Shadowkill

##

“We collected the researcher from University as soon as we became interested in Bol Mutiar,” the Chom said. “And all his records. You’ll find them here.” He tapped the bezel of a thumb ring against the canister of flakes he’d placed on the workstation desk. “No, you can’t talk to him. There was a regrettable accident with the probe and we had to dispose of him. I put a treat in there for your spare time. The distorter did little to hide the smirk in his voice.

Ginny ignored it. A pinprick. A nothing. His eye was fixed elsewhere.

“While the girl was in the hold,” the Chom said, “we kept her under observation, a mosaic from those flakes is in the can, labeled as such, along with the record of her interrogation and the mindwiping session. Enjoy, my little friend.”

Ginbiryol Seyirshi settled to a brood over the flake player and the canister.

He had no intention of going anywhere near Bol Mutiar, all he wanted was access to a ship, but he went carefully through the data the Omphalites provided, made copious notes. They were watching him, they knew they’d broken him, bought him. He could feel the watchers preening themselves and despising him; he wanted to keep that complacency pristine.

Bol Mutiar. A dull planet. If he had been looking for a target world for one of his productions, he would have dismissed this place. It was monochrome, no individuals, only nodules on an invisible root system, no drama, no passion. Just rot. And there was nothing aesthetically satisfying about rot.

Ten days later, when he finished the notes, he had found nothing to change his mind.

He leaned back, contented with what he had done. Not enough data in their files. They would have to send him out, send him with his tools. Yes. Nineteen days through the insplit. It was not much, but if he could not get control of the ship in that time with that much materiel at hand, he deserved whatever this lot threw at him.

His contentment soured as he watched Mutiar hanging against the spray of stars. What Omphalos was forcing on him was a wretched perversion of his art. When he destroyed worlds or societies, he was simply taking them to their ends in an act of creation that made those ends more profoundly important, more coherent and meaningful. What he did had nothing to do with control or oppression. No. He set free. He sanctified. There was a purity in death, there was none in tyranny.

Yes. Omphalos had given him the subject of his next production, but it was not the one they thought.

It was a delightful irony. Savior of the Universe. The Deathmaster Dancing to the Rescue of Life. He smiled, pleased with the wordplay.

He thought about Shadith. He wanted her in this. He needed her. She was a focus of destructive forces, a vortex that tore apart whatever she knocked against. Yes. He knew her now, he could pull her strings and twist her dance of destruction to his profit. The Dance of Rot and Nihilation.

He looked through the flakes, ignored the mindwiping session, he wasn’t interested in that, found the one that recorded her interrogation and slipped it into the player.