Star Minds Third Generation Snippets

by Barbara G. Tarn

  "Yes, it's the closest planet to the disaster zone," Shanell answered, still frowning in worry. "I'll help you pack. Your friend Kim-ash is probably already onboard. Princess Arica is waiting for you to leave."

  Iso-bel sighed and tried to gather her wits. She grabbed her duffel bag and threw in some clothes and her phone. Shanell took her to the spaceport with her flying car and dropped her in front of Princess Arica's Star Dreamcatcher, a hyperspace freighter with good shields and very good speed. It had a small crew of five and enough passenger space for the two dozen or so distraught Sire women who were on Sylvania at the time of the tragedy.

  Princess Arica was sixty, with a golden artificial arm and a proud demeanor. She taught piloting starships big and small at the Sylvanian Academy and she wasn't in the line of succession. A princess with the title but no real powers, much like Iso-bel.

  The tall woman nodded silently to Iso-bel, who barely reached her shoulder, and let her in, closing the spacecraft door behind her. Iso-bel had barely waved good-bye to Shanell, keeping her mind shields at the maximum. She had enough of her own emotions, she didn't need to feel others' as well.

  "You can relax, Aya," Princess Arica said, reminding her that she was a telepath as much as the Sire. All the Queen's daughters, being her clones, were telepaths.

  Iso-bel slumped in a seat next to Kim-ash and closed her eyes. Nobody spoke as the Star Dreamcatcher took off. All the mental shields were on, as if each and every woman wanted to mourn on her own.

  After some meditation time, Iso-bel felt calm enough to open her eyes and look at Kim-ash. Her secondary school friend stared into the distance, looking paler than ever under her short raven haircut.

  Iso-bel remembered the missed call and took out her phone. She found a message from Jes-syd, telling her he was on Gweltaz, waiting for her. Serenaide must be closer to Gweltaz than Sylvania. The newsfeeds still said the same thing – Marc'harid was still wrapped in ash and debris and dust and soot and it was impossible to land. Very few starships had made it off planet and Iso-bel scanned the names, just in case...

  The Haiduc II! Iso-bel checked the passengers list, but it was just non-Sire living on Marc'harid. Of course she knew Dadina, her mother Maela and her husband Wim – her father had considered Dadina his foster sister all his life – but they weren't related to her. They weren't even Sire, although the tragedy had hit all of Marc'harid's inhabitants, whether they were Sire or not.

  Iso-bel put down the tablet and sighed. It must have been sheer bad luck that of two ships leaving the planet at the same time – since she was almost certain that the two Haiducs had left together – one hadn't made it. Why her family? Why not the non-Sire immigrants? It was so unfair...

  "They're all gone," Kim-ash said.

  Iso-bel turned to look at her friend and met her big black eyes.

  "Have you checked the ships? Some made it," she suggested.

  Kim-ash seemed to come back to life. She hadn't thought about that. It seemed some of her relatives had made it to Gweltaz.

  "But Emma-lin is gone, and so is Dan-sam," she said mournfully again. "Is Jes-syd all right?"

  "Yes." Iso-bel stared into space, thoughtful.

  Yes, her boyfriend was all right, but his friends were both gone – cocky Ran-ald and cheerful Dan-sam, Kim-ash's boyfriend. And her best friend Emma-lin was also gone. Iso-bel had no cousins, since her father had been an only child and her mother's relatives were on Xi-kong, total strangers to her. Her closest relative was her father's cousin's son who lived on Ypsilanti with his Ypsilantian mother.

  We love you, Iso-bel Aya Shermac. We'll always be with you.

  She didn't think she could cope with the loss. A disembodied family wasn't enough. The missing mind link hurt more than anything else. The bond with her family had been stronger than the one with Jes-syd, she realized now that she had lost it. Could it be because Jes-syd had been part of her life for only five years – and was still alive?

  Tears didn't come. Her heart was slowly turning into a block of ice.

  ***

  Iso-bel had a temporary relief on her arrival on Gweltaz. Outside of the Star Dreamcatcher she found Maela, the Sylvanian who had been head of security at the former Imperial palace for thirty years before retiring from active service. In her sixties, she was also Dadina's mother and had been on the Haiduc II when the impact had hit Marc'harid.

  A cyborg after a maiming during the war with the Reptilians, Maela greeted Princess Arica with a nod, then looked at the Sire women behind the Sylvanian ship captain. She had a list of names and people waiting for them and she left Iso-bel last.

  "Iso-bel," she said gravely as the others were taken away by the rescuers.

  Unlike the other Sylvanians, she used her first name. It had been Iso-bel's idea to use Aya in her studies. On Marc'harid everybody called her Iso-bel except her mother, who used Aya. And Maela knew her from Marc'harid.

  Iso-bel gulped. "I know the Haiduc didn't make it," she whispered. "They sent me a message."

  Maela exchanged a puzzled stare with Princess Arica. Both nodded, thoughtful.

  "When you feel like it, you can read my mind or Dadina's," Maela said. "We had to watch the second tragedy unfold under our eyes, unable to do anything. Now come. As you might know, we have friends on Gweltaz, and they'll take care of you. I think your boyfriend is here too, right?"

  "Yes, but I can't see him right now," Iso-bel answered. Her voice was still choked. She felt she didn't want to communicate at all. With anyone. Her grief was too huge to handle.

  "You should scream it out," Princess Arica suggested. "I'll be here when you all want to go back to Sylvania or wherever."

  Iso-bel nodded, staring at her boots. Maela put her prosthetic arm around her shoulder and gently led her out of the spaceport.

  Iso-bel sat in the flying car in a dazed state. She snapped back to reality when the car stopped in front of a mansion in the countryside. The white villa was even bigger than Mansion Shermac! There must be wealthy people even away from Marc'harid, but Iso-bel had never met any.

  The Sylvanians were very spartan and their hive-towns were built to look the same. Only the size of apartments changed, from single to couple, since at five girls were sent to Girls' Houses. Iso-bel had seen more varied buildings on Earth than on Sylvania. But here was Gweltaz, another planet similar to Marc'harid, with mansions in the countryside.

  The grand entrance hall with two marble staircases that met on the first floor was almost as impressive as the Imperial palace. Maela led her to a living room on the right of the staircase, where a few people were waiting.

  "We're here!" Maela announced.

  "Welcome." A tall woman with short white hair and big blue eyes immediately came forward. "I'm Mya Lylestar and this is my house."

  Iso-bel stared at her and lowered one shield. Mya Lylestar, former Galaxy Police, then Marc'harid Imperial Guard, had gone back to her home planet after the fall of the Triumvirate. She was almost seventy and had known Kol-ian Vaurabi and Ker-ris Shermac well. And Maela and Dadina. And Iso-bel's father.

  "Mya helped us when the Emperor caught Kol-ian," Maela said with a half-smile. "We hid here before hitting back. She left Marc'harid long before you were born, though, that's why you haven't met her before."

  "I saw her in my father's memories," Iso-bel said weakly.

  "Shan-leo was a very smart boy. You have his eyes and his hair," Mya said gravely.

  Iso-bel smiled ruefully. Yes, she had her father's features and her mother's willowy built. Dan-ylo was the opposite, with his mother's face and his father's tall built – he was already taller than his mother and his sister at seventeen and...

  A pang in her heart reminded her she'd never see him become as tall as her father.

  "This is my partner and sister-in-law, Camilla Mansun," Mya said, introducing the woman by her side. Another widow who had found true love with her departed spouse's sibling, like Iso-bel's grandfather.

  "Welcome to Villa Mansu
n," Camilla said, looking as sad as Mya. "There's still plenty of room if you want any of your surviving friends here with you."

  "Not now," Iso-bel answered through clenched teeth.

  Dadina came forward as the house owners moved away. Now in her forties, Iso-bel's father's foster sister looked heartbroken. She had saved her husband and her family, but had to watch her first love die on her starship screen. Iso-bel quickly raised her mind shields again before Dadina's sorrow worsened hers.

  Dadina hugged her without speaking. Iso-bel glanced at her husband, Wim, who held their children close and stared back at her, serious. Dadina was the younger copy of Maela, being born on Sylvania with sperm created from her mother's bone marrow, but her children had been conceived with a man, so they were of both sexes and looked a little like both parents.

  "You should lie down," she whispered in her ear. "You look like a wreck."

  I am a wreck. I saw them die too. Words didn't come out.

  She nodded and let Maela take her to her room.

  "Bess-lin?" Iso-bel asked outside of the living room, since she didn't see Maela's Sire partner in the welcome committee.

  "On Ypsilanti, with Kay-low and Jay-lee," Maela answered. "She chose the right time to finally meet her grandson."

  "Oh. Good for her." Isobel felt indifferent. She had asked only out of courtesy.

  The bedrooms were up the grand staircase and down a corridor that reminded her of the Imperial palace. The room itself felt like going back to her room on Marc'harid.

  She dropped her bag on the floor and went to lie on the bed, closing her eyes. Her stomach was clenched shut and so many emotions were battling inside her, she only wanted to sleep and wake up when it was all over.

  ***

  Except it could never be over. Marc'harid was gone, destroyed. Her family was gone. She spent a few days barely eating at Villa Mansun, then Dadina invited her for a walk in the countryside. They both needed to vent their pain, sorrow, frustration at the inability to do anything to change the outcome of the impact. They both screamed in the Gweltaz wind until they fell to their knees, breathless, and hugged each other.

  They didn't talk much. Dadina knew Iso-bel could read her mind. But Iso-bel kept her shields up, reinforcing that armor of ice around her heart.

  "She's so much like Kol-ian when we first met him," she heard Maela say, worried, when she got back to the mansion. The Sylvanian hadn't heard her or Dadina come in. "She's hiding her feelings like an icy Sire! She wasn't like this, Mya, I'm worried!"

  "Hopefully Dadina will help her decompress," Mya answered, thoughtful.

  Iso-bel and Dadina exchanged a glance. Dadina looked both mournful and hopeful.

  "Do you feel better?" she whispered before heading for the living room where her mother was.

  Iso-bel shrugged and went back to her room. Was there any way she could feel better? With that hole in her heart and the broken mind link?

  She found a missed call from Jes-syd. It was probably time to call him. Maybe he could help.

  She placed the call. Jes-syd answered immediately.

  "Iso-bel! I thought you were avoiding me! As if there wasn't enough tragedy in our lives right now! I need to see you! Where are you? Fucking Gweltazians won't tell me for privacy reasons!"

  "I needed time alone," Iso-bel said. Her voice sounded flatter than ever. "I'm at Villa Mansun."

  "Be there as fast as I can," he replied, signing off.

  Iso-bel put down the phone with a sigh. The walk had tired her muscles and kept her mind busy with physical tasks. Maybe she should just go back to Sylvania and resume her training. Physical exercise seemed to work fine...

  Her eyelids were heavy. She dozed off.

  ***

  She awoke nestled against a warm body. Jes-syd's scent filled her nostrils, but she didn't move. It felt wrong waking up next to him.

  And then the memory hit her. Her family was gone. Marc'harid had become a tomb for most Sire and many other Humanoids living and working there.

  Her hand balled into a fist, and that simple movement informed Jes-syd she was awake.

  She felt his lips on her forehead.

  "Iso-bel?" he called tentatively.

  She slowly opened her eyes and looked at him. His amber eyes were full of sorrow, much like everybody else's. His unruly blond mane was spread on the pillow, and he squeezed her in his strong arms – to no effect.

  She disentangled herself from his embrace and sat. She felt detached. From him, from everybody else. She was numb.

  "Iso-bel?" he repeated, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  "That's my name," she snapped. "Was. Iso-bel Shermac is dead."

  "You look alive to me," he replied soothingly. "I'll call you Aya if you prefer."

  She didn't know what she preferred. She didn't care which name was used. She didn't think she could keep living with that hole inside her.

  His warmth was so close, though... She threw herself at him, kissing and ripping off his clothes, as if sex could make her feel alive again. She loved him, she must find comfort in him, his body, his mind...

  But her shields remained up. There was no mind communication, only bodies met on the physical plane. Even feeling him inside her wasn't as before – she was so disconnected from everything...

  She lay on the bed next to him staring at the ceiling. That wasn't how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to seek his tenderness or cry on his shoulder or...

  Nothing. She felt nothing. His light caresses didn't send shivers down her spine anymore.

  Five years of a tender relationship meant to become permanent had suddenly lost any meaning.

  "Princess Arica of Sylvania can take us to Marc'harid," Jes-syd said. "We can talk with the starship captains still doing the rounds in the star system. There are Galaxy Police star-cruisers still on duty and whatever is left of the Sire fleets trying to assess the damages."

  "The Imperial planet is gone," she muttered.

  He sighed. "Yes, I'm afraid it is. My parents, yours. Emma-lin, Ran-ald. So many people gone because a meteor shower threw the Mega Arena at the planet. It's nobody's fault, Iso-bel. All we can do is move on."

  She was a descendant of the last Sire Emperor. She was a Sire princess of the House of Shermac. But none of that mattered anymore. Sire aristocrats and commoners alike had shared the same fate. The catastrophe hadn't spared the "superior" House of Vaurabi or any of the other Sire noble Houses.

  Her grandfather had been the first Imperial prince to say the Sire weren't really superior to the other Humanoids. The tragedy of Marc'harid just proved his point. The mighty telepathic Sire hadn't been able to save themselves. Their powerful minds hadn't stopped the Mega Arena landfall.

  "They sent me a message," she said.

  "Who?" he asked, puzzled.

  "My parents. They transmitted to me before dying."

  "They transmitted to you on Sylvania?" He couldn't believe his ears. But then, he didn't know about mind links – that gift that connected her to her family even on different planets, that link that had proved strong enough to transmit as far as another solar system.

  Her family had been strong with mind links. Her father's cousin had resented him because he couldn't do it. He called them Holy Shermacs for their gifts before finding another Sire with the same gift.

  Iso-bel had meant to mind-link with Jes-syd when they got married, when they finished university. They still had a couple of years and she'd find the right time and place to explain to him what mind-linking implied. Or so she thought before the catastrophe.

  Now she started thinking it was a very bad idea. Considering how the severed blood mind link hurt, she didn't think she could take it if she lost Jes-syd and a love mind link. She didn't think she could have a relationship with anyone now that she had lost everything.

  But she didn't know how to tell Jes-syd. So she let him be in charge, as usual. When they were together, he usually led her. He seemed to know what she wanted and what wa
s best for her. It was fine with her right now. She had no decision-making strength left.

  Maela drove them back to the spaceport where Princess Arica listened to Jes-syd's request. No private ships were allowed in the star system at the moment, but she thought she could get in touch with the fleets, since she was the Sylvanian Queen's daughter.

  The other Sire survivors also joined them onboard the Star Dreamcatcher and the starship headed for Marc'harid.

  Iso-bel just watched as Jes-syd and Kim-ash talked and talked about what had happened and why and what they could do now. She had no idea of what she would do. Again she wanted to just fall asleep and wake up only to discover it was just a nightmare that would vanish with the daylight.

  ***

  The admiral of what was left of the Shermac Fleet teleported herself on the Star Dreamcatcher to speak with Iso-bel.

  "We were in the star system, and we saw it happen," she said, eyes wide as if she were still living it. She was a tall middle-aged Sire who had been working for the House of Shermac all her life. "The Mega Arena was on our screens, and then it wasn't, and by the time we got on this side of the sun, it was way out of orbit and speeding towards the sun. When we realized the planet was on the way and tried to warn them, it was already too late. The NePOshields failed and it crashed down... I heard billions of minds scream for a long time..."

  That was why she looked so haunted. She had heard the whole planet's population die. Must be worse than a single message from loved ones.

  Iso-bel nodded, speechless. Jes-syd, Kim-ash and the other survivors were also silent in front of the woman.

  "The Star Nations will welcome refugees and survivors," Iso-bel said flatly. "You are dismissed from service. You can keep the starship and the crew. I won't need any of it. I don't have a house to protect or go back to anyway."

  The woman's eyes filled with tears. "We tried to teleport them onboard, but that debris hit them before we could lock..."

  So she had seen the Haiduc being hit by the debris. Iso-bel had already seen the brief flash of light in Dadina's mind. The Haiduc II had also tried to teleport away the passengers of the doomed Haiduc, in vain.