THE END OF BEGINNINGS

TWENTY-NINE (Part 3)

Their stride was as elegant as it was haunting.  Each swift and balanced step brought them gliding across the cool, metal floor.  They took up positions on either side of the spot Aronos was standing at.  When he nodded, the pair pulled the drooping hoods of their deep mauve colored-cloaks back.  A few of the councilors sat upright with a start.  Even Geras straightened his posture.  His shoulders squared off as his muscles tensed uncomfortably.
The pair were not ugly.  Their skin was more pale than anyone else in the room, though some pigment remained, especially in their hands and cheeks.  It was pulled taught on their faces and limbs, giving them a kind of sickly, wraith-like appearance.  Both of them had long hair the color of dusty ivory that hung down to their shoulders or just below.  They seemed to be related, perhaps even siblings.  The most disconcerting feature, for Geras especially, was their eyes.  The enlarged lenses were a deep, dark, earthy green color.  They were divided down the middle by inky, slit-like pupils.  They were distinctly more animal-like than Lantean.  A cold shiver traveled down Geras' back.  He had the distinct feeling they could see more than just the room and the people in it.  He felt like those long, narrow pupils were peering into his mind.
"May I present Danavic and his twin sister, Damiana," said Aronos with the pride of a father.  Only, as Geras knew all too well, these were not his children.
"What are-you've created..." one of the councilors across the table tried to say.
"Hybrids," said Geras.  "You've blended the genetic material of the iratus bugs with theirs."
"Yes."
"As some kind of gene therapy."
"Yes."
"Was this the goal?"
Aronos breathed deeply.  The beaming, glowing joy on his face melted with Geras' sharp inquiry.  "My goal was, and is, to stop this plague in its tracks.  My goal is to save lives.  And, I found a way to do that."
"By altering others," Geras asked quickly.  "By altering them," he added, gesturing at the scowling siblings.  "How have you not stepped in where you didn't belong?  What right do you have to alter the natural course of our species?  Or any species, for that matter?"
Aronos huffed.  "I could ask you the very same question.  Who is to say what unnatural effect you have had on those primitives you have chosen to hide amongst?  And all while your own people struggle to hold their galaxy together?!"
Aronos turned his head to look, in turn,  at the brother and sister flanking him.  "Are you in pain?"
"No," they answered together.
"Are you suffering?"
"No," they answered again.  "We feel better now than we ever have," Danavic added.
"Do not let our appearances deceive you," said Damiana.  "We are not weak."
"Nor are we ailing."
"Our eyes can see better.  Our sense of smell and touch are greatly heightened."
"Only the process of entering your city has made us uncomfortable."
"Your methods of decontaminating and cleaning travelers is...most unpleasant," Damiana said slowly.
Aronos beamed.  "There, you see.  Do not be blinded by your biased aesthetics."
Geras shook his head.  "I am not concerned about aesthetics.  I am concerned about the steps you have taken in this endeavor."  He looked back up from the surface of the table in front of him to his estranged, best friend.  "I am overwhelmed by the arrogance you are displaying in this.  To do this thing without, at least, consulting...anyone else...with little regard to how it might affect the population as a whole."
"It is the whole population I am considering!  I have not pursued this course for myself.  I have done it for them," Aronos said compassionately, gesturing to the twins beside him.  "I have done it for their families and families all across the galaxy.  Families living in fear of meeting a gruesome and painful end at the merciless whim of an enemy so tiny it cannot be seen.  Our bodies, our abilities, are incapable of saving ourselves from this vile disease that has haunted us for eons!  But...but these two beautiful beings are."
Geras watched the man near the opening in the table.  The echo of Aronos' dramatic words had barely begun to fade when another thought struck at the front of Geras' mind.  The pair of pale beings standing in the grand chamber were not the only ones that had been changed.  "That's what they saw, isn't it," he asked, looking back and forth at the twins.  "You've changed the whole city.  Everyone on Ninev...you've altered all of them."
He watched Aronos straighten his back where he stood in front of the council.  His stance was more rigid, more defiant in the face of Geras' words.  "Is that why you killed them," Geras asked pointedly.  "You were angry you'd been found out.  You acted on an impulse...another violent, unthinking impulse-just like always.  That's what happened, isn't it?  Is that not what you did?!"
"Minister Aurallio," Iohannus Lal said suddenly.  "That is enough!  Perhaps an opportunity for the High Councilor to answer your inquiries and defend himself could be afforded before you blanket him with a judgement?"
Geras bit the inside of his lip then leaned back in his chair.  All eyes turned slowly back toward Aronos and the strange siblings standing beside him.  He waited until he had met the gaze of each person seated around the dense, metallic, stone circle.  Each person, that is, except for Geras Aurallio.  Then, Aronos breathed slowly, letting a few more silent moments pass before he spoke once more.
"An impulse, you say, Geras?  Yes, perhaps.  However, it was this, and not as you say: there was nothing but dangerous and fatal treachery with their presence.  The officers sent to Ninev did not declare their honest intentions when they had arrived.  Those men abused my trust and their positions to sneak around my city.  I cannot say what it was they thought they saw."
"The mutated forms of your citizens, perhaps," Geras asked quickly.
Aronos glanced at Geras before continuing.  "They reacted rashly!  Not me.  They were the ones who failed to stop and think first, to observe and inquire.  They're brash actions led them into a contamination zone that had otherwise been sealed off!"
"Contamination zone," Toro Ras suddenly asked.  "Contamination from what?  The plague?"
"You have the virus on your planet," Councilor Britara asked gravely.  "It is in your city?"  She sighed and shook her head.  "So there has been life lost under your authority."
"Yes," Aronos said, his tone heavy and without much emotion.  "The plague is in my city...in controlled environments.  However, that was after an infected refugee arrived from another system.  An entire quadrant of Ninev was lost before we could contain the spread.  Seventeen-thousand people...dead."
Aronos leaned forward, bracing his hands flat against the smooth, cool surface of the table.  He seemed to be taking a moment to gather his strength, to find the right and steady words to speak next.  Finally, he continued, "I have not had to force the blending upon the many who found themselves only a stones' throw away from stack after stack of corpses.
"And those four men broke into that locked-down area, exposing themselves to the plague.  Then, they boarded their ship before they could be stopped, before they could be examined.  We needed to keep them in the city, to verify they had not contracted the pathogen.  I was left with no choice.  Any further hesitancy would have seen the plague delivered right to this tower."
Aronos stood up straight again.  "Everything I have done has been for the sake of my people on Ninev, the people of Atlantis, and the good people all across the galaxy...Lantean and non-Lantean alike.  I stand before this great and wise body as an imperfect being struggling with old wounds that have not healed.  I could not save those I once loved most.  So, I act in their memory and the memory of all others lost to this vile pestilence."
He paused once more, centering his gaze on one man seated at the High Councilors' table.  "You, of all people, Geras, my brother," Aronos said evenly, his words dripping with melancholy and empathy, "should understand that best of all."
"No," Geras said, quietly at first.  "Do not do that.  Do not drag her into this.  Do not try to use the loss of my wife for your motivations."
"I am simply stating fact."
"You are using a fact to manipulate, to justify actions I cannot concede are worthy or valiant.  You stand before this body preaching a pursuit of lifting the galaxy from pain.  But, all I see is vanity.  Vanity born from an obsession."
"Minister Aurallio," Iohannus Lal said again, trying to interrupt.
Geras didn't acknowledge him.  He didn't even bother to turn his head in the slightest at the other man's calling of his name.  His attention was solely and unbreakably locked onto the contemptible figure of Aronos Tal Do.  "You claim to be on a course of altruism," he said angrily.  "But you are trapped in an illusion."
"I see everything clearly," Aronos argued.  "I see you cowering there, now, from that chair the same way you've been cowering on that little backwater planet!"
"I cower nowhere!  Unlike you who cut-not only himelf, but his whole people-off from the rest of civilization!  While yours has been a heavy hand of authority dragging every citizen in your precinct of space into a place of your design, I have bothered no one!  I chose a life I wanted for myself and my family.  I have not stood on my position to submit my will upon others.  I have changed nothing nor demanded an acceptance for the vision of life I have wished to employ!"
"You have thrust yourself upon a people!"
"And so have you!"
"Geras, please," Iohannus called out once more, trying to calm the situation.  He looked to Toro Ras.  "All order has been lost.  Will you please ask him to restrain himself?"
Toro Ras peered sidelong at the leader of Atlantis.  His lip curled in a subtle, indignant smirk.  "No," he said.
"But where as you," Geras continued while the other two council members were speaking, "you sniveling, twisted, old man, have strangled the livelihood of a peoples with your own corrupted and angered ideals, I have been welcomed to share in the ideals of others.  No one amongst the people we have befriended have even bothered to care about the culture we come from.  So back off, Aronos!  You know nothing of me, my family, or what we've been doing!"
"And neither do you!  You turned your back on my pain long ago!"
"Because you refused to even try to move past it!  You became lost in it!  It has become your own personal plague.  A virus in your heart and soul that you cannot find a way to cure.  Maybe, at this point, you don't want to cure it anymore.  Maybe, it has become too much a part of who you are."
"No."
"Yes," Geras said defiantly.  "While you attempt to mask that dark and decaying presence inside of you, eating away at your very being, you torture your people all along the way.  You are powerless to undue what is done, so you will undue-at any cost-the opportunity for them to heal and grow on their own.  You cannot fix your own life, your own loss, and so now you are trying to erase it."
"My wife...my daughter, they died because of me...because of us," Aronos said hotly.  His words snarled past his lips and across the table toward Geras.  "You are right.  I am trying to undue what has been done.  I am trying to atone for suffering...suffering brought about because of the arrogance of a pair of young, idealistic pilots."
Aronos looked at the others seated around the table.  "I was brought here to explain my recent actions.  I have done as requested.  Geras Aurallio was brought here to testify as a witness to my character, to weigh my integrity against the events that unfolded.  Perhaps he has said his peace and will say no more.  Or, perhaps, he has only just begun.  It matters not to me.  I know who I am.  I know what I am doing.  I, more than any of you...any of you...understand the cost of the course I have found myself upon.  But, I am not willing to abandon it now.
"And with that, I conclude my testimony and time before this council."
With his nostrils flaring, Aronos bowed his torso curtly then pivoted on his heels.  The pale twins followed him, staying closely in tow as Aronos Tal Do marched swiftly up the stairs and out of the grand chamber.  The eyes of everyone left behind him stayed fixed on the small entourage until they disappeared around the tall, sharp corner.  Everyone, that is, except Geras Aurallio.  He didn't have to watch Aronos leave.  As far as he was concerned, the withered shell of the man that had stood before the table was not the man he had once known so well.  That man was gone.  He breathed deeply, then looked up when the silence in the chamber felt heavy again.  Everyone was now looking at Geras.
But Aronos had been right about one thing: Geras had nothing else to say.