James broke off a piece. The skin was dry and rough, but the meat was tender. He licked his greasy fingers.
“Passable,” he said.
“I take that as a high compliment, James. I’ve never cooked fish before. I watched your own people from afar just to learn how to catch them. They say fish existed on Hiebimini in limited quantity long ago, before colonization. Before the brontinium mines stripped the planet and poisoned the water. An amazing cycle.”
“The planet is called Aeterna. I proclaimed it …”
“Today. Yes. I heard. Call it what you will. I don’t give a cud. My home was named Hiebimini. I’ll be the last of my kind to die here.”
The picture drew a nudge clearer.
“You’re Hiebim?”
“Again, surprisingly slow on the uptake for a god. Yes, Brother James. I am Hiebim. I am eighty-five years very old. I was the last Hiebim on this planet when the terraforming began. That’s when I met the Jewels. Or they met me. Perhaps that was always the plan.
“They kept me alive. Guided me safely around their construction zones. Told me to keep walking. As I long as I did, they entertained me. They showed me the universe beyond this world. Even beyond this universe. I have walked the circumference of this planet four times. My isolation has been my punishment.
“But I see how the pieces fit together. I understand the grand scheme better than anyone. Even the great god, Brother James. And each footstep has led me here. The fire. The log. The fish. You. Me.”
James put down the plate. “The algorithm?”
“Causality. Yes. My paths were always limited, but yours were limitless. Our meeting was not certain until you made the right choices. But each time, the paths narrowed. When you destroyed the Shock Units. Killed your brother. Brought down SkyTower. Built an army. Manipulated the war on Earth. Designed the refractors. Survived Tamarind. Captured the Pynn woman. One choice in any other direction, and I’d still be walking.”
“And me?”
“Ah, yes. You. The real reason we’re here. Always about you. Never mind that I’m going to die tomorrow. I was forgotten generations ago. Even a god doesn’t recognize me. Very sad, I suppose.”
The old man cast his gaze into the fire, and his eyes reflected the same fury roiling from James’s pistils.
“I die tomorrow, James. You will die soon after. Both of us will face the end we deserve.”
21
J AMES THREW HIS FISH INTO THE FIRE, much to the consternation of the old man, who warned him to stop acting like a child.
“I’ve had enough of this,” James shouted. “I don’t know why the Jewels are treating me this way, but …”
“But what, James? Are you going to stomp away now? You’re not only in denial. You have the disease of all men who rise to great power: Your narcissism unleashes your insecurity. And before you say another word, I will iterate once more that I am not a Jewel of Eternity. They taught me about the universe, but I have reached my own conclusions. I am not here because they forced me. This is simply the end of my path. I saw it, I embraced it. And tomorrow, I am going to die.”
“Why? Can you see the future?”
“No. At least not in the way you or the Jewels do. No.” He took a large bite of fish and chewed slowly, as if appreciating each morsel. “I will walk out into the lake tomorrow. I will continue to walk until the water is above my head. I will not come back up.”
“You would drown yourself? You’re mad.”
“No. I’ve made a choice. Also, I don’t know how to swim.”
James saw the shades of a wry smile.
“If you can’t see the future, you don’t know what will happen to me. I do not respond well to fear tactics.”
“I’ve heard. But, as with all men of great power, fear is a central tenet of your campaign. I know because I invested heavily in it for decades. Even succeeded at times. By the end, those tactics produced nothing more than pyrrhic victories. Still don’t know my name?”
If the man was Hiebim as he insisted, James should have been able to deduce his identity. Yet something blocked his ability to see across time and space. He closed off all other distractions – including the hybrid collective mind – yet his vision didn’t extend beyond the fire.
“Enough games, you old bastard. Tell me.”
The cook flipped over the fish and picked at the other side.
“My name is not as important as what you and I share in common. What if I told you I was a very angry boy? What if I told you I suffered devastating loss? What if I decided to seek revenge against a foe so powerful that victory appeared hopeless? What if I chose a strategy painted in the blood of my enemies? What if I vowed to destroy every Chancellor in the Collectorate? And what if I raised two sons in the midst of my war and trained them to follow in my craven, bloody footsteps? And what if my vengeance killed more than two million people? I wonder, James: Does my story seem at all familiar?”
The old man finished his speech by filling his mouth full of fish and looking up at the stars. More pieces of James’s memory fell together.
“It was you,” he said. “You were the one on trial at the Fall of the Chancellory. I forgot. When Ignatius … when he showed me those events … how The Father rose from the real Ignatius Horne and reunited with the other Jewels … I forgot you were there. You were being tried for war crimes. You started the Hiebim Civil War.”
The old man shrugged. “Start isn’t accurate, but I’ll leave that verdict to history. Yes, James. I was there. Ignatius Horne was my defender.” He pointed north. “It wasn’t more than thirty kilometers from here. Messalina. Beautiful city. Gone now. Pushed aside for terraforming. Like all Hiebim history, I gather.
“I could tell you my name is Trayem Hadeed, but you’d miss the point, James. What matters is this: All I fought for and lost has been reduced to ghost stories my people tell on the colonies where they resettled. For a short while, I was the most influential indigo in the Collectorate. I even brought down an Ark Carrier; not on your grander scale, but I got their attention.”
He looked forlorn, his eyes drifting to another time and place.
“And then, James, they got my attention. My boys died because my need for blood could not be quenched. They’ve disappeared entirely from history. Even their burial place was remade during terraforming. I’ve forgotten their faces because I can’t look at them anymore. I will say their names tomorrow, out there.” He pointed to the lake. “The last breath I take before I go under. An old man, dying alone. A pitiful exit, but the one I earned.”
He ate the last of his fish and threw the bones into the fire. James studied this broken creature, looking for clues to a larger purpose, some reason for the obvious manipulation. After a long, awkward silence, James chose his next words carefully.
“I see what this is,” he said. “We’ve been brought together so I can learn from your mistakes. You are an object lesson. The Jewels want me to learn from you, so I don’t make the same errors.”
Hadeed nodded. “That’s your assessment, is it?”
“Do you deny it?”
“I didn’t walk this planet four times and face the guilt of my atrocities in order to sit here and tell you to play nice or else your boys will die. No, James. Again, you miss the point. Delusional, insecure, and desperately stubborn.” He broke stride with a laugh. “Sounds like me in the old days. No, James. You are going to die soon. There’s no path where you survive what’s to come. It will be a death well deserved, just like mine.”
“Impossible. You already said you can’t see the future.”
“Not how you’re going to die. No. Although I must say, the notion of who seems increasingly probable. Too many paths are converging exactly as the Jewels projected – even before you were born.”
“Bullshit. The Jewels preordained my rise. If not for me, there’d be no one here to occupy their new paradise. I’ve seen the coming of the Divine State. I’ve seen thousands of years beyond my own life. I am going
nowhere for a very long time.”
Hadeed sighed. “Spoken like a true megalomaniac. James, contrary to what you allow yourself to believe, the Jewels are neither allies nor enemies. They don’t care how we’ve gotten here, only that their Algorithm of Causality proved accurate. Their only vested interest is in their predictive math. The entire construct is based upon triggers, resultant free will, and observation. Think carefully, James.
“The future is a product of infinite variables. The only way to assess its potential is to develop a control group. In the case of the human race, you need to find individuals of such strong, indomitable will that no force can get in their way. Think Johannes Ericsson. Think Chancellory. Elevation Philosophy. Competing forces swept aside. Free will exists only in the indomitable. Paths are narrowed.
“From time to time, the algorithm needs refinement. New triggers are introduced to steer new outcomes. The possibility of the outcome is not guaranteed because the indomitable can choose to change their minds at any point. But humans, when highly motivated, are not likely to alter course. If anything, they will guarantee the desired outcome.”
James sensed where this argument was headed, and every instinct told him to walk away. Yet he felt compelled to sit and listen.
“Your point, Hadeed?”
“The Fall of the Chancellory was inevitable. One part of Ericsson’s line of descendants knew of it for centuries, even carried The Father in their blood. Passed it down to their sons and daughters. The time, place, and form, the names of the actors on stage … these were the great unknowns. However, the final members of his line did their duty to introduce the final triggers. Three times, a man named Ephraim Hollander entered my life while I was a child. He showed me the true nature of the Chancellory. Then he killed my gene-father and butchered the only woman I ever loved. He set me on my way.
“The other trigger was his own son. He turned Ilya Hollander against the Collectorate. And Ilya, as the last Ericsson descendant to live with The Father in his blood, delivered the crucible that brought an end to this world and brontinium. Which set the stage for the new chapter. Which is where you come in, Brother James.”
“No.” James remained defiant. “We are not connected.”
“Aren’t we? Ilya Hollander appears as Ignatius Horne to be my defense counsel. He sacrifices his life for me. Another Chancellor takes the same name and lives with you in a small town and sacrifices himself protecting you at your most desperate hour. Then he returns as an avatar of the Jewels to guide you into becoming what you were designed to be, knowing full well you will destroy him when you reach your potential. He is a crucial trigger in both our stories. There’s something else you don’t know, James. A piece of your old life buried so deep the truth eluded you. Even now, as a god, you don’t see it.”
“See what?”
“Deputy Ignatius Horne murdered the people you thought were your parents. He slaughtered Tom and Marlena Sheridan to protect your brother Ben, the only one who knew the secret to saving you. Without that trigger, without your grief and rage, the Jewels might never have known what you’d become. And you would have died three years ago.
“You were tested. You passed. And here we are. All paths at last are intersecting.”
Hadeed gathered the plates together. For the first time since his final day in Alabama, James felt a soul-crushing sense of defeat. He recounted the events of Tom and Marlena Sheridan’s deaths, his sudden rage thereafter, and Ben’s steady downward slide over the following two years. He must have known.
“You’re saying we’ve been pawns,” James muttered before raising his pitch. “I am no one’s fucking pawn!”
“No, no, not at all. Pawns? Those are poor cuds who play their tiny part and vanish from the action. We’ve been far more important than pawns. We shifted the course of history, you and I. Pawns? No. We blazed paths of death and destruction. We shifted the power dynamic of the Collectorate. And all along, we thought of ourselves as heroes. Champions to the oppressed. As you call them, The Promised Few. But we aren’t, James. And this is my point.
“Between us, we have killed five million people. How many of them fought for our enemies? And how many were simply trying to get out of the way? In your case, how many never saw it coming? How many families? How many children?
“It does not matter how our crusades were formed. The Jewels are irrelevant. We made choices. We did have free will. We chose the blood of the innocent. There’s no coming back from this, James. Tomorrow, I die. Soon, you die. Where the universe goes from there? Who cares? New choices. New crusades. But neither of us deserves to see any of it.” Hadeed leaned over to James. “Here are your plates back.”
James grabbed them, leaped off the log, and hurled them discus-style into the lake. They splashed in the darkness.
“Go out how you want, old man. I have a life to lead.”
“Such as it is. Any final questions, James? Nagging concerns?”
“Just one. You said you had an idea who would try to kill me. Give me the name.”
Hadeed threw up his arms as if the whole business had been a miserable failure.
“Did I say try? Oh, Brother James. I hope you’ll reflect properly during the long walk back to Benjamin and Peter. As for the one who will kill you, I see two potential prospects, but only one who seems made for the purpose. Think on it, James. You’ll know who. Not that it will make a difference. Good night, James, and don’t bother thanking me for the fish. My pleasure.”
22
J AMES DIDN’T STICK AROUND TO KILL Hadeed. Incineration was too easy. If this Hiebim wanted to drown himself, he was welcome. The old man was not going to have the satisfaction of seeing James at his most furious.
Nonetheless, rage consumed James as he started back, fists clinched to his sides and the ground warming under each footstep. From time to time, the closest foliage sparked and transfigured into ash without direct contact.
I am not a pawn. I am a god. I am their salvation.
He had no reason to doubt Hadeed’s own life story, and only the Jewels could have made him privy to James’s childhood details. But the old man’s motives appeared obvious. He used his connection through the Jewels to exact revenge. His last act was to terrorize the man who was introducing a new civilization to a better version of Hiebimini. All those years listening to Jewels, Hadeed must have found a connection through the white forest.
The forest is a construct, James told himself. It’s probably visible in every being touched by a Jewel. He knew about every iteration of Ignatius Horne. He knew how to lure me out here. One final jab.
Twice, James stopped and turned around. Did he really want to give Hadeed the benefit of a final sunrise? Both times, he checked his rage and pushed forward toward the campsite.
Focus on the most urgent issue. Focus and be ready.
He contemplated Hadeed’s every word, especially the details not emphasized. The clues emerged as he approached the camp. James grabbed his bicomm and telegraphed his destination. In seconds, he had full view of the Lioness command bridge.
“Admiral Kane,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Add another layer to your intel sweep. Focus on the four colonies but look for this name: Michael Cooper. We know he left Earth months ago, but our agents lost track. Examine every communication stream. Wherever Cooper is, that’s where the new weapon is being made.”
Kane grimaced. “How do you know, sir?”
“Because he’ll go to any length to rescue Samantha Pynn.”
“If we locate him, sir?”
“Assemble a strike force to include a hybrid. We’ll use a ground assault to kill Cooper first. We’ll finish off the rest with a Berserker.”
“Very good, sir. I’ll send instructions to our agents at once.”
James felt slightly less tense, but no more comfortable. “Soon,” he said. What is “soon?”
He saw a light fifty meters ahead, where he left his boys. James paused, closed his
eyes, and searched the hybrid collective mind. He pushed aside a wide range of thoughts and emotions until he found his wife and grabbed hold. He hid them away in a synapse inaccessible to the others.
“You seem nervous, husband,” she said.
“No, Rayna. Not nervous. Awakened. We need to change our tactics before it’s too late.”
“Why?”
He looked again to make sure no one else was listening.
“My brother plans to kill me.”
PART FOUR
THE IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE
To no one’s surprise, Aeterna has not been the paradise promised by its founders. The word paradise is itself a subjective construct. The decisions made in the aftermath of what has become known as The Last Day’s War assured a future for Aeterna that did not sit well with all pilgrims. Nonetheless, its transformational beauty has brought peace to many and a form of cultural homogeneity that has lasted far longer than most experts would have predicted. Many critics say my assessment is biased given my personal connection. On the contrary. I have studied Aeterna for two hundred years, long after my grandfather’s disappearance. Though I am immortal, I am first and foremost an historian. Who better to record the truth of history than those who are forever present to witness it?
- Edward Faust
- Annotation 1057-J
- The Fall of the Collectorate, Volume 4
23
Ericsson Research Station
Tamarind
T HIRD LIEUTENANT MICHAEL COOPER tried without success to switch off disposal duty, but he found no takers. His team refused to give him a break despite his continued lead in documented kills. He added four bodies to his tally during this morning’s incursion, which ended faster than the nearly tragic battle two days earlier. As he remote-directed the drone scoopers to the dead Mongols, Michael took small solace. The cleanup was moving along swiftly; less than two dozen corpses to collect. He needed to be done an hour ago. Today was too important. Today was everything.
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 121