Amulet Rampant by M.C.A. Hogarth

Author:M.C.A. Hogarth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Studio MCAH
Published: 2016-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

“I admit, this isn’t where I expected to find an Eldritch,” Laniis said, stepping closer to Meryl. She glanced at the whorl of bodies entering and exiting the main Pad station off the Starbase Ana port, glad that she had only two people to keep track of in the crowd and that both of them were taller than her—and almost everyone else.

“A starbase?” Meryl asked. “Or a farm?”

“Either?” Laniis said. “I’d never seen an Eldritch before I ended up in the Empire. All their press says they don’t leave their world.”

“They don’t, unless they’re kidnapped. Usually.” Meryl guided them around the edges of the throng toward the priority Pads. “But there are a handful of them known offworld. Amber’s one of them.”

“If ‘hidden on a backworld on the fringes of the Alliance’ counts as ‘known’,” Na’er said cheerfully.

Meryl snorted and squeezed them into the quick-moving line. “It counts, believe me.” She added, “Three for transit to the agriculture dome. Two Fleet Intelligence, one Fleet Regular.”

The Pads chimed. Meryl walked over one, and Laniis followed. They exited out of the noise and bustle into a nearly empty room with a floor and ceiling of warm wood and brass-colored metal. The walls were all flexglass French doors, flung open and overlooking rows and rows of crops beneath a sky as flawless a blue as Laniis could remember seeing. The temperature was perfect, warm with a sultry breeze that smelled of sap and growing things. They were in some kind of observation tower; she had the pleasant sensation of being perched over an idyllic world, undisturbed by sapient habitation. While Meryl went to talk to the Asanii felid behind a nearby counter, she drifted to the nearest door and rested her fingers on the frame.

“Bit too cultivated for me,” Na’er said from behind her. “But it’s got a kind of divine arrogance to it, doesn’t it? To just go into space like this, make an artificial moon-sized shell, and then fill it with tiny worlds designed to suit us.”

“Is it arrogance, or a form of worship?” Laniis asked. “We mimic our creators.”

Na’er snorted. “Humanity’s barely crawled back out of their solar system.”

“I meant our real creators,” Laniis said. “The Speaker-Singer. Your gods.”

“My gods were a fiction created by over-zealous Pelted eager to forget that we were ever made by fallible, mortal people.” Na’er shook his head and said in the cadence of a broadcast evangelist famous for her fiery condemnations of humanity, “’They would call us their children. But children cover ugly truths with pretty lies! When we refuse those lies, we refuse their claim to us!’”

Laniis flicked an ear back, looking over her shoulder at him.

Na’er shrugged. “I’m sorry, arii.”

“Don’t be.” Laniis resumed looking out the window. “I don’t blame you for not believing in a divine creator. And the Aera never seemed to have very nice ones anyway.”

“I like the concept of the sacred wind that changes,” Na’er said. “As a philosophy, it suits me. The rest of it…” He shrugged. And added, “I don’t know how you can still believe after what you’ve been through.

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