The Tabit Genesis (26 page)

Every sixty-eight seconds, the wispy dust clouds of the Milky Way fell past the hexagon-shaped viewport on the bridge. The Lightspear was without power, drifting in the same direction it had been released in, rolling and pitching end over end through space. The tumble left large blind spots on either side, blocking a wide swathe of ‘sky’ that Maez needed to get his bearings. Even if he could have seen them, it wouldn’t have mattered. Without propulsion, there was no way to stabilise the ship. But the rate of spin wasn’t unbearable, and Maez had grown accustomed to it. He was as comfortable as it was possible to be under these conditions.

Setting his corelink aside, he rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes. His father always said that truly knowing yourself was salvation, and that The Voyage Home provided the ultimate context for discovering the soul. Maez preferred to use the time to catch up on some reading. And after consuming the biographies of several Third World War generals, he concluded that the blood of fools ran in his veins.

Like most of the House ruling class, Maez was built from genetic material of his father’s choosing. Knowing Masaad, the sequences in Maez’s DNA would have been extracted or synthesised from long dead generals from the ‘great conflicts’ of yesterday. For as long as Maez could remember, his own interest in the subject of war had been insatiable. And if his studies had taught him anything, it was that all too often, history celebrated outcomes determined more by luck than skill.

As a young man, Maez had hoped for war against House Alyxander. The twins had never known their mother Lyanna, but their father had made her a virtual part of their lives. They saw her lead Obyerans in combat, and tend the wounds of the injured. They saw her kill with skythe, and heard her soothing song to newborns. They beheld the warrioress and the nurturer, the legend and the mother. And as much as the warrior in Maez craved vengeance for her death, the inner voice of Lyanna Obyeran declared that it was pointless.

The same was true of a conflict with any other faction. House Obyeran was founded to colonise a habitable world, not to conquer the airless rocks that Orionis corporations and cartels squabbled over. When the time came, his role would be to support Myrha as she led the Lightspears on their voyage, and to be her military counsel once they arrived.

Watching the Milky Way drift past again, Maez was at peace with that fate. He did not need, nor ever want, to be called ‘King’. Myrha was destined to bear that burden, and she would probably fail in that role, as he would in his. To Maez, a man who had devoted his life to protecting House Obyeran, The Voyage Home was the illusion of competence. For, among those countless stars, the Raothri were watching. Nothing he learned from watching human wars could prepare him to face them, or the hidden dangers lurking on that alien world.

Maez left the bridge, pushing himself down the main corridor, using the light on his survival suit to see. Thus far, he was satisfied with his efforts to revive the stricken ship. Every Lightspear was equipped with a shuttle tug for EVA repairs, and he was routing power from its modest fusion core to the ship’s main electrical grid. It wasn’t enough to power every system, but with some rationing, he was able to run life support and passive sensors.

But the ship’s main fusion core remained disabled. The rules of The Voyage Home allegedly randomised the test conditions, but by all accounts it seemed that Maez had drawn the worst possible: the reactor was in a scrammed lockdown state, simulating measures to avert a catastrophic meltdown or explosion. There was no way to access the power that the aneutronic core was producing, and the most likely cause was a mechanical issue that required a shipyard or another Lightspear to fix.

Since his trial seemed over before it ever began, Maez had opted for comfort instead of competition. He assumed, in contrast, that the only issue with Myrha’s Lightspear would be a loose toilet seat. At current consumption levels, his power supply would be exhausted in ninety days, which gave her just enough time to fix the issue and return home. His own time was better spent resting up for her coronation than attempting repairs on a fusion reactor in space.

Returning to his quarters, Maez tethered into his bunk, imagining what it was like to walk freely on a world with breathable air. Myrha had always reminded him that nothing about their lives could be taken for granted, which was ironic given her devotion to keeping them as dull as possible. From the heated biodomes of Hyllus to the fusion light sources that nourished the underground gardens, everything about House Obyeran was testament to the Pathfinder’s ingenuity and relentless drive to build a better life for mankind.

The trouble was, Maez believed that people
were
living a better life in the Inner Rim. To survive beyond the Hades Terminus, his father had been forced to manipulate them into something more than just human. Whenever Inner Rim denizens visited, with their huge trade caravans, they gawked at the first True Acolyte they encountered. His father had redesigned humanity, reasoning that the old specs had led to destruction and exile. Obyerans were the future of the species. The Pathfinder and his brothers knew what they wanted to achieve, and their stubbornness was hereditary.

Myrha had bought so completely into their father’s grand sense of purpose that Maez wondered if she was genetically predisposed to agree with him. She had always been the most committed acolyte, while he was the scatterbrained one who wanted to run free and perhaps talk to other children once in a while. Myrha preferred to stay with her studies and training, embracing the destiny her father crafted for her. She knew what the purpose of her life was, found strength in its mission, and was driven by fear of being unprepared to face it.

The Obyeran culture worshipped the Lightspears and those who captained them. There was exulted reverence for the one who would lead them all. But Myrha wasn’t interested in becoming a goddess. She just didn’t want to let anyone down.

Maez fell asleep grinning, imagining her working feverishly to restore her ship while he simply relaxed – an apt comparison of how their lives differed. If they had been shaped for a purpose, he was in no rush to meet it, as Myrha was. Destiny would come for them both soon enough.

Sometime later, he dreamt the ship was no longer spinning – which, to his surprise when he awoke, it really wasn’t.

The reactor had unscrammed itself. Full power had been restored.

Maez pulled himself towards the bridge, skythe at the ready.

But there was no one there. The yield beacon had not been activated, yet the ship was flying on autopilot, ignoring his attempts to seize control.

His Lightspear was taking him back to Hyllus. But he was unsure if the contest had been won.

Eighteen hours later, Maez returned to a home that was nothing like the one he had left.

The terminus station of The Forge shimmered in the glow of a thousand Lightspear engines. Twice as many shuttlecraft streaked about, urgently ferrying equipment and personnel from the hangar. It seemed that every asset in House Obyeran’s arsenal had taken to space. Either his father had found the world he was looking for, or he was about to launch the greatest armed conflict in House history. But against whom?

Maez still had no control of his own Lightspear. His frustration mounting, he desperately wanted to speak with Myrha. But whatever trickery his father had installed revoked his every input, including the communications equipment. As his ship coasted into the hangar, he witnessed a frenzy of activity under way as rows of combat mechs and ammunition crates were lined along the cargo gantries. It looked suspiciously like the preparations for an invasion, not an interstellar departure – or a celebration to mark Myrha’s return.

Instead of landing on the hangar tarmac, the Lightspear latched into an overhead service gantry, the same access point used to transfer supplies, waste, and, on occasion, prisoners.

Maez was furious. When the hatch opened there was no one to greet him, and the hallway beyond was empty as he stepped through.

Suddenly, the King’s voice thundered out:

‘Move forward.’

The Lightspear’s hatch shut on its own.

‘Good to hear your voice,’ Maez said. His father had left the intercom on and was breathing irregularly. ‘All you alright?’

‘There’s a dropship ahead of you,’ his father said. ‘Board it.’

‘Why don’t you explain what’s happening first,’ Maez said. ‘Why is the fleet mobilising?’

His father’s voice was nearly a whisper.

‘Did you have anything to do with this?’

‘With
what
? The fleet?’ Maez asked, exasperated. ‘You know I’ve been adrift the last three weeks, right?’

Again, there was only the sound of his father’s laboured breathing.

‘Hello?’ Maez asked.

Suddenly, the airlock began to depressurise.

‘Hey!’ Maez shouted.

‘I’ll ask you once more,’ his father said. ‘Did you have a role in this?’

With nowhere else to go, Maez rushed towards the dropship entrance.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, trembling with anger. ‘Where is Myrha?’

The hatch slammed shut, and Maez felt the craft push away. A few moments later it was plummeting towards the surface of Hyllus.

‘I will know the truth,’ his father said, ‘and then decide if you are still my son.’

The Seers greeted Maez with insults when he arrived.

‘All hail the Blood Prince!’ the eldest screeched. ‘I’ve seen you, boy.’

Maez had not seen a single soul during his journey here, not even a Guardian or acolyte. He had been treated like a prisoner, herded through maintenance corridors and side doors, compelled by invisible threats towards hidden doors he had never known existed in the palace.

The humiliation peaked with the sight of the glass sarcophagi.

‘What the hell is this?’ he demanded.

‘These are my Seers,’ his father’s voice said, ‘and they have implicated you in Myrha’s disappearance.’

The blood drained from Maez’s face.

‘Myrha is
missing
…? And you think I’m responsible?’ he said, trembling. ‘
Are you completely mad?
’

‘Confess, or confront your accusers,’ King Masaad said.

‘I confess nothing,’ Maez fumed. ‘What happened to her?’

‘You set Orionis in flames,’ the old one said. ‘The Blood Prince will have his vengeance, you’ll see, you’ll see.’

‘That’s your evidence?’ Maez roared. ‘The ramblings of these crones?’

One of the Seers was barely conscious and in obvious agony. The others were ranting lunatics, and Maez singled out the old woman as their ringleader. She was teasing his father’s anxieties with nonsensical prophecies, leading him astray from reality.

Maez had underestimated his father’s obsession with control. What was more dangerous than a pathological king? He sounded crazed, desperate, acting like a man who had lost everything.

And if Myrha really was missing, that was true.

‘I would
never
harm my sister,’ Maez said. ‘Not outside an arena, anyway. And I certainly don’t envy your plans for her.’

‘A fine performance!’ the old hag heckled. ‘We saw you, Blood Prince, we know, we know!’

Maez did his best to ignore her.

‘Tell me what happened,’ he said, walking close to the glass sarcophagi, sizing up the thickness of the glass. ‘How do you even know she’s missing?’

His father’s voice was measured.

‘We found her Lightspear,’ King Masaad said. ‘There were several corpses. She was not aboard.’

Maez could hear it in his voice, the way it cracked. He was breaking.

‘Jealousy!’ the old woman hissed. The others repeated various versions of her banter, like parrots. ‘You wanted her dead, confess,
confess
!’

‘
Shut up
,’ Maez roared, spitting on glass. ‘
You
designed The Voyage Home. Who else knew where we were towed? No one was supposed to know, not unless you rigged every aspect of this sham.’

‘The Obyeran Code is no sham!’ King Masaad shouted.

Maez pointed towards the glass.

‘It
is
when you trust
their
nonsense more than the word of your own son,’ he said.

The crones screamed, but then they were muted out. Maez turned and was startled to find himself staring into the tormented eyes of his father.

‘There were no pilots or crew on the Lightspears that towed her there,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I had the harbour radars shut down so they couldn’t be tracked. I knew exactly where she was at all times and
you
are the only other person who could have possibly known where that was.’

Maez had tried taking the high ground, but was losing the struggle. More and more, he sensed he was dealing with someone who could not be reasoned with.

‘How? By reading your mind? That’s as sensible as asking
them –
’ he said, pointing towards the Seers – ‘to tell your future.
I would never harm my sister.
That’s not to say I haven’t thought about it, especially after she maimed me before the whole bloody House. But the fact is, you’ve made such a spectacle of this contest that anyone with a grudge could have known where to look.’

‘Impossible,’ King Masaad fumed.

‘What’s impossible is for you to blame yourself,’ Maez retorted, his own rage boiling. ‘You
want
me to be guilty of this, don’t you? You sick, demented man. Alright, Father. I’ll say what you want to hear: I abducted Myrha, so I can have her crown,
because that’s clearly what I’ve always wanted
.’

His father’s eyes were bulging, his chest heaving. Maez dismissed the inner voice warning him to back off.

‘Fucking royalty,’ he spat, drawing his skythe. ‘Do I owe my life for this crime? Good. Come and get it, if you can.’

Maez wasn’t expecting his father to accommodate the request.

Delirious with rage, King Masaad rushed his son with unnatural speed. Maez braced for the impact, expecting to toss the much smaller man aside.