people knew about the wings. He must’ve done that fairly recently. But what does he do with his old selves? Pension them off? Or does he transfer his consciousness to a new host?”
Jack rubbed her chin, frowning. “Might transplant the brain and discard the old bodies. If so, he’s bound to be getting a little senile—unless they’ve figured out how to rejuvenate brain cells. Although maybe if you put an old brain in a young body…” She shuddered. “Gives me the creeps just thinking about it.”
Klara, on the other hand, felt positively ill. “We need to ask Velkma about this. She remembers when Haedus Nine was a healthy planet. Surely someone must’ve noticed that Pelarus has been around forever and never grows old.”
Chapter 27
Moe strolled down the gangplank arm in arm with Klara, and the crowd began cheering as soon as they came into view.
He let them go on for a minute or two before raising his hands for quiet. “Does anyone have any idea how old Pelarus is? Or how long he’s been in power here?”
To his surprise, Velkma emerged from the throng, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane. “He has been here since I was a child, and I have seen over one hundred cycles.” Her eyes grew misty as though she were gazing back through time. “We had never encountered his kind before. They must be very long-lived.”
“Not exactly,” Moe said. “He claims to have cloned himself twice, although we have no idea how he could transfer his consciousness from one self to another. We’re thinking it might be a brain transplant, but that’s kinda far-fetched even in this day and age.”
“I believe I know the answer,” Velkma said. “When one of our people is near death, their cognitive self can be transferred to another’s mind. I myself have cumulative knowledge that dates back over a thousand cycles, perhaps more.”
“You told us you remembered what this planet was like before Pelarus rendered it to dust,” Klara said. “Did you actually see it yourself, or is that someone else’s memory?”
“That memory is my own,” Velkma replied. “But there are the memories of many others to support it.”
Moe still didn’t quite believe what he was hearing. In his experience, the transfer of one’s consciousness to another person came straight out of science fiction. “I’m guessing this is a big Haedusian secret. Right?”
Velkma nodded. “We rarely speak of it. The process is called remkata. It is useful in ensuring that wisdom is passed on before an elder dies. However, there are”—she paused, as though searching for the right word—“consequences. Not every Haedusian can tolerate the mental turmoil it creates. Much knowledge has been lost because of the fear of madness. I have never heard of an offworlder undergoing the remkata ritual before, but it would explain much of what has occurred during Pelarus’s reign. He seemed to have insights into this world and its people that gave him an advantage. He knew things he shouldn’t have known—particularly how to manipulate and control us. Using what he had learned, presumably from the people he killed, he was able to turn us against one another. By the time it became apparent that he was our common enemy, it was too late to stop him.”
“‘Divide and conquer,’ you mean?” Moe suggested.
“Yes,” Velkma replied. “I believe that strategy has been used to great advantage elsewhere.”
“It has indeed,” Moe said. “I can give you several examples from Earth’s history alone.”
“So how come you’re only telling us this now?” Klara asked. “You must’ve had some suspicions about him.”
“I had no proof before,” the old woman replied. “But if he has been cloned as many times as you say, there can be no other explanation for what has happened here.”
Another cheer went up as the load lifter emerged from the ship, escorted by Jack, Cat, and Nexbit, each of them with weapons drawn. They stopped halfway down the gangplank as though unsure of whether to proceed.
“You will not need weapons to protect him,” Velkma called out, her aged voice surprisingly strong and clear. “We will do him no harm, but he must leave this world, never to return.”
Jack scowled. “Aw, don’t you want just a little revenge?”
“We have no wish to descend to his level,” Yirland said as she, too, came forward from the crowd. “We only wish him gone.”
“We’ll see to that,” Moe said. “But first, we need to recover the wealth he’s squeezed from this world and return it to your people. Then it will