Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: The Official Movie Novelization

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

General Okto-Bar stood at the console. His eyes were on the ships gathering in preparation for… what? War? Evacuation of the station? The more facts that came to light, the murkier everything seemed to become.

Sergeant Neza stepped beside his commanding officer. “All the battleships have docked, General,” Neza informed him.

Okto-Bar glanced at the map. He saw no signal from his agents. But he did see that the red spot in the center of the station had increased.

“I want Section One operative now,” Okto-Bar ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” His eyes flitted to the doorway—and the large, featureless, black metal robot that stood there. “What is this K-TRON doing here?”

“Commander Filitt’s orders,” Neza answered. “He personally programmed them, and he’s therefore the only one who can deactivate them.”

What the hell did he program them to do if he was killed? Okto-Bar wondered, but did not say. The general eyed them. They endured the scrutiny with their usual stoic silence. “So, we’re stuck with them until we find their master?”

“No, sir, not at all. Once you choose the section to execute the operation, the K-TRON will follow and assist them.”

“Great,” grumbled the general. “That’s all we need.”

Valerian and Laureline walked along a trail that became ever narrower and rockier, as if they were headed into the center of a planet. They moved steadily and briskly, but there was a somberness that dogged their steps. So much had happened in so short a time, and they were still no closer to finding out what had happened with Commander Filitt, or the identities of the mysterious aliens who had kidnapped him—including the one who Valerian knew he had seen before. They hadn’t spoken much since… since Bubble.

At one point, they passed the wreck of a spaceship, and Laureline asked, “You know where you’re going?”

“Sure. I mean, I guess…” Valerian replied. He frowned a little.

“You’re sure, or you guess?” prodded Laureline.

He gave an exasperated little grunt and looked at her. “Don’t ask how, but the princess, the one in my dream… she’s guiding me.”

“The princess is guiding you?”

Valerian made a face. “Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but… it’s like she’s been with me the whole time.”

Laureline came to a halt. “Wait just a minute,” she said. “You mean… you have a woman inside you? Since the beginning of this mission?”

Valerian sighed. The whole thing made him both uncomfortable and confident in ways he couldn’t even begin to articulate. “Laureline, can we keep going and talk about this later?”

“Sure,” she said, and then smothered an impish smile as she extended an arm, indicating that he should precede her. “Ladies first?”

“Hilarious,” Valerian said flatly.

But he stepped forward.

Captain Kris was the leader of Section One. Forty years old, his scarred face was mute testimony to the fact that he had seen his share of battle. He was honored that his unit had been tapped to lead the mission to infiltrate the center of the station and recover the abducted Arun Filitt. The ship docked with the station, sealed, and then the steel door opened. On their captain’s orders, dozens of heavily armed soldiers sprinted inside the station. Kris brought up the rear and moved to one side.

“Captain Kris, Section One operational, General Okto-Bar,” he reported.

“Good,” came Okto-Bar’s voice. “You may proceed. Be advised that a unit of K-TRONs will join you.”

Kris’s lips thinned. He had no fondness for the silent, hulking robots. He had fought enough battles to know that while robots and androids had their uses, in the thick of battle, you wanted a sentient, thinking, feeling being beside you. He admired Okto-Bar’s reputation, but wondered if the general had been away from active fighting too long to understand that sending in a unit of K-TRONs was an insult to an elite team like Section One. “That won’t be necessary, sir. My people can handle this.”

“It’s an order, Captain.”

“Copy that.”

Even as he spoke, the promised unit of robots clattered up. They halted as one, weapons in hand, perfectly still, awaiting his orders. Kris swallowed his annoyance.

“Elite unit, with me.”

They followed his team obediently as he led them into the heart of the station.

Guided by a mysterious, literal “dream girl,” feeling the little tugs inside that said this way and over here, Valerian guided Laureline deeper into the heart of Alpha Station. The desolate landscape, looking as if it had been abandoned for years, did nothing to improve his mood.

He wondered if he should keep his conclusions to himself, but decided not to. Laureline was his partner. She deserved to know.

“We’ve been manipulated from the start.” Valerian’s face was grim.

“What do you mean?”

“Right now, we’re in the middle of the so-called dead zone. And we can breathe normally.”

Little rodents scurried past, pausing to look up at them curiously before scampering about on ratty business.

“We’re that far in?”

He nodded somberly.

“You’re right… and there’s absolutely no trace of contamination,” said Laureline, looking around.

“This whole mission is a set up,” Valerian said, angrily. “We’ve been played, Laureline. Out and out lied to. Everyone has, including General Okto-Bar. The commander was fully aware of what was behind this so-called ‘absolute evil’.”

“What?” Laureline stared at him aghast. He was moving quickly now, following the prods in the back of his mind, and she was struggling to keep up.

Turn here, the inner guidance said.

Valerian obeyed—and the two agents found themselves at the foot of a huge wall. In contrast with the derelict nature of the rest of the surroundings, this barrier looked new and imposing, comprised of large plates of some kind of matter completely unfamiliar to Valerian. As he and Laureline stared at the wall, the plates moved, shifting and overlapping.

Then things grew even stranger when, without warning, a figure—tall, willowy, pale, and quite beautiful—stepped through the wall, to stand gracefully in front of them. Moments later, four others joined him, all beautiful, all luminous and apparently benevolent.

“Pearls!” gasped Valerian.

“Okay,” Laureline said, in an admiring whisper, “that’s not at all how I pictured absolute evil.”

“My name is Tsûuri,” said the first one who had stepped through. He was looking at Valerian with a strange expression—half-longing, half-eager. “I am the emperor’s son.”

“Great,” said Valerian. Two emperors in one day. Emotions were churning inside him, and he knew that some of them weren’t his emotions at all. He was struggling to stay in control of the wave. “How about you introduce us to Daddy?”

“He is expecting you,” said Tsûuri. “Follow me.”

He turned and vanished through the wall. Valerian hesitated, stepped closer, and reached out.

His hand went through the wall.

He squared his shoulders. “Try to contact the general and get everybody down here,” he said to Laureline. “Meanwhile, I’ll try to buy us some time.”

“Uh-uh,” Laureline said, tossing her head. “How about you run backup for a change?” And without another word she strode resolutely through the wall.

Valerian sighed. “Unbelievable,” he muttered, and followed his partner.

He emerged to find Laureline and Tsûuri waiting for him. Inside, everything was completely different from the austere outside landscape and the moving wall. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but wasn’t sure he could even find the words. The closest comparison Valerian could draw was that he stood inside an enormous zeppelin, but its curving, ribbed walls were made not of cold metal, but of organic matter. Large, woven baskets of some sort adorned the walls, looking like they had been crafted from twigs or grass. He wondered if they served the Pearls for sleeping containers, and thought of the beautiful shell houses of his dream.

There were several Pearls present, and it was clear the ship was modeled to be what its people were—simple, in touch with what came from nature, and at the same time highly advanced. Tsûuri led them through this ship that had become a village. All turned their pale, kind faces toward the pair and inclined their heads in welcome. Some bore weapons, deceptively primitive in design, that were surely much more than they seemed to be, but no one made a threatening movement toward the two humans.

Still others clung to the walls, strong and lithe, reweaving, mending, caretaking with a calm and pure focus. Tsûuri led the way to what seemed to be the center of this “village.” Valerian noticed a few small vessels, like the ones he had chased. Nearby, what appeared to be extremely sophisticated machines were hooked up together to create another, even bigger one.

In the center of the village was something that both he and Laureline recognized from their history lessons.

It was the Destiny module, once a primary research lab that had been part of the International Space Station in the Earth year 2001. In many ways, it was the true and perfect center, and origin, of Alpha Space Station.

The Pearl emperor sat in the capsule’s tailpipe as if it were a throne, but he was the most casual, accessible royalty Valerian could imagine. Even more handsome than his radiant son, he smiled gently in welcome. Beside him was a stunningly beautiful female Pearl. They clasped one another’s hand, tenderly, familiarly, and Valerian knew instantly that whatever age these beings were, they had been in love a long, long time.

Then his eye fell to a straw mattress on the ship’s floor.

Commander Arun Filitt was sprawled, unmoving, at the emperor’s feet. From this distance, Valerian couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead.

“I present to you my father, the emperor,” Tsûuri said solemnly.

“My name is Haban-Limaï, and this is my wife, Aloi,” the emperor said. His voice was as beautiful as he was, as everything here was, and Valerian shivered at the sound.

The empress’s face lit up with joy. “Melo hiné! We are so pleased to welcome you here.”

Valerian’s gaze darted again to Tsûuri. The movement did not escape the emperor’s notice. “You ran into my son this morning, I understand,” Haban-Limaï observed.

“Briefly, between bullets,” Valerian responded.

Haban-Limaï looked at Tsûuri with great affection. Then he said, “My son sensed the presence of his sister, Princess Lïho-Minaa.”

He turned his mesmerizing, deep blue eyes upon Valerian. His cheeks suffused with a soft, luminous pink hue. “It seems she chose you.”

“What do you mean?” Valerian asked.

Sorrow flitted across the elegant features. “We are a long-lived people, but not even a star can shine forever. Or a Pearl. At the moment of our passing, we release all the energy left in our body in the form of a wave, which travels through space and time. We cast our memories, our souls, all that is when the body is no more, out into the universe. Sometimes, the wave crests and dissipates alone in the cold darkness. But not always. Sometimes it finds a benevolent host.”

He paused, and then said, “My Lïho-Minaa chose you to be the guardian of her soul.”

“Ah,” Valerian said softly, in wonder. Then he said to Laureline under his breath, “I told you!”

The empress had risen. Tears swam in the azure glory of her eyes. Her cheeks, too, were a soft warm rose. She stepped toward him, her tan and orange robes fluttering with the graceful movement. “My daughter…”

Valerian panicked for just an instant as the empress reached out long-fingered, slender hands and slipped them around his. Then, suddenly, everything in him that was little and petty, insecure and self-centered, fearful and angry, seemed to simply dissolve. Calmness filled him. He breathed in and out, and it was the ancient rhythm of every sea pulled to the shore by the sweet song of its moons, every mother’s kiss on the beloved child’s brow, every kind laugh, every soft sigh, and the vast twinkling of every star.

For the first time in his energetic, tumultuous life, Valerian tasted peace.

He felt her stir within him, summoned by her mother’s longing words, and Empress Aloi took a quick breath. Laureline was staring at him—no. Not at him.

At Princess Lïho-Minaa.

“Oh, my dear one… I am so happy to see you,” the empress… the mother whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

As am I, came the—words? Thoughts?

“Same here,” stammered Valerian. “I mean, she is, too.”

The empress’s full-hearted smile turned slightly playful at Valerian’s words, and she released his hands. He dared not look at Laureline. Not yet. One of the Pearls brought them drinks. Laureline and Valerian accepted the beverage, but did not drink.

The emperor raised his glass. “To my daughter’s memory!”

The two humans paused with their drinks at their lips. Valerian pointed to the commander. “If we drink with you, should we expect to suffer the same fate?”

He had to ask, but he knew the answer. He had known it, really, ever since he had woken from the “dream” of a world destroyed.

The emperor must have seen it in his face. He smiled, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Your friend is merely sleeping. Do you want us to wake him up?”

Valerian glanced again at the commander, and started to grin when he heard Filitt’s soft snoring.

“It can wait. And I wouldn’t call him my friend.” Valerian gazed intently at the emperor, sobering slightly. “Where do you come from?”

“Ah, I thought you had worked that out.”

He had. But it was one thing to think it, another to speak it.

“Planet Mül,” Valerian said quietly.

Laureline’s eyes were wide. The emperor continued to speak, and as he did so, Valerian saw in his mind, as real as if it were all playing out before him in reality, everything the Pearl said.

“Our planet was a true paradise, in which we lived in harmony with the elements.”

Valerian saw the Twelve Wise Sisters, as the Pearls called the dozen moons that orbited their world, hovering protectively over their child, the sea. Fishermen were hauling nets swollen with pearls, which they spread on the sand and, laughing, began to sort.

“Our main activity was fishing for the pearls which possessed phenomenal energy. They fertilized our lands, controlled the winds and tides…”

Carrying woven baskets of the precious objects, the Pearls strode inland, heading to a small crater. They upended their baskets, pouring thousands of harvested pearls into the crater’s mouth.

“Three times a year, we gave to the earth what the sea had given us. And so we had lived, in harmony, for centuries incalculable.” His voice turned heavy. “Until the day it all ended.”

Valerian tensed. He did not want to see this again. Did not want to see laughing children, chasing one another along the white sand beach, stop and stare as a meteorite streaked across the heavens, followed by thousands of others.

“In the sky over Mül,” said the emperor, “other people blindly fought out a brutal war. A war that wasn’t ours.”

“Your daughter died during the battle,” Valerian said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” said the emperor, his voice heavy with sorrow. “She died… along with six million others.”

There was silence. Laureline stared in horror, then chugged her cocktail. Valerian peered at her. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Laureline replied, defensively. “I… I was thirsty! Can I get another wonderful house cocktail please?” She didn’t look like she thought it was wonderful. She looked sick and shaken by the realizations that were coming thick and fast.

And Valerian realized that he, too, could use a drink.