Blood of Angels: Chapter 51

Justin sipped from the glass, not looking up.

 

“It wasn’t me,” Peter Zavod said. “It was Harry.” he drained his own glass and refilled it.

 

“Yeah,” said Justin. He sipped. He didn’t dare get drunk.

 

“I know. It’s fucking insane,” slurred Zavod. “Monstrous. But I couldn’t stop it.”

 

Justin’s knuckles were white.

 

“No,” said Zavod, “look. I know what you’re thinking but if I had said something, Harry would have put a bullet in my head.”

 

Justin stared.

 

“I don’t want to die. I want to live.” He slammed the whiskey and refilled both glasses. “I bet you do, too.”

 

Chapter 50

Chapter 52

Blood of Angels: Chapter 50

A mountain, it turns out, is not so difficult to move. At least, a mountain tumbling through the void.

 

The lasso was another rock, much smaller than the mountain but massive enough that its gravity would tug gently but unceasingly. This smaller rock was itself moved from its own orbit by a man made massive object.

 

Over the course of years, this slow motion square dance brought the mountain into the path of the Earth. The mountain was a promise: wealth to be mined and ultimately the anchor of the world’s first space elevator.

 

But the promise was a lie.

 

Chapter 49

Chapter 51

The Ring Makers: Chapter 100

The Inquisitor was again the Envoy and had reabsorbed most of its Engineers, leaving only a few to maintain the Great Ring.

The vehicles carrying humans through the Great Ring to the Sentinel Station always asked the Envoy.

 

Is it safe?

 

It is safe.

 

What of the Enemy?

 

The Sentinel guards.

 

Forever?

 

For now.

 

What waited beyond the Sentinel Station, the Envoy did not know. There were so many other worlds, other species, whose own worlds had been cleansed prior to the opening of their Rings.

 

For the Envoy, this one world, this one species, was enough to worry about.

 

THE END

Chapter 99

The Ring Makers: Chapter 99

“The election is tomorrow,” said Miss Ryu. “You should get some rest.”

 

Hyong looked up from the console and rubbed his eyes. “Soon. I have almost solved–”

 

She bent down and kissed him. “It can wait. Let’s go home.”

 

He smiled then switched off his console and stood. She took his arm.

 

They walked out of the building into the rain. A heptahedron approached them and expanded its carapace. They stepped inside, thanking it politely. Despite the weather the city was bustling.

 

“I hope they aren’t too drunk to vote,” she said.

 

Hyong laughed heartily and then kissed her deeply.

Chapter 98

Chapter 100

The Ring Makers: Chapter 98

Jazarah sat on the balcony and leafed through Genet’s notebook. In the sketches, the city was thronged with pilgrims. Now only small clusters of scholars explored and studied the city and its machines.

 

She saw the flaws in Genet’s sketches now. To the casual observer, they were lifelike renderings. Jazarah recognized his exaggeration of the pilgrims’ joy and the heightened divine majesty of the architecture. She wondered if Genet would have seen it, or, if so, admitted it.

 

Color was returning to the fire-scoured landscape in the form of vivid flowering things. Perhaps Genet was right. Perhaps this was paradise.

Chapter 97

Chapter 99

The Ring Makers: Chapter 97

EPILOGUE

The floater hovered before Ellie and blurted a tirade of colors and textures.

 

“Fuck you, too,” said Ellie.

 

The security procedures are insufficient to handle the rate of immigration.

 

“Yeah, I know, but them’s the breaks.”

 

Incoherent flashes.

 

“Just go back to the Ring and stamp them through. We’ll figure out the rest once they’re settled.”

 

After a particularly rude series of signals, the floater left and Ellie turned her attention to the halftrack.

 

A few minutes later Monica yelled from the house, “Dinner!”.

 

Ellie waved back. “In a minute, lover,” she called, then reached into the engine smiling contentedly.

Chapter 96

Chapter 98

The Ring Makers: Chapter 96

Eberardo chased Lajos. The other man stopped to help a fallen woman and Eberardo tackled him. “Lajos! You live!”

 

Lajos returned his embrace, then pulled the woman to her feet. She fled wordlessly.

 

“Come on!” said Lajos, turning to follow.

 

“Wait,” said Eberardo, pointing at the massive Ring.

 

It sparked dangerously. The bombers bore down. Eberardo saw black shapes drop from their undersides. Lajos pulled but Eberardo held him fast. “Look,” he gasped.

 

The Ring came alive and the field of lightning reached out. It engulfed the bombers and the bombs. A flash of lightning later, the sky was clear.

END OF PART THREE

Chapter 95

Chapter 97

The Ring Makers: Chapter 95

Hyong laughed. Of course the aliens were waiting to talk. What better display of intellectual capacity and the desire to communicate?

 

The bombers neared. He was glad to have witnessed this meeting, however short.

 

His tablet buzzed. He swept across it and Miss Ryu appeared. Her eyes were puffy and red. “Hyong!” she gasped. “You have to go! Namgung–”

 

“It’s okay,” he said. “There is nowhere to go.”

 

“No!” she cried. “I love you!”

 

“I love you, too,” he said and then turned the camera on the Inquisitor and Jazarah. He spoke loudly above the approaching bombers: “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Chapter 94

Chapter 96

The Ring Makers: Chapter 94

Ajit had been a genius. He knew how to communicate with the alien machines. He had also been a man of his culture. He never asked Jazarah for her thoughts. Ajit had saved her, then never stopped thinking of her as a damsel.

 

Jazarh had watched Ajit and absorbed everything. She understood the machines and now, standing before the Inquisitor, she had to prove it.

 

The surface of the robot flashed with color. While technicians hurried to translate, she answered clearly, “I hear you and wish to speak plainly.”

 

“Excellent,” said the Inquisitor.

 

Hyong, Ellie and the other onlookers gaped.

Chapter 93

Chapter 95

The Ring Makers: Chapter 93

Ellie looked at Jazarah with both awe and pity. She had known who she was on sight. Jordan’s conversation with the man Ajit had mentioned her, and of the people fleeing across the snow, Jazarah had stood out.

 

Something in Jazarah felt strong. Even so, Ellie was nearly pissing herself as their snowcat rumbled toward the Giant. Fucking. Robot.

 

The Middle aged Korean man Hyong worried her. Ellie thought he looked distraught, like death was not the worst thing he saw in the approaching bombers.

 

The snowcat stopped. Ellie looked up. Behind the looming robot, the Ring began to flicker.

Chapter 92

Chapter 94