Among Bright Stars... (12 page)

“Look there.” Talik pointed urgently down
into the city.

Sharr focused his telescopic lenses, there
appeared to be a disturbance in the market place.

“It is Fafnir I fear.” Grumbled Talik.

“So it would seem.” Sharr dryly
remarked.

Fafnir T’Skarin called out to the crowd: “My
brethren, our place is in the stars!”

A good part of the gathered called in
agreement, too many for Talik’s liking.

“Sharr Khan has forgotten his promise of
taking us to the stars, he keeps a whore at his side, and she
poisons him. It was not always so, but our Shotar has forgone the
noble dream, and replaced it with stagnation, trying to conquer
that which is not our own.” The hooded figure pointed into the
audience. “Holy Kheira has seen the future. Our destiny is to
ascend. Find salvation with Falcania-Prime. Join with us!”

Fafnir’s priests began to seep serpentine
into the crowd; they spread blessings in Kheira Drakonis’s name,
while they passed out literature and Awen pendants. Many rebuked
the offer of salvation; a few there on the spot embraced it. Others
remained indifferent, yet listened nonetheless.

“Why do you allow this?” Talik sounded
disgusted at what he watched. “You should have him cut down. Give
the order. Send Drakorian to wipe him out.” This insurrection
should not be permitted to stand understood Oberon. “He speaks
against you.”

“No, no. That’s what he wants me to do. Make
him a martyr.” Though Sharr sympathized with his half-brother’s
impulse to crush the Ziral, he knew better then to act upon it.
Religious persecution would not serve him well. “That would only
strengthen the D’Har-Ziral.”

Out in the city a scuffle broke out. A
D’Har-Ziral priest in a rage smashed a vendor’s cart which sold
prayer lamps, and proclaimed: “This is not the light of heaven, for
that true light burns only in our holy Vralis. Come know her
hallowed luminous. Do not be lead astray by false idols, they blind
you from the true face of the divine.”

Talik grimaced, grumbled yet once more. “End
them!”

“No.” Sharr spoke low, calm. “Falcanians do
not take up arms against Falcanians.”

In the chaos Fafnir seemed to disappear.
Nothing turned up after the island had been scoured, almost as
though he had not been on Vorkrür at all. A report from the
constables later stated that though violent, there were a number of
broken arms legs and wings amongst the rioters, yet no loss of
life. However something more precious than blood had been spilled.
Falcanian had turned on Falcanian, divided by the new religion.

[Narshin Thryak: Nadia’s Laboratory, Later
In The Day]

Leathery in texture, its translucent amber
color indicated that it remained unfertilized, yet could still be
vital, able to bring forth life. The ovum had been harvested from a
Valküri Sister who had volunteered for the project. This Valküri
happened to also be a carrier of the rahli’ka, which made her
genetically suitable for this experiment. The rahli’ka is exactly
why Nadia had chosen her, a Charkath Falcanian, one of the second
generation of their kind. A fraction smaller than an ostrich egg
the Falcanian kryla, its shell once fertilized would normally
change from amber to a vibrant green, yet that would not occur to
this egg. Neither its hue, nor what it would bear would follow the
norms of a Falcanian birth or gestation.

In an incubator the kryla nestled, a blue
laser blasted into the egg and deposited nanobots into the yolk. An
almost instantaneous effect took place as the artificial sperm
dropped new genetic data into the nucleus hidden in a white
cluster. Cell division began at an accelerated rate. The outer
leathery membrane of the shell became hard, changed to a metallic
gold. “Oh!” Exclaimed Nadia as she jotted down notes. She’d not
expected that at all. A closer look at the observation recordings
would now be in order. She flipped on some buttons, called up a
real-time x-ray, heat signature, infrared scans and other input
devices.
Promising
Nadia thought, while she noted the fast
growth rate within the shell, a neural system developed at an
escalated tempo. “I’ll be right with you Kvaltar.” Nadia said
transfixed still on what went on in the incubator.

“I really hate when you do that.” Vron told
her.

“I know.” Nadia replied self-assured, she
smiled, turned: “I felt you the minute you entered this section of
the palace.” Indeed a part of her awareness had sensed long before
Kvaltar had even gotten close to the lab. He couldn’t shield his
concerns from her. “Yet, regardless of telepathy, I could pick out
your heartbeat Kvaltar – Enhanced Morningstar hearing.”

“That surely must come in handy.”

Nadia giggled. “My kids wish my senses were
just a little less acute. The girls never got away keeping secrets
from me. Either I plucked it lingering about in their thoughts or
whispered mischievousness shared between twin sisters got
overheard.”

“What’s this?” Vron asked. Nadia’s creations
fascinated him.

“An experiment with replicated DNA from the
‘Future Falcanian’.” She explained. “I was able to see his genetic
structure when I gazed into Kheira’s mind. Replicating it wasn’t
easy. This will not produce that being, but be a link in the chain
of what lead to Shiertar.”

“Dangerous...” Kvaltar sounded nonetheless
impressed. “How can you begin to guess what it will result in?”

“I’m a genius, not omniscient!” Nadia
admitted. “Were I a more cautious person, none of us would be as we
are now. Humanity would still suffer the degradation’s of cancer,
and you would not be on your way to restore Imperator JR Giovanni’s
health and youth with a narcotic fruit.”

“Nadia, I stand in awe of your superior
intellect. I always have.” Vron acknowledged. “From that first day
at GenKon, don’t think that I didn’t understand that you were the
key to our cause.” Kvaltar told her with respect. “Often I’ve
considered what it would be like to look at the world through your
eyes.”

A sly grin crossed Nadia’s exotic face.
“Oh,” she smiled. “I can let you have a taste of my perspective if
that’s what you really want?”

Kvaltar shook his head. He didn’t like
people in his mind. “No thanks.”

“So, you came to talk about Aria.”

“You know about what happened on the
FX-24?”

“Of course, that girl who attacked
Aria.”

“Aria presence here causes trouble.” Which
Vron knew to be an understatement. “Haven’t you noticed how on edge
Sharr is lately? How much more temperamental he’s become. I think
that’s why Oberon brought her here, to make him unstable.”

“He’s always been – moody Kvaltar, you know
that.” Nadia gravely stated. “Sharr is this creature, this Narshin.
It's his true face that he hides behind a veneer of sophistication
and culture.” Nadia told Kvaltar, while she touched the golden
Narshin emblem that dangled between her abundant breasts. “I see
him in a way that you do not, cannot. This fire-breathing monster
twists around his soul.” The Queen gazed at Kvaltar deeply in his
eyes and he felt her very being touch him. “It has lain dormant for
years, waited, growing darker. Now with her here, the dragon longs
to get out and rampage. It coils tighter around his spark and he
fights to control it!” She sighed, added. “I scanned you, all of
you at GenKon that first day --”

“I know.” Vron hadn't missed her scan that
day.

“There were three things I came to
understand: That the Narshin rules Sharr’s core, it scared me yet
thrills me. Perhaps that is a girlish failing? I experienced it as
a primordial sexual impulse in my own body, it has forever
enthralled me to him...” The amorous recollection excited her. “The
Phoenix Project was never, despite its press about ‘raising us up
as gods’ no,” a deep dangerous expression fell over Nadia’s good
looks. “It’s true purpose has always been to manifest our animal
selves, on wing and claw.”

“And the third thing?” Kvaltar prompted.

“That...” Nadia hesitated. “That he was
plagued by a memory, a dream of doom.”

“As long as she exists, he will continue to
be distracted, become more and more unhinged.” Kvaltar understood
the third thing she had mentioned. Sharr never talked about it, yet
he at times had made references to a doom that surrounded Aria.
Fate had tied his hands. “Before the end she will be his
undoing.”

An ironic laugh came from Nadia’s lush
maroon lips. “I’ve never fit in Kvaltar. Being what I am.” She
cleared her throat. “Either I was too intelligent, too beautiful,
or too unconventional. Sharr accepted me for, me. All of you did.”
Her bright-blue eyes welled up. “Sharr looks at Aria as a link to
his humanity, a ‘normal’ life that could have been... Which should
have been.” Nadia exhaled. “He thinks that I do not know, but I
do... There isn’t much that I’m not aware of where my husband is
concerned.”

With that, Nadia strode over to a cage,
threw back a covering. Inside upside down hung a large albino –
Blue-eyed bat. One of Turhan Korelia's earlier Morningstar
experiments. The albino bat, an artificial creature, a direct
precursor to his humanoid Morningstar creations. The thread of
evolution went from bat, cat, and finally to a woman, his new Eve.
Nadia kept it as a pet out of an affection, and to remind herself
where she came from.

“Aren’t you ever overwhelmed? Bearing
Sharr's burdens as well as your own?” Kvaltar found this a most
illustrative discussion. “To be always the perfect woman?” The
perfected woman, indeed. “Must become stressful?”

“I'm his wife,” Nadia said. “Despite
everything, I love him for who he is. Just as he does me.” With
conviction. “I will do what I must to protect him. Sometimes that
means helping support that rock he forces up a hill”

“We do often save Sharr from himself.”
Kvaltar agreed. “Just like we have to do now.” Vron followed Nadia
into another room off the lab. It was a nursery of a sort, an area
had been a blocked off and filled with toys. “Raising a baby in
here?”

In response, Nadia smiled. “You could say
that.” She looked exceedingly pleased with herself. Over at a small
jungle gym the Queen reached inside and pulled out an orange and
black puffball. “Ah, there you are my precious one.”

Kvaltar examined the furry creature: Pointy
ears ended in tufts, a pink and black triangular nose and large
yellow cat eyes looked back at him. The bipedal-cat creature jumped
off Nadia, onto Vron, and with incredible speed and agility climbed
up his shoulders. Intently it sniffed him, tested his sent purred
all the while.

“A Chitraka.” Nadia explained.

“Spotted One.” Kvaltar translated.

Nadia nodded, took the creature off of Vron
to hold it close as she would any of her children. “A warrior
species, I intend to use other feline DNA in the mix as well. Agile
and dangerous, of course the cheetah has a unique genetic
structure. It shares traits of both cat and dog. They shall make
awesome protectors!”

“What’s its name?”

“Kievron.”

“Interesting” Kvaltar said, and
contemplated. “Now we walk in the footsteps of the ‘gods’,
constructing slave species to serve us.” He broached. “Dare I ask
what you, of all beings think of this whole Annunaki issue?”

“It has been observed,” said Nadia, as she
carefully chose her words. “That humanity very much resembles a
domesticated beast.” She knew there were those who ridiculed the
notion, yet that didn’t change what she observed for herself in the
patterns of DNA molecules. “We owe more to Mendel, who could
actually test his hypothesis, then to Darwin in regard to our
understanding of what mankind is. Domestication proves species can
only be bred to a point, and that they do not transmorph, at least
not without help.” She paused, her blue eyes seemed to brighten.
“Zoar’s made the observation, DNA is rather like computer software.
Operating systems don’t spontaneously create themselves, and when
programs mutate, they tend to become corrupt and fail.”

He had expected such an answer from her,
given who, and more important because of what she was. Her own
creation owed little, or nothing to Darwin's theory. Basically, she
agreed with the notion that humanity had been built, rather than
'naturally evolved' yet would not outright say it. And why not?
She'd been constructed, so it seemed only a logical progression to
her that mankind also had been built. Vron supposed given her job
as a genetic designer for the Phoenix Project, and her own origins,
it would be hard not to look at things through such a lens.

“As you are aware,” Nadia stated, not
without pride. “There exists no continuity between myself, and
those primitive hominids which once roamed this planet. None. Such
a fact offers me a broader perspective on this topic.” Besides, she
added. “Scientists have their own biases which history has proven,
clouds their judgments.” Nadia couldn't help but vent. “In my lab
back at GenKon, I witnessed a willingness to corrupt science for
political agendas. I believe in observable, testable, and
replicable
science. When it stops being any of that, science
has become religion.” And then she cleared her throat. “I've tested
Iksar DNA. They, and humans share genetics. This can only be the
result of design. I suspect the same shall hold true of any
'aliens' we might yet encounter.”

Pride indeed thought Vron. “Are all
Morningstars as self-assured as you?”

“It’s my understanding,” Nadia grinned,
loving the topic. “The second Morningstar constructed is quite
confident of herself.” Reflecting, she licked her lips. “Though
she's given to bouts of materialism which belie the very miracle of
her existence. Clinging to such binary thoughts obscure for her a
more profound grasp of the universe.” And then, not the least bit
ironic. “She builds good machines I understand however.