Emerald Eyes

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EMERALD EYES
A Tale of the Continuing Time
DANIEL KEYS MORAN
This is a work of fiction. None of the characters in it are real people and any resemblance to anybody, living or dead, is a coincidence.
It is the author's intention that this work should be freely downloadable, copyable, and shareable in electronic format. It may not be reproduced, shared, or transmitted for a fee by any party to whom the author has not contractually granted permission. The author retains all other rights.?

Emerald Eyes Copyright (c) 1987
by Daniel Keys Moran

The Star Copyright (c) 1998
by Daniel Keys MoranDedicated to
The Tales of the Continuing Time are dedicated to a whole bunch of writers - everybody I ever read, according to one reviewer. That seems fair.
This book is dedicated to Amy Stout-Moran. She was the editor at Bantam Books who first bought this novel; she is the mother of my sons and the love of my life.

EMERALD EYES
A Tale of the Continuing Time
The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so cannot…. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can but will not, then they are not benevolent. If they are neither willing nor able, they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent.
Epicurus, 300 BC
The Ancestors

2029-2053 Gregorian

1.
You will have heard the story of Carl Castanaveras; of Suzanne Montignet and Malko Kalharri; of our ancestors. They made plans for they were human, as you and I; and the universe, which cared no more for them than for us, struck them down. Its tool was nothing less than a pair of Gods of the Zaradin Church, one of them myself, fighting a battle in a war that was ended nearly sixty-five thousand years before they were born.
I have told this story before, and I shall someday tell it again, in a different fashion; but for Now, know the story so:
Darryl Amnier was a man without a title.
A title makes one knowable.
"Tell me about them," he said.
"Oui." Amnier's assistant was French; a depressingly large number of Unification employees were these days. "The director's name is Suzanne Montignet. She is French born, but arrived in the United States in 2015. It is thought that her parents were fleeing the European theater of the War. She was fourteen then. We do not have accurate records for her after leaving France; she arrived in America a year before the Unification War reached that continent. Her parents were killed, apparently by Americans, after the War began. One would have expected this to turn a young girl against the country in which she found herself, but obviously not. When next we have accurate records of her, beginning in 2018, she studied under a scholarship at the College of the Camden Protectorate, in New Jersey. She had by then, and retains today, a substantially American accent. Though she spells her name 'Suzanne' she had further taken to pronouncing her name 'Susan,' in the American style, a habit she also retains. In 2024 she graduated with high honors; two years ago, her work in genetics led to her current position with the United Nations Advanced Biotechnology Research Laboratory in New Jersey, this 'Project Superman.' "
"Don't use that name. It's not correct."
After a pause Amnier's aide continued. "The Ministry of Population Control has granted her an unlimited parenting license. She seems apolitical, aside from her personal habits."
"By which you mean?"
"Monsieur, she lives in Occupied America, among a proud people who have been, hmm, conquered? Conquered. An apparent distaste for the United Nations might be expedient."
"Not when dealing with the United Nations purse strings."
"As you say."
"What of Malko Kalharri?"
"What of Kalharri?" Amnier's aide seemed to find the question amusing. "Sir, I think there is little I can tell you that you do not already know about Colonel Kalharri."
With a shower of gamma rays I came into existence at the fast end of time.
A wind was raised with my appearance in the empty corridor. Had there been any to observe they would have heard the sharp crack created as air was moved aside at greater than the speed of sound, and might have felt a brief warmth. Those with sharp eyes might have noticed a shadow in the fraction of an instant before I moved away from the spot of my appearance. They would not have seen more of me. Even at my end of time they would have seen little to note: a human dressed all in white, from the boots on my feet to the white cowl that covered my head. Even with the visual distortion that is unavoidable when time is sped so drastically, men of their century would have found the lack of focus upon the surface of a white shadow cloak a striking thing.
Of course they