Adam and Allen couldn’t help it — they both burst out laughing. After a moment, Adam looked into the confused eyes of the Juirean and replied. “Yes, Lord Wydor, we share the same experience and the same concerns. But that is what makes females so appealing to us — all the mystery and emotion. But I’m sure our women — females — consider us to be of a different species, as well. You will get used to it, Lord Wydor, although you will never fully understand the female mind. Just enjoy it while you can and don’t question it too deeply.”
“I appreciate the insight, Mr. Cain, if all it has done is confused me more.”
“Welcome to the club.”
“Please repeat.”
“Never mind.” Adam looked at Allen; he gave Adam a simple nod.
“Lord Wydor, I believe I speak for the rest of us here when I say we Humans do not want to continue a war with the Juireans, any more than you want to continue one with us. We never asked for any of this to happen — but here we are. We will respect your privacy and let the Juirean people recover as best you can.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cain, and also to you Fleet Marshal Allen.”
“It’s Admiral Allen, Lord Wydor,” Allen corrected.
“That is what I said: Fleet Marshal.”
Adam placed a hand on Allen arm. “It’s okay. The translation bug is converting the rank to the Juirean equivalent.”
“Oh, sorry,” Allen said a little embarrassed. He had so much to learn about alien interactions.
Adam continued: “And I am truly sorry for what has happened to your planet. As you know, we Humans also have a very special bond to our homeworld.”
“You may find this hard to conceive,” Wydor said, “but even though not a single one of our race has been born upon the planet Juir in over two thousand years, to each of us we still consider Juir to be our home — and always will.”
Wydor attempted the small smile again, even though Adam could tell he was in immense emotional pain. “I will be closing the link now, Mr. Cain, but before I go I wish to say one last thing: Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Oh, this is not for you exclusively, but for your entire race. If you had not accomplished what you have the Juirean race would have continued along our same self-destructive path. We realize now that we did not have the Expansion to serve us, but rather we existed to serve the Expansion. That had never been our intention as a people. Looking back on the millennia, it seems we never were superior to any of our subjects, even though we believed ourselves to be. We were the servants, and everyone else the masters. As a result of your actions, we will now have a chance to live as a race of people again, interacting as all the other members of the Expansion have been allowed to do. That is why I thank you. You have given identity back to the Juirean people.
“May good fortune follow you, Mr. Cain. Maybe someday, when the Juirean race has recovered, Humans and Juireans will become friends.”
The screen went blank and Admiral Allen and Adam spent a long minute in silence staring at their reflections in the shiny black screen.
“Ain’t that some shit,” Adam finally said, breaking the silence. “Tell me you were recording that, Admiral?”
“Of course, and I will get this out to Earth right away.” Allen placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Good job, Captain. When he requested you personally, I didn’t know what to expect. This will come as welcome news back on Earth. Without the Juireans to worry about, it looks like we’re pretty much in charge of the whole damn thing.”
“Yes sir. But now that we own the galaxy, what are we going to do with it?”
Chapter 46
Adam pulled the furry hood of the parka tighter around his head and trudged a little further in the near-knee-high snow drifts. The velocity of the wind was high, yet one of the things he found about worlds with lighter gravity, lower air density meant weaker winds. The velocities may be the same, but rather than fighting to remain upright against the force, it was more like a soft breeze on his pink cheeks.
It had been two hours since the conversation with Lord Wydor, and afterwards Adam had felt a strong urge to get outside and experience some wide open spaces; the close walls of the flying saucers had suddenly felt more confining. Even though the weather outside the command complex was terrible, Adam welcomed the change. It helped him put things in perspective, something this mind had been attempting to do for several months already.
Adam could see where Malor Tower had once stood, marked by the few remaining metal frame elements still anchored securely in the massive concrete foundation, although now twisted and warped into something resembling a scene from an old black-and-white gothic horror movie. He moved between two twisted spires and made his way to where he estimated the center of the structure would have been, at the very spot where the Contact Monument had once stood. In a surprising flash of Jerry Seinfeld-type thinking, Adam thought the Juireans really had to work on naming their monuments and structures better, maybe use a little more imagination and flair. Contact Monument had never really done it for him. But that was a thought for another day.
The Kracori asteroid had done a real number on the planet, even though it hadn’t arrived with the tremendous velocity and punch of a traditional impact event. Adam looked out across the vast alluvial plain below the mountain and out to the Southern Sea beyond. He was sure the Kracori had been originally aiming for the very spot he now stood, however they missed. The massive rock of nickel and iron had instead struck almost a hundred kilometers out to sea; the hundred meter high tsunami sweeping in from the ocean, across the vast plain — where the still-smoldering remains of Juir City had once stood — and then reaching the very base of the Kacoran Plain itself. And then the waters receded, leaving the land below virginal, as it was before the first ancient Juirean had ever set foot upon its grasses.
He would be leaving for Earth in a few days and was not looking forward to twelve long months cooped up in a metal cocoon. But it would be good to get home. He had been gone for three years — four if you didn’t count the brief six-day stay just before the Juireans attacked. He was sure he would find things so incredibly different from when he left….
He stretched out a wide, cynical smile as the cold air struck the skin of his face. I make it sound as if I had a choice about leaving, he thought. That was hardly the case.
Indeed, very little that had happened to him over the past four years had been his choice, and he placed the blame for such circumstance squarely in one place: on aliens! Since his first encounter with these odd creatures, they had brought him nothing but pain, misery and heartache. They had disrupted his life and taken away his future.
Yes, a year was a long time to spend confined to a big metal disk, but Adam Cain swore — then and there — that after he got back to Earth it would be a cold day in Hell before he would ever return to space again!
Chapter 47
Seven Years Later…
It was a particularly cold day in Hell when Adam’s shuttle landed atop the Kacoran Plain, near the cluster of twenty-four buildings that now made up the provisional capital of the EU — the Expansion Union. He watched through the shuttle’s viewport as great clouds of snow were thrown back by the craft’s chemical landing ports as they settled onto the hard, icy surface of Juir.
He wasn’t surprised to see that the climate still hadn’t returned to normal on the homeworld of the Juireans in the seven years since he left. It would normally be winter in these latitudes, however, the temperature worldwide was still sitting about ten degrees below normal. Harsh winters covered more of the surface these days and lasted longer into the year, and the experts estimated it would still be another ten years or more before the planet would heal itself completely from the Kracori asteroid attack.