remaining cellulose. Reaching inside herself to burn through her flare, as Arik had, and finding an entirely new presence instead. The burning on her skin.

  Atalant’s thoughts lilted through Emn’s mind. She tried to pull back from wherever she was, to break from the dreamscape of fuzzy reality and reattach to her body, but she couldn’t seem to manage it. That old voice was still speaking to her. While now much more distant, it held part of her to it and kept her from reintegrating. Although she struggled against it, it kept her vision locked inside herself. It toyed with her hearing, mixing actual sounds with imagined ones. It praised her, thanked her, and refused to let her go.

  Suddenly, something definitive and commanding raked through Emn’s head. It was a feminine voice, distinctly Ardulan but definitely not Miketh’s, and it used images, not words, to direct the older voice away. The heaviness pulled back. Emn settled into herself. She wanted to cry from relief at the sudden lightness in her mind. A voice, an actual voice, filtered through the haze. This one was familiar. Miketh. It was the same one that had been talking to her since her eyes stopped working and her body had apparently collapsed. It sounded like Miketh was explaining something, although the panic in her tone seemed a little unnecessary. It wasn’t like Emn was dead. She just needed some sleep and probably some andal—and to not think about cellulose for a year.

  There were Risalian voices, too. Emn could recognize Pihn’s, but the others were foreign. Her head was pillowed on something bony, but as she shifted, her pillow felt decidedly person-like. Their arms tightened, and Emn felt her shoulder nudge against what felt like breasts. When she once again could not parse the voices, this time from sheer fatigue, Emn inhaled deeply and caught the scent of Atalant’s sweat and the residual smokiness of the forest fire mingled in fabric. Atalant was here, then, to collect her and Miketh.

  “Eehhhh,” Emn managed to groan. She was trying to say, “Eld,” but her tongue was too thick in her mouth to enunciate. At least she could hear her own voice. Perhaps that was progress? She tried to open her eyes, but her lids seemed stuck together.

  “—happened?” Atalant’s voice was suddenly very loud in Emn’s ears. Too loud. Emn pushed into Atalant’s shoulder to bury the noise. She tried to restore their mental connection and was delighted when Atalant’s mind poured into hers.

  I don’t like finding you unconscious on Risalian cutters, Atalant sent. She was trying to edge the words with humor, but, as with all telepathic dispatches, Atalant’s emotions bled over the words.

  “She needs a healer.” Miketh’s voice now. The sounds of the bay were starting to filter in as well, although they seemed distorted and each spoken word shone with color. This time, Emn managed to pry her eyes open. Shapes took form, and close-up, she could make out the distinctive angles of Atalant’s jawline. They didn’t need to sound so worried, the lot of them. She was in Atalant’s arms, probably—unless she was still trapped in that dreamscape—and to Emn, that seemed about as perfect as things could get.

  Then, that feminine Ardulan voice was back in her head, this time speaking with slow, syrupy words. I wish I could have been there, when you arrived on Ardulum.

  Who are you? Emn asked the voice.

  Instead of responding, the woman pushed and rearranged, forming walls and boundaries to Emn’s fatigue. Emn’s consciousness swam to the center, clear and unobstructed. Her vision and hearing righted, and once she could fully use her mind, she knew exactly who had pushed the old voice from her thoughts.

  Salice! Emn couldn’t see the other Ardulan in the docking bay of the cutter, but her vision was limited to Atalant’s stained flight suit and the clus
ter of purpling Risalians just to Atalant’s left. You’re…talking! Kind of.

  Yes. No speech, but I understand well enough. Now, I return a gift you once gave me. You nearly fractured yourself.

  Fractured? she asked. This wasn’t anything like that. There’s…this voice that keeps talking to me. Was it…

  It anchored you, Salice returned without inflection. Against yourself. Against your own power. Kept you whole when the energy you managed to channel should have disintegrated your body.

  Ardulum. Maybe? Was it invested in the outcome of the battle, or was it just protecting the Eld and what they valued? What the hell was Ardulum, anyway? A tree, or a group of trees, wouldn’t give a damn who won a space battle as long as its home planet was safe. A tree only cared about surviving and reproduction and health. It wouldn’t muck about in the lives of bipeds and spheres, would it?

  The battle? Emn asked, pushing the other thoughts aside for the moment, not wanting to think about having burned through her flare. Did she still have her original markings, like Arik? Did she have any? She wanted to ask Atalant, out loud, but she was arguing with Markin Pihn about official statements. She could hear Yorden as well, detailing to someone how many Risalians Yorden wanted to come to Neek to help with replanting. The word “reparations” kept being thrown around, both by Yorden and Atalant. Emn tried not to listen. She was too tired to parse more than one conversation at a time.