After
hours of travel, the sun still did not look all that much smaller. Through the heavily filtered window, the disk
of the sun gleamed like a golden coin.
When Damiel reached out to the window, he imagined he could hold it
between his fingertips, like a godlike being inspecting the latest of his
prized collection. Is that what the
archailects could do? he mused. The
galaxy was scattered with beings the size of planets, of stars, of entire
clusters. “AI Gods”, they were sometimes
called. Yet Damiel knew that even these
mighty beings were not worthy of the name.
They were as bound by the laws of space and time as he was, as were the
billions of microbes that crawled on his skin.
They did not create the laws of space and time, to say nothing of the
universe itself. Whatever mighty,
galaxy-shaking decisions they made, even they must ultimately bow to the
will of the Creator.
Is
that what brings me here?
he thought, slumped against the viewing room wall as he stared out through the
dark, non-reflective window. As free as
his choices were, he had no doubt that his presence here was the will of the
One True God. Yet even the Almighty had
to act through hierarchies of lesser agents, even if some of those agents were
incalculably grander than his own mortal species. Out there, someone - or something - was
pulling the strings of this seemingly amiable crew; and Damiel had a fair idea
who she was. After tonight’s meal,
Damiel had noticed a hint of sorrow in Marishison’s voice as he had talked
about his early years in the Jobitarian Church.
Damiel could not discern whether this sorrow was for a past that may
never return, or a future that may never budge from the path ahead. To Damiel, the distinction no longer
mattered. He was now certain whom he was
dealing with. Even Marishison was just
another pawn following orders, as reluctant as he may have been.
When
he heard the soft, low padding to his right, he turned to face Skalosak
approaching him down the hall. The
Siberoo towered above him, twice as high as a man, yet her gaze was soft and
relaxed - as reassuring as a rhino-sized marsupial carnivore could possibly be.
“Greetings,
Damiel,” she said. “I am glad you are
enjoying the view.”
Skalosak
gently knelt before Damiel, her front paw-hands resting on the floor before her
just like an ordinary cat. Her back
arched as she lowered her head; yet still she towered mountainously over
Damiel. The hall virtually disappeared
behind her.
“Are
you having trouble sleeping?” she enquired, viewing the filtered sun through
the window.
“Yes,”
replied Damiel. “I close my eyes, and
everything rushes at me like a … like a shockwave of debris. All these images, ideas. It’s all in a frenzy.”
Skalosak
nodded. “If you stay with us and eat our
food, then you will find that some of your thought processes will speed up over
the next few weeks you are conscious, usually in fits and starts. You will get used to it.”
Damiel’s
jaw dropped.
“I
assure you,” said Skalosak, instantly reading his concern,” we will never drug
you into submission. Your personality,
your will, must remain your own. You
must make your choice freely and without coercion; otherwise your choice will
be meaningless. Do you understand?”
“I
think so,” said Damiel.
“Good,”
said Skalosak. “Except … it is not just the drugs or the novelties that are
keeping you up, is it? There’s something
else in there, in your mind. Something
that has been there for a long time.
Something that your present circumstance has brought back to the
surface.”
The
Siberoo’s bright blue gaze seemed to penetrate Damiel’s skull, prying for
secrets.
“Tell
me, Damiel … is your past giving you nightmares?”
Not
ready to tell a one-and-a-half ton mammal to back off, Damiel simply nodded.
“That
is all I wanted to know,” said Skalosak.
“We all have nightmares here, on occasions. I have nightmares. So do Marishison, Vayla and Tarkonon. And Kryslek.”
Her eyes downcast, she gave a huge, hot sigh that ruffled Damiel’s
shirt. “He has the worst nightmares of
all. Sometimes he is afraid to sleep
alone.”
And
I can guess why,
thought Damiel.
“A
few hours ago,” he said, “when I was walking down the corridor on this floor, I
thought I heard roaring. Was it…?”
Skalosak
nodded. “If the doors were shut, and you
heard it anyway, then it was me.”
Damiel
closed his eyes and sighed. Everything
he had heard confirmed his suspicions.
Knowing the job they had to do, he was surprised that this crew was
still half sane.
“It
is not too late to turn back,” said Skalosak.
“We haven’t even reached the first wormhole yet. Even when we do, it still won’t-“
“I’m
not turning back,” said Damiel, beginning to tremble.
Skalosak
blinked, eyeing Damiel with a newfound curiousity. “You will have plenty of time to-“
“I
know who you are,” Damiel blurted out, his trembling slowly rising. “I know why I’m here.”
“Very
well then,” Skalosak said calmly. “Who
are we?”
“You
are Collectors.” A brief explosion of
shattered nerves seemed to go off deep inside Damiel as he said the last word.
“And
what are Collectors? What do they do?”
“The
Collectors …” - Damiel tried desperately to control his trembling - “travel
from world to world, system to system, searching for the worst criminals, the
cruellest sadists, the most unrepentant sinners, the most heinous cowards. You collect them by any means necessary,
alive and whole. Then you interview
them, test them, and if they fail the test, the test of conscience, you then …”
He inhaled a shaky breath. “You feed
them to your leader, your matriarch, your transapient idol. You feed them to the Queen of Pain, and she
torments them forever, deep inside her.
They are damned, never to be released.”
He
gave a long sigh, staring at the floor for endless seconds, waiting for the
tremor within to subside.
“Why
are you here?” came the soft voice of Skalosak.
“I am
here to…” Damiel felt the tremor rise again. “You are taking me to your
Queen. You are taking me to be
punished. For eternity.”
“Is
that so?” said Skalosak, sounding genuinely surprised. “I must admit, Marishison has been rather
evasive on this subject. I am glad you
could enlighten me.”
Another
long silence followed.
“Please
remember, Damiel, that the conditions still stand. You only have to give the word, and we will
turn back. You still have-“
“I’ve
told you!” Damiel shouted into the Siberoo’s face. “I’ve made up my mind! I’m ready to be punished! The end!”
Skalosak
twitched her ears as she stared at Damiel.
Clearly she was not accustomed to such open defiance from an unarmed
human sitting just a whisker away. “I
see…” she finally said. “You are a very
unusual Collection. I have never before
dealt with a captive who has been given so much freedom of choice. However, I am beginning to understand. As I listen to you, it is all beginning to make
sense. Yes…” There was the faintest of
nods. “You are here because you choose
to be punished. Because it is what you
want. That makes it so much easier for
us. And to give the Queen a willing
victim for once… Yes, it makes so much
sense.”
She
paused, apparently deep in thought.
“There
is still one question,” she said. “What
is your crime? What are you here to be
punished for?”
Damiel
froze up, all words dead in his mouth.
“Damiel,”
said Skalosak after another long pause, “you must realize that we take our job
very seriously. I will not take any part
in your punishment unless I know exactly what you are being punished for. Now, please tell me, honestly, what have you
done to deserve such punishment?”
Damiel’s
trembling became uncontrollable. He
realised, now, that this confession was one of many turns on the path to his
destiny. If he wanted to fulfil his
destiny, then he had no other choice.
“I ki…”
The words lodged in his throat like a brick of vomit. He breathed in, vowing not to cry, vowing
never to cry again.
“Take
your time,” Skalosak said softly.
“I
killed my parents,” said Damiel.
For a
few more seconds there was no sound but Damiel’s strained, shaky breaths.
“That
is a very grave sin, Damiel,” Skalosak finally said.
“I
know.”
“How
did this happen?”
Damiel
breathed in deeply. I must not cry,
he told himself. This is my
confession, my first step towards demonstrating True Divine Justice to a
universe that has forgotten its Creator.
I must provide an example to all penitent sinners. I must be brave.
“I
grew up on the other side of Sylavor,” he said.
“In the city of Volika. Six years
ago, crime was at it’s worst. The
underworld was bribing the police and the courts, and hacking into the security
systems. Even the AIs were being
corrupted, although you’d know that they weren’t very advanced to begin
with. Anyway, I was walking down a dark
street with some friends, laughing and joking about some movie we had just
seen; and all of the sudden, this car stopped beside us. Two automatic pistols poked out of the
windows, and …” Damiel swallowed. “They
deliberately left me alive. Straight
away I lost consciousness. They used a
stunner. When I woke up, I was tied to a
cold metal slab, like some primitive operating theatre. There were people all around me. All wearing featureless white masks, and the
nine-headed snake emblem on their white shirts.
I knew who they were. And then
their leader walked in. He was also
wearing a mask, but I could guess who he was.”
“Milon
Takvid,” said Skalosak, “secret Chairman of Hydran Unity. I trust this was weeks before he vanished
without a trace.” She spoke the last
sentence with a cruel gleam in her eye.
Damiel
nodded. “He asked me … he kept asking me
… about my parent’s home security system.
About their high-level access codes.
My parents were lawyers for the same firm, you see, and at the time
there was a big investigation into one of Takvid’s so-called business
partners. And Takvid wanted …” Damiel
gulped. “He showed me a vidfile of their
last victim. He said … if I did not tell
him … he was … they were going to …”
He
looked at the floor and sighed heavily.
“You
were twelve years old,” said Skalosak.
Damiel
looked up and saw that her face was as wrathful as her voice. This did not surprise him. She obviously knew where the story was
heading. She already knew his mortal sin
… but he would tell it anyway.
“I
told them,” he said. “I told them, and
they stunned me again. I think they kept
me alive just in case they wanted to manipulate me in the future. But when I woke up, I was in a police
station. They had found me lying on the
side of the road. And they … they didn’t
want to, none of them wanted to tell me straight away, but I could tell by the
looks on their faces … Later I saw the newsvid.
The stretchers outside our home.
The blanketed bodies. They
wouldn’t even show the bodies. And I
looked at that footage, and I knew it was all my doing.”
He
lowered his gaze again, his strained breaths sour with bile and blood as if
after six years of running.
“Damiel,”
said Skalosak, “are you aware of the types of criminals we deal with on a
regular basis?”
“I …”
He took another deep breath. “I think
so.”
“A
few years ago,” said Skalosak, “we collected a man on Tylansia who had
captured, raped, tortured and murdered more than a hundred children. Would you compare yourself to that
unspeakable wretch?”
“No …
no, I don’t think I would.”
“If
you really are here to be punished, and we gave you the test, measured your
remorse, your guilt, do you honestly think you would fail?”
“I …
I don’t know.”
“You
don’t know …” Skalosak spoke those words as if with disbelief. “Do you love your parents, Damiel?”
Damiel
felt something solid in his throat. He
could not speak his answer. He could
only nod; but he nodded vigorously, to drive the message home, to destroy all
doubt.
“Do
you hate yourself, Damiel?” Skalosak’s
voice was now softer than ever, almost a whisper. “Do you hate yourself more than you hate the
scum of the universe?”
“I AM
THE SCUM OF THE UNIVERSE!!” he screamed at Skalosak. “I deserve to be skinned alive, gutted,
castrated and hacked limb from limb! I deserve
to have every wound and orifice on my body sodomized by bladed tentacles
dripping with acid! I deserve to feel
every bone and organ crushed to a pulp and immersed in a boiling lake of spider
venom, there to writhe and wail forever, never to die, never to rest, never to
see the Glory of God! I deserve it! I deserve it all!”
He
could hold back no longer. The tears
gushed. His body racked with sobs,
violent, convulsive, straining his lungs and throat to the limit.
“I de
… serve …”
His
vision blurred with tears, he closed his eyes and lost himself in his own
self-imposed darkness, his own rehearsal of damnation that he knew he deserved,
he knew he had coming for him at the end of the path he had freely chosen.
Then
Damiel felt something he had not expected to feel. He felt himself lifted off the floor and
pressed against something huge and warm, something firm yet cushioned with
thick, soft fur. On the other side of that
fur, a slow, heavy beat thudded like a tremendous heart, reverberating through
his warmed right ear, throughout his cradled skull. His back was enveloped in more warmth, held
in place by two enormous furred limbs.
Above and around the heartbeat was another sound - a soft, gentle hum,
like the purring of a colossal cat.
Slowly,
gently, he felt himself being rocked back and forth, in rhythm to the huge
heart.
He
did not stop crying. He could not. Neither could he remember why. In that moment, Damiel blocked out everything
about his horrific past, his uncertain future.
There was only the present, the moment frozen here and now, safe and
warm and comforted in the Siberoo’s embrace.
In
that moment, he wanted nothing else.
'