The endless expanse of cityscape stretched out before Najenkur Kehkz as she piloted her air-car over the titanic urban sprawl called Intrepid City. She had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. This was her first time visiting her parents’ house in more than 100 years. At 272, Najenkur was no child.
She had been estranged from her parents since she had become a Christian at the mission on Celeste 90 years ago. Her parents, devout Senarianists, had not agreed with her decision and had told her not to come back. But a century can cool a temper, or make it 1000 times hotter, and in her parents’ case, a cooling certainly had taken place. They had invited her to their house to baby-sit her younger siblings, most of whom she had never met.
She set the car down in a suburban parking area a few blocks from the house. She had never been here before; when she first left her home, they had all lived on Xerguun 8. She walked down the three blocks, turned right and walked two more, and found the house where her parents now lived. As Naj approached the door, it slid open and she went inside.
Her reunion with her parents had come and gone it a strangely matter-of-fact manner. They had all seemed to simply avoid the subject of the past 100 years altogether. It was as if she had never been gone. She didn’t know if she should laugh or cry.
She had been conversing in Senarian all day, as her younger siblings did not know English, which was quickly becoming the galaxy’s chief language. Not because it was easier than Senarian, but because Earthlings, with their shorter lifespans had less time to learn the Galaxy’s many languages. The same could be said of Zoine, but few of them were even bilingual, and most were illiterate, by choice. Naj’s sister Shayla, her brother Alad, and her baby sister Tiriisi had been watching the second Star Wars movie called “Et Sekel Analis ej Pat” when Naj’s younger sister Selly walked in.
Selintou had been the only other member of the Kehkz family that she knew of to reject the arrogant philosophies of Senarianism, which basically said God ordained that Senarians were, by birth, the greatest race and had the right to rule everyone. Selly was a born-again Southern Baptist. Even after all these years, Naj couldn’t figure out what the importance of “denominations” was.
She could figure out that Selly’s arrival was fairly well-timed, however, when she got a call from her commander, Kelenthou Pen, who gave her orders to leave immediately to investigate a cult based on Somu’e called the Eyes of Vengeance. So much for a family reunion, she thought. Naj left immediately, using Selly’s space boat rather long-hauling it back to the spaceport. A few short calculations and the space streamed into the stunning blue that denoted faster-than-light travel. She may have lost her parents permanently after this, but that didn’t matter. She had no regrets. She leaned her chair back, and as she fell asleep the words of that ancient terran hymn swam in her mind: Nothing compares to the promise I have in You…
When Najenkur arrived on the Smuell homeworld of Somu’e Thursday evening, she hadn’t expected to find anything particularly pressing. Cults sprouted up all the time, especially among people as superstitious as the Smuell. Not that Naj had to like it.
Her contact, an Ajnin operative under the guise of a street urchin, led her to the enclave where the cult had been meeting. “Anything I should know before I go in there?” She asked him.
“Well. They are all psionics users,” he said. “I’m sure they already know you’re here, as strong a psionic signature as Senarians have.”
“Wonderful,” Naj remarked dryly. She entered the building in full stealth mode, with barely a slit of the stealth field pulled away to let her see. She wore a psi-blocking visor to prevent the inhabitants from seeing the slit that represented the visible part Naj’s psionic signal with their third eyes.
Naj crept through several long corridors before coming to her first obstacle, a door with two guards. Not that the guards were any problem, but the door itself was obviously not designed with nine-foot-tall Senarians in mind. The second obstacle was in the same place, though less obvious. Security cameras. Were she to take out the guards and open the door, she would be caught. Thankfully the door opened briefly, and through the threshold came several Smuell and a Ki’lail with two Ajnin bodyguards. The Ki’lail had very pale, aged looking skin. His hair was a deep, dark sapphire. Najenkur thought for a minute he looked familiar, but it couldn’t be. Ki’lail don’t live that long.
Najenkur, as quietly as she could, ran towards the door and dived through it and between the two guards. She used her psi, which didn’t have the benefit of being focused through a third eye, like that of Smuell and Ki’lail, to slow her decent enough not to make a noise when she landed. A few surreptitious glances later, she was back in the most important tool of espionage: darkness. In fact, the entire complex was strangely dark, which, while a stupid design mistake, was very convenient for any infiltrator.
Naj crept cautiously down a long corridor, mostly carved out of the natural rock now. After at least fifteen minutes, she got to what seemed to be the end. There was an alcove cut in the rock, and the far wall registered a bit warmer than the rest. She used her mind to loosen a rock precariously lodged in the cave wall and it fell and rolled through the alcove’s end as if not there. As Naj expected, a hologram. She only tested it with a rock to avoid testing it with her head. On the other side, the Senarian spy found herself in an enormous courtyard. She stood on a balcony overlooking some bizarre apparatus that resonated with psionic energy. And in the center, was Jirinau Tulva.
Najenkur didn’t want to believe it at first. How? Tulva was Ki’lail, and he couldn’t possibly still be alive. They had met nearly 190 years ago, and then he was already in his eighties. But it was impossible to mistake. That was Tulva, and he was still alive. He was obviously aged. His body looked as though it was falling apart. But that likeness was unmistakable. Perhaps he was a clone.
The assistants that had been with him earlier, sans the bodyguards, entered through a side door behind him. The one that took up the rear pushed a hover-cart full of small ovoid gems that glowed with a faint pink light. And Naj could feel them radiating psionic energies. And they felt like… people. The assistants placed nine different crystals in cylindrical podiums surrounding the platform on which Tulva stood. After a few chilling chants in So’muish and Ki’lian, The podiums glowed and light was everywhere. And beams shot from the podiums were pounding into Tulva and being absorbed. And when the lightshow was over, the assistants were dead, or lying unconscious, and Tulva alone stood, looking not a day older than thirty.