Ham would’ve loved for Shoan Gui to pop up about now. He needed a middleman to bridge the gap.

  “I offer my apologizes, Mr. Cabrise. I speculated about the planet based on my very limited knowledge of its history. As Kara said, we’d love to know more. You are Aeterna’s surveyor, after all.”

  Aldo didn’t leave, which felt like a small victory.

  “Please. Aldo. I realize how you feel about us being here. We don’t mean to intrude. But we are more than a little curious. You obviously have issues with Minister Cooper, and since he is not present, and we understand the value of confidentiality, you should feel free to speak your mind.”

  He uncrossed his arms.

  “About?”

  “Anything. The mountains, the butterflies, the terraform, your research, that business about eating Chancellors. Anything.”

  “Hmmph. I know how Chancellors work. You’ll listen until you find something you can use for leverage.”

  “We’re not spies, Aldo. We’d love an enlightening after-dinner conversation. Nothing more. Agree, Kara?”

  “Agree, Ham. Please sit down with us, Aldo.”

  “I’ll give you five minutes. I have reports to write.” He sat across the table and pointed to the man in the middle. “Who’s Mr. Silent?”

  Cando reached out his hand.

  “Col. Cando Aleksanyan.”

  “You don’t look Chancellor, and you’re too old to be a Bouchet immortal. Let me guess. Yaniff?”

  “Very good.”

  “They have a military now?”

  “I’m with a different group. Long story.”

  Kara said: “Aldo, I guess Shoan and Myra haven’t told you much about us. We are …”

  “A group trying to make nice with Cooper and his immortals. The kids didn’t say much because I didn’t want to know. They didn’t tell me their ship’s captain was a Chancellor.”

  “Aldo, why don’t we slice through the preliminaries? I gave up my Chancellor claim long before the Carriers retreated. I serve no interest other than my crew. Two of them have worked with you for eight days, and they have loved it. They admire you, and I admire them. If I use our dialogue to betray you, then I am betraying them. That will not happen. You have my word.”

  Ham meant what he said, for the most part. All depended upon what he learned.

  “Fair enough, Capt. Cortez.”

  “It’s Ham. What do you mean by ‘the planet eats Chancellors’?”

  “Hmmph. I was there. I saw what was left behind. Ten thousand soldiers of the Guard turned to ash. Cooper said the Jewels would never let another Chancellor set foot on this planet without suffering the same fate. I was the exception. He sorted it with them.”

  “Sorted how?”

  “Who knows? They communicated with him. He told the same to Admiral Poussard at the surrender. Said if Chancellors returned, they’ll be killed. He said the Jewels gave Aeterna to the immortals.”

  “Michael Cooper communes with the Jewels of Eternity?”

  “I was there the first time they reached out to him.”

  “Then must have sorted my arrival as well. I’m curious. Why does he anger you?”

  “Because he’s a liar and a tyrant. He’s sure as hell not the man I met on Tamarind.”

  “How so?”

  “All he cared about then was saving his wife. He was a man in love, willing to do anything for Samantha. He did remarkable things to help save this planet from the Chancellory. I give him credit. Hmmph. He set me loose to learn about Aeterna’s secrets.”

  “What changed?”

  “That’s rich. A Chancellor has to ask. What do you think?”

  “Power. Too much of it.”

  Aldo looked over his shoulder then leaned across the table.

  “He has brainwashed twenty-five hundred children to follow his orders without question. The kids he sends to me on rotation? You should hear them talk, especially when they don’t know I’m listening. If he ordered them to hop on their ships and go burn a planet, they’d do it. No one comes before their beloved Minister.”

  Ham thought Aldo sounded like a bitter old man who turned a small slight into a hyperbolic rant. He might have dismissed it if not for the conversation with Michael about the War Games and settling for a ‘negotiated surrender.’

  “They’re intensely loyal. We’ve seen it, Aldo. But what you describe is fanaticism. We’ve had the opportunity to work closely with many of them, and they seem quite receptive to different perspectives.”

  “True. They work hard because he demands they do. They’re smart because he demands they learn.”

  “That’s a problem?” Kara said. “Hard work and intelligence?”

  “If they’re a product of mind control. Yes.”

  Ham rapped the table.

  “Let’s retreat for a moment. Earlier, you said he broke promises. What did you mean?”

  “My work was supposed to be made public. He told Admiral Poussard at the surrender. I will collect data, which he will send on to Earth and anywhere else that could benefit. Especially where they can manufacture new medicines. Chancellors have a genetic deficiency. Our caste will die out within a few generations.”

  Kara gasped. Ham offered a reassuring smile.

  “It’s OK. I’m aware.”

  Aldo turned to the others, as if they didn’t know the history.

  “When this planet was called Hiebimini, we mined it for brontinium. We used its extract to alter our caste. Longer life, higher brain functions, massive growth. It supported an empire until the Jewels destroyed it forty-seven years ago. When the extract ran dry, it looked like the end. I made it my mission to find a cure on this remade version they called Aeterna.”

  “And?”

  He showed no satisfaction when he answered.

  “I did. Two years ago, I discovered the compounds necessary to reverse the genetic collapse.”

  Ham’s jaw dropped.

  “That’s a remarkable achievement.”

  “No one outside Aeterna knows about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Cooper refused to transmit the reports. In the process, I discovered he never forwarded any of my work off-world.”

  “What was his reasoning?”

  He stifled a long, choking laugh.

  “He claimed he had a change of heart. He said the Chancellors were too dangerous despite losing the Earth Civil War. He said they had fleets bent on capturing Aeterna. If we sent them the cure for gene collapse, they’d reproduce, repopulate the galaxy, and rebuild their empire. He said he couldn’t allow it, on behalf of the human race. Hmmph. What a noble man.”

  Ham shared a knowing glance with his partners. No. Best not to tell him how part of Michael’s concerns proved correct.

  “Aldo, are you positive you found a cure?”

  “Hmmph. Who do you think was my test subject?”

  “It’s in your blood?”

  “Small sample size, but the results speak for themselves.”

  Cando intervened.

  “How many Chancellors are there?”

  “The most recent Earth census,” Ham said, “suggests about eight hundred million purebloods.”

  Aldo nodded. “Their lines won’t last more than a century. I have no love lost with the Chancellory. The Admiralty ruined my life after what happened here forty-seven years ago. But they don’t deserve to die out. Cooper thinks they do.”

  “Aldo, you do realize there are billions of colonials who would agree with Michael?”

  “That’s the past. The Collectorate is dead. The Chancellors are a minority on the planet they used to claim for themselves. They have no power.”

  “Ham,” Kara said. “We’ll be talking to Michael tomorrow. Should we add this to the agenda?”

  Aldo raised his voice.

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Why?”

  “He’ll take all this away from me, and that’s the best case.”

  “What’s the worst?”

  “He’ll kill me and destroy my work.”

  “No. I don’t believe he’d …”

  “A month after he refused to pass along my data, he assigned a team to me on permanent rotation. He claimed I was too old and frail to do it on my own. He was right, but he didn’t send his people to help. They follow my orders, but I know they report back to him.”

  Ham wanted to believe Aldo’s story, but the pieces did not fit.

  “Aldo, why do you continue with the work if he’s making life so difficult? Why not leave and take the data with you?”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “I think you might be pleasantly surprised. Earlier, Shoan said you were searching for a terraform source code. He didn’t know why. Is that what’s keeping you here?”

  Aldo gave nothing away. He shifted his eyes between the three, as if wondering whether they were friend or foe. He looked again over his shoulder toward the modules where his team lived. That part of the camp was quiet.

  “I’ll walk to the shore. Clean this table. Wait ten minutes. If they’re still inside, follow the glow lamps. Or not. Your choice.”

  Aldo pushed himself up with a mild groan and walked into the night with a gentle limp. Ham turned to his partners.

  “Thoughts?”

  Cando said, “Either he’s a bitter old man half out of his mind, or we have a problem.”

  “Kara?”

  “Shoan and Myra spoke well of him. If he made them uneasy, they would have said so. Yet Aeternans only say great things about Michael. Can’t both be true?”

  “Of course. No one is defined by a single truth. Here’s the hole in Aldo’s narrative: If Michael is a monster bent on suppressing this cure, why not eliminate the threat? Why allow Aldo to continue the work? He could kill the old man and claim natural causes. Why choose this place for the summit? Why risk giving us access to Aldo? It's a profoundly stupid move for a very intelligent man.”

  Cando agreed. “Yet Aldo sounds convincing, and I haven’t forgotten what Rafael Kane told me about Michael.”

  “Yes. I suggest in the spirit of due diligence, we clear the table and join our host by the lake.”

  They took a casual approach so as not to draw attention. Kara and Cando strolled hand in hand. Minutes later, Ham followed. He found no one when he reached the shore. To the left, to the right. No whispers in the dark.

  A glow lamp erupted fifty meters down the beach. He saw three figures and followed. When he reached them, Aldo silenced the lamp. He revealed a hand-comm and asked them to huddle close.

  “What do you know about the lake?” He asked.

  “Shoan said it was a mile deep, and it drops off quickly,” Kara told him. “The water is black and sunlight doesn’t penetrate.”

  “Hmmph. It’s not a lake. It’s a reservoir. It was engineered.”

  He threw open a holo with a three-dimensional representation of Profundus: A bucket cut from the planet to exacting dimensions.

  “Look at those walls,” Kara said. “It’s a perfect cylinder.”

  “The water maintains its depth to within a centimeter regardless of rainfall, runoff, or drought. I studied the beach for any signs of debris from elevated tides. From what I can tell, it has never deviated.”

  “How is that possible, Aldo? It’s designed like a pail. It can’t maintain equilibrium.”

  “I’m going to show you people something my team and Cooper don’t know. If this gets out, I’ll know who screwed me over.”

  He dragged his hand beneath the holo and expanded the image. A narrow tube extended from the reservoir’s bottom like a taproot.

  “Aquadrone damn near missed it. The hole is five centimeters wide.”

  “Is it a drain? To where?”

  “The core.”

  “Of the planet?”

  “I can’t know for certain. Don’t have the equipment. I detected it eight hundred kilometers down. That’s halfway.”

  “What’s your theory?” Ham said.

  “I believe this is where they started the terraform. All their secrets are here. If I can map the source code and unlock what’s in that water, I’ll learn how the Jewels did it.”

  Ham understood the implications.

  “You’re talking about potentially the most important discovery in two thousand years.”

  “Hiebimini was a wasteland. The brontinium mines destroyed it. The Jewels created a paradise in less than thirty years. I want the recipe. It’s here. You asked me why I stayed.”

  “For all the rings.” Kara bent down and studied the holo from different angles. “I keep thinking I’ve seen miracles, but this …”

  “Young lady, you got no idea.”

  “I assume you tested the water. What did you find?”

  “It’s ninety percent water plus three other chemicals unknown to our science.”

  “Synthetic?”

  “Yes.”

  “You believe they’re the secret sauce?”

  “I know they are. Their atomic structure suggests they are programs, part of a matrix for creating life.”

  “A primordial soup. Ham, Cando, this is a whole other level.”

  “It’s my discovery,” Aldo said. “I earned this, and I am damn well going to be the man who reveals it to the human race. What they do with it won’t be my problem. I’ll be a ghost by then. But they’ll remember the name Aldo Cabrise.”

  He dissolved the holo and slipped the hand-comm into a pocket.

  Ham’s intrigue could not overpower one prevailing question.

  “Aldo, we’re strangers. Why tell us?”

  “I knew a little something about all three of you. Those kids you sent down, Shoan and Myra? They talk. They’re my first Hokkis. And to be honest, I need your protection.”

  “Aldo, this isn’t our world. We can’t …”

  “I don’t mean men with rifles. I’m talking about the data. I need to ship it off-world. You’re my way around Cooper.”

  “You want us to smuggle it out.”

  “Before I’m dead, if you don’t mind.”

  8

  C HI SAT ALONE WITH THE STARS. The sky was clear and full, the Milky Way a glowing band stretching from one horizon to the other. Promise had shut down for the night, its lights dimmed and the music silenced. She walked in a daze for an hour, maybe two. She didn’t know, didn’t care. Chi found her quiet place in the center of the city’s amphitheater. She pulled on Den Kwo’s digipipe and held its sweet, intoxicating smoke in her lungs. She took it without asking when she left his habitat, wiping away tears.

  I did the right thing.

  She repeated the affirmation until certain of it. The result did not hurt any less. The look in his eyes, the sense of betrayal. How dare she disappoint him that way?

  Chi processed the moment again and again.

  Den reached out his hand, asking her to take his knife.

  “Why?”

  “I want you to kill me with it.”

  She pulled a sheet over her chest.

  “Is this a joke?”

  “We never joke about death. It needs to be now, Chi, while I’m still hard.”

  His penis had lost none of its potency.

  “You can’t be serious. Den, is this some kind of game?”

  He turned the knife toward himself and set the blade’s tip against his abdomen, beneath his rib cage.

  “Give it a forty-five degree angle. One thrust will do me.”

  “We make love, and now you want me to murder you?”

  “I’ll only be gone for ten minutes, give or take. It’s the perfect combination. The sex was beautiful. Right now, life can’t be any better. I need to feel the end. It’s a perfect circle. Don’t you see?”

  “No. I don’t see.”

  She jumped out of bed and reached for her clothes.

  “You can trust me, Chi. This is our way.”

  It hit her at once. The look in his eyes wasn’t madness. He damn well wasn’t suicidal. It was worse.

  “You get off on doing this.”

  “You don’t understand. Please. While I’m still hard.”

  “The sex wasn’t enough. Being killed, it’s like …”

  “It’s beautiful. The last seconds. The last breath.”

  “The pain. You want to feel that blade inside you. Den, that’s sick.”

  “This is our way. I’ve been killed dozens of times. It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s disgusting. How could you do this? I’m mortal. Death isn’t a game to me.”

  “You said the words. I heard them. I was on top of you.”

  “What words?”

  “You said it was great to live like an immortal.”

  “I was drunk, and I thought you cared about me.”

  “I do. I never planned this. I was so happy when I found you.”

  She slipped into her shoes and looked around, accounting for everything. She grabbed Den’s digipipe from the nightstand.

  “If you really want to feel the pain, stab yourself. One good thrust. Isn’t that right?”

  “No. I need to look in your eyes before my light goes out.”

  She backed away. Den cut a beautiful figure and yet seemed so lost, like an addict deprived of his treasured drug.

  Chi got out of there before he dressed. She didn’t want him to follow. She also didn’t know where she was headed. She forgot the address of her guest habitat.

  She drew a few glances as she stumbled along the quiet avenues in tears, but no immortal asked if she needed help. Just as well. What might they say if she explained what happened?

  Chi found a grassy carpet between the amphitheater’s seats and the stage. The air was still and warm. She’d be fine sleeping here.

  She almost did.

  A beam of light caught her in its grasp. Someone approached.

  “Chi Baek?”

  She recognized the voice.

  “Col. Woolsey?”

  Exeter dimmed the light until it cast a soft glow.

  “This is the first time I’ve ever searched for a missing person.”

  “I’m sorry to be a bother. Was it Den Kwo who reported me?”

  “He was concerned. Went above his Platoon Cap straight to me.”

  “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Why?”

  “I … I should have known better. That’s all. It’s so late, and you had to bother over me, Colonel. I’m sorry.”