Clarity's Dawn

by A. R. Knight

  We’re nearly there. You should know, Nasiya and the others want to help you. Help us. You have to trust them.

  Ignos ruins the magic of the moment by bringing back reality. How can I trust them? How can I trust any of these things?

  Because you have no choice. Because you are far from home and the only way back rests in us giving it to you, Kaishi. You are not an Empress, you’re not a young girl with the protection of her tribe or her father. You are alone and you are in danger. So let us help you.

  I don’t respond. Not directly, anyway. Ignos can read my emotions, scan my thoughts. I can’t hide anything from the creature, but at least I can ignore its responses. So I do, and I watch the movement until the platform begins to slow. Until the sky goes dark and we move under a white awning. Then our ride comes to a rest. Once the Flaum rise, their seats once more flow back into the platform. Like a melting candle.

  The three creatures move to the circular door, which shifts open as they approach. Two more of the slug-like things on the other side, bright green in color and holding miners of their own.

  “We don’t need more escorts,” the lead Flaum says, loud enough for me to hear.

  “There’s been an alert,” one of the slugs says, its voice a staccato hum. “Clarity’s Dawn. Nasiya wants these three protected. Heavily.”

  Clarity’s Dawn? I don’t know what that means.

  It’s not for you to worry about.

  “That was about the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” Viera says as we stand up. I almost fall as the chair vanishes beneath me, but Malo catches my arm and holds me study.

  “It’s amazing,” I say. “Did you see all of those things flying through the air? We could do that someday. Back home.”

  “You two, stop talking,” the lead Flaum growls, turning back to us. “Follow, please. And stay silent. There’ll be time enough for talking later.”

  “No need to get snappy,” Viera murmurs, but the Flaum doesn’t hear her.

  We follow them, out away from the tube onto another landing. This one isn’t as crowded, but whereas the species in the cavern came in all types and clothes, from rags to armor to metal and further, these all seem to sport the same greenish orange clothing. Many of them, whether on fur, smooth skin or something else entirely, wear a simple square badge with an orange circle overlaid on a pale green surface.

  The symbol of my people. The orange is us, a strong line against outsiders. Protecting the life contained within.

  Beyond the loading area, we walk into a tall, wide hall with sloping sides reaching up to a vaulted roof. I’m reminded of the Vaos, the grand temple in Damantum, though in its material and design this Sevora building is nothing like it. Rather, I feel the same grandeur, a pulse of power resonating here, just as it does back home.

  As we walk, I feel the eyes of a thousand things watching me. Some friendly, curious. Others angry or threatened.

  “Do you think we’re wanted?” I ask. “Some of these are looking at us like we’re enemies.”

  “I sure hope so, seeing as they took us here. Seeing as it’s your buddy that put the code into the shuttle.” Viera’s scanning the crowds, and I see her hands drift towards her belt, though there’s no weapon there.

  “She didn’t have a choice, Viera. None of us did. None of us do.” Malo, always defending me. Even when I don’t deserve it.

  At my friend’s words, the Flaum leader jerks his head back towards us and snaps his furry fingers. His point made, Malo quiets and I say nothing. Instead we watch and walk through one mesmerizing room after another until at last we find ourselves at what appears to be the top.

  It’s an enclosed room, with clear see-through walls all around. The floor appears made entirely of the same white stuff as the platform we rode. The Flaum direct us to the middle of the room where, as we stand, a table rises. Only this isn’t a rectangle or square, it’s a circle forming around us. Trapping us inside. Small chairs grow beneath us, forcing us to sit.

  The Flaum back away towards the door we came in, and then leave entirely.

  “I think I could jump over this,” Viera says.

  “There must be a reason we’re here,” I say. “So don’t do anything stupid.”

  “She’s talking to you, Viera,” Malo says.

  “I’m talking to all of us, myself included.”

  There’s a flicker. The fuzziness, and then again the pale yellow Oratus appears near the back window. It stares at the three of us for a moment, passing its gaze from one of us to the next.

  “Welcome to Vimelia. Welcome to your new home.”

  There’s silence for a moment, and then Viera says what we’re all thinking, “Home? This isn’t our home.”

  Nasiya looks at my friend. Spreads its teeth in a grin. “You are unhosted, yes?”

  “If you mean that I don’t have one of those slug things in my head like Kaishi here, yeah. I’m unhosted.”

  “Then you’ve yet to understand. You will see soon enough that Vimelia is yours. All of you will. I’m very excited that you’ve come. Very excited that you’ve decided to join us.”

  “We decided nothing,” I say. “We were tricked. We didn’t want to come here.”

  “Fortune sometimes happens upon those who don’t expect it.” Nasiya throws away my remark. “In a moment, your meals will arrive. Then, you’ll be shown your quarters. Tomorrow, your true tour of Vimelia will begin.”

  We don’t get a chance to ask it questions; Nasiya fuzzes out and vanishes, leaves us in the white room alone.

  Nasiya has never been much for words. It prefers action, as you will see.

  I shake my head. I don’t care about Nasiya. What I do care about, though, is getting off this planet. Getting back home.

  But even those concerns fall away when the door behind whisks open and the Flaum walk back in, our guards followed by other Flaum wielding trays instead of weapons. Sitting on the silver serving platters is stuff I recognize from Cobalt. The same strange pastes Bas served me on that cold metal station.

  As the Flaum come into the room, the table and chairs surrounding us melt down to the floor. New ones rise up, more adequately spaced for a meal. A large, flat saucer surface, with rounded stumps for chairs whose tops are just large enough for us to sit on. When we don’t make an immediate move, the lead Flaum, the black-furred one that’s been leading us the entire way, waves with his rifle towards the setup.

  It’s not difficult to interpret what they want.

  As we sit, the other Flaum place the trays of paste in front of each of us. Then brown bowls with blue specks are set next to those, filled with a clear liquid. It looks like water, but none of us touch it until one of the serving Flaums pantomimes a drinking motion.

  “Think it’s poisoned?” Viera says, in our secret Charre tongue, as we pick up the bowls.

  “They have easier ways to kill us,” Malo replies, then takes a long drink.

  We both watch. He might choke and collapse. Turn purple. Or, for all I know, sprout fur and morph into a Flaum.

  Ridiculous. It’s just water.

  As if I trust Ignos now. But after a few breaths, and Malo taking a second drink, I decide to follow. My throat’s been dry and scratchy for a long time - we didn’t exactly get many breaks on Cobalt - and the cool water feels delicious and silky on my throat. Heavier than the rivers back home.

  Vimelia’s water comes from deep beneath its surface. What you taste is the planet’s own flavor.

  “How do you know what we can drink and eat?” Viera asks after her own sip. “Or does everyone run on water and roast pork?”

  “This room,” says the lead Flaum. “Scans what you are. The flakes of your skin, the breath you exhale, the heat from your bodies. We form a chemical composite, an estimation of what you require to survive, and provide our best guess.”

  “Guess? So there’s a chance you could kill us?”

  “There are always risks with new species,” the Flaum’s chitter gets low. “Usually
it takes a few accidents to get a perfect calibration.”

  “I’ll try to help - you have any actual meat here?” Viera pokes at the nutrient goop with her finger. The yellow slime shivers at her touch.

  “Meat?” The Flaum looks back at Viera. “Only an uncivilized worm would eat raw animal proteins.”

  “You’re calling me a worm?” Viera replies.

  Before the Flaum can clarify, a black square on its belt shifts to a bright green color and emits a single, bright chime. Without another word, it and the other Flaum turn and leave us alone in the room. The door shuts behind them, and we’re alone.

  I try a taste of a blue-green ball on the tray. It’s mostly flavorless, a hint of mint, yet I feel what I’m eating is incredibly healthy. My stomach thrills as I swallow the bites. Yet I don’t like the texture, the lack of nature in the ball. It’s not from home.

  But you live. Which is, after all, the most important thing.

  Viera and Malo struggle like me, with hunger’s desire pushing us through the motions. We use our hands; shovel the stuff into our mouths. I’m not surprised we didn’t get any tools. Things that could be used as weapons.

  “Tastes like dirt,” Viera says.

  “I agree,” Malo replies. “I’d hoped we had seen the last of this on the station.”

  “I’d eat anything from home again,” I say. “Even those peppers you gave me seem like miracles.”

  I smile at the memory and where it leads; the idea that, someday, I’d be eating another fish tortilla, spreading those peppers on the white soft meat and take a slow bite. Feel that heat rushing up and down my throat.

  Truly, it’s only when you leave home that you appreciate it fully. Yet you will find plenty to like here. Give it time.

  We barely clear the trays before the Flaum come back in. This time there’s no talk as they wave us up, and the lead Flaum ignores questions about where we’re going. Directs us back to the tubes. There we board another platform, which takes us on a whizzing journey through the city. The skies have turned from bright beige to a soft orange, and I can make out a glowing, large orb on the far horizon that stretches like a mountain.

  This is as low as our star will go. We have a strange orbit here, and no true night unless you go beneath the surface.

  The heat of a jungle day flashes through my mind at the thought of endless light and I don’t understand how Vimelia isn’t melting?

  Because of what we sprinkled throughout the atmosphere. Reflective dust gathers and pushes back the light and heat. Carefully controlled. Before that, all you see lived underground. In the cool dark.

  The platform stops at a long and tall building that looks like sculpted emerald. I wonder why for second until I remember the badges. The life.

  Yes. These are the quarters where you will stay until you join us.

  I don’t want to know what that means. We follow the Flaum off the platform and through a short tour into a long and wide chamber. On either side, going up many stories, are long walkways with doors, ones with the metal bars, and no curtains.

  “This is a prison,” Viera says.

  “We don’t know that,” I reply.

  “Even if it is, we don’t have a choice.” Malo kills the conversation.

  The Flaum take us up a twisting stair to the third level and then out onto a landing. From here I can make out that many of the cells are occupied. Behind the bars, shapes lurk, and some press their faces, their snouts, their eyed tentacles towards us.

  More Flaum stalk the walkways looking back at their charges. Two or three on each level striding back and forth. Some carrying food or other things they pass through the bars to the intended recipient. It’s like a small city, although it’s clear there’s one thing not on offer here; freedom.

  You’ll get that when your friends are hosted, when you agree to help us.

  We reach three cells in a line. They’re empty, and the only thing inside is the same white floor as anywhere else.

  The lead Flaum taps his right claw on the side of the gate. When I realize what’s happening, I try to count out the sequence but it’s too long, too fast. The bars rise towards the ceiling, and then another Flaum pushes me in. The bars come down, and then the other Flaum push Malo and Viera on to the next one.

  As they walk away, Malo throws me a worried look and I try to reply with confidence I’m not feeling. I tell myself there’s nothing we can do here now anyway, best to go along. Best to wait for another chance.

  “This cell is tuning to you,” the lead Flaum says to me through the bars. As he finishes the words, the white floor flashes blue for a moment before settling back into its pearly color. “It’s designed to make furniture. Think of what you want, and it will give you what you need. It will not give you weapons, tools or other means of escape. I recommend sleep, if your species needs it.”

  The Flaum turns and walks away, leaving me alone in the cell.

  Go ahead. Use it.

  Following Ignos’ instructions, I think of a bench, a simple chair there in the corner near the door. In a second something rises up and forms the wooden bamboo construct - though it stays the alabaster color - on the floor. It looks right for me. So I sit in it. Strong and solid. I imagine my small cot bed from my palace. It forms in the back corner, blankets even coming out of the stuff, although, when I press my hands to them, they feel more fake, artificial than what I’m used to. Not real wool.

  When I put my hands on the bed, I remember the bracelet on my wrist. The Cache. Before Ignos can stop me, I open it and dip deep inside looking for answers.

  And find many.

  4 Scrapper Station

  The crimson Whelk slithers its legless self in front of Sax through the bays. Leads Sax and Bas through the maze of cargo towards the front of the ship and the three different doorways pointing to separate modules. Agra-Red seems happy to talk about the crew, the ship, and Sax is more than happy to let it. Pays to learn about your enemies.

  “So you see this place, built courtesy of Plake herself. Took the ship as a prize when her captain retired and the others fought for it. None of’em are left.” The note of pride in Agra-Red’s voice isn’t hard to catch. “From there, she built her crew in the usual way.”

  Agra-red pauses, intentionally waiting for a question. So Bas asks one.

  “And what’s that?” Bas hisses.

  “Go to the most worthless pilots you can find, hire them, wait till they rob you, and then go find the right ones,” Agra-Red shakes its head as it says this, the lack of bones causing the motion to make the entire creature ripple. “I’ve been doing this a long time, and you wouldn’t believe the number of sob stories I’ve heard from captains who feel they’ve been cheated somehow. You hire wrong, you’ll get wronged.”

  This continues until they reach the front, and then Agra-Red gestures towards a ladder to the right, ascending out from the cargo module to the rest of the ship. Agra-Red, and Whelks in general, can’t climb, so it settles into a small mold-colored platform. When Agra-Red gets on it, the platform rises faster than the Oratus can climb.

  Speed is important on a ship when spare seconds fiddling with rungs could mean the difference between an explosive decompression or a stable repair.

  “Since then, we’ve been running scrap, food supplies and more to everywhere we can find. Because, and I don’t figure you Oratus know this, there’s not much left to the galaxy these days except sending cargo.”

  “What do you mean?” Sax asks. “Most of the galaxy is safe. Most of it’s inhabited.”

  “Inhabited by what?” Agra-Red replies. “Boring, normal people? Ones content to live on the dirt rather than scorch the sky? No. You Oratus took the war, took the meaning from my life. From all of ours. Now you have two choices. You hire on like me, run cargo and count your coins and wait for a better life. Or you get desperate, capture a bit of excitement playing pirate until your life catches up with you and you wind up slagged, floating above some planet forever.”

>   “You take a grim view of the galaxy,” Bas says.

  “You know my name? Agra-Red?”

  The Oratus nod.

  “My home and my color. I’m still around, but Agra itself? Bombed into nothing. The Sevora established a foothold and now it’s just gone. Haven’t found a single one of my friends or my family that survived. Would you be happy tilling dirt or tending a bar if that happened to your home?” When Sax and Bas don’t have a reply, Agra-Red laughs, a sick thing with more than its share of ruefulness in it. “Ah, I forget. You monsters don’t have homes.”

  Sax could correct the Whelk, but doesn’t. It wouldn’t matter anyway.

  Agra-Red leads them through a short hallway which opens into a broad, spectacularly filthy kitchen. Stuff, like half-eaten nutrient packs, crates, bags and bits and pieces of paper and other trash lay about everywhere, with a thin cylinder in the center of it all, as though someone’s been trying and failing to toss the garbage inside it.

  “Welcome to your space,” Agra-Red says. “Oh yeah, that there’s Engee. She makes these messes.”

  Sax doesn’t see what Agra-Red is pointing at until it moves. Sax thinks the cylinder is a waste bin, but now he sees it’s a Teven, only instead of the usual sandy-colored shell, this one is metallic. Black and silver. With a bunch of things he mistakes for trash hanging off the shell’s various holes.

  “I’m being kicked out?” Engee exclaims, the sounds coming hollow through the holes, like a whistle. “But I’m in the middle of something.”

  “Not anymore,” Agra-Red says. “We picked up refugees. They need a place to stay. And it’s yours.”

  “Plake gave them this?”

  “Captain’s orders. Get out of here.”

  “At least you could be nice about it,” Engee replies, and then trash can moves. Waddles close to Sax. He can’t make out the Teven itself inside, at least until a small arms shoots out from one of the holes into one of the tools hanging off the side and lifts it up. Sax notices the hanging things aren’t just garbage, but are some sort of attachment. The Teven sticks it towards them and Sax sees a strange red eye, one that a quickly flashes green. “They’re not hosted. No Sevora in either of them.”