The Last Human Ch. 54: I Will Never Forget You

I shall spare you the full recount of my tears. Already too many of these pages have been devoted to grief, and there is still much further to go. I have walked up and back down the road of sorrow many times, and there is only so much you would benefit from another tale of this well-worn path. However, apart from what I shall lay down in the Appendices, I shall remark upon one of the few insights I had in this period of my life.

It seems so self-evident that every tragedy be treated tenderly. That upon the death of every parent, child, or even dear friend, there should be someone rushing to our shoulder and whispering the silver lining—if I may use such a vulgar term. And failing this, the other desire is to be part of some grand narrative, some vital piece to play that we can at least console ourselves as having our time on the center stage and not wallowing our entire lives in misery amongst the shadows. The real cruelty has never been death, it’s that one dies thinking they are unimportant, in their perception of the grand scheme of things.

While I’ve been ruthlessly denied the common complaint that my life had no purpose, Ingrish had not. She spent most of her life wondering if she had not wasted it all, leaving The Golden Court. And I confess, in the years following, I discovered a surprising reason to hate the Shayk.

As it ought to have been, in any grand narrative, this should’ve stretched ages more. There should’ve been many, many audiences with the Shayk, a full hearing of any alien court. There should’ve been drama and plots and intrigue. The end of her life should have been as rich as the most complex of Rhodeshi games. Ingrish was not a woman to be handled as so lightly as the false god did. And she was certainly not to be treated as a mere pawn of the Whispers, only another name to be ripped away at the proper moment.

I have kept many secrets from you, Dear Reader. Some you will learn and some will stay with me. But the time has come to let another fall from my pen. The true reason behind these memoirs is not for some noble purpose of historical record, or even so the galaxy may be warned of the dangers in these pages. Of those, I have informed my children and trusted allies. No, I write these pages for a far more selfish reason—because I know that not one of these words will go unheard. My infamy has grown too great, and I know that not a letter will pass by unnoticed by even the most careless documentarian. You see, this shall be my final revenge, this time against the great indifference of this galaxy, for the countless people I loved that it so cruelly tossed aside.

…

Several shuttles flew from Sanctuary to the citadel of The Golden Court and the now vacant ships hovering above. Indeed, most of the alien flying vessels crashed without their pilots, thankfully, nearly all of them fell into the sea. A few did strike the last city of humanity, however, our numbers were so few that there were no casualties from the damage.

At the end of the first invasion of Sanctuary, the residents were all left unharmed. They felt a blinding light and the vague psychic emanations of the Shayk—and then nothing. The telepathic knives loosed around their necks, and we were once again alone on this side of the galaxy.

Our shuttles blew holes into the hangars of The Golden Court and docked, needing only common weapon’s fire to disable the automatic defenses. There was no one left in the whole universe who had the access keys or passwords to the marble doors of The Golden Court, even if we were telepaths. However, simple dematerializers and emergency gravity lifts allowed the rescuers to easily cut through the paneling, electrical mechanisms, and finally, stonework. With sensors, they located the only two living beings onboard—and the one corpse. In the next hour, a half dozen elderly men and one little girl entered the throne chamber of the Shayk.

I remember feeling arms hug around me, and I pushed back, fighting panicked. Only through blurry tears, I saw the face of Leah, and above her, the shocked and wearied face of Caliban. I flung myself away from my sister and buried my arms into Ingrish, refusing to be pulled away as I sobbed uncontrollably. I can only vaguely recall words being spoken. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw men standing over the unconscious Amon with medical scanners, but I was too overwhelmed with anguish over my mother to care. They took my father on a hover-litter while I remained. Some men came for me and the corpse of my mother as well, but I screamed at them to leave us alone.

The only one that could come close to me was Leah. She did nothing but hug me as I wailed for several hours more until the last of my energy left me.

I confess that I do not remember the time slipping away, and there was no way to track the time in the throne room of the Shayk. What I recall is that I shakily stood up on my own two feet again. Leah was resting crouched besides, herself in quiet tears.

The only one they left to watch us was Caliban, the old man having picked up the fallen zero-sword of the Shayk and sitting on the steps of the throne. He had laid it across his lap, the most dangerous weapon in the universe to ward off any unexpected, alien intruders. Nobody had any inkling of what had happened except for me. They didn’t know if any additional threats were coming, but I had been impossible to remove. He lifted his head in solemn silence as I took a trembling step towards him.

“Give it to me.” My voice had long since gone, only barely above a whisper.

A flicker of unease crossed Caliban’s expression. And truthfully, any man ought to have hesitated at giving such a distraught child the weapon.

“Give it to me,” I insisted, holding out my hand.

Caliban held the hilt back from the child whose face was crusted with dried blood and madness in his crimson eyes. I did not have the strength to explain to him, instead glancing towards the portum. Caliban followed my gaze, and while he had no inkling of the strange abyss at the foot of the throne, he saw I wasn’t going to do anything foolish with my life or my sister’s.

He reluctantly held out the zero-sword, and I picked up the blade, surprised how light it was. The weapon was so large against my child-like frame that it came up to my side, and I used it as a crutch as I hobbled over to the edge of the portum. My sister tried to support me, but I held my hand up to keep her away as I came to the side of the gateway, the edge of the fountain embroidered with ancient mechanisms and eldritch symbols.

Was I in a more rational state of mind and had more grip on my fingers, I would’ve plunged the zero-sword into the abyss itself, hoping to damn whatever was on the other side to where we sent the Aberrants. Instead, I weakly raised the blade and ignited it, the miniature black hole forming in its center where even light struggled against it. And with the last of my strength, I brought it down on the edge of the portum, slicing the boundary.

The spatial locks disintegrated, and as the zero-sword passed through the abyss, I heard a shrill whine. The darkness blinked out, leaving only a small depression where it once lay. Satisfied the Whispers could never speak from here again, I switched the zero-sword off, the weapon clattering at my feet, and I fell backwards, letting sleep finally take me.

…

The next time I awoke I was in one of Sanctuary’s medical bays. I noticed the dim lights and glancing to my side, I looked through a window into the starry night. Out there in the waves was the dark silhouette of the citadel of The Golden Court, the occasional light of drones traveling to and from the alien city.

I looked up at the white, sterile ceiling, completely numb. There was nothing to comfort me, not even the tempting thought that it had all been a bad dream. But as I was about to break down sobbing again, a familiar, porcelain face appeared above me. Kybit gave a warm expression, and I noticed her cheeks were strangely wet—an answer I soon discovered as she dabbed a wet cloth on her artificial eyes. Years earlier, I would’ve been annoyed at such a gesture. Why try to show such human emotion now? And the truth was, she wasn’t. Kybit didn’t feel one bit of the pain we did. For her, it was too much, a moment impossible for her to suffer as like it had just happened—not just for a second but for every second. This was her only way of coping without feeling the knife slide through her control-spine.

“Ingrish—” I tried to rise out of my bed, but Kybit gently placed her hand on my chest. “They haven’t touched her. She’s…” For once, the Nekomata could not find the words.

I fell against the pillow. “Put me back to sleep, please,” I muttered, just wanting some drug to take me back to the bliss of nothingness.

“You’re not alone, kid,” a familiar voice spoke up. “We’re here. We’re all here.”

I looked again, and I saw a red bird sitting in a corner with Leah sleeping against his lap. The sharp glow of the zakon dart lit up his yellow eyes as he puffed a breath of smoke. The unhealthy substance was immediately sucked away by a servo-drone which reprimanded him with red lights, but the pirate lord batted the device away with his talons.

“Sanctuary sent out the signal. I wasn’t even halfway to Voynich. Turned the Aphelion right around. I only wish I got here sooner.”

I glanced over to the side, and I saw Amon in the medical bed next to me. His greying, rescinding hair was held back with a net. There was a circular scar healing on the side of his skull. His goatee had been shaven off for the sake of a respirator mask, and the old man wheezed as his lungs sucked in breath. The warrior of ten thousand battles somehow looked just as bad as when he had put on the Carapace Suit.

Tears welled in my eyes.

“He’s had a massive brain hemorrhage, but he’s going to be fine,” Kybit quickly assured me. “Psychic attacks, even ones which can light up the whole galaxy, are not fatal to humans with medical care. Your neurons can rebuild from next to nothing. It’s why your species can don Carapace Armor with so little consequence. But… something like this is going to take some time. A few years, maybe up to near a decade.”

I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t find the words. No alien or human tongue had them.

Rykar shook my sister awake. She slowly withdrew from his lap, and sleepily rubbed her eyes. Upon seeing I was awake, she rushed over and hugged me again, so tight I could barely breathe. Eventually, gentle talons pried her away, and all three of the surviving crew of the Aphelion were staring down at me.

“I know it’s hard, kid.” Rykar flicked the zakon dart into the servo-drone, which eagerly swallowed it up. “And it’s okay to cry. We’re here. We’re all here.”

…

First, we held the funeral for Ingrish. And despite the fact that she was an alien, the whole of Sanctuary gathered on the granite coast. Drones whizzed about, warming the normally frigid air for the ceremony. They knew. I made sure they all knew, how Ingrish offered herself willingly for the sake of all of Sanctuary. The rest of humanity kept their respectful distance. The only ones who stood at the lapping shoreline were me, Leah, Rykar, and Kybit.

It was a closed casket funeral. There were automated med-bots that could’ve restored her exactly as she was, but I refused it. I was also offered a laz-torch to burn the coffin and her body. It was a human tradition after the Fifth Aberrant War, to spite the galaxy from harvesting our corpses. It was an honor unheard of for alien species, but I refused that too. Instead, I alone pushed the hovering sarcophagus out to the sea. The coffin was covered in a few of the tapestries she never had the chance to decorate her new quarters in Sanctuary. The rest I personally added to Cargo Bay 3, emptying it of everything except her remaining possessions.

Drifting over the waves, the coffin continued into the red sunset. The batteries were kept low so they would carry her out to the horizon before failing, then she would sink to the bottom of the ocean. Despite her age, Ingrish never once told me how she wanted to be buried. I looked up the records of Bakke culture on the Aphelion, and since their species had no world, their dead were ejected out into space. But Amon had sacrificed so much that she did have a home—here and forevermore. The rest of Sanctuary slowly shuffled off and departed, leaving the crew of the Aphelion to give their private eulogies.

In the next few days, Caliban and Ariel brought me for questioning. Cartaphilus was there too, sitting in the air with his hover-nodes. I told them everything of what had happened, everything except what the most ancient human in the galaxy coached me not to say. There were holes in my story, of course, the most pressing of which was how the Shayk had teleported The Golden Court to Sanctuary in the first place.

Of that, I remained silent and Cartaphilus conjectured that it was some ancient human technology The Golden Court stumbled upon. It wasn’t a convincing lie, but the only other person who could refute it was Amon, and he was in a coma. The topic was tabled for later as Caliban and others went to leave to reawaken every defense system Sanctuary had to offer.

I asked Ariel, but it was Cartaphilus who silently showed me the data-slate.

From the void between galaxies, Janus relayed the message. He had contacts across the entire Milky Way, and they all reported the same thing. On the thirteenth day of Sukr, 102,979 A.V., the galaxy recorded a telepathic mass catastrophe that was unheard of since the myths of the First Aberrant War. A billion billion worlds were suddenly struck with a singular vision. Planets on the edges of the spiral arm were rendered unconscious for up to eighteen minutes, leaving millions dead from accidents, medical emergencies, and the like. Those further in spoke of hallucinations with a hundred images, voices. The weaker minded snapped, overfilling every hospital and insane asylums across all known civilization. The wave continued to the outer edges of the galaxy, with scattered accounts of mass paranoia, dreams, and hypnotic psychosis.

The Shayk had only unleashed a small percent of his power upon Amon, directing the vast majority of it towards every alien species he could reach in The Milky Way. In the hindsight of a thousand years, I have no doubt the false god would’ve gladly killed us all—except it was not the proper moment for the Whispers. But as it was, nearly every alien in the galaxy now knew the precise location of Sanctuary and the survival of the last humans in the cosmos. If the Shayk had not taken his shortcut and discovered the secret relays, it would’ve immediately been the end of Sanctuary.

But since he hadn’t, practically every alien in the known universe was now left with two questions: how had we travelled so far… and how were they going to follow us?

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