Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (22 page)

He turned his back,
engrossed in whatever experiment he was conducting once more.  The Eternal
Emperor was gone.  Replaced by the kindly, absent-minded genius who tinkered
with inconsequential experiments in his genetics laboratory instead of dealing
with the problems facing mortals.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

February – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Crash site

Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili

Mikhail

As promised, Immanu
returned with food and items to make their stay more comfortable.  He brought
this time his mate, Ninsianna’s mother, he surmised, by the way she gave the
woman a hug.  The woman had the same wavy dark hair, golden complexion and
curvaceous figure as Ninsianna did, but her eyes were brown instead of her daughter's
unusual tawny beige ones.  Ninsianna had apparently inherited her good looks
from her mother, who was herself a striking woman, and not her father.

“Who … Needa,”
Ninsianna introduced her mother.  “Mama.” 

The woman had the same
proud bearing as Ninsianna; that look people get when they're accustomed to
being looked up to, and obeyed.  She was much more direct than her husband,
staring unflinchingly into Mikhail's eyes, her lips pursed as she scrutinized
his features with the same unreadable expression Mikhail usually wore.  She
watched intently his interactions with her daughter, no doubt searching to see
if he'd broken his promise.  He had not, but he understood this was a woman on
whose bad side one did not wish to be.

“
Tá mé an-sásta bualadh leat
[pleased to meet you].”  Mikhail reached out to shake
her hand with the same level of formality he would convey to a commanding
officer.  Immanu translated.  By the way the woman barked a command at her
husband, it was obvious which spouse wore the pants in this family or, in the
case of Ubaid attire, the kilt?

They had long ago
devoured the bird Ninsianna had caught for breakfast, but she'd cooked extra
tubers in anticipation of her parent's arrival.   He was glad they had that
small hospitality to offer the traveling couple while Needa spoke to her
daughter at length.  Standing and straightening her shawl-dress, Needa stepped
to stand before him, snapping a command at Immanu to no doubt translate.

“My wife would like to
examine your injuries,” Immanu said, “to see how well you're healing.  Needa is
the healer in our village.  Ninsianna is still in training.”

Mikhail examined the
woman’s face.  He'd already been poked and prodded by Ninsianna once today, but
to say no might offend her mother.  How could he explain that when he allowed
someone to touch his wings, it felt …
intimate? 
These people had been
nothing but good to him since he'd crash-landed and turned their world upside
down and his wing
was
broken.  It was obvious that Immanu valued his
wife's opinion on things. 

“I consent,” Mikhail
said.  “Although Ninsianna has done a fine job.”

“She has, indeed,”
Immanu said.  “I don't know how you survived.”

“I'm stubborn.” 

Actually, Mikhail had
been wondering the same thing himself.  He schooled his expression into one of
impassive observation as the splint was removed for the second time today. 
Needa’s touch was much less gentle than Ninsianna’s, nothing intimate about
it.  Where Ninsianna would caress the area she was about to work on to accustom
him to her touch, warmth flowing from her hands as she worked like the heat
cast off by a pleasant campfire, Needa got right down to business, poking and
prodding with single-minded efficiency.  He could picture Needa running the
triage unit on a hospital ship.  

No!  Wait!  He grasped
at the memory fragment as it flitted through his mind and exited as randomly as
it had come. 
Damantia
!

“Are your memories
returning, yet?” Immanu asked.

“Just fragments.  Most
don't make any sense.”

“What do you
remember?”

“My father, just a
fragment,” Mikhail said.  “Things about emperors and hospital ships.  Nothing
very helpful.”

“Yet you can still do
things that you did in the past?”

“It appears so,”
Mikhail frowned.  “I know what I know, but I can't remember how I know
it."  He pointed to his dog tags.  "I know from these that I'm a
colonel in the Alliance Air Force.  I know what that
means,
but I have
no memory of ever serving.  I know things a soldier would know, but I only
realize I know it when I need it.  Does that make any sense?”

“I have seen this
problem before after injuries such as yours,” Immanu said.  “Usually the person
regains his memory a short time later.  But I've never seen someone so lucid
who could remember nothing at all.”

“OUCH!” Mikhail turned
and glared at Needa, who had cracked a bone in his wing joint back into place
without warning him.  “
Féach
ar an sciathán
!
[Watch the wing!]” 

Needa shook her finger
at Ninsianna and let loose a string of language he couldn't understand.  It was
the scolding a parent would give a neglectful child.

“Needa said Ninsianna
missed a dislocated joint just above the break,” Immanu translated.  “It would
have left you unable to fly had it healed that way.  She just snapped it back
into place.” 

Ninsianna looked at
her feet, a look of mortification upon her face.

“Please convey my
thanks to Needa,” Mikhail reschooled his impassive expression.  “And remind
Ninsianna that I wouldn't be alive if not for her.”

Needa finished
examining his wounds, grunting with satisfaction at the stitch-job Ninsianna
had done on his chest, and re-splinted his wing.  Needa’s splint was tighter
and less comfortable than Ninsianna’s, but it gave more stability.  Stepping
back so he didn't fan sparks out of the fire, he extended both wings and flapped,
just enough to reassure himself he'd regained mobility.  The broken wing hurt,
but it no longer hung uselessly from his back.

“I told our village
chief about the legends of your people,” Immanu said.  “But Jamin is the
chief’s son.  I fear he bears a grudge against you.”

“What he feels is of
no concern to me,” Mikhail said.  “As soon as I can make repairs to my ship,
I'll contact my people and leave.”

“Only the iron will of
his father prevents Jamin from sneaking up here with a band of warriors,”
Immanu warned.  “He seeks revenge for what he feels is a blow to his manhood. 
He blames
you
for stealing Ninsianna away from him.”

“I'm not responsible
for whatever relationship this Jamin has, or doesn't
have, with your
daughter.”

“That's for certain!” 
Immanu nodded in Ninsianna’s direction as she argued heatedly with her mother
about the best way to care for his injuries.  “Ninsianna is her own woman. 
Just like her mother.”

“I don't think there
was anything to steal,” Mikhail said.  “I watched her punch him in the face.”

“I know my daughter,”
Immanu's voice shifted to a more serious tone.  “She has become fond of you. 
Although we have no recourse against one as powerful as you, I beg you not to
take advantage of her affections.  When you leave here, it will break her
heart.”

“I gave you my word,”
Mikhail regretted the promise even before the words left his mouth.  “And I
shall honor that promise.  Your daughter is off-limits.” 

He could tell by the
look on the shaman's face that the only reason he didn't drag his daughter out
of here kicking and screaming was because he knew she would refuse.  Had Immanu
not had songs of his people visiting here in the past and believed his people
were honorable, the shaman would have no doubt seized his daughter and dragged
her home.  It was up to
him
to reassure them she was in good hands, for
much as it goaded him to be reliant upon her, the truth was, he
liked
having
her around.

Ninsianna showed her
parents the interior of his wrecked ship.  Mikhail hid his amusement … and dismay
… as his three visitors rummaged through his cupboards like eager squirrels,
attempting to follow their conversation as they contemplated the use of each
unfamiliar item, with often amusing interpretations of what things were for. 
They spent quite some time discussing his broken food replicator, opening and
shutting the door and pushing all of the buttons, until at last they turned to
ask him a question.

“Mikhail,” Immanu
asked.  “Ninsianna is perplexed.  How can you travel across the stars with no
food in your sky canoe?”

“It's a replicator.” 
Mikhail pulled out a little biocube from the storage container underneath the
machine and showed it to him.  “This contains all of the sub-atomic building
blocks contained in most foods.  You simply program in whatever you want to
eat, for example, fish and potatoes, and the machine reassembles the molecules
to make it for you.”

Immanu looked at him
as though he were a twelve-headed
ollphéist
.

“It's magic, but the
magic which runs the machine is broken.”

“Oh!”  Immanu nodded
with understanding.  He explained it to Ninsianna and his wife. 

Mikhail made a mental
note to bring Ninsianna up to speed on technology as soon as he was able to
teach her his language.  She was an intelligent woman.  It was not
her
fault she'd been born on a pre-technological planet.  No doubt she would grasp
the concepts as soon as he educated her about the science underlying it.

He was relieved when
her parents finally left.  They were nice people, but her mother scrutinized
everything he did as though she were a cat waiting to pounce upon a mouse and
he was exhausted.  He couldn't remember how much sleep he'd needed before, but
he doubted it was the numerous naps he needed now. 

“
Gá dom roinnt chodladh
,”
Mikhail
grumbled.  “Need … sleep.”

He stumbled to his
sleeping quarters and plopped down into his bunk, not even bothering to cover
himself with a blanket before conking out like a dead man.  Ninsianna covered
him and kissed him on the cheek.

He dreamt of her. 
Steamy, sensual dreams where she soaped the length of his body with her supple
hands.  He groaned so loudly he woke himself up, the pleasant dream fading as
he realized she was asleep mere inches from where he dreamt.  So close, but so
far away!  Keeping his hands off of her would be one promise he regretted.

Oh well … he'd never
promised to not to
dream
of her.  Closing his eyes, he willed himself
back into the pleasant dream to finish in the dream realm what he was unable to
follow through with in real life.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.02 AE

Zulu Sector:  Command Carrier ‘
Light Emerging
’

Colonel Raphael Israfa