The Empty Warrior
Authors: J. D. McCartney
Copyright © 2011 J. D. McCartney
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 1463511175
ISBN-13: 9781463511173
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61914-453-8
CONTENTS
The Fifth Angel Blows His Trumpet
38,276 B.C.
Fentan Mult scowled, then sighed. His shoulders sagged in frustration. Despite his best efforts, the blue that he had just painstakingly swirled into a unified pigment still remained several shades lighter than the tint he had been aiming to reproduce. He had mixed in the whole of a large, viscous droplet of his purest ebon, and still it had not been enough. The stiffening glob of mixed oils that now sat glumly atop his palette was simply not the color that would faithfully represent the reality of what he meant to convey.
He grunted softly in vexation. He was attempting to replicate the color of the sea where it met the sky, where it was very nearly indigo, and the hue he had just created was missing that dark, inky tone that would have given his ocean the authenticity for which he strove. He shifted his focus from the blotchy palette held in his hand to the holographic image that hung in the air by his canvas. He then held the palette up in a way that put both it and the holograph directly before his eyes. There was no doubting it; what he had was not what he needed. For the hundredth time he contemplated the purchase of an autoblender, and for the hundredth time he rejected the thought. Procuring one would make his hobby immeasurably easier to master, bringing him that much closer to the artistic apotheosis to which he ultimately aspired. But it would also be cheating the craft, and any public knowledge of its use would cheapen—no, negate—any success or notoriety that he might attain in the end.
He reached for his paints, found the black again, and squeezed out yet another, but this time smaller, droplet. Carefully he swirled the mixing brush past it, pulling only tiny lines from the dark orb into the thickening smudge of blue that lay at its side. After a minute, maybe longer, the tint of that smudge darkened into what he believed, after careful comparison to the image he copied from, to be exactly the shade he needed. He checked the color against the holograph one last time before setting the mixing brush aside in favor of a more slender model. After dipping it into his paint, he proceeded to limn a long, thin ribbon of his new tincture across his canvas just below the horizon. When the brush strokes were complete, he stepped back and once again compared his reproduction to the projection next to it.
Yes
, he thought,
much better
. The sea he was recreating was slowly beginning to look more and more like the waters beyond the white sands of the beach at Keo Rocca.
Choosing a slightly wider and stiffer brush, he meticulously mixed the new shade into the lighter, more brilliant blue of the water closer to shore, striving mightily to form a smooth transition. When he had commingled the pigments as adeptly as he was able, Mult backed away, halfway across the compartment this time, to survey the scene in its entirety. Although he felt it still not reflective of his best work, it was nevertheless coming along nicely. A few more touch-ups and perhaps he would call it complete, and prepare it, along with the rest of the portrayals he had put to canvas during this voyage, for the transit home. However, there was very little time. He would be debarking in less than forty-eight hours, and at any moment would likely be called to the bridge for the final approach. Mult shrugged as he set his brushes and palette aside; he would take care of the finishing touches in orbit, before the company shuttle brought out the harbor contingent.
The scene he had been painting was of his new home, as seen from the mounting heights that overlooked it, the home he had lived in for only a few short weeks before being called away for his latest trek between the stars. It was a stucco house by the shore, its many tiers and flat roofs nestled against the pure white sand of the dunes, with only them and the wide beach between it and the sea. When he had left, his wife had still been unpacking and only beginning to decorate. The painting was a gift for her, a celebration of and future keepsake for their new and for so long only dreamt of dwelling, and as such he had struggled profoundly over many weeks for sublimity in his depiction of it.
The thought of his mate brought a slight smile to his lips. He imagined the two of them standing on one of the many terraces that overlooked the waves, with the salt breeze caressing their faces and the cries of the gulls overhead. The gay shrieks of their children at play along the water’s edge echoed in his mind. He could almost feel the touch of her hip against his thigh as he imagined holding her closely around the waist, the pressure of his hand over her belly pulling the fabric of her dress tightly over her breasts.
Yes
, he mused silently,
it will be good to be back home again
. He thought fondly of spending hours naked in his own bed, holding his beloved’s warm body close to his own.
That was the one of the few disadvantages of commanding an interstellar tow, all the time spent away from hearth and home. Otherwise he was handsomely paid to read, paint, exercise, and in general do whatever he wished. He, like the rest of the crew, was only on board to supervise the ship and of course to provide the completely unnecessary signatures on the uncounted reams of anachronistic authorizations, registrations, and requisitions that the tow and her cargoes generated. The ship was really more in need of an accountant than a crew. If not for the bureaucratic administration involved,
Endurant
would have been perfectly capable of completing her cruises with no human complement whatsoever. But laws were laws, and they stipulated that even the most reliable machines should ultimately be overseen by flesh and blood. As a result, Mult stood in his quarters in the middle of the day, or what passed for the middle of the day aboard ship, wearing only his uniform pants and an unbuttoned shirt, surrounded by easels all holding one or another of his creations.
He turned away from the fruits of his avocation, drifting out of the main room and into his sleeping chamber. There, he at first sat and then lay back upon the luxurious bed the captain’s quarters contained before curling up dreamily into a near fetal position and closing his eyes, still dreaming of home, of Akadea—
Endurant’s
next port of call.
Akadea was a man-made wonder of the universe, the most mammoth construction project ever conceived by the collective minds of humanity. It was a replacement for Old Akadea, the home world of mankind, which was now engulfed by the red giant that had at one time been its nurturing sun. The new version of home was very much like its namesake environmentally, but there the resemblance ended. New Akadea was monstrous in size. It consisted of a sphere within a sphere, both rotating in opposite directions around the sun in the center, the whole of the construct being nearly as large as a small star system.
The outer sphere had a diameter of over 300 million kilometers. Its inner surface was home to untold billions of people, and yet it was hardly crowded. Even with roughly three quarters of the area of the leviathan ball covered with water, deserts, ice, high mountain ranges, entry hatches, or otherwise inhospitable terrain; there were still over 620 quadrillion square kilometers of space perfectly apt for human settlement. So despite the enormous population, there were over 3000 square kilometers of habitable land for each and every human resident that lived within the great globe. Upon its completion, Akadea had put an end to man’s competition for space with his neighbors, as well as his competition with the flora and fauna of both the now deserted home planet and the thousands of other worlds remade in its image and scattered throughout this part of the galaxy. There were no overcrowded cities or endangered species on Akadea. There was only seemingly unlimited space for everyone and everything.