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"About half a billion," Tais answered, watching the screen.
"Can you transport that many people somewhere?" she asked.
"If `we' wished to do so," Tais replied, the implications of her words
leaving no doubts as to what she felt about Mankind... Tais having once voiced
the thought that much of Mankind had now reverted too far back into
barbarianism to be worth "salvaging". A viewpoint that left no doubts in my
mind that Tais did share to a considerable degree the same opinions of Mankind
as did Aurora.
"A bit different from the Gaia," I smiled at Amethysta, who viewed Black
Lady with a bit of understandable "distrust" here...
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"I know `what' an airplane `is'," she smiled back at me. We'd spent the
night at Shalimar, resting up from everything we'd seen, experienced. I was
starting to "like" Amethysta, although she was certainly a "barbarian" by my
own 20th Century standards! "And I have `confidence' in you," she added,
making me "smile"...
"I think I `prefer' the Gaia," Amethysta said, looking down.
"Their `magic' to `mine'?" I teased this blonde "barbarian" from a time
now only pages in some musty history book. She was in her way "as out of
place" here as I'd been five years before!!
"I am glad you `survived' the arena," Amethysta said to me, a low
hanging cloud like a fluffy mist floating back over us now. The mountains on
both sides rising up even "higher" than we were. The thought that the Earth
would be destroyed in another eighty years something sobering, although I knew
I would not live to see it "happen", nor I suspected, would Amethysta here
beside me now. Neither Amethysta or I had spoken much of it, knowing that Man-
kind's own fate was now in the hands of the Priestesses of Lys.
"Back in the 20th Century I used be like a `Priestess'," I smiled to
Amethysta. "I listened to people spill their souls..." Amethysta's azure blue
eyes holding the darkness of mine as she nodded back, as aware as I was that
we'd have to eventually face up to what we'd seen there aboard the Gaia
sixteen billion miles from the sun. That frozen "iceball" of a planet that had
once been our own Earth. The very world we were now flying over here!
"Last night, after you fell asleep, I went and looked out the window at
the stars and for the first time in my life, `felt' afraid to look up into the
darkness, knowing what was `coming'," she spoke, looking at the airplane's
instruments in front of her.
"I suppose the Priestesses could send everyone `back' in time," I mused
thoughtfully. Half a billion people scattered over centuries of time wouldn't
have too much of an effect upon things, especially if they were sent into eras
with about the same level of technology that we had now. Mars might be able to
"absorb" a few million, although neither the Lorr or the Women would welcome
such "colonists" to their world, I suspected here! It was also doubtful
however from what Tais had said there on the Gaia that the Priestesses had any
intentions now of saving every- one. They would no doubt be "selective" in
their "choices" here. The thought going through my mind as it has before that
for some reason "civilization" had been rebuilt only in certain places...
"That's Trelandar down there," I smiled, looking down now.
"Yours, not mine," Amethysta answered, looking away then.
"My daughter Gayle will be its last Queen," I answered.
"We must trust in Lys and her Priestesses," she spoke then.
"Who will be the ones to decide who is to live and who is to die," I
answered, looking out through the windshield ahead of us.
"Trella," I said, the sun now in my eyes as we came flying over the
fields and forests towards the city, the ocean there be- yond gleaming in the
sunlight. Amethysta quiet there beside me.
"Must feel good to be `home' again," she said to me then.
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"Tais sometimes forgets how people `feel'," I said to her.
"No doubt she had reasons for doing what she did," Amethysta answered,
looking down at the city as I came banking around now.
"Looks like we have a `visitor'," I smiled to Amethysta as I saw the
Astarte, Sharon's own flagship, there at anchor as I now brought Black Lady
down for a landing. The rake of the three masts and the slimness of the hull
leaving no doubts that it was a vessel of Dularnian design, one designed by
Maris herself here!
"I wish I'd treated you `better'," Amethysta "grinned" back.
"Good to see you again, your majesty," June Colt said to me, her dark
face glowing with a warm smile of delight as I took her hands in mine,
thinking of how much "different" she was from the "blacks" of the past. Proof,
I supposed, that it was a matter of "culture", not "race" here as such. Maybe
we'll do "better" next time, although Mankind has always needed a "nigger" to
do his "dirty work" that no one else wanted to do. The enslavement of native
Africans having begun back in the time of the Pharaohs...
"Good to be `home'," I smiled, wishing I could give her a hug, but that
would doubtlessly cause "rumors" here I had no wish to start, there being
enough such about my own "appearance" here. The fact that I am rather
"mannish" in my looks does not mean I'm a lesbian despite whatever anyone may
happen to think of me here.
"That `black' woman is `more' to you than just the `captain' of your
guards," Amethysta noted with a smile as we climbed into the carriage that
would take us to the palace, the location being of course the same here as it
had been back in Amethysta's time.
"An excellent swordswoman too," I smiled back at her then.
"I think you are thought a `good' Queen," Amethysta smiled.
"There are certain political radicals who don't think so," I grinned
back, thinking of "one" who was a real "pain in the rear" to me. The sort of a
politician who did nothing but "criticize" everything I did, constantly
complaining that I was but another "Darlanis"! Claiming that the "working"
people of Trelandar were really not all that much "better off" with me than
they'd been when Darlanis had ruled Trelandar with her own Lords and Ladies.
"Sometimes such `matters' are best resolved with `steel'," she smiled
back, her eyes glowing into mine as I nodded, well aware of the sort of stuff
that had been done by previous rulers. By Darlanis herself against Sanda's
"Free Trelandar Movement"... The "executions" without any "trial", all the
rest of the stuff.
"At least you serve something `stronger' than fruit juice," Amethysta
"grinned", swirling the brandy there in her cut glass goblet, the Priestesses
of Lys being "opposed" to "strong drink".
"Looks like Princess Tara is up to her `old tricks' again," Sharon said,
getting down to the "reason" she'd come to see me. Telling me of the political
radicals in her own country who were now trying to stir up trouble between the
Empire and the Dularni- an Federation over the political status of Orgon,
which was still yet a "part" of the Empire, not a semi-independent nation like
my own Trelandar was. Neither Amethysta or me having mentioned any- thing
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about what we'd "seen" aboard the Gaia, well aware that it would do little
good to needlessly concern my friends here of it! [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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