Blood Betrayal Page 28

  “That should do it,” Paul’s voice said from the recesses. “Short and sweet.”

  “I think I mostly understand it,” Cor replied, cocking his head.

  “As long as they do,” Paul said, and Cor could almost see him motion upwards.

  “How does this work again?” Cor asked.

  “The computer – ”

  “The machine that runs all of this.”

  “- yes. Will translate it into English and Chinese, the two languages my people speak, and will continuously broadcast it into space.”

  “Space is…” Cor paused, “the darkness beyond Rumedia, where all the stars are?”

  “Exactly.”

  Cor turned to face Paul Chen in his vault, which appeared as the cramped quarters in which he slept on board his own vessel. “I don’t understand one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Paul asked from his bunk just a few feet away.

  “I tried to heal you, and it didn’t work.”

  “Right?”

  Cor dropped into the nearby chair as he puzzled through what he said next, “I gather that you think it didn’t work because you’re not from here.”

  “That’s my thinking.”

  “Then why did it work on Zheng’s ship?” Cor asked.

  “I had a hunch,” Paul replied, and he sat up, turning to put his legs over the side so his feet touched the floor. “Zheng has been meddling with this world for a long time. He’s been causing all sorts of trouble, breaking a lot of my people’s laws, for who knows how long. He has copied himself, his crew and his ships, all of which would have been illegal. He needed to do it someplace secretly. The computer shows that he comes and goes from Rumedia often, has been for thousands of Rumedian years, but often he’s gone for short amounts of time.”

  “Okay?” Cor asked, using an idiom he had learned a long time ago.

  “It made sense to me that he built his copied ships here. Well maybe not here, but somewhere nearby where he could keep an eye on everything.”

  “I don’t know anything about your ships, but to build anything requires supplies,” Cor reasoned.

  “Exactly, and where would he have gotten those from?” Paul asked, locking gazes with Cor meaningfully. “It seemed likely that he mined what he needed from this planet or at least nearby.”

  “You took quite the risk.”

  “Not really,” Paul shrugged. “What’s the worst that could happen? Zheng gets back down here and retrieves a copy of Doc’s mind? So what?”

  “So, this was all for naught?” Cor asked, a hint of anger starting to boil in his gut.

  “No, no,” Paul shook his head. “Your power won’t work on other SACA ships, but they don’t know that. And SACA declared Arcturus off limits years ago. Mine was supposed to be the last time we came here. But you needed to make a statement to Zheng and losing one of his copies should have done that. Regardless, it was the only way I could come up with to beat –”

  Paul stopped in mid-sentence and looked away, as if guilt suddenly overwhelmed the man for his part in what had happened. Cor watched the emotion wash over his face like an ocean wave, and it left behind sadness after it receded. Paul simply stared off to his left, unblinking, as his face shifted again to forlorn acceptance of it all. Cor said and did nothing, allowing the man his silence.

  After several long minutes, Cor finally asked, “Why are you still here?”

  Paul Chen broke from his trance with a blink and turned his face back toward Cor, replying. “Once someone puts themselves in, they never leave.”

  “Didn’t Dixon retrieve you?” Cor questioned, not fully understanding the how of it all.

  “Yes, she did, but it was just a copy of me, a copy of a copy. It’s up to her whether or not that copy has a chance at life again.”

  “So, you’re trapped here forever then?” Cor asked.

  “Much like the ones who call themselves gods.”

  “I pity you, Paul Chen,” Cor said and he placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, showing the man a forgiving smile. “You’ve paid quite a price for what you view as right.”

  Paul smiled, “We both have.”

  Cor took the man’s arm and dismissed himself from the vault. He returned to his duty, looking over the world, recording what he saw. Keth rode west with the Dahken. Naran argued a trade contract with another Tigolean. Karak sat at a table and wrote messages. A party of Northmen fought one of their great bears. A golden skinned man in robes plunged a dagger into the chest of an ebony skinned woman on top of a pyramid. Cor wanted to find Thyss, longed to watch her, though at the same time, he feared the pain it would cause him, knowing he would never again touch her.

  Meanwhile, a message hurtled across the miles beyond Rumedia.

  “You are all forbidden to come here any further. Rumedia, the place you know as Arcturus, is under my protection forever. Your people are not to come here ever again. Should you try to land, your ships will be destroyed in the same manner as Lin Zexu. My name is Cor Pelson, and I am the Chronicler of Rumedia.”

  The End.