THE CHRONICLES OF ASTRUS II:

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