posted 02-22-99 06:05 PM ET     

VISION OF THE ROSE
Chapter I: Fading Crimson

* * *

He became dimly aware of the sound of a heartbeat -- shallow but steady. A measured rhythm: tmp-thmp, tmp-thmp, tmp-thmp. It took him a few moments to recognize the sound as his own, magnified through the surrounding liquid. Still, it felt not so much a part of him as it seemed to be a gentle thump, feeling its way through time. Then its steadiness gave way to a low bubbling as the fluid around him emptied away. A coldness as the last fugitive drops slowly dried on his skin. Despite the discomfort, he couldn�t open his eyes. There was only the uncomfortable roar of open air, and a growing confusion --

Where am I? Who am I?

A soft, sustained hum sang in his ears, and vibrations tugged at his back and sides. A feeling of open space, exposure. A gentle touch, and he could feel something, a mask, pulled away from his nose and mouth, leaving the metallic scent of recycled air in his breath. One heavy eyelid struggled to open a sliver. Bright. Too bright. Close again. He heard a name, a clouded memory of a name, in the air, and tried again. Less bright this time, and his eyes finally opened, his vision clouded by a haze of green. The sketchiest outlines of a gentle face and its bright blue eyes stared back at him.

Markael, can you hear me?

The name whispered at the edge of his memory, teasing him like a forgotten dream. Markael. Is that my name? Where is this? A ship, of some sort. He raised himself on his elbows, the soft sting of muscle pain wakening him further. Yes. A ship. To a new planet. Why am I...no, there was no why. He was simply there. He slowly sat upright as far as he could, his back protesting each movement with pain, craning his head to see the window, suddenly eager for a glimpse of new skies, new soil. But only the crushing darkness of space greeted his eyes.

"We...we're not there yet."

The woman shook her head, a wan smile forming across her lips. "No, I woke you early from your cryosleep. Something's come up, and I need you to work the hydroponics station on one of the modules." A name appeared in his mind, without his knowing why. Deirdre. Yes, you must be Deirdre.

Markael closed his eyes, overcome by the familiar world of sound. The dim hum of the Unity's engines singing in his ears, the occasional chirps of the cryogenic computer mounted next to his chamber punctuating the air with staccato beats, and the pulls of his own breath reverberating through his body. And over everything else, the low din of open air, chilling and uncaring. He forced a smile as he drew his head against his knees.

"I knew...you didn't wake me for tea and scones."

* * *

Markael opened his eyes slowly, the previous night�s dream rushing away from him. A woman holding a rose in an idyllic pastoral setting, a wooded lake. The hammock swayed gently under him as his eyes drifted aimlessly across the small hills and valleys of the rocky ceiling. It�s been many mornings that I�ve been here, he thought, and now I�m finally remembering where here is. He had awoken many times since the Voyage, many of those times hoping that all was only hallucination. The crew were unified and a glorious society was beginning on Chiron. Earth was still alive and aiding their efforts with advice and knowledge. Each time, though, he had awakened to the cold world he knew was the truth.

He still remembered his first reaction to hearing the news from Deirdre, trying to clamber half-naked from his chamber and rush to the communications receivers, certain that contact would still be established. Forgetting just for a moment about the lingering effects of muscle atrophy and being reminded with pain, spasms, almost crashing to the floor were it not for Deirdre catching him. Wanting to scream at her, deny it all, the words of his rebuke emerging only as strangled gibberings. Unbelieving until the brutally impartial word "OFFLINE" stamped itself onto his vision. The rows of "OFFLINE" blurring into each other, into a red electronic haze.

He didn't lie wistfully in his chamber as long as the previous days, but there was still a pause in his hammock. He let his eyes travel across the ceiling, breathing in the damp warm air, feeling his chest rise and fall slowly in time. He thought for a moment of his good fortune, of not being one of the unfortunates who didn't survive the Great Voyage. There remains much to be done today, he thought, as there always will be.

= = =

Markael ran his fingers slowly and lazily across the stone surface of his desk. It reminded him of his childhood fancies, when he had pretended he was King Arthur and often convened the Knights of the Round Table to undertake a glorious quest. He'd often used one of the large stones in the back yard of his home as the Table, and a wooden sword for Excalibur. Now, he mused, my Excalibur is a pen, and my conquests are written in these stacks of paperwork. The thought made him chuckle. Still, the stone comforted him, the texture and color reminding him of that Round Table of memory. The architects had originally wanted his desk to be metal, but he had refused the idea. A desk is a place where ideas are born -- not where roofs are held up, he said, and that was that. The metal had been put to better use in the numerous shafts and support beams, and he was glad to see others had followed his lead by using the natural stone for many of their living effects. My Knights, in a fashion.

The soft tingling chime interrupted his reverie, and he looked up from his work. "Come in," he called out.

A slender young woman with straight blond hair and blue eyes sauntered in dressed in the familiar labs uniform: loose-fitting dark slacks and a bright green tunic marked with two small roses enclosed in diamonds on the left breast -- the familiar Gaian national symbol.

"How art thou, milord?" Sylvia asked, a gentle hint of sarcasm seeping into her speech.

"Yeah, yeah," Markael said, rolling his eyes and putting down his pen. He admitted to himself that his high-backed chair seemed rather imperious, perhaps even more so since it was of a light stone adorned with bright red cushions. He thought that the surroundings of the room would have dampened any of those impressions -- the walls still rough-hewn save for the few places he chose to hang pictures, the floor smooth but occasionally punctuated with water marks, the air still heavy with the scent of earth in spite of the blooming flowers that he�d placed in the corners -- but not enough.

Sylvia squinted a little as she moved closer, her shadow splaying out against the bumps and creases of the wall. "Kind of dark of here," she commented. "You�ll ruin your eyes."

"Thank you, Mother," Markael replied, but cast his hand toward the glowbulb on his desk. As he wrapped his fingers around the sphere, it grew brighter, filling the room with brighter light, at least as bright as the outside hallway. "So what�s up?"

It was always good to have an excuse for a break, he thought, and Sylvia was a personable type. Not like some of the stiff-faced folks chained to the biolabs, or the other council members. He couldn't help but grimace at the thought of some of them; he could envision the presence of pencil-headed, robotic bureaucrats inside, just wriggling to break free. Sylvia would have to go through a lot to become like that, he thought wryly.

"Well, you wanted me to check on conferring with Deirdre, right? She said she'll be free tomorrow at the mid-afternoon recession. She'll be in the Main Arboretum." Sylvia leaned forward and handed him a small slip of paper, which he took and set down on the desk without reading.

"Great. Thanks a lot, Sylvia. I would've done it myself, but as you can see," he said, softly slapping the top of his desk, "I don't have a handy commlink built in here."

Sylvia idly glanced at a few of the flowers growing near the desk. "That�s okay, I understand." She bent down and sniffed one of the tall-stemmed lilacs, closing her eyes at the smell. Perhaps to rid the scent of the rest of the room, Markael cynically mused. Still, he did take pride in his collection of flowers -- most from Earth strains, naturally, but quite a few from the native soil. The sweet-smelling white and yellow sunblooms, and the honeyfires, so named because annually, they dripped with a saccharine nectar, an orange-red that matched its petals, the color of fire...

"Hey, you haven't been by the labs lately," Sylvia said, interrupting his thoughts. "Dr. Selamus has been asking about you. He says he could use your help on some of the radioactive labelling for the Human Genome..."

"I've been busy. Council work and all that," he interrupted, sitting upright and making a show of considering the papers in front of him. "The old man can get along just fine without me. He's brilliant. Anyway, duty calls."

She stood, looking briefly at the paperwork on his desk. "Are you sure you�re okay? Not overworked, I hope."

"A few more caverns need to be surveyed for future tunnels. There's rumors of our needing a new ward for some births, and a whole lot of positions need to be filled." Markael shook his head ruefully. "Some doctors, some administration, and I guess we could use a couple of people for basic scouting. I don't even think we have a head security coordinator as of yet..."

"Oh, you didn't hear? Deirdre appointed Tara as head of security detail today."

Markael looked up, fixing her with a level gaze. "Tara McLellan?"

She nodded, and he paused, pursing his lips. "Well." Folding his arms across his chest, he sat back and looked absently at the sheaves of papers before him. "She's certainly fit for it." It seemed like a long time ago, but...perhaps not long enough. Markael unwillingly cast his mind back to the time on the Unity, in that moment of desperation.

* * *

He was just struggling to his feet after being knocked into a grove of trees. Santiago lay on the ground, unconscious, and Nhoj was standing over her, shredder pistol in hand. He walked unsteadily over to the group of others, who were huddling about the fallen Kurn. Tara pushed away a sweep of her long dark hair and tossed aside the tension rig carelessly, her mouth twisted in an ugly crook of disgust.

"Spartan filth," she muttered, almost inaudibly.

Markael was still standing in shock. Kurn...his skin must have been ripped apart in seconds. The pain it must have caused. And more death. He turned to Tara, who was brushing dirt from her jacket, his face flushed and eyes uncomprehending.

"You...you killed him!" he finally said.

"What?" Tara stared at him in disbelief, her right hand suddenly frozen on her sleeve.

"You killed him!" he repeated, his hands shaking, "There was no need for this!" Blood was dripping from the wrapped sheet where Kurn's body lay. Blood...

Deirdre turned away from the commlink and stood between them, one arm outstretched. She turned to face him. "Markael."

Tara faced him, her black eyes burning, her teeth set in anger. "What, you'd rather they killed us all? Is that what you wanted?" She almost spat the last question in Markael's direction.

"It wasn't enough that he was immobilized, was it?" Markael replied, distantly feeling his voice rising to a shout. "It wasn�t enough that he couldn�t move. You had to fire that signal impulse. You had to kill him, didn't you?"

"Back off, Mark," Deirdre said, her voice commandingly level. "Back off. She didn't have time to think." She kept her arms outstretched and her body rigid, but her blue eyes were softly pleading.

Tara vehemently threw one of Deirdre's arms to the side. "And what if I did have time to think?" Tara stabbed at Markael in a rush of words. "I've had it with your simpering, Peacewood! Maybe in your own little world nobody dies, but I'm not going to stand idly by while someone threatens to kill every man-jack of us! We're the last ones here, and we must survive. I don't care what you think. No matter what, we must survive!" She thrust out the last three words slowly, deliberately.

"That's exactly what they were thinking," he responded, "and it doesn't make their murders any better. Is this what we've become? Murderers?" He forced himself to turn away from Tara, fists balled against his eyes.

"Killing!" he cried out skyward, "Killing! Killing!" He shouted, his voice growing hoarse with despair. "When is it going to stop? When will it be ENOUGH? ENOUGH!" The word echoed off the panels of the greenhouse as he looked down at the body of the fallen Spartan. He could see the severed sinews of his face, crossing like bloody strands of yarn, and his jaws locked open in an interrupted scream. He could see the twists of his ripped muscles, blotted in red. A long maze of thick entrails streamed unbound from his midsection.

Markael suddenly doubled over. He hastily clamped his mouth shut with one hand, but felt the gurgling inside him, rushing up to meet his throat. He half gasped, closing his eyes tightly, but the terrible image remained in his vision. He felt human hands on his shoulder, trying to help him, and the calming voice of Sylvia in his ear, but it did little to erase the sight from his mind.

* * *

As Sylvia watched him slide into deep thought, she shifted uncomfortably. "I know you don't like her very much, Mark, but..."

"Well, you know, it's not like that at all," Markael replied tersely, holding up a palm in defense. He shrugged limply, as if to convince himself of his words. "It's just that I...don't agree with her point of view. I mean, she was talking about setting up perimeters and increasing sensor range the moment we made planetfall." He sighed and added, "Still, if Deirdre thinks she can do the job..."

"Security has to be taken care of, and some military preparations as well. It's a necessary function of any nation," she said a little hesitantly.

Small reassurance, Markael thought dryly. Placing his palms together, he leaned forward on his elbows and looked down, his eyes searching the papers on his desk. "I know. I just wish ..." he said, closing his eyes. "...We could leave all of it behind."

For a moment, a hint of concern showed in her eyes. She looked down, her slow voice washing over him. "I have faith in what we're trying to do, Mark. I believe in our ideals almost as much as you do. But if we're going to make this society work, we have to prepare for everything. No matter what happens, we must..."

"Survive." He let out a sharp exhalation of breath through his nose, half in amusement, half in bitterness. "Yes. If we can." The words hung in the air, a grim portent. No, we can, he amended in thought. If we will is another matter.

Sylvia dug at one of the pockmarks in the stone floor with a boot, not looking up. "I�ve got to be heading back to the labs. Are you okay? Do you need anything else...?"

"No, thank you, Sylvia," he said, finally looking up. "Good luck with your research." Taking pen in hand, he placed it against one of the papers as if to write something, but there was nothing that he wanted to write.

She said a muted good-bye and left, the door closing behind her. His left hand snaked toward the glowbulb reflexively, and the light dimmed to a lower level once more, the shadows of the plant stalks and his form dancing on the edges of the walls. Almost like torchlight, he mused, but I prefer it this way. Where things seem alive.

Markael stood, turning a tired shoulder around in its socket, and turned toward the map on the far wall. It showed the familiar spiral of endless stars rotating around a bright center, dissected into familiar gridlines. The Milky Way. If there's one thing I hate most about living underground, he thought, it's the lack of windows. Or maybe I'm just feeling cooped up because of work. At least I can pretend that this is something like a window. Somewhere where I can let my eyes rest.

His eyes fell on the Orion Arm of the Galaxy, and his thoughts returned to Earth. Death and war has followed us even while taking our mothers and fathers. He closed his eyes and imagined the silent screams of the hundreds who perished, of the sounds of pellet fire cracking against the walls. Murder. Kill wherever we go. Maybe it would have been better if we'd crashed. Better not to despoil Planet with our killing rage.

He looked down at a small sitting table, with a bowl of rose-red apples in the center. Wearily, he picked one up, turning it over in one hand, feeling the smooth contours of its skin. No, he didn't believe that. Even in his darkest moments, in his heart, he didn't believe that. People can change if they just know, if they can just see. We'll make it, somehow. We have to. He closed his eyes and bit into the fruit, expecting to savor the taste. But as he chewed, his lips pulled back tightly. It wasn't the taste of the sugary juice he'd expected, but something else entirely.

He tasted blood.

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