As her flyer dipped below the bruised cloudbanks, Axis Pheydra, who had taken orders from gods for centuries without batting an eye, found that she was capable of repulsion.

Her first suspicion was that a perceptor was malfunctioning. Surely this could not be the same world. Only an enormous asteroid or comet could account for such haze, the existence of which she would surely have noticed during her first circuit and dealt with.

But her probes confirmed what her sensoria resisted admitting. This was indeed Bezgelor. It seemed inconceivable that in the span of a mere century an entire planetary ecosystem could have become so degraded. Or, for that matter, that living organisms could survive in such toxic conditions for more than sixty-six seconds.

The lush forests that had carpeted over half the massive planet's surface had been completely denuded. Likewise its oceans, jungles, ice caps, and ozone layer. Its mountains had been mined hollow and paved over. The verdant groves had been replaced by factories and refineries that scabbed every horizon, churning noxious gases that made the sky seethe a cancerous ochre. The unceasing groans of machinery sounded like the planet itself begging for oblivion.

It seemed that her mission here had succeeded, to put it mildly. Judged sheerly by their capacity for industry alone, the Chua would make a promising addition to the Dominion. But were these creatures too unruly for even the Eldan to maintain control? It seemed but an eyeblink since her last visit here, on what at the time had seemed an unlikely gambit.

Source: World Story