And then faded into black.
Chapter 18
“I’m leaving,” Guillermo said and turned away from her.
Kyveli ordered him to stop but he disobeyed.
The nerve! Nobody had ever disobeyed her before! He was… He walked to the door. She ordered him to stop and he still walked to the door.
Arghhh! That maddening man.
“Lockdown protocol,” she demanded and the doors slammed shut in the entire ship. The throne room doors nearly chopped of Guillermo’s nose.
He turned around, slowly.
Hah! Try ignoring me now, silly.
“Your Brightness, let me explain this in simple terms. You put innocent people in danger, because,” he gestured something in the air with his fingers, “’you wanted to see a hurricane.’”
“I do not like your tone of voice.”
He gritted his teeth in a smile. He walked close to her, right up to her face.
“I. Don’t. Care. Your Highness,” he faked a bow.
By the division of atoms, he was so sexy.
“When you put innocent people in danger, you forfeit the right to be spoken to in a proper manner of address,” he continued.
How could he be so angry and so controlled at the same time? If only she could master that trick.
“This is why I don’t like working with royalty!” He threw his arms in the air, presenting the entire room. “You think little people are ants.”
She lost some of her poise. She sagged on her throne. It still pricked her in the butt, but she ignored it this time. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Let me translate it, then.”
“No, not that. I mean, I never had to think about others that way. Care about others. All my life, since I was a child, I was pampered. I got everything I wanted, the second I asked for it.”
Was she tearing up? Damn, she was. Not in front of Guillermo. Not now.
She looked away.
“I know deep inside that it’s wrong. But how can I possibly comprehend what it is to care for others when nobody will teach me how?”
His expression was different now. Softer. She looked away again.
“I believe you,” he whispered. “I’ve seen this before. People raised in a golden cage, not a clue what goes on the real world. It’s really not your fault. A child plays, burns an insect with a magnifying glass. It is a grown-up’s job to teach it otherwise.”
She sniffled.
He smiled handsomely.
“Let me ask you something.”
“Yes?”
“Is the ruler position in your culture a real authority, and not just an ornamental one?”
“Of course. My father rules through twelve AI copies of his mind over the entire empire.”
He paused for a moment. “So it’s effectively him ruling, right. Got it. And if something happens, you’re next in line?”
“Yes. But I don’t want that! I don’t want anything bad to happen to daddy.”
“I know, I know. But in your kind of life, these things need to be considered, no matter how cruel they may seem. My point is that there’s a very good chance you’ll actually rule over your people.”
“I guess, yeah.” She rubbed her face. She must have looked awful and she’d never let anyone see her like this. “I’m scared.”
“Of course you are,” he said softly. “Any kind of rule is intimidating, let alone one such as yours. But you owe it to your people to be prepared. And you owe it them to feel empathy.”
“How can I possibly care for all those people? They’re so many.”
“You need to care for one person in the colonies. Then the next, then the next, then the one after that. That’s how you care for people. One at a time. But you need to learn how to appreciate things. You have everything you might desire but I don’t think you appreciate what you have.”
“No one has spoken to me like this.”
He chuckled. “Maybe they should have.”
She licked her lips. They were salty. “Maybe.”
He stood up, and spoke loudly again, “But for now, you’re still on vacation to an exotic planet such as ours. And you need to enjoy this precious time you have here, your Brightness. What would you like to see next?”
She smiled wide. “So, you’re staying?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“With me?”
“With you.”
Chapter 19
Guillermo rubbed his temples. Hard.
“You can’t just take ‘a pyramid.’”
Kyveli scoffed. “Why not? You have three of them.”
Guillermo breathed in deep. It was surprisingly chilly for being in a desert. “Because… It is an ancient monument to a Pharaoh, a tomb, actually. It has stood there for about three thousand years.”
The Teddy Bear held up a ridiculously tall parasol that only covered her from the sun, leaving him out to get a tan.
Kyveli tilted her head. “A Pharaoh?”
“Yes. Royalty. Like you, actually. You wouldn’t want someone to show up after eons and just pick up your tomb as if it was a vacation souvenir now, would you?”
She opened her pretty mouth to speak.
“Yes,” he interrupted. “I know, there won’t be a tomb left. There won’t even be a solar system left. But you know what I mean.”
Kyveli turned back to the magnificent view from atop the pyramid. Her eyes glinted as they darted around. Translucent images appeared in her field of view, and Guillermo was shocked to realise that she was actually looking up information on the Pharaohs. The ship’s Mind digested the volumes of data and gave her the highlights that it knew she’d like.
He let her take it all in.
He stood in silence, watching her. How would the Ancient Egyptians react to a visit from her? He had no doubt in his mind that she’d fit in nicely right next to Nefertiti and Cleopatra. Delicate features, thin fingers, red skin like velvet. Throw in one of those characteristic Egyptian crowns that frame the entire head and she’s a Queen now.
Worshipped by trillions.
The mind doesn’t just boggle, it shuts down completely. Guillermo tried to imagine what that actually meant. And he was no novice either, he had stood next to kings as they addressed crowds beneath them, stirring them up, inspiring them by the thousands.
He spun around to watch the desert. Trillions of souls. What had they called them? Panhuman species, variations on the same theme and archetype of two hands, two feet, standing upright, across the stars. Like grains of sand.
Grains of sand at her feet.
Yes, that was the only analogy Guillermo’s brain could come up with to make the comparison.
He snorted at his thoughts. He was under the mistaken impression that the humans of today seemed somehow more advanced than the Egyptians were. But the difference of two thousand years of science was negligible next to the Ekrignontes. He squinted up at the shiny orb in the sky that called itself a silly name and had a silly Teddy Bear avatar and had the power to slice Jupiter up like an orange.
Humans were just playing with rocks, stacking them pretty.
Kyveli gestured and dismissed the AR data.
He smiled back at her.
“So I can’t take one? Not even the little one?” She pointed hesitantly at the smaller pyramid of the three and gave him the puppy eyes.
To force himself away from the urge to please her was like scratching a sunburn.
“No.”
Chapter 20
“Turn away,” the princess demanded and of course everyone in her court did. There was a practised shuffling of feet just like in a platoon.
Then she started to undress.
Guillermo averted his gaze.
The dressing room was one of the most spectacular of rooms in the ship, and it was equipped with a space-age closet that could move things in and out of sight in an instant. There was a huge window where the could see a snowy mountain in the distance.
Kyveli took off her top, slowly. Then she walked right in front of him and held up her crystal glass. “Could you please hold this for me?”
“Naturally,” he said and picked it up. His peripheral vision allowed him to take in her shape. It was… Lovely.
He swallowed, hard.
She took her time, picking out her next top to wear. They had brought in the finest clothes from Earth, he could tell. Having been in the employ of kings and celebrities, he had gained somewhat of a refined taste for expensive clothing.
These, laid out on a table, were some of the best threads in the world. Fit for stars, princesses and unparallelled beauties. At the head of the table sat the ship’s avatar, Teddy.
She slid a purple velvet on. It practically flowed as she moved, covering up just enough to be gorgeous and giving people tantalising glimpses of the bright-red skin beneath.
“Do you like it?”
Guillermo looked. “Um… Yes, it suits you perfectly, Princess. But…” He put the glass down and inspected the clothes.
A collective moan came from the courtiers. He ignored it, and walked across the table, feeling the fabric on his fingers.
Nothing was good enough, nothing could possibly-
There it was.
He picked the dress up and presented it to the princess.
She gave him a sideways smile and undressed again. Completely, this time.
He averted his gaze once again. “Silk in the colour of glacier blue, topped with the whites of polar-bear fur. I believe it the only piece of clothing here worthy of the princess.”
She clicked her tongue, and slid into the dress as he held the sides. “Is it, now?” she said from the throat. She turned her back to him. He hesitated for a moment, thinking back on the ship’s warning. ‘Touch Her and You’re Dead.’ Didn’t leave much room for misinterpretation there.
He pulled up the zipper.
“It brings out your eyes, Princess.”
She turned around to face him.
A tiny device floated next to her head and sprayed makeup on her eyes, applying white eyeshadow perfectly, with iridescent tones. “Really, now?” She batted her eyelashes.
“Oh, yes, trust me. It can melt hearts away.” He picked the crystal glass again and presented it to her.
It suddenly shattered into pieces.
Guillermo didn’t have time to register what had happened. The glass just suddenly felt light in his fingers and shards flew in the air and twinkled with the light. He was left with a crystal stem, and when he looked up he saw a shimmer in the air around Kyveli. Was that a shield? An energy… something?
Had something ricocheted just now?
Teddy ran to the window and was furious. “Found him,” the fluffy avatar of the ship said that looked like a living Teddy Bear. It pointed a stubby arm at the mountain. “A Catastrophist. I shoulda known.”
Guillermo touched his face. There was blood. He touched his ear. Yup, more blood trickling.
An assassination attempt?
“Die, fucker, die,” the cuddly Teddy Bear said and a wide beam emanated from the ship called ‘Touch Her and You’re Dead.’ The red-hot beam swiped the entire landscape, tore up the ground and sent molten rocks flying in the air. It cut the mountain in half. Lava flowed into the valley below.
“Got him,” Teddy said and threw a woolly fist in the air.
And after all that, the sound of the gunshot finally reached their ears.
Chapter 21
“Are they insane?” Guillermo said as they regrowed his ear. The aliens’ medical technology came in handy. Things sounded funny when one of the pair was blasted away by a high-calibre shot.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Lorenzo said. “They’re a radical group, want to wipe out all the Diairetis royal family, no matter what it costs.”
“And they came here?”
“This was an excellent opportunity. They’re on a suicide mission, and having Kyveli divide on Earth saves them one colony at least. Plus it ends the bloodline.”
“Really? It stops with her?”
“Yeah, genetically. Then again, they can probably harvest some DNA and cross it to female, even we can do that, or attempt to at least. In practice, the family will live on. But they’d be publically shamed. History is never kind to a royal bloodline without heirs, on any planet.”
Guillermo turned to Pollux. The doctor fussed on his ear, “Stand still, please.”
He stayed still. Last thing he wanted was an ear growing out the wrong way. “Pollux, Teddy called them something I believe.”
Pollux gritted his teeth. “Catastrophists,” he spat out with disgust. “Madmen! They wish to cull the royal line, blast away entire colonies along with the Royal Majesties. Madmen!”
“Right, right. Catastrophists? Wait, why does everything from your culture sound Greek?”
“What, you know Greek?” Lorenzo asked. “Didn’t peg you for a scholar.”
“The Spanish royal family is of Greek descent. But I’m talking about their language. Why do all the names sound like they have Greek roots?”
“I do not know what this grik is, I’m afraid,” Pollux said, honestly ashamed.
“Relax, it’s a local thing,” Lorenzo assured the man. He leaned close and inspected the new ear. “It’s the translator microbes, man. When there’s a new word that cannot be properly translated, they use a language that can carry the meaning of the foreign word to you. Greek seems to do the trick just fine in most of the cases.”
“In all of the cases, apparently.” Guillermo could feel the man’s breath on his sensitive skin. He pushed him back.
Avatar Teddy walked inside. “Oh, good, you’re alive,” it said in deadpan.
“Did you even try to shield me?” Guillermo asked. “I was in the line of fire.”
“My priority is the princess,” Teddy said proudly and crossed his stubby arms.
Guillermo touched his ear. It felt weird, but at least it seemed to be sticking out of the right place. “Are you sure you got the sniper?”
Teddy frowned at him.
“Right.” Guillermo motioned in a circle with his hand as if stirring some water. “He was somewhere around that mountain. Have you ever heard of disproportionate response?”
“I fail to see your point. I’m a protector. My first priority is the Princess.”
“Yes, yes, we got it,” Lorenzo cut in. “Is the ear good?” He clicked his fingers.
“I’m fine, thanks to the fine skills of the doctor.”
The alien doctor bowed and collected his tools.
Pollux assured him, “Unfortunately, it’s a common occurrence. The princess has had about a thousand attempts on her life.”
“What, that many in a single lifetime? Poor Kyveli, that must be awful.”
“A thousand this year,” Pollux corrected.
Teddy rubber his fluffy hands together. “I can’t wait to get the rest of them.”
Guillermo perked up. “What do you mean? There are more Catastrophists?”
“Oh, plenty more. And I’ll get them all, you’ll see.”
Chapter 22
“Lorenzo?”
“Yeah?” The younger man lounged on the sofa and drank alien alcohol. He looked like he had a light buzz and just stared down from the spaceship over an exotic island.
“When the daughters that divide are gone, the universe will cease carrying on,” Guillermo recited. He was surprised to find out that he could recall the words perfectly.
“Getting superstitious now?” Lorenzo smiled. He propped his legs up on the sofa. “Oh this booze is good.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“Yeah, it’s a silly thing they believe. But it’s all megalomaniacal.”
“Megalomaniacal how?”
Lorenzo sat straight and put his glass on the table. “Look, the universe is expanding, right?”
“If you say so.”
“It’s a fact, even we knew that before we met the Involved races. The univers
e is expanding all the time, accelerating even. Some say that it’s infinite.”
“Mind boggling, sure. What’s the problem with that though?”
“There are no infinities in physics. Very large numbers, sure. Extremely mind boggling numbers, fuck yes! But no infinities. Everything is finite, even the angstroms of space in the universe.”
Guillermo nodded. “Okay, I’m following you this far. I think.”
“So if the universe keeps on expanding towards infinity, but there are no infinities in nature, we got a problem, right?”
“Sure,” Guillermo resigned.
“And that’s where the Diairetis come in. They divide and cause the catastrophic vacuum decay, which renews the universe behind them as it advances forward.” He gestured expanding circles with his fingers over the rim of the glass. “At least that’s what they believe.” He leaned back, taking another sip of the universe.
Guillermo scratched his head. He didn’t feel bad, this must be daunting for the best of minds in the world. But he needed to understand these people. “So are they right? That they balance the whatever- the matter in the universe?”
“Fuck if I know!”
Guillermo eyed him wearily. “You’re really not helping me here.”
“This is physics beyond our understanding. You’re asking me if God set up the universe to collapse in entropy or if he added in a thermostat in a biped’s genes. Anyone who claims to know the answer is deluded, at best. So, the honest answer is…”
“Fuck if I know,” Guillermo added.
“Now you’re getting it. Let’s get drunk together, this Allurian whiskey or whatever is simply divine.”
They clinked glasses together.
Chapter 23
“You need to come back,” the King said on the holoscreen.
“I don’t wanna,” Kyveli whined.
“It’s for your own protection, my child. The Catastrophists are after you.”
“They’re always after me.” She covered herself with the softest pillows in the world.
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