Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

"They have lost the way," Tesla says disparagingly.

"Morals have evolved on Evermore," Talaylan objects. The apprentice Pilot, like Tesla and his dreamers, is also a native of Evermore. Tesla regards Talaylan as an incompetent and he suspects Malda does, too; he suspects the mummified-looking senior Pilot would do anything to be rid of the young interloper, so that he could stay with his precious ship and not be forced into retirement, but Tesla does not know how to use this knowledge to his advantage.

"Society thrives on Evermore," Talaylan laments haughtily. "I left it only to serve the greater good."

Society thrived on Evermore, because norms of morality had devolved to suit the planet. It was not the kind of society Olin Tesla wanted any part of.

Tesla realizes the choice is made. This is where his Fallen people shall make their New Ascension; this is where they will strive to attain the Body Pure.

"Wake my wife first," he requests.

Malda inclines his head, seeming almost sympathetic for a heartbeat; his loose neck skin sways. "A wise choice. I respect your dream, and it might have been lost. The seeding begins."

Tesla's gut tightens. In a few months the new colony will be established. Kismet will leave the system. There is no turning back.

The island fortress grew on the horizon, proud, challenging the surrounding seascape with a brown band of walls and guard towers. Trimmed and orderly plant life peeked over its battlements in a defiant affront to the profusion of leaf and tree which overflowed from every Feral island. Trees within the

fortress grew in rows. Sunlight glinted from prefab rooftops, also planted in rows.

Karr was reminded of a prison island on Solara.

"Bear right," said Jenette.

Karr steered the heavy lifter where she pointed, closing the final stretch to the large island, slowing, setting down a few dozen yards from the island and then coasting through a waterway cleared of tube-and-bladder kelp to an immense gate in the defensive walls. He cut the engines as the hull nudged against a broad corrugated ramp. The fortifications loomed above, five stories high. Constructed from layered composite fibers, they flexed with the faint motion of the large island. Heavy mount pulse-cannons bristled from evenly spaced towers.

There was no sign of activity, no people on the battlements, no vessels on the water, no sound of activity behind the walls.

"Is it always this quiet?" Karr asked.

Jenette looked around warily. "No." Why were the gates closed, she wondered. They were customarily open during daylight hours. Where were the fishing craft, which cleared Enclave waters of sharkworms and provided food for the domestic population?

Two soldiers appeared from a small door beside the large gates. They jogged down and moored the lifter to the ramp. To Karr's eye they appeared over-young, recruits fresh out of boot camp, but their movements were practiced, precise, and formal. They snapped to attention as Jenette stepped off the lifter.

"Consul Tesla," they greeted, careful not to eyeball her? and especially careful not to eyeball Karr as he stepped onto the ramp behind her.

"Where's my father?" Jenette asked suspiciously.

Olin Tesla was nowhere to be seen. He had been acting strangely ever since first meeting Karr. That night of their meeting, Tesla had listened to Karr's synopsis of his arrival, never interrupting. All the time the uncharacteristic awe and relief was plain on his face. When Karr was unable to stay awake any longer, Tesla had returned to his skimmer without saying a word to Jenette. She spent the night sleepless.

The few yards of water between the two vehicles might as well have been an ocean. The next day, Tesla led off before she could speak to him. He and Karr played a slowly paced game of tag across the ocean, the lifter capable of traveling much faster, but forced to stop more and more frequently as the engines began to overheat. When they stopped for the night near FI-716, Jenette again tried to speak to her father, but he was back to his domineering old self, extolling the virtues of the New Ascension Enclave, painting a heroic picture of their struggle to bring civilization to a barbarous world, and conversing with Jenette just enough so as not to arouse suspicion in Karr. Tesla didn't actually need words to show his displeasure with her, accusing eyes or averted shoulders did that quite effectively. Tesla slept in the skimmer again and took off the next morning, racing ahead at full speed to attend to "pressing Enclave matters," and instructing Jenette to meet him at the main gate. Tesla kept Arrou on the skimmer the whole time, an unspoken hostage to Jenette's compliance.

"You are requested to proceed through the gates," one of the Guards said, in tight-lipped response to Jenette's query. Jenette started toward the small door the Guards had appeared from. "By your leave, Consul," the same Guard interrupted, gesturing to the main gate itself. A mighty boom resounded behind the walls and the huge doors rumbled open, just wide enough for two people to pass through.

Karr shot a questioning glance at Jenette. She shrugged and shook her head and led on up the ramp.

Karr followed, not knowing what to expect as they passed through the imposing vertical opening. Inside was a short alley ringed with high walls and with another set of double doors on its opposite side. The Prime Consul waited for them on the back of a low-slung crawler, which had official seals on the doors and flags on the engine cowl and polished metal railings on the rear deck. An honor squad of six Guards stood double file ahead of it. Two more stood at either side of carpeted boarding steps at its rear.

Jenette cringed at the sight.

She and Karr climbed on. Tesla motioned for them to stand in the place of honor behind the cab.

Karr felt like a bug in a web.

"Ostentatious displays are not absolutely necessary," he muttered, beginning to fear where events were heading.

"Nonsense," said Tesla. "You are a Pilot and must be treated with ceremony befitting your rank."

Karr looked up. Battlements ringed the high walls, well positioned to rain down death on uninvited guests. Again, he was reminded of a prison.

Tesla stood at Karr's right, Jenette on the left. The rear Guards folded the steps, locked a railing into place and fell into line with those out front.

Tesla rapped on the cab. "Drive on."

Another boom resounded. The inner gates grumbled open. The crawler lurched across the threshold, honor guard preceding in perfect lock step.

Karr did not know what to expect. He had seen many strange colonies on many strange planets, but none of those other worlds quite prepared him for New Ascension's human colony and its combination of the mundane and surreal. A cobblestoned avenue, the color of twenty-four-carat gold, stretched inland from the gates; it was lined with rows of shooting-star palms and scattered human structures, weathered prefab units rubbing shoulders with constructs of local material, whose component materials looked plant-like and were frayed at the edges. At the far end, Karr caught the unmistakable metal sheen of a seed-colony container, high and wide compared to the buildings clustered densely around it. His overall impression of the colony was of ivory and khaki cubes set in a profusion of sensuous greens. Golden cobblestone arteries snaked off the main avenue into tiled agricultural plots, which Karr could have seen on a dozen other worlds, but these fields teemed with working domestics, as did the rest of the colony.

On Karr's left, they tended orchards of mysterious, squid-like bushes. In the distance on his right, they carried heavy head-sized polyps to and from a grouping of military buildings. Everywhere else they worked at a profusion of tasks both pedestrian and peculiar. And, last but not least on the scale of surreal, was the view of the whole landscape rolling with the big island's lurid, gentle motion upon the ocean. The Enclave was a sight to see.