Epilogue

  The wind from the hills of Diffets lashed violently, lifting small gusts of dry dust that slipped between the plates of Roq’s uniform. It was not a place to wait. It was not a place for anything. Bare rock, hostile flora, and the distant view of the valley where, hours earlier, Tau Ceti IV had burned.

  Before him, laid out like a collection of tactical mistakes, rose the columns of smoke from the destroyed relays. The air smelled of rust and broken promise.

  “We’re pulling back,” the operator reported from a distance, his voice distorted through the encrypted channel.

  Roq did not answer immediately. He lowered the visor of his communicator and studied the bright notification confirming what he already knew: Tactical defeat. Withdrawal in progress. Priority: evacuation of remaining squads.

  He clicked his tongue bitterly and clenched his fist.

  “They made us wait,” he muttered. “They made us watch from this damned rock while ours were dying.”

  Behind him, Larton Devouir descended slowly along the slope that connected to the improvised observation post. The separatist leader walked with his hands clasped behind his back, unhurried, no weight in his step. His ceremonial robe moved with the wind as if it did not carry failure.

  “I don’t understand the matter of Master Arktrup,” he said calmly, though something hollow lingered in his tone, like someone repeating a phrase without knowing how to finish it. “He told us we had to wait. That something would happen here… something decisive?”

  A pause. Then, with a nearly nervous smile:

  Dust crunched beneath Roq’s boots as he stepped closer.

  “We waited three days here because he said something would happen.”

  A brief pause.

  There was no accusation in his voice. Only a sequence of facts.

  Devouir swallowed.

  “And when it was over… he simply left.”

  Larton frowned. His voice remained composed, but its edges were beginning to crack, as if he no longer knew which side he stood on.

  “We waited three days. Three damned days in this sterile wasteland while the Universal Government took control of the Undulating Valley. This is a disaster. Why did he do this?”

  Roq was even angrier than Devouir, but he knew exposing that anger would achieve nothing.

  “Perhaps he was simply wrong.”

  “Then why isn’t he here?”

  For the next few seconds, the only sound was the wind moving through the hills.

  Roq lowered the communicator visor. The word “Defeat” remained visible in the consolidated log.

  “The question, in my understanding, sir, is how this will be read.”

  Devouir did not respond. Roq continued:

  “Three days of immobility. Restless commanders. Absent leaders. Saturated channels. And in the end, retreat.”

  He turned fully toward him.

  “If someone chooses to connect those points, the conclusion will not be kind.”

  The wind carried away the last word. Devouir frowned.

  “You’re suggesting it was a mistake to trust him.”

  “I’m saying perception matters. You know that better than I do. We cannot allow this to become known in a way that damages your image.”

  Roq held his gaze without raising his voice.

  “Because in the eyes of others, you endorsed a wait in the name of a sort of false sorcerer.”

  Silence. That was the central piece.

  Devouir looked away for a second.

  “I believed something decisive would happen here.”

  “And it still might.”

  Roq did not deny the possibility. He left it intact.

  “But what is visible is something else,” Roq said. “What is visible are dead men and lost ground.”

  He gestured toward the valley with a slight movement of his chin.

  Dust struck Devouir’s ceremonial fabric against his body. This time it did not seem to flow. It seemed to cling.

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  “What do you suggest?” he finally asked.

  Roq did not answer at once. He walked a few steps, as if arranging ideas he already had clear.

  “I suggest that, from now on, if you wish to preserve your image, Arktrup should no longer hold power in decision-making. I suggest decisions rest on military experience of the kind someone like me can provide.”

  A pause. Devouir clicked his tongue.

  “I can’t do that, Roq. You know that. Am I suddenly to give hierarchical authority to a military officer whom no one in the political center truly knows?”

  Devouir looked at him in silence.

  Roq lowered his voice slightly.

  “If this spreads as a war conducted by visions, trust in your capacity will erode. Not at once. Gradually.”

  Devouir narrowed his eyes before asking:

  “And how would they find out?”

  Roq shrugged.

  “Rumors travel quickly, especially when this defeat begins to be questioned. And when that happens, it will not matter whether Arktrup was right or not.”

  Devouir inhaled deeply.

  “Should I take this as a threat?”

  Roq held his gaze.

  “It’s a warning, Larton. Nothing more. I believe some are already looking for explanations. And the real explanation is not good for anyone. I can assist you on the military front, and we can coordinate a narrative that prevents the separatist union from falling apart.”

  He added nothing more.

  The wind lashed the hills again.

  Devouir remained motionless for several seconds, as if trying to measure something invisible.

  “Then,” he said at last, “what do we do?”

  Roq turned his face toward the blackened valley.

  “We reorganize the narrative. Consolidate command. Deliver verifiable results.”

  He glanced sideways at him.

  “And before we wait three days on a hill again, Larton, I will request that you consider my suggestion.”

  The sentence was calm. Without pressure.

  Devouir nodded slowly. He did not look convinced. He looked cautious.

  Roq turned his gaze back to the horizon.

  Arktrup had left without saying goodbye. But the vacuum he left behind was usable. The war remained open. And command was beginning to tilt.

  And perhaps, just perhaps, that damned bald man had been useful after all.

  The ship did not vibrate. It glided.

  There was no engine roar, no tremor to justify the body’s unease. Only a steady displacement, almost imperceptible, as if space itself opened docilely before the prow.

  Beyond the curved viewport, Tau Ceti IV was now a pale point within the stellar haze. The system still burned, but from that distance the fire looked like nothing more than a variation of light.

  In the main cabin, the members of the Orphic Order sat in a circle. Bald. Motionless. Eyes closed. They were not asleep. They were not resting. They breathed at the same rhythm, as if sharing a pulse that did not belong to their bodies.

  The silence they generated was not passive. It was compact.

  Rodrick Viulk sat apart.

  He was not meditating.

  He remained seated facing the void, forearms resting on his knees, his gaze fixed on an indeterminate point on the metallic floor. He did not speak to anyone. He did not ask for explanations. He did not seem to need anything.

  He was a contained figure. Tense. As if all his energy were directed toward something that had not yet happened.

  Nolan watched them from the opposite wall.

  The ship’s interior lights were dim, barely enough to outline silhouettes. The metal floor reflected long, distorted shadows. Everything seemed slightly off-axis.

  He brought his hand to his face. He could still feel the weight of Tau Ceti IV’s soil beneath his nails, though he had washed more than once. The sensation would not leave.

  He thought of Harlan.

  Not of the body. Not of the final image. Of his voice.

  He felt the impulse.

  The same one he had felt hours earlier, when he left him behind. A pressure in his chest. A threat of breaking. He inhaled slowly. Forced himself to hold the air. Not now.

  Not in front of them. Not in front of Viulk.

  The voice came without warning.

  “Who are you going to pretend to be now, fraud?”

  The intonation was exact. The hardness precise. His father’s voice. The one that had followed him for months.

  It was not a gentle memory. It never had been.

  Fraud.

  The word echoed inside his head as if it had been spoken aloud in the cabin.

  Nolan closed his eyes for a moment.

  He had spent his life trying to anticipate scenarios. Predict outcomes. Calculate before things happened. That had saved him more than once.

  And yet now he saw nothing. He did not know what came next. He did not know what place he occupied on this ship. He was no longer a soldier. No longer a hero.

  He was a man seated among strangers, bound for a destination he did not understand.

  He opened his eyes.

  Rodrick Viulk did not move. But there was something in him that was not stillness. It was direction. As if he were already advancing toward an invisible point.

  Nolan wondered whether that certainty was real or simply another form of desperation.

  “Who are you going to be now?” the voice insisted in his mind.

  Nolan had no answer.

  He had never felt so lost. So without coordinates.

  For the first time, he was not anticipating anything.

  And that, more than the grief, more than the guilt, more than the void Harlan had left behind, was what truly disoriented him.

  He leaned back against the cold wall of the ship.

  He did not know who he was going to be. He only knew he would have to decide soon, because his future had already begun.

  And it was not going to wait for him.