Christie Golden: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

“It means ‘thank you,’” Valerian said.

“Come with us,” the emperor said. “You should see what your compassion will accomplish.”

The two agents followed him as he approached a small crater. Valerian was reminded of a similar one on Mül, where the fishermen emptied their catch. The emperor handed the pearl to his wife. She held it in one hand, the Mül converter in the other. The little animal sniffed at the pearl, then opened its narrow snout and swallowed. Valerian watched as its reptilian top portion changed colors, like a sunset bleeding from one hue into the next. He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from it and was only dimly aware that the rest of the Pearls had come up to them, enclosing them inside a circle of joined hands.

The empress stroked the converter with affection, then held it out over the crater. It shivered and grew larger—and then began to eject perfect, lustrous pearls into the crater.

A strange, haunting, beautiful sound rose around Valerian, and he realized the Pearls were beginning to sing. His heart was racing and his breath was shallow with wonder.

A bright, clean, white light emanated from the crater. Then, like an erupting volcano spewing lightning instead of lava, fingers of white crackled through the air, racing along the curving sides of the zeppelin. A wind picked up out of quite literally nowhere, whipping Valerian and Laureline’s hair. Colors, the radiant hues of an opalescent shell, snaked over and along and around them, and then the grids along the side of the zeppelin were obscured. Sky burst into being over their heads—a sky Valerian recognized, filled with rounded moons and a slight freckling of stars in the darker blue.

Rocks jutted upward as if sketched into existence by the dancing strands of light. Valerian felt the hardness of the flooring give slightly beneath his feet as it was transformed into sand.

He and Laureline were watching the birth of a world.

The crackling of the creative force ceased, and the wind died down to a gentle breeze. Soft, gentle rain pattered down on Valerian’s upturned face and he closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to discover there was nothing left to be seen of the walls of the zeppelin.

Instead, Valerian beheld myriad rainbows, sparkling everywhere after the rain. With a faint rustling sound almost inaudible to his ears, lush vegetation started to grow from the rocks, sending forth questing roots and bursting leaves and flowers. All the pair of astonished spatio-temporal agents could see now were endless panoramas with clear blue sky stretching to the horizon.

Valerian and Laureline stood back to back, each beholding the wonder exploding into being around them. Impulsively Valerian extended his hand, reaching for Laureline’s.

She was already reaching for him. Their hands met and clasped, fingers entwining, the simple touch of human flesh in its own way as beautiful and magical as what was happening around them.

The empress still held the converter. It had returned to its normal size, its ears and tail drooping as if from exhaustion. Valerian couldn’t blame the little fellow. He’d just completed quite a task.

No, he wasn’t done yet. There was a final cough, and a few more pearls fell into the crater.

They heard it before they saw it: a rushing, deep, primal sound. And then, the sea, so beloved by the Pearls, could be glimpsed as a sliver of silver on the horizon, surging forward, its waves high. For an instant, Valerian was terrified the Pearls had inadvertently created a tsunami, but even as the thought formed, the sea was tamed, and by the time it reached the white stretch of sand beneath their feet, it lapped gently.

He smiled a little. These were Pearls. Their whole culture, their whole world, was based upon harmony and tranquility. All that had ever been harsh on Mül had come from outside. They would never birth a world with harm in it.

Laureline squeezed his hand, then turned toward him, grinning. “Didn’t you say you wanted to go to the beach?”

The empress walked toward them, reaching out her long, pale fingers to Valerian. Laureline released his hand, allowing the Aloi to take both of Valerian’s in hers.

She smiled serenely at him. “Our daughter made a good choice. She can rest in peace now.”

The smile Valerian gave her was shaky with emotion, and he felt heat rise in his cheeks. Laureline smiled too, catching him blushing. He took a deep breath and knew the empress was right. As he exhaled, he felt a tingling along his entire body and a gentle but excited trembling in the pit of his stomach. No fear, only peace. And then the blue wave rippled through, around, and from him, momentarily coloring his vision the same exquisite hue as the new world’s sky.

All that was Lïho-Minaa slipped away, like a leaf borne on the last of autumn’s wind. She was gone, and Valerian knew she was, indeed, at peace.

But there was an emptiness he had not known he possessed until a Pearl’s spirit had filled it, and he felt oddly bereft.

“We must leave now,” said the emperor. Valerian nodded, and the empress squeezed his hands one final time, then released them, stepping back to stand beside her husband. “May you and your people live in peace, wherever you may venture in space and time.”

Tsûuri’s voice came, quick and sharp, disrupting the calm atmosphere. “Father, there are hundreds of soldiers surrounding the ship. They’ve placed explosives on our walls!”

“We will be gone in a minute,” his father reassured him.

But Valerian and Laureline were not reassured at all. They knew exactly what Tsûuri’s words meant. “If the troops are in position,” Valerian said quickly, “you don’t have a minute. You have no means of communication with the outside world?”

“We do, but we have been jamming signals,” Tsûuri said. “If we stop that, we are defenseless.”

“If you don’t allow me to communicate with them, you will be defenseless forever!” Valerian said. He looked around desperately, and his gaze fell on the Destiny capsule lying on the soft sand. It was old, but it would do.

“Just one call,” he said.

The emperor searched his eyes, then nodded. To his son, he said, “They have proven worthy of our trust. Disarm the signal.”

The wall abruptly stopped moving.

Captain Kris glanced at the dozens of mines that had been affixed to the wall a few moments earlier. He had contacted General Okto-Bar and informed him that the explosives would be detonated on the general’s command.

Now he stared at the suddenly still wall, then his gaze flickered around at the hundreds of troops lying in wait behind him.

“Unit in position,” he reported to Okto-Bar. “But the wall has stopped moving. Something’s going on.”

Okto-Bar’s sigh was audible over the radio. “Our countdown is at six minutes and counting. Maintain your position. We’re trying to analyze what’s happening.”

All at once, the K-TRONs snapped to attention, their rifles clattering in their metallic hands as they took aim at a handful of the mysterious aliens who had abruptly materialized in front of them, calmly regarding the robots, the soldiers, and Kris himself.

“K-TRON warriors at attention. Contact with the enemy. It’s the same creatures who kidnapped the commander.”

“Are they showing signs of hostility?” Okto-Bar demanded.

“Not really,” Kris had to admit, adding, “Not so far.”

Help us. You have what we need .

The dying alien’s words had haunted Okto-Bar since he first heard them uttered. He couldn’t shake them, and now, here the beings were again.

“General?” said Neza, breaking into Okto-Bar’s thoughts. “I can’t believe this but—we’re picking up a radio signal.” He looked over at the general, his eyes wide. “From the 2005 Destiny module.”