The Comet Riders: Book Five of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

  Chapter Eighteen

  "I think, councilor, that you have overlooked my colleague's point," Ornenkai glanced over at Marankeil, or rather, the mechanized unit that now held Ilikan Marankeil's being. Ornenkai knew that this was exactly how he appeared to the councilors.

  The metallic voice resonating from his lips had come as naturally as breathing to him; he no longer protested that this wasn’t his, no longer regretted the loss of his natural speaking voice, especially not as he raised a powerful, shining silver fist and slammed it into the table.

  Marankeil watched the apostate scientist Ornenkai. I feel sorry for you, Ornenkai, he thought, but was that his feeling—pity? The thought struck him that this was merely an established expression to pronounce judgment upon another’s actions and call it sympathy. You are acting against your moral conscience, Ornenkai. Despite what you believe. You think this doesn’t bother you, and it doesn’t, not now. But it will someday, Ornenkai. It will someday.

  "The question is not whether or not the council should present a proposal but how best to make it."

  "The United Council of the Federation's five planets meets tomorrow." Nealan, a puffy-faced, sallow-cheeked man with a sharp mind and a noble attitude, announced, employing the voice of a seasoned orator. "Perhaps if Marankeil is so eager to have the Federation Council approve a security force for the protection of our territorial boundaries, then he can present the proposal himself.”

  “Perhaps I shall.” Marankeil agreed pleasantly.

  “I would not imagine you’re going to succeed with the Federation council, either.” Nealan said. “We Seynorynaelians still hold the majority of seats, and the Kayrians will agree with us. As yet, I see no threat to our Federation's security—the planets that have petitioned to join the Federation of Five Planets cannot harm us."

  “I am Seynorynaelian.” Marankeil said.

  “Yes...” Nealan’s eyes clouded with a queasy expression.

  So, now what do you think? I told you they were mindless. Ornenkai heard Marankeil's thoughts come to him from across the room, though none other would have noticed their silent communication. The two mechanized units did not move, did not even turn heads as the conversation took place.

  They think that if there is a present threat to our great Federation, then they will see it. Marankeil continued. Idiots. The civilizations our great explorer mission has begun to contact may be heading for our planet. If they decide not to join our Federation, what is to keep them from trying to conquer us?

  I guess most Seynorynaelians still do not foresee that possibility. Ornenkai pondered the significance of Nealan’s argument. We’ve never experienced intergalactic war. I think you are right— the Federation Council may be more receptive to your proposal. Ornenkai added. They at least know the importance of self-defense, but our people don't understand war, not the way the Berrachaiyans do. Ornenkai glanced around the table; he was getting tired of the Seynorynaelian council's resistance to its newest members.

  A person who can’t see the truth for himself and lacks the capacity to see it when others present it to him is an utterly useless human being, Marankeil returned.

  There had been initial problems getting the scientific community and the people of Ariyalsynai to accept the two scientists for who they were—many people still thought the mechanized forms of Marankeil and Ornenkai merely androids.

  But Marankeil's demonstration of their telepathic ability, his perception of his surroundings and independent responses convinced those who had known him that the advanced mechanized unit was indeed Ilikan Marankeil. The final irrevocable truth came after a brief investigation into Marankeil's project, but the mechanized creature permitted the scientific community to see only the details of his project that might convince them and not any of its most guarded secrets.

  Marankeil's telepathic link to brainwave communication showed him the jealousy of many scientists from the Research Center and across the Federation who had come to observe the units. Despite his irritation at their insistence upon understanding the technology Marankeil had pioneered, he had not at first been very worried about their interference. They could do nothing to him.

  When the rumors of two scientists' mechanized immortality had reached the planetwide population, the news disturbed many people, many of whom objected against the experiment because they did not want to be machine themselves and felt threatened by it, others objecting because they thought everyone might eventually abandon the human form for a machine.

  But their fears served no purpose. Marankeil had no intention of letting anyone else follow him and Ornenkai, unless he wished it.

  Ornenkai tried to answer the scientists' many questions as to why they had chosen androids that did not appear as natural humans but humanoid robotic forms instead. The technology existed for Marankeil to have created a humanroid out of his mechanized unit that would have born a more superficially human likeness and blended into society better.

  The truth was that Marankeil had wanted them to know he had become a machine. Ornenkai had begun to believe that he even wanted others to fear him, that he had chosen an extraordinarily powerful, indestructible android body because it was more impressive and fearsome than even a humanroid.

  Ornenkai had even begun to notice a change in Marankeil's attitude towards the scientific fields. Marankeil had achieved his greatest desire, and it seemed he thought he had every intention of abandoning the fields of scientific study. But at the same time, he began to act as though he feared others advancing beyond him, of improving upon his achievement in memory transfer. As the mnemonics division director, he began to reject any projects aimed at improving the robotics division, and even began to replace a few engineers with less competent ones.

  Ornenkai saw the danger in Marankeil's new sentiments, but his objections were diminishing every day. True, as a scientist, he had always felt the urge to make new discoveries and push the boundaries, and in his heart, he still regretted the idea that Marankeil would attempt to arrest future progress in the field. But he hadn't really believed that Marankeil alone could do anything to stop it from growing, and he hadn't wanted to incite an unnecessary argument between them.

  Another part of him had understood the real reason he could not willingly oppose his friend, and tried to persuade him that he should in fact confront Marankeil, but that part was slowly dying, lost to the new Ornenkai who was preoccupied with his own new abilities and too grateful to consider opposing the friend who had granted his wish for immortality.

  For a long time, Ornenkai did not know that Marankeil had been considering resigning from his position as a division director at the Research Center in the year after the transferal. But shortly after, Marankeil learned that he had been named a life-term councilor by his grandfather. Before he died, Vaelir Marankeil had named his grandson to succeed him without ever discovering Marankeil's mechanization. The council's initial opposition to the appointment on the grounds that Marankeil could not claim a "life" term had been outweighed by the terms of the law.

  A certain number of life-term seats had always been passed among families, created in early history to maintain a balance in the council and protect against sudden swings in policy forming. But Marankeil had no intention of maintaining the indifferent position now expected of the long-term regulators. When he accepted the position, he told Ornenkai that it was to change the direction of his life.

  After an initial period of public hostility towards Marankeil's appointment, people began to accept the idea, especially as Marankeil's name appeared in the circulated reports of council activities in favor of many improvements to Seynorynaelian life. It seemed that though he had become a machine, he had not forgotten the common needs and desires of the people.

  Ornenkai had continued his work until two years after the transferal, when he was informed that he had been appointed a councilor by the elected representatives of all the p
rovinces. Marankeil's reputation as a public defender had grown to the point that his picture appeared on printsheets passed throughout the cities. Some would even go so far as to claim that he had become mechanized for the sake of the people and not for his own gain, that he had sacrificed his own humanity to improve the Seynorynaelian race.

  Marankeil's popularity had given him a position to suggest electing his mechanized companion to the Council, but Ornenkai had been busy in the Research Center, and hadn't received news of the election until the final results came in. At Marankeil's insistence Ornenkai reluctantly resigned from the Research Center within the tenday to become a councilor and moved to an apartment near the Council Building.

  However, Ornenkai's initial hesitation to leave the sciences had been quickly worn down by Marankeil's promises that they could change the government for the better, and he dismissed his secret fear that Marankeil had brought him into politics in order to keep tabs on him. After the first few meetings of the Council, Ornenkai was too grateful and excited that he had been included on policy forming discussions to regret abandoning his old life.

  His new body had given him all the power and time he needed to sample all of the opportunities in life he had never contemplated as a mortal being. Ornenkai gradually convinced himself that becoming a councilor was the best thing he could have chosen. Now he could possibly change all of the policies he had never liked when he was powerless and replace them with better alternatives.

  But it had been Marankeil's idea to create some kind of security force for the Federation boundaries.

  Strange, Ornenkai thought, shielding his mind from Marankeil. Most Seynorynaelians do not anticipate conflicts arising as a result of Kudenka’s explorers' mission. Perhaps Marankeil is right. Perhaps the world is made of fools.

  Marankeil refused to be infuriated, and refused to be daunted, though the years passed, and still he couldn’t gain the support he needed in the Federation Council to create some kind of security force; time and time again the representatives against the proposal defeated his supporters. Yet Marankeil knew, somehow he knew that he was slowly gaining ground.

  I will find a way to undermine the council's power, Marankeil told himself each time. And then I will get rid of it. Who deserves to live forever? He wondered absently. Yes, my dear Elera, now I have the power to decide.

  Ninety-eight years after Kudenka’s explorer mission had been launched, a Seynorynaelian shuttle suddenly returned home, carrying delegates from a planet called Ephor.

  Kudenka’s explorers had landed on Ephor only twenty-seven tendays earlier according to the shuttle calendar, less than half a year since Sesylendae had been launched. But already the effects of time dilation in hyperspace had allowed a century of time to pass on Seynorynael.

  One of the explorer crew, a man called Giddehns, had sacrificed his mission in order to return as an escort for the Ephors on board the shuttle and to bring important information about the Ephors to the council. In a private audience with the council, he warned them that although the Ephors had accepted the invitation to join the Federation Council, they were a fiercely independent race.

  Though humanoid, the Ephors were tall and stocky, with dark grey leathery skin and grey eyes. The explorer Giddehns claimed that what he had seen of Ephoran culture made the Berrachai look like sweet little ileacs. So, Kudenka’s explorers had decided one of their number should return with the Ephors aboard a Sesylendae shuttle to warn the Federation. Though the Ephors had only created ships capable of traveling to the edge of their red-star system, they were quick learners. In several thousand years before the mission returned, the Ephors could have gone to Seynorynael and attempted to conquer it.

  The return of Giddehns could not have been more aptly timed for Marankeil's benefit. Within the year, Marankeil' voice dominated the Seynorynaelian council and the Federation council. Only a half-race Gildbaturan named Smilsid, the son of the Seynorynaelian Ambassador to Gildbatur and a native woman, continued to make trouble for Marankeil.

  For Marankeil's new security force to pass the unanimous count, Marankeil decided that it was time to gain their permanent participation.

  "I have an idea, Ornenkai," he told his friend one afternoon while Ornenkai was overseeing his latest cultural enhancement project.

  "What?" Ornenkai turned to look at him, forgetting that he couldn't read the mechanized unit's face, then looked again to monitor the progress of the building.

  "I am going to offer the transferal to Maerodach and Baladahn," he said calmly.

  Ornenkai whipped around in shock.

  "You can't be serious—" He stopped, considering Marankeil's motives. What could Marankeil stand to gain by it? It was clear that Marankeil enjoyed the control he had over others around him, but he also fed on the interaction between himself and his enemies, on the argument itself, and his ultimate victories. Why would he seek to immortalize his enemies? Could he enjoy the conflict that much?

  No, of course it had to be that he saw it as a way to secure their loyalty. Maerodach and Baladahn were strong-willed opponents, and would be as useful if somehow won over to Marankeil's side. The transferal would score another triumph and solidify Marankeil's control of the Federation Council for generations to come.

  "Don't forget, Ornenkai, the power my leadership has given you." Marankeil warned. "Don't forget the anger you felt when the Council approved the destruction of the parks. Soon you will have finished this Seynorynaelian 'Arboretum Museum' you are creating for the future generations—right next to the council building no less, where you can be close to it."

  "Will they accept, do you think?" Ornenkai wondered, returning to the main issue.

  "Yes, of that you can be sure. They think like Gildbaturans—always after a good fight, and once they no longer oppose me, they should see the potential in controlling a security force. But you missed a few meetings, my friend. Though I must admit you have given me an idea, one that seems paramount in light of the transferal of our new companions. I have decided to establish a Main Terminus in the council room."

  "A Main Terminus?"

  "Yes. We will transfer our minds into the main computers to preserve our knowledge and being, ensuring—a permanent computerized storage place if you will. You will have constant telepathic link between the two entities of your being, my friend—a stationary computer that will allow you to forever interact upon our council meetings if you wish, and our current mechanized form—a mobile unit that will allow us both to travel the planet freely and observe all we ever wished to see."

  "A Main Terminus installation in the Council Building—I can transfer and store the memory from my mobile unit there in case something happens to it," Ornenkai suggested, drawing a laugh from Marankeil.

  "How shall we form this new security force?" Baladahn enquired from the permanent storage aspect of his being before the rest of the council arrived for the meeting. "And how should we name it if we are to please the scientists of the Federation Science Building?"

  "I don't care what it is called," Marankeil's computerized voice was irritated. "What matters is that I keep the scientists under tight control. When the explorers return—if they ever do—they must understand that our primary goal is to protect this planet from outside threats. Any future exploration missions will be devised by and under the control of our security force—our martial enforcers, so to speak. And the scientists will have no independent identity outside the body of our enforcers."

  "A martial force? Like the armies of Ephor?" Maerodach suggested.

  "Not quite," Ornenkai shook his head. You can’t change the Seynorynaelian mind. We can’t give this body a name influenced by alien culture and ideas. It must induce pleasant sentiments—a feeling of security, not hostility. "And if all of our future scientists are to be trained by it, in order to secure their cooperation, the people must believe that it has been formed to expand our scientific understanding—Sey
norynaelians love to explore," Ornenkai added, trying to quell a memory of adventures from his own boyhood.

  Marankeil sent Ornenkai a silent feeling of approval.

  “Happy people do not contemplate terror.” Marankeil said. “So—what do you suggest, Riliya?" He asked a moment later.

  "If it is to be a martial scientific force—why not call it so?"

  "Very well," Marankeil rasped amusedly. "The Martial Scientific Force is born."

  It took years for Ornenkai to realize what Marankeil’s greatest fear was.

  Any person who has done something great is afraid that someone else will be able to do it as well, and Marankeil was no different in his paranoia. The thought occurred to him—where? What was he doing? He took no notice of his surroundings or whatever minor task he had been doing. This thought was all, and now that he had realized it, Ornenkai never forgot it.

  His idea bore out in practice as well.

  Over the coming years, Marankeil was able to alter the society into which he had been born, and Ornenkai was there on his right to help him.

  Anything they could do to stem the tide of progress and maintain the society as it was, they did. They would do anything that kept Marankeil and Ornenkai in control.

  Soon their influence over the fate of the future generations of humankind began even at birth. Marankeil wanted to make sure that genius died out on Seynorynael.

  The expensive ectogenesis process had made multi-racial children possible by growing them outside a womb from the parent’s genetic material; this process had been popular but by no means ubiquitous for many generations. But Marankeil encouraged its use over “primitive” natural birth and made ectogenesis available to the average Seynorynaelian for a nominal fee; he knew that had the process been entirely free, the people might have mistrusted its value. The people were assured that the fee was to prevent wanton abuse of the technology and that the enormous cost was in fact paid for by the munificence of the Elder Council; they were persuaded that they should take advantage of such generosity, and in time, the use of ectogensis was routine, as natural as breathing. Had there ever been a time when people bore children without it?

  Marankeil and Ornenkai used the ectogenesis process for other purposes. They bred out intelligence on the pretext of the trait engendering impertinence, pride, unruly, or egoistic behavior, and they bred out socially aberrant traits. Genetic tailoring for physical beauty was favored and became an established norm, but it varied in success. Faces could be altered by the new technology, but Marankeil made it illegal to do so on political grounds, in order that the government could keep tabs on everyone in this age of civil chaos invading from the unstable off-worlds. Who wanted a criminal to escape notice and justice because he could alter his face?

  Soon, using ectogenesis in order to have children was required by law—anyone giving natural birth in the Federation was forced to pay a fine that might take years to pay off; even the fathers of such children were rooted out by genetic testing and required to pay. Only the elite families—new and old—were permitted the dignity of bearing their own children if they so chose with their special exemptions, but few did. Marankeil had bought them with favors, and continued to do so. They stayed, they were utterly loyal to the council for all that it gave them, and never worried that Marankeil and Ornenkai composed the dominant force behind it—what did that matter, it the council was willing to be so generous? The elite were faithful to the council; for those who left their offices were no longer allowed the many luxuries they received.

  Marankeil granted women the same rights and freedoms in society as men entirely; the idea was solidly ingrained in the social mind, not merely given lip service in law as it had been for eons. At the same time, elite women didn’t always promote absolute equality when it didn’t suit them, such as in the matter of being called up for mandatory military service, which all ordinary class women undertook along with men; many elite women felt it their duty to fulfill their military service, but a few did not and were given exemptions. Yet in every other aspect the elite women in society took their equal social status as a matter of course.

  Exemptions from military service were possible because, more than any other faction of society, the elite hierarchy was governed by tradition. The elite hierarchy was beheld by one and all as being exempt from the general laws on the grounds of its venerability, exempt from most expectations within the public’s consciousness if not strictly exempt in writing.

  It took little time for the same laws Marankeil had founded as the basis of Seynorynaelian society to be applied to the worlds throughout the Federation; the council members of the off-worlds were no different from those on Seynorynael, who wished to earn Marankeil’s mechanized immortality and would agree to nearly anything to obtain their everlasting reward.

  Thus in only a few generations, the habits of the Federation society had become so entrenched that, after a while, if it were to be discovered by scientists that the ectogenesis labs were doing the races a disservice, it would hardly have mattered, for the mutations that allowed the race to improve upon itself over generations had been for the most part effectively stamped out.

  For a world with such a long history of innovation, Seynorynael had become a world frozen in time.

  Yet Marankeil and Ornenkai, the two oldest Elders, were considered to be innovators in the stability they had provided to all worlds of the Federation and for the comfortable standard of living they had extended to all.

  Anyone who didn’t agree with them just had to be crazy.

  Dramatis Personae and places in The Comet Riders

  Alessia Valeria Zadúmchov—Uh-LESS-ee-yuh Zuh-DOOM-chav—one of Hinev’s explorers, daughter of the last Enorian Zariqua Enassa and Nerena Zadúmchov; the child taken by Marankeil to be Hinev’s assistant

  Ariyalsynai—Ar-ri-YAL-sinn-eye—”white mountain” or “star mountain”; the ancient capital of Seynorynael

  Berrachai(y)i—Bair-uh-KAI-yi—an alien race

  Elera Erlenkov—ELL-err-uh ER-lenn-kahv—a woman training at the Lunei Center; Ilikan Marankeil’s companion

  Enor—EE-nor—a legendary planet and civilization

  Ettrekh Meilacu-ra—EE-trekh May-LAK-ku-RAH—a Kayrian man, father of Undina

  Fynals Hinev—FY-nahlss HAI-nev—the greatest scientist of Seynorynael, son of Jerekkil Hinev and Undina Meilacu-ra; the scientist who created the elixir of immortality known as “Hinev’s serum”; one of Kudenka’s explorers

  Ilikan Marankeil—ILL-li-kahn MAIR-enn-kee-il—man who one day becomes a mechanized Elder, then Emperor of the Seynorynaelian Empire

  Jerekkil Hinev—JAIR-ik-keel HAI-nev—an explorer and proto-telepath raised in the region of Lake Firien; father of Fynals Hinev

  Firien—a city and region on Seynorynael surrounding Lake Firien; north of the weather-safe ring

  Kudenka—Koo-DEN-kuh—a scientist who leads Kudenka’s explorers; friend of Hinev

  Lake Firien—Lake FEAR-ee-enn—a province of Seynorynael; also a large body of water

  lyra—LEER-uh—the beautiful, mysteriously undying trees of Seynorynael; a formerly abundant, seeded, but now fruitless tree that can no longer be replaced once destroyed

  Ohnri Chiyenn—OWN-ree Kai-yenn—co-captain of the Seishinna and one of the early explorers of Seynorynael

  Rilien Ornenkai—RILL-ee-yen OR-nen-kai, a biochemist; later a mechanized Elder and then Vice-Emperor of the Seynorynaelian Empire; finally, the computerized entity on board Syleraestia

  Riorn Lier—Ree-orn Leer—explorer captain of the Seishinna

  Seishinna—the ship of the earliest Seynorynaelian explorers

  Selerael—Sel-AIR-ay-el (softer "s")—the daughter of Alessia and Eiron Vaikyure-Erlenkov, the one destined to end the Seynorynaelian Empire

  Sesylendae—Ses-ILL-enn-day—starship of Kudenka’s explorers

  Seynorynael—Say-NOR-i-NAY-el; often Seh-nor-i-NAY-el—plan
et in the Great Cluster Galaxy

  Selesta—Sel-ESS-tuh— the greatest explorer spaceship ever to be built by the Seynorynaelian Empire; once a ruin by Lake Firien, the vessel of the ferai-lunei, the comet riders.

  Tulor—Too-LORR—second planet discovered by Seynorynael

  Undina Meilacu-ra—Un-DEE-nuh May-LAK-ku-RAH—young Kayrian woman; mother of Fynals Hinev; creator of the “science of individualism”

  Valeria—Vuh-LAIR-ee-uh—blue star of Seynorynael

  Zariqua Enassa—ZAIR-ee-kuh or ZAR-ee-kuh Ee-NASS-suh—last colonizer of Enor; Alessia’s father