Slave Empire - Prophecy (10 page)

When the
silence grew pregnant, Tallyn rose and made a vague gesture. "We
should find a shuttle to the surface, if you're ready?"

Rayne sat
forward, attracting his attention. "Do Atlanteans smile, usually,
Commander Tallyn?"

He looked
surprised. "Yes, they do. It's a natural expression of friendship
or joy, same as you. Why do you ask?"

"Because you
seem to have trouble with it in our company."

"Ah. Well, we
hardly know each other. Naturally things are a little
strained."

"No." Rayne
frowned. "It's something else, which you're not telling us. What's
waiting for us on your planet? A battery of tests and experiments?
Perhaps ones you don't altogether approve of, so you find our
company unpleasant because you feel guilty?"

"There will be
a few tests, naturally, and a lot of vaccinations. You won't be
allowed to mingle with the populace until your immunity to our
diseases is established. It's for your own good. Our diseases would
kill you otherwise. We still have a few that can't be eradicated,
unfortunately. No harm will come to you, I promise."

"Even if I'm
not this Golden Child in your book?" She enquired. "What happens to
us then, Commander?"

"Nothing.
You'll be welcomed into our society, given jobs and a house.
Eventually you'll find mates and settle down."

Rawn demanded,
"What if we don't want to do that? What if we don't like your
world?"

"Then it'll be
up to you to decide what you want to do, but I'm certain Rayne is
the Golden Child, in which case, she'll be well cared for before
and after the prophecy is fulfilled. She'll be a heroine, after
all."

"Unless I
fail," Rayne pointed out.

"Then you
won't have to worry about it. You'll be dead."

"Well that's
just great," Rawn said, rising to his feet with a scowl.

Tallyn raised
a hand. "Please bear in mind that if you'd remained on your own
world you'd have perished horribly within the next five years,
anyway."

Rayne rose and
took hold of Rawn's arm. "It's okay. Leave it."

Tallyn glanced
at an instrument with luminous alien characters on the wall. "It's
almost time to go down to the surface. All your questions will be
answered, I promise. Not by me, I have many duties to attend to,
but a first contact officer will be assigned to you. Now, if you
wish, I can take you to see the bridge before we leave."

Rawn glanced
at his sister and shrugged. "Yeah, that would be great."

Tallyn led
them to the lift they had arrived in, and they ascended a long way
before stepping out into a gloomy room. Soft illumination revealed
the floor, chairs, and table edges. Other light came from dim
images and hundreds of tiny crystals. Men sat at the various
consoles, concentrating on data that scrolled up before them,
ghostly in the gloom. Rayne's gaze was drawn to the massive screen
that dominated the far end of the room.

It held an
image of an orb swathed in pale clouds that swirled in bizarre
patterns, reminding her of Venus. Patches of pale green or dark
blue could be seen through thinner areas, but mostly the planet
shone like a vast pearl. An alien sun blazed with a brilliant,
almost white light.

Tallyn said,
"Atlan is the fourth planet of this system. It has five moons of
various sizes, and is a lot larger than Earth."

Against the
inky backdrop, ships in orbit shone like stars, and further out,
several space stations glittered. A few closer ships had strange,
spiky shapes, and the moving lights of shuttles seemed to crawl
past. Tallyn waited while they absorbed the astounding sight. Rawn
studied a nearby ship, clearly fascinated by its strange shape and
lack of symmetry.

"That's a
weird looking ship," he commented, pointing it out to Rayne.

Tallyn
followed his finger. "Not at all. Compared to some, that one's
ordinary."

"Who are
they?"

"Those are
Wellans, from the planet Predantia in the Urmanian system. If
you're curious about them, I'll introduce you to some. Now it's
time to go."

They followed
Tallyn back into the lift, which shot downwards, judging by the
flicking counter next to the door, the only measure of their
progress, since there was no sensation of descending. When it
stopped, they stepped out into a vast room where a sleek grey
vehicle was parked on a smooth metallic floor. As they approached
it, a young Atlantean with blond and brown hair emerged and saluted
Tallyn. He eyed the humans, who studied him with equal
interest.

Tallyn
returned the man's salute. "This is Egan, our first contact
officer. He speaks your language, and will be your guide and
liaison."

"Will we see
you again?" Rayne asked.

"Of course.
I'll visit you as often as I can, and if you wish to see me, just
tell Egan."

They boarded
the shuttle and strapped into comfortable seats, then it headed for
the alien planet.

Chapter Six

Tallyn entered
the council's echoing hall, where pink quartz pillars, veined with
gold, flanked a broad swathe of silver-speckled black marble floor.
They supported a high domed roof covered with intricate mosaics of
ancient Atlantean legends, picked out in different kinds of quartz.
He approached the twelve elderly men who sat at the back of the
hall, his boots ringing on the floor. Within the three-sided square
the elders formed, he stopped and bowed to the man in the middle, a
thin-faced individual with piercing dark eyes, who sat upon an
elevated chair.

"I believe I
have found the golden girl child," Tallyn announced.

"Do you? And
who is the boy?" Vargon spoke in a rich, strong voice not quite in
keeping with his elderly looks.

Tallyn knew
the elders had already viewed holofilms of the two humans he had
brought back, so his knowledge came as no surprise. "He's her
brother, First One, and, although he's not mentioned in the
prophecy, I believe he's her guardian."

Some of the
council members turned to whisper to each other. Vargon glanced at
them, then addressed Tallyn again. "As you say, it's not mentioned
in the prophecy that the girl would have a guardian, but I see no
harm in it. Certainly they are perfect, when all the others are
sickly and dying."

"Yes, First
One."

"How do they
feel about their capture?" Vargon enquired with the unhurried
assurance of an elderly tortoise.

"They're not
happy, and they'll be even unhappier with the tests and implants
you mean to implement."

Vargon rubbed
his lips. "Can't be helped, I'm afraid. Anyone would object to
being poked and prodded, but we've been quite polite about it. We
could have kept them under heavy sedation until we were finished.
They're lucky they know as much as they do. Others would not have
been so gentle with them."

"Considering
who she might be, I think we should try to treat them well,
Vargon."

"Yes, well,
you do tend to think an awful lot, don't you, Commander Tallyn?
They're almost primitives. What do they know?"

"I know that
if she's the Golden Child, our fate rests in her hands, and that's
not something to be taken lightly."

"No, of course
not. See to it that they're treated well, Commander. I'll leave it
up to you. Just don't break any rules, okay?"

Vargon waved a
dismissive hand, and Tallyn bowed and swung away, leaving the
council chamber. As usual, his encounter with the council left him
frustrated and a little angry. He found their inflexible,
inscrutable ways a great impediment to his wish to communicate more
fundamental issues to them.

The council
was not known for considering the feelings of others, other than
being polite when confronted. The rights of primitive aliens,
however, ranked low on its list of priorities. This was strange in
a society that was supposed to be free and just, but then,
sometimes those rights were reserved for the members of its own
race.

At the end of
a long passage, he entered another vast hall pillared with white
quartz. A fountain played a gurgling tune, surrounded by exotic
plants with curling leaves of red and purple. Creepers scaled the
columns and trailed streamers of pink and yellow flowers in
cascades of colour. The people who populated the hall strolled or
hurried past, while many sat on stone benches and chatted.
Blue-green moss-like grass covered the floor, and a clear crystal
dome let in shafts of sunlight.

Tallyn walked
outside, squinting in the white sun's familiar brilliance.
Frilly-leafed trees, festooned with flowers, jostled at the edge of
the clearing in which the council hall stood. Wild herbivores
grazed the lush grass, glancing up with twitching ears. Birds
filled the calm air with bright songs, and in the distance, another
building blended cunningly into the environment. Compared to the
dying world he had saved the humans from, this was paradise, and he
hoped they would enjoy it.

With a sigh,
Tallyn headed for a row of disk-shaped public access craft. He
chose one and climbed into the glass dome atop the disk. As he
settled before the controls, he wondered again why the council had
waited two days before seeing him. He had thought news of a
potential Golden Child would make them demand an immediate report,
but then, they probably had daily updates from the team of doctors
that attended the humans.

They had been
sedated since their arrival, so they knew nothing of the barrage of
procedures being carried out on them. That was probably just as
well, he reflected. He pressed the joystick's stud, and the craft
drifted up. So far, they had undergone many of the tests he had
warned them about, and were due to be released in a few days. He
guided the craft towards the medical facility where they were.

At the
underground building, he parked the craft and marched along
well-lighted corridors to the humans' rooms. They had been placed
in robotic cocoons that monitored their functions, technicians and
doctors attending them. Tallyn entered Rayne's room and gazed down
at her. She looked pale and a little gaunt under the harsh lights,
one side of her head plastered with regeneration jelly. Tubes
entered her nose and probes poked from her skin like obscene
spines.

A doctor came
to his side. "Commander Tallyn. Good of you to visit us again."

"How are
they?"

"In excellent
health."

"You've
finished the implants, I see."

The doctor
nodded. "Yes, yesterday. Their immune systems are responding well
to the vaccines, and our tests are almost finished."

"When will
they be released?"

"In a few more
days, if the council approves. We want to wait for the implants to
heal so they won't have headaches."

Tallyn glanced
at the pasty-faced doctor, hating him and his entire breed.
Technicians were devoid of caring or compassion, the sort that
would perform torturous and often useless experiments on helpless
animals if it was allowed. The man's hair was almost monotone,
indicating his low cast.

"How
thoughtful of you," Tallyn muttered.

"Well, the
council members thought -"

"Spare me."
Tallyn raised a hand. "I know what the council ordered, and it had
nothing to do with thoughtfulness. You'll inform me when they're
ready to be awakened, then I'll take over their care. Do you
understand?"

"Certainly,
Commander."

"And under no
circumstances are they to regain consciousness while you lot are
poking them with needles."

"Of course
not."

"Good." Tallyn
left, angrier with himself than the doctor. At times like this, he
wished he did not have to follow the council's orders. It would
have given him immense satisfaction to release the humans today. He
was responsible for their predicament, and knew they would blame
him for whatever was done to them. As he headed for the exit, he
consoled himself with the fact that, had he left them on their
world, they would have suffered a far worse fate.

Rayne woke
with a pounding ache just above her left ear. Grimacing, she sat up
and rubbed the tender area. Swinging her legs off the soft bed, she
gazed around. The room was furnished with the same sparse,
functional furniture and pale walls as the ship. Rawn snored on a
bed across the room, and she stood up, fighting a wave of
dizziness. He woke with a snort when she shook him, and clutched
his head with a grimace as he sat up. She wondered if she looked as
pale and gaunt as he did. Odd that he rubbed the same spot she had.
She looked around as the door opened to admit Egan, who wore a
broad smile.

"Have you
slept well?" he enquired.

Rawn frowned.
"How long were we unconscious?"

Egan looked a
little uncomfortable. "Five days. It was necessary to carry out the
tests and vaccinations painlessly, you see."

"What did they
do to us?"

"Nothing
harmful."

"Did any of
the tests include sticking red hot pokers in our heads?" Rawn
snarled.

"Ah, you have
headaches." Egan dug into his pocket and took out two apparently
empty plastic bubbles, which he held out. "Here."

She took the
bubble and studied it. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Oh, here,
I'll show you." Egan took the bubble and held it under her nose.
"Now, breathe in."

As she did, he
popped the bubble. A strange, numbing scent invaded her nose, and
the pain in her head vanished. Rawn popped his bubble and
experienced the same rush of relief, judging by his blissful
expression. Egan was eager to bring them whatever they wished, and
they sat down to a gourmet meal followed by party snacks and tasty
treats they had never dreamt to taste. It distracted them from the
unpleasant aspects of their situation, and when they were full,
they went back to sleep.