Virgin Queen of Inuma

James Abraham Carter

Chapter I: The Descent from the Void

The silence of the interstellar void was a heavy, suffocating thing, but the silence aboard the Genesis was of a different quality. For twelve long years, while human history dissolved into a burnt-out ash heap six light-years away, a thousand young men and women had drifted in cold, dreamless stasis, balancing on the razor-thin barrier that separated life from death. They were the genetic seed-vault of a dying species, preserved in amniotic tanks like butterflies awaiting emergence from their chrysalis with the coming of spring.

Now, the spring had arrived.

Orbiting serenely above the rust-red and amber landmasses of Bhumi—a world christened by ancestral astronomers in honor of the Hindu earth goddess—the starship was active with waking life. But the joy of arrival had been swiftly tempered by the synthetic eye of the ship’s long-range optics. Down on the surface, rising from the rolling plains of the southern hemisphere, were geometric patterns of stone, broad roadways, and the sprawling masonry of organized civilization.

Primitive cities.

The discovery had thrown the executive council of Genesis into an urgent, twenty-hour debate. To colonize an uninhabited world was a simple engineering challenge; to step unannounced onto a populated planet was a geopolitical powder keg. Misunderstanding, cultural contamination, disease, or sheer instinctive violence could spark a war that humanity, in its fragile state, could ill afford.

They needed a mediator. They needed an ambassador.

**********

Jack Hawk stood in the landing module’s bay, running through the preflight check for the third time. He was a man forged from the rigorous training protocols of the final generation of Earth—physically resilient, psychologically stable, and sharp-witted. He had volunteered for the first-contact mission knowing the stakes. If he succeeded, humanity found a home. If he failed, a thousand sleeping souls in orbit remained orphans of the cosmos.

"Language upload at one hundred percent, Jack," the automated voice of the ship’s artificial intelligence echoed softly through his neural implant. "Hypno-induction successful. You possess native fluency in the Inuman dialect, compiled from a thousand hours of audio-surveillance gathered by our stealth drones. Preflight check is now complete. All systems are green."

"Copy that, A.I.," Jack murmured, adjusting the collar of his form-fitting jumpsuit. The garment looked deceptively simple, but it was a marvel of post-collapse nanotechnology—an outer layer of overlapping scales made from a super-tough composite material, designed to disperse kinetic impacts and turn aside shrapnel or primitive blades. "How does the landing zone look?"

"Inuma marketplace is clear. Night has fallen locally. Thermal imaging shows minimal night-watch activity. You should be able to touch down without causing mass panic."

"Let's make history, then."

Jack turned and waved a final time to his crewmates who had gathered to watch his departure through the bay’s observation window. Everyone was depending on his success, and he felt the weight of responsibility settle on his broad shoulders. Firming his resolve, he entered the landing module, a spherical craft resting on tripod landing gear. Sealing the hatch, he strapped himself into the pilot’s couch of the small vessel. Powerful pumps sucked the air out of the bay, and the outer doors opened to the vacuum of space. With a gentle motion, the craft rose from the belly of the Genesis and began its long, scorching burn through Bhumi’s thick, earth-like atmosphere. Through the landing module’s viewscreen, Jack watched as the planet swelled beneath him, its surface details becoming clearer with each passing second.

Moments later, the repulsion fields flared to brake the descent, and the module floated like a falling feather toward the heart of the night-shrouded city.

Inuma rose up to meet him. Even in the gloom of starlight, Jack’s eyes widened at the architecture. It was a living museum, mirroring the AI-generated reconstructions of Bronze Age civilizations in the ancient Middle East that he had studied in history documentaries—massive ziggurat-like buildings, the mud-brick walls of the commoners’ dwellings, quarried marble for the nobles' residences, and narrow, winding avenues that smelled of woodsmoke, roasting meat, and dust.

With a soft, pneumatic sigh from its landing gear, the module settled onto the flagstones of the central square. The landing struts locked into place.

On the bridge’s monitors, Jack watched the immediate aftermath. The high-pitched whine of the field generators had done its work; within minutes, the shadows at the corners of the square began to stir. Torches flared into life, casting long, dancing amber fingers of light across the stone facades.

A squad of city guards converged on the module; their sandaled feet slapping rhythmically against the plaza. They formed a tight, hostile circle, spears leveled, bronze tips gleaming hungrily in the light of the planet’s huge moon.

Jack took a steadying breath, rehearsed his all-important speech, and activated the outer hatch release.

The heavy metal seal swung outward. Jack stepped down onto the extended ramp, raising his hands slowly, palms open, in the universal gesture of peace.

"Greetings," Jack called out, his voice carrying clearly in the crisp night air, shaped by the AI-imparted grammar of the Inumans. "I come in peace. I am an ambassador for my people, who travel from the stars to seek your friendship."

The guards froze. The torchlight illuminated their features fully for the first time, and Jack felt a sudden chill. Of course, he had seen videos of the aliens from drone footage of the city, but being face-to-face with them was an entirely different thing.

They were human in basic anatomy, but their skin possessed a ruddy crimson hue that varied from pale red to dark crimson. Their hair was uniformly black, and their eyes were dark brown. Each was armored in a bronze helmet and a cuirisse. Their loins were concealed by a kilt-like garment of leather, and sandals shod their feet. They weren’t ugly, but their features were marked by something indefinably otherworldly - a subtle variation on the human aesthetic that was both intriguing and unsettling in its difference.

For a second, there was silence. Then, the captain of the guard took one look at Jack’s glowing visor, his scaly, outlandish apparel, and the sheer alien geometry of the bizarre ship.

"A demon!" the captain shrieked, his voice cracking with superstitious terror. "A foul spirit from the sky! Slay it!"

A dozen spears flew through the air in unison.

Jack didn’t even flinch. He had been told the material was tough, but the reality was staggering. The razor-sharp bronze tips struck his chest and shoulders with the force of thrown hammers, but instead of piercing his flesh, they flattened against the overlapping composite scales and dropped harmlessly to the flagstones with metallic clatters.

The guards stared at the fallen weapons, then up at Jack, who stood completely unharmed and unperturbed by an attack that would have slain a mortal.

The psychological effect was instantaneous and absolute. The terror evaporated, replaced by a crushing, primordial awe. One by one, the guards dropped their remaining weapons, fell to their knees, and pressed their foreheads against the cold stone of the square, hailing him as a god descended from the heavens.

Jack stood blinking in the torchlight, dumbfounded by the radical shift in the attitude of his assailants, clearly occurring at his feet. Not wishing to be mistaken for a divine being, he quickly removed his helmet to show his human nature. But before he could formulate a verbal response, a voice cut through the murmurs of prostrate devotion.

"Rise, fools."

The command was cool, melodic, and edged with authority. The guards scrambled backward into the shadows, clearing a path.

The voice was that of a woman. She had been standing behind the warriors, hidden by their muscular forms. But now that they were gone, Jack could see her clearly, and he gasped in amazement at the sight. She was clad in a triangular emerald loincloth and heavy armlets of hammered gold, and nothing else. Her skin was the same dark crimson as the guards', and her long black hair was ornamented with beads of silver. She was strikingly beautiful, possessing an exotic, feline grace that commanded the space around her.

She walked toward Jack with an unhurried stride, her dark eyes alive with sharp, analytical intelligence.

"I am Simmis," she said, her voice dropping into a register meant only for him. "High Priestess of Iolis, goddess of the city of Inuma. My warriors are superstitious fools who believe that bronze kills demons. Since you are impervious to their weapons, you cannot be a demon. Therefore, by their simple logic, you must be a god."

Jack cleared his throat, struggling to find his footing in this bizarre theological maze. "I am not a god, High Priestess. I am simply a man from a very far place."

A faint, knowing smile touched the corners of Simmis’s lips. "Men bleed when pierced by bronze. You do not. You may call yourself what you please, but here in the temple precinct, you are the center of attention. Come with me. The public square is no place for a guest, mortal or divine. Tell me of your people, your origins, and your wondrous sky-chariot in the quiet of my inner sanctum."

Jack, eager to establish diplomatic ties and smooth over the rough start, nodded readily. "Lead on, High Priestess."

Chapter II: The Serpent in the Sanctuary

The temple of Iolis was an imposing rectangular pile of bluish, marble-like stone that glinted with gold flecks in the moonlight. Simmis led Jack through labyrinthine corridors carved with vibrant frescoes depicting the complex mythology of the indigenous religion, finally halting before a pair of heavy doors made of gilded wood inlaid with lapis lazuli and garnets.

She pushed them open to reveal her luxurious, private apartments. It was a chamber of breathtaking opulence—silky hangings from distant provinces, censers burning sweet-smelling resins, and, dominating the center of the room, a square bathing pool cut directly into the living rock, fed by a continuous stream of crystal-clear water from a thermal spring.

Simmis turned to him, her eyes dancing with an unreadable light. Without a word of warning, she unclasped her emerald loincloth and let it fall to the floor. She stood before him in glorious, unabashed nudity, her crimson skin gleaming in the lamplight.

With a graceful, fluid motion, she slipped into the waters of the bathing pool, the ripples catching the ambient glow of the chamber’s golden oil lamps.

"It is our custom," Simmis murmured, looking up at him with languid eyes; her voice was a sensuous harmony that sent strange shivers down his spine. "When a stranger comes to the inner sanctum as an equal—or a god—mutual nudity is the highest sign of trust. In a state of complete vulnerability, deception is stripped away. Will you join me, sky-traveler?"

Jack stood frozen for a moment. His mind raced. He was an ambassador representing the last remnants of humanity; his mission was delicate, fraught with peril. Being alone, naked, in a room with a seductive alien priestess he had met ten minutes ago went against every security protocol he had ever been taught. Yet, he reminded himself, refusing her outright would be a mortal insult to local customs—a diplomatic disaster that could doom the colony before it began.

When in Rome, he thought grimly, recalling a cliché far older than space travel.

Jack unzipped his jumpsuit, let it pool at his feet, and stepped into the warm, soothing water of the pool.

Simmis swam toward him with the slow, mesmerizing grace of a predator closing the distance on its prey. She reached out, her fingers trailing lightly across his chest, her touch sending a stirring, electric tingle through his skin.

"You are strong," she whispered, her face inches from his. "Stronger than any man of Inuma."

"Thank you," Jack replied, slightly off-balance by her proximity.

In a flash of motion, too fast to react to, Simmis pressed her ring hard against his muscular bicep. Jack felt a sharp, burning prick. It was the bite of a stinging needle concealed in her jewel.

He gasped, pulling back. "Hey—what—?"

Before the sentence could finish, the world tilted violently on its axis. The luxurious room blurred into vertical streaks of gold and blue. A heavy, leaden numbness rushed through his veins, extinguishing his motor functions with terrifying speed.

Simmis caught him effortlessly as he collapsed helplessly into her arms. Her face hovered above his fading vision, no longer wearing the seductive mask of hospitality, but cold, calculating, and utterly merciless.

"You fool," she whispered into his failing hearing. "You are not a god. You are a threat."

Jack tried to speak, tried to strike out, but his limbs were dead weight. Darkness rushed up to swallow him, and his reeling mind fell entirely into the blackness.

Chapter III: The Weight of the Law

When consciousness returned, it brought with it a splitting headache and the rough bite of ropes.

Jack blinked against the harsh morning light streaming through the high clerestory windows of the room. He was lying flat on his back on the cold stone floor, still nude, and his suit was now draped over a chair. Thick, braided cords of plant-fiber cut cruelly into his wrists and ankles, binding him immovably.

A few feet away, sitting in another ornate chair carved from dark timber and inlaid with something that resembled mother of pearl, sat Simmis. She wore her emerald loincloth once more. Her lips held a cruel, triumphant smile as she regarded him with a gaze like winter ice.

Jack strained against his bonds; his muscles protested at the cruel bite of the ropes. "Why?" he rasped, his throat dry. "I came in peace. I am a representative of my people. We want nothing more than trade and friendship."

"Friendship?" Simmis laughed, a dry, mocking sound. "You saw my guards. You saw how easily they dropped to their knees before you. If my warriors believe a walking god has descended from the sky, how long before they look at me—their high priestess—and wonder why they take orders from a mortal woman?"

She stood up, pacing slowly around his bound form like a cat inspecting a trapped mouse. "Your mere existence undermines my authority. Power is fragile, sky-man, and I have spent half my life consolidating mine. I cannot allow a rival deity to walk the streets of my city. The news of your arrival will eventually spread through the city. It is too monumental to conceal. I must quickly show the people that you bleed, that you suffer, and that you die just like any other creature of mortal flesh."

She turned toward the heavy doors and clapped her hands sharply.

The wood groaned open, and four burly temple guards—men with broad shoulders and dead-eyed expressions—marched into the room.

"Take him to the eastern square," Simmis commanded, her voice ringing with finality. "Prepare the pit. Let the public witness the death of the false god."

The guards moved forward, hands reaching down to haul Jack up by his arms, when a sharp, authoritative voice cracked through the chamber.

"Stop!"

Simmis leaped from her chair. She whipped around, her face contorting with rage. "Hajna! What is the meaning of this intrusion? You have no right to enter the inner sanctum of the temple without my permission!"

Framed in the doorway stood another bare-breasted woman. She shared Simmis’s dark crimson skin and facial features, but her bearing was markedly different. Where Simmis exuded a harsh, predatory ambition, Hajna carried an aura of refined, quiet dignity. She wore garments of state—a pleated kilt of gauzy white fabric that fell to her ankles. A colorful decorative belt with a pendant apron and tassels held the kilt in place. Her sparkling jewels consisted of a necklace of opalescent cabochons, and a golden head ornament resembling a tiara completed her regalia. She was flanked by a dozen heavily armed royal guards, their swords drawn and resting easily in their hands.

"And you, dear sister," Hajna replied coolly, stepping past the guards into the room, "have no right to hold an unsanctioned prisoner. Law, order, and judicial execution fall under the sovereign authority of your queen. Or have you conveniently forgotten your place in the state?"

Simmis glared daggers at her sister. No love was lost between the siblings; their rivalry had been the stuff of court gossip since they were children, running wild in the palace gardens. But Simmis was intelligent enough to read the room. The royal guards outnumbered her temple thugs two to one, and the letter of Inuman law was firmly on Hajna’s side.

Forcing a strained, poisonous smile to her face, Simmis decided to cut her losses and wait for a more advantageous moment to strike.

"Take him, then," Simmis spat, waving a dismissive hand as if Jack were a piece of garbage whose odious nature offended her. "You want the sky-creature? He is yours. See what your precious law does for you when he brings ruin upon us all."

Hajna didn’t dignify the outburst with a reply. She walked over to Jack, knelt beside him, and produced a small, razor-sharp bronze dagger from her belt. With two quick slices, the thick cords fell away.

"Can you stand?" Hajna asked, her dark eyes softening as she looked down at him.

Jack rubbed his raw wrists, pushing himself up to his feet. He felt lightheaded from whatever drug Simmis had administered, but the adrenaline of survival was kicking back in. "I can stand. Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Do not thank me yet," Hajna said grimly, gesturing to the high priestess. "My sister has set wheels in motion that are difficult to stop. Get dressed. We must leave this place immediately."

Chapter IV: The Pit of the Ibbix

The royal palace sat directly across the central square from the temple, a sprawling complex of stone resembling alabaster, with spacious courtyards and shaded colonnades.

As they walked through the now-crowded marketplace, the queen’s guards clearing a path through the gawking onlookers, Hajna explained the situation to the Earthman. “It is fortunate for you,” she said, “that I have a spy in the temple who alerted me to your capture. I rescued you because I am genuinely interested in finding out about your people and what they can offer us. Simmis thinks only of herself, her prestige and power. I assure you I am not like that.”

“I believe you,”Jack sincerely replied, sensing the difference. The two women, although sisters, were as opposite as night and day.

Hajna led him through the building’s impressive entrance and down broad corridors brightly painted with frescoes depicting important events in the long history of Inuma. Within the quiet sanctuary of the queen’s private dining room, he rested for an hour. Then, after the drug had fully worn off, attentive servants laid out a modest meal of roasted meat, sweet fruits, and cool spring water. As Jack sat across from Hajna, forcing himself to eat slowly rather than inelegantly wolfing down the food to restore his depleted energy, he explained the true nature of his mission—the dying Earth, the starship Genesis hovering silently in the blackness above, and the desperate yearning of humanity for a second chance at life.

Hajna listened with rapt attention, her skepticism slowly melting away as he spoke of stars, physics, and the fragility of worlds.

Yet, as the meal progressed, a strange and potent change occurred in the atmosphere of the room. Jack felt a sudden, crushing wave of heat wash over his skin. His breath grew short, and his heart hammered against his ribs not with fear, but with a sudden, overwhelming surge of primal desire. He looked across the table and saw Hajna biting her lower lip, her large bare breasts rising and falling rapidly, her eyes dilated and heavy-lidded.

The feeling was electric, dizzying, completely out of control. Neither of them could speak; neither of them could think.

Driven by an irresistible, intoxicating madness beyond denying, Jack stood up, practically leaped across the low table, and swept the queen into his arms. Hajna met him with an answering ferocity, her fingers tangling in his hair. They kissed passionately. Hands roamed freely. Clothes were swiftly shed. Amidst the overturned goblets and scattered fruit, they collapsed completely naked onto the cool stone floor, surrendering utterly to a wild, passionate storm of touch and breath and flaming desire.

They were at the absolute zenith of ecstasy, crying out their passion, when the heavy, carved wooden doors of the dining room were violently thrown open.

"Aha!"

Simmis’s voice cut through their haze of frenzy like a whip. She stood on the threshold, flanked by half a dozen royal councillors and a squad of her own temple guards. Her face was a mask of ecstatic triumph.

"Behold!" Simmis cried, pointing a trembling finger at the tangled, naked figures on the floor. "Witness the crime of your sovereign! The law of Inuma is absolute: the queen must remain untouched, a perpetual virgin dedicated to the state until a political marriage is forged for the greater good of our people. And she has defiled herself with a base commoner!"

The councillors murmured in collective shock and dismay. Old men in heavy robes shook their heads, their faces falling into deep creases of sorrow and professional rigidity.

"The law is clear," the eldest councillor whispered hoarsely. "The penalty for breaking the sacred vow of the crown is death - for both of them."

Before the queen could rise or speak in her own defense, Simmis’s temple guards surged forward. They seized Jack and Hajna by their arms, hauling them roughly to their feet. There was no time for argument, no time for appeals. The machinery of ancient justice moved with terrifying, brutal speed.

Within minutes, they were dragged completely naked across the sun-drenched expanse of the central square to the eastern side, where a massive circular depression marred the flagstones.

A wooden disc, thirty feet in diameter and bound with iron bands, formed part of the mechanism for a type of primitive lift. The guards shoved Jack and Hajna onto its center.

As soon as their weight settled upon the platform, a system of heavy counterweights beneath the earth groaned into motion. The disc began to sink steadily into the ground, lowering them down into a dark, subterranean amphitheater carved out of the rock.

As the disc descended, Jack, who had been trying to understand how he and Hajna suddenly experienced such overwhelming desire, turned to the queen. “Is it possible that our food and drink was laced with a potent aphrodisiac?”

“It seems likely,” replied the queen bitterly. “Just as I have a spy in the temple, so it appears that Simmis has agents in the palace. We have always been rivals, but never did I think she would seek my destruction.”

“Then, if it is a plot, we can appeal this death sentence.”

Hajna wobbled her head in negation. “It will do no good. In the eyes of the law, it doesn’t matter how I lost my virginity. The penalty is the same.”

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” said Jack, his gaze unable to meet the Queen’s.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she replied. Then, with a smile that was genuine despite their horrid circumstances, she added, “My only regret is that we will be unable to repeat the delights of the dining room.”

The disc bumped against the floor of the pit, ending further conversation. Jack looked up. A dense, hostile crowd of citizens had gathered around the circular lip of the pit, peering down into the abyss with a mixture of morbid curiosity and righteous condemnation.

With a metallic screech, a heavy iron portcullis on the far wall of the pit ratcheted open.

Hajna grabbed Jack’s arm; her fingernails dug into his skin, and her face was pale with terror that transcended all other considerations.

"What is that?" Jack demanded, squinting into the gloom of the subterranean chamber.

"An ibbix," Hajna whispered, her voice trembling. "A nightmare from the southern jungles. It has the strength of at least two men, scales harder than bronze, and fangs that can snap a spear in half. It is the executioner of the pit."

She looked at him, despair heavy in her eyes. "There is an ancient, cruel loophole. If by some miracle a condemned soul slays the beast, the gods have declared them forgiven. But no one, not a single soul, has ever survived the ibbix."

Jack stared into the darkness as the low, vibrating growl of the monster echoed off the cold stone walls. From the dark archway emerged a shape straight out of a drug-induced nightmare: a creature, humanoid in form, its body covered not in hair, but in tough green scales.

The thing was clad in a rough hide loincloth, indicating some intelligence. However, this was belied by the bestial crest of spikes and horn-like structures that crowned its ugly head. From beneath its beetling brows, two amber eyes stared at them with burning malevolence in their tawny depths. The creature’s mouth opened with a hiss, displaying a fearsome array of pointed teeth. Then it lowered its massive head and prepared to charge.

"Stay clear of me!” Jack barked, leaping away from the queen and madly waving his arms to attract the horrid beast’s attention.

His mind, sharpened by years of elite survival training and the ancient martial arts techniques preserved in the academies of Old Earth, shifted into a gear of pure, cold focus. He didn't have his composite jumpsuit, and he didn't have weapons, but he had his body and his wits.

The beast roared. It lunged toward him, a mountain of muscle and scale moving with terrifying speed.

At the last possible moment, Jack dove to the side, letting the momentum of the charge carry the ibbix crashing into the stone wall of the pit. The creature reeled, stunned by the terrific impact. Before it could recover, Jack swiftly leapt onto its back, wrapping his legs around its waist and his strong arms around its thick, scaled neck with a rear-naked chokehold—a technique designed to drop men twice his size, applied here to a beast weighing 400 pounds.

The ibbix thrashed violently, roaring with a sound that shook the dust from the walls of the pit. It slammed Jack against the stone wall, trying to crush him, but Jack gritted his teeth, locking his grip tighter and cutting off the creature's carotid blood flow with every ounce of strength in his brawny frame.

The monster clawed at his constricting arm, its eyes rolling wildly in different directions as oxygen deprivation took hold. Jack gritted his teeth. His muscles trembled with the tremendous effort of his desperate exertions. The creature was weakening, but even in its debilitated state it nearly broke his stranglehold. For thirty agonizing seconds, they wrestled in a desperate battle for survival - brute, animalistic savagery pitted against the intelligence of a well-trained fighter. Then, with a massive, shuddering gasp, the ibbix’s limbs went slack. The heavy body collapsed to the floor, completely motionless.

Jack rolled off the dead beast, lying on his back, chest heaving, and stared up past the ring of amazed spectators to the circle of bright blue sky far above. Hajna rushed to his side and cradled his head in her lap. He gave her a weak but reassuring smile.

Silence hung over the pit for three endless heartbeats. Then, a cheer went up from the gathered crowd at the rim as the queen rewarded her savior with a passionate kiss that this time had nothing to do with any aphrodisiac.

The chief councillor stepped forward to the edge of the pit, his voice echoing down into its depths. "The beast is slain! The gods have spoken! The transgression of the queen and her lover is washed clean in the blood of the slain ibbix! Raise the platform!"

The counterweights groaned once more, and the circular wooden disc rose smoothly out of the earth, bringing Jack and Hajna back into the sunlight of the square.

The crowd was now roaring; their attitudes and emotions were easily transformed from wrath to ecstatic celebration at the miraculous display of combat prowess.

Just as Jack and Hajna stepped off the edge of the platform onto the flagstones, a wild, shrieking figure lunged out from the front ranks of the crowd.

It was Simmis.

Her hair was disheveled, her face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated madness. All her plots had failed; her power was shattered. In her hand, she clutched a long, razor-sharp dagger, aimed squarely at Hajna’s back.

"Die, you whore!" Simmis screamed.

Jack moved on pure reflex. He threw himself sideways, tackling the high priestess mid-air just as the dagger descended. They crashed hard onto the cobblestones. Jack rotated her wrist with a sharp twist. Simmis screamed in pain. The blade clattered to the stones. Jack pinned her shoulders to the ground with his knee, immobilizing her completely.

Before Simmis could draw another breath, royal guards swarmed over them.

"Seize her!" Hajna commanded, her voice ringing out with absolute, unquestioned sovereignty, as she took the cloak a councillor handed to her and wrapped it around her nudity. "Drag this traitor to the deepest dungeons. Let her rot in the dark for the remainder of her days."

Simmis shrieked vile curses at her sister as the guards hauled her away, kicking and thrashing, her dark ambitions ending in the very dust where she had hoped to destroy her rivals.

Ephemera: The New Dawn

Several months later, Jack Hawk stood on the sun-warmed white stone of the palace roof, while the cool morning breeze rustled his hair. Beside him stood Queen Hajna, now secure upon her throne; her alliance with the off-world stranger was solidified not just by politics, but by a deep, abiding bond that the potent aphrodisiac had triggered.

An alliance between the humans and the government of Inuma had been signed, as well as other agreements. Land had been purchased for the colony a few miles from the city. In addition, there was an agreement to establish a university where science, medicine, and engineering would be taught to the locals. Queen Hajna was a wise ruler who could see the value in education and knowledge.

Together, the lovers, their relationship uncontested by either commoner or councillor, looked up into the azure sky.

descending from the upper stratosphere, breaking through the white clouds like a silver star come home, came the first of the landing shuttles from the Genesis. Far above, the vast hull of the colony ship lay hidden by the distance of its high orbit, bearing a thousand sleeping souls, ready to wake to a new morning.

Hajna reached out; her warm, crimson fingers interlaced with Jack’s hand.

"They are coming home," she whispered softly.

Jack smiled, squeezing her hand in return as the shuttle grew larger against the sun. "Yes," he said. "They are."

The End