Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop (35 page)

Weakly, Melanie pushed
Annalise’s hands away and held them. Annalise’s eyes were wide, and
she trembled. She stared into Melanie’s eyes, knowing they’d never
close without help. I never knew when she stopped trying to
breathe. We all looked at Davion. A normal man would have fled.
Something held him to his ground. I let Melanie’s head fall, and
scrambled to point the weapon at him. I charged it just as easily
as I had when I severed the strap from Annalise’s bed, and pointed
it at him.

He backed up a few steps,
dropped the pistol, and ran towards the Hall.

I wanted to fire.

I wanted to kill him in that
moment. But I didn’t. I held back. I don’t think I’ve ever
experienced the kind of hatred I felt for Davion in that moment.
The sound of gunfire at the wall concealed the sound of his
footsteps.

I looked down at Melanie as
Kayt knelt at her side. Annalise still held Melanie’s hand. Maybe
I’d spread myself too thin? Perhaps I should have been the one
telling the stories to the Forgiven instead of letting Davion lead
me through the hall, talking about Velric. Maybe all the choices
I’d made up until that moment were dictated by a plan set into
action months or years ago. Death had been all around me, and all I
could think was that I hadn’t done enough. I should have been there
for Lancaster, I should have seen Melanie’s danger. Most of all, I
should have seen what Melanie had tried to tell us about
Davion.

Now, with everything I’ve
written, and the end yet to come, I feel like it wasn’t enough.
Like I hadn’t been privy to what had really been going on, and that
I was suffering for it. We all were suffering for it. At the wall,
Forgiven fell to the ground. Some hid behind the large bricks,
closing their eyes while dust rattled down on them from where
energy bolts hit the concrete. When one fell, another climbed up
and took his place. The doors to the commune hadn’t opened. We
could only imagine the body count.

Chapter
Thirteen:

All Your Life
Will Ever Be

My hand
shakes, and my
brain has taken over the
telling of my story more than once. I would grade this therapeutic
technique very harshly. Velric hadn’t gone insane – I was closer to
that than he. But what had happened was a consequence of time and
long life. I have no tangible proof of its truth. But at its heart,
and with all the evidence before me, I know what
happened.

It began before the Belovores
started their return to Sondranos. He must have been somewhere
secluded, away from the commune, but close enough to receive their
signal.

Velric sits in
one of
the cambers he’s chosen to spend
the rest of his life in, taken care of by the people of the
commune. In the silence, he’s lost. A typical Belovore his age
needs to connect to the streamlined hive. His thoughts need to be
directed away from senility and shaped into a productive member of
society. With the Belovores gone, there’s no chance of Velric
gaining that clarity. That absence allows his mind to stray to the
past. He dreams of Admiral Perry. The books Perry had given him,
though later discovered as fiction, had been the catalyst his
people needed to strive towards something bigger. He’d stayed
thinking his people would return after having grown exponentially –
or that he wouldn’t survive very long without them. Either end of
the spectrum controls his future.

He closes his
eyes and can see his people swarming over Sondranos. He pictures
burrows in the side of the crags, and traces the underground lines
of commerce and trade that web out beneath the ground. Later, when
the colony is overrun by the
Irene
colonists, those pathways would be torn through
and used to shape a more human standard. Velric remembers what it
was like to be young, clear headed, and approached by the females
of his sect. Many turn on to him and stroke his spine as if they’d
been more than just members of the same group. Velric knows it’s
because of his virility, which guarantees long life, but his
natural instincts force him to back away until a patient mate makes
herself evident. She will approach him long after the rest have
given up their advances for easier prey. She will forgive him his
faults, but condemn his mistakes until he knows how to be a better
servant to the Belovores.

Of course, then the Irene would
land, and all of that would be shattered.

Here, Velric’s mind begins to
twist. In the darkness of his chamber, he can’t feign to direct his
thoughts to a better alternative. It shoots out in any given
direction, aiming at the darkness and hoping for a solid
foundation. Instead, it lands on resentment. Velric twitches as he
tries to push away one thought after another. The Irene stole your
life away; Admiral Perry severed you from the link; Annika Granger
tried to tell you the truth, but you were too thick-headed to grasp
the consequences. All because you wanted to be remembered in
history for having elevated the Belovore race to the stars.

Velric grumbles when he opens
his eyes. His head hurts. The pain starts in the back of his eyes,
and throbs down his face. Jolts of surging and pounding shock flow
down his chest and settle in his stomach. His spine tingles. No
breeze can penetrate his chamber, so he knows the chill comes from
inside.

They’re
returning
– his instinct says.
Only, they are only half of what they were
before.
His mind slowly regenerates a
connection to the hive and Velric discovers that he doesn’t quite
fit. Establishing a connection into the hive mind after years of
separation, after growing old, and older, has turned his signal
into a square peg trying to fit into a circular node. Velric finds
this change allows him to continue his own processes, rather than
allowing the younger generation to take over. He can sense that
they’ve turned the ship around. He can feel their despair, and
their hope to return to a welcoming environment.

Velric plants the seed of his
own truth into the mix. He insists that the humans would kill them
the moment they set foot on the soil He’s grown to believe this in
his old age. The anger is small and nearly goes unnoticed. Nobody
suspects who the thoughts come from, as Velric’s power over them is
innate, new. Like a virus entering the body of someone who’s never
been sick, it spreads faster than anyone can control. Even he
doesn’t understand.

He longs to be part of the hive
again. Maybe it will take away his anger and guilt. However, his
age has created a loop. He may have planted only a seed of
resentment, but his age and will to regain a connection strives for
everything it can grasp within the hive. It takes those seeds and
creates a feedback loop within his mind, and the minds of the
surviving Belovores. He sends his hatred, and the hatred returns
and grows. It degrades until Velric no longer recalls what it was
like to be Belovore. He can no longer see the swarming of his
people on the surface, or burrowed beneath the crags. The touch of
a female Belovore eludes him, and when he tries to grab hold of
what it should have felt like, it only creates more
disillusionment. Little by little, Velric allows his hatred to
consume him; bit by bit, that hatred takes over the hive mind, and
replaces the young Belovore leadership with Velric’s.

It takes years, and by the time
Father Corin arrives, Velric is well past the initial hatred, and
had already begun to plan for the destruction of Sondranos. His
first task is to help design a process for radio signals that will
blanket the city. One based on his own neurological structure.

He sits in his chamber, and
waits.

“
This is why you should
have
left me behind,” Annalise said. She held her hands on Melanie’s
chest as if stopping the blood from trickling out would start her
heart again.

“
You’d love
nothing more than to give up right now,” I said. I took Annalise’s
hand, pulled it off Melanie’s chest, and held them in front of her.
“You’ve been full of it this entire time, haven’t you?”

Annalise looked at her hands,
and she bit back her lips. She started to stammer, but I stopped
her. “Don’t say another word. You are not responsible for any of
this, and you never could have been. If you think you have to take
responsibility for this, then you better find that guy who tried to
rape you, and apologize.”

Annalise pulled her hands away
and scowled. She eyed me. It was a terrible thing to say, but I
doubted small talk would have gotten her to wake up. I needed her
to be angry, and anger with me as opposed to compliance with the
Belovores was as good as I could get.

“
What do we
do now?” Kayt asked. She’d stepped away from the body, and put her
hands on her head before speaking. Melanie might as well have been
just another fallen casualty. I’d grown disgusted by how easily the
commune pushed away sight of something terrible, yet willingly
strode into something worse. She watched as the Forgiven along the
wall fired. Every now and then, one dropped or crumbled against the
wall.

“
Keep going,”
I said. “Try and convince the Forgiven to stop shooting and pray to
your Gods they do. Then pray some more that the
‘s
troops stops shooting back. I’m
going to get Davion.”

“
Revenge?”
Annalise mumbled.

“
Revenge is
what got everyone on this planet killed,” I said. “I’m not dealing
with that anymore. I’m going to make sure Davion doesn’t tell
Velric.

Kayt gasped, “He’ll start the
slaughter early when he finds out.”

“
Annalise, I
need you to wake up. Stop this guilt, and do something. No matter
how pointless or stupid you think it is,” I said.

“
Remember
what you told me? If all you ever think about is negative, then
that’s all your life will ever be,” Kayt knelt down beside
Annalise. Even through the gunfire, her pants crunched against the
dirt in the grass, and squeaked against the dew. “I have an idea.
We need to gather as many rifles as we can. The big
ones.”

I clutched my rifle to my
waist, though I felt sick at the thought of using it. I hadn’t
fired it once, but knowing what rifles like the one I had were
capable of, I couldn’t bear associating myself with them. Kayt set
her hand on Annalise’s shoulder, and Annalise looked to her. For
the first time, Annalise started to cry. It was short, and I only
knew it happened by the tears she wiped away – Melanie’s blood
hadn’t dried on her hands, so Annalise ended up smearing blood
along her cheeks as a result. She didn’t care. But this time, that
was good.

They stood and headed towards
the barracks to arm themselves with more powerful weapons. I took
the moment to watch the perpetual gunfire coming from the walls. My
battle was in the other direction – with Davion.

Davion had made a beeline for
the hall, so I did as well. I couldn’t catch my breath. I leaned
against the door, setting my ear to the wood as I held my chest as
still as possible. Inside, Davion and Father Corin spoke loudly, as
if from across the room from each other.

“
Those I
brought in, Father,” he yelled. “I’m afraid I’ve been
mistaken.”

“
The moment
of Salvation has already begun, Davion.”

“
I know, but
I do not wish my failures to be the reason this attempt fails. I
don’t know how I could stand allowing an entire species to
perish.”

“
This is only
right, Davion.”

We were right about one thing,
at least. Davion did have a conscience – unfortunately, I seemed to
have pointed it more towards preventing the extinction of mass
murders over the destruction of a small fragment of humankind. Part
of me could understand the dichotomies swirling about in his
consciousness. This was the kind of choice I’d say was easy to
make, but when it came down to it, I would freeze and be unable to
consider all the possibilities.

“
Quiet, both
of you. I could hear your whining through the transceiver. All the
Belovores in the compound tunnels could. You are pathetic,” Velric
stomped into the room. I pushed the door open just enough to see
inside, and watched Velric as he walked from the far end of the
room to the table we’d been sitting at. It must have been replaced
after we’d left. He glowered at Davion, who’d backed up onto the
table. Davion’s hands moved wildly behind him. I couldn’t see what
Velric referred to as the transceiver, but I assumed it was how
Velric had known to come in when he did. The entrance to their
tunnels must have been close. At least, close enough for him to
return after hearing Davion’s pleas to Father Corin.

Velric flexed his fingers, and
then grabbed Davion by the throat.

“
This has
been agreed upon,” Father Corin said.

Davion gasped out a short
sibilant before Velric snapped his neck. Velric dropped the body on
the table. Davion’s hand twitched.

It must have
only been
seconds. It only lasted a few
seconds, in the same instant in which I’d stood, and opened the
door. False Daniel returned. In my mind, we were surrounded by a
starry night, as if we were all back in the plateaued region of the
crater with Annalise cooking on the engine. He was as solid as
Annalise, Kayt, or myself. We stood with nothing else around us.
For a moment, I didn’t want to face him. The words I’d have to say,
the things I would bring up with the intention of bringing him down
– none of them sat well within me.