after.
* * *
Sure as hell I hated the Dark Ones. Everyone does.
Walking through my home station with floor splattered with blood, madmen tied hand and foot writhing about in their delirium, revenge was the only thing on my mind. When I heard Eugene was killed I shed the last doubt. I wanted to burn their nest to cinders, along with the Botanical Gardens which I'd never be able to return to anyways.
The legends that gossip lovers tell each other today depict the Dark Ones as having incredible power and being terribly ferocious. They say they dismembered the guards with bare hands, writhing their necks – I won't be surprised if the mutants from these tales start actually drinking human blood. This is all complete and utter nonsense. Truth is a hundred times scarier.
The fact is, the Dark Ones didn't kill a single man. They didn't even touch anyone. Everyone died at the hands of their own comrades who were driven raving mad by the Dark Ones. Nobody is able to retain self control when the Dark Ones approach. And nobody remembers what he turned into while they were around. Sure thing, when the feat subsides and you see your friend with his throat ripped out it's easier than anything to think that a beast had done it. Think it and believe it.
True enough, by the way – the only catch being that the beast had crawled out your own self and hid right back after finishing its business. That is something anyone's better with not knowing, for anyone who met that beast within even for a moment would always be in dire need of a straight jacket.
There's only one person I know who tried to make do without one. He thought combat armor was a better restraint for a body housing the monster trying to take its actual owner's place. He believed that a titanium helmet would stop something alien from entering his head…
But we're not talking about this man now.
There was nobody who did not feel fear and disgust at the mere sight of the Dark Ones. They were our complete opposite. Seeing a Dark One was not unlike seeing a man turned inside out, with meat and intestines pulsing outside with obscene frankness. Not because of their body structure – one could poke a Dark One's corpse with a stick or kick it with no fear of losing the latest meal; it was something completely different. Their living presence was to be blamed. The closer they approached, the stronger the disgust and fear grew. It seemed that if this hell spawn touched you, your soul, not brain but the very soul, would be infected with some kind of a parasite or fungus, be covered with pus-spouting ulcers, wither and die but still remain there, serving as food for the parasite for as long as it deems necessary… Though the actual impressions varied from person to person.
So there was nothing more normal than wanting to eliminate every last one of these nightmares: it was the only way to get rid of fear which would otherwise follow you until death.
And that's why I knew what I had to do when the weapon of revenge we pried out of our ancestor's cold dead hands fell under my control. And I did exactly that.
It took the missiles less than a minute to cover the distance between the launch position that survived the Final war in a miraculously mint condition and the home of the new sentient species that was equally miraculously born to this planet. But there was another minute before that, the time it took while the target coordinates were being transferred to the launch control.
That minute turned into a personal eternity for me.
* * *
– I don't remember, – I told Eugene. – Get off my case!
Of course we were questioned when we got back. We told nothing.
Eugene and Vitali forgot that going to the Gardens was my idea, and I forgot that they left me on the surface alone. I
* * *
Sure as hell I hated the Dark Ones. Everyone does.
Walking through my home station with floor splattered with blood, madmen tied hand and foot writhing about in their delirium, revenge was the only thing on my mind. When I heard Eugene was killed I shed the last doubt. I wanted to burn their nest to cinders, along with the Botanical Gardens which I'd never be able to return to anyways.
The legends that gossip lovers tell each other today depict the Dark Ones as having incredible power and being terribly ferocious. They say they dismembered the guards with bare hands, writhing their necks – I won't be surprised if the mutants from these tales start actually drinking human blood. This is all complete and utter nonsense. Truth is a hundred times scarier.
The fact is, the Dark Ones didn't kill a single man. They didn't even touch anyone. Everyone died at the hands of their own comrades who were driven raving mad by the Dark Ones. Nobody is able to retain self control when the Dark Ones approach. And nobody remembers what he turned into while they were around. Sure thing, when the feat subsides and you see your friend with his throat ripped out it's easier than anything to think that a beast had done it. Think it and believe it.
True enough, by the way – the only catch being that the beast had crawled out your own self and hid right back after finishing its business. That is something anyone's better with not knowing, for anyone who met that beast within even for a moment would always be in dire need of a straight jacket.
There's only one person I know who tried to make do without one. He thought combat armor was a better restraint for a body housing the monster trying to take its actual owner's place. He believed that a titanium helmet would stop something alien from entering his head…
But we're not talking about this man now.
There was nobody who did not feel fear and disgust at the mere sight of the Dark Ones. They were our complete opposite. Seeing a Dark One was not unlike seeing a man turned inside out, with meat and intestines pulsing outside with obscene frankness. Not because of their body structure – one could poke a Dark One's corpse with a stick or kick it with no fear of losing the latest meal; it was something completely different. Their living presence was to be blamed. The closer they approached, the stronger the disgust and fear grew. It seemed that if this hell spawn touched you, your soul, not brain but the very soul, would be infected with some kind of a parasite or fungus, be covered with pus-spouting ulcers, wither and die but still remain there, serving as food for the parasite for as long as it deems necessary… Though the actual impressions varied from person to person.
So there was nothing more normal than wanting to eliminate every last one of these nightmares: it was the only way to get rid of fear which would otherwise follow you until death.
And that's why I knew what I had to do when the weapon of revenge we pried out of our ancestor's cold dead hands fell under my control. And I did exactly that.
It took the missiles less than a minute to cover the distance between the launch position that survived the Final war in a miraculously mint condition and the home of the new sentient species that was equally miraculously born to this planet. But there was another minute before that, the time it took while the target coordinates were being transferred to the launch control.
That minute turned into a personal eternity for me.
* * *
– I don't remember, – I told Eugene. – Get off my case!
Of course we were questioned when we got back. We told nothing.
Eugene and Vitali forgot that going to the Gardens was my idea, and I forgot that they left me on the surface alone. I
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