Chapter 21: Clearing Skies

Pollux was gone.

Castor fidgeted. He had spent the last few days under constant supervision, finishing his project and being displayed to all the visiting executives and dignitaries by Doctor Mellert.

He had felt that something odd was going on with Pollux, but hadn't had the time or opportunity to analyze the situation. And now, where he usually felt the presence of his twin, there was a frightening void.

Pollux was gone.

Castor could feel him out there, somewhere, but far away, and…altered somehow. Could he be dead? Could Pollux actually have taken that final step that he had considered so often?

Pollux had always been weak, too weak to survive. Castor had learned to be strong to protect both of them. Pollux had been soft, so Castor had turned his own heart to stone. Pollux had been timid, so Castor had become hostile. Pollux had been miserable, self-loathing and ridden with guilt. Castor had learned to take his pain and direct it outward in rage, defiance and contempt. Now, with Pollux gone, he no longer knew what to feel. He no longer knew who to be.

Not that he had much choice today. He was sitting at the breakfast table with Doctor Mellert and a few of the guests—though she had at least given up trying to make him socialize—and afterward, he would finish assembling the machine. He felt a strange lack of interest in completing the project. In the emotional vacuum left by Pollux's absence, he could no longer remember why it was so important that the world be destroyed.

Except that he had nothing else to do.

Palza had realized from the first time they opened the Zone that they were doing something profane, violating something sacred. He did not blame the others. He had been as guilty as any of them. His early studies had been focused on medicine, though he had eventually come to feel he had more to offer in research than in actual treatment. It had been exciting. All he had thought of at first was of patients too horribly wounded to live, people who received treatment too late. If Agi's project was successful, they would be able to heal those bodies at leisure, and retrieve the souls when their physical containers were functioning again.

But from the first undead marmot, he had known it was wrong.

He tried to share his feelings with Mel, but she was a hard-headed, practical technician, and didn't take his moral reservations seriously. None of the team shared his trepidations. Agi may have had doubts, but he did not let them interfere with his work. Soreto always backed Agi up. Hesma had no interest in whether something was right or wrong, he was only interested in accomplishing his goals and pushing on to the next great technical achievement. Hasmodai loved research for its own sake, and was too wrapped up in his fascination with the Zone to consider any moral repercussions. As for Tarlant, he was as unconcerned and excited as a child exploring a new playground.

He ought to have been more vehement with his objections then, ought to have rebelled when it might have made a difference, when it wouldn't have been a betrayal. But he was weak. He made feeble protests and, when those were ignored, followed along.

Then Titas had come to them, begging them to perform the very function Palza had once dreamed of: to restore a human life cruelly cut short.

And it had become a horror.

Palza was the only one of the group with medical training, and after they further defiled the Zone by sending themselves through it, he tried to do his best, he tried to support the team, because he knew his skills were vital to their success and possibly their survival. He hoped they would quickly find Princess Tina, send her back into the Zone, return home, and then everything could be left alone, as it ought to have been from the first.

It didn't work out that way. Every lifetime they lived, every transference device they built, it all outraged his ethics. And each time he silently acquiesced to it, he felt a piece of his soul torn away. They were abominations, aberrations against the natural order, and in the end, even his love for Mel was no longer enough to make him go through with it one more time.

And here he was back, and everything was a mess again. And he would help them again…because he didn't have anything else to do.

At least Mel was beside him once more. Her eyes were brown, now, with wrinkles at the edges, her hair dark and greying. But the Mel behind those eyes was the one he had always loved. He could even remember meeting her when he had been Conrad Rugen, but only faintly. That had not been included in his memory record, of course. But bits and pieces came back.

Tina was here, at long last. And Dumas appeared to have become their ally. Palza was not quite sure where Seth had come from, but there wasn't really time to do a lot of catching up.

Hesma was not among those present. Apparently he had been killed at one point. Palza thought he knew, suspected he suspected Hesma's ultimate fate. Palza could still feel his connection to Castor, faintly. He felt fear and confusion. For once they were on the same page.

Palza deactivated Hesma's old scanner. "I've done everything I can for Agi's injuries," he said. "But I can't seem to revive him."

"Will he survive until we get back to the Rugen Institute?" Dumas asked.

"He should," said Palza.

"Then we're going," said Dumas.

"We can't!" Palza said. "My brother—"

"Pollux's brother, not yours," said Dumas. "We have retrieved everyone we came for. We expected Soran, but found you instead. We are now ready to return you all to Greecia via the Zone, thus reversing the damage that was done when you transferred here. Since you missed the original briefing, Palza."

"But Castor is building something…I don't know exactly what, but I know it's extremely dangerous," Palza said. "It's…it's some sort of machine, made up of circular layers in varying patterns, something like the energy fields we used when—"

"Poromet's generator," said Hasmodai. "It channels energy from the Zone. The last one put the Earth in an ice age for thousands of years. Did you know Prometheus was from Greecia?"

They stared at him. Hasmodai was keeping his distance from the others. He looked unsteady, twitchy, and possibly deranged. Palza quietly scanned him and winced at the reading. His next patient.

"Castor is Earth's problem," Dumas said. "My only concern is to get you back to Greecia where you belong."

"I agree with Palza," said Mel fiercely. He took her hand. "We need to retrieve our wreckage from Brightwater anyway. And if Hasmodai's right—"

"What do you mean, 'if'?" Hasmodai shouted furiously.

"The wreckage can wait. Global disaster can't," said Dumas. "Hasmodai is clearly raving out of his mind—more than usual—and there's no way anyone currently on Earth could possibly open the Zone without Greecian technological help."

"You said their missiles-YOU said nothing on Earth could harm your spaceship," Hasmodai accused him.

"Those were probably the advanced missiles Castor designed," said Palza. "Dumas, I think Castor may be Greecian. I think…I think he may be Hesma."

Silence followed this statement.

"We have to bring him back," Tina announced. It was quite clearly a royal order.

A hubbub of voices broke out, Soreto giving orders, Mel asking him about Sei station's security arrangements, Seth shouting excitedly as he started to activate the ship's support vehicles.

"No."

Dumas's voice cracked like a whip, stilling their voices. "You are all necessary for the survival of Greecia, and I am not going to risk losing any of you again. Not one of you is to set foot off this ship," he ordered. "I will bring Hesma back."

Agi sat on the dark shore, waiting. He could still hear the voices. He waited for them to draw closer, for the familiar faces to appear around him again. Apart from being proof that his friends were near, the sounds the voices made were as meaningless to him as the soft, almost silent splashing of the waves.

One of the voices, though, suddenly cut through the fog filling his mind.

"Ian…oh, Ian…wake up, Ian…please…"

Belle? What was she doing here? She should not be coming to the dark shore. Belle was a new soul, fresh and innocent. She had no part in their crimes. She had never shared their guilt. She could not share their doom. Agi could not let her come here.

He listened, struggled to concentrate his mind, and gradually began making sense of some of the noises he heard. Or not sense, exactly. Meaning. What he heard was beyond sense.

"Get away from me! Don't touch me! I don't need YOUR help!" It sounded almost like Hasmodai. Except for the words. And the rage.

"Hasmodai, if you don't sit down RIGHT NOW and let Palza put your skull back together, I will personally break every other bone in your body."

Soreto. Hadn't he always believed she was too easy-going?

"Honestly, Hasmodai, in your condition, it's a wonder you're able to function at all."

Palza. It was Palza's voice. Palza?

Slowly, slowly, like swimming through thick mud, Agi struggled to hear and understand.

Soreto let the soft light shine on Hasmodai's face from her energy pack. Already he was beginning to relax, to look more himself. Still, Seth and Tarlant kept a tight grip on his arms as Palza worked.

"What are you showing him?" Mel asked.

"The same memory I recorded for Dumas," said Soreto. It had been a day in the Greecian mountains, from when she was a young girl, the first time. Wildflowers had been in bloom everywhere, a blaze of color wherever she looked, butterflies flocking everywhere, and wildlife playing among the rocks and shrubs as if the beauty of the day had driven all fear and need from their lives. The sun had set over the sea in a stunning, glorious spectacle of glowing clouds. Then came a clear, warm night with fireflies everywhere, like a reflection of the stunningly bright stars above. It was, Soreto thought, just the sort of memory Hasmodai would enjoy. Who wouldn't?

"It's hard to believe Hesma might actually be out there," Tarlant said. "Are you sure he has no idea who he is? Hesma always remembered before."

"He had a goal before," Soreto said. In his last incarnation, that goal had been taken from him. His Greecian body had been lost, his hope of returning home had been lost, and finally his life had been lost. And now, Hesma had lost himself.

They jumped as an alarm blared nearby. Squeak's cortical center was about to blow.

"Always at the worst possible moment," Tarlant growled.

"Go ahead and fix it," Soreto said. "I think Hasmodai is settling down." The insane fury in Hasmodai's eyes had faded, to be replaced with an expression of bleak despondency and despair. It was, at least, a more familiar expression, if more pronounced than she had ever seen it before.

"Are you feeling any better, Hasmodai?"

"You didn't come back for me."

Soreto sighed. "I'm sorry, Hasmodai. Both of the pods were wrecked, and by the time Tarlant fixed them and we returned, the ship had sunk and you were already gone."

"I left a message."

"We didn't find it. We scanned for life signs from outside. Hasmodai, we thought we lost you." She put a hand on his shoulder. "Haven't we always come for you, Hasmodai? Haven't we always protected you from the Enma?"

"Yes," Hasmodai said. "I'm always being rescued." He didn't sound any happier.

"We wouldn't keep doing it if you weren't important to us," Soreto said. He didn't respond, and she racked her mind for some lifeline to throw him—some good memory to recall, one of his favorite poems. Her mind was a blank. She even considered whether a slap across the face might snap him out of it, or or whether it might break him entirely.

Palza shut down the medical tools. "That should take care of it. I don't think there was much permanent brain damage, but we should keep an eye on him for the next few days. And Hasmodai, you need to rest as much as possible."

Palza picked up the scanner again for a final examination, and Soreto saw his face freeze in shock, then become a mask of horror. She felt an echoing stab of panic—was something else terribly wrong with their friend?

"Palza, what is it?" Mel asked.

"Orsel," Palza said. "I'm—I'm getting a reading of Orsel energy nearby!"

"That can't be!" Soreto said. But it was Hesma's old scanner. It had recognized Orsel before, had positively found it on Earth, where it definitely didn't belong. "Where's it coming from?"

Palza, shaking, moved across the deck of the ship. They followed him to where he stopped, to where the reading was strongest.

At Palza's feet, still smoldering, was the burned-out cortical center Tarlant had just removed from Squeak.

Tarlant snapped the carapace shut and jumped down as the robot began its reactivation cycle. "What do you mean, Orsel? What are you talking about?"

"Tarlant, how are the cortical centers powered?" Soreto demanded.

"I don't know," Tarlant said. "We didn't have enough that I wanted to risk taking one apart. And I've tried to scan them, but they're shielded."

"Did you use this scanner?" Palza asked.

"No."

"This was Hesma's scanner," said Palza. "Hesma did not respect secrets." He continued to adjust the scanner, until suddenly it projected an image, a diagram of the round, flat core. Palza expanded the image and moaned. "It's Castor's machine, all over again."

"No," said Hasmodai. "This is different."

"You probably shouldn't be thinking, Hasmodai," said Tarlant kindly. "It's probably like running a car on a flat tire."

Hasmodai ignored him. "The patterns are the same, but not all of them are there, and they repeat in reverse order halfway through. I don't think this is designed to channel power from the zone. It looks more like a containment unit, like it was designed to suspend a packet of Orsel within its center."

They stared down at the smoking core, the meaning of Hasmodai's words slowly sinking in.

Soreto heard a creaking noise from behind her, and Belle gasped. Agi was standing, the blankets he had been wrapped in hanging from his shoulders, his eyes sunken and filled with a terrible wrath. He looked like something risen from the grave.

"They are using souls," he said through gritted teeth, "for BATTERIES!"

He took a step forward and staggered, but none of them moved to help him. The ferocity of his anger froze them in place.

"Tarlant, shut those robots down," Agi ordered. "NOW!"

Tarlant moved to obey, but Bubble and Squeak rose high on their legs and skittered away from his reach.

"I said SHUT THEM DOWN!" Agi barked.

"I'm trying. They don't want to be shut down."

"DO IT!"

Tarlant tried again. "They won't let me. I think they want to go on helping us."

"Tarlant—"

"If they have souls, shouldn't it be their choice?"

Agi hesitated. Some of the anger went out of him. It seemed to have been all that was holding him up, for he slumped to the deck. Soreto and Tarlant leaped to his aid and helped him back to the cot.

"It would explain the pattern of Orsel redistribution," Mel said. "The cores are manufactured on Greecia. They must be pulling souls from the Zone, packaging them—"

"The manufacturers can't possibly realize what they're doing!" said Palza. "At least, I hope not."

"So the souls are leaving Greecia's zone in big masses as the cores are built, and popping back one by one as they burn out," said Tarlant.

"The Rugen Institute has around three hundred Homonculoid robots," Mel said. "They burn through cores at…well, over the last six years, Dumas has shipped tens of thousands of cores to Earth."

The long, horrified silence that followed was broken suddenly by laughter. Soreto did not blame the others for staring—the laugh had surprised even her. She was shaking, and tears blurred her vision.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes. "I know it isn't funny, and that it doesn't really change anything or make the situation less critical, but…but don't you see—this time…none of this was our fault."

She felt the realization spread over them, like the warm sun coming from behind a cloud, like a burden being lifted.

"And now we know how to fix it," said Agi. "We'll have to see that the production of the cores is stopped immediately, and that all of them are returned to Greecia and the souls released to their proper Zone."

"Since we can detect the difference now between Greecian and Earth souls," said Hasmodai, "it should be possible to find and transfer displaced souls from Zone to Zone with the equipment we've already developed."

Agi sighed and lay back on the cot. "You have all done well," he said weakly. "I can see you've accomplished great things."

"Without me," he added after a moment.

Soreto said, "Agi, I'm sure that if you had been—"

"No! No," he interrupted. "You don't need to comfort me. I'm…glad. Sometimes I forget that you can stand on your own. I am so proud of all of you. Belle?"

"Oh, Ian!" Belle kneeled beside Agi, clutching his hand. "I never stopped looking for you!"

"Thank you," Ian said, smiling up at her. "You found me. Have you been all right? Have you been behaving yourself, little sister?"

"Of course," said Belle. "Sort of."

"Have my friends been looking after you?"

"Yes, Ian."

"Do you like them?"

"I suppose so," said Belle, a little reluctantly.

"Then it wouldn't upset you if Soreto were to kiss me again."

A muscle twitched in Belle's face.

"Oh, do what you like," she said irritably, giving her hair an annoyed twitch and stalking away.

Agi turned his face to Soreto, gave her that smile, and lifted one brow, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

What else could she do?