Entropy Risen (The Syker Key Book 3) (7 page)

John sent her the affirmative, then looked at Pan, who had never bothered to go meet them.
Time to meet the Sirian’s, Pan.

In a blink they both appeared in the low-gravity garden on the small moon. Plants thrived, trees grew to tremendous heights...beyond what the dome had been designed for, and had to frequently be cut back. It was beautiful, and John realized he hadn’t spent enough time in the minor paradise.

“Wow, you’ve been busy,” Pan said to him, admiring the three acres of lush forest. He spied a nectarine nearby. “May I, Mr. President?”

John tried to glare at his father, though the grin seeped through. “Only if you promise to stop calling me that.”

Pan pulled the ripe nectarine from the tree and took a bite. The delight on his face betrayed the flavor.

“Good?”

“Fan bloody tastic. How did you do it?”

“The guy who grows those nectarines came from Chile, he’s been growing them for forty years on Earth.”

John could see his father admire the growth all around him, but knew he couldn’t take credit for any of it, besides possibly transporting some of the materials.

The airlock opened. They turned to see a rather beaming Jack smile his way into the room. A few steps behind him was Aleth, bending down steeply to avoid banging her head on the low door.

Damn, they should have made the doors and hallways taller. He wasn’t thinking. That’s a change they were going to have to make. He understood why Aleth wanted to meet in the garden, it’s eighty foot ceiling was more than comfortable for a fifteen foot tall human.

“Ah,” Jack started, “we have a guest.”

“Welcome to Ceres, Aleth,” John said to the tall human-looking alien. He motioned to a nearby set of stone chairs, and Aleth took the hint. Conversation was going to be interesting enough without having three humans craning their necks to talk to her.

Once seated John introduced his father.

“Pleased to finally meet you,” Pan said, extending his hand. Aleth took it and gently, but firmly, shook it.

Thank you. It seems that our little adventure here has one unintended consequence. The land you had been working to make available to us in five years time, we were wondering if it would be possible to use it just a little bit earlier.

John smiled. “I think there’s a good chance we could arrange that.”

“At the very least,” Pan offered, “I own a few acres on the Moon that we could transform in short order.”

John looked at his father. He’d never known him to own property, and this was the first he’d heard of his purchase on Luna.

Most gracious.
Alath smiled.
I should inform you that the Draconians are leaving Sol, at least for a while. And now that you are a space faring species, descended from ourselves notwithstanding, I am pleased to extend an offer to join the Society.

“The Society?” John asked.

It is a fraternity of sorts, a consortium of like minded races in the galaxy. Our membership is over one hundred thousand species.

“Holy crap!” Jack exclaimed.

Alath smiled at him.
There are millions of intelligent species in the galaxy Jack Weston, our Society is hardly comprehensive
.

“Why us?”

We feel that humanity has reached a threshold, of which space travel is simply a facet. You are a destructive species, but the causes of your tendencies are in retreat, and we would like to encourage the better nature, as you might put it.

John thought about it, and liked the idea. “I’m guessing you’re going to make the pitch to the United Nations?”

Alath nodded.

“What do we need, an ambassador or something?”

“More importantly,” Pan added, “they’re going to want to know what they have to pay to belong.”

There is no cost save one simple rule. No aggression. You may certainly defend yourselves, but you may not initiate violence or provoke others to violence.

“That might be a problem,” Jack said doubtfully.

Fear not, we have confidence. Earth is not the same as it was only a few short years ago. There is one more requirement. We would require an ambassador, one capable of teleportation.
Alath looked John in the eye.

“Me?”

She nodded.

“Uh, what would I have to do? Go live somewhere?”

Alath smiled.
No, but you would have to make regular visits for meetings, then report on those meetings with the United Nations.

John thought about it. More politics. He didn’t like the sound of it, frankly, and he was tired of humanity in general.

Fear not, John Syker. I know that you feel you have lost your way. I can promise you that with this position you will find it.

She had an uncanny knack for seeing into a person’s soul, John mused. A large sigh left his lungs, and his shoulders slumped in the low gravity.

“Okay. I’ll give it a shot.”

Gareth Konig chewed on his cigar with some concern.

From his penthouse suite in Geneva, he could see out across the city, it’s lights creating an ethereal glow in the morning fog. The sun had yet to rise.

His empire was disappearing. Certainly he was still flush, the billions safely hidden away for his future, but these days even that was threatened. It was getting harder and harder to hide things from the infernal Walker family.

And now the Draconians were gone. He could feel it. Gareth knew that Marcus was going to try to eliminate John Syker, but he apparently had failed.

So much for his protection.

Suddenly the room changed, and Gareth knew that John Syker was there with him. “Hello Mr. Syker.”

“I guess we meet at last, Mr. Konig,” John said as he walked around the couch. He appeared to admire the view of the city. “I would have come sooner, but with all those Draconians around, it didn’t seem prudent.”

Gareth took a drink of his scotch. “Fuck you, Mr. Syker.”

John turned and smiled at him. “You already know they’ve left.”

That didn’t even dignify a response.

“I’ve come to tell you that we’re going to leave you alone, but there are a couple of conditions.”

“I’m listening.”

“There are forty three of you, those who served the Draconians, and made a comfortable life for yourselves, but unfortunately made life uncomfortable for a whole lot of other people in the process. If we came after you, the general public would probably find a way to tear you apart.”

“You forget I know the same tricks you do.”

“Ah true, but you don’t have Draconians to protect you anymore. Certainly a lot of lives would be lost however, so here’s my offer: Leave.”

Gareth laughed. “That’s some offer!”

John grinned at him again, that insufferable, annoying grin of the righteous. “Wait until you hear it all. We don’t care if you’re on the planet, but you’re going to remove yourself from society. You will have no more influence, no more power over the human race. All of you. Or you can leave the planet and start your own place. Your call. Hell, with your money you could build your own continent in the South Pacific and turn it into a paradise.”

Gareth grumbled. From a King to a pauper.

“I’ll even help you.”

He cocked an eye at the former cop. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“I mean that if you want to build your own private island somewhere, I’ll help in whatever way I can.”

“You mean with moral support.”

John laughed. “No, I don’t suspect moral support would mean much to you. I’ll use whatever powers I possess to help you build an island to your liking.”

Gareth’s cigar nearly fell out of his mouth. The President of Ceres was standing in front of him, offering to help him build an island retreat. There had to be a catch.

“Listen, there’s no ulterior motive here. I just want you out of society, and I’m willing to do anything possible to make that happen. It’s that simple.”

***

As if the presence of the planet Hermes in the sky wasn’t enough proof of a bigger universe, two Sirian motherships arrived in Earth orbit a few days later.

They were clearly visible from the surface, and many a telescope was trained on the sky to catch a glimpse of them as they orbited. Within a month the empty island they had been promised (safely on the opposite side of the planet as the island John was helping build for the so-called power elite) was ready, albeit without what humanity considered appropriate infrastructure. That didn’t bother the Sirians. They were going to build it themselves anyways.

Every two hours the motherships orbited the planet, a pair of needle-like lights in the sky.

The Sirians had appointed Catherine as their ambassador, which dumbfounded her completely. She hadn’t even met them before, but somehow they felt that she was the perfect person to represent their interests at the United Nations.

She wasn’t sure she was up to it. Catherine had spent her entire life in anonymity, and suddenly being thrust into the limelight was...strange. Certainly they’d experienced a certain amount of fame when John “outed” all of them all those years ago, but even then she’d managed to stay in the shadows.

This was different. Now she had to put makeup on every day. Well, Arthur told her she didn’t, that she was drop-dead beautiful without it, but she wasn’t comfortable being in front of few billion people without some sort of mask on. The problem was she’d never been terribly good at it, but thankfully Carol Lee, wife of that reporter Tam, had offered to help.

They had moved to New York, to an apartment provided for by the United Nations. A little less modest than she had hoped.

It would help with stopping the teleportation, which she and Arthur had still been taking advantage of, but since most of Arthur’s work was in New York as well, they agreed to try to stop, if for nothing more than Jessica’s sake. She disliked the idea that she was stealing energy from her deceased daughter, no matter what the explanation that she “liked” helping.

And she missed Jessica dearly. She hadn’t been just her daughter. For a thousand years she was her best friend, her confidant. Sometimes she would find herself sobbing uncontrollably, and immediately Arthur was there to comfort her. His grief was no less than her own, she was sure.

The work helped. Aleth and Arthur had both told her that she was a “natural,” that she had become a strong leader at the United Nations, that many people were looking up to her now. Catherine considered it poppycock. She was just doing what she was doing.

So it went for the next few years, though in truth they passed so quickly she wasn’t sure how time had accelerated so much. A thousand years passed very slowly, she wasn’t sure if she liked the new pace.

Then the Sirian World Ship arrived. At first it was just a bright dot in the night sky, but over the course of a few hours, it grew. By the time it reached Earth and put itself into orbit around the planet, a stretched out hand could not block it. It was unbelievably massive.

And beautiful. It was difficult to see the detail from the ground, but photographs and video of the ship from around the world hit the Internet almost immediately. Almost organic in nature, covered in graceful curves, elegant.

The Sirians had fully, truly, arrived.