adler.txt Ben Blumenberg Reality Software P.O. Box 105 Waldoboro, ME 04572 June 26, 1992 THE CHRONICLES OF ASTRUS II: FATHER ADLER Father Adler sat at the bar, his right hand around a mug of Dunubian beer. His eyes were unfocused and stared into nothingness. He was of medium height; muscular, deeply tanned, with a scraggly grey moustache and beard. Father Adler was dressed in the black shirt, black pants and silver boots of a rhubidium miner. Tied around his neck was a small leather pouch of a type that would have held gunpowder on an Earth of untold eons in the past. This pouch, however, was reputed to hold earth from Earth. No one knew for certain, of course. Two attributes of Father Adler were most striking, and they were qualities one sensed, rather than observed directly. One was was his age, which in spite of his physical appearance, was believed to be very old, perhaps measured in centuries. Most of us who have talked with Father Adler agree on this, although it is an intuitive perception shared by many. No one dares to ask him how old he really is. Father Adler's temper is legendary as is his skill with a carbonium long knife. Several murders in bar fights are part of his story, although such events are hardly uncommon in the lawless, frontier, mining towns of the resource planets in the twelfth quadrant. The other characteristic of Father Adler that one senses intuitively is his wounded soul. Great sadness, melancholy and torment radiate outward from his being. It is strange to recognize that such feelings dominate a man whose reputation for feats of great courage, physical stamina and violence is well attested. Nonetheless, there it is and all agree it is very real. This terrifying, awesome legend seems to be slowly dying inside from great sadness, pain and unknown demons. Needless to say, the speculation in the bars, dives and brothels of the twelfth quadrant never ceases. Who is Father Adler? If the legend is true, he appeared one day several centuries ago in the mining town of Belit-sheri on Prisca looking for work as a rhubidium chopper, a dangerous, suicidal occupation if there ever was one. If those stories are true, Father Adler looked exactly as he does today. If those tales are true, he is as old as a Dacian. Yet he travels between the stars as we all do. In any case, who has ever heard of a male Dacian? What could torment this man of awesome physical and intellectual powers? He seems to carry no guilt over those he has killed. He is treated with great respect and deference by all. Women are hardly a problem. All ages, races and varieties flock to his side and many share his bed. Most seem to actually like him. What torments him, then? An unspeakable, unmentionable, foul crime? A lost love? Had Father Adler, once upon a time, loved deeply, commitedly and then lost the object of such passions? The very idea seems preposterous! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The bar where Fadler Adler was drinking and daydreaming was the Bragi in the mining town of Celine on the resource planet Vasa. The Bragi was legendary both for the potency of its drinks and the quality of its fights. The walls were panelled in factory reject rhubidium as befitted the best watering hole in the richest mining town in the galaxy. The floors, tables and bar top were highly polished cratagus wood. The bartender was an old friend of Father Adler's, a Tygor by the name of Sam XI. Seven feet tall with flowing black hair, green skin and both nose and gills, Sam presented a terryifying appearance. However, within the usual realm of daily life, Sam was the gentlest of souls. He has been happily married to the same woman for forty years and was the father of three gorgeous, if somewhat tall, daughters. The bar girls of the Bragi were in a class by themselves. Their beauty was unsurpassed and the pleasures they offered were hardly confined to the drinks they served. On this particular Saturday evening, the Bragi was in its usual state of alcoholic and sexual bedlam. Father Adler sat in the middle of it all, oblivious to the maelstrom swirling around him. It was stiffling hot this late summer night and the ceiling fans provided little relief. Aroudn 10 P.M., the doors to the Bragi burst open and a blast of steaming hot air blew across the saloon. In strode Oriana, the Dacian companion of the fabled oracular unicorn of Kushanah. She was clad tightly in gold, but it was a dull gold that neither gleamed nor shone. Shirt, pants and boots had neither sheen nor sparkle. Her golden hair which fell to her waist in straight lines did shine in the semi-gloom of the Bragi and her purple eyes caught and reflected what little light was available. The darkness hid her disfigured face and the scars that criss-crossed across her right eye and down her throat. Everyone, bar maids, hookers, waiters, miners, off duty military personnel and assorted nameless riff-faff, fell silent and stared. All had heard of Oriana for she was a living, immortal myth. They knew every detail of her appearance but only two had every seen her in the flesh; Sam and Father Adler. Sam studiously wiped the spotlessly clean counter and refused to look up at the Dacian as she strode in. Father Adler, sipping his beer at the bar with his back to the door, did not even turn around. Oriana strode up to Father Adler, stopped a few feet from his back, and spoke softly with great warmth. "Jared, great evil is loose in the galaxy. We need you, once again." No answer, no movement. "Jared, we need you. All sentient beings need you. Come." Father Adler took another sip of his beer but still did not turn around. "Jared, please! Think of others, your own concerns are nothing now. They need you!" Jared/Father Adler swivelled slowly on his bar stool and faced the Dacian, an incredible expression upon his face of hate and love, anguish and torment. The Bragi was so quiet you could have heard a Varangian fly cough. "Get lost, Oriana", hissed Jared. "Jared, please. I...I need you." Oriana's voice could barely be heard. She attempted to lay her right hand on Jared's but he quickly withdrew his arm. "Another beer, Sam." The Tygor was now staring at the Dacian directly, hard and without fear. He refilled Jared's mug. "Jared, I love you." A tear flowed from Oriana's disfigured eye down her cheek. "I love you." "You bitch!" Jared nearly bellowed. "You love me, do you? If that isn't the most perverse joke in the quadrant!" "Jared, I do. I ..." "Oh, shut up! I've taken a lot from you over the centuries , but this tops it all. You love me! I'm kinder to those I kill than you've been to me. Do you call your response to me on Kushanah, love?" Jared was standing now, his nose an inch from Oriana's face. Tears streamed down her face. Sam stared at the two of them in his odd, intense, detached way. Everyone else in the Bragi was transfixed. Was the mystery of Father Adler about to be unravelled? "You don't love anyone but yourself and that damned unicorn! You use people like pawns, like furniture and to what ends the gods only know. You use them icily and then fling them away like flies or matchsticks. You my dear, are the ultimate power hungry, vicious manipulator of souls. Beautiful beyond words, sensual and erotic beyond any man's wildest fantasies, brilliant and immortal - all of that is you, my Dacian. Love me? How could you? I'm a killer, a tormented assassin, a man with fear eating his soul." Jared reached for his carbonium knife and put it to Oriana's throat. The crowd gasped. "Jared, don't!" hissed Sam. "Stay out of this, old friend," said Jared softly. Oriana closed her eyes. "Kill me then, Jared," she whispered. "Kill me if you can." Jared put the point of his knife on her Adam's apple and pushed slightly. A trickle of the Dacian's purple blood ran down her throat. No one dared move or speak. The knife clattered to the floor as Jared slumped back on the bar stool. He covered his face with his hands and cried softly. Oriana moved to him and put her arms around his waist and buried her face against his shoulder. "My dearest love, my only love, I do still love you. Yes, I have done horrible things to you, treated your love at times with coldness and contempt, wanting to break you or drive you insane. I have done all those things and truly deserve your complete hate, even death if that were possible." "But I do love you and the nature of my love is true and real. The quality and torment of my love is partially your fault, my dear, and you know it. You taught me what it is to love, what such feelings and emotions are. No Dacian has every loved, has ever felt love, and you know that. It is believed we are incapable of such emotions. They are held to be literally genetically beyond our grasp and potential. Can you ever imagine the fear you instilled my heart?" Oriana's voice was barely audible and she still wept slowly. Jared now hugged her and rocked her gently as one would a child, his eyes closed. Oriana sniffled and wiped her nose on Jared's sleeve. "You see my love, you showed me how to be love, but you also gave me the gift of fear. Can you ever understand what it is like to know fear and be immortal?" "No, I cannot do that," sighed Jared. "No one could. It seems I also gave you the gift of loneliness." Oriana sniffled into his shirt again. "It were best we had never met. I wish I was dead for what I've done to you." "Now, none of that! I wouldn't trade my love for you for anything in the universe. I absolutely would not. But, er... could we try for a little less pain and abuse over the next century perhaps?" "I love you," said Oriana softly and she kissed Jared over and over and over again with such gentle passion that his head spun and there was not a dry eye anywhere in the Bragi. An eternal minute of silence and grace filled the room. Sam blew his nose loudly in an enormous hankerchief. "Jared, you haven't said that you would come!" Oriana stepped back from him, hands on her hips and a mischievous grin on her face. "Of course, I'll come. I swore an oath when I became a Guardian." For the first time that any of the regulars in the Bragi could remember, Father Adler/Jared Colfax smiled. He extended his arms to the Dacian. She ducked under them and begain to toy with the buttons on his shirt. She kissed him lightly, then turned around to face the awestruck, staring crowd and did a most un-Dacian thing. Oriana pressed her palms together and bowed slightly towards those facing her. "Thank you. Thank you for bearing witness. Thank you for being patient with two over-age children." Jared was so surprised at hearing this that fly flew in his open mouth and made him cough. Every man, woman and child in the Bragi would now have followed Oriana into the pits of Hell itself. "And you, old friend?" Oriana now turned towards the Tygor. Can we get you away from that lovely wife and three beautiful daughters? We should be in for one hell of a fight!" Oriana flashed her most captivating smile at Sam and he grinned back. "Orry, I've been a true blue family man for any years. It has been good and warm, if a bit dull. Amanda will understand." "Jared bent over to retrieve his carbonium knife. He looked hard at Sam. "Be at Orvar Spaceport one week from today with the usual equipment." "I'll be there." Oriana took Jared's hand and walked slowly towards the door, a broad grin upon her beautiful, yet devastated, face. Jared glanced around at the Bragi as if taking it all in for the last time and winked at a few friends in the crowd. Sam smiled paternally. When they reached the door, someone in the back yelled out "Good luck, you bastard!" and everyone laughed.