THE END OF BEGINNINGS

THIRTY-ONE

Geras looked across the small sitting room at Toro Ras.  They'd been listening to Moros talk about what he and the others had seen in the plaza.  The teen had carefully described the sixty-five refugees that had been herded into a shielded camp next to the gate area.  The camp, it turned out, was more of a compound.  When Moros' group had ventured closer, they discovered two city blocks worth of shelters, labs, holding facilities, and various other kinds of structures.  The rows of reinforced tents and modular buildings stretched away from the awaiting transports in long, narrow spokes.  There were also more shield emitters that Moros hadn't noticed before.  They divided the improvised hamlet into three sections.  Each section looked close to exceeding what had to be a very limited capacity.
Then, just before the group started their trek away from the amphitheater, the stargate was activated again.  Another twenty-three citizens fleeing from a far-off world stumbled out of the glimmering portal before being escorted by the shielded guards toward the overpopulated processing center.
"Eighty-eight refugees in less than an hour," Geras said in disbelief.  "How many groups like that come through the portal each day?"
"I've asked," said Toro Ras, "but have received no answer.  It seems it is a matter of Atlantis business only."  The councilor's eyes peered side-long toward Torren Silanus.
The young scientist shifted awkwardly in his seat at the end of the small sofa he was sharing with Toro Ras.  Torren cleared his throat before speaking.  "Unfortunately, I don't know any of the official numbers.  However, based on conversations I have had and heard, it could be as much as two to three dozen groups per day."
There was a gasp and groan from everyone gathered in the living space of the luxurious residence.  Geras shook his head again, his gaze cast down at the carpeted floor.
"And the size of each group..." Ulref Kem Toleg began to ask.
"Is never the same," said Torren.
Geras lifted his head.  There was frustration on is face.  "Where are they all coming from?  How many worlds are actually on this 'hot list'?  Have they all been exposed to the disease?"
Torren shook his head once.  "The best answer I can give you is that I'm honestly not sure."  There was a look on his face like he was silently asking for their forgiveness.  "I know that there are several worlds experiencing new economic strife from this situation.  And that is leading to escalating tensions and full-on conflicts.  People are fleeing those places to other colonies and even Lantean capitals.  But if any of those places are on that 'hot list', I just don't know."
Geras was thinking about Torren's words when a subtle motion near the main door of the apartment suddenly stole his attention.  Meteus Po had been standing guard beside the locked passage since Geras and the others had returned from the council hearing.  He was part of the five member squad sent from Camrial to Atlantis to protect Geras and Moros.  His twin brother, Mereus Po, was standing watch somewhere in the corridor outside the borrowed living space.  Geras didn't know the siblings all that well.  However, Sidonia did.  They had been her personal body guards once.  They were a quiet, humble pair that kept mostly to themselves.  But, what the twenty-nine-year-olds lacked in social skills, they more than made up for in lethality.
It had been less than four seconds since Geras had noticed Meteus shift his posture.  The younger man touched a spot behind his ear.  There was a tiny communicator there.  His brother's whispered words were quickly traveling down his ear canal from the concealed receiver.  His eyes were already fixed on Geras as he quickly listened to the information he was about to relay.  "Someone's coming.  Two high councilors.  Iohannus Lal and...Aronos Tal Do."
Geras sat forward then rolled his eyes at the announcement.
"I wonder what this is all about," Toro Ras asked rhetorically.
"Nothing good, I wager," said Ulref.
"Should they be convinced to turn around," Meteus asked, still only looking at Geras.
Geras breathed deeply, hesitating only a single second before answering.  "No."  He turned his head slightly to look at the others in the room.  "Whatever this is about, it must have some importance.  I doubt either of them would make such an unofficial calling like this because they were bored and felt like having a chat."
"Am I alone in finding their pairing-up a little...strange," asked Ulref.
Geras and Toro Ras answered the question simultaneously.  "No."
"They're here," said Meteus.
Geras glanced at the others around the room again.  He breathed in deeply then stood up, flattening and adjusting the hem of his shirt.  He looked over to Meteus just as a low chime rang softly throughout the residence.  Geras waited for the echo of the brief chord to fade before he spoke with an awkward nod of his head.  "Let them in."
Meteus turned to his side.  He touched a small, square panel on the wall beside the door with the palm of his right hand.  There was a faint, metallic click that seemed louder than it was in the heavy silence of the room.  A second later, the unlocked partition slid swiftly aside.  Iohannus Lol was standing closest to the doorway.  He flinched at the sight of Meteus Po immediately across the narrow threshold.  The older man quickly recovered from his surprise, regarding the member of Geras' entourage with a weak smile before he looked toward Geras expectantly.
"Good evening, Geras...and High Councilor Ras."
"Iohannus," Geras responded.  Toro Ras said nothing.  Geras narrowed his eyes, looking past Iohannus Lol's shoulder to the figure lurking just behind him.  "You seem to have developed quite the new shadow, High Councilor.  I'm not sure it's very befitting of you."
Iohannus Lol looked back at the man behind him.  "Things in the hearing did not seem to progress all that well.  I thought perhaps we could attempt to gain some new ground.  Aronos has proposed an idea I would like to discuss with you.  May we come in?"
Geras glanced at Toro Ras, then Ulref.  The High Councilor from Camrial had no reaction.  Ulref shrugged his shoulders subtly.  Looking back at the pair just outside the doorway, Geras gestured with an unenthusiastic wave of his arm.
Iohannus Lol and Aronos Tal Do almost tried to enter the apartment at the same time.  The High Councilor of Atlantis looked side-long at the man hovering near his right shoulder, then led the way across the threshold.  "I was wondering if we might speak privately?"
Geras didn't answer at first.  He let a moment of tense silence hang in the air of the apartment.  Finally, without looking away from his new guests, Geras said, "Moros, why don't you and Meteus join Hasha and Ferris in the next room."
Moros nodded, knowing from the tone in his father's voice there was no arguing.  Meteus remained in place until Geras glanced at him.  Like the younger Aurallio, Meteus could tell there was no arguing with his charge.  The young guard bowed his head then followed behind Moros as he disappeared through a nearby doorway.  As the passage shut quietly behind the pair, Torren Silanus chose that moment to excuse himself.
"I should probably be getting home, anyway.  Dria will be wondering what's keeping me."  He turned to face Geras, clasping his mentor's extended hand in both of his.  "Thank you for the chat, Geras.  It was lovely getting to catch up with you.  I have greatly missed our talks."
Geras smiled at his former protege.  "Of course, my friend.  Thank you for the company.  Get home to that amazing wife of yours."
Torren nodded, first at Geras, and then at Ulref and Toro Ras.  He turned around to face the the newcomers to the apartment.  He swallowed his awkward anxiousness at the sight of the pair as best he could.  "High Councilors," he said quickly, bowing his head respectfully before brushing past them and exiting the residence without looking back.
Iohannus shifted his eyes back and forth between the three men standing opposite himself.  There was a strange, hesitant expression on his face, like he was waiting for something else to happen but didn't want to look like he was waiting for it.  He wanted Ulref and Toro to leave.  Geras was well aware of this.
"Oh, this is as private as we're going to get," said Geras after watching Iohannus for an extra few seconds.
Aronos rolled his eyes impatiently.  "It makes little difference."
"Very well," said Iohannus.  "This was your idea, after all."
"Is there a point to this visit," Geras asked sternly.  The razor-edge of his growing frustration was unmistakable, despite the fact he didn't have to raise his voice at all.
"Why were you so quick to cast judgement on my research," Aronos asked before his counterpart could add any more delaying attempts at a formal conversation.
"Because it's insane," Geras answered simply.
Aronos stared at the man he once considered nothing short of a brother.  It was a moment of silence that began to stretch out into a long, tense minute.  His gaze bore deeply into Geras' eyes.  It wasn't an attempt to find something familiar in his old friend's expression.  It was a challenge, a silent duel between the pair of former soldiers.  But, Aronos was more impatient than Geras.  He blinked first, then sighed.
"It hurts me to hear you say that, my old friend," Aronos said, taking a seat in one of the soft, narrow slipper chairs behind him.  The others in the room followed suit so that every chair and sofa in the cozy lounge was occupied.  "You deride my work, my peoples' work, without having any knowledge or context of the situation we face."
"Parading your wraith children around and calling them the hope for our species because you deem them so is not a persuasive means of winning the argument.  Nor does it lend you my sympathy."
"It is not your sympathy I seek!  I expect empathy, especially from you of all our kin."
"Do not use the death and memory of my son's mother as a weapon. Or, for that matter, that of your own loss!  I do not share in a pain you cannot seem to grow from."
Aronos looked away from Geras.  "That pain is all I have left of them," he said slowly.  Aronos closed his eyes.  Waiting for him in the darkness behind his eyelids was an image of his beloved wife and daughter.  "It is what motivates me," Aronos continued, focused on the ghostly memory of his family hovering at the front of his mind.  "It is what drives me each day."
Toro Ras leaned forward from where he sat on the small sofa.  His brow was furrowed sharply.  His cheeks were tight against the tense muscles and bones of his face.  His frustration with the man from Ninev was anything but subtle or hidden.  "What gives you the right," Toro asked, his voice starting out at something close to a growl, "to use that as a means of justifying experimentation on a people?  How is that a righteous cause for mutating an entire populace?  How do we know what you've done was truly a consented act?  Where are the records or the testimonies of your citizenry?"
Toro's enraged eyes shifted, suddenly, to the leader of Atlantis.  "And why is it the position of Atlantis to so haphazardly and broadly afford this man the benefit of the doubt?!"
"These are desperate times, High Councilor," Iohannus Lol protested.  "Perhaps not as much for the fair people of Camrial.  But, Atlantis does not have the luxury of watching the escalating crisis from afar.  We are in the middle of it, bearing the brunt of the rising unrest."
Toro Ras would have laughed if the situation-and the audience in the room-were different.  His jaw slacked in offended awe.  He felt punched in the gut by Iohannus' arrogance.  "My apologies, High Councilor," Toro said, cocking his head slightly to one side.  "I had no idea one could simultaneously play the role of leader and victim of their own policies."
A hot blush flooded across Iohannus Lol's cheeks, as if he'd actually been slapped by the words Toro Ras had spoken.  He started to sit up straighter, his narrow shoulders squaring-off defensively.  "How dare you-"
"Gentlemen," Geras interrupted, his voice booming past the slim space between where the two men were sitting.  "The question I posed at the start of this strange meeting remains unanswered.  And yet, the hour grows later and my patience wains evermore with it.  So, I will ask only this last time, what is the point of this visit?" 
Geras looked squarely at Aronos.  "Why are you here?"
"I wish to show you what you have, so far, failed to see," said Aronos.  "I am inviting you to journey with me.  We will travel through the portal to the research facility where my work began.  You can tour it from top to bottom.  Nothing will be hidden.  I want you to see and understand."
"If this facility is in Ninev, how can we get there using the portal?"
Aronos shook his head slowly.  "It is not in the city, nor on Gannos B at all."
"What about your city," asked Ulref, speaking for the first time since the other two guests had arrived.  "And your people-or what is left of them to call people?"
"We can take a ship from the facility to Gannos B," said Aronos, lifting his chin toward the brawny man as he answered Ulref's questions.  He shifted his eyes, looking at Geras as he continuted, "If, that is, Ninev was a destination you wanted to add.  It was asked if my people consented to the Iratus treatment...if they volunteered to become immune to the ancient plague which has chased our people across time and the cosmos.  Perhaps you'll get to ask them yourself."
"I certainly will," said Toro Ras, smirking proudly as he sat up straighter on the sofa.
"You," asked Aronos, his disgust of the stubborn, stocky man as evident as sunlight in a desert.  "I do not recall extending an invitation to the leader of Camrial."
"Oh, but you did.  Whether or not you recall or realized that you did is irrelevant.  You are requesting the presence of one of my citizens, a member of my constituency, on some damned, mysterious adventure."  Toro paused and looked at Iohannus Lol.  "Will you be attending this field trip, as well?"
Iohannus cleared his throat.  "Ahh, no.  I am needed here on Atlantis."
"I see," Toro.  "Then you'll be sending some of Atlantis' security personnel in your place, I assume?"
Iohannus blinked.  He turned his head slightly, glancing at Aronos before replying, "I...umm...we hadn't discussed such matters.  When the High Councilor proposed the idea just a short while ago, it did not seem like a situation where escorts would be required.  Especially armed ones."
Toro looked at Geras.  He was willing to give his friend a chance to speak.  Geras sat quietly, his right elbow resting on an arm of his chair while two fingers on his right hand propped up his chin.  The expression on Geras' face was all the permission Toro Ras needed.  "I'm curious," he said, shifting his gaze slowly away from Geras and returning it to the two men seated across from himself.  "Has the matter of a Lantean ship being blasted out of existence at the orders of the High Councilor from Ninev been officially settled?  What judgement has the council reached on his actions?  What actions has the council recommended be taken in the pursuit of justice for the families of the-now-slain members of the Lantean fleet?"
Aronos Tal Do sat unmoved and unphased by Toro Ras' words.  If the chubby-faced man was hoping to get a reaction out of him, Aronos was not about to give him the satisfaction.  If the day could ever come when he would have the power to wipe away populations he didn't deem worth saving, the inhabitants of that cold and boggy planet Toro Ras called home would be the first.  He never liked Camrial.  And he definitely hated Toro Ras.
Meanwhile, in the seat beside Aronos, Iohannus Lol pursed his lips with bitter resentment.  He was not a fan of Toro Ras either.  Though, his dislike of the Camrial leader was nowhere as extreme as Aronos Tal Do's.  His own resentment came, mostly, from Toro's unending ability to point out Iohannus' many shortcomings-especially his tactical ones.  "Two, then," Iohannus said curtly.
"Two," Toro and Ulref asked at the same time.
"Two security escorts.  That is all I can spare at this time.  Especially for what will surely be a most pedantic and intellectual endeavor."
Toro Ras slapped his hand on the empty cushion beside himself.  "Excellent!  That will be plus three on Minister Aurallio's invitation," he said with a smile, his eyes locked on Aronos.
"Four," Ulref interjected.  He stared across the small lounge at the two high councilors that had suddenly dropped in for a visit.  He tensed his muscles in his bulky arms and his broad back.  He cemented his cold gaze upon their sulking forms, wordlessly explaining to them that he was not at all asking to be allowed to go.  It was a simple confirmation he would be following along with Geras no matter what.
Aronos Tal Do sat still for a long moment.  He wanted to roll his eyes at the attempt at intimidation the brawny soldier flanking Geras was displaying.  Finally, he'd had enough of this visit with his estranged brother in arms.  "Very well," Aronos said with a long sigh before standing up.  "We'll leave first thing in the morning."
"That's fine," said Geras.
Iohannus followed Aronos' lead, rising quickly out of the small chair at the edge of the sitting room.  "Well, this turned out perfectly fine after all.  I'm pleased an agreement could be reached.  Perhaps by the end of a day or two, this whole matter will be completely settled."
"Perhaps," Geras and Aronos said together.  They hadn't meant to do that.
"We'll take our leave at that," Iohannus said after a few awkward seconds.
The other three men in the small lounge of the luxury apartment stood politely as the two high councilors turned toward the main door.  No one spoke until the single panel of the armored partition had slid shut behind them.  And then, another moment of silence was allowed to pass.
Toro Ras was the first to break the stillness of the room.  "I wonder if that man means to kill each and everyone of us?"
Geras breathed deeply.  "Oh, I'm sure he means to kill us."  He smirked and looked at Toro.  "But probably you, especially."
"I was thinking you were on the top of his kill list."
Geras breathed again.  "Hmph," he said with the shake of his head.  His eyes were still watching the main door.  "I'm sure he has very specific plans for me."