Free The Phoenix Crisis by Richard L. Sanders

almost
human.  
    “ Like I said, I wish I had
better news…”
    “ Do not apologize,” said
Rez’nac. “The truth is the truth. It respects no man and offers no
quarter. It is better that you speak a painful truth than a
pleasant lie.”
    Calvin nodded.
    “ Please, send me all of the
reports and evidence,” said Rez’nac. “I do not doubt your findings…
I just… would like to see this for myself.”
    “ Of course,” said
Calvin.
    “ And Captain,” Rez’nac said
just as Calvin was about to terminate the call, “thank you for
telling me. You have my sacred word that I will take care of
this.”
     
    ***
     
    Rez’nac did not have to look at the evidence
Calvin had sent him. He knew the kind of man Calvin was, he knew
Calvin was not the type to dishonor himself with such a perverse
lie. But Rez’nac checked over the data all the same, checked it and
checked it again. Not wanting to believe what he saw. But as he
looked at it, there was no escaping the conclusion.
    “ All the many souls of
Khalahar, forgive me,” he said aloud. “I have failed my own
son.”
    He stormed away from the public office—it
was one of a few rooms on the Arcane Storm that had been converted
for general use. On this ship, like the Nighthawk, outward
communication was restricted, but access to the basic networks and
applications was not forbidden. In a strange way Rez’nac wished it
had been, maybe then he could have delayed learning the truth a
little longer. But he knew that was foolishness even as he thought
it, it served no man and no purpose to delay knowledge. As cold and
brutal as it often was, the truth was the only mistress a man could
ever trust.
    He went to the converted barracks—a single
crewman’s quarters that’d been made into lodgings for the
Polarians. There was sufficient room for them to spread out more
but such was not their way, they preferred close quarters with
their brethren.
    “ Grimka!” Rez’nac said the
instant he entered the room.
    “ He is not here,” spoke the
only other in the room. He bowed his head slightly when he
addressed Rez’nac, but not as much as he should have. He and the
other surviving Polarians were young and untempered, they had yet
to learn their place.
    “ Where is he,
Ki’lar?”
    “ He is on the flight deck,
preparing for the Pon’yor.”
    Rez’nac felt some anger at
this news. He was glad his son valued the Pon’yor and their other
tender rituals, but it was not his place to prepare for the
Pon’yor, or to organize one. He, like the others, belonged to
Rez’nac. It was his place, not Grimka’s. “It would seem the offspring of my body
has overstepped himself,” Rez’nac said.
    Ki’lar did not answer, except to bow his
head again.
    Rez’nac left him and made for the flight
deck. As he took swift long strides his hand curled and uncurled
around his ceremonial dagger. More of an anxious habit than
anything, but it helped him to focus his mind, and to ignore his
pain. The physical beating he’d sustained on Remus ached him from
head to toe, but it was nothing compared to the fire in his soul at
the thought of his son’s actions. And what he had to do.
    “ Grimka!” Rez’nac said
boldly as he pushed through the door and stepped out onto the large
flight deck. It wasn’t large compared to the flight decks of many
spacefaring ships but it was larger than any room on the
Nighthawk—which didn’t even have a flight deck or carry any
launch-capable craft.
    Grimka stood in the middle of the room. His
hair had been pulled back into a ceremonial braid and he wore his
finest clothes. Around him were two of the other Polarians, the
same ones that Rez’nac knew to be Grimka’s closest friends.
Regardless of the friendship, they too belonged to Rez’nac and it
would be fitting for them to witness what was about to take
place.
    “ Yes, father?” asked Grimka.
He turned and looked at Rez’nac as he approached. His eyes were
like steel but none of his body