The Red King - Michael A. Martin [132]
Akaar peered closer. “That is indeed a mermaid.”
“It was one of the original stories,” Frane said. “Burgess brought it with her to Oghen.” Lost, beloved, dead Oghen, he thought, briefly wondering whether the extinguished Neyel Coreworld would one day become the stuff of Neyel legend the way Auld Aerth had.
Akaar placed one of his large hands on the Neyel’s shoulder. “Come with me. There is something here that I must show you before you return to your people.”
As they walked, Frane stepped over and around the stone slabs that lay nestled in the ground, or rose from it. Each of them bore witness to someone from Auld Aerth, people who had been here once, but were no more.
After spending several minutes quietly looking at the stones and their inscrutable markings, Frane spoke. “I think we Neyel are like the seals.”
“How so?” Akaar asked.
“We are half human and half something else. We are what we were made to become. Our Oh-Neyel fathers and mothers made us into something else.”
“From what I know of your history, they had to alter the genetics of the people of the Vanguard colony in order to survive,” Akaar said.
“They never expected that we would return,” Frane said solemnly. He wrapped one of his hands around the bracelet, holding it in place on his arm as they walked slowly through the somber forest of inscribed stones.
Eventually, they reached a meter-high stone column, near a tree whose branches were laden with brown leaves, in bold defiance of the austere winter. Frane noticed other short columns as well, arrayed in concentric rings around the tree.
Akaar gestured toward some writing on the side of the nearest column. Frane could see the familiar chevron that the Titan crew wore on their chests, but he could not decipher any of the text.
“What does it say?”
Akaar crouched and pointed. “It says ‘Aidan Burgess, Ambassador and Peacemaker.’ ”
Frane was confused again. “Why is this here? Burgess was assassinated on the Coreworld.”
“This is an area where the Federation places markers commemorating those who have fallen in its service but are never recovered. Since Burgess’s body was never brought back, they eventually placed this marker here in her stead.”
Frane nodded solemnly. “She has a much bigger cenotaph on Oghen.” He realized his slip, and quickly added, “Had.”
Akaar gave a curious grin. “Well, she may have been more highly regarded by your people than by ours. She did not make a lot of friends toward the end of her career.”
The notion astonished Frane, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He touched the cool stone, then wriggled the story bracelet off of his wrist.
“I have brought the stories back to Auld Aerth,” he said to the column. “Where the oldest of them originated, with Burgess and her ancestors.”
Akaar sat beside the column, his long legs folded beneath him. “Tell me about the bracelet,” he said.
And Frane did. He spoke of Burgess’s childhood, of her adventures exploring the world of her birth, and later, of the multiplicity of worlds that had surrounded her. He told of her coming to Oghen, of the life she had lived there, of the incremental yet necessary changes she had helped bring to Neyel society, and of the legacy she had left behind. With each story, he held up a tiny charm, until the skies had darkened to deep purples and his voice had grown tired and hoarse.
He stood and placed the bracelet atop the column, then slowly backed away. Akaar stood as well, a confused look in his eyes.
“You are leaving it here?”
Frane nodded. “I have returned it, full of memories. It belongs with Burgess.”
Akaar shook his head, his iron-gray hair crowned in a nimbus of fog-shrouded city lights. “No, it belongs with someone who will tell its stories. It belongs with you, Frane. You should keep it, and pass it along to your children, and they to theirs.”
Frane saw the man hesitate, then reach out to grasp the bracelet. He brought it over to the Neyel and held it out to him.
It was probably the first time that someone other than a Neyel had touched the bracelet since the time of