Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

A Coming Voyage

It was the first true GA summit that had taken place in over four years,; the first true meeting of the alien nations since Earth seceded and newly made alliances fractured. Now here they were cobbled together into a Frankenstein's monster of what they once had been, but still it reminded him of the old days.

Adam stood on the steps of the GA summit skin burning under the distant blazing sun. A hot arid breeze blew past him bringing with it the smell of the blue coppery sand that stretched miles into the distance on all sides. Overhead Irus's three moons glowed in the sky. Two high and on the distant horizon. From here, he couldn't see the fractures that marked Irus's green moon, but it was certainly hard to forget leaping across its surfaces through wells of diffused gravity as the void poured in around them. After the moon's fracture, and with no void to catalyze a continued breakup, Irus's moon had slowly fallen back into place tugged there by the strings of its own gravity.

It was a smaller moon than it had been before, but not by a significant amount.

Still it was not without consequences.

The sudden shift in gravity had had some foreseeable side effects, including the sudden eruption of volcanic hotspots which irus ha mostly gone without for so many years. Thousands had to be evacuated from cities along Irus's equator, and civilizations form the north and the south had to be moved when springs of water erupted from the ground and onto Irus's surface. Irus was primarily a desert planet, but it was not without great stores of water running deep below its sand.

The Rundi had evolved not to need more than trace amounts of water in their systems, but still life was not generally present without water, and now both the northern and southern hemispheres were host to a sudden eruption of inland lakes. Rundi scientists estimated that, at the current rate many of the lakes were likely to emerge forming the first sea's irus had seen for what might have been millions of years.

It was all rather fascinating, but completely irrelevant to the day at hand.

Adam looked out over the little courtyard before him, and entertained a memory.

A memory of a young man who had started an innocuous game of tag.

Wind swept blue sand across the stones and he watched it swirl in spiral patterns before dying away.

Where had that young man gone?

Easy

He had been buried behind a mountain of responsibility, sorrow, and war. That young man had become a father and a husband, and a leader and a grudging politician. That man had uncovered the mysteries of a universe that only proved he had an even greater part to play than he originally expected.

But was he really a young man anymore?

His adventures had begun what felt like eons ago in his late teens, and now a decade later it was hard to believe everything that had happened.

Humanity discovered aliens, joined a peace agreement, left a peace agreement and then joined again. There had been several wars, at least two invasions. Oh and lets not forget the time they had discovered the existence of the soul.

That was mildly important.

"Time is not a kind mistress."

He turned his head eyes falling on a familiar shape standing beside him. Her long knuckles pressed against the sandy stone green skin shining dim against the bluish stone. A simple robe was draped over her inhuman form as she stared heavily out over the sand.

"You know." he began, "it occurred to me the other day that I don't know your name. Almost ten years and I've only ever called you're the chairwoman or the chancellor or president of the GA."