Dominion (5 page)

Six

“The burly man hit you over the head with a club!” she said, pacing in front of him.

Hawke was seated on the cot in her small cell where Night Rain had left them.  He left the cell door open and asked that Hawke just holler for the Master at Arms after he makes a determination regarding her emotional state. 

“You don’t understand, Kashuba.  I’ve been continually at the mercy of others since I awoke on this planet.  I don’t know anything about you, the Shomani, the Cheronook, Night Rain, Orlo, or even that Master at Arms outside this cell!  You are
all
my enemies for all I know!  I could be in the hands of terrorists right now or I could have been rescued from the terrorists by being clubbed on the head,” he said, rising from the cot, “But I’m withholding judgment until I get a better picture of you, my hosts, and this alien world.”

“These people are the enemy,
Hawke!  How can you not see it?” she insisted, “They have kept the war going for more years than I have been alive.  The Shomani are a peaceful race that serves the gods while the Cheronook serve only themselves.”

“I don’t care about the politics of your wo
rld and I support neither side.  What matters now is that we are both at sea aboard a Cheronook ship and we are going wherever this ark takes us.  We can be guests or we can be prisoners.  At the moment, it seems you want to be a prisoner and since I have nothing vested in you, I may have to allow them to keep you in a cell.  Do you get what I’m saying?”

She stopped her angry pacing and looked over at him.  She stared at him for a moment, then looked down at his wringing hands.  She approached him and touched the red marks on his wrist.

“I’m the one who put the bracelet on you, so this is why you don’t care for me anymore,” she said, “I never believed it would ever cause you harm.”

“I don’t blame you for the burns and I do still care about your well-being.  Night Rain promised to keep you from harm if I don’t feel you can safely be released from this cell.  He will merely release you when we reach port,”
Hawke said, “But personally, I’d like to tell him that you have calmed down and that you’re willing to continue as... as my charge.  I’ve grown accustomed to your company and I really like you.  I’d feel better if I could personally see to your care rather than just taking Night Rain at his word.”

She smiled, then offered a
quick nod, “So you do find me satisfactory in spite of your reluctance yesterday.”

“You are indeed a sweet and innocent flower, Kashuba. 
You make me smile more than I deserve.  And as beautiful as you are, I fear a lesser man would take full advantage of you,” he smiled, “So I’d really appreciate it if you would control your anger and hatred for these people and accompany me for the remainder of this trip.  I could also use your input as you seem concerned with my well-being also.”

She took a hold of both his hands and looked up at him with curiosity in her expression.  He wondered for a moment if she was going to reject his offer and forfeit her care to the Master at Arms.  Then she
stood on her toes and leaned forward, kissing him tenderly on the lips.  It was soft and sweet and only lasted a short moment, but it was enough to drop his defenses.

“Your words describe love,
Hawke.  You might not want to admit such a thing and I understand that, but it doesn’t change what I heard,” she said, releasing his hands, “My last direction from the church and from the Demigods was to accompany you as your servant and to continue on in the role of peacekeeper.  As such, it is my duty to honor them and to honor you.  I will refrain from expressing my opinions on these savages and would be honored to accompany you as your servant, your lover, and your peacekeeper.”

“But you’re not my…” he sighed, wondering if he should say anything that would change her mind, “Yes
.  Yes, I would like that.  But please don’t do this out of obligation.  As I said before, I wish for you to be free to choose and free to say no.”

“If I were given the freedom to choose one thing right now, I would choose to spend my time with you,
Hawke,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said.

. . . .

Night Rain was waiting for them in his sleeping chamber.  Although he wasn’t the Captain of the ship or even an officer for that matter, he must have been given something of a “penthouse suite”.  The room was large and bright, having
multiple windows on both sides of the room facing both port and starboard.  A chandelier of six oil lamps offered plenty of light to the center of the room where the midday sun didn’t reach.  Night Rain was seated at a desk near the starboard window writing something in a log or journal.  An unidentified man was seated on a sofa near the middle of the room reading a book.

The Mas
ter at Arms departed promptly, leaving Kashuba and Hawke standing near the door.  The older man on the sofa acknowledged their arrival by placing his book facedown on the coffee table.  Night Rain continued writing for another minute, then closed the book on the desk.

“Come on in!” Night Rain said, rising from his seat near the window and motioning them toward the sofa and chairs
by the coffee table, “Please, come sit down.”

Hawke
offered Kashuba to sit on one of the two large chairs and then seated himself on the padded arm of the same chair.  Night Rain gave Hawke a curious glance, then seated himself next to the elderly gentleman on the couch.

“Welcome to the Savior – the pride and joy of the Frozen North,” Night Rain said, extending his arms out as though introducing the coffee table, “And this man right here is the ship’s owner and renowned astronomer,
Sky Listener.  Without his ship and his funding, I don’t know that you would have ever been rescued.”

“
Rescue
d
?” Kashuba blurted, drawing her hand quickly to her lips to cut off the remainder of her words.

Hawke
smiled apologetically, “It’s very nice to meet you, Sky Listener.  We are very grateful for what you’ve done, but at the same time, we are a bit confused as to the purpose.”

“Understandably so,” Sky Listener stated, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his
knees, “We had heard of the discovery of your ship passing through the system.  Once we learned of the Shomani’s mission to net your ship and bring it here, we were naturally quite curious being that many astronomers believed your ship had been calling out to the Cheronook in our own language.  Then once we learned of the success of the Shomani’s mission, we were naturally anxious to get a hold of it.  That in itself was quite a substantial prize as well as a confirmation to all the beliefs we held so dear.  But to speak to the one who once piloted the ship… well, I can’t even begin to explain what your presence here means to us.” 

“Sky Listener speaks of things you probably don’t quite understand yet, my friend,” Night Rain said, patting the older gentleman on the leg, “
I’m going with the assumption that you have only been awake for a few days and that you know nothing of the Shomani, the Cheronook, or even the planet Rain beyond that which the Shomani or your friend seated there have told you.  Would that be a correct assumption?”

Hawke
nodded, “Actually, I believe this is only my second day on your world.  I sort of lost track of time once you had me beaten over the head.”

“Again, I apologize to both of you.  But this confirms what I had thought.  Prior to waking up in the hands of the Shomani, can I ask what you remember last?” Night Rain asked.

Hawke looked down at Kashuba and met her gaze.  She appeared just as curious as the others.

“You mentioned that I piloted the ship.  That is an incorrect assumption.  I am merely an amateur engineer and
more than anything, an inventor.  I was the one who created the engine on that ship and I was aboard merely as an operator and evaluator to determine the outcome of its trial run.  I couldn’t fly the ship if you held a gun to my head,” he replied, “And in the end, the engine worked beyond its designed specifications, which wasn’t a good thing.  It took us far beyond our intended destination and left us wandering with little life support.  The pilot and I were forced to preserve ourselves in the cryo-pods with only a prayer of a rescue and revival.”

“Amazing!” Sky Listener smiled.

“This is absolutely unbelievable!” Night Rain stated at the same time.

Hawke
watched his hosts as they stared at him in awe.  He shrugged, then scooted closer to Kashuba.

“You don’t get it and we really don’t expect you to,” Night Rain stated with the smile of a child on Christmas morning, “But the discovery of you and your ship changes the whole course of history.  Everything in all of history must be rewritten.”

“You not only prove that the ringed Hidden Earth is real, you probably invented the very engine that brought it here,” Sky Listener added, “It looks similar to your ship, but perhaps a few thousand times larger.”

Seven

The silence in the room was
palpable after Sky Listener’s last statement.  Even Kashuba appeared a little confused by his statement.

“Did you say ‘
Hidden Earth’?” Hawke asked, “Earth is the name of the planet I came from.  Earth!”

“Seriously?”
Sky Listener asked, “Our people are drilling down to the giant craft even as we speak.  It’s been the traditional name of an underground world beneath the Frozen North for eons.”

“A mythical world actually up until the point that the Cheronook started pursuing oil
and bane beneath the ice.  Sonograms revealed a chunk of metal as big as a city buried nearly a mile beneath the ice,” Night Rain stated, “A massive thing surrounded by a metal ring much like your ship.”

Hawke
pondered all the stuff he was being presented with.  He could easily imagine his ship being built on a larger scale and being sent off to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, but to have ended up on a planet where their Earthly origins had become a forgotten portion buried in mythology would require a significant portion of time.  It would have required much more time than the reactors in his ship could have lasted. 

“It doesn’t make sense,”
Hawke said, “And if this ship was even a thousand times larger than mine and if it was buried in a parallel position where you could eventually walk the decks, shouldn’t the gravitational-reflex ring be large enough to be visible above ground.  Even if the ship was buried a mile down, the ring should have-”

“Should have risen like an iron rainbow above the Frozen North,” Sky Listener stated with a bright smile.

He reached forward, handing a sheet of paper across the table to Hawke.  He took the paper and immediately gasped when he saw what it was.  Depicted before him in black and white was a photograph of a giant metal rainbow arching across a snowy landscape.  Sky Listener chuckled as he watched Hawke’s awestricken response.

“It really could be a ship built like the Pioneer,”
Hawke muttered, “That rainbow has such a wide arc that it could definitely be the gravitational-reflex ring of a ship far beneath the ice.”

“Based on your model?” Night Rain asked.

“Yes, based on the engine I created,” he said, “That ship would have to be large enough to carry thousands… no, millions of people.  How would they supply such a venture?  How could they have made such a thing in such a…”

He paused, gazing upon the floor
.

“Such a what?” Sky Listener asked.

He shook his head, still questioning all that he had seen and heard.  Kashuba reached over and patted his arm.  He turned to her and rested his own hand on hers.

“The Pioneer should have had e
nough power to keep me and Casey frozen for maybe a hundred years.  I guess it could have managed for a hundred and fifty but never for the amount of time I’m guessing would have been necessary for all this,” he said, gesturing around the room.

Sky Listener nodded, then raised his hand, “
Your friend was dead and decayed beyond recognition.  I’m sorry about this.  But you should know that the unusual energy source you used was left on minimal power and it was set to charge the battery units even as it powered your cryo-pods.  Just from what I’ve heard regarding your ship’s technology, I’d say that it was wired ingeniously to keep you two alive for millennia.  And even when the power systems were much too low, it cut off power to one of the cryo-pods and focused on at least maintaining one survivor.  Since you were already frozen and the temperature inside your ship was freezing anyway, very little was required of the batteries.”

It made sense, but it still didn’t answer his question regarding how long he’d been frozen.  He refused to even ask considering the evidence he already had before him.  The answer, no matter what it was, would bring him no amount of consolation for a lost friend and a lost world.

“It seems that it might have been a very long time that you’ve been floating around in space,” Night Rain stated, “But as you can see, you offer us an answer to many questions, not the least of which is how the systems work on your ship.  Would you be able to help us?”

“It sounds like the very question the Shomani had for me,” he stated in reply, “And like I warned them, the technology is much more than mixing
natural ingredients or igniting combustibles.  On Earth, we had to create some of the heavier elements in gas centrifuges and…”

He shook his head.  He had the convenience in his limited understanding of engineering and physics to have the product
readily available to him.  He had a very limited understanding on how some of the product was made.  How could he even begin to describe the process needed just to make a nuclear reactor, not to mention a gravitational-reflex engine?

“I understand that your engine contains some significantly advanced technology.  Let’s say that it would take us a century to even be able to create such things.  This is understandable,” Sky Listener stated, “We ask that you’d simply be willing to teach us how it works and the process involved in creating such things.  Most of all, we’d lik
e it if you would enter the Hidden Earth with us and see if it’s possible to bring the systems back online.”

“You’ve already accessed the buried ship
?” he asked.

“No, not at least by the time we left home.  But we had made significant progress and were maybe a hundred meters away from reaching it,” he replied.

“I need to ask something,” Kashuba interjected, “May I?”

“Yes, please,” Night Rain offered.

“Is this all for real?” she said, grabbing the photograph and holding it up, “Are the myths about an underground advanced society correct?  Is this really an interstellar ship?  Is Hawke really from another planet?”

Night Rain chuckled, but Kashuba didn’t
crack a smile in response.  Hawke scooted down the side of the chair arm and slid in next to her slender frame on the cushion.  He drew his arm around her as she stared sadly at the photo.

“I’m really from a planet that has a yellow star, just like I told you before.  There are no Shomani on my planet and our moon has no rings,” he said, “Did you think I was making it up?”

She shook her head, setting the photo down on her lap.

“I just thought it was something you believed
to be true.  I thought you were a little messed up from being frozen,” she muttered, “I didn’t want to accept that you were truly an alien from another world.”

“Between you and me, I don’t think I’m actually an alien,” he replied, drawing her closer under his arm, “If that is really a buried ship
called Hidden Earth, then I’m beginning to think that maybe you and I are the same species.  Maybe this planet doesn’t even belong to us and instead, it belongs to the Shomani.”

“Let’s not go
that
far,” Night Rain said.

“
Take it from me, Night Rain.  Sometimes you’ve got to accept the evidence even if you don’t want to believe it,” Hawke said.