The Last Days Of Krypton Part 4

"What is your name?"

"Hopk-Ins, sir." Zod had never even heard of his family...one of the lower cla.s.ses, certainly. The man continued to gawk. "I've worked here for fifteen years and never suspected-"

"Of course you never suspected." Zod turned to Nam-Ek. "Throw him into the Phantom Zone. I want to observe what happens."

Nam-Ek grabbed the scrawny man by the back of the collar and hoisted him into the air. Hopk-Ins began kicking and squirming. "What are you doing?"

The mute threw the much smaller man like a rag doll into the middle of the silver rings. Hopk-Ins wailed-then abruptly vanished.

After being sucked into the void, the servant looked as if he had been squashed between two thin panes of crystal. He was flattened but still alive, and frantically trying to get back out. The silence was absolute.

Zod clapped his hands together. "Even better than I had hoped! Most intriguing." He could think of several ways to use this device.

The hapless Hopk-Ins was lost forever inside the Phantom Zone, unless someone reversed the polarity in the control array, as Jor-El had explained. Zod had no intention of doing so. For him, the benefit of the Phantom Zone would be to get rid of inconvenient people; he didn't need to worry about how they could be brought back. It was much cleaner than murder.

Nam-Ek was amazed, and a broad grin spread across his face. Zod again felt a paternal warmth in his chest. From the moment he'd taken Nam-Ek under his wing as a boy, they had trusted each other. "And now I have another job for you."

No one was supposed to know about this secret chamber, and he was annoyed that a simpleton such as Bur-Al had discovered its existence. What if the fourth-level a.s.sistant had left some sort of proof or testament for others to find? That worried Zod, and he did not intend to lose his toys.

He handed Nam-Ek a map. "Years ago, I set up a bunker in the Redcliff Mountains. I want you to secretly move these treasures. There's too great a chance they could be discovered here. Take as many days as you require, but do it yourself. I can rely on no one but you."

CHAPTER 9.

The arena stables were Nam-Ek's own place, and he enjoyed spending as much time there as he could. He had liked animals since he was a child. Commissioner Zod often gave him expensive and exotic pets that no one else in Kandor owned, but Nam-Ek didn't really care how rare they were or how special their breeding might be. He just liked the animals. Any animals. own place, and he enjoyed spending as much time there as he could. He had liked animals since he was a child. Commissioner Zod often gave him expensive and exotic pets that no one else in Kandor owned, but Nam-Ek didn't really care how rare they were or how special their breeding might be. He just liked the animals. Any animals.

At least once a year, the Commissioner would set aside a day on which he took Nam-Ek to the extravagant zoo in Kandor so that he could see the incredible creatures. The big man wished he could share that excitement with his beloved mentor. Zod simply didn't see the same wonder, but even so he did this for Nam-Ek, and the mute couldn't imagine a greater gift.

Now in the dim shadows of the stables, he hunkered down in the dry, sweet-smelling hay. Now that the black hrakkas were gone, four heavyset, slow-moving gurns had become his pets. Though gurns were as common as dirt, Nam-Ek had a special fondness for them. The stocky creatures were covered with matted gray fur that gave off a pungent musk; their stubby horns were little more than k.n.o.bs. Others considered the herd creatures to be stupid, saw them as nothing more than walking meat, but Nam-Ek saw them as friends...friends from childhood. He loved them.

He had also loved his black hrakkas-trained them, fed them, oiled their scales...but they were gone now, taken from him. Nam-Ek understood that they were dead. Just because he could not speak didn't mean he was thick-witted. Because the hrakkas had killed that man after the chariot races, they'd been "destroyed" or "euthanized."

Nam-Ek had stood with tears in his eyes and his huge fists clenched at his sides as Sapphire Guards had muzzled the reptilian beasts and dragged them away. He had wanted to oil their scales one last time, to clean the blood from their teeth, but the guards wouldn't let him. Nam-Ek felt sickened to think about what had happened to the black lizards. Had the guards clubbed their skulls, or simply given them poison as a "humane" way of killing them?

Through it all, Zod had never belittled Nam-Ek's misery, did not try to brush aside his grief. Later, though, he had offered him more pets. He had shown Nam-Ek pictures of strange specimens, unusual animals that he had never seen before. Instead, the mute picked simple, common gurns. Zod had tried to talk him into something more special, but Nam-Ek thrust an imperious finger toward the picture. Gurns. He wanted gurns.

Zod gave him four of the herd creatures and would probably have provided a thousand if Nam-Ek had truly wanted them.

Gurns made him think of good times in his youth, but also nightmarish ones. Alone in the stables he stroked their s.h.a.ggy, thick heads and rubbed the rounded ends of their horns. The gurns made him feel like he was a little boy again-a normal boy, before all the terrible things had happened....

Nam-Ek had been brought up on a gurn farm. He'd had a mother, a father, and two older sisters, and he'd led an uneventful life cultivating thick lichen fields on a rocky plateau. The gurns stripped the old tough lichen from the rocks and provided fertilizer for the fresh tender crop.

He'd been ten years old when it all changed, when Bel-Ek, his father, went berserk. Nam-Ek had been too young to know what might have shattered the older man's psyche. All he remembered was that one night Bel-Ek had murdered his wife, strangled his two daughters, then came after him.

Young Nam-Ek had climbed through a window and fled across the dewy gra.s.ses. He made it to the stables, where he hid among the restless animals. For hours, Bel-Ek had searched for him, stalking through the night, bellowing his son's name. His father held a long cruel knife in his hand. The sharp curved blade, designed for harvesting lichen from the rocks, dripped with blood in the light of Krypton's two remaining moons. Nam-Ek had crouched among the warm and s.h.a.ggy beasts, holding his breath, afraid to utter a sound.

The door to the stable building smashed open, and his muscular father stood there silhouetted against the night. The s.h.a.ggy gurns were restless, but the boy hid among them, trying to be small and silent. He held on to their matted fur, buried his face in the thick animal smell to keep himself from whimpering. Even so, Bel-Ek had spotted him. With a roar, the man strode forward, raising the killing blade...just before a group of Sapphire Guards had shot him down.

Later, he learned that his mother had sounded an alarm before she died. The security troops had responded too late for the rest of his ma.s.sacred family, but they had saved Nam-Ek. The boy was so traumatized he'd never spoken again.

That had not deterred ambitious young Commissioner Zod from protecting the speechless orphan. Aware of the horrors Nam-Ek had endured, Zod took the boy and sheltered him. Yes, Zod had tried to get him to talk, but did not press, did not grow impatient and shout. Most important of all, the Commissioner accepted Nam-Ek, gave him a home, made him feel safe again. Nam-Ek could never repay his mentor for that. For years he had believed he would never again feel safe in his life. But Zod made him safe.

Nam-Ek was angry when he heard criticisms of his mentor. Even the Commissioner didn't know that Nam-Ek had secretly killed four people who had spoken out against Zod. He felt it was the least he could do.

Now he would dutifully take away all the precious items stored in the chamber beneath the Commission headquarters, as Zod had commanded him. But first Nam-Ek had another important task, something he had to do.

The halls of Kandor's prison levels were spa.r.s.ely populated even during the day, and only a few token Sapphire Guards remained in place at night, as a formality. Kryptonians had a lax and contented view of security, and even the Butcher of Kandor had not shaken them enough to make fundamental changes.

Though he was a large man, Nam-Ek could move with predatory stealth. Anyone who recognized him as Zod's ward would no doubt a.s.sume he was on an important task for the Commissioner.

Using Zod's access codes, the big mute could easily manipulate the systems. He understood much more than most people gave him credit for. In the sleepy stillness, he pa.s.sed underground and descended winding staircases into the intake level of holding cells. He glided along as smoothly as a rain droplet trickling down a polished window. His first task at a substation panel was to deactivate the security imagers. a.s.suming it to be nothing more than a routine malfunction, the night staff would request that it be fixed during the next work shift.

As he came closer to his quarry, Nam-Ek's big fists bunched and released, bunched and released. He thought of the Kandor zoo, remembering how much joy those animals had given him-the drang and its amusing antics, the ferocious-looking snagriff, the lumbering rondors. Zod had taken him to the zoo only two months earlier, and now Nam-Ek would never see those creatures again.

Extinct. What could possibly be a severe enough punishment for such an unspeakable crime? He had brought a long knife and a pulse scalpel, though he hoped he could do most of this work with his bare hands.

When he was in position, he used Zod's access crystal to send a signal that called away the two guards stationed at the Butcher's holding cell: a hint of smoke detected in a records complex three levels up. Nam-Ek lurked around the corner in a recessed doorway as the two armored guards jogged off down the hall, chattering with excitement and surprise at having something to do for a change.

As soon as they were gone, Nam-Ek moved in. He wasn't sure how much time he would have, but he intended to accomplish as much as possible.

Using the guards' controls, he unsealed the armored cell door and blocked the opening with his ma.s.sive body. The Butcher of Kandor sat in the chamber, looking up with mad, bloodshot eyes and a deranged grin on his face. "Come to free me?" He sprang to his feet. "Shall we go on a hunt?"

Nam-Ek stalked forward, grabbed the Butcher by his clumpy blond hair, and yanked his head back. It would have been easy just to snap his neck and be done, but that would not be satisfying. Not satisfying at all.

The prisoner snarled and thrashed like an animal in a trap. Nam-Ek hauled out the pulse scalpel and jammed it into the criminal's throat, dispensing a burst just deep enough to mangle his larynx, severing the vocal cords and cauterizing the wound at the same time. The man would die soon enough, but not until Nam-Ek allowed him to. Now they were both speechless.

Though the Butcher writhed and clawed, the big mute easily held him in place. Using the blunt fingers of his left hand, Nam-Ek scooped out one of the man's eyes, plucking it free and setting the b.l.o.o.d.y orb on the cell's cold, hard bench where it could be a lone witness to what happened next. He wanted to let the Butcher keep his other eye, for now, so he could see what would happen to him next...like the animals in the zoo had seen their b.l.o.o.d.y fates.

The Butcher snapped his teeth together and spat, but only hollow wheezing noises came from his mangled throat. When he clawed Nam-Ek's cheek, the bearded mute grabbed the prisoner's hand and broke all of his fingers-a small, petulant gesture.

And it was just the first step. Nam-Ek took out the knife.

In the end, what this heinous man had done to the poor zoo animals seemed gentle compared to Nam-Ek's savage artistry....

Afterward, with justice and revenge served, he thought no more about the rare creatures or the man who had killed them. There would be an uproar about the shocking murder in the prison cell, but Nam-Ek did not worry. No one would suspect him.

CHAPTER 10.

When his battered silver flyer finally arrived back in Argo City, Zor-El was burned, exhausted, and greatly disturbed by what he had seen on the southern continent. finally arrived back in Argo City, Zor-El was burned, exhausted, and greatly disturbed by what he had seen on the southern continent.

While on approach to the lovely city, which sparkled with lights in the darkness, he considered calling for a medical team to meet him on the landing pad. His burns were excruciating, and he could feel hardened pebbles of lava inside the meat of his arm and his left side. But Zor-El did not want his people to see him staggering and weak, hauled off to a hospital. During the return flight across the ocean, he had used the medkit in the c.o.c.kpit to apply basic first aid.

Landing at night, he left his ash-dusted craft on an empty pad not far from his villa and staggered away before anyone could see him. With unsteady but determined steps, he headed toward his wife, his home. Just smelling the cool, salty air that blew in from the ocean rejuvenated him.

Chains of lights looped between the graceful spires of the five golden bridges that connected the peninsula to the mainland. From the terminus of the bridges, roads led out to the farmlands, the mountains, and the lake district. Cross-country highways led off to Borga City, Ilonia, Orvai, Corril, Kandor, and other villages and mountain communities.

But nothing could compare with Argo City. The Kandor sn.o.bs could have their capital, as far as he was concerned. Here the warm, tropical climate made for pleasant days and balmy nights. Ocean mists rolled in regularly to irrigate the lush plant life that graced the streets, buildings, and arboretums. He loved it here.

The city's circulatory system-a network of gla.s.sy-smooth irrigation ca.n.a.ls-carried as much traffic as did the paved streets and pedestrian paths. At regular intervals, small bridges arched over the flowing water; each bridge was owned, tended, and decorated by a different family. Hanging vines, flowers, and berries adorned every structure. The city itself-his city-gave Zor-El strength.

He walked through darkness to his villa with its colonnaded entrance and Alura's two brightly lit geodesic greenhouses. Only a few more steps. His wife was trained well enough in medicine; she could tend him.

He stood at the door, opened it-and somehow she was there to greet him. Alura had shoulder-length black hair even darker than his own, arched eyebrows, and a high forehead, which often showed her focused concentration. Zor-El had always considered her a counterpoint for his pa.s.sion and energy. Before she could say anything, he collapsed in her arms.

Alura responded in a calm and professional manner, immediately getting to work-exactly as he had known she would react.

"Volcanoes," he said. "Instability in the core."

"Quiet, now. Let me tend your injuries. Explanations later."

"But it's important..."

Holding him up, she helped him walk down the vine-draped corridors toward their living chambers. "Telling me won't do any good now. Whatever the emergency is, you'll have to stay alive to do something about it." She let him drop onto their foamweave bed as if he were a lightning-struck tree falling in the forest.

Sheets had never felt so cool, and no bed had ever been so comfortable. But the moment the stress and weariness began to drain from his body, the pain of his burns and wounds became paramount. Sweat burst out on his forehead. Zor-El clenched his eyes shut.

Alura leaned over him. Flowers and plants filled the walls, the corners, the alcoves, creating a potpourri of scents. She s.n.a.t.c.hed a smooth, dark-green seedpod from a potted bush and leaned over his face. "Breathe this. Inhale deeply." She crushed it in her fingertips.

A mist of thin, acrid plant juice sprayed into his sinuses, making him dizzy. "Wait, I must..." Then he couldn't remember the rest of his sentence, couldn't speak another word to explain what he had endured. He dropped into an emptiness as black as the lava fields of the southern continent.

Zor-El awoke fuzzy-headed and aching, but much improved. Flower arrangements had been pushed close to the bed-blossoms and aromatic leaves and herbs chosen by Alura for their specific healing properties. He saw coral-colored lilies the size of pillows and blue roses that smelled of pepperspice and sweet berries.

Alura used her botanical genius to breed special plants for medicinal uses. She had developed flowers that produced fragrances or pollens laden with stimulants, a.n.a.lgesics, antibiotics, immune-system boosters, antivirals, and other drugs. During his sleep, Zor-El had been surrounded by a bouquet of the strongest medicines his wife could arrange.

Now, as he struggled to sit up, he noticed that the bedside table was stacked with doc.u.ments, messages, and urgent requests-items of important Argo City business. With a groan, he turned in the other direction and saw Alura there, watching him. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"Now, it's time you told me what happened to you-and where these came from." She tapped a nightstand on which rested six small dark chunks of hardened lava. The pure black was stained rusty brown from his dried blood. While he had lain unconscious, she had extracted them from his wounds.

His ribs and side were bound with thin, dissolving leaves overlain with tight bandages; his injured arm had been slathered with healing ointments and completely wrapped in gauze. Fortunately-he thought after looking at the pile of doc.u.ments to review-it wasn't his writing hand.

He propped himself up on his elbows on the foamweave and told her about the eruptions, the ever-building lava pressure, the readings he had gotten from the diamondfish, and how he had lost all his data in the hrakka attack. "I have to go to Kandor immediately. I need to see Jor-El. He's got to know what I learned. No one else suspects-"

She pushed him back down. "You have to recover first. A minimum of five days."

"Impossible! Jor-El and I-"

"Very possible. In geologic time, five days is nothing, and you cannot save Krypton if you drop dead in your tracks because you won't take care of yourself." She indicated the stack of doc.u.ments and decrees. "These may be shorter-term emergencies, but you have responsibilities to Argo City as well. You made that choice."

Zor-El sighed. "Yes, it was my choice." Unlike his brother, who entirely eschewed politics (though he could have been a driving force on the Council), Zor-El devoted at least half of his effort and energy to guiding his city and leading his people. Alura was right: Even if Jor-El agreed with his a.s.sessment of the rough data, he couldn't do anything about the planet's unstable core without a long-term effort. There would be many more investigations, many other measurements.

But the people of Argo City needed him now. He reached over with his good hand and began sorting through the doc.u.ments. He could take care of most of them from his bedside and delegate the rest.

Alura brought him a drink of potent juice and left him to himself. "Sleep when your body tells you to, and I won't complain if you awaken to do work."

He tried to shift his focus to more mundane matters, but he couldn't stop thinking about what he and his brother could do together. He was two years younger than Jor-El, a genius in his own right, but his brother had always achieved more in science, made more spectacular discoveries, pushed the boundaries of Kryptonian knowledge. Another man might have been bitter about that, but not Zor-El. When he was barely a teen, he'd had an epiphany: Rather than resenting his pale-haired brother for what he was, Zor-El could excel in an area that his sibling wasn't really very adept at-politics and civic ser vice.

Although Jor-El grasped esoteric scientific concepts better than anyone, Zor-El more easily mastered people skills, pragmatic problem solving, organization, and practical engineering. While Jor-El developed bizarre new theories (most of which were censored by the Commission for Technology Acceptance, unfortunately), Zor-El administered public works in Argo City. He had new ca.n.a.ls installed throughout the peninsula, set up fog catchers, designed new boats for efficient fish harvesting, extended the main wharves. The city's population turned to him with their problems, and they also listened whenever he made requests.

Though he was impatient to make a presentation to the Kryptonian Council, he did as Alura instructed. He healed.

Finally, two days before his wife believed he was ready to travel, he got up and packed for his trip. He could have sent a direct message via the communication plates, but he preferred to do this in person. Since he had lost all his hard data, he wanted to face his brother, describe exactly what had happened, and get his advice. With Jor-El's aid, he could speak directly to the Council, and they would not be able to brush off his claims as hysteria.

Or maybe his brother would decide there was little to worry about, that a simple geological explanation could account for what he had seen. Zor-El could only hope that was the answer...but he couldn't be sure.

After Alura changed the bandages on his severely burned arm and side, he kissed her and set off for his brother's estate.

CHAPTER 11.

Angry, but not surprised that Commissioner Zod had confiscated the Phantom Zone, Jor-El insisted on doing something useful before he left Kandor and returned to his estate. He had plenty of other important projects to occupy his time and his mind. Commissioner Zod had confiscated the Phantom Zone, Jor-El insisted on doing something useful before he left Kandor and returned to his estate. He had plenty of other important projects to occupy his time and his mind.

With Rao staring like a gigantic bleary eye from the western sky, Jor-El used his access to ascend to the very top of the Council ziggurat. On the highest open-air platform, sharp-tipped condensers sprouted like steel thorns around a viewing radius, projecting a highly detailed hologram of the giant red sun. Even at night, collectors from the opposite hemisphere captured the solar image and projected it to Kandor exactly half a day out of phase. Therefore, according to the priests and politicians, the sun never actually set in Kandor.

Many Kryptonians saw the projected orb as an object of worship or a beacon to the heavens. Intrepid artists, diligent philosophers, and reverent priests smeared protective creams on their faces and sat on special benches around the safe perimeter. Wearing masks or goggles to shield their eyes, they gazed for hours into the bright face of Rao, searching for inspiration or enlightenment in the churning gases.

For Jor-El, though, the high-resolution projection was useful as a solar observatory. Oily ripples of heat made the air shudder around the hologram, which, like a caged beast, never seemed to stay still. The star churned and roiled, its plasma layers boiling. Magnetic field lines trapped dark sunspots; feathery streamers of the corona wafted outward.

In addition to the telescopes he had placed on his own rooftops, Jor-El had constructed a similar-if smaller-solar observatory on his estate. Here atop the main Kandor temple, though, the image clarity was greater. Among his many fascinations, the life cycle of the gigantic sun had occupied much of Jor-El's time over the past several years.

He adjusted the thick goggles over his face and walked around the blazing image, always studying. One of the artists sketched furiously, using his fingers to make swirls and patterns in colored levitating gels; Jor-El could see many technical inaccuracies in the young man's representation, but he didn't think precision precision was the artist's goal. A middle-aged woman wearing a philosopher's gown with a ragged collar sat cross-legged on the hard tiles in front of a bench; she nodded cordially at Jor-El, though he didn't recognize her. The group of red-robed priests did not take their eyes from the swollen sun. The power and fury of the red giant was enough to inspire religious awe, and not surprisingly, some people worshipped Rao as a deity. was the artist's goal. A middle-aged woman wearing a philosopher's gown with a ragged collar sat cross-legged on the hard tiles in front of a bench; she nodded cordially at Jor-El, though he didn't recognize her. The group of red-robed priests did not take their eyes from the swollen sun. The power and fury of the red giant was enough to inspire religious awe, and not surprisingly, some people worshipped Rao as a deity.

Jor-El was one of the few who dared to suggest that their G.o.d might be dying.

Eschewing the available seats, he stood on the fringe of the three-dimensional image, as close to the shimmering heat as he could stand. The solar storms, the magnetic anomalies, the dark sunspots like diseased patches-all were signs of an unstable sun. How could the priests, the Council, the artists, and the philosophers not recognize such obvious danger signs?