Imperator Page 7

  It was like a lizard. A giant lizard. Its head smooth. Its ridged brow heavy. Its scaly snout filled with sharp teeth. It opened its mouth and howled, and the jungle shook all about them. Trees swayed, and some collapsed from jungle rot eons old.

  “Down!” hissed Casper as the monster panned its head across the dark blue night sky.

  The bot took a knee and scanned the jungle. “Now that we have encountered the locals, I predict our odds of surviving the first week of our stay here are considerably less than my initial projections, master. Have you any last wishes, or requests, that I may pass on to the search and rescue teams should I survive your demise? Although I doubt we will ever be found.”

  Casper heard the rending of metal. Impervisteel to be specific. The ship to be exact. Casper knew that sound. He’d heard hulls surrender under the strain of combat. He knew what a collapsing bulkhead sounded like. The strain of screaming spars as they snapped in heavy gravitation wells. The terrific crash of a ship colliding with a force bigger than its own.

  “It’s going after the ship, master,” THK-133 intoned. “We may yet live to die in some much more horrible fashion on this forsaken planet. Alone in a place no one knows exists. When you calculate the odds, the possibilities for our demise are nearly endless.”

  Casper listened as the creature tore the ship to pieces. At one point a section of the hull, of the cockpit, was tossed above the treetops as though it were not a multi-ton piece of an interstellar starship, but rather a simple toy. A toy that no longer amused the petulant child that played with it. The massive piece of impervisteel arched through the night above them, moonlight gleaming off of it, bits of loose equipment raining down beneath it.

  It crashed onto the beach behind them.

  Casper overcharged the blaster rifle, dumping all its energy into the next shot. A soft, high-pitched note disappeared into nothingness, signaling the shot was ready to be fired.

  “Really?” asked the bot. Its droll tone was made even drier by its electronic voice. “I highly doubt your blaster will do anything beyond attract the beast to our exact position—and possibly enrage it enough to go on a stomping spree with us underneath… master.”

  Casper ignored this and waited. Much of his life had been down to last shots, last chances, last stands. Why not now?

  Same as it ever was.

  Hadn’t all of it, his whole life crossing the stars, hadn’t it always headed toward this kind of conclusion?

  Casper waited for the monster’s next move. Ignoring the only answer he could provide. He tried to make sure defeat was never an option… until it was.

  The violence at the crash site was dying down now. The monster howled, as though robbed of some prize. As though claiming enigmatic victory over manufactured inanimate objects. As though promising them that they were now good and well marooned.

  As if that had not been abundantly clear already.

  And then… the monster began to head off into the night, in another direction, away from the river. Away from Casper. Its massive footfalls shook the ground, causing the sand to shift beneath his feet. The destruction of its going was heard for some time as it wandered off into the nether reaches of the strange jungle. But finally, whatever it was, monster, demon, predator, animal, dream… it was gone.

  They stood.

  All was quiet now.

  Casper watched the night. Waiting. Feeling himself begin to shake. There was something so primordial about that. Some ancient fear hard-wired into him. Running from a monster the size of a building. And there was nothing he could do about it.

  It reminded him that despite his longevity, he was still fragile. It could’ve crushed him, and there was nothing in what the Pantheon on the Obsidia had done that could’ve fixed that. Bullets, blasts, knives—or being crushed to death by a monster in a jungle… anything that could end his life, would end it.

  In that, he was just like everyone else.

  Like his ancient cave-dwelling ancestors, when mankind was not the uber predator of his planet, he was painfully aware of his mortality.

  He checked the blaster rifle and redistributed the charge. Then he walked over to the portion of the cockpit that had landed on the beach.

  Its windows stared out at the lazy water. In the area below the main cockpit where the avionics processors had once been, there was enough space for him to shelter. It reminded him of a cave. One like those ancestors might have hidden in, to avoid being trampled by their monsters. Or like mice in the walls of an old and haunted house.

  Five years ago, he’d been the highest-ranking admiral in the Republic. Commander of a fleet that consisted of two battleships, three carriers, fourteen cruisers, and numerous destroyers and corvettes. The crew of the battleship was over fifteen thousand alone.

  Now…

  He looked at the accidental cave formed by his ruined ship. “We’ll camp here… next to the river,” he announced in a whisper.

  The bot clicked and adjusted itself. “Shall I gather dead wood and build a fire, master? I know how much fire comforts your kind in such dire, and most likely fatal, situations as this.”

  Chapter Eight

  The night wore on into the still hours where time didn’t seem to move in the least. And for that matter, what was time now? The ship was smashed. The ship’s clock was gone. Given long enough, any personal devices that kept standard Galactic would wear down and run out. Become unreliable. For all intents and purposes, time was meaningless.

  Casper sat in front of the fire, trying to develop a list of what he’d need to look for in the morning, while trying to ignore that he’d most likely killed himself by coming to this planet. Yes, he was capable of a long life, but he wasn’t invulnerable to pain, injury, disease, or starvation. Or exposure.

  He was probably going to die out here. And soon. So he focused on the priorities.

  Food.

  Shelter.

  Medicine.

  Weapons.

  And while his initial plan had been to get some scouting missions going to find the Temple of Morghul, always with the ability to return back to his ship for more supplies, now there was nothing to return to. No ship, and the supplies… well, with as exposed as everything was in this jungle environment, rot and degradation would soon set in. Nothing could be counted on past a few days. Anything that had been relied upon before, now could not be.

  It was time to make a choice.

  During the crash, he’d had no time to get a reading on the planet’s topography. Just vague images he barely remembered now. They’d come in too hot. Too fast. Too close to the planet. He’d been too busy trying to keep the ship from crashing to get all the scans he’d intended to get. Scans that would have made the search a lot easier.

  The only reference points he had were the jungle, the mountains, and the desert. And the enigmatic statue of the giant lizard. That statue was the only evidence of any kind of civilization. So—he would make for the statue. And then, perhaps, to the desert beyond? There had been a sea at the end of it, hadn’t there? He thought he could remember that much. He would—

  “Master,” the bot began.

  But Casper had also seen what the bot was about to alert him to, and he held up a hand for silence.

  A small creature was coming up the beach, along the dark river. The visible moon had dropped down now, behind the distant mountains where the lonely statue waited, watching an ancient wasteland that was home only to birds, insects, and wandering monsters.

  Casper flicked off the safety on the hunting rifle. THK picked up the heavy blaster and did the same. Which all seemed rather ridiculous once the thing came into the firelight. Whatever it was, it wasn’t more than half a meter tall.

  It came down the beach in an almost haphazard fashion, as though it was investigating every rock, pebble, and stray stick, but its destination was clear. It was headed strai
ght for their fire.

  “Shall I kill it, master? So that you might sate your hunger with its roasted flesh? Because you are weak that way in your constant need for sustenance. And I do enjoy killing.”

  Casper shook his head.

  It was carrying a walking stick. So it wasn’t just an animal. It was an intelligent life form. Probably tribal or nomadic. Possibly territorial. Maybe it knew where the Temple of Morghul was. Or maybe their tribe had songs and stories that could point him toward the ancient ruins he sought.

  And then this small dark figure, its humanoid shape masked by the night, passed into the firelight.

  It had two arms, two legs, and it was shaggy. Not in the way human hair is shaggy, but in the way some floor coverings are shaggy. Its entire body was covered in short, curling, crimson hair. It had a large bulb of a nose, and its two coal-dark soulful eyes were even larger than the nose. Within those eyes the light of the fire danced and twirled.

  Without fanfare or introduction it sat down on a log across the fire. It settled itself with no small amount of guttural grumbling and difficulty. As if this were all perfectly normal. As if this was the way things were done.

  Looking at them, it spoke.

  “Urmo.”

  There was a long silence, during which the only sound was of the fire gently crackling. The creature just watched and waited for a response. Its dark eyes wandered back and forth between the bot and the man.

  Casper had been through first-contact scenarios before. Long ago, when much of the galaxy was unknown, he’d been the first to meet the Tennar. He tried to remember the protocols, but in the end he came up with nothing more than repeating the word that had been spoken.

  “Urmo,” he said.

  The small thing nodded emphatically and began to bounce up and down on the log.

  “Urmo!”

  “Urmo!”

  “URMO!” it exclaimed.

  Possibly, thought Casper, “Urmo” was its name?

  Remembering the blaster rifle across his knees, he set it aside. “Are you… Urmo?” he asked.

  “URMO! URMO! URMO!” it exclaimed.

  But this didn’t clarify whether the little thing acknowledged itself as “Urmo.” It only seemed excited to repeat the enigmatic word.

  Casper turned toward the bot. “Does Urmo mean anything to you, 133?”

  “Hmmm…” intoned the bot. It emitted a whirring and clicking as it went from perfect stillness to sudden activity. It panned its head across the night as though sensing something. “Nothing rings a bell, as they say, master. But I recall a rather violent encounter at the Battle of Zanzabaad in which a Hool I had just garroted made a similar sound. Whether it was a word, a curse, or some sort of ineloquent final statement as death came, I do not know. I suspect it was merely strangling in its own poisonous blood. Hence the sound.”

  Pause.

  “Is that helpful, master?”

  Casper shook his head.

  Looking at the little creature, he tried once more. He circled his hand to take in the forest, the river, and the night.

  “Urmo?”

  Again the little beast erupted. “URMO! URMO!”

  This was repeated as the night wore on. Anything Casper tried was met with the same one-word exultation. And then the little creature would wait for the next time Casper spoke. It waited expectantly. It waited hopefully. And it was never disappointed.

  And then it would repeat, “URMO, URMO, URMO!” over and over.

  In time, Casper, frustrated, abruptly rose and walked to the dark river. The cool of the night felt good against his face after too long in front of a fire, trying desperately to communicate with what apparently amounted to an alien moron. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of water running over the stones. Its gentle burble relaxed his mind. He just faded into that and tried not to think about…

  Being stranded on a planet no one knew existed.

  Imminent death.

  And the Republic, and all its problems.

  His thoughts were always about the Republic. He had been instrumental in its creation, though no one—or rather very few—had ever known the extent of his involvement. And even those few were dead now. The history books listed him as Cyrus Caine, original signer of the first draft of the Constitutional Charter that created the Galactic Republic. Back when that had been something to be proud of. Back before the courts had cored it out and made a plaything of it. Subtracting Founding Rights and adding new rights merely to secure power with special interest galactic minority groups. The Charter had really been something once—but that was long ago, before the rot set in.

  Back then, people had a lot of grand ideas. When the Republic was much loved and everyone had a sense of patriotism about it. When it was an enterprise. A grand experiment. Something noble.

  They even made movies about it.

  Actors had played him. Had played Cyrus Caine. Several times over.

  Actors who were now long dead.

  Then the revisionist history had come along and made something else of the man he’d been for a time.

  The music of the water over stones in the river reminded him of all those lost things he was here for. All the right things that needed to be brought back, never mind how.

  And then, for a moment, he realized he was hearing voices having a conversation. An interchange. An exchange of words. Something other than…

  “URMO! URMO! URMO!”

  He spun about, and it seemed, though just for a moment, that the THK was nodding emphatically at the little creature. As if an actual dialogue was being exchanged between the creature and the bot.

  As if the two of them were talking.

  But when he got back to the fire, they were merely staring at each other.

  “Did he say… anything else?” Casper asked 133.

  The bot panned its head until its gaze—or what Casper chose not to think of as its targeting system—focused on him. “No, master. We haven’t said a word. We’ve just been sitting here, staring at each other.”

  From across the jungle a bird called out suddenly, shrieking like it was being violently murdered. The fire snapped, and only the mournful cry of that animal’s echo remained. As though it would forever wander all the night paths of this strange and forgotten place beyond the ken of the known galaxy. Constantly crying out its grievance for no one to hear.

  The Lesson of Other Ways

  The Master has led the student deeper and deeper into the darkness, to a place of deep silences within the temple.

  But the temple is so many places, and to say that one is within the temple is to not be specific. We have passed beyond such vagaries.

  Yet to say that one is with the Master… now this, of course, is very specific. And there is only one statement beyond this that can convey all things.

  But of course, that is the first lesson. Learned at the beginning. Known before it was known. Waiting all along for it to be merely accepted.

  It is within you, and you are within it.

  Meditation.

  This place of deep silences where the student finds himself is like a plain with no horizon. It is a gray and featureless place. Its existence screams nothingness. Which is ironic. But the student has found that when there is irony to be detected, a lesson is close at hand. Forces must collide, in order for clarity to reveal itself. In order for wisdom to be gained.

  And so he wonders what is the lesson of this place.

  The Master comes close.

  “Confronted by obstacles you will always be. Along the way… always.” The master pauses, as is his way. His every word carries weight, meaning, a conclusion in and of itself. The student must be allowed sufficient time to absorb these truths.

  And then he resumes. “Choices are never easy. Clarity you will lack. See not just the right choice and
the wrong… obvious both always are… but all the possibilities one might choose. Choose from these… and then powerful you will become.”

  In the temple, time has no meaning.

  Unless that is part of the lesson.

  The Taurax appears in the mist of nothingness. But not the Taurax as the galaxy knows it to be now. Not the four-armed raptor gone savage, little more than a beast. A plaything to be captured and caged, an amusement for fights gladiatorial. No. Once, long ago, before there was what is, and will one day be no more, before that thing called the Galactic Republic his mind has had to let go of in order that he may know it better, in order that he may destroy it better… before all that, the Taurax were the guardians of the Ancients.

  This is known to no one save those within the temple.

  As are so many other things about the galaxy.

  And there is only the Master and the student, here in the temple.

  Once, the Taurax were an elite warrior class. The wars they fought were savage beyond comprehending, and they, the Taurax, were considered a sort of doomsday weapon. A terrible whirlwind unleashed upon species that no longer existed. Imagine once-fertile worlds turned to desolate, airless, ruined moonscapes. The debris rings of gas giants were once stately worldlets.

  And these were not just mindless monsters, some primordial saurians roaming the land for blood and meat. The Taurax were cruel. Because the minds that worked within them delighted in the pleasures of cruelty. Masters of weapons. Masters of pain. Masters of suffering.

  Forward came the Taurax, a terrible thing to behold.

  Nothingness shakes, trembling at the approach of a nightmare.

  As the Taurax runs forward, its massive hindquarters pump hard.

  It bears down on the student.

  There is no time to do anything but dodge.

  The dodge the student chooses is somehow wrong. The Taurax runs down its prey, crushing most of the bones in the student’s body beneath its two-ton frame.