-- Chapter 4 -- A Fire Below --
A ball of ice untouched by a sun's light, the planet Orcus was a treasure trove of rare minerals: diamond, platinum, ferex. More than a billion aliens made their homes just beneath its frozen surface, digging complex circuits to its dead core and back again straining out those minerals. They were miners, born, bred, and shipped here from thousands of different worlds. Much like the cannon fodder used to protect the Trade Routes, these beings never made a choice to be here, but it wasn't so terrible a life as you might think. Mining was reserved for those species most capable of handling its rigors. Those aliens who didn't relish the sun on their backs or the wind in their face were chosen preferentially, and mining was safe steady work. They could even have their families with them.
When Kal-El initiated the destruction of the trade routes, he thought of these unrepresented overused people in an abstract way. He was striking out for them and their freedom. He never let himself think of a billion men, women, and children, surviving their barren home only by the grace of the weekly supply ship and its little frivolities like food, water, and air.
The air didn't taste right, stale and bitter. A pair of gray eyes snapped open, and the little girl belonging to them, Luci, crawled out of bed. Her short orange hair curled wildly around her head and the girl tugged her silky yellow gown down past her knees. "Mommy, Dad," she whispered. Stepping out into the hall, she crept past her little brother's room and stuck her head into her parent's bedroom. They weren't asleep like she'd expected. Her dad was sitting by the information screen watching a fire, and her mom wasn't even there.
"Dad, it doesn't smell right. Can we turn up the air filters?" Luci asked. "Is Mom at work again?"
Her father didn't answer her right away. He didn't even look at her for a long time. "You remember what your mother told you. We are the representatives of the government on this planet. We make sure the miners are okay and that they do what they're supposed to do. You remember when we told you that some of the miners didn't like us?" When he finally looked at her, there were tears streaming down his face. He pulled her into a hug and squeezed her tight. Then he pushed her away so he could watch her eyes and make sure she understood him. "Some bad things are happening outside. I have to go help your mother, and I'm leaving you in charge here. You lock that door behind me, and I don't want it opened again until your mother or me is out there. When I get back with your mom, we're going home, and you're going to see the sun and play outside, and we won't ever make you stay in a place like this again."
Luci looked at her dad's hand where it covered hers and nodded. There was an old tan to his skin, the mark of the sun, her mother always said. His blond hair grew darker every year, but his eyes were an unchanging gray. Luci's own skin was pale white, so translucent that her veins were visible, tracing their blue network over her fingers. She'd never seen the sun or been outside. This dead world was her birth home and the thought of leaving it was a little scary.
"Why do we have to leave?" Luci whispered. "I thought you said we didn't have to be afraid of the miners that didn't like us. You said they were more afraid of us than they were mad at us."
"Something happened to the air and the water and the food. They're all scared and they're angry with us for not taking care of them like we're supposed to." Her dad took her by the hand and walked to the door. "We'll talk about it all when I get back with your mom. Lock the door and protect your brother. Don't let anyone in."
After her dad walked away, Luci stood staring at the closed door just waiting. She might have stayed there until he returned, but their apartment was too dark. The shadows kept moving around in the shifting light from her parents' bedroom. "The information screen," Luci whispered. She could watch the information screen and try to find out more about what was happening outside. Her parent's large bedroom felt safe. Grabbing a pillow to hug, Luci made a nest in their bed. The pillow smelled like her mom, kind of flowery and she sucked in a deep breath of it.
The unchanging fire on the information screen didn't seem terribly exciting, and Luci started dialing through the various feeds looking for some people. She stopped scrolling when a mob of shouting aliens came into view. There was station after station of angry miners. Luci knew they were miners. She could tell by their bodies and their eyes. Few of them had well developed eyes, and even fewer were limited to two legs. She'd asked her mom once why the miners all looked so strange. Was that what made them miners? Her mom said they liked mining. They were built to dig in the ground and wasn't it great that everyone in the galaxy got the chance to live comfortably?
Luci paused on a new station. There were plenty of miners on this screen, but there were non-miners too. Everyone looked so scared. A woman, with long orange hair was out front and they were pushing her along. Luci touched her own hair and sat forward. The only other person on the whole planet with hair like that was her mom. What were those miners doing with her mom? Where was Dad? He said he was going to get her so they could get away.
One of the miners, a tall hairy man with narrow little mole-eyes, took her mom by the arm and turned her toward the camera recording them. She was bleeding. Unconsciously, Luci started to whimper low in her throat. Who made her mom bleed? How dare they hurt her mom? Didn't they know who she was? The image refocused a closer view of her Mom as though someone was actually manning the information feed. They should stop working the camera and go help her mom. Luci realized that her mom was talking. Even through the blood and the bindings she was holding her head high, a picture of strength and resolve. Luci increased the sound until her mother's voice filled the bedroom. "...pain. My own children are trapped here as is my lifemate. If you could just stop this, we could work together to save the children. You're burning away our air and killing those people with the skills to try and fashion alternatives to suffocation and death. Please..."
Mole-eyes must have gotten tired of listening. He wrapped his thick red fingers around her mother's throat as though it were nothing, a tiny twig. "We are neither stupid nor afraid of death. Your empty promises mean nothing. Rather than let you and your fellow rats abandon this tomb, we will end your lives here with our own hands. It is the only justice we will see." Luci didn't want to watch, but she couldn't look away. Those thick fingers contracted, and her mom didn't even struggle. Mole-eyes tossed the orange-haired beauty aside like so much refuse, and he screamed more like a blood-thirsty animal than a sentient being.
Help her. Someone help her. The whimpers that had taken residence inside the back of her throat graduated into full gut wrenching sobs, and Luci curled into a little ball. Without blinking, she stared at the information screen, past the rioting miners and their insurrection-dance to the corpse of a leader, her mother.
Not so very far from Orcus and its smoldering self destruction, the underground society of the galaxy continued without a hitch. The pirates and criminals hadn't had use of any trade routes to begin with. The collapse of that system registered on their radar, but it didn't leave them without the necessities. One establishment in particular, The Sixth Leg, continued its heavy trade without interruption. Every system had at least one watering hole like it. Criminals and bounty hunters, zealots and common thieves, mixed freely. A wanted man could sit and chat with any bounty hunter without fear within those walls. It went beyond honor among thieves. The owner enforced his policy of peace on the grounds with a blood thirsty glee that even the most powerful aliens respected.
When the Eradicator of worlds wandered through the old airlock of The Sixth Leg, no one even looked twice. She didn't need to hide behind a hooded cloak here. She was known and respected in this circle.
With an internal sigh, the Eradicator scanned the pack of ruffians methodically. No one even vaguely resembled her quarry. What now? The lack of direction was driving her insane. This was Kal-El's fault. He had a lot of nerve, sending her off without any command except to find her own purpose. He wasn't even keeping her up to date on his plans. It had been dumb luck that she wasn't bouncing around in a trade route when the system fell. Would Kal-El have even cared if she'd been lost? Why did she care if he cared?
Am I a whining child now? What have I become?
The Eradicator took a seat, showing this room only her cool empty expression. Inside that perfect mask a hundred emotions buzzed around her brain. There was anger and boredom, frustration and hurt. At least she could ignore the nuisances most of the time. She'd stopped trying to weed out her emotion bugs. They just were, and she could live with them. What choice did she have?
So here she was with a pack of useless emotions and Kal-El's non-order. Finding a mission, a quest, and a name, should have been easy, right? Well, she'd tried her hand at more than one quest at this point, had even given herself a name once or twice, but it wasn't right. She hadn't found any meaning or truth. Kal-El had sent her to learn what it meant to be alive, and that bit of data still evaded her. Maybe her new quest would do the trick?
"You, server," the Eradicator said. "I seek a woman by the name of Reo-Ra. She's a scientist who's been working at your nebula. I was informed that she frequented this...place."
The server, a short hairless creature with several dexterous spindly arms, turned from his work briefly. "Reo-Ra? Re-Re? Ya, Re-Re comes in pretty regular, usually round lunch."
"Isn't it lunch?" the Eradicator snapped.
The server paused scanning his pushy patron's face. Great, an Eradicator, that was all he needed. Why did this type always show up on his shift? "If you're looking to cause trouble..."
"I just want to talk to her," the Eradicator said. Why did everyone just assume she was here to kill or fight? Sure she was an Eradicator...maybe it was the name? A laugh bubbled past her lips, and the nervous server actually dropped a beverage. "She's here, isn't she? Where?"
"It isn't my habit to rat out my regulars, but I don't think crossing an Eradicator would be very healthy would it?" The server extended one of his gray spindly arms toward a darker corner of the restaurant. "She likes the back enclosure."
The Eradicator headed for the back of the bar, the other aliens, large, small, and in-between giving her a wide berth. The back enclosure was much like the rest of The Sixth Leg, old, battered, and filthy. Knocking at the flimsy door careful to not shatter the delicate old material, the Eradicator waited.
"Bring the food in and put it on my tab. Grant money should be here any day."
"I beg to differ. Your grant will never be coming." The Eradicator opened the paper thin door and got her first look at Reo-Ra. It was all she could do to hide her disappointment. The woman was old. Gray streaked through dull brown hair, and crow's feet were digging deep into the creases of her eyes. At least her physical form wasn't too off from the Kryptonian norm. The only outward sign that she was a hybrid, her silver eyes, shone in the dim enclosure. It was a testament to the superiority and dominance of Kryptonian genes that a diluted hybrid like this could look so normal. "Being the bearer of your bad news brings me no pleasure or pain for that matter. The Qi'er Foundation is now officially defunct. They lost it all in the trade route crisis. I don't imagine you'll be getting word from them on any official level. A war is gearing up, and the galaxy is already spiraling into the chaos that will bring."
"I take it you aren't a representative of the Qi'er then. From your look, I'd say you're either my long lost cousin, or you're the Eradicator everyone's been buzzing about." Reo hadn't really expected the Qi'er Foundation to survive the new galactic crisis, but she'd been hoping her quarterly grant would come through so she could settle accounts and maybe hop a shuttle to a tamer corner of the galaxy. If this new arrival was to be believed, she was stuck here and in serious debt with the type of aliens you don't get indebted to lightly. "Assuming you're not a cousin. I'm left wondering, what does the Eradicator want with me?"
"I am the Eradicator, and I'm here to help you. You need money and a ride out of this place. I would hazard to guess that an old scientist like yourself isn't interested in becoming embroiled in the current galactic conflict either." The Eradicator smiled and spread a thin packet of plastic credits in front of herself, enough money to buy and sell The Sixth Leg a dozen times. "I have a job proposition for you. It's out of the way, very quiet and safe. Not to mention that it pays very well."
Reo couldn't help herself. She stared at that stack of money, and she wanted to just take it. Her field of science wasn't particularly lucrative. After sixty years, a lifetime, all she had to show for her life's work was a bill large enough to get her dumped out of an airlock alive. "Do you have any more details for me on this job? If I'm going to sell my soul to a machine, I'd like to know why."
"It's slightly complicated. I have a mission to learn to understand life, my life. I've attained sentience, at least according to Kal-El of the Over Council. He sent me out into the galaxy and told me to discover a quest and a name. Then I could be his champion and serve him again." Explaining her weakness and confusion to a stranger like Reo-Ra was difficult, almost painful. If this woman was going to be a part of the quest, she deserved the whole story though.
"He cut you off without orders? The way Eradicators were designed...It has to have been Hell for you. If you're still functioning, then I suppose you would have to be sentient. How am I supposed to help you understand your life though? I'm just a run down scientist."
"You realize, Kal-El did give me a command sort of. He told me to find a quest to understand my life. I've shifted through several quests since that command. My first choice was to make Kryptonite pay for its crime. I returned to Krypton, and I was going to throw every piece of that deadly rock into the sun. It wasn't until I was walking on the planet, moving among those rocks that I realized their pain. In killing my creators, they sentenced themselves to slow, unending starvation. My destruction would release them from their pain, and I liked that they were in pain." Could Reo understand her rage against those creatures? Could she understand her choice? Maybe she could understand her most recent choice in missions? "I decided of late that a quest to perpetuate life might be better than a quest for destruction."
The cold declaration about letting an entire planet of creatures suffer into eternity was a bit telling, and Reo began to wonder if she would be allowed to decline the invitation from the Eradicator. "Dare I ask, what are you planning that involves me?"
The Eradicator smiled and nodded. "I babble on, don't I? My new quest is to perpetuate the species of my creators in the purest form possible. You hold a piece of Kryptonian genetics inside you, and there are still a few years of ovulations in you."
"Ovulations? Are you kidding?" Reo pushed her chair back and shook her head adamantly. "You want me to go make babies? If I wanted children, would I be hiding on this rock, studying the birth of suns?"
"I wouldn't ask you to raise them unless you chose to. You would just provide the eggs and the incubator..."
"Just the eggs and the incubator? I am the incubator." Reo-Ra couldn't quite look away the pile of credits in front of the Eradicator though. "I wouldn't have to raise them? Could I continue my other work at the same time? And who else will be participating in this selective breeding project?"
"You can work all you like, and there will be several genetic hybrids in the project, along with one pure Kryptonian." The Eradicator couldn't help smiling at the thought of her Clark. He was going to hate this project, but if things were easy it wouldn't be much of a quest. "Base of operations will be on a little out of the way world called Earth."