Slavers of Antar

By DocPaul

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Chapter Eight: Polarity

“Everything is Dual; Everything has Its pair of opposites; Like and Unlike are the same; Opposites are identical in Nature, but different in Degree; Extremes Meet; All Truths Are but Half Truths; All Paradoxes May be Reconciled.”

“Kyle?”

Meghan waited for Kyle to acknowledge her. His reluctance to do so hurt. He was so far away from her now. Even when they were both in the same room, there was a lifetime between them, one that she had no idea how to breach, one she feared was too vast to span.

“Hi. You didn’t have to come.”

“I did. I heard that you were on world.” It would’ve been hard to miss. Kyle was a source of interest.

Privacy was very important to Agape and her inhabitants of Empaths, but the news pertaining to Kyle had always been hard to suppress. He was the closest thing to a celebrity they had. His two hearts had made him unique, along with his ability to survive war and their divorce, a process unheard of in Agape. Most important, his notorious fight against Khivar on the Shiva, one of the owners of the ship, and participants in the destruction of Khivar. It was his notoriety and connections that made his father, Jim, an immediate candidate for Ambassador to Karnak , and the New Royal Federation.

Kyle laughed in derision. “Of course. Just me being ‘special’ and ‘different’ again.”

“You are special. I always knew that.” Meghan took a chair near his bedside. Searching his face, her heart hurt. He looked sick. He looked to be in pain. She reached for his hand, but he moved it out of range. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Kyle sighed. How could he still hold so much anger towards her? She only did what she thought best; what she had to, to protect their children. It wasn’t the act, it was the silence. Protecting them was fine, but cutting them out of Kyle’s life completely was the sin. She took over six years of their lives from him. Six years, time in which his son, Liam practically grew into a man. In the last three, he still hadn’t caught up.

Meghan looked away so he couldn’t see her tears. She had hoped that sex, renewing their physical bond, would bring him back to her. It hadn’t. It had only served to remind her of what she had tossed away, and how much all the other lovers she took in her life after Kyle, her husband, were pale in comparison. He was all she wanted, all she loved.

Love, or making love...sex, it had been different. Vastly different. Always, since they were young and first in love, there had been this tenderness between them. They touched, but it was always with a hint of softness, or fingers just brushing, almost in reverence. When she slept with him last, sex stopped being this expression of love and it took on a hard physical edge. It was sex, clean and pure. There was some love mixed in, but the physically driven sexual parts were the dominant aspect. She liked it. She loved it. A lot. Empaths made love almost mentally, with the mental aspect more dominant, and the physical almost a whisper. Kyle had changed that.

Sex with him had been almost all physical. Her mind could feel him, but it was her body that ached for his touch. Jealous. She was jealous of a dead woman. He had unknowingly called her Tess when they made love. His heart was closed to her, filled with his mourning of a dead lover, one who had needed him. When she divorced him, she ripped apart the bond that held them, something sacred. This Tess was a wounded soul, as wounded as Kyle, and her need for him helped to mend Kyle’s heart, locking Meghan forever on the outside.

That hurt. Meghan knew. He was no longer hers, and nothing she could do would bring him back home. The bitterest of pills was the last time she slept with him, she had hoped to become pregnant again. Maybe a new child between them would forge a new bond over the shattered old one.

“I’m sorry, Meghan. I never meant to hurt you. Never. I can’t be the husband to you that I once was. That man died in the war. You knew that. You sensed it when I came home. It wasn’t just my broken shields and the harm I was causing the children and you, it was you sensing that I would never again be the man you married.”

That was true. Too true. She hated him for going to war and leaving her alone. She hated that when he came back that there was so much inside him, so much she could not share, and so much more she had no desire to understand. Divorcing him was punishment. Punishment. for letting the struggles with Khivar have more importance than her, more important than their family. He fought for freedom. Freedom of their world. Freedom for his children. He didn’t want his children and all those he loved enslaved, stripped of their genetics and used in some cloning experiment created by Khivar. For that, he risked his very life, and it had cost him everything.

Her selfish nature cost her him. Cutting him off, leaving him out there all alone in punishment, she had opened the door for another woman to come in and take her place in his heart. That was her price. What she paid for her selfish need to hurt him, make him feel loneliness like she had when he had gone.

“Kyle, can we find a peace?”

“I mean you no harm, Meghan. You must know that.” Kyle looked at her, his eyes softening as he took in her appearance. Meghan. He could feel a slight pull of the love he once held for her, the love he buried so deep inside. It was still there, a memory. A whisper. Always, he would remember her that way, the love of his youth.

“Are you truly dying, my love?”

“I died along time ago. My body is finally waking to the fact. That is all.” Kyle saw her face, and quickly sat up grabbing her shoulders, then holding her face. “Hey! It’s all right. I lived longer than I should have. War should’ve taken me long ago. I was too stubborn to accept my fate.”

Her hands came over, his framing her face. Closing her eyes, she savored the feel of his touch. Kyle. How ever could she deny that he meant so much to her? How could she take lovers with only him in her heart? That was punishment too. A slap in his face, using the money he sent to support her, the children, and a comfort to take lovers that could sleep in his bed. Meghan felt nothing but shame. She had wanted him to feel that he was easily replaced.

“Liam is taking this hard, Kyle. I can’t talk to him. He is angry all the time. He has been for a long time.”

Kyle frowned. He knew that. He felt his son’s anger. His eldest. Liam. Come to me.

Kyle opened his eyes, and stared in the depths of Meghan’s. “Where is he?”

“With your parents. He hates me lately. He spends more time with them than with me.”

“He blames you?” Kyle asked simply.

“Yes.” Meghan blushed. It was true. Her son hated her for sending his father away, but it was the men that replaced his father for a time that Liam held against her. He had been old enough to resent their place in his father’s home, in his father’s bed, and she in her stupidity to strike back at Kyle, in turn, gave her son a reason to hate her.

Kyle sat up on the side of the bed. “Tell me what has been happening.”

“You’re sick. I don’t want to worry you.”

“Meghan! Tell me!”

Licking her lips, she sighed heavily. “He was expelled from school for fighting. He was rude and belligerent to the instructors, and the other children were afraid of him.”

“Afraid?”

Meghan nodded. “He showed violent tendencies. The physical aspect frightened them.” Fidgeting in her chair, Meghan was uncomfortable. “They required mandatory testing and psychological profiling.”

“What?” Kyle stood up. How dare they! Scanning his child, looking for aberrant personality traits...

“I wanted to go with him, but Liam was agitated by my presence. Your mother took him.”

Kyle stopped pacing. “Why didn’t you inform me? I’m his father! I would have come back for this.”

Meghan wrung her hands. “I didn’t want you to know that things were so unhappy, that he was so unhappy. It’s hard, Kyle. I know that it is we that make him this way, not some recessive gene. He’s unhappy and acting out, but they couldn’t assume that. They needed proof. I had no time to get news to you, or for you to come home. Three days. That was all they allowed.”

Kyle shook his head. His son. Scanned. Mentally scanned. To an Empath, this was comparable to mind rape. It was a highly invasive process leaving nothing untouched, not fears, ambition, thought, daydreams, or desires. It permeated into all facets of the psyche.

“You allowed this??”

“I had no choice!”

“Yes! Yes, you did! You should have called me! I would have come home and taken him away from this place!” Three days? That was wrong! Utterly wrong. Kyle was shaking in his rage. His son. Violated. Kyle’s breathing grew ragged as his third heart beat so fast and hard it was smothering the other two. His face paled, and he bent over.

“Kyle!” Meghan rushed to his side.

“Don’t touch me!” Kyle pushed her away from him. His special monitors went off, and a team of specialists rushed to the room. Kyle turned on them. “Stay away from me! All of you!”

His life. His death. He trusted this group of hacks, those who would invade the privacy of a sixteen year old boy with his medical problems? He was a fool.

“What is going on here!” Jim stood in the doorway. “Son? Kyle?”

“Make them leave. All of them!”

Jim looked at the group. Taking the medication from one of the doctors he motioned for them to leave.

“Her too.” Kyle said, his voice cold with anger. Meghan left in silence. She saw her son standing outside, the boy looked away from her. Upset, she left before he saw her tears. She had lost him too. First his father; now him.

“What is going on here?” Jim asked quietly. He went to Kyle, helping him into the bed. Inserting the needle quickly into his arm, he injected the sedative.

“They harmed my son! Violated him.” Kyle rubbed his head. Headache. He could see nothing except black spots. Looking at his dad, he shook his head. “You never said anything. Not you. Not mother. Not Meghan. Why?”

“You were off on patrol with the Shiva. There was only so much that could be done. We—Meghan did her best. She protested, but it was apparent that no amount of protest would have changed the decision.”

“You should have taken Liam away. Taken him to Karnak .”

“I couldn’t. Once the decision was made, they would not allow his removal. They feared a repeat of before.

Before.

Once in their history, not so long ago, there was born a strong Empath. Unstable. Insane. He reached into the minds of other Empaths, and controlled them. He was psychotic. A killer. Deranged beyond understanding, he went unhindered for a long time before the Elders came to understand the menace that plagued them. Agape, a peaceful world, was like a flock of sheep with a wolf hidden in its midst. The Mental Law rose out of that time. Any signs of violent tendencies were investigated.

“Father?”

Kyle turned towards the door. His eldest son. Liam. He had grown so tall since last he saw him. His brown eyes troubled and angry, the anger made the green flecks in the recesses become more prominent.

“Dad, can you leave us?” Kyle asked. Jim smiled, stopping to pat his grandson in reassurance.

“They say you are sick. That you are dying.”

“Perhaps. That remains to be seen. Your grandfather shot me up, so I expect to be out of it soon. Come.”

Liam took his mother’s seat. He looked at his hands, avoiding his father’s eyes. Kyle searched his son’s face. There was a tinge of red moving up his neck. He was embarrassed. Humiliated.

“Did they let you back in school?”

“Yes.”

Kyle nodded. “So you weren’t a serial mind rapist in the making?”

“No.” Kyle’s jaw clenched in anger at his son’s subdued response. The very process of probing into the mind was the same type of violation the Elders were trying to prevent. What the hell was the difference? Mind rape someone to make sure that person wasn’t a mind rapist in training?

“I’d never let this happen. You know that?”

“You weren’t here.” Liam said. He looked away from his father. “You’re never here.”

“I can’t live on this world any longer, you know that.”

Liam finally looked at his father. His eyes were full of tears. “Neither can I.”

“I see.” Kyle moved over in his bed, patting the area he cleared, he waited for his son to join him. “Then what is it that you would like to do, Liam?” The boy shook his head. “You are almost a man, perhaps it is time to make some of the decisions necessary. Anything you want, I would give you. Perhaps you could come live with me on Karnak , and Shiva?”

Liam looked at his father in shock. “Really?” The enthusiasm was heartwarming, but then his face shuttered. “She would never allow it.”

“She? Your mother?” Liam nodded. “Yes, she would. Your mother only wants your health and happiness.” Kyle’s eyes narrowed in firm anger. “I will not stand for you talking about your mother as ‘she’. Her name is Meghan to me, and Mom to you. Do you understand?”

“But...”

“Nothing! Your mother is your mother. She deserves respect. Do you understand?”

Liam nodded. “Yes, Dad.”

“Good.” Kyle leaned back to rest, the sedative now starting to work. “I’m sorry, son. I would have never allowed them to scan you. Never.”

“It hurt. I felt like my head was going to explode.” Liam said quietly. “Afterwards, I felt like a criminal. A freak. Exposed. Violated. Like there was nothing about me they didn’t know. The other kids at school, they treated me different.”

Kyle nodded. “I know.”

Liam looked at his father. Platitudes. He got them from everyone. They were all so sympathetic and sorry for putting him through the experience, but no one could really know how horrible it was. No one, even his father.

“They scanned me when I first came back from war. My shields were broken. Shattered. It was more invasive than it had to be. I almost went mad.” Kyle didn’t notice the shocked look on his son’s face. “The violence they found in me was all the images of war. The pain. They used it in the divorce against me.”

“You understand?”

Kyle looked at his son. “Yes. I understand. Had I been here, no one would’ve touched you. I would’ve destroyed this world first. I’m sorry, Liam. I’m sorry I failed you. It won’t happen again. I swear.”

“Dad,” said Liam in a half sob leaning into his father. Kyle held him tight. He held his crying son, broken. He opened his shields, taking in his son’s pain, sharing it, so the boy wouldn’t feel so alone. Closing his eyes, he thought of his other two children. He couldn’t take them all. Not yet.

“Tomorrow we leave. I have a few things to do, but afterwards, we leave for Karnak .”

“Will they release me?”

“Yes. I’ll take care of everything.” Kyle soothed his son. “It’ll be all right.”

Liam rested against his father, for the first time in as long as he could remember, no longer angry, no longer afraid and alone. “I heard you telling me to come to you, Dad. I heard you in my mind.”

“Yes.” Kyle sighed deeply. It seemed he had gained a new strength and power. One he didn’t care to expose. On this world, it would be an aberration they would fear. “Rest. Everything will be alright. Tomorrow, we go home.”

~~~

“He is a good boy.”

“Alex.” Kyle opened his eyes. Liam was asleep on his chest, almost like he slept when he was a baby.

“He missed the firm influence of your presence.”

“I know. That is my fault. I’m here now. I will not leave him again.” Kyle looked at Alex. “Damn spook. Just walk through a door?”

Alex laughed. “It is good to see you old friend.”

“Likewise. So how is that ascended thing going?”

“It has its days.” Alex sniffed. “I have to keep coming to find my son. Eoin likes to visit Amy and his ‘sister’.”

“She’s a cutie,” Kyle said about his new sister. “Alex, what is going on?”

“The Universe expands. Vibrates. All things find their limits, surfacing to a Balance.”

“My hearts?”

Alex nodded. “You are wrong, Kyle. You are not dying. You are learning to live. A part of your old life is soon dead, with it your two old hearts. A new time is coming. With it, you have grown a larger, stronger heart to do what it must. It is a new time, a new phase.”

“I’m not dying?”

“We are all dying, Kyle. Even the Universe has a finite amount of time. But in death, there rises new life. Nothing is lost. It cycles on.” Alex smiled at Kyle. “Do not fear change, my friend. Fear stagnation. Fear the inability to embrace change.”

His old world, Agape. It was falling into an increasing death of stagnation. Nothing evolved. Nothing increased. They were afraid of moving on to new possibilities.

“Go home, Kyle. Take your son. Those who trust in you need your help. Time is short for some, and as the string draws tighter, desperation increases. Desperation is a self feeding disease. There is much to fear.”

“Alex…” Kyle said softly, so as not to wake Liam. “I miss you.”

“Do not. I am always with you.”

~~~

Jim stood before the Council of Elders, of which he was a part. A historian in the early warfare of his planet, he knew more about where they came from than most alive. Amy sat on the side, in the galley waiting patiently for her son to arrive. He had requested an audience. Meghan was next to her, twisting her hands in worry. Kyle had visited the other children that morning, saying his goodbyes. He also gave them a new way to contact him if they should ever need him. He did not give one to Meghan.

“My Lords of the Council, I beg your audience for my son. He is due to depart Agape immediately.”

One of the members stood, he was the Elder of the Medical Guilds. “That is impossible! Your son has a third heart growing in his chest! He is soon to die if we do not remove it, or do not find a way to bring its beat in harmony with his others.” He looked at the others. “The research possibilities are immeasurable! We can’t allow his departure.”

Kyle entered the Halls. His walk was a long silent one before the full attending galleries to the front of the Council of Elder. He walked with his son at his side. He wore Royal robes, those given to certain members of the Shiva when the New Royal Federation was born denoting their stature and position within the new World Order. He was a Lord of High, equal to what was once the Eminent Class. Those in the galleries whispered loudly among themselves. Never since the inception had a Lord of High approached the Elders.

Kyle stopped and did not speak. He waited calmly cautioning Liam to remain unmoving. Kyle was purposely ignoring the protocol of his world, the proper etiquette required in addressing the Council of Elders.

Finally they blinked.

“My Lord, you requested an audience?”

“No,” said Kyle. “I demanded one.” His distinction was not lost.

“This is highly irregular…”

“No, this is not irregular! You violate my child, my son, my first born, and you feel my presence is irregular?”

“It was in accordance to the laws when your son showed violent tendencies…”

Kyle voice raised in anger. “I read the report! The psychologist placed his behavior as mere anger towards a parent, and the changing marital stability of his home situation. Never once was it implied that he was an aberrant.” He stood even taller. “It is written within the law of this matter that the accused be allowed thirty full period cycles to contest and bring reason why mind probing is not necessary, allowing for counseling for extenuating circumstances to be investigated.” Kyle studied the Elders, his voice dripping in disdain. “My son was given three days! Not the required thirty! Why?” He moved away from Liam. “Because I am his father? Because you knew after the atrocities you performed on me, that I would never allow a child of mine probed? You shortened the time so I could not be sent for, ignoring the protest of my father and mother, and even my ex-wife, the child’s mother.”

“My Lord, it was felt that it would be in the best interest of the child to quickly absolve him of all suspicion, so that he might return to a normal life.”

“Normal? My son was violated, mind raped by his own people, his most intimate thoughts revealed, and you feel he should now return to normal?”

The gallery squirmed in discomfort. The Elders started to protest the use of the word ‘rape’ attributed to the procedure.

“Your cure is a shadow of the disease. By no means does it protect anyone but those too afraid to embrace change and difference. This world is diseased by staid complacency. Nothing evolves without change. Did you find evil lurking in the mind of my child? Or even myself?” Kyle did not wait for their reply. “I am no longer of this world, by choice. My son has requested the same desire to leave his birth world for another. I will take my son home to Karnak , his allegiance to Agape is dissolved as of this moment.”

The room exploded in protest. Kyle, Liam, and Jim both stood silent. They ignored the protestations of the Council and the murmuring of the galleries. Suddenly in a flash of an eye, Alex stood at Kyle’s side in his Eminent robes, Regal and Ethereal. His authority without question. In that moment, he was there, and then he was gone.

“My Lord!” The Council was on their feet.

Silence!

The booming command echoed in their minds as the entire room went silent. The hush deafening as the chatter of moments before had once been. It was the voice of Kyle ringing in their ears.

“I am no longer of your world, subjected to your laws, and as of this moment, neither is my son. I leave two other minor children in their mother’s care with the ability to contact me instantaneously. Do not test my patience. If my children are ever subjected to invasive testing, I will come back and teach your world to fear. Khivar will be a savior in comparison.”

Kyle turned, and with his son strode out of the chamber. Liam walked tall, not even bothering to look at his mother to whom he wished a curt farewell earlier.

“Liam, many things I can tolerate, and others I cannot. Rudeness towards your mother is one thing I will never tolerate. Show her the respect and courtesy due her.”

Liam turned and bowed toward his mother, before joining his father on the long walk away from his native world. Smiling slightly, he was almost bouncing on the toes of his feet. An adventure! Once his future seemed so small and bleak, now there was an endless possibility. Looking at his father, Liam couldn’t stop smiling.

“That was well done, Kyle,” said Alex walking next to them.

“You didn’t have to show up. I was doing all right.”

Alex chuckled. “Yes, but did you see their reactions? Tell me it was not worth it?”

Kyle shook his head as Liam laughed with Alex. “Why did I think that by becoming ascended you would lose your mischievous humor?”

“Heh. I am ascended, not dead!” Alex looked around. “Now where did Eoin go again?”

~~~

Michael sat back breathing hard. His head felt like it was splitting open. His heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to rip itself from his chest.

“More?” Maria asked breathlessly.

“No. Give me some time to work through this.” Michael lay back against the back of the seat as Maria came around the table to sit next to him, her hand smoothing the lines of his face.

“Are you too tired or in too much pain to go on?”

Michael moaned. He felt tired. Bone tired. “How much is left?”

“More than you can comprehend. Every generation since the creators, the Firsts recorded their history so that we might know them. They recorded their histories, and the histories of all they met along the way.” Maria moved next to him sighing as his arm came around her. “For our purposes, we might know enough.”

“Your people’s history is long, Maria. Longer than even I realized.” Michael looked around at all the knowledge contained within the Hall of Knowledge. The Annals of Time were only a small part of it.

“I see the line of my people going back to the beginning. They wait for me, beckon me to join them.” Maria frowned. “Maybe you are not the only one that needs children? How can I let all they were, pass without issue? They did nothing but survive.”

“They were a noble race. It is a pleasure to mix my race with theirs.” Michael said kissing Maria’s hand above the ring he had placed there.

“I was wrong, Michael. So very wrong.” Maria looked up at him. “I thought the Granilith came to Anterra from an alien culture, that it was a machine of unmatched power that we had learned to control and use for transportation. I was so wrong.” She shook her head. Her entire life was misinformation. “The Ancients, they were us. Hybrids, created by the Granilith and each other, the very machine they created. It’s a looping anomaly.”

“That loop, I still don’t understand. It’s not a real loop is it?”

Maria shook her head. “More of a spiral, coiled tightly back on itself, with numerous interlocking points of interception.”

“I saw the serpent’s configuration. I didn’t understand it.”

“It was the symbol of Khivar, Michael. An old symbol he carried before his armies as they marched the plains into war. Through the centuries he stopped using the symbol of his house, but it has come back around.”

“Khivar. That name. It never dies. Our Khivar? On that point I am confused.”

Maria shut her eyes. She was nauseated. They had spent too many hours in the chairs learning past histories at the blink of an eye. Her brain felt overloaded.

“I think our Khivar was merely a clone of the original from so long ago. He was the same, but not the same. Like O’Jah, they too had a limit to their mortality. O’Jah ascended. I believe Khivar cloned himself many times. That had to be the urgency to his cloning experiments.”

“Evil remains the same in all forms? The name may change, and the times, but evil is always evil.”

Maria nodded, moaning as her body sank deeper into the cushion. Blessed rest. “He was part of the looping Destiny. He never knew how much so. The two that they sent back to Antar, Zan and Lonnie, the Royals, they within twenty years had all but destroyed Khivar, beat him back. In the last effort to retain his rule, he sent invading warships to Earth. Terra. His intent was to enslave humanity, to kidnap the twins that created the Granilith, or at the very least remove them from the Earth. He wanted them to build him his very own Granilith. It was his attack, invasion of Earth that made the Commander’s children create the Granilith. Once it served its purpose, its power was too great and destructive to remain in their time, and so they sent it back in time after they removed Khivar and his threat.”

Michael settled in next to her, needing to sleep, to let all the information run through his mind like a movie, playing over and over. “Why didn’t he recognize the Granilith when he took it from Anterra?”

Maria snuggled deeper into his side. “He never knew where Terra went. He never knew the changes made, the inclusion of the Harmonics, and the joining of the three into One, and the Shifter to the matrix, making the Granilith more than it originally was. He didn’t know what he found, not until it was too late. By the time he realized that he found Terra and the Granilith, he had already destroyed the very planet for which he had spent a thousand lifetimes searching.”

“They could never control it, could they?”

“No. It was never theirs.”

“The Granilith is gone. We made sure of that. You, me and Max.”

“Yes.” Maria looked at Michael, her eyes worried. “I made a mistake though.”

Michael groaned. He didn’t want to hear this. It was sure to be bad news. “Don’t tell me.”

Maria ignored his command. “In opening the Annals of Time, learning my own histories, I learned something I never expected to know.” Michael refused to ask. He didn’t want it to be a new Destiny, a new duty. Something to take her from him.

“Michael, I can build a Granilith. It’s so easy. Child’s play really.”

Polarity. It was them. As basic and simplistic as what bound them. Opposites, charged ends, meeting in attraction so strong, electrical, binding in a clasp of energy so essential. Opposites meet. She was cold blooded. He was hot. She was emotionally warm. He was cold. They were from opposite Universes. Opposite poles. Without the other, they ceased to exist. Once bound, nothing could pull them apart. The amount of energy expended to separate them would be immeasurable, but should the event ever occur, the amount of energy to remove them from their stable matrix would fuel a thousand stars, unmake time, and undo creation. Taking that out of the esoteric, into the atomic level, cellular, and genetic, it was true for all things in nature. They seek their opposites. The Granilith was the result of energies created by ripped opposite and bound molecules out of the Balance.

“Dammit, Maria! I told you not to tell me!” Michael scowled at her. Of course she understood how to make one. So did he.