I have so little time to write any comprehensive feedback, but this whole week is beyond bad when it comes to offering me any free time, so I might as well comment now when I have any time to do so at all.
I was so moved at how Zara tried to comfort Clark without waking him up, after he had collapsed in his chair after writing so many condolence letters.
I was very seriously worried about Clark's self-destructive behaviour in the previous chapter, so I was glad to read this:
Clark made the short trip from his chambers to the library in stony silence. He'd been trying for weeks to forget his breakdown that night in his room. He'd been disgusted and ashamed of his own thoughts. Not for a moment had he had any desire to betray Lois like that, but he knew exactly why he'd tried to talk himself into it. He'd already become weak enough to break the other important vow he'd made to her, surely it would require no stretch of the imagination for him to inch just a little bit further down that darkened path.
Yet he couldn't do it. He may no longer have been recognizable as the man she'd fallen in love with, but for his part, he couldn’t stop loving her. She would always be at the very center of his thoughts – the most precious thing in any world to him. Nothing could change that.
Ultimately Clark couldn't bring himself to betray Lois. And as long as he can't do that, he is still
Clark. Or at the very, very least, he is still a man who loves Lois, which is the core of the person that he is. Other aspects of the person that he used to be may be lost forever, but as long as his core remains, he can rebuild himself, becoming not the same person as before, but at least becoming a man he accept and live with. And that should make it possible for Lois, too, to learn to accept and live with him - and to love him, too.
"You will have to serve as the prosecuting witness for that charge. You will need to testify and be present for the duration of the trial."
"How long will it take?"
"No less than a year, sir," she said uneasily.
That's horrible - Clark will have to stay on Krypton for another
year before he can even start his journey home.
Another year of this. A year of waiting, effectively held hostage by Nor and his trial. Clark wasn't sure he had it in him to do this. But what choice did he have? He was going to see Nor punished. He was going to do whatever it took to ensure that Nor didn't escape justice. If that meant the humiliation of testifying, of explaining just what Nor had done to him, so be it. He would not let Nor win again.
Silently, in a dark corner of his mind that seemed to be growing larger these days, he hoped that Nor would never survive to stand trial. Everything he knew about Nor suggested the man would never take a suicidal stand, but maybe he wouldn't have the opportunity to surrender. Maybe he'd be killed trying to flee the offensive. Maybe…
What had happened to him to make him want another man's death so desperately? Worse, what made him want it, and not feel guilty about it? Why was he able to think so dispassionately about all the reasons why it would be better if Nor died?
This is very moving, but Clark doesn't scare me here. I don't think he is being excessively vindictive or bloodthirsty. I can understand why he wishes for Nor's death so that he himself will not have to stay on Krypton for another year, and I also very much approve of his disgust at his own wish to see Nor commit suicide.
"How's Thia?" he asked.
Enza smiled. "She's doing well, thank you. She had the top marks in her class this year."
He smiled faintly in response, happy to hear that little bit of everyday good news. "She's close to Sergeant Lok Sim, isn't she?"
"Very much so, sir," Enza replied, a hint of sadness in her voice.
"I'm sorry he had to be deployed," Clark said earnestly.
"I just hope for his safe return," she said, her voice suddenly small and thin. "And soon." Her concern was evident in her sad smile and dark eyes. Quietly, she looked downward, avoiding eye contact.
Clark nodded, deep in thought. Even if she never would have admitted as much to him, the young woman seated across from him missed Lok Sim dearly and he doubted that it was just because the man had become an important figure in Thia's life. "He's a good man," he said.
"That he is, sir," she agreed firmly.
This exchange between Clark and Enza is lovely. Here we can see that the warm, caring Clark that we all love is not gone.
"Are you certain this information is accurate?" Nor demanded, speaking loudly to be heard over the sound of Rae Et's transport as it lifted off from the ground.
His mother arched a brow at him from her seat. "My boy, my source has never been wrong. He has never let us down. Unlike your lieutenants. Do you think your men will be able to get the job done this time?"
"I'll take care of this myself," he replied.
"Be careful, my darling boy," Rae Et said as she folded her bony hands in her lap.
Rae Et is like a female spider here, speaking lovingly to her putrid offspring.
The entire part of your story where Lois is saying thanks to Clark's dead parents is incredibly moving. The way it seems to stretch across time and space, to Clark's birth on Krypton thirty-three years ago, over his happy life on the Earth, back to the harsh reality on New Krypton, is breathtaking. I also found it so poignant that Lois doesn't think she is the kind of woman that Clark's parents would have chosen as a wife for their son, but even so, she will be doing whatever she can to make their son happy:
They would have been so tremendously proud of their son and all the good he'd brought to this world. She doubted she was the kind of woman they would have wanted him to marry – too impertinent and impatient for the logical and dispassionate Kryptonian mindset. Nonetheless, she intended to spend the rest of her life with Clark, hoping to make him as happy as he made her.
"I'm sorry you never got to see your son grow up," she whispered. "But he is a wonderful man, and I thank you every day for sending him here. He's gone back to help the people you saved, because that's the kind of guy he is. He left behind an amazing life and a family that loves him very much because he can't hear a cry for help and not help. And his son--your grandson--is such a perfect little boy. I know you would have loved him very much."
And then, when she "spoken" to Clark's parents this way, she flies up through the cloud cover to watch his star in the sky. It is so beautiful.
Like Terry, I was also moved by Lok Sim's courage and bravery in spite of his terrible fear.
It was incredibly fascinating as well as somehow so bleak to follow Talan's capture of Nor in that cave. Many things were so moving:
"Stop, or I will fire," she yelled, her rifle raised. Her finger twitched against the trigger and she willed it to still. At that moment, she wanted desperately to end it, right there. One shot. No one would ask any questions. It would be just like any other battlefield death. Everyone would be spared the grief and burden of putting him on trial. If she killed him now, he would get exactly what he deserved. Her heart thundered in anticipation and her skin grew hot as her blood suddenly came to a boil.
'But you are not yet a monster,' she reminded herself. 'There is still something that differentiates you from him. Don't destroy it now.'
No, Talan is not a monster. She is not like Nor.
"You?!" Nor shouted as he froze. He turned toward her and suddenly lunged. She stepped back, momentarily startled by his unexpected attack, but immediately raised her rifle. She dodged his clumsy attack, hitting him once in the abdomen and again in the side of the head with the butt of the rifle. He collapsed in an unconscious heap on the ground. Slinging her gun over her shoulder, she swiftly cuffed Nor's hands in front of him. She hooked her arms under Nor's and began to drag him out of the cave.
"By the authority of the High Council of Elders, I hereby place you under arrest for treason, insurrection, murder, crimes against humanity, kidnapping, torture, and other crimes too numerous to mention," she said as she strained to drag him across the cave floor. She said it not for his benefit, since he was still unconscious, but for her own, to remind herself that it was justice and not vengeance she served.
Yes, she does serve justice, not vengeance.
But whither now, Talan?
She felt oddly disconnected, even more so than usual. It wasn't the typical detachment she normally felt toward her duties; instead, the events unfolding around her seemed surreal, like she was watching them happen to someone else, in some other far corner of the world.
Talan shook her head, somewhat dazed by the anti-climax of winning the battle. And apparently also the war. She had spent years thinking of nothing else, letting everything else fall by the wayside, telling herself that everything could wait until the war was over. Until then, there was no time for anything except the mission. Now the mission had been accomplished, and she didn't know how to begin picking up the threads of a life she'd abandoned years before. Perhaps she'd never expected to survive the war. Perhaps she'd always assumed that, her mission accomplished, she'd simply fade away.
Where was she supposed to go from here?
As I read this, I was reminded of something a colleague of mine told me - that when a number of young athletes were asked if they would take a fantastic miracle drug that would make them invincible for a few years, and then would burn them them out and kill them just a few years later, many of these young athletes said yes. They would willingly sacrifice most of their lives, if they could become invincible for a short time.
But what do you say, what do you think, when your own battle has come to an end? What do you live for, when you no longer have what you were willing to die for? When your time of invincibility is over? When the battle is, as the witches said in
Macbeth, lost and won? When it's all over?
Talan is going to need her brothers and her - nephews, was it? - to give her a purpose in life. Perhaps she can also play a part in the rebuilding of New Krypton that must come after the end of the war. If the war has really ended, of course - Rae Et is still on the loose.
Ann
