章 15: FAMILYMAN
"Kearyn," a voice called out from the other side of the loading bay. A second later, a tall man in a crisply pressed lab coat made his way through the milling crowd with a portly office type in an overburdened cloak who walked at his side.
Kearyn extended his hand in greeting, shook the man's hand firmly and said, "I'm glad to see you came through unscathed."
"And you," Shepard replied with a quick nod of his head. It was obvious they liked one another.
Kearyn gestured towards Riddick and said, "Let me introduce you to Riddick."
Shepard's sidekick peered out from his hiding spot like a timid child peeking around his mother's skirt. "Do you think we can trust him? I heard what he did to Jenson." He whispered.
Riddick's head cocked to one side as he regarded their secret conversation and said, "Is there a problem?"
"No. No problem." Shepard answered, pulling Thomas out from behind him. "Thomas whispers a lot when he's nervous. And your arrival makes everyone nervous."
Thomas appeared to be more embarrassed than frightened and said, "Forgive me Lord Marshall."
Riddick's face surged with a dark energy that charred his skin, and Thomas retreated behind Shepard. Everyone nearby watched in horror as Riddick took on the persona of a dark fury; a wraith embodying all the spectral powers of the underverse.
The entire room bowed in silence and, in a foreboding tone dripping with cruel intent, he said, "A single warning. Never address me as Lord Marshal. Do I make myself clear?" A sea of nodding heads echoed the silent yes sweeping across the room.
"Good," Riddick said, his voice and body returning to normal. "Now, look at me." Every eye in the room and landed on him and every ear waited to hear what he had to say. Kearyn walked to the front of the crowd, turned back towards him, and took a knee.
The display surprised Riddick, but he continued., "If anyone wants to return to the armada, now is the time for you to go." He pointed to the stairs leading down to the dropships below and said, "You may take as many ships as you need to return to your precious master. I won't stop you."
No one made any attempts to leave; not even the remaining guards.
Riddick turned from the murmuring crowd, readying to leave the room, but stopped just long enough to issue one final warning.."One last thing, before I leave you to your choices. If any of you think it wise to remain behind to spy for your master, be assured. I will root you out and I will reach inside your miserable chest, and tear your wretched soul from the pit where it hides."
The sound of shock spread throughout the room like giant waves crashing on jagged breakers.
Riddick never intended to carry through on the threat. But he couldn't resist elaborating further. "And If you any of you think I can't make good on that promise, please consult Corporal Jenson in the infirmary. I'm sure his story is riveting."
Kearyn stood up, walked to Riddick's side and whispered, "Nice touch. But I'm sure you'll find them loyal."
"Really," Riddick replied, turning to Kearyn. "Loyalty is not a trait I find in most Necros."
"Not even if those Necros are your people," Kearyn replied.
Riddick's face froze in an expression of absolute and unwavering certainty. "I have no people. And if I did, they wouldn't be filthy Necromonger scum. The Necros killed my people."
"And I told you... No Lord Marshall has ever set foot on Furya." Kearyn countered, leaning in closer to whisper, "Zhylaw lied."
"So you keep saying."
Kearyn turned to the crowd and commanded, "Everyone line up for dress review." The crowd quickly formed into long rows stretching from one side of the bay to the other. Kearyn called out once more, "I'd like all the adults to disrobe down to your undergarments." The crowd did as instructed and nervously waited for the two men to approach.
"Let's take a walk," Kearyn said, gesturing towards the first row.
Riddick stepped alongside, matching his speed, step for step, and asked, "What is all this supposed to prove?"
Kearyn called out to the dark ceiling above, "Eve, are you still in control of the ship's main functions?"
"Yes Kearyn, how may I help you?" Eve answered in an uncharacteristically computerized tone.
"Will you drop the light in this bay by 80 percent please?" Kearyn asked, and the lights immediately lowered.
"Thank you, Eve."
Riddick gave him a sideways glance and asked, "Does she know what she just did?"
Kearyn"s hairless eyebrow lifted as he thought about it. "Doubtful. " he said, shaking his head. "I do not believe Eve's higher brain functions know she is still in control of the ship's functions. The chip in her brain stem has a VI function allowing her to function on multiple planes at the same time."
"You know, I could have lowered the lights for you." Riddick said with a smirk.
"Let's not scare the locals any more than we already have." Kearyn said, watching the first row anxiously fidgeting at their approach. "I think they've been through enough for one day, don't you?"
"If you say so," Riddick replied with a wry nod.
Kearyn shook his head vehemently and said, "I do. In fact, for the time being, I think moderation is our best course of action." He stopped ten feet from the first line of people and added, "Now, in all fairness to your new companions, I think the time has come for you to disrobe as well." Riddick removed the handmade leather vest he wore, handed it to Kearyn, revealing a skintight black T-shirt that read Nightman.
"Cute," Kearyn said, reading the passage.
"It was a gift from a friend," he replied.
Kearyn pulled back his hood; his eyes glowed in the dim light of the bay. "Yes, Dahl has always had a rather clever way of combining satire with irony."
"What would you know of her?"
Kearyn turned to him and answered, "Dahlia Johns." he paused just long enough to give Riddick the opportunity to visualize. "The woman you've been shacking up with for the past eighteen months. The niece of Colonel Johns. Should I go on?"
The lights in the room dimmed further and Riddick replied, "Old man, you know far too much for any of this to be dismissed as coincidence."
Kearyn's leathery lips creaked as he managed a foreboding smile. He laughed at him and shook his head. "If there is but one thing I can teach you, then let it be this. There are no coincidences; there is only grand design."
"And who comes up with your so-called grand design?" Riddick spat the question with a Faustian malevolence.
A look of reverence amplified the light behind Kearyn's eye shine and he replied, "That is the real question, isn't it? Man's eternal quest to learn who or what controls his destiny. And then, when an answer does not appear out of thin air as if God is some submissive dog that comes running, man becomes bitter and defiant."
Riddick sneered at Kearyn and spat sarcastically, "If you haven't noticed. Bitter and defiant are kinda my things. So, I don't think it's asking a lot to know who fucked up my life."
Kearyn shook his head and warned, "I spent an eternity searching for the answer to the who fucked up my life question and when I finally found it, the truth was almost beyond my willingness to believe."
"Let me guess. You found God."
"I found a Creator and learned its plan."
"Plan for who?"
"All of us."
"And where is this mythical Creator?"
"Someday, when you are ready, I will tell you what I learned. Until then, have faith."
"Faith, Holy man," Riddick said, grabbing Kearyn's cloak and hauling him closer. "Is a quality I do not possess."
"Perhaps... with a little help… you can find it."
"Find it," Riddick repeated, voice growing rife with the vehemence of rage. "No one wanted an orphan without a family and the only love I've ever known someone took from me as a young man." Riddick leaned towards Kearyn and fumed, "Screw your higher power and fuck its grand design."
Kearyn shook his head and said, matter-of-factly, "And apparently, like so many others in the universe, you choose to blame your shit luck on an unseen being who does not even know you exist. The Creator is no more responsible for the things you speak of than I am. If you want someone to blame for the course of your life, then blame the man who led you down the path you're on; blame yourself."
Riddick scanned the rows of people standing before him as if he were searching for a rebuttal in their eyes and said, "I've made no choices that make me responsible for the deaths of my people. So, don't stand there telling me, my solitude is my doing."
"But it is," Kearyn said, gesturing towards the people in the room and adding, "Because you're not alone, you just haven't been searching in the right places."
"Them?"
Kearyn spoke to the ceiling, "Eve, will you turn on the ultraviolet lighting?"
"Yes Kearyn," Eve responded, although there appeared to be no difference in the light level in the room. "Will there be anything else?" Eve asked in a mechanically cordial tone.
"That will be all." Kearyn answered. "Thank you, Eve."
Kearyn turned back to Riddick, pointed at the now blazing handprint on his chest and asked, "Do you know how that mark came to be there?"
Riddick studied the handprint as his mind filled in the answer with a steady stream of images from his past and he recalled, "I saw a woman."
"Shira."
"I encountered her while at Butcher Bay. She saved me."
"Yes… and no." Kearyn said. "She saved you, but that is not the first time you met."
"She touched my chest and when I woke up, this mark was all that remained."
"Some call her the hand of God, for it is her touch that marks our people."
Riddick stared at him for a long moment and said, "Tell me, holy man, what do you call her?"
"I call her grandmother."
"Is it a Carolyn thing?" he asked in a mocking tone. "Did she find you on a prison planet and rebuild you from nothing?"
"I call her grandmother, because she is my grandmother." Kearyn said, reaching out and placing his hand over the glowing handprint on Riddick's chest. His hand matched the print exactly. Shira's and his hands were the same size. "As for saving me? I have to say yes. When I was lost, she found me. When I was broken, she rebuilt me." He opened his cloak and a blazing handprint came into view. Kearyn lowered his head and said, "Although, in hindsight, she should have killed me. It would have been easier for our people if she had." He gestured to the formation and Riddick turned to a sea of blazing hand prints.
"I told you there would come a time when you could tell me why I took these people away from the Armada. Why I trust them with my life?"
"They're Furyans." he said, mouth agape. Riddick's eyes pulsed in the bay's gloom. "They're not dead."
"They are all very much alive." Kearyn answered, gesturing to the mass of people waiting anxiously.
"It can't be."
"Come." Kearyn said, ushering him forward. "Let me introduce you to the people you have long believed taken from you. These men and women are but a fraction of the risen. And long have they waited for the one, true Riddick."
Riddick remembered the mark on Kearyn's chest, but hadn't believed he was actually the man he'd met on Crematoria. The man he'd seen burned alive. "Something wrong?" Kearyn asked, snapping him out of his trance.
Riddick met his eyes and replied, "The risen, who are the risen?" He turned to the crowd, realizing he knew very little of his own people or their long history. "I thought Zhylaw eradicated Furya when he went to kill me?"
Kearyn scoffed at Riddick and said, "All this is pointless, if I must tell you the same things No Lord Marshall has ever set foot on Furya. That is a fantasy told to hide a near-truth." Keary continued, drifting down the line of people to the end of the first row. "Zhylaw wanted everyone to believe Furya was just another forgotten Earth colony destroyed by the Necromongers as they spread throughout the galaxy."
Riddick caught Kearyn by the elbow, reeled him round and asked, "Aereon's prediction was inaccurate?"
Kearyn calmly pried Riddick's steely grip from his elbow and said, "By now, that should be obvious. Realize elementals only see fragmented glimpses of the past, present and future. Aereon saw what she perceived as three distinct events: the birth of a child, the destruction of Furya and the death of Lord Marshal Zhylaw at the hands of that same child. She put the events together minus the incalculable bits and pieces, and made a prediction only partially correct; you were the child and you would kill Lord Zhylaw."
Riddick stood immobile, impassive and unreadable; letting Kearyn's explanation sink in and then he asked, "I suppose you can fill in those little incalculable pieces she missed?"
Riddick's perceptiveness pleased Kearyn, and he answered, "l can. What Aereon failed to realize was the order in which the events actually occurred. What she couldn't reconcile was the fact Furya was actually destroyed months before the baby was born. Add to that, Furya met it's fiery end billions of years before Zhylaw was born and you can see how Aereon's prediction only reveals a few pieces of a much more complex puzzle."
Riddick's expression belayed the uncertainty in his mind and he asked, "Are you saying Zhylaw isn't actually responsible for destroying Furya."
"Your unwillingness to trust is infuriating." Kearyn replied. His tone signaled his frustration. "That is what I have been telling you all along."
Riddick glared at him through eyes of suspicion and doubt and replied, "I suppose you have the rest of the answers?"
"I do. I have them all." Kearyn answered matter-of-factly. "However, this is not the time for long involved stories you wouldn't believe anyhow; those answers will have to wait until you are more receptive to the truth."
"How much longer?" Riddick asked, his tone that spoke volumes about you've made me wait long enough and I want answers now. Kearyn's reply was swift and sure. "You shall have all the answers you came in two day's time. I will give them to you at my birthday party. Perhaps then, you will be more receptive to the truth."
"Two days," Riddick replied as an air of surprise crept into his voice. "Really?"
"Yes," Kearyn reassured him. "But as for now," Kearyn turned and emphasized, "know this:. Only one person other than the risen has ever set foot on Furyan soil, and that man is me. Divine intervention forbids travel to Furya."
"The risen," Riddick thought aloud. "Divine intervention." He scowled at Kearyn and said, "Shit. You really are a holy man."
Kearyn laughed and said, "Was there really any doubt." He placed a hand on Riddick's shoulder, used the other to gesture towards the rest of the formation, and added, "I believe the time has come for you to fulfill the promise you made to Captain Freeman. It's time you heal your family."
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