And Becenti went out, once more, to the HFS De'aza's Glory in the Umber-Hued Dawn. He traveled, by ship and by train and by road, to a Traveling Point located far away from all that he was familiar with. He could not take the usual route from Beritale Landmass – the forecast for that Traveling Point was about to shift, and Londoa was about to separate itself from the Silver Eye for another year or so. He did not want to risk it, did not want to wind up on the Vital Realms, for the journey from there to his intended destination was more arduous.
No, better the longer path.
Besides, he did not want to see this journey's end, and thus went out of his way to delay his way to his destination.
Even with his usual medication, the dreams were coming to him, crawling out of the murk in the dead of night. The last few days, the last few weeks, had been harrowing. Awful. He had not felt such an adrenaline rush since the war. Had not felt that familiar charge of blood to the brain, the fear in his thundering heart, how every hair on his arms and legs stood on end like a feral cat's.
Yes, his dreams were awful indeed.
And this journey did nothing but remind him of those times. He went on this final journey alone. Slept in caves. In old motels. Onboard ships that crawled across the endless night that was the Silver Eye. No one to converse with. He was wise enough to keep to himself, so as to not be identified as a metahuman, and earn for himself a cruel, untimely lynching.
The HFS De'aza was moored on Telemurus V, the outermost planet in its system, a small, ragged moon. A jumping off point for the Outer Reach, specifically to the point where Stellar Queen's prison was located.
Kris Kristandi shook Becenti's hand as Becenti stepped off of his rented shuttle and into the warbird's hangar. The Lobidian looked tired. Deep rings ran under his eyes, the color of the scaled ridges on his forehead had lost some of their luster. But Becenti was tired too.
These were busy times. And they would get busier.
“Good to see you, Myron,” Kristandi said, “I trust it was no trouble getting here?”
“No,” Becenti said, “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I'll ever be,” Kristandi said, and he rolled his shoulders. Closed his eyes, shook himself from a stupor, “Come, I'll take you to the bridge.”
They started going down the halls, onto a lift to bring them to the bridge. Flanked, Becenti noted, by two guards.
The bridge itself was quiet as Kristandi gave the order. The De'aza lurched. Unmoored and launched. They entered warp not long after. Kristandi turned to Becenti, looked him up and down.
“Did something happen?” he asked.
Becenti smirked, but it was a forced one.
“I could ask the same as you,” the old metahuman said.
Kristandi smiled.
“Let me take you to get something to drink.”
“I don't drink anymore, Kris,” Becenti said.
“Water for the both of us, then,” Kristandi said, “Seltzer. I've been working up here all day, I could use a break. Come on, follow me.”
And the two of them left the bridge. Went back onto the lift, though they had scarce gotten off of it. Kristandi brought them to top decks, which were reserved for the more leisurely aspects of starship life. A warbird of the De'aza's size was a city unto itself, and demanded of it the same commodities.
Such as a bar. There were a few of them here, for officers to unwind after the day's work. Becenti and Kristandi went to one of the side tables, nodded at a few upstart privates who saluted the Captain, and ordered their water. Kristandi ordered a plate of fried Ezoan nuts for the table as well, taking a few of them before he started speaking again.
“...Pirates,” he said, “That's the official name that the government's given them. They've been attacking more and more settlements throughout the Post-Colonial. They've even staged action in the Inner Reach. I believe Pagan Chorus apprehended a few of them on Everlasting Truth itself.”
Becenti grimaced.
“They're Darwinists, Myron.”
And his blood ran cold.
“So... forthright with it?” Becenti said.
“It's because no one cares,” Kristandi said, “Everyone aboard here is aware. We've investigated a few of these attacks ourselves. But any reports I've made to command have fallen on deaf ears.”
“Unsurprising,” Becenti said, “Valm was... dismissive, when I spoke with him a few months ago.”
Kristandi nodded. Their server came over with the water, and he drained his as though wishing it were something harder. When he put his beaker down, his eyes were hard.
“It's starting again, Myron,” he said, “You weren't there for the early days, right?”
“I was just taking off in my superhero career,” Becenti said, “A street level kid pretending he was making a difference. The Manticore didn't clock in as anything to me at the time. Just another big villain, looming on the horizon.”
“You break it down so simply,” Kristandi said, giving a hoarse chuckle, “Well, with the Manticore, it is simple, I suppose.”
“It was easy enough for me, then,” Becenti said, “I knew who the villains were. I didn't learn until much later that there were monsters on my side, as well.”
He said it so frankly that, for a moment, he was afraid that Kristandi would object to that. But the Captain had been there at Ludaya. Had nearly given his career, his life, to get metahumans off of that doomed plane. Despite everything, Kris Kristandi knew the darkness of the Federation. Knew how easily the core worlds had been swayed by the Darwinist creed.
To this end, he simply nodded.
“During the early days, there was ignorance,” he said, “From politicians. From the military. Hell, even from the citizens that were falling under his thumb. It was the frog in the boiling pot idea. His hand squeezed, little by little, a bit harder every month, every year. Until the life had been choked out.”
“Until it was too late.”
“Until Darwinist ships were flying over Everlasting Truth,” Kristandi said, “Those early years were bad, Myron.”
“I've only heard stories,” Becenti said.
“And now, it's happening again,” Kristandi said, “The same ignorance. The same excuses. I think I know what's stalling our response, Myron.”
“And what is that?” Becenti asked.
“Shame,” Kristandi's voice was soft. Philosophical, but there was an undercurrent beneath it, a betrayal of his real feelings, “Having to admit that we failed to make any meaningful change.”
The server gave him another drink. He drained it, just as quickly.
“We're going to be too late again,” he said.
“Perhaps,” Becenti said, “Perhaps.”
He took a few sips of the seltzer water. Addictions from his younger years came biting at him again, the familiar cravings of strong drink to smear the mind. He remembered his techniques against his old enemies. He could not afford to sink back into those times. Not again.
“There is one thing we can do,” he said.
“And what is that?” Kristandi asked.
“Work outside the Federation. Draft our own response,” Becenti said, “We check the prisons.”
***
She was Stellar Queen. A metahuman. Becenti had seen her many times during the war, had fought her personally over Raichnor III. Purple-skinned, she held an entire solar system within her form. A sun, seven planets, an asteroid belt, three hundred moons. Her battle with Becenti had him dodging comets, solar flares, the errant atmosphere of a Venus-like world. Gravity was her servant, for she had the full weight of a star within her heart.
She had been in the Manticore's inner circle, and awaited her trial, which was scheduled a hundred years from now, in a prison specifically designed for her by a team of architects and metahuman specialists. The De'aza exited out of warp just on the bleeding edge of a black hole. Becenti, back on the bridge with Kristandi, looked at it through the main monitor. He had only seen a few black holes, during the war. Ancient superstitions, both Epochian and Federation, wrote of them as places of power. They were formed by collapsing stars. By intellects too vast to hold within the mind. By metahuman power, in some cases. Wherever there was mass, wherever there was weight, be it physical or historical, there were singularities.
And Stellar Queen's prison was a planet, once nomad, that had been ensnared in the black hole's pull. The vast gravitational forces held her in place, kept her powers in check. Becenti could scarcely imagine it. He wondered, due to time dilation, how long she had been down there. For him, it had been thirty years since the war's end.
For her?
Mere minutes. Maybe.
The ops officer flicked a few buttons on her console.
“Getting into sensors range now,” she said, “Sending out sub-warp beacons.”
She pressed a key. Becenti watched as a few glittering drones disconnected from the De'aza, blinked into the warp for a split second to get closer to the black hole.
“Beacons are within the photon sphere, sir,” the ops officer said, “Beginning scans.”
Kristandi nodded. He looked over at Becenti.
“We won't be able to actually go down there,” he said, “The planet's near enough to the event horizon that we risk getting trapped by the gravitational pull. We would need more specialized vessels for that.”
“Specialized vessels that aren't available to us,” Becenti said.
“Ignorance, Myron,” Kristandi said, his voice dark, “The Federation is suffuse with it.”
***
Another few hours passed as the beacons did their work scanning the planet. Becenti did not leave the bridge during this time, content to lean against the wall, his arms crossed, exchanging a word or two with Kristandi. The rest of the bridge crew did their work, checked over the sensors readouts, one of them stood up and got some coffee from the replicator.
All was, for a while, quiet. There was a collective inhale.
And then...
“Report is finished,” the ops officer said, “Captain.”
Kristandi looked over at her.
“Go ahead.”
There were a few moments of her reading over the full reading. When she spoke, her voice was...
Light.
Nervous.
“...No sign of life, sir.”
Becenti looked up. Kristandi grimaced.
“You're sure?”
“I made sure to position the beacons in such a way that we would have as little interference as possible.”
“Do the scan again,” Becenti said.
The ops officer looked over at him. Her four eyes went wide.
“...Sir?”
“Do as he says, Lieutenant,” Kristandi said, “Another scan. Full sensor sweep.”
“...Aye, sir.”
And she started the process again. Kristandi started pacing. Becenti closed his eyes, his jaw set, his face like stone. One of the crewmembers offered him a chair, a cup of coffee. He took the chair, waved the coffee away.
It was happening again.
The simple truth was in his mind.
He already knew, deep down, the results of the second sensor sweep. Two hours later, they came back.
“No sign of life,” the ops officer said, again.
“She couldn't have escaped on her own,” Becenti said.
“No way to do it,” Kristandi murmured, “She'd need a ship with the tech required to escape a black hole's pull. Her metahuman powers aren't enough.”
“...Could the Darwinists have gotten such a vessel?” Becenti asked.
“Maybe,” Kristandi said, “It's old technology, hasn't been replicated. But it's out there. It's...”
He thought for a second, bringing a hand to his forehead, wiping away sweat on his scales.
“It's mostly in the hands of the Department of Historical Technology,” he said.
Becenti's eyes narrowed.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Sounds like there's a mole.”
“A lot of them, most likely,” Kristandi said, “Quite a few Darwinists were offered scientific positions within the Federation-”
The entire ship lurched. Kristandi grabbed onto a rail. An alarm began to blare from above, red lights flashing and lighting up the bridge.
“Direct hit, starboard!” the tactical officer roared, “Damage reported on decks five through eight!”
“Lieutenant!” Kristandi said, “Who is it?”
“Three ships just decloaked, sir!” the ops officer said, “Powering up weapons! They're-”
Three more hits. The De'aza shuddered.
“Cloaking?” Kristandi muttered, “That hasn't been viable since the Age of-”
He shook himself, stood tall.
“Shields up. Dalsin, what's the bead on these things?”
The tactical officer grimaced.
“Two warbirds, sir. Looks like Valor-class. One is a carrier of some sort. Running it against our records now, doesn't match any design in the surface-level database.”
“Start firing on the closer of the two warbirds,” Kristandi said, “Evasive action.”
The De'aza began moving, curving her way so that she was vertical and facing the two warships. Becenti could not see them onscreen. Interstellar combat was, he had learned long ago, much like submarine warfare. Vessels made small by the vastness of the void, calculations made on the fly, firing off bolts of plasma and light. Confirmation of a hit was not based on sight. It was based on sensor readings. Approximations. The occasional flash in the far distance.
The De'aza fired off a full barrage. Plasma cannons launched blue and red globules the size of buildings. Glassmakers screamed out beams of light. Railguns lobbed kinetic projectiles, spikes of kallidium-enzoridium alloy. Two miles of death fired off at the target.
They got the reading back fifteen minutes later.
“Direct hit. Flash one,” Dalsin reported.
One down. Two to go.
“Reporting a barrage on our way,” Dalsin said, “Second warbird launched its assault.”
“Prepare anti-plasma array,” Kristandi said.
“Firing web,” Dalsin said.
Anti-plasma array. A series of tracking missiles to catch plasma bolts mid-flight. Recently rediscovered technology, from an archaeological dig in the Post-Colonial. The metal spears unlatched and fired at the distant barrage.
A few minutes passed.
A couple of bolts got through the web, three whizzing by the vertical warbird, two striking its rhino horn-like bow.
“This is nothing,” Kristandi said, “They wouldn't attack us like this. It's too easy. It's too-”
His eyes widened.
“Unless-”
“Sir,” the ops officer said, “Three more ships decloaking.”
“Where?”
“Two about five hundred miles from us. One...”
Her eyes widened.
“It's above! It's directly above-”
Another warbird. Smaller than the De'aza, a decrepit junkhawk of cobbled-together centuries. But it launched its assault on the larger ship, plasma thundering against her hull, piercing through the decks in some areas.
“Shields down!” Dalsin roared, “We have shields down!”
“Fire on it!” Kristandi screamed, “Fire!”
The De'aza responded to the smaller warbird's attack, firing another barrage. The other ship was old. Her hull was practically rotted by rust, by the looks of it, and whatever shield generator put into place was a shoddy thing. The smaller warbird died in an implosion of plasma, drifting off from the De'aza as the larger ship moved away.
But one survivor clung on. Rocketed herself towards the limping bird.
The ops officer was the first to notice.
“...Sir,” she said, “There's someone on the hull.”
“Someone?” Kristandi said, “Onscreen.”
And the main monitor flashed on. There was, indeed, a figure on the very tip of the De'aza's starboard tip. Purple-skinned, wearing a blood red dress, the top half of her face obscured by a golden crescent moon.
Stellar Queen.
“Anti-personnel, open fire!” Kristandi roared.
Turrets, smaller than the main cannons, began to power on. Turned to face Stellar Queen...
Stellar Queen opened her mouth. Placed a hand to her chest, another gestured to the air.
And she began to sing. A long, operatic note, the work of a Mezzo-Soprano, that pierced through space despite the lack of atmosphere. For a moment, that was all that could be heard, that voice, both beautiful and terrible, long and loud and all-too-overbearing-
And the solar flare erupted from her open mouth. Lashed like a whip against the ship, burned through metal and thrashed through flesh, rent deep holes into the De'aza and pulled screaming bodies out into space. Self-repair modules powered up, sent repair drones to the breaches in the ship-
Only for them to be destroyed, a moment later, as Stellar Queen continued her song. As more flares from the star in her heart burned away the decks of the warbird, burned through her crew.
People screamed. Died. Deep within the ship. On the bridge, Kristandi could do little but grimace.
“Sir!” Dalzin said, “The carrier, it's closing in.”
“Can we fire on it?” Kristandi asked. He was keeping his voice level, but Becenti could sense the panic fighting to rise to the surface.
“Main weapons are offline,” Dalzin said, “Carrier is closing. It'll be here in a few minutes.”
“Prepare for boarding action,” Kristandi said, “Seal off the lift. Notify all crew to arm themselves.”
“Stellar Queen's breaking off her song, sir,” Dalsin said, “She's moving off.”
Becenti watched her through the screen. Stellar Queen wore a serene smile on her face as she drifted out into open space. She was one to use her powers like this only on rare occasions, and had been known to be a fickle woman in her time in the inner circle.
Her role was done.
“Redundant repair modules are online, sir,” the ops officer said, “They're getting to work on the hull.”
“How long until warp?” Kristandi asked.
The ops officer, reading out the De'aza's condition, grimaced.
“I asked you a question, lieutenant.”
“...Three hours. Maybe. Damage on decks eight through fifteen. A quarter of the ship is de-pressurized.”
“There's the problem,” Becenti said, “We'd be torn to bits.”
Kristandi was quiet for a long while. His hands gripped the rails, his entire face slick with sweat. The De'aza kept spinning, turning so that its front bow faced the warbird still accompanying the carrier. The other three warbirds were moving to flank.
Two of them opened fire. Several minutes passed as plasma burned through the De'aza's stern.
“...Propulsion's down, sir,” the ops officer reported.
“Why would they board?” Kristandi said, “They've got us right where they want us. An open barrage, maybe two, and that's it. We'd be through.”
“They want the ship,” Becenti said.
Kristandi looked up at him.
“The ship?”
“It's a fully modernized warbird. A bit beat-up, perhaps, but any hull's good, at the level they're playing at.”
“They took out all of our weapons. The thrusters are fried.”
“But the sensor array is not. The shield generator's top of the line. The De'aza's bristling with rediscovered technology from golden ages past. It's tech they can use.”
Kristandi glared.
“The carrier's on top of us, sir,” Dalsin said, “Troops are coming down.”
They could see them, through the screen. Soldiers in black combat armor carrying heavy plasma rifles. A few other specialized agents in their number, strange hulking creatures made of gemstones. A couple of fire-formed beings, too – Omendrai, from the Fevered Sunlands.
Kristandi made his decision. He walked over to the command console, and took out a key that was around his neck. He clicked it in. Turned it. A few words blared on all of the screens of the ship:
Self-Destruction Sequence Activated.
“We'll have an hour to get to the hangar,” he said, “It'll be a running firefight throughout.”
He clicked on an announcer. When he spoke, his voice rang throughout the remains of the ship.
“Attention crew, this is your Captain speaking: Get to the escape pods. Get to the hangar. Get out of here.”
He clicked off. A security officer opened up a rack on one of the walls, began pulling off plasma rifles and tossing them to the bridge crew. He offered one to Becenti, who took it, his heart rate increasing as he checked its sights.
“We'll make for hangar bay fifteen,” Kristandi said, “That's the one with your shuttle.”
“Right,” Becenti said.
Kristandi opened the door. Aimed down the hall, checked his blindspots, then moved off.
***
The fighting began, at least for the bridge crew, on the floor below theirs.
A squad of Omendrai intercepted them, opening fire. Dalsin was the first of their number to go down. One moment he was rounding a corner, raising up his rifle to open fire, the next he was on the ground, a bolt having burned through his head. Becenti took his place, laying down suppressive fire on the Omendrai, one of whom took a plasma bolt to the chest. But plasma was their maker, their skin and their souls. A perfect being to resist Fedtek weaponry.
But not metahuman. The Darwinists, in bringing in Omendrai, had not realized that Myron Becenti was onboard. The old man thrust out a hand, curled it into a fist.
The ambient heat radiating off of the Omendrai took form, slammed the squad, as one, into the floor. Began to bear down on them like a hydraulic press. Crushed armor. Smothered flame. Flattened them utterly.
Kristandi grimaced at the sight of it, at the napalm-like blood that pooled in the hallway.
“Nasty business,” he said.
“...Indeed,” Becenti said.
They moved off again.
And he was so, so tired.
The Darwinists stalked them through the halls. Occasionally they would come across the dregs of a skirmish, bodies on the floor, injured left behind by their comrades. The ninth floor was slippery with blood and spent plasma. The air stank of ozone.
The eighth floor had housed a Krillodeeri, whose dismissed gasses hazed through the rooms, the flashes of plasma fire barely lighting through the pink smog. They lost the ops officer here, as a geode-encrusted construct ambushed them, slammed her into a wall. It must have hit her neck just right, and she went down.
Becenti spun on the construct, the heat from the plasma coalescing into his hand. He formed it into a mace, bringing it down on the construct once. Twice. The third time yielded a crack, and the squad opened fire on the creature as it nursed its new wound. The barrage opened it up, melted enough of its stony exterior to reveal its core. Becenti thrust a heat-formed spear into it, and the creature went still.
No time to check the ops officer's body. No time to mourn her. They moved off again.
Becenti had never learned her name.
The comms officer on the fifth floor.
The young private, whom Kristandi had taken under his wing and assigned as the navigator, was killed in a bloody scuffle on the fourth floor, an Omendrai and one of the geode constructs accompanied by a fireteam. Becenti brought up a hand to crush the Omendrai with its own body heat. The construct fired off shards of gemstone at the team. The private was struck right on, shielding the others, a full jewel the size of an arm rupturing his chest.
When it was over, Kristandi could do nothing but look down at the private. He shook his head.
“A good lad,” he said.
“Almost there,” Becenti muttered.
They were the only two left. The rest of the team had gone down.
“One more floor,” Kristandi said.
They went down. Stepped over bodies, increasingly Federation, while occasionally firing on Darwinist positions. No doubt the boarding party had already secured the bridge. They would find that, no matter what, the self-destruct sequence would not, could not, be turned off. It was a permanent decision.
It would, if Kristandi survived, lead to a court-martial.
The hangar bay was the sight of a massacre.
No doubt that a boarding party had landed here, had opened fire on any crewmember who had tried to leave the ship via the shuttles. Someone had set off explosives, for blackened splotches peppered the once-pristine, cobalt floor. Bodies littered the stairs leading down into the hangar bay, a couple of Darwinist soldiers were slumped over.
But not all of the Darwinists had left. A few were still in the hangar. One of the constructs. A few firemen, who spun and opened fire on Becenti and Kristandi. Becenti hit the deck, willing what little heat that was left in the room to himself, forming a barrier between him and the plasma fire that thundered around him. Kristandi took to the stairs, rushing down in a blur as he blind-fired at the squadron. Lady Luck was on his side, as one of his shots struck one of the soldiers, who crumpled to the ground.
The construct started to move towards him.
Becenti leaped from the rails, letting his collected heat loose as on the construct. It crashed against the being like a wave, physically pushing it back. Melted through its exterior. He rolled as he hit the deck. Kristandi took his cue, stooping to a knee and firing at the construct's core.
The being fell.
But the last two Darwinists fired on the stationary Kristandi. Becenti heard the Lobidian cry out. But he couldn't think of that now. All he could do was sweep up the heatwave and push it at the soldiers, who screamed as they burned and sizzled and hit the ground.
He fired on their bodies, a plasma bolt each, for assurance.
And he turned.
Kristandi was on the ground. He was crawling, one hand snaking out to grip the ground, pulling himself forward. The other was clutching a deep burn that had hollowed out his stomach. Becenti's heart fell.
“...Ah,” he said.
The Lobidian turned up to look at Becenti. The metahuman fought back tears at the fear in Kris's eyes. He was breathing through his mouth, gasping for breath. Becenti ran to his side, ready to pick him up, drag him to the shuttle-
But he was dead by the time he got to him. Becenti knelt down.
“No,” he whispered, softly, and he felt like a child once again, “No, no, no...”
Kristandi had been there for him. The two had fought side-by-side during the war. In cities. On frost-covered planets, across the breadth of the multiverse. He had been there at Ludaya, had joked about moving there with his family. Was the only one of Valm's cabinet to speak up in Becenti's favor, when Ludaya was destroyed. Was the only one who tried to track him down in Becenti's drinking years, picking him up from seedy bars, from back alleys, from jails across the multiverse.
This, despite the fact that he was Valm's right hand. A role for a servant, not a rebel.
Becenti heard movement from the hall.
There was...
There was no time to drag the body. Becenti was exhausted as is.
Besides, Kristandi would find it fitting. The Captain going down with his ship. The metahuman rose. Fired at the Darwinists as they entered the hangar. Rushed to his shuttle, clambered in and powered on. The Darwinists fired at the rented old vessel as it took off, plasma peppering its hull.
But he was out.
The shuttle careened out into the night. Through the viewscreens, Becenti could see the De'aza's broken form, a shattered angel as it floated in the night, the black hole looming behind her.
And then, a flash of orange and blue. The self-destruction sequence activated, taking the De’aza with all hands, both crew and invader. The carrier was carried upwards, floating like a spectre above the deluge of plasma and warp power. Were there sound, there would have been a catastrophic scream, the dying roars of a giant.
In the silence of space, the De’aza shattered without a whisper.
In the distance, getting closer, he could see the other warbirds.
If the ships took notice of him, they did nothing. No interception. No fighters in pursuit. They wanted survivors. For people to remember. An arrogant decision, of course. But the Federation had already made its lack of response clear. Becenti knew.
No amount of violence would elicit a meaningful response. Not until the Manticore himself was free of his prison. Not until he was striking Everlasting Truth directly.
Becenti's vision swam. All he could see, as his body took over and muscle memory kicked in, was Kristandi's face. He flipped the switch, entered the warp.
He did not care where it sent him. It could crash him into a planet, and he would be content.
***
He returned to Castle Belenus almost a month later. He weaved his way across the spider's web that was the multiverse. Kept to himself. Stuck to the sparsely populated planes, lived in nature. Hunted, on occasion, using heat stolen from campfire, or from his own body, to fashion darts, or javelins. He would break into old, rundown motels on the outskirts of towns to shower, to do his hair, to look as presentable as he could look, for a presentable metahuman could blend better into the crowd, would not be accosted by random passerby.
At night, bereft of his usual medication, the dreams pulled him down. He saw Kristandi's face. He saw Luminary’s. And Oliander's. And Rhunea's. And more. A thousand friends, most of them dead, visited him in his sleep. Made his world a nightmare's world. The music of his dreams was the cacophony of plasma fire, the screams of the dying for their mothers, the ringing in the ears from explosions.
He suffered through these, as he had suffered through all things before, in his usual stony way. Put one foot forward. Then another. Keep walking. He did not think of the past. He did not think of the future, and its worries. He did not even think of the present, the way he was shaking, the way a fever threatened to bring him down. All of Becenti became robotic as he went.
And, at last, when he arrived back on Londoa, he was much the same as he had been before he left. With the usual nightmares, but he revealed nothing. He gave Wakeling his report with a professional air. She gave him a concerned look. A worried one. But she had enough to worry about. He would talk with her later.
For now, he was tired. So he went to sleep.
But that did little to alleviate his exhaustion.
The Darwinists were moving once more.
It was all happening again.
Another generation, swept up by the sins of their fathers.
When Becenti cast his gaze on the future, he found it filled with fire.