The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [97]
The four of them stood together in shared grief while Charys collapsed in a chair, finally letting them see the toll taken by so many years of tending her unresponsive husband. “That’s what I thought, but I was deluding myself. Now that he’s gone, all the pain is back, as fresh and sharp as it ever was.” She drew in a long, shuddering breath. “Now it’s as if he died twice, and I’ve had to endure the same loss both times.”
“He was lucid right at the end. He said something.” Jor-El looked at his brother. “Remember.”
Zor-El’s dark eyes flashed, bright with a sheen of withheld tears. “‘Remember’? What does that mean?”
“I think he wanted us to do what he could not.” Gazing down at the old man, Jor-El realized how little he knew his own father.
Finding a small reservoir of strength, Charys announced, “We will hold the funeral at the estate, his original home. That’s where he belongs.”
After Yar-El’s body was prepared, they returned to the manor house. Memories pressed down upon Jor-El, clear recollections of when his father had been brilliant, how Yar-El had spoken of his hopes for his two sons, how he had trained them both to investigate scientific possibilities and make intuitive leaps that few Kryptonians even attempted.
When Rao was high in the sky, the two brothers carried their father’s bier across the estate grounds. Charys led the way in a slow procession with Lara and Alura on either side of their husbands. Jor-El could not help thinking that Yar-El deserved greater fanfare than this, a huge crowd, a funeral parade that wound through the streets of Kandor.
The little group gathered at the small private solar observatory Jor-El had built on a stepped platform behind the estate’s main building, where it was unshadowed by trees or lichen towers. Although this was much smaller than the similar facility that had projected a huge orb of Rao atop the Council temple, Jor-El had spent much time here deciphering the star’s turbulent flaws. The observatory’s mirrors and focusing lenses had been swung aside to leave the projection zone empty. The brothers placed Yar-El’s body at the center of the focal space.
Zor-El delivered a brief eulogy, but his gruff voice cracked, and his words ended quickly. Jor-El stood beside him, summoning his own thoughts, wrestling down the waves of grief. “Krypton should revere Yar-El for the great things he accomplished and forget his strange fall from grace.” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “Even though we find that our heroes have feet of clay, we must never forget that they were heroes in the first place.”
He and Zor-El each took one of the alignment rods and swung the curved focusing mirrors into place. As the observatory gathered the light of Rao, they slipped the magnifying lenses into position, removed the filter covers, and stepped back.
A fuzzy image of the red sun formed in the focal zone where Yar-El’s body rested; then the image suddenly sharpened into an intense representation of the blazing star. The corona formed, followed by the churning layers of dark sunspots and thundering plasma. The heat condensed in a blinding flash. Yar-El’s body vanished into white smoke, entirely disintegrated, becoming one with Rao.
Jor-El’s face was dark and troubled. “Krypton needs us, Zor-El. It’s what Father would want. We can’t let him down. We can’t let Krypton down. You and I know what’s happening in our planet’s core. The quakes, the tidal waves—it’ll only get worse. Now that the Council is gone, you and I have to do something to save the world. Do we have proof to show Commissioner Zod?”
Zor-El’s expression hardened. “I recently received word from my survey team. One member was killed in a fresh round of eruptions, but the others are returning with a complete set of data from the network of sensors they deployed.” He pressed his lips together. “Soon we will know for certain.”
CHAPTER 41
By the time Zod returned from Xan City, satisfied