THE PLANET THAT LOVED PEOPLE (standard:travel stories, 2256 words) [10/18] show all parts
Author: Danny Raven	Added: Mar 04 2016	Views/Reads: 1800/1255	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
PART 1 - CH 9

NINE 

The evening chill was creeping up. Blaze was asleep at the back of the
cave under some blankets. Corthan pulled his dark blue cloak tighter 
around himself and put some more wood on the fire. 

The wood was damp and it hissed and smoked awhile before it caught. Then
it burst into flame sending sparks shooting up into the night sky. 
Corthan watched the glowing yellow dots as they spiralled up on the 
wind then gazed back at the fire. 

The flames climbed with the new wood and cast dancing shadows on the
walls at the entrance of the cave. As he watched the changing shapes, 
the message from Kane ran through his mind. So after nearly two years 
he could leave Sirene. Not that it made much difference to him. He was 
a long time dead and nothing could change that, no matter where he 
went. 

There was a terrible sadness in his eyes as he looked at the fire. He
stared into it a long time, lost in a sorrow that wouldn't let go. 
After a while, faces began weaving in and out of the flickering yellow 
flames. They were blurred at first but slowly grew sharper until he 
recognised them. 

A young face took shape. Round and soft. Smiling out at him. His son,
Kanu, one year old. He faded and Arin, his wife, swam into focus. She 
was saying something to him but he couldn't make it out. Some of the 
wood collapsed and she was gone. 

When the flames settled she was back. Holding their son. Standing on the
steps of the Ship that would take them to the nearby planet, Konev. She 
whispered something to the boy and pointed. His son waved a tiny hand 
at him. It was the last time he ever saw them. 

Corthan cried out in the darkness and closed his eyes tight. He leaned
back against the wall of the cave. The scenes faded but the memories 
didn't. 

He had been reluctant to let them go to Konev, a small planet, a tenth
the size of Earth. Something inside he couldn't quite understand gnawed 
away at him but Arin had insisted, laughed away his fears. It was time, 
she said, to show off their son to some family they had there and who 
were desperate to see the boy. In the end he backed down, just to 
please her. Now he had all the rest of his life to regret it. 

One week after they had gone an unexpected civil war had flared up on
Konev. In the riots that followed, Arin, Kanu and their relatives were 
all murdered. The news took a long time to reach him and when it did, 
the shock almost killed him. He wished it had. 

His eyes were wet when he opened them but he didn't notice. He stared
out blindly into the darkness. Outside, the wind had died down and the 
rain had stopped. The crackling of the fire was the only sound in the 
still dark night. 

When the shock and the numbness went away there followed a cold driving
hate. He wanted revenge. Not just for the murders. That wasn't enough. 
He wanted revenge on them all, on everything living and breathing on 
Konev. So he blew up the planet. 

When the Fleet caught him he was still out in space. Sitting in the
Bridge of the stolen Warship, its twenty laso-nuclear warheads already 
discharged. They approached him cautiously when they boarded – they 
knew he was from Ordana and what he could possibly do but he never even 
glanced at them, just stared straight ahead through the observation 
window. The last thing he remembered was the sting of the stun gun. 

He woke up in a holding prison on Earth but didn't stay long. The
Supreme Court judged his crime severe enough to warrant their stiffest 
sentence. They bypassed the maximum security prisons on Tregon and 
Kilce. He was sent to Sirene for life. 

Having avenged his family there was a strange emptiness within him and
he went unresisting although he could have irradiated everyone around 
him. Another prisoner travelled with him to the penal colony and they 


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