by Barry Lyga
“The Lorespeaker lives within the KelDim Sorrow,” Cha said, his voice swamped with pleading. “It’s madness to go there.”
“The KelDim Sorrow?” Thanos frowned. “That sounds familiar.” He held up a hand to keep anyone from speaking as he sorted through his memory, seeking that term. He had a nearly perfect recollection, but with so many memories crammed in, it could be difficult to locate just the right one.
And then it hit him. His Lordship. The first time Thanos had met him, kneeling quite against his will, as Robbo stood over him…
And where would you go? His Lordship had asked. We’re deep in the Raven’s Sweep. Nearest system is the KelDim Sorrow.
“His Lordship,” Thanos murmured. “He knew of the KelDim Sorrow.”
Even that’s parsecs away, His Lordship had continued, and no life-forms, nothing habitable.
And it suddenly made sense. Thanos ground his teeth together and damned himself for being a blind fool, an incompetent dullard who could not see properly the path laid out for him.
His Lordship had sought the Asgardian artifact. And had steered the Golden Berth right into the Raven’s Sweep, which abutted the KelDim Sorrow. It wasn’t madness or stupidity.
“It was a plan,” Thanos said aloud.
“What was a plan, Dad?” Nebula asked.
He opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Cha. “His Lordship wasn’t randomly flitting about the Raven’s Sweep. He was seeking the KelDim Sorrow and the Lorespeaker, wasn’t he? To confirm what he thought he knew about the Asgardian artifact.”
Cha did not flinch or turn away from Thanos’s glare. “I don’t know. Maybe. I wasn’t privy to His Lordship’s plans. You were in the inner circle, not I.”
“Gods of hell,” Nebula swore. “Listening to old people talk about the past is the most boring thing ever.”
For once, her sister agreed. “Someone get to a point,” Gamora said with an emphatic nod. “Any point.”
Thanos gestured with a finger in the direction of the door. “You’re both dismissed. You, too,” he said to the Other. “Cha and I will speak alone.”
Once they were the only ones on the bridge, Cha slammed an open palm on the table. “Come on, Thanos. It’s me. Cha. The others don’t know you like I do. They didn’t watch you hauled comatose and near death from your first ship. They didn’t watch you cleaning the portholes on the Golden Berth.”
“No, they didn’t.” Thanos stood, pulling himself to his full, intimidating height. “They fear me. And respect me. Do you? Or do you think I’m still that helpless pup His Lordship pulled from a dying spaceship? Or the broken fool you tended to after the Blood Edda?”
Cha groaned and scrubbed at his face with both hands. “Thanos, I’m trying to save you from yourself. We both almost died in the Raven’s Sweep. It’s parsecs in every direction of starless nothing. You found a magnetar, and we got lucky when you found the old Kalami Gate. You can’t think we’ll get lucky again like that.”
“We have a different ship. Different engines. We’ll plan for the Raven’s Sweep.”
“Once you get through the Sweep,” Cha told him, “your problems have only begun. The KelDim Sorrow is an entire solar system that was wiped out millennia ago. And not wiped out in the sense that you do, where you leave biomes and lesser species intact. These are total scorched globes. Not a bird. Not a butterfly. Not a blade of grass lives on those worlds, Thanos. Fifteen planets like that, all of them orbiting the remains of a star that died long ago.” He leaned over the table, his eyes wide, his voice deep with pain and omens. “There’s no light. No heat. Nothing at all. Only a rumor that somehow this blasphemous creature called the Lorespeaker lives on one of those dead worlds, muttering to himself the stories only he cares about and only he knows.”
Thanos contemplated this for a full minute. An eternity for one with his intellect.
“Nothing you’ve said,” he told Cha, “frightens me. Not in the least.”
“It’s madness!” Cha leaped up from his seat. “You’re talking about plunging the ship and your crew into a years-long trek through the most blighted corner of the galaxy, all for a reward that may not even exist!”
“Do you have a better suggestion?” Thanos demanded. “We are at an impasse. We cannot continue on our current course.”
“So you’ll take a blind leap into the universe instead? Congratulations, Thanos,” Cha said bitterly. “It took years, but you’ve become His Lordship.”
With that, Cha stalked out of the room, leaving Thanos alone on the bridge. Cha’s words echoed far longer than he would have thought possible.
You’ve become His Lordship.
Thanos turned to behold himself in the reflective surface of the ship’s pulsoglass. He saw, with eyes unencumbered by ego or prejudice, confidence. Strength. Robustness.
His Lordship had been a weak, puling, unscrupulous wretch who loitered at death’s door and was willing to drag others with him over the threshold.
I am not His Lordship. I am Thanos of Titan. I am the savior who will bring balance to the universe.
And I will let no one stop me.
Later, Cha came to Thanos in his personal quarters, where Thanos sat at his interface desk, plotting a new course.
“The Other tells me that you’ve ordered most of the fleet back to the Chitauri homeworld,” Cha said without preamble.
Not turning away from his work, Thanos responded. “Yes. It’s long past time for them to begin settling their new homeworld. They have more than lived up to our end of the bargain.”
“So. You’re resolved, then. To seek out the Lorespeaker.”
“To learn the truth about the Infinity Stone. Or Stones, as the case may be. Yes.”
“There could well be other sources of inform—”
“I will not traipse around the universe, picking up bits and pieces of lore and truth from a thousand sources when I can quite likely get it all in one fell swoop.”
“Then I can go no further, Thanos. I’ve allowed you to seduce me into your quest and your madness, but here I will not yield! This new plan of yours is insanity atop insanity. You must stop. Here. Now. You must turn back.”
Thanos tilted his head, pondering. “You don’t want me to stop because it’s madness. You want me to stop because you know I can do it.”
“I know no such thing.”
As they spoke, Thanos stared at his hands, his fingers manipulating the holographic star charts that would lead them to the Raven’s Sweep. Once there, they would find no stars to guide them. They would have to maintain a precise and perfectly balanced course through the Sweep if they were to come out on the other side in the KelDim Sorrow. Back to the Raven’s Sweep, the place that had almost killed him. He had no fear of it, but caution and fear were not the same.
“Don’t worry. I’m being very careful, Cha. I’ve learned the lessons of His Lordship’s failures.”
“Have you? Or have you just modified them to suit your needs?”
Thanos spun in his chair. For a moment, it was as though he were seeing Cha for the first time, opening his eyes in the medical bay on the Golden Berth, beholding that too-orange skin, those ears. That ridiculous kilt he used to wear.
And for some reason, this made him think of Sintaa, whom he’d not spared a thought for in years, not since he’d returned from the blasted and dead surface of Titan. Sintaa, who had been his friend, who had tried so hard to make Thanos part of something bigger.
Now Thanos was something bigger. His quest was more important than his own life, or the life of anyone else. It was the most important thing in the universe.
How fortunate, he realized, that Titan died. That his people had not heeded his warning. If they had, he would have committed suicide long ago, and never would have lived to bring balance to the universe.
He could not entertain Cha’s notions of destiny and predetermined fate, but he could acknowledge and celebrate simple luck.
“This is my task, Cha. I will compl
ete it. It’s as simple as that.”
“There’s nothing simple about what you propose. Killing half the universe. It’s madness.”
“You didn’t seem to have a problem when we were doing it one planet at a time.”
Cha worried his lower lip and started pacing. “It happened so gradually… and it made sense. At first, the idea that you could save a world here and there… A worthy goal, to be sure. But now…”
Thanos sat silently for a moment, regarding his oldest friend. He knew exactly where this was headed, and it was long past time, he realized. “Your pacing is unnerving me. Let’s walk instead.” He stood and bade Cha follow him into the corridor.
Together, they walked down empty halls. With most of the Chitauri outfitting the Leviathans for a return to their homeworld, Sanctuary was nearly empty, save for Thanos and Cha, the Other, and the pair of demons he called his daughters.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, Thanos,” Cha told him as they walked. “I’m trying to put myself in your shoes. I know your dream means much to you. Save everyone. A noble goal. But you’ve gone too far.”
“You put too much stock in my dream, Cha,” Thanos said, with a hand clapped on his friend’s shoulder. He’d always known that someday he would have to tell Cha the truth of his dream. It was only fair. Thanos was many things, but rarely a liar, as Daakon Ro knew too well.
“I did not tell you the whole truth of my dream, Cha,” he said, stopping in the middle of the corridor. An airlock hatch was nearby, and Thanos leaned against it. “She did not tell me to save everyone. That was only half her message.”
Perplexed, Cha tilted his head to the side. “What was the other half?”
“She said to me, You cannot save everyone.”
Cha mouthed the words once, then again, then a third time. His eyes widened with each iteration.
“It… wasn’t a directive…” he said slowly. “It was… a statement of fact. And yet you continued anyway. Even though you knew that you couldn’t actually save everyone.”
“Yes. Because,” Thanos said gently, “that is our only path forward. To defy death and allow for life.”
“Defy death?” Cha laughed once, sharp and bitter. “You damned hypocrite! You don’t defy death—you enable it! You’ve delivered billions to death!” He held his head in his hands. “You… How did I not see it before? How did I not know?”
“Because you were blinded, as so many are, by your preconceptions and your rigid adherence to your own way of seeing the universe. You sought a massive change in the balance of the universe, a tilt toward peace. And you were so desperate for it that you threw away your own beliefs to follow the one who seemed to offer it. But peace is just a by-product of balance, Cha. And balance requires sacrifice.”
“No!” Cha moaned, crumpling against the wall. “When I first met you, you killed in desperation, to save Titan. Now you kill because you couldn’t save Titan. Your destiny was always slaughter.”
Thanos drew in a deep breath. “Don’t presume to tell me what I can and cannot do, Cha. I could have saved Titan, had that been my desire.”
Cha goggled at him. “Are you mad? What are you talking about? They’re all dead. They were dead when we got there.”
And so Thanos told him what he had discovered, fifty stories below the surface of Titan, in the clean room at the root of the MentorPlex. He told him of the synth that had worn his father’s face and spoken with his father’s voice, and he told him of the Gene Library and what he’d done to it.
Cha’s eyes could widen no farther. They trembled and shook as tears leaked out of them.
“You’re not a savior,” he said, his voice rising as he went on. “You’re just a killer. You enjoy it. You sow death like no other, but at your core, you’re a coward, Thanos! A coward! You hide behind this ship, behind the Other and the Chitauri, and now behind those girls!” Cha grabbed Thanos by the arm, pleading with him. “Listen to me. It’s not too late. You can’t continue on this path! You must repent and find a peaceful—”
Thanos reached out and took Cha’s head between his hands. With a single, simple twist, he snapped Cha’s neck.
Cha’s expression went slack, dull. Thanos had known it would come to this someday, that Cha’s heartfelt belief in the innate goodness of the universe would inevitably overwhelm friendship, loyalty, and common sense. It was not the first sacrifice Thanos had made on his quest. He hoped it would be the last.
“I had no choice,” Thanos whispered. “I think perhaps you understand.”
Then he cycled open the airlock, shoved Cha’s body inside, and re-cycled. The inner door closed; the outer door opened; Cha’s body ejected into the unforgiving, frigid blackness of space.
He took a moment to himself, staring at the blank surface of the closed airlock.
He’d done the only thing possible.
He’d done the right thing.
Yes. The right thing.
On the bridge, Thanos informed the Other that “Cha Rhaigor is no longer part of our mission.”
The Other merely nodded.
CHAPTER XXXVII
WHEN SANCTUARY ENTERED THE RAVEN’S SWEEP, IT BORE only Thanos and his children. The Other had joined the rest of the Chitauri to prepare for their exodus to a new homeworld. Any of the planets Thanos had ravaged would be suitable and far superior to their current home; they had their pick.
He planned the trip through the Sweep carefully. At super-lightspeed, it would take less than a year to traverse the Raven’s Sweep. But that was the mistake His Lordship had made, thinking that speed was all that mattered, that he could bullet through the Raven’s Sweep and come out on the other side.
He’d been wrong.
The great distance involved meant that super-lightspeed travel would drain the engines of their power, leaving the ship stranded—like the Golden Berth—without a way to refuel.
Thanos would not allow his plans to turn on lucking into another magnetar.
He plotted a slow, methodical course through the Raven’s Sweep, one that would take close to two years but would leave him with enough power in his engines to return.
He spent his time training Nebula and Gamora, watching their mutual hatred grow even as, paradoxically, they bonded closer and closer. Their emotions had become twisted parodies of love, hate, and devotion. They yearned to kill Thanos, to kill each other, perhaps even to kill themselves, and yet their desire to prove their own superiority overrode those urges. They couldn’t kill him, because they craved his approval. They couldn’t kill each other, because they needed someone to dominate. And they couldn’t kill themselves, because that would obviate everything else they wanted and needed and thirsted for.
They were the perfect assassins.
As he learned one night when he opened his eyes from sleep, only to find Gamora standing over him. In her hands, she held a Chitauri battle-staff, one that—he could tell at a glance—had been upgraded considerably, if sloppily. Attached to it was a pulsometric lightning flange, powered by a slender fusion bottle that she’d grafted onto the haft. The whole thing crackled silently with pitiless power. A stealth weapon and a devastating power armament at the same time.
He was proud.
“Do it,” he told her.
She hesitated. Then, with something like sadness in her eyes, she thumbed off the pulsometrics and turned to leave.
In the morning, he punished her for not following through. And from then on, he made certain to double-lock the door to his quarters when he slept. Yes, the thorny, twisted confines of their emotions acted as a sort of shield, but no shield could hold forever.
Training his daughters did not occupy all his time. He returned to his studies, specifically to genetic engineering, picking up where he’d left off on the Chitauri homeworld. The Chitauri were good soldiers, but he had begun to think they could be improved upon. Using samples of their DNA, his own DNA, and some genetic samples from the worlds he’d vanquished, he began to work on what
he thought of as his Outriders—fiercely loyal, bred only for combat. He planned to breed thousands of them, millions if possible, to be his vanguard throughout the galaxy. Eventually, they would replace the Chitauri, who were capable but also limited by their hive mind. Thanos wanted soldiers he could preprogram from birth.
One day, hard at work at his biochemical forge, he sensed a presence behind him and turned quickly. In his own way, he loved the girls, but he did not entirely trust them.
It was Gamora, weaponless, standing a safe and respectable distance from him, her hands twined together anxiously.
“What do you need?” he asked her, annoyed at the interruption.
“Why did you kill Cha Rhaigor?” Gamora asked him.
Thanos sucked in a breath. “Honestly, I never realized you made much note of him.”
“He was the only other adult on the ship. You didn’t think we’d notice when he was gone?”
True. He nodded, conceding her point. “What makes you think I killed him?”
She snorted the sort of derision only a child in the throes of adolescence can muster. “No escape pods were jettisoned. There are no jump-ships missing from the launch bay.”
“Ah.”
“Nebula and I looked through the whole ship. Even in the engine room. We didn’t find anything. So we figured you killed him and threw the body out an airlock.”
Her tone was calm, almost nonchalant, but her lower lip trembled ever so slightly when she spoke.
“You and Nebula worked together?” he asked.
“Don’t change the subject.” Her quivering lip stiffened. “The Chitauri ignored us. The Other barely tolerated us. Cha was actually nice to us. We liked him. Why did you kill him?”
He thought carefully before answering. Not because he planned to lie to her, but because he wanted to tell her the absolute truth to the best of his understanding. There was little cause for lies between father and daughters, in this or any other matter.
“He challenged me,” he told her.