The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [55]
She stepped forward. “I can see that. Did the Council send you here?”
He flushed. “We didn’t exactly give them much choice. They’re probably still discussing it.”
Donodon’s feelers wafted around his face like thick tendrils of smoke as he peered at the unusual scenery and architecture around him. “A remarkable estate.” He noticed her last painted obelisk even before Jor-El did. “I see, yes. Kryptonian artwork is indeed superior to much that I have seen from other worlds.”
Jor-El finally spotted her portrait of him, and he stared, speechless. His surprised, even embarrassed expression was all the reward she could possibly have asked for.
CHAPTER 23
He had already made up his mind that the alien visitor would have to die. Zod had thought it all through.
Now that the Council had granted him their blessing, he gathered his rarely worn formal robes, donned the insignia of the Commission for Technology Acceptance, accepted a pompous writ of justification from old Jul-Us (as if Jor-El would require such a formality), and prepared his private vehicle for departure the following morning. He wanted to give Jor-El and Donodon enough time to begin their own technological mischief. He knew they would.
In the back of Zod’s mind, disturbing ideas leapfrogged each other. The arrival of the alien visitor, the possibility of opening naïve and ill-prepared Krypton to a flood of outside influence, had changed everything. He knew it could rapidly spiral out of control.
Zod had spent his whole life pulling strings, manipulating people who believed they were in power, building his position for the good of Krypton. By controlling the Commission, he had remained unobtrusive while becoming one of the most powerful men on Krypton. However, if Kryptonians opened trade and interaction among all the populated worlds in the twenty-eight known galaxies, Zod would become an insignificant speck of lint in a vast cosmic tapestry. And that wasn’t how he saw himself at all. If the blue-skinned alien were to inform outsiders of what he had found here, Krypton would never be the same.
No matter whether Donodon’s intentions were good or evil, the future course of Krypton and the salvation of a clearly crumbling civilization required that the alien be killed before he could leave or before he could cause too much damage here.
And Nam-Ek was the only one he could trust to do it. Looking at the big man as he flew the official vehicle swiftly across the grassy plains toward Jor-El’s estate, Zod smiled to remember how they had become bonded to each other.
After the terrible tragedy in Nam-Ek’s youth, the noble houses of Krypton had remained uneasy about the speechless boy, sure that because something had been irrevocably wrong with his murderous father, therefore the son must be flawed as well. But Zod had taken the mute under his wing, insisting that no child should be punished for the failures of his parents. He had sheltered Nam-Ek, given him a home, teachers, and an ever more important place in his life. Zod never again spoke to Nam-Ek about his irrational, murderous father. No one could understand why Bel-Ek had done what he had done.
Zod was not blind to the fact that inexplicable crimes were happening with increasing frequency. It did not surprise him. The very nature of the Kryptonian race was to soar, to aspire to things, but a rigidly pacifistic society had eliminated all safe outlets for minds and emotions to grow. A society could not survive in peace if the peace lasted for too long.
However, the disruption the blue-skinned alien was about to cause would tear the fabric of Krypton apart. Zod very clearly realized