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Page 5.
 Two thousand years of peace and prosperity were the fleet’s mandate. That was the real meaning of his lieutenancy in the Mercurian Star Fleets. Tomorrow the Year 5000 of humankind’s ancient calendar would begin.
“Happy New Year,” Jared Fallon said to a bright star outside his window. A second Menkent Express gurgled down his throat. He forgot about Stella and brooded about his fate.
“I’m still an athlete,” he murmured drunkenly, pulling the coat up to his neck. He flexed a muscle to convince himself that his body was still lean and strong. Comforted, he cursed Lyxa (Li Sha), who had done this to him. He’d done the full ten-year officer training at the Academy of the Stars, become Olympic long-distance running champion in his last year at the Academy, kept his eyes trained on a commission in some far edge of the galaxy, perhaps even in the conquest of the rest of the galaxy, and had the misfortune to catch the eye of Lady Lyxa, Princess of Vega and Mercury, last member of a royal family living in exile on Mercury since the founding of the Republic of Vega in 4901. She’d been betrothed to the Procyonian throne-heir, but secretly had courted Jared and other young, handsome men (and women). Among the presents Lyxa bestowed on him was a commission as Lieutenant, attaché to the office of the Military Advisor of Mercury’s UGO Delegate. He’d been 22, just out of school, and he loved her.
For a while, she was intent on him and him alone, the great Olympian athlete. After a while, she began to have different lovers without telling him. He’d raged, and she had shrugged while listening to his tirade. That was when he learned she had also become addicted to opium and other drugs. He had begged her to let him go, help him obtain a transfer to the Periphery, where he could be part of the human sprawl’s defenses against the growing alien threat. Humans had treated the aliens they conquered pretty badly. In fact, humans had a habit of treating each other very badly. Finally, as the human sphere was starting to seriously fray from many internal conflicts, the alien races had begun to band together and offer growing resistance that was turning in to assault. The situation became more and more grave by every Mercurian day.
The commission never came. She’d bought it away, and he had to sleep with her until she grew tired of him. Now, she summoned him only occasionally. He was free of her stifling bed, her tantrums, and her drugs, but not of her money, which was said to be among the most substantial fortunes in private hands in the galaxy. Jared sighed deeply, remembering how it had been, and how it was now.
There was no despairing just yet. Alda Meina had taught him something. Alda Meina had thrust him red-faced among bronzed, strong young officers from the deserts and jungles of the Galaxy, and in their unhappiness he had seen nothing to long for.
Those from the Periphery spoke of aliens in near-revolution, of massacres, of hopeless official corruption. Those of the Heartland spoke bitterly, of intrigue, assassinations, corruption, and of a growing menace from the ancient, rival Raskia system.
Jared thought maybe these territorial officers had a clearer picture of world politics. He had learned that he understood as much as any of them, and that was sad, because he knew very little about day-to-day politics of the City. These men spoke an alien language, the language of small-officerdom and it was not what he had imagined it to be: Instead, they spoke dourly. They spoke of finishing their terms and settling on Periphery worlds. They spoke of impending war: Raskia. Raskia. Raskia...
Raskia was on everyone’s tongue, in everyone’s mind, everyone’s life. Raskia was the enemy, swelling empire of hostile Ankh Lords bent on destroying Mercury City and making a religious empire of the Galaxy. They were fanatical followers of the prophet Ankh-e-met’aten from a remote world.
What the Ankh message was, Jared wasn’t sure. Maybe no sane person knew, but while humans were tearing each other apart in the UGO and on battlefields around the human domain of the galaxy, alien confederations were moving in with a lot of grudges and motivation for payback.
The distant Ankh Lords preached a New Order, of Love, of Peace. A lieutenant in the Mercurian Star Fleets must see them differently. The Ankh Lords promised a New Order, but brought destruction and disorder. Promising love, they brought blast guns and inquisition. Promising peace, they were shattering a human empire that had endured over two thousand years in relative peace. Jared didn’t understand the Ankh Lords, in short.
The alarm buzzed. The ship would be docking at TS I shortly. Jared leaned close to the window, steaming it with his breath.
Tomorrow would be Year 5000, Old Calendar (Earth). Who ruled? The question bit dangerously. Humankind, itself a mere periphery of the Milky Way, had as yet barely penetrated the center of the Galaxy. There, it was said, and the only source of information were the mythologies of the opium-smoking story tellers of Donnas and Robalta, lived a race of dogs who were blind but saw, and saw only, the brilliant star bath of the center of the Galaxy. There, it was said, were no night or day, no planets and no suns. There was only prime star matter, called dust, made of heavy nova fog, wherein dwelt the Gods. They were flaming spirit bodies, and no man could approach within a quarter-galaxy of that place. No race dared enter there.
Years ago one ship had entered the hearth of the galaxy. A ship, made of sound metal and cool plasts, had travelled into the center. No one ever found out how far the ship went in. Coming out, it speeded back to Mercury City with the solar winds at its back. It whispered through the realm without stopping anywhere.
And, before it touched the Mercurian atmosphere and burst into blue flame, the tracking dishes of the man-planets picked up these garbled words from the mutilated mouth of the dying captain: “The heat, the heat…they’re dangerous…stay away from here…I am a blistered sponge…oh, the heat!” No other ship ever ventured there.
Humankind ruled the outer shell of the Galaxy. For a thousand years, the core of the Galaxy was unknown. Terra Incognita: Stellata Aliena Manent. And the young bronzed officers said that man knew little of the alien races he ruled. They said that man ruled nothing. To hop planets once every hundred years, looting and burning, was not to rule. They said many powerful ships were originating from unknown places and destroying human ships on sight. The ships were not of matter, and could not be destroyed. The Galaxy was in unstoppable rebellion, and it was only a matter of time before Mercury Free Port City fell under the terror and fury. These young bronzed officers were going to finish their terms and settle far out, where alien ships would not come for a lifetime yet.
As he thought these things, sleep overcame him at last and the glass slipped from his hands.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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