The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [82]
The alien hung his pale green head. “A powerful empire, nothing more than dust. If the boy had learned some key information through sharing with me, then I, by extension, caused the vulnerability that brought about the downfall of my planet.” He looked at Zod, his expression now full of anguish. “How can I endure that knowledge?”
The Commissioner squashed any sympathy he might have felt for the pathetic android. “That doesn’t explain why you stole Kandor—or all these other cities. Just because your world was destroyed, what gives you the right to ransack other planets?”
“Ransack? I mean only to protect them, preserve them. When I take these precious cities back to Colu, I can restore them, put them into their proper places. Kandor was one of my most marvelous discoveries, and so I will keep it safe against anything bad that might happen. It is a good and noble deed.”
Zod was aghast. “But stealing Kandor! Do you have any concept of what that will do to our society?” He had barely begun to think through such questions himself…and maybe the result wasn’t all bad.
The green-skinned alien was unmoved. “As I learned on my own planet, nothing lasts forever, and these gems of civilization deserve to be saved. What if some terrible disaster were to destroy Krypton?”
Zod fought back a disbelieving snort at the suggestion that anything so calamitous would ever happen to his world.
The Brain Interactive Construct gazed at him. “If you wish, Zod, I can allow you to join your comrades. I can miniaturize and insert you into the dome, where you will be under my protection forever. It is your choice.”
“I have no wish to live inside a specimen case.”
Zod suppressed a smile as he began to realize what had unexpectedly fallen into his lap. New thoughts fought through his daze of disbelief. The Kryptonian Council was gone, the old government stripped away…but he remained. Only Zod. And Krypton’s desperate population would demand a strong and confident leader, now more than ever. At last this was the opportunity to work the changes he had always known must be made. He had waited all his life for a chance like this.
Viewed from a certain perspective, this was a miracle, not a tragedy.
“No, I will stay behind to help my people recover from this great loss.” Magnanimously, the Commissioner added, “You can have Kandor—and I will take the rest of Krypton.”
When Zod emerged from the alien ship, he motioned for Nam-Ek to accompany him. The muscular mute was ecstatic to see his mentor unharmed.
Zod was flushed, his mind spinning. The Council, Kandor, Jor-El’s inquisition—everything—simply brushed off the playing board! “It’s going to be all right, Nam-Ek. In fact, everything will be just fine.”
They turned to watch as the ominous ship lifted away from the smoking crater that had been Kandor. It flew off into the night, leaving Zod as the only real witness, the one person who knew the true story of what had happened.
And he could use that to his advantage.
CHAPTER 34
All of Krypton reeled from the sudden loss of the capital city. And, exactly as Commissioner Zod expected, the frightened people looked to him for guidance.
Immediately taking charge, he declared a planetary state of emergency, dispatched messages to all major population centers, and established his command post just outside the deep, steaming crater. Thousands of displaced refugees remained in the area, those whose homes were located outside the perimeter of destruction, as well as hundreds of Kandor citizens who had simply been away on that fateful night and had returned to find the city gone.
Unlike the tsunami at Argo City, the clean, abrupt loss of Kandor created none of the usual aftereffects of a natural disaster: few injured, no rescue efforts, no massive recovery operations. The capital city was simply gone. All that remained was a huge,