Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

But he must kill his ship.

He loved it, therefore he must set it free.

Thirty long, long minutes later, the resorbing qi needles that in-Bob had mistakenly used to nail Karr to Long Reach's cortex dissolved. Karr got up, moving numbly. "I guess we're not going to be all right after all," he said, with the sad caress of a hand where his bipedal imprint was slowly disappearing from Long Reach's brain. When it was gone, he picked up his improvised Gattler and exited the room.

The decision was upon him. Kthulah felt it in his bones.

The blank-one Jenette had requested an audience. Kthulah had obliged. The decision impelled him to

confront his fate face-to-face and on four legs. Sixty-four hunters, black with silver stripes running down necks, backs, and limbs, rowed a pyramid-shaped barge. Kthulah's four-sided throne sat at the apex; the Judges sat at the throne's four sacred corners as the barge slid through silvery waves to meet the half-burned skrag where the blank-one Jenette, the traitor Tlalok, and the rest of the Prophecy violators awaited. The renegade Pact and blank-ones looked strikingly similar to Kthulah as he neared. Eyes stared, defeated but defiant, from both pink blank faces and iridescent leathery muzzles. Both four-legged and two-legged creatures, sworn enemies only a pawful of days before, now stood shoulder to shoulder, ready to face judgment together, without reserve or cowardice.

Only a common enemy was needed to unite such bitter foes, Kthulah flashed softly to the Judges. If only that enemy had found Pact and blank-ones many years sooner...

If only

That enemy

Had not turned out to be

Kthulah, the Judges observed.

Kthulah flinched, but knew the truth of it. He was the enemy who had united these foes. He, the Keeper of the Roots of Wisdom, Radiance of the Pack of Gnosis. He, who believed in winning wars by not fighting battles. What irony!

The bitter smell of charred ghutzu stung Kthulah's mouth and eyes as the barge drew up against the skrag. The traitor Tlalok and the blank-one Jenette stood foremost on its blackened shore. Tlalok bowed his head, not in submission, but in the respect one hunter gives another, and his Khafra followed suit. As did Jenette, who motioned for her blank-ones and No-pact to do the same.

So many noble passions, Kthulah reflected. So many misguided failures. Was Kthulah himself one of those?

The Burning Heart of Night

Is No

More, the Judges flashed solemnly.

The time

Of Kthulah's

Decision

Is now.

Karr stood as close to the center of his ship as any human could stand without actually being incinerated. Here, striated rust and feeder cores the color of ivory branched out from the curving swell of the fugueship's fusion furnace, carrying current that fed both broken sections of its superconductor core.

It was a simple thing to do, really, Karr tried to tell himself. Just aim and fire.

This was probably his all fault, too. Probably, Karr reasoned, the superconductor core naturally failed during the spawning process. Probably that was why Feral prophecy demanded four radiances and not five. But Pilot Lindal Karr had always paid particular attention to the superconductor and its conduit,

since without it Long Reach could not generate a ramfield or feed, and therefore not fulfill its destiny, wandering between stars. Even now Karr could see the heads of many non-resorbing qi needles, which he had implanted over the course of hundreds of years. They were still doing their job by stopping any deterioration of the superconductor dead in its tracks.

It was a thing no Pilot should ever have to do.

It would kill his ship. He understood that as strongly as any human could understand a concept. The only question was how soon? Would the spawning proceed? Would the baby fugueships be saved? He did not know.

Trust.

Karr raised the Gattler and fired. A cutting beam shot out, wide and just long enough to sever the superconductor connections. Two measured sweeps and it was over. Dissolved. Rendered ineffective.

Somewhere in the distance, Karr heard a resounding crack, as of a large amount of electricity discharging. Long Reach did not even shudder, so he paid it no attention.

LIII

Now comes the time

When all bonds

Are broken

And all Pacts made anew.

? the Judges of Gnosis

Lightning sparked in the daytime sky. An immense flash hammered up from the tranquil surface of the ocean, high into the atmosphere. Thunder boomed over those on the water, deafening Pact, blank-one, and No-Pact alike, followed a split second later by the roar of hydrogen and oxygen igniting. Four pillars of Radiance reappeared.

The Prophecy

Has been

Set

To Balance! the Judges exclaimed.

Kthulah shuddered. The Burning Heart of Night had not perished! The fourth gift of Radiance, the gift of Gamut, might yet come to pass. Kthulah has made his decision, he flashed for all to see. The Burning Heart has been healed. Blank-ones and No-pact, and traitor Pact are absolved of actions against Prophecy.

A groan of relief sounded from Tlalok's Khafra. The assembled blank-ones showed signs of relief also; when Jenette's bonded No-pact finished translating for them.

However, Kthulah continued, Blank-ones and No-pact, and traitor Pact, must leave, never to return to the bounds of the Radiance of Gnosis, never?

Wait! Stop! Jenette pleaded with her device full of starlight.

The sixty-four hunters on Kthulah's barge tensed, ready to attack and squelch such a sacrilegious interruption of their leader, but the Judges held up their staves, rattling loops of black and white beads, which they never stopped tallying.

Let

The

Blank-one

Speak! they declared.

The Balance

Demands

To know

Her mind!

The hunters backed down. Gathering courage, the blank-one Jenette continued.

This is not the time for separations, she flashed. This is the time for reparations. This is the time for new beginnings. Kthulah is wise. Does Kthulah not see that blank-ones and those sworn to revenge against blank-ones have found accord?

Kthulah sees, Kthulah acknowledged.

Then why can there not be accord between all Khafra and blank-ones? Why can there not be enjoinings instead of separations?

Because Kthulah has seen too many Hustings become betrayings, Kthulah flashed in sad colors. Too many Khafra have passed at blank-one hands without fulfilling Pact.

Many blank-ones, who did not wish to betray Pact, have passed, too, Jenette countered. And yet blank-ones are willing to risk a new trust.

Pact have too much to lose if such a new trust fails.

And blank-ones do not? All blank-ones that came to heal the Burning Heart came at the risk of their lives. There will be no more Sacrament. We are decided. There will be only honorable peace, or honorable death. Is that not enough of a guarantee?

A committed rumble sounded from the assembled blank-ones as Jenette's No-pact translated her words. Kthulah was touched. He wanted to make a peace, but he could not alone bring himself to take such a gamble. Too much suffering had resulted from such a decision twenty years ago.

What does the Balance say? Kthulah asked the Judges.

The ascetic Khafra huddled to decipher the meaning hidden in their white and black loops of beads.

They argued amongst themselves, becoming more and more agitated. When the four finally arose, the single blue dots in the center of their foreheads? which signified their commitment to live perfectly Balanced, on the knife-edge between life and Radiance, or death and Shadow? these dots had been swelled by shock to clearly discernible disks of glowing glowbuds.