Battle for Earth (9 page)

Johnny leaned back, looked up at Saturn hanging in the sky above and felt his whole body tingle with relief. It was as if something of their mother remained here, a secret hub of peace and power hidden from the galaxy. It was a place of renewal and was healing his sister, just as the Emperor must have known it would. Together they watched Bram shuffle to the point on the walkway that triggered the liquid chronons to surge into the sky, a beautiful fountain of gold, hanging like a shimmering curtain of light before slowly falling and engulfing the Emperor. Forty thousand years in the past, Johnny and Clara had met Bram when, a youthful Senator, he visited Atlantis. It was astonishing to think anyone could have lived so long. Now it was only the Fountain of Time that enabled him to keep going.

Bram stood for several minutes, arms aloft, as the liquid fell on him. Slowly the four stars of the Melanian constellation, Portia, began to glow across his chest, and the aura spread until a light was shining from his face and the wavy sparkling hair. Finally the Emperor lowered his arms and began the walk back. The curtain of chronons, hanging in the sky, fell to the ground like the final firework of a spectacular display. Halfway down the invisible path, the Monks crowded around Bram like moths drawn to a new brightly lit flame. He brushed them aside and kept going toward Johnny and Clara. Only a few of the creases across his face had vanished completely and, while walking more normally, he wasn't about to win any medals. Bram, though, clearly thought otherwise.

“Clara—I see you're looking more your normal self.” The blackness in her eyes was definitely fading. “While you're resting, I hope you don't mind if I challenge your brother to a race?”

“What?” said Johnny.

“First to the far side of the lake wins,” said Bram, a clear twinkle in his eyes. “On three.”

“Are you sure?” asked Johnny. “I know you've just been in the fountain, but I don't want to tire you out.”

“One …” said Bram, adding, “Scared you might lose?”

Johnny had briefly considered letting the old Emperor beat him, but not if Bram was going to say things like that.

“Two …” The Emperor set himself in the pose of a runner about to spring into action. Johnny did the same. “Three.”

Johnny sprinted. He was out of the crystal grotto in a shot and soon reached the boundary of the lake. Looking over his shoulder he saw Bram smiling, still frozen in his runner's stance, but now surrounded by swirling Owlessan Monks. Johnny began to slow.

“You'll need to run much faster than that,” shouted the
Emperor. There looked to be a broad smile etched across the lined face. With Monks holding him on either side, Bram was lifted into the air.

Johnny picked up the pace—he was halfway there now. Another glance over his shoulder told him that Bram, although now hovering at the center of a long line of Monks, was still above the original shore.

“Faster,” cried the Emperor.

Johnny wondered if this was some sort of test of his fitness. He sped up even more. Scarlet cloaks with near-invisible inhabitants began unfolding in front, either side of Johnny's intended destination. As he neared the finish, Bram himself appeared out of thin air, unfolding in the very center of the line of Monks.

Johnny slowed and came to a halt in front of the Emperor. “That's … cheating,” he said, gasping for air.

“Guilty as charged,” Bram replied, rubbing his arms as if to warm himself up. “You needed to see for yourself what these creatures can do.” The Monks were rising upward, circling in the air above them. Taking a firm stride forward, the Emperor continued, “I suggest we walk back.” Johnny nodded and fell in beside him. “I also wanted to remind you that the fastest runner doesn't always win the race, just as the most powerful fleet needn't win a space battle. Trust me—I would have liked to race you properly—but my time is drawing near. Even the fountain struggles to sustain me now.”

Johnny made to contradict him, but Bram raised his hand and continued speaking. “I will not be sad when I go beyond—death is not the end. I hope in the time I have left to still be of some use to the galaxy. I had thought that in the halls of Lysentia, the last paradise of the first ones, I might learn the secrets of the Nameless One—how to defeat him—but I have failed in my quest to locate it. I see now it was
arrogant to believe I would ever find it, let alone be granted entry.”

As they neared the edge of the lake the Emperor bent and scooped some of the liquid chronons into his hands. They carried on to rejoin Clara, sitting beside her in the crystal grotto. “As I was saying,” the Emperor went on, “I needed a new strategy—another way to win this war. With General Nymac dead, the galaxy has been cleansed of the Andromedan invaders. The Nameless One who sent them is weakened and hurting. I know that he intends to come here—to bring the fight again to our door. He must already have left his throne in our sister galaxy, but I will not let him reach here. Now, while he licks his wounds as he travels, is the time to strike.” Bram threw one handful of chronons into the air. The particles of liquid time began to rotate, forming a beautiful swirling spiral in the clear sky above—the galaxy in miniature. As he gazed upward, smiling at the glittering whirlpool, strands of silvery light from his own hair linked with the gold of the galaxy he ruled. “Inside the
Calida Lucia
you have seen my armada, a great fleet that will sail for Andromeda and meet the Nameless One head on. When the fight is joined, I will not allow our Milky Way to be the battlefield again.”

“You really think Nymac's dead?” asked Clara. Her eyes had almost returned to normal.

“Without a doubt,” Bram replied, still gazing lovingly upward. “His once great forces have been routed.”

“You know he was our brother?” she said.

The Emperor turned to Johnny, who nodded awkwardly. He'd always assumed Bram knew everything. Now, when the ruler of the galaxy spoke, it was as if choosing his words carefully.

“Clara, Johnny … I'm so sorry. I knew Nicky had been taken … more than a decade ago. I deeply regret it. There was
always the possibility that the Nameless One had turned him. With the success that Nymac had, it seems suddenly obvious.”

“It wasn't his fault—it was that mask,” said Johnny. “The Nameless One welded it to his face—could see through it—made him do all those things. He tried to break free.”

Bram stood, wrapped his arms around himself and gazed at the spiral above, though the link between him and it was no longer visible. “The fault was not your brother's—he was a child. The fault was mine.” His face looked so creased it was as if the soaking in the Fountain of Time had never happened. “Truly, I share your loss and travel to Andromeda to avenge you.”

“But won't that take forever?” Johnny asked, also standing. “The Andromeda Galaxy's two and a half million light years away.”

The Emperor smiled again, if weakly, and threw his second handful of chronons into the sky. Now there were two spirals swirling above them, the Milky Way joined by her larger sister, the Andromeda Galaxy. “You ask, yet we have seen Andromedan troops in the Milky Way. How did they come here? Never forget that all of us here are the lawmakers,” said the Emperor. “You, Clara, can bend the very fabric of space. Johnny—it is nothing for you to command the movement of charge across great distance. The speed of light, too, can be molded, stretched or, perhaps, even broken. It is we who have allowed it to remain fixed for so long, but now I choose otherwise.” Bram placed his palm in the gap between the two whirlpools of tiny stars. “In this great void dividing the galaxies, where there is nothing to take hold of to fold space, I shall decree a far faster speed. The journey will still be long, but it will be measured in months—not millions of years.”

“He's still alive,” said Clara, as though she'd stopped listening after Bram's pronouncement about Nicky. “He has to be.”

“Come here, Clara,” said the Emperor, holding both hands out to pick her off the ground and pull her into his arms, where he held her close. It looked to Johnny as though they might both be crying. “While I can stretch the speed of light, I cannot remake the past. I do not know for certain what fate befell your brother. Use the thought chamber.” He nodded over her head to the transparent dome on the plinth behind. “It is the truest place to look, although we do not always enjoy what it shows us.”

“But if you go,” said Johnny, keen to change the subject away from Nicky, “what happens on Melania? What about the Empire?”

At that, Bram's eyes sparkled again and his face once more shone with a little youth. “At least there I am confident. After the death of the last Regent, Chancellor Gronack fled—the troops loyal to it were not as loyal as it believed. The capital, my homeworld, is at peace. I confess I thought long and hard over someone to entrust it to. Happily, I drew a total blank.”

“And that's a good thing, why?” asked Johnny.

“If you can't find anyone qualified,” said Bram, “what better way than to make somebody? Someone a hundred percent perfect for the job.”

“Make someone?” said Clara. “You mean, like an artificial life form?”

“You have your mother's ability to read me, Clara,” said the Emperor. “I mean
exactly
like an artificial life form. One properly able to step into my shoes and become a good Regent, although I have decided a change of title is in order. She is the Emissary, my mouthpiece to the people. And, Johnny—you two have already met.”

“Ophia,” he replied. It couldn't really be anyone else.

Bram laughed. “Ophia indeed. The Empire is in safe hands. She will handle my affairs wisely, until another is ready to step
forward to take up the reins.” Bram's gaze fell briefly on Johnny who blushed, hoping the Emperor hadn't really meant him. There was no job in the galaxy he'd like less.

Bram sat, Clara following his lead, wiping her now completely clear eyes. The galaxies over their heads faded and the chronons fell to the ground, clumping together and flowing back into the golden lake. In their place, filling the air overhead and swooping in and out like great red bats, were the Owlessan Monks. Before, Johnny had only been able to see skeletons under their cloaks, but now there were muscly sinews and some flaps of skin, as though another layer had been added. With Clara looking like her normal self, they weren't as reluctant to approach. One even reached a bony finger in her direction, but she shrank back and tried to brush it away.

“I saw
Cheybora
,” she said to Bram. “Is she going with you?”

“And the Tolimi,” said the Emperor explaining the orderliness of Pluto Base. “And many others who have suffered loss.”

Johnny wondered if Clara was up to something—there was very little to tie her to Earth and a whole universe out there to explore.

As if thinking the same, Bram added, “Your place is here—within the galaxy that spawned you. Where I am going, you cannot follow. Should you wish to leave the solar system, visit Melania. The Imperial Palace is at your disposal and I have no doubt Alf would like to meet Ophia. You will not thank me for saying it, but you are too young for this fight.”

Johnny didn't think that was fair. Now was probably the time to tell Bram about seeing the Krun sphere on Earth. He tried to interrupt, but the Emperor carried on speaking. “It is time. Yours may be the finest company in the galaxy, but already I have lingered too long.”

“Can you leave us here?” Clara asked. “Just for a while.”

“Indeed it is best you remain,” said Bram. “But I must say
goodbye. In case I do not return, it has been an honor and a privilege to know you both.”

Johnny felt numb at the suddenness of it all. He couldn't believe the one person in the galaxy he knew he could rely on was leaving now. He watched Bram hug his sister. Then it was his turn.

“You'll beat him,” said Johnny. “I know you will.” Trying to act as grown-up as possible, he offered the Emperor his hand.

Bram took it and shook. “Johnny Mackintosh, should this prove our last meeting, I have left something for you with Ophia.”

“Don't say that. Of course …”

Bram held up a hand and the words in Johnny's throat died. “Purely a precaution, but one I deem prudent when facing the Nameless One. Do not misunderstand me—I am wedded to the Milky Way and do not intend death to come outside its borders. When I go on, I would like to take the first steps from Melania, the world I love. Tell me, do you recall what I once gave into your safekeeping, on the moon where Sol was born?”

“A piece of your soul?” said Johnny, remembering what he had been asked to carry in his locket.

“Do not speak of it,” said the Emperor. “Ophia will keep safe what needs to be kept safe. Should you see it, I ask that you will look kindly on me. An old man, I have tried to make amends.”

Inside Johnny's head he could hear a strange wailing—he knew it was the monks crying as the Emperor left them too. He'd lost his mom and dad, Captain Valdour was gone too and now even Bram was leaving. As the Emperor of the Galaxy turned and walked away, a cloud of scarlet whirling above his head, Johnny sank to the ground feeling powerless and alone.